When Stars Grow Dark

by Scott Hunter

  CONTENTS

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgement

  Dedication

  Theme Quotation

  Author's Note

  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

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Other Titles

  Glossary

  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.

  WHEN STARS GROW DARK

  Scott Hunter

  A Myrtle Villa Book

  Originally published in Great Britain by Myrtle Villa Publishing

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © Scott Hunter, Anno Domini 2021

  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, and to my insightful and excellent editor, Louise Maskill

  For those who suffer

  Remember your Creator

  in the days of your youth,

  before the days of trouble come

  and the years approach when you will say,

  “I find no pleasure in them”—

  before the sun and the light

  and the moon and the stars grow dark…

  --Ecclesiastes 12

  Author’s Note

  This is the seventh book in the DCI Brendan Moran series. I try to write each one so that it can be read in isolation from the other books in the series without troubling the reader too much about past events. In the case of When Stars Grow Dark, however, I do think that it would be beneficial for the reader to have read the previous book, The Enemy Inside.

  SH

  December 2020

  CHAPTER ONE

  Fabrice Cleiren was tired. Not the sort of normal tired-after-a-hard-day-in-the-office tired, but tired to the core of his being. He’d made himself stop just once en route from Fishguard, wearily guiding the 13.5-metre Scania into the truck park at the services and allowing himself – reluctantly – a ten-minute comfort break with coffee to go. Reluctant because time was money, and money was a dwindling commodity in his life right now. Was he nervous too? Yes, maybe a little. All had gone smoothly so far. And that was the issue – too smooth was worrying.

  He felt under his seat, found what he was looking for, felt reassured. He had to make Dover by ten, at which point he could rest for the duration of the crossing. He rubbed his eyes, squinted at the console satnav. It told him he had around three and a half hours to go. It was rush hour on the M4, and the clouds were beginning to deliver on their earlier promise of torrential rain.

  Cleiren flicked on the wipers, grunting with irritation as the giant arms arced across the expanse of glass. Rain meant delay. Delay meant an angry boss – van Leer, the officious transport manager. He could picture him pacing up and down the lorry park with his clipboard, bending to inspect tyres, obsessively checking for faults – faults he inevitably attributed to the driver. Cleiren maintained a steady sixty-five, chugging along behind an Eddie Stobart transporter which was doubtless heading for the same destination. If he ever achieved financial Nirvana, like winning the lottery or inheriting a fortune from some long-lost uncle, he’d take great pleasure in telling van Leer what he could do with his clipboard – that would be deeply satisfying. But even though these special trips weren’t doing his finances any harm, it was still early days. And there was always the element of risk playing on his mind, a constant drumming in his subconscious, like the bloody British rain.

  He sighed. Whatever lay ahead, it wasn’t going to happen fast. For now, and the immediate future, it was business as usual: eyes front, concentrate on those three lanes stretching ahead like a life sentence.

  He felt the beat of the huge diesel engine begin to labour as the truck reached a slight incline. He changed gears, settled back in his seat. The cabin was comfortable, a home from home. Too comfortable, maybe. It was easy to drift. First your thoughts, and then, if you weren’t careful, your eyes would start to close. It had happened more than once. The most recent time he’d snapped awake as the truck drifted across the carriageway, way too far into the middle lane. He’d yelled aloud, hauled the rig back on course. It had been three in the morning, no one else on that stretch that particular night. Lucky, Fabrice…

  He clicked a button on the screen. Audio. Pearl Jam. And make it loud. Cleiren tapped the steering wheel as Matt Cameron’s drumming did its damnedest to drown out the battering downpour. Fifty-mile- an-hour speed limit coming up. Now what? Ah, of course – how the British love their road works. More delay. Cleiren clucked his tongue – the limit was imposed all the way to the M25.

  He touched a pedal and felt rather than heard the hiss of the air brakes as they slowed the truck down from seventy-and-a-bit to the required fifty. No hard shoulder. Great. Let’s hope we don’t get a puncture like last month. The Stobart in front was obscuring his view. No chance to overtake at this speed.

  Cleiren drummed his fingers on the wheel, squinted through the wet glass. The concentration required to deal with the combination of poor light and heavy rain was beginning to give him a headache. His eyes flicked to the recess beside him where he kept his cigarettes, chewing gum, assorted loose change. He had some paracetamol somewhere. His fingers fumbled in the plastic hole, drew a blank. He switched hands, tried the door’s side pocket…

  Without warning the truck ahead slewed snake-like into the centre lane, dragging its rear end in a lazy swing behind it. Cleiren blinked. During the three seconds that followed, his first instinctive question – why? –
was swiftly answered by the frozen-framed image of a stationary vehicle just a few metres ahead, red hazards blinking impotently like the trembling eyelids of a condemned man.

