The Song Never Dies
Read The Song Never Dies Online
Authors: Neil Richards
- Cover
- Cherringham - A Cosy Crime Series
- About the Book
- The Authors
- Main Characters
- The Song Never Dies
- Copyright
- 1. Old Friends
- 2. Just a Little Get-together
- 3. Party On
- 4. A Candle in the Wind
- 5. A Suspicious Mind
- 6. The Leader of the Band
- 7. The Party’s Over
- 8. The Song Not the Singer
- 9. An Old-Fashioned Interview
- 10. The Drummer’s Wife
- 11. Liar, Liars ….
- 12. Not quite the Spotted Pig
- 13. Serious Business
- 14. Twenty Percent
- 15. Home Movies
- 16. Love Never Dies
- 17. While the Band Plays On
- 18. A Killer Duet
- Next episode
“Cherringham — A Cosy Crime Series” is a series made up of self-contained stories. A new episode is released each month. The series is published in English as well as in German, and is only available in e-book form.
When Alex King, leader of legendary 90s rock group Lizard, hosts a party to get the band back together, old grudges surface. At dawn Alex is found floating in the pool of his Cherringham mansion.
To the police it’s a drug-fueled accident. But when Jack and Sarah get involved, they quickly discover that while a song may never die — the person, who wrote it, might have been murdered.
Matthew Costello
(US-based) is the author of a number of successful novels, including
Vacation
(2011),
Home
(2014) and
Beneath Still Waters
(1989), which was adapted by Lionsgate as a major motion picture. He has written for The Disney Channel, BBC, SyFy and has also designed dozens of bestselling games including the critically acclaimed
The 7th Guest
,
Doom 3
,
Rage
and
Pirates of the Caribbean
.
Neil Richards
has worked as a producer and writer in TV and film, creating scripts for BBC, Disney, and Channel 4, and earning numerous Bafta nominations along the way. He’s also written script and story for over 20 video games including
The Da Vinci Code
and
Starship Titanic
, co-written with Douglas Adams, and consults around the world on digital storytelling.
His writing partnership with NYC-based Matt Costello goes back to the late 90’s and the two have written many hours of TV together.
Cherringham
is their first crime fiction as co-writers.
Jack Brennan
is a former NYPD homicide detective who lost his wife a year ago. Being retired, all he wants is peace and quiet. Which is what he hopes to find in the quiet town of Cherringham, UK. Living on a canal boat, he enjoys his solitude. But soon enough he discovers that something is missing — the challenge of solving crimes. Surprisingly, Cherringham can help him with that.
Sarah Edwards
is a web designer who was living in London with her husband and two kids. Two years ago, he ran off with his sexy American boss, and Sarah’s world fell apart. With her children she moved back to her home town, laid-back Cherringham. But the small town atmosphere is killing her all over again — nothing ever happens. At least, that’s what she thinks until Jack enters her life and changes it for good or worse …
Matthew Costello
Neil Richards
CHERRINGHAM
A COSY CRIME SERIES
The Song Never Dies
BASTEI ENTERTAINMENT
Digital original edition
Bastei Entertainment is an imprint of Bastei Lübbe AG
Copyright © 2015 by Bastei Lübbe AG, Schanzenstraße 6-20, 51063 Cologne, Germany
Written by Matthew Costello and Neil Richards
Edited by Sean Sinico
Project management: Kathrin Kummer
Cover illustration © shutterstock: Buslik | Drop of Light | 1000 Words | Madlen | ecco
Cover design: Jeannine Schmelzer
E-book production: Urban
SatzKonzept
, Düsseldorf
ISBN 978-3-7325-0854-9
Lauren Dumford checked her makeup in the passenger mirror one last time. She didn’t usually make a fuss, but this evening was special.
“Just keep the bloody car steady, Will,” she said, leaning in as close as she could to the mirror to reapply her lipstick. “How am I supposed to do this if you’re bouncing all over the road?
“You should have done it back at the house,” said Will. “You can’t expect me to drive smoothly on a track like this. And find the bloody party, too.”
Lauren glanced at her husband as he drove. He wore jeans and trainers and an old shirt that she knew was his barbecue special.
Palm trees and Hawaiian dancing girls.
His idea of dressing up.
God help me,
she thought.
Why can’t he ever make the effort?
Whereas Lauren had gone into Oxford first thing, to have her hair and nails done, and then spent most of the afternoon with her sister Janet, getting her outfit right.
Trying on everything. Then trying it on again.
It’s got to look cool and sophisticated and casual and totally effortless,
she’d said to Janet.
