A former Scotland Yard detective claims Lord Lucan did not commit suicide off the Sussex coast.
The Seventh Earl of Lucan vanished in November 1974, the day after the body of Sandra Rivett, nanny to his three children, was found in the family home in London.
Duncan MacLaughlin says in his new book that Lord Lucan fled to Goa in India and did not commit suicide after carrying out the murder.
The Earl's car was found abandoned in Newhaven, giving rise to the belief, shared by his wife Lady Lucan, that he drowned himself in the Channel.
But Mr MacLaughlin says in the book that photographs of an elderly man taken in 1991 and handed to him by a former drug dealer display an unmistakable likeness to the Earl.
Mark Winch, who took the photos and tipped off Mr MacLaughlin, said he had become friendly with the man while in Goa.
The well-spoken, bearded man claimed he was Barry Halpin, a gambler who loved to play backgammon, a pastime for which Lord Lucan was famous.
Halpin, who died in Goa in 1996, claimed to have arrived there in 1975, a year after Lord Lucan disappeared.
Lord Lucan was officially declared dead by the High Court in 1999.
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