Once Before (The Hero Next Door Series Book 3) Read online

  Once Before

  The Star Elite’s Hero Next Door Series

  Book Three

  by

  REBECCA KING

  © 2020 by Rebecca King

  The moral right of R L King to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. Legal action will be taken against organisations or individuals breaching international copyright laws.

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  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

  MISS FLORENTINE’S SCHOOL FOR INVESTIGATORS

  THE LOCAL HEROES SERIES (STAR ELITE)

  TUPPENCE

  OTHER BOOKS BY REBECCA KING

  CHAPTER ONE

  Roger shuffled the papers before him and eyed the men seated around the large kitchen table in Chandler Cottage, the Star Elite’s safe house. In the centre of the table was a brandy bottle, several goblets, and a pile of guns beside a candle and another sheaf of papers he had yet to deal with. The men seated with him; Hamish, Peregrine, Daniel, Joshua, Ronan, Luke, and Dean, all made up the Leicestershire branch of the Star Elite; men he would trust with his life and who now faced a new challenge.

  ‘Sir Hugo has sent us a new investigation and has requested that everyone works on it. The Lord Chief Justice himself has requested our involvement but we face many problems. So many in fact that I am not sure we are going to be able to bring this investigation to a satisfactory conclusion.’

  Ronan stared longingly at the brandy.

  ‘Go on,’ Roger prompted and waited until everyone had been furnished with a goblet full of fragrant amber liquid. He then returned to his papers. ‘We have reports of a man who is suspected of stealing.’

  ‘Why should that cause us problems? We have arrested thieves before.’ Dean scowled at his boss.

  ‘This man, the suspected thief, has contacts who can make our investigation difficult. It is important that we don’t alert anybody to the fact that we are investigating him. If any of us need to question the locals about his activities, we must be very careful who we ask. If the wrong people learn about what we are doing, the thief will make doors close to us. Because of this thief’s contacts, we need to get as much evidence against him as possible before he is arrested for his crimes. Moreover, the evidence we have on him has to be incontrovertible because his contacts will do everything possible to get him out of gaol if we do arrest him.’

  ‘Who is he connected to?’ Hamish asked.

  ‘A judge and a solicitor,’ Roger replied dourly.

  Daniel hissed a long curse.

  ‘We don’t have the magistrate’s help in this because we cannot risk him, Wardle, mentioning anything to the judge,’ Roger warned.

  ‘Is the judge local?’ Daniel squinted across the room when Roger nodded. ‘That’s Walter Sminter then.’

  ‘That’s right. He is our thief’s cousin. If that wasn’t bad enough, our thief has a nephew in London who is a solicitor, a man called Charles Rodgers.’

  ‘Has the judge been stealing as well?’ Ronan asked.

  ‘Sir Hugo has asked us to investigate both the suspected thief, the solicitor, and the judge. We have to find out which are involved in the suspected thief’s criminal activity and get proof.’

  ‘How in the Hell are we supposed to investigate a judge?’ Peregrine demanded.

  Daniel chugged on his brandy and shook his head. He didn’t like the sound of this investigation and it hadn’t even started yet. A growing sense of unease settled across his shoulders and refused to budge. The only man he knew in Leicestershire who had connections to a solicitor and a judge was the very last man he wanted to set eyes on again.

  ‘Daniel.’

  Daniel jerked upright in his seat and turned to look at Roger. ‘What?’

  ‘What do you know about the workhouse in Marlton?’

  Daniel mentally cursed. ‘Why are you asking me?’

  ‘Well, you are from Marlton, aren’t you? Wasn’t that where you grew up?’

  Marlton, a small town on the north western side of the county, was somewhere Daniel never wanted to visit again. It held so many unpleasant memories he wanted to leave it far behind.

  ‘Yes, but it is somewhere I left years ago,’ Daniel warned.

  Roger flipped open the file on the table and read aloud: ‘We have a judge, a man called Walter Sminter. He has suddenly come into a lot of money, but nobody knows where it has come from. Of late, he has been quite lenient in his sentencing of two notorious thieves any lesser judge would have sent to prison for a long time. The sentencing of the thieves in question raised the concern of a local Squire whose house it was they broke into. When he asked Judge Sminter why the thieves had received such lenient sentences he was told to keep his nose out of judicial business and, quite frankly, warned threateningly to stop asking questions. The Squire, a man called Squire Delaney, has consequently spoken to his good friend the Lord Chief Justice about the sentencing and has questioned the judge’s professionalism.’

  Daniel dropped his head into his hands and groaned. He felt a sense of growing doom which created a whole wealth of personal problems he didn’t want to face. He wanted his past to stay in the past where it belonged and didn’t want to resurrect it even for the Star Elite.

  Roger threw him a rueful look. ‘It gets worse. If the helpful solicitor, corrupt judge, and escapee thieves aren’t enough for us to deal with, we have a main perpetrator amidst all of it who is suspected of stealing from the workhouse in Marlton.’

  ‘What have they stolen?’ Hamish interrupted.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Any of them.’

