Sins of the Past (The Star Elite's Highwaymen Investigation Book 2) Read online

  Sins of the

  Past

  The Star Elite’s Highwaymen Investigation

  Book Two

  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.

  Cover Design by Collywomples.com

  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

  THE LOCAL HEROES SERIES (STAR ELITE)

  TUPPENCE

  OTHER BOOKS BY REBECCA KING

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘We cannot carry on like this,’ Al growled in disgust.

  He poured himself a large tankard of wine, took a swig, then leaned back in his chair and arched his aching back while running a lazy eye over his friends seated around the makeshift kitchen table. It was nothing more than a couple of planks of wood perched precariously on several bales of hay, but it was all they had been able to find. Unfortunately, the rest of the house was no better. It was dire. All his friends knew it and looked as miserable as he felt at having to stay there.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ Zach agreed.

  ‘Here here,’ Morgan grunted.

  ‘I am bloody hungry, frozen to the core, have been searching this sodding area for hours and have found nobody acting even remotely suspiciously. As far as I can see, we are the only people lurking in bushes around here,’ Duncan moaned.

  ‘It’s frustrating,’ Greg sighed trying to avoid looking up at the soulless safe house they were in.

  It was just as bleak and barely habitable as the rest they had been forced to take shelter in while hunting for a lawless group of highwaymen who had taken to robbing coaches on the Great North Road several months ago. The murdering thieves had proven to be as elusive as ghosts, and it was starting to irritate everyone in the Star Elite. It didn’t help that the only safe houses the Star Elite could find that suited their purposes were ramshackle dumps.

  The two-storey cottage they were in at present had been abandoned many years ago and had long since fallen into decay. The floors were uneven and tended to make a person dizzy when walking between rooms. It had no furniture, a well half a mile away, and a roof that leaked dreadfully. If that wasn’t bad enough, the doors barely touched their frames leaving the place cold, damp, and horribly draughty. Still, it was only temporary. What concerned everyone was that it might become less temporary if they didn’t do something about finding the highwaymen soon. Consequently, they had gathered around the table for a pre-dawn meeting to discuss what they were going to do to turn the investigation in their favour.

  ‘They are making fools of us,’ Morgan growled. ‘I won’t have it.’

  ‘They must be following us somehow or have a network of people who are telling them if they see strangers in the area,’ Elias said, slapping his tankard back onto the table so he could refill it.

  ‘We will just have to resort to moving about while it is still dark like they do. There are too many people around to watch us during the daytime. It is safe to say that everyone is staying close to home now that the whole country seems to be talking about the highwaymen. There are hardly any people about as soon as it gets dark, just a few drunken revellers who won’t allow a handful of highwaymen to put them off a tankard of ale,’ Reuben muttered.

  ‘The streets being empty of locals after dark helps us because the highwaymen will be the only people outside apart from us.’ Al bit into a juicy apple and crunched thoughtfully for a few moments.

  ‘Yes, but that makes it harder for us to move about because we can’t hide effectively either,’ Morgan argued.

  ‘They always seem to be one step ahead of us.’ Reuben polished his gun with swift, jerky movements, the only outward sign of his deep agitation.

  ‘We have been given an impossible task.’ Jarvis pursed his lips. ‘I think