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199 pages

English

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Max Pressland, an antiques celebrity with a dodgy past, disappears while recording his television quiz show in Norwich. Anxious to avoid an embarrassing scandal, his mistress calls ex-policewoman turned private investigator Charli Dawson to track him down before the story breaks to the media.Suspicion falls on a local man with an obsession for collecting macabre antiques and crime memorabilia, but Charli soon discovers that he's not the only person with good reason to harm Pressland.As she struggles for clues to his whereabouts, it becomes evident that this is not a straightforward missing persons case.

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Publié par	Steven Goss
Date de parution	07 septembre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781909270343
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Leathered
STEVEN GOSS
Published in 2012 by FeedARead.com Publishing – Arts Council funded
Copyright © Steven Goss
First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-909270-34-3
The author has asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity with actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
FOR LUCIE
This book could not have been written without your valued input and guidance with the plot
PROLOGUE
London. 3 May 1606
Father Henry Garnet’s trial and sentencing was inevitable, despite the lack of any firm evidence against him. The Jesuit priest had spent three months as a prisoner in the Tower of London, and twenty-three days of intense interrogation and threats of torture had extracted nothing to connect him unlawfully to the gunpowder plot.
Garnet had heard of the plot under the solemn seal of confession and had done everything in his power to prevent it. But the government of King James was in no mood to endorse any ritual of the Catholic Church. Regardless of whether knowledge of the plot was received in or out of confessional, they had doggedly set out to charge him with treason.
And today he was going to die.
Garnet was fifty-one years old with thinning dark hair and a grizzled beard. He had risen early that Wednesday morning to prepare himself and bid a kindly goodbye to those who had served him well during his imprisonment.
‘Farewell, good sir,’ said one of the cooks.
‘Farewell, good friend,’ Garnet replied. ‘This day I will save thee a labour to provide my dinner.’
Outside in the courtyard, Garnet was strapped to the hurdle that would carry him to the place of execution. Drawn by three horses, the hurdle set off for St Paul’s churchyard where a scaffold had been constructed at the west end, opposite the Bishop’s Palace. The bustling streets thronged with onlookers keen to catch sight of the condemned man as he passed by.
Wooden stands had been erected around the scaffold to accommodate spectators, and every window in the surrounding area was packed with folk keen to witness the proceedings. An execution was regarded by many as a visual spectacle not to be missed. The execution of someone as well known as Garnet had even greater appeal, despite the public being largely unconvinced of his complicity in the plot.
Sir Edward Coke, the prosecutor, had cleverly manipulated the jury by using eloquent rhetoric, distorting the truth and making unjustifiable conjectures to secure a guilty verdict. He chronicled every plot against the government and monarchy from the Spanish Armada onwards, emphasising an alleged association with the Jesuits in each case. He had argued that these planned atrocities were directly linked to Garnet who, as head of the Jesuits, had been conspiring to destroy the kingdom. Now the jury had an opportunity to damage both the Jesuits and the Catholic religion.
The rhetoric worked and the jury took less than fifteen minutes to find Garnet guilty of treason for not revealing details of the powder plot. In truth, he was convicted for concealing confession – undoubtedly an act of valiant conscience rather than one of wicked treason.
The hurdle was dragged through the cobbled streets until it reached St Paul’s and slowed to a halt. Garnet was unstrapped. A number of church officials were waiting by the scaffold, determined to secure Garnet’s last-minute repentance and perhaps even the conversion of the notorious Jesuit.
‘Do you have anything to say unto the people?’ asked Sir Henry Montague, the Recorder of London.
‘Do you recant your faith?’ added the Dean of Winchester.
Garnet cut them off. ‘Do not trouble yourselves or me. I am prepared and I am resolved.’ Then he addressed the crowd. ‘Good countrymen, I am come hither this blessed day of The Invention of the Holy Cross to end all my crosses in this life. The cause of my suffering is not unknown to you. I confess I have offended the king and am sorry for it, so far as I was guilty, which was in concealing it, and for that I ask pardon of his majesty. The treason intended against the king and the state was bloody. I should have detested it had it taken effect. And I am heartily sorry that any Catholics ever had so cruel a design.'
He knelt to pray.