  ‘We have two thieves with long histories of stealing sheep and purses and have served time in prison: six months and twelve months respectively because they stole the goods with menaces. They were caught breaking into Squire Delaney’s house by the Squire himself. The magistrate arrested them, but the judge let them off with a sentence of just a month each.’

  ‘A month for burglary,’ Daniel snorted.

  ‘They should have been given two-year sentences for a crime like that,’ Hamish protested.

  ‘Three,’ Dean corrected.

  ‘Are either of them related to the judge?’ Ronan asked.

  ‘What about the solicitor in London?’ Daniel asked. ‘How is he involved?’

  ‘No, the burglars are not related to the judge as far as we know, but it won’t hurt to check that. The solicitor in London has dealt with our suspected thief’s legal matters and may know something about our thief’s activities,’ Roger replied. ‘His involvement, if there is any, is wh
at we have to investigate.’

  ‘Tell us about the workhouse thief,’ Hamish said.

  ‘The man’s name is David Lynchgate. He is a wealthy businessman. He lives at Marlton House, in the village of Marlton. He has recently purchased shares in a cotton mill and is a Governor at the local workhouse where the money has gone missing,’ Roger read.

  Daniel took another slug of his brandy with a trembling hand. He struggled not to get up and leave because of the strength of the memories assaulting him. He wanted to tug at his hair with frustration and growl in misery as poorly suppressed images and unresolved feelings began to resurrect in the back of his mind like spectres from the past.

  ‘Daniel,’ Roger snapped when he looked up only to find Daniel staring blankly at the wall across the room clearly not listening. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘What’s he done?’ Daniel muttered.

  ‘You know him,’ Luke said. It wasn’t a question.

  ‘I know as much about him as I would want to know about a cretin. I know Lynchgate is an arrogant bastard who considers himself better than everyone else because he has the most money. I know that he doesn’t tolerate people who have less wealth than him, and he isn’t averse to physical violence to get his own way. When I lived in Marlton, people despised him. If he is now on the Governing Board of the workhouse, all I can say is that the occupants of the workhouse aren’t likely to be treated with any compassion.’

  ‘They aren’t,’ Roger replied grimly. ‘But that is only part of the problem. Thankfully, three of the Governors aren’t so friendly with Lynchgate. When the financial irregularities were discovered they were raised at the Governor’s board meeting but Lynchgate refused to discuss them or allow anybody else to. While as yet there is nothing to prove that Lynchgate has been involved, serious discrepancies in the financial paperwork have appeared since Lynchgate became a Governor. Further, Lynchgate is trying to take over the Chair of the Governing Board by repeatedly questioning the capability and age of the present Chair. Lynchgate also appears to be best friends with the new Master of the workhouse who doesn’t seem willing to accept orders from anybody except Lynchgate. The Governors Lynchgate hasn’t made friends with feel aggrieved that their opinions and votes don’t count anymore, because Lynchgate uses his friendship with three Governors to persuade them to vote against everyone else.’

  ‘Then there is no real Board of Governors now.’ Daniel wasn’t sure how he should feel. He should be surprised, or outraged. All he could feel was weary resignation because he knew the past had come back to haunt him and there was no way of avoiding it this time.

  ‘Not really. Some would consider it a coup. I think the aggrieved Governors would have just left had it not been for the discovery of the financial irregularities.’

  ‘Might the Master be the thief? Or might the supposed financial irregularities be a ruse by the aggrieved Governors to get Lynchgate out of his position because he keeps voting against them? Who is to say that this isn’t some in-house discord we don’t need to get involved in?’ Luke asked with a shrug.

  ‘That is why we have been asked to investigate,’ Roger replied. ‘What I am telling you is not cast in stone because the information has come from some of the aggrieved. We have to find out who has been doing what, and if any of it is illegal.’

  ‘And they cannot send in the magistrate to investigate because Wardle, the magistrate, is friends with Lynchgate’s cousin, Judge Sminter,’ Hamish snorted. ‘God, this is going to be a challenge, isn’t it?’

  ‘We have help from the Governors who are not amenable to having Lynchgate raid the workhouse’s coffers,’ Roger added. ‘We can use them to get the information we need.’

  ‘If they can get the information out of the workhouse past the Master. He will run the entire place very much in control of everything, so it is going to be damned difficult to either get in there or get information out, even for the Governors,’ Daniel warned.

  ‘Especially the Governors who Lynchgate doesn’t like,’ Peregrine added with a nod.

  ‘We have to find some other way to get what we want,’ Roger warned.

  ‘Well, I am not going to move into the sodding workhouse,’ Joshua announced flatly. ‘Nobody else is either. That is one undercover mission nobody in the Star Elite should be expected to do.’

  ‘Nobody who moved in would be able to get anywhere near the master’s office, so it is a waste of time trying to get someone inside,’ Daniel assured them. He shook his head in disgust. ‘So Lynchgate isn’t above robbing the occupants of the workhouse now. Jesus, how much lower can the bastard get?’

  It didn’t surprise him. What shocked him was the brazenness of Lynchgate’s behaviour.