Not the usual blouse and black trousers she wore when they went out for dinner.
Not that even going out to dinner happens much these days,
she thought.
Hard to imagine all those years ago when she and Will hardly got to bed before dawn most nights of the week.
But that … that was a different life.
Before the band broke up.
Before kids came along.
And before normal life — the kind of life that most people in Cherringham lived — resumed.
Paying the mortgage, mowing the lawn, Tesco’s, school runs, dreary summer holidays on rainy English beaches …
She wiped her mouth with a tissue, folded the mirror back, and watched the countryside go by through the side window.
The little lane they were driving down, in their beaten up old Vauxhall Zafira, was lined with dry stone walls. Open meadows dotted with oaks lay on either side. Lauren could see sheep and tiny white lambs huddled under the oaks, the low sun making the grass glow orange.
So beautiful.
She’d lived in Cherringham all her life, but couldn’t recall ever coming down here.
But then why would she? This was a private road and as far as she knew there was only one house at the end of it.
Kingfishers.
Once upon a time the discrete home of the Member of Parliament for the whole area.
Now the country mansion and residence of Alex King — Cherringham’s one and only former rock idol, lead singer of one-time monster group Lizard, and now prodigal son returned from Los Angeles.
How the other half lives,
she thought.
A far cry from Lauren and Will’s detached house with its built-in double garage on the ‘nice’ estate up by Cherringham cricket club.
Funny how life never goes quite how you expect,
she thought.
Back in the 90s if she’d ever given a minute’s thought to the future, this was exactly the kind of life she’d assumed she would have.
And why not? She was a big part of the Lizard family. The classic rock girlfriend, always on tour, on the road, playing Sydney, LA, New York, Wembley, the albums coming out once a year, unstoppable, massive fan-base …
Money no object — private jets, big hotels, clothes, limitless cash.
And of course, turning a blind eye to the groupies that popped up at every tour stop.
Here tonight and gone by sunrise.
Then one day — out of nowhere — meltdown. Arguments. Fights. Cancelled gigs. Lawsuits.
And as easy as turning off the garden tap — the whole thing stopped.
Lizard broke up.
Leaving her and Will washed up and in debt.
Where did that money go? Surely some of it should have come their way?
She still wondered.
But Will — her lovable but dopy drummer boyfriend — could never tell her.
And the other guys had split before she could ask.
There’s no family breakdown quite like a rock family breakdown,
she thought.
“I feel a bit nervous,” she said — as much to herself as to Will.
“What is there to be bloody nervous about?” said Will, edging the car carefully round a tight bend. “It’ll just be Alex — and the rest of the band. Old mates — back together again.”
“It’s a party,” said Lauren. “There’s bound to be other people.”
“No need to talk to them,” said Will. “Anyway, we’re just showing our faces, aren’t we? Getting the lie of the land. Seeing what the deal is.”
“If there’s a deal,” she said.
“God, Lauren, let’s not start that again—”
“All right, all right. It’s just I feel …”
But Lauren didn’t know how she really felt.
She just knew she felt poor. And old. And tired.
“We need this — remember?” said Will, slowing down. “Anyway — we’re here. Show time!”
Ahead, Lauren could see the lane ended abruptly at a pair of tall, black iron gates, with a high wall on either side.
Show time indeed …
*
Lauren took in the security cameras, the white heavy chain link, the gravel, the embossed metal sign — Kingfishers — the words scrolled, with beautiful kingfishers flying through the letters.
Magically the gates opened as they approached and Will carried on driving into the estate.
She could see the house, a mansion really, just a couple of hundred yards ahead, nestled in a fold in the meadows. It looked like a massive children’s toy house — a big door in the middle at the front with pillars holding up the porch, two pairs of giant windows either side and six windows above.
All those bedrooms …
“Bloody hell,” said Will. “Look at this! Maybe I should have stayed in the game.”
Maybe you should have,
thought Lauren.
And maybe I should have made some other choices too …
As they drove toward the house a man in a dark suit and sunglasses gestured them to take a gravel road that curved away to the back, where Lauren spotted more outbuildings and tall walls.
Will indicated and turned.
When they got to a big courtyard at the rear of the house, another man pointed to a paddock by some stables. Lauren saw a field already dotted with big black SUVs and shiny coloured sports cars.
“All these people …” said Lauren.
Will pulled up next to a red Mercedes and turned off the engine.
“Ready?” he said — and she watched him climb out before she could answer.
Lauren checked herself one last time in the mirror, grabbed her new sequined handbag, pulled her long black dress up away from her heels and climbed out.