  The impact shunted the Vauxhall Astra a hundred and fifty metres along the carriageway until its carcass came to a spinning standstill facing the way it had come. By then, Cleiren’s amputated cab had also come to rest – upside down, twisted, but more or less intact. The Scania’s detached trailer and container, however, were still in motion, following the same trajectory as their displaced parent. In excess of six tons of hurtling metal slammed into the cab’s rack-mounted fuel tanks with a sound like a muffled thunderclap.

  The explosion was heard on the other side of town. Remarkably, just the two vehicles were involved, the accident having been, by some miracle of physics, confined to the slow lane. By the time emergency vehicles arrived, traffic was backed up all the way to Junction 13 as motorists slowed ghoulishly to survey the damage before moving on with a muttered prayer to whichever god seemed best placed to see them safely home.

  ‘It’s an RTC,’ DCI Brendan Moran protested. ‘Can’t Traffic deal with it?’

  He’d literally just walked in the door, hung his coat on the hook and bent to ruffle his Cocker Spaniel’s furry head when the phone had begun its urgent jangle.

  ‘They are, guv, but there’s something … odd about one of the casualties.’ DC Bola Odunsi’s sonorous tones were full of urgency, and something else; curiosity. Something had piqued the big detective’s interest.

  ‘Odd? Like how? Has he two heads, or what?’

  ‘No, no. Nothing like that, guv. Doc on the scene seems convinced, though.’

  ‘About?’

  Bola took a breath. ‘So, this is what we have. Three fatalities – truck driver wasn’t paying attention. You know the roadworks at Junction 12?’

  ‘Yep, the smart motorway improvements.’

  Moran’s emphasis of improvements left Bola Odunsi in no doubt concerning Moran’s view of the whole smart concept. Smart? What, in the name of all creation, were the government thinking? No hard shoulder, automated signs – swift response to breakdowns? You must be joking. In an ideal world maybe it would have worked, but so far the stats just showed an increasing number of fatalities. Added to which, the regular lay-bys that had been part of the original plans hadn’t been implemented correctly. There was supposed to be a ‘refuge area’ every eight hundred metres, as recommended by the Transport Select Committee, but the brief hadn’t been followed; there were long stretches of so-called ‘smart’ motorway where no such refuge had been constructed, which meant that accidents such as this were becoming more and more commonplace. Having had personal experience of a serious RTC, this was a subject close to Moran’s heart.

  ‘That’s it,’ Bola confirmed. ‘An Astra broke down. No hard shoulder. Bad weather. Poor guy in the truck didn’t see it until it was way too late.’

  ‘So what’s the doc convinced about?’ Get to the point, Bola.

  ‘Ah, this is the interesting bit. Driver and one passenger in the Astra, both deceased.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The passenger was a male Caucasian, late seventies. After the doc had examined his remains, he called us pronto.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘That’s the thing, guv. The doc reckons the guy was already dead – before the crash.’

  ‘The driver had a dead body in the passenger seat?’

  ‘Yep, that’s about it. Seatbelt fastened and everything.’

  Moran felt the old familiar tingle in his stomach. Here we go again, Brendan…

  ‘Sit tight,’ he said curtly. ‘I’m on my way.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  By the time Moran reached the scene, traffic had thinned to a steady trickle; rush hour was over, but not for the emergency services. He was guided into the area by a stressed traffic policeman in a chequered hi-vis waistcoat. The powerful lighting blinded him momentarily as he killed his car engine and stepped out. DI Charlie Pepper had already clocked his arrival and was on her way to meet him.

  Moran shielded his eyes. ‘What a mess.’

  ‘It sure is. Smart motorways, eh?’ Charlie grimaced.

  ‘Don’t get me started,’ Moran growled. ‘Just lead me to the bodies.’

  Charlie guided him to the remains of the Astra. The corpses had been extricated – with some difficulty – by a cooperative of fire and police personnel. From the start it had been clear that medical attention was not required. The corpses lay together on the tarmac, side-by-side, zipped into body bags.

  ‘Doc still here?’ Moran craned his neck for Sandy Taylor’s familiar profile.

  ‘Dr Taylor’s with the ambulance crew, guv. They offered him a hot drink.’

  ‘Good. I want to quiz him while it’s still fresh in his mind.’ Moran approached the first bag. ‘Which is which?’

  ‘Passenger on the left, driver on the right.’ Charlie stood back.

  ‘Bad, is it?’ Moran bent to unzip the first.

  ‘Pretty bad, guv.’ Charlie’s hand was over her mouth. ‘Put it this way, the doc could have done with something stronger than tea.’

  Moran hesitated. ‘Right. Thanks for the warning. Do we have names?’

