I expect you heard on the news today that a body had been discovered on the grounds of the Sandringham Estate, where Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip are spending the holidays. It was a young woman and it has been established that she had been murdered. Now the police are trying to link her to various cold cases, the most likely being a young Latvian woman who had vanished from nearby Kings Lyn a few months ago and had expressed fear for her life.For someone like me who writes about royals and murder the wheels in my brain started spinning instantly to see if I could weave this into a future story. Too bad it wasn't back in the age of King Edward VII, whose oldest son, The Duke of Clarence was a ne'er do well, dissolute young buck who might well have dispatched of an inconvenient young woman (see my take on his story in my book Royal Flush). He died under mysterious circumstances at Sandringham. However today's royals are all frightfully straight and honorable and are probably seriously miffed that someone chose their estate on which to dump a body and thus spoil their New Year's escape to the country.
Speaking of which, the queen went out riding on New Year's Day. Isn't she wonderful? Riding in her eighties? And the duke has recovered well from his heart surgery and he's over 90. They have both inherited Queen Victoria's tough genes.
In the meantime I'll be watching with interest to see if the police can identify the body and if there is any royal tie-in to the murder. If there isn't, well--I'll have to rely on my imagination to create a good scenario for a future plot. But right now I'm supposed to be starting a new Molly book. Can something interesting please happen in New York?