The Recorder, thinking this behaviour was in expectation of pardon, spoke when Garnet stood up. ‘Do not deceive yourself, nor beguile your soul. You have come to die, and you must die. Do not equivocate with your last breath. If you know of any danger to the king or state you should utter it now.’
‘I do not now equivocate. More than I have confessed I do not know.’
Garnet took four steps to the bottom of the ladder, paused and made the sign of the Cross. ‘I desire that all good Catholics present will pray for me.’
There was a commotion in the crowd, expectant of witnessing a theatrical last-minute conversion to Protestantism following a rumour spread by government agents.
‘Mister Garnet, it is expected you should recant,’ shouted a man near the front.
‘God forbid. I never had any such meaning, but ever meant to die a true and perfect Catholic.’
He climbed the ladder and stood in silent prayer, his arms crossed over his chest. It had not been thought necessary to bind him. His arms remained crossed as he was cast off the ladder, making no effort to struggle against death, hanging motionless at the end of the rope.
Suddenly, unrest gripped the crowd. Some of those present had purposefully made their way to St Paul’s to watch the gruesome spectacle of someone being hanged, drawn and quartered, and now wanted to see the priest quickly cut down in order that his still living body could be grotesquely axed into four pieces.
Others had a different agenda and a large number of them surged forward. ‘Hold, hold,’ they shouted, and while some prevented the hangman from cutting down the body, others pulled on Garnet’s legs to hasten his death.
Their compassion meant that Garnet was indeed dead when his body was finally taken to the block to be butchered. The axe-man swung the blade, slicing the body into four sections and casting the bowels into a fire. Then Garnet’s head was thrust at arm’s length into the air with the cry ‘Behold the head of a traitor!’
There were no cheers from the uneasy crowd.
1
Helen Jackaman poked her head around the door. ‘You’re on in five minutes, Max.’
He ignored the comment. The programme could not be made without him, so the audience and everyone involved in the production would have to wait until he was ready. In any case, the young make-up girl was nearly done. She was new this week and doing a good job. And she was pretty. Max was in no hurry.
The small studio audience waited in anticipation. They had come to Coastline Television Studios in Norwich to watch the recording of two episodes of the daytime antiques quiz show What’s it worth? presented by popular antiques expert Max Pressland.
A second-rate comedian was warming them up. ‘It’s so flat here in Norfolk. I took my dog for a walk and it ran away. I could see it going for a week!’
The crowd chuckled. He was coming to the end of his routine. Behind him the camera crews were in position and Helen Jackaman, the floor manager, was checking the papers on her clipboard. Three contestants waited anxiously in the wings, trying to calm each other down before their big moment.
‘Thank you very much,’ the comedian said. ‘You’ve been a great audience. The best I’ve had today!’ He waved, handed the microphone to Helen and left.
‘Thank you, Billy,’ she said. Then she turned to the whooping crowd. ‘Wasn’t he great? Billy Long, ladies and gents.’
Max was all set. He had already met the contestants earlier for a brief chat, wished them luck and signed a couple of photos of himself. The audience had been briefed to behave with decorum, applaud when needed, and to laugh at Max’s feeble jokes. Having an audience added immediacy to the pre-recorded programme. It also boosted Max’s ego.
The contestants were directed to stand behind three podiums. Each podium had a small screen at the front on to which the contestant’s answers would be illuminated. Opposite them was a large screen to display video footage that was an integral part of the show’s format. Everything was set.
Helen pressed her earpiece, nodded and addressed the audience once more. ‘Please welcome – Max Pressland.’ The crowd gave genteel applause.
Max walked into view and acknowledged the audience. A handsome six-footer with gelled black hair and a cheeky grin, he was wearing a pin-striped Savile Row suit with his trademark gold pocket watch and chain looped from the waistcoat. Recording was underway.
‘Hello and welcome to What’s it worth? The antiques quiz that tests your knowledge of antiques and their values. Let’s meet today’s contestants.’ He stood in front of the first contestant, a middle-aged man with a fiery beard and wearing a kilt. ‘You’re Angus, and I don’t even have to read my card to know that you’re from Scotland.’
The crowd gave a murmur, then applauded. Angus nodded.
‘Tell us about yourself,’ Max said.
‘I’m forty-two, from Fife. I’m a gardener and my special interest is collecting Scottish silver,’ Angus said with a broad Scots accent.
‘Very good,’ Max replied in a mildly patronising tone. ‘Do you have any pieces from the rarer Scottish towns such as Elgin and Cupar?’
The question was double-edged, designed to reveal Angus’s yearning to acquire such r