Scott Hunter - When Stars Grow Dark

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 publishers 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 authors 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

Authors 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

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. Hed 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, hed 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 werent 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 wasnt 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 werent careful, your eyes would start to close. It had happened more than once. The most recent time hed snapped awake as the truck drifted across the carriageway, way too far into the middle lane. Hed 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 Camerons 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. Lets hope we dont 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 doors 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, Cleirens amputated cab had also come to rest upside down, twisted, but more or less intact. The Scanias 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 cabs 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.

Its an RTC, DCI Brendan Moran protested. Cant Traffic deal with it?

Hed literally just walked in the door, hung his coat on the hook and bent to ruffle his Cocker Spaniels furry head when the phone had begun its urgent jangle.