  ‘We have an address. Label on his keyring. Lorne Street, Reading. Lantern showed negative on the prints, but–’ Charlie held up a clear plastic bag.

  ‘Smartphone?’

  ‘iPhone 6, so we’re in with a chance. Might as well do it now.’ She bent, started to unzip the body bag, exposed the driver’s head. The zip stuck.

  ‘Let me help.’ Moran straightened the offending area, jerked the zipper down smartly.

  ‘Thanks.’ Charlie gingerly withdrew an arm, splayed the fingers on the right hand.

  ‘Might be a leftie.’ Moran made a face.

  ‘We’ll soon know. Hang on a mo’ – God, he’s stone cold already. I’ll need to warm him up a bit first.’

  Charlie took the corpse’s index finger, rubbed it between her own hands. ‘My hands are almost as cold.’ She continued to massage the finger.

  ‘You know what they say,’ Moran smiled. ‘Cold hands–’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Not sure where my heart is these days. Let’s not go there, eh?’ She continued with the massage. ‘OK, that’ll do. Here’s hoping.’

  Charlie took the smartphone out of the bag, pressed the driver’s finger to the touch button. For a moment nothing, but then the screen lit up. ‘Bingo.’ She let the corpse’s arm drop, and her own fingers moved nimbly over the iPhone’s screen.

  ‘Here we go. Mr Isaiah Marley.’ She stabbed the screen again. ‘Aged thirty-eight. Single.’

  ‘Facebook info?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Moran bent and quickly unzipped the passenger. Multiple lacerations, deep wound to the neck. Dislocated shoulder by the look of it, not that that was bothering him now.

  ‘Ah, Brendan.’

  Sandy Taylor’s cultured tones interrupted Moran’s train of thought. He straightened up. ‘So, what’s the issue, Sandy? Looks straightforward enough to me.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Taylor agreed. ‘Until we examine the mirrors of the soul.’

  ‘Bloodshot?’

  ‘Take a look for yourself,’ Taylor invited.

  Moran bent again, lifted the eyelids. Sure enough, both suffused with blood.

  ‘See the bruising around the nose and mouth?’ Taylor went on. ‘Also classic signs. I expect to find hypercapnia – high levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. I’ll let you know as soon as.’

  ‘And the driver?’

  ‘Traumatic injuries to chest and skull. Killed in the accident, no doubt at all.’

  Moran stood up, stuffed his hands in his pockets. It was late March, but a winter chill still hung in the air. ‘Satnav, Charlie?’

  ‘Yep. Bagged up along with a few other bit and pieces from the Astra.’

  Moran nodded. ‘Good. I want to know where Marley was going – and where he was coming from.
Get George and Bola onto it first thing. Let’s find out all we can about Mr Marley. I want his life examined under the proverbial microscope.’

  ‘Think he killed the old chap?’ Charlie moved out of the way of a recovery vehicle, nosing its way towards the Astra’s twisted carcass.

  ‘Gut feeling?’ Moran shot his DI a wry smile. ‘Maybe. Or he may have been on a body disposal errand. We’ll see.’

  Charlie chewed her lip. ‘Thing is, the old chap has to be, what, in his seventies? What kind of threat could he have been to anyone?’

  Moran fished for his car keys. ‘Old guys were young once, you know, DI Pepper.’ He tucked his tongue firmly in his cheek.

  ‘Sure, I mean – I didn’t mean that–’

  Moran let Charlie squirm for a second before allowing the corners of his mouth to rise. ‘I know what you meant. I’ll see you back at the ranch in the morning. Hopefully we’ll have chapter and verse from Sandy and co by then.’

  He was heading for his car when a thought occurred to him. ‘Charlie?’

  She turned, tilted her chin.

  ‘The guy who hit the Astra. What do we have on him?’

  ‘Dutch. Fabrice Cleiren. Twenty-five. Worked for some haulage company in Rotterdam.’

  ‘Better not leave him out, eh? Tachograph readings?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll get on it.’

  Moran drove home automatically, scarcely aware of the route he was taking. An old man, suffocated. A Dutch lorry driver. A fatal RTC. Connections? None apparent. But there always were, if you looked hard enough.

  The canteen was rammed, the queue for decent coffee well into double figures. DC George McConnell cursed under his breath. The machine was broken – as usual. No choice, then. He couldn’t contemplate starting the day without a serious boost of caffeine. His eyes stung from lack of sleep. Every night was the same – getting to sleep, no problem, but then in the wee small hours his eyes would open and his mind would replay a dream’s subconscious images. He’d lie still, breathing hard, finding little comfort in the familiar contours of his bedroom, his mind insisting that he was standing in the entrance hallway of the High Nelmes Residential Home, a home for retired and injured police officers, at the foot of the wide staircase that led to the first floor, and to DC Tess Martin’s bedroom.