Gone Too Soon

  CONTENTS

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgement

  Dedication

  Theme Quotation

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Other Titles

  Newsletter

  About the author

  Scott Hunter was born in Romford, Essex in 1956. He was educated at Douai School in Woolhampton, Berkshire. His writing career began after he won first prize in the Sunday Express short story competition in 1996. He currently combines writing with a parallel career as a semi-professional drummer. He lives in Berkshire with his wife and two youngest children.

  GONE TOO SOON

  Scott Hunter

  A Myrtle Villa Book

  Originally published in Great Britain by Myrtle Villa Publishing

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © Scott Hunter, Anno Domini 2019

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher

  The moral right of Scott Hunter to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  In this work of fiction, the characters, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or they are used entirely fictitiously

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Stuart Bache (Books Covered) for the cover design, my insightful editor, Louise Maskill, and Phil W, my insider on the force, for many helpful comments and suggestions.

  For absent friends. You know who you are.

  “… the lofty mind of man can be imprisoned by the artifices of its own making.”

  ― E.A. Bucchianeri

  CHAPTER ONE

  So, I’ve killed myself.

  I wanted to record something for posterity. Lucky you, whoever you are. Here we go.

  I’m not frightened. It won’t be much fun, I know. When the air runs out…

  I know what you’re thinking. Was she crazy? Why this?

  No. It’s what I want.

  Life is a cycle. Birth, life, death. You can hear the cycle in my songs.

  Now, I’m going into the earth, a fallen leaf.

  Today, the day you found me, a new song is unveiled.

  A leaf must fall.

  Yes, it’s art. Don’t get it? In that case, I can’t help you.

  I’m sorry if it’s really gross in here by now.

  So, to be clear, no one did this to me; I did it to myself. But…

  I got someone to help, obvs.

  No questions.

  No talking me out of it. That was part of the deal.

  Someone I didn’t know.

  Someone anonymous.

  You won’t know them, either. Don’t even bother looking.

  Anyway, no point rabbiting on. I always talk too much.

  Well then: bye forever, and sorry about the hassle.

  The leaf will fall, go into the earth…

  My name is Michelle LaCroix. I was twenty-nine years old. That’s it. [Recording stops abruptly]

  DCI Brendan Moran stabbed the CD player’s off button, and shook the single earphone from his ear. ‘So the question is…?’ He turned to DC George McConnell, and cocked an eyebrow.

  George pursed his lips. Having turned his flat upside down looking for a CD Walkman, which he knew he had somewhere – in a dog-eared box, at the bottom of his bedroom chest as it turned out – he’d rushed to get here and was out of breath. Not as much as he would have been six months ago, though; the gym sessions were finally making a difference, as was his self-imposed alcohol ban. Both a challenge, but so far he was on top of it.

  The guv, on the other hand, looked tired and drawn. The Irish business had clearly taken it out of him. Moran’s face had a greyness about it these days, and his clothes seemed to hang on him a little more loosely. His eyes had lost none of their clarity, though, and they were looking straight into his, waiting for an answer.

  ‘Well, we know who she is,’ George nodded thoughtfully, ‘but the accomplice?’ His lips curled in distaste. “I mean, what kind of person would agree to do this to someone?’

  Moran took a step back from the makeshift grave to allow a white-suited forensics officer through the cordon. ‘Indeed. Especially someone like Michelle LaCroix. Professional contact, maybe? But someone as well-known as Ms LaCroix won’t be short of a male admirer or two.’

  ‘Dead right, guv. Did you see her on Jools Holland last month? Voice of an angel, and a stunner to boot.’

  ‘So I’m told.’ Moran shrugged. ‘A little too modern for me, I’m afraid.’

  George twisted the corners of his mouth into a wry smile. ‘Sticking with the tried and trusted, eh?’

  ‘For sure. Joni Mitchell, Carole King, James Taylor. Soundtrack of my youth.’

  George tutted, adopted a street accent: ‘Ya need to get dahn wiv the kids, guv. Branch out a bit.’

  Moran shook his head ruefully. ‘Remind me never to assign you to inner-city undercover work, George.’

  George guffawed, and then returned his attention to the bustling activity at the graveside. As quick as he’d been, the guv had still got here first. Forensic officers were moving to and fro, sifting, checking, marking, weaving in and out of a trio of pale-faced SOCOs – hardly old enough, surely, to be doing what they were doing? The CSM moved among them, issuing orders, directing the death-scene with his usual tight-lipped efficiency. For a brief moment it seemed unreal, the product of some film director’s imagination.

  ‘You all right, George?’

  Moran’s voice jogged him out of his reverie. ‘Aye, fine. I was just thinking. The accomplice. Where do we start?’

  ‘With the latest flame, I’d suggest,’ Moran said. ‘And work backwards from there. Somebody must know something.’