  ‘That is because they are the most vulnerable and aren’t likely to have the ability to report their worsening situation to the authorities,’ Roger warned. ‘However, they are still people and there are laws in this country that make it clear occupants of workhouses are supposed to be well fed, watered, and have reasonable accommodation provided for them.’

  Daniel’s gaze sharpened. ‘Are they not receiving that at Marlton?’

  ‘We have reports that some of the occupants of the workhouse who have recently died have been handed over to the undertakers in a less than reasonable state, put it that way. They are quite emaciated. Some have bruises and physical injuries which go far beyond normal accidents. Many are young, and don’t appear to have died of natural causes.’

  ‘So there might be a murderer in the workhouse as well?’ Daniel scowled.

  He knew that the small bed chambers on the men’s side of the workhouse were shared by six or eight men who had little in the way of personal space. It was feasible that a murderer could kill someone he was sharing a bed chamber with, however wouldn’t be able to get away with his crimes on account of there being too many potential witnesses.

  ‘The local doctor has reported that he was recently asked by the workhouse to write a death certificate for one of the occupants. However, the young boy was emaciated and showed signs of being smothered, so the doctor sent him for autopsy. Autopsy has confirmed that the lad was indeed suffocated so there is evidence a murderer is at large in the workhouse.’

  ‘Has the workhouse been informed? What have they done?’ Hamish asked.

  ‘The doctor didn’t report it to the workhouse because he had already seen Lynchgate with the magistrate, Wardle, and they were very friendly. Given that Lynchgate, as Governor, must see the workhouse’s occupants when he is there, and has to be aware of the emaciated state of many of them, the doctor has taken his suspicions to Harrison, Nottingham’s magistrate. Harrison advised him to report it to the Lord Chief Justice seeing as Wardle knows at least one of the workhouse’s Governors and isn’t likely to be impartial,’ Roger informed them.

  ‘Is Harrison aware of Sminter’s link with Lynchgate?’

  ‘It says something that the doctor didn’t contact the local magistrate, Wardle, about murders in the workhouse,’ Hamish said. ‘If Wardle isn’t the kind of man who can be trusted by people like the local doctor then he should be replaced with someone people can trust.’

  ‘Now why wouldn’t the workhouse’s Master report a potential murder?’ Luke murmured.

  ‘If the Master is friends with Lynchgate he is likely to take his suspicions to Lynchgate as Governor. However, Lynchgate cannot risk the workhouse coming under scrutiny by the authorities or the locals because of the thefts and might have told the Master not to mention it. But Lynchgate made a mistake expecting the doctor not to raise issue with the emaciated state of the workhouse’s occupants, or the suspicious ways they are dying.’

  ‘So how do we go about starting this investigation?’ Hamish asked, his cheeks puffing out with the force of his long sigh.

  Roger coughed and took a swig of his brandy. ‘We cannot go into the workhouse without the risk of Lynchgate or the Master hiding their crimes. The doctor is now going to send all the workhouse’s deceased for autopsy. Fo
r now, we have to focus on Lynchgate’s activities when he is not at the workhouse. He is the main suspect in all of this. Like I said earlier, he has recently purchased shares in a cotton mill.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, there are financial irregularities there as well,’ Peregrine groaned.

  Roger pursed his lips. ‘The situation at the cotton mill is a little different, though. Lynchgate has purchased a small number of shares; ten in all, apparently quite legitimately. But in the weeks prior to that the mill experienced a lot of unusual problems. Rumours are circulating that before it closed the workers had complained about poor maintenance of the machinery, which kept breaking down and was dangerous. Orders were delayed or cancelled. Staff didn’t turn up for work leaving production interrupted or reduced. Muldoon had told friends that the mill was experiencing a few financial problems because of so much going wrong. We think that Lynchgate learnt about the mill’s financial problems through his cousin, the judge, and offered to buy shares in the mill to give Muldoon the funds to repair the machinery and keep the business going.’

  ‘That’s far too benevolent for Lynchgate. What’s in it for him?’ Daniel interrupted.

  ‘Let me finish,’ Roger warned. ‘Since Lynchgate got involved in the factory things have deteriorated at an alarming rate, despite his owning ten shares. What we do know is that last week, Reynold Muldoon put a gun in his mouth. Apparently, on the day of his death he went to work as usual. His landlady said he was in fine fettle and didn’t appear to have anything weighing heavily on his mind. He left for work in the usual manner, appeared at the factory at the same time he usually would, and was seen on the factory floor inspecting the recently repaired machinery in the normal manner. However, after the factory closed that day, Muldoon supposedly killed himself.’

  ‘Did he have any visitors prior to his death?’ Daniel asked, wondering if Lynchgate was the murderer.

  ‘His post was delivered by his clerk but other than that no,’ Roger replied. ‘What we do know is that all was well until the factory closed that evening. When the office clerk popped his head into Muldoon’s office to bid him a good evening, Muldoon looked deeply worried. Muldoon shot himself shortly after the last worker left the factory.’