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132 pages

English

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Will Shakespeare finds a photograph, hidden in a cigarette case, buried in the local park grounds. The picture presents him with a dilemma of what to do with the discovery. In London, Martin De Granville, a successful hedge fund manager, decides he wants to enter the political arena and stand as an independent candidate in the forthcoming 2010 elections. After a whirlwind romance and marriage to Madeleine Verity, he chooses the constituency of Kenilworth and Southam to make his stand. Madeleine is uninterested in her husband's political ambitions, and so, he buys a flat in Kenilworth to use as his campaigning base. A chance meeting in a Coventry pub leads to complications in his bid for election and in his marriage.

Informations

Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	30 août 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528966696
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0210€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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A Cold Moon
Mike Price
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-08-30
A Cold Moon About the Author About the Cover Dedication Copyright Information © Chapter One “FOOLS GOLD, BAD LUCK WILL, TRY AGAIN” 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
About the Author
The author was born in 1941 in Bidford-on-Avon. He has lived in Coventry all his life. He was educated at John Gulson Grammar School and then at Lanchester Polytechnic, where he studied Building Management. He went into business at the age of 24, successfully taking one company to the stock market. He is married to his second wife and has a son and a daughter from his first marriage. Mike Price is now retired.
About the Cover
Will Shakespeare finds a photograph, hidden in a cigarette case, buried in the local park grounds. The picture presents him with a dilemma of what to do with the discovery.
In London, Martin De Granville, a successful hedge fund manager, decides he wants to enter the political arena and stand as an independent candidate in the forthcoming 2010 elections.
After a whirlwind romance and marriage to Madeleine Verity, he chooses the constituency of Kenilworth and Southam to make his stand.
Madeleine is uninterested in her husband’s political ambitions, and so, he buys a flat in Kenilworth to use as his campaigning base.
A chance meeting in a Coventry pub leads to complications in his bid for election and in his marriage.
Dedication
To all my family, especially my wife, Marie, for their support.
Copyright Information ©
Mike Price (2019)
The right of Mike Price to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528931502 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528966696 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Chapter One
The thrill of excitement sent a shiver through him, it was always the same. No matter how many times he heard the sound and no matter how many times he had been disappointed, it was still the same. It grew louder in his ear, the ping ping of the detector now shouting in its own alien language.
He lay the detector down, slid the knapsack off his shoulders and set it down on the grass. Inside were his notebook, pencil and hand trowel for scrapping back the earth. Strapped to the outside of the bag was a short shovel, about a meter long, which he used for deeper digging if the ‘treasure’ was well buried.
The turf peeled back easily, the recent rain having loosened the earth, and he scrapped eagerly at the exposed soil with the trowel. He was pleasantly surprised when, having dug down only a few inches, the trowel clanged as it hit the metal object. His pulse quickened as little by little the box was exposed.
It looked like a rusty old tobacco tin and he felt a flash of disappointment, but his curiosity forced him to carry on. Pulling the box loose from the last sod holding it down, he wiped off the mud and shook the box to check if there was anything in it. There was no sound. The lid was tight and would not budge. Holding the box in his left hand and with the trowel in his right, he used it as a hammer to knock the lid off. The lid spun away, falling to the ground, the open box revealing a piece of paper.
He slowly opened the folded sheet to reveal the writing.