  ‘But who would go along with something as crazy as this?’ George’s expression clouded as the girl’s thin body was lifted from the grave and laid carefully on a plastic sheet on the ground. A gust of wind caught the high branches of a nearby chestnut tree and George shivered, drew his jacket tightly around him.

  ‘Who indeed?’ Moran agreed, shifting his weight and leaning on his stick. ‘Even a hired stranger would know who she was.’

  ‘And they’d need a heart of
stone to carry it through,’ George said. ‘Even if she paid mega-bucks for the service. Pretty young girl like that.’

  Moran didn’t reply. His face said it all.

  George caught the CSM’s attention, gestured, and was waved through. He pulled on a pair of plastic gloves, squatted down by the body, bent and raised Michelle LaCroix’s cold hand. The fingernails were ragged, the pads of the fingers raw and bloody. He took her other hand by way of comparison and grunted in surprise. A finger was missing. Ring finger, right hand; an inexpert amputation by the look of it. George frowned, performed a quick check of the rest of the girl’s body. No other damage that he could see. Her expression, though … eyes bulging, lips drawn back in a silent scream.

  It wasn’t pretty.

  Moran was at his side, a hand on his shoulder. ‘Sorry, George. I should have warned you…’

  ‘It’s OK. I’m fine.’ George rose from his haunches, brushed grass and mud from his trouser cuffs. He was shaken all right, but he’d be damned if he’d admit it. He’d handled a few suicides in his time, but none had looked as terror-struck as LaCroix. He coughed, masking his discomfiture. ‘Her ring finger’s missing. Right hand.’

  ‘Yes. Odd, isn’t it?’

  George scratched his stubble thoughtfully. ‘It is that. Why would she volunteer to lose a finger as well as her life?’

  ‘Would she care, if she was drugged up?’

  ‘She didn’t sound out of it,’ George said. ‘In fact, she came over as pretty lucid, don’t you think? Some kind of self-mutilating gesture, maybe? A literal finger to the Grim Reaper?’

  Moran gave a noncommittal wave. ‘She recorded the message before all this actually took place.’ Moran gestured at the grave. ‘But where, I wonder, is the missing digit?’

  Too many unanswerable questions. George tried to imagine LaCroix’s last few minutes – the claustrophobia, the panic. ‘Who in their right mind would choose a death like this?’

  ‘My thoughts precisely, George. Let’s hope she died quickly, at least.’

  George shook his head. ‘Unlikely. I read somewhere that you can survive up to five hours in a buried coffin. Or longer, if you conserve oxygen.’

  ‘God, George,’ Moran frowned. ‘What magazines are you subscribed to? Gravediggers’ monthly?’

  George shrugged. ‘It’s a long time to wait, that’s all.’

  For a few moments both men fell silent.

  ‘My guess is that drugs of one sort or another have played a part here,’ Moran said eventually. ‘Which would reduce survival time considerably. We’ll see what the PM throws up.’

  A car door slammed and George glanced up. A newcomer was striding along one of the cemetery’s narrow arteries, a heavy Gladstone bag gripped firmly in her right hand. The overalls identified her profession, but George didn’t recognise her.

  ‘Hello, hello,’ Moran frowned. ‘Speaking of which – Pathology are quick off the mark.’

  Before George could respond the doctor had made a beeline towards them. She presented herself with a wide smile and an extended hand. ‘DCI Moran. Nice to see you again.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course; Dr Gordon. But I wasn’t expecting–’

  ‘–Sandy asked me to pop over. High profile, and all that,’ Dr Gordon explained, hooking a lock of hair over her ear and running her eyes up and down George in a manner which made him feel a little exposed, as though he’d forgotten to fasten his fly, or had a rogue particle of lunchtime lettuce stuck in his teeth. Dr Gordon was pretty, even when you factored in the slim pair of rimless spectacles and the lack of make-up. A natural beauty. George felt his cheeks colour under her scrutiny.

  ‘This is DC George McConnell,’ Moran stepped in. ‘George, Dr Morag Gordon, one of Sandy’s new team members.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, DC McConnell.’

  The grip was dry and well-judged. Not too limp, not too firm. No point to prove, confident in herself and her abilities.

  Dr Gordon smiled brightly. Her teeth were white and even. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Of course.’ Moran made an ‘after you’ gesture. ‘I’ll introduce you to the CSM. George – would you pop over and have a word? We don’t need an audience.’ Moran jerked his thumb towards a small but growing group of onlookers who had twigged that something out of the ordinary was going on.

  George shifted his attention from Dr Gordon. For a moment he felt guilty in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but then with discomfiting clarity an image of DC Tess Martin came into his head. He’d been avoiding his colleague since her return from sick leave, that much he knew, but although he’d been wrestling with himself over it, he still wasn’t sure how or why he felt the way he did.

  ‘George?’

