Twelve Days

On the First day of Christmas Allan Townend, the Chief Constable, discovered an oven-ready Partridge from Waitrose wrapped in festive paper on his doorstep at home.

On the Second day, having been to watch a local football match, David Lavender, the Deputy Chief Constable, found a card depicting two doves glued to his windscreen.

On the Third day another senior police officer had three eggs thrown at his front door. Then as the sequence unfolded in accordance with the centuries old rhyme, five gold coloured curtain rings arrived in a jiffy bag, seven swans were poisoned on the Brayford in Lincoln, and then a magistrate was just one of many subjected to a childish prank, before the whole episode took a dark sinister turn.

Should you be eagerly looking forward to a tale about a jolly old fat bearded bloke in a red suit with a few reindeer, you're going to be mightily disappointed.

On the Twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...a dead body.

Lincolnshire Murder Mystery No 6