“FOOLS GOLD, BAD LUCK WILL, TRY AGAIN”
He spun round to see if anyone was watching him, but the only people in the immediate area were a few mothers, their children playing on the swings and they were paying him no attention.
It was obviously one of his so-called friends who knew he came here regularly and must have thought it great fun to plant the box. He could see the funny side of the joke; he just hoped that they, whoever they were, had not seen the excitement on his face when he first located the ‘find’.
He packed his trowel back into the knapsack, picked up the detector and headed home. He had lost interest, for that day anyway.
Chapter Two
David Shakespeare had been saddled with the nickname of ‘Will’ since his school days. When he was just thirteen, he had entered a short story competition for under sixteen-year-olds which the local paper ran and, much to his surprise, had won it. His mickey taking pals had called him Will which stuck. Even the teachers often referred to him by the sobriquet. Now only his bank manager and the tax man addressed him as David.
He had met his wife, Julie, at University when they were both studying to be teachers, graduating in the same year. He had obtained a post in a junior school in Kenilworth and Julie, who was a Catholic, had been lucky to get a position at Bishop Ullathorne Senior School, which was situated on the south side of Coventry. They moved in together just before the start of term, renting a two bed flat in Kenilworth. It was ideal for both as it only took her fifteen minutes to drive to Coventry and he could walk to his school.
Will had never been proficient at sports, but like most of his contemporises, he was happy to watch others sweating and straining on the pitch. Having lived in Leicester for most of his childhood, he had, with his father, supported Leicester City, staying loyal even through the dark times when they had been relegated to the First Division, effectively the third tier of English football. Now they were in the Championship and currently in the top six, so a play-off for promotion was on the cards. When he and Julie had moved to Kenilworth, she was originally from Bradford, he had continued to support ‘The Foxes’, even though he did not always manage to attend every away game. At least, it meant there were lively discussions with his pals in the local on Friday nights, as most of them supported Coventry City.
But now, he had a new passion which had caused a few raised eyebrows amongst his friends. He had read in the papers about the ‘Staffordshire Hoard’ and how an amateur with a metal detector had found gold on a farm near Litchfield in July 2009. The gold was worth three point three million pounds, which was shared with the farmer who owned the land. He had researched all he could on the subject. It was believed that the Hoard was a war bounty because there were no feminine objects in the collection. It dated back to the Seventh Century when Anglo Saxon Britain was ruled by warring kingdoms, Mercia was the biggest, stretching down from the Humber almost to London and west to the Welsh boarder. King Offa had built Offa’s Dyke to separate the Welsh from Anglo Saxons and in Warwickshire was the village of Off-church, or ‘the church of Offa’.
Will had reasoned that as there was an old Castle in Kenilworth, then maybe that had been built on the site of one of King Offa’s headquarters. It had not taken much for him to think maybe Abbey Fields, with its ruined Abbey of St Mary built by Henry 1 st ’s Chamberlin Geffry de Clinton in 1124, who had also built the Castle, was part of an original settlement and therefore, might hide riches of its own.
Fired by the thoughts of becoming the next Terry Herbert, the finder of the Staffordshire Hoard, he had gone onto the internet and found a site that sold metal detectors, but was confused by the wide variety on offer. Not really knowing which was best, he had settled for a basic model complete with earphones, which he purchased for a hundred and sixty-nine pounds.
He knew it was a mistake the minute he showed his new toy to the guys in the pub. The general consensus was that he had just wasted his money, but undeterred, he ignored their banter. He would show them.
Even Julie, who was normally very supportive of him, thought that he would be better off spending his money on lottery tickets but Will was convinced that there was a chance of finding something, and anyway, it was interesting and it was certainly cheaper than golf!
Every Friday, he had to suffer the weekly questioning from his pals at the Local.
“What treasure had he uncovered?”
Once they had gone through this ritual humiliation, or at least that is how they viewed it, then the evening could get down to some really important issues like football. Tonight was different. The five Friday regulars, John, Dave, Robin, Geoff and Will had arrived almost at the same time and after ordering their pints, seated themselves in the corner by the open fire, their ‘reserved spot’, the landlord shifting anyone who presumed to sit in their sanctum.
There was an atmosphere apparent from the outset and the normal banter was muted. It was Will who broke the silence.
“I had a find this week,” he said.
“Any good?” Robin smirked.
“Yes. A box full of gold, some fool must have lost it.”
“No, no you’ve got it wrong, its fool’s gold not a fool.” John was not the brightest of people and the others looked daggers at him.
“How would you know that, John?” Will tried, desperately, to keep a straight f