  Moran’s voice jogged him back. ‘Sure, guv. No bother.’ He waited for Dr Gordon to turn on her heel before turning on his own to deal with the spectators.

  There was a general lull in conversation as he approached, a shuffling of feet, several nervous iPhone consultations, a few handbag opens and closes – poor attempts at nonchalance. George had seen it all before. We’re not watching really, but actually we are. He waved both hands in a sweeping motion. ‘All right, off you go, now. Nothing to see. Be about your business and be off. Thank you, thank you…’

  He answered a few questions as noncommittally as possible, and waited for the small crowd to disperse. It took longer than it should have done, but such was human nature, with that mix of curiosity and a ghoulish sense of occasion. George gave a grunt of satisfaction as the last stragglers finally drifted away and retraced his steps to LaCroix’s grave. He wanted to catch Dr Gordon’s conclusions before she took herself and her wee bag out of his immediate proximity.

  However, Dr Gordon was already on her way back to her car. A fast worker, it seemed. He consoled himself with a wistful glance at her retreating figure. A small voice inside his head drew a line under the brief encounter.

  Out of your league, George, by a country mile…

  ‘All ready, guv.’

  ‘Half a minute, Bola.’ Moran finished the email and hit send. He locked the screen, pushed his chair back and rose stiffly to his feet. His stick, propped in the corner of his office, made its usual silent plea: Use me. You need me.

  Moran left it where it was and closed his office door with a firm shove. The hinges were out of alignment and he’d been badgering maintenance to put it right for weeks. The sharp bang raised inquisitive heads from desks across the open-plan. There were a few nods, a couple of ‘All right, guv?’s as he limped by in pursuit of DC Bola Odunsi’s speedier progress towards the IR.

  DI Charlie Pepper had marshalled the troops and was putting the finishing touches to the whiteboard as he came in. She gave him a brisk nod before turning her attention back to the board. Moran found a space at the rear and performed a brief head count. Ten. One or two he didn’t know – one posting, one new promotion – but the rest were old hands, and safe ones at that. Bola Odunsi shut them in. Charlie raised an eyebrow in Moran’s direction.

  ‘Go ahead, DI Pepper.’

  ‘Right.’ Charlie addressed the room. ‘Here’s what we’ve got. The churchyard maintenance guy found an unrecorded grave in St Swithun’s churchyard which looked freshly disturbed. Both observations were correct, i.e. it was an unofficial grave, and it was recent. Problem being, no burials were scheduled.’ Charlie paused, tapped the board at its topmost point. A sheet of brown paper covered whatever lay beneath. She unpinned it, revealing the photograph. ‘This is what they found.’

  It was a close-up of Michelle LaCroix, laid out on the earth beside the makeshift grave. Her eyes, Moran noticed, had been closed. Still, judging by the low whistles and muttering across the room, she was still very much recognisable as the star she had been about to become.

  ‘Yes, she’s high profile.’ Charlie made calm-down motions with both hands, then took the marker pen and drew a six-inch vertical line below the photograph, connecting it to another beneath.

  ‘
Boyfriend?’ Someone at the front said. ‘Bastard.’

  ‘DC Collingworth has correctly guessed the identity of the subject of the second photograph,’ Charlie pronounced with a mock-serious expression.

  The smatter of nervous laughter which followed did much, Moran noted approvingly, to relieve the tension. As the noise subsided with a few stray catcalls in Collingworth’s direction, Charlie scribbled a quick annotation beneath the image. ‘Neil Butterfield. The boyfriend, as was. The bastard, as yet unproven.’ More subdued laughter. Charlie waved it away. ‘So, we can’t find the parents – adoptive parents – at the moment, but Mr Butterfield was informed late last night when we eventually tracked him down to a local club. He’s a minor celebrity in his own right – band’s called Asylum Dogs. Anyone heard of them?’

  One or two hands went up.

  ‘So,’ Charlie continued, ‘he’s the obvious starting point, but there are others. Michelle was young, on the cusp of a promising career in the music industry, and very talented. Probably had a whole bunch of admirers, crazy fans, whatever. You’ve probably heard her songs on the radio. Some of you might even have her album.’

  ‘Chanson d’automne,’ someone called out.

  ‘Yep, that’s the one – nice accent by the way, DC Taylor. Anyway, Michelle’s mental state at the time of death is something we need to establish. It’s an odd suicide, to say the least – theatrical, almost. But then, she was an artistic young lady and may just have wanted to end her life in character, to make some kind of a statement.’

  ‘But w-who would want…’

  All eyes turned to the tongue-tied speaker, DC Tess Martin, recently returned to duty after sustaining an injury during September’s MI5-led near-catastrophe. Moran had nothing but admiration for the tenacious detective, but the episode had left scars, and not just physical ones. He resisted the urge to jump in and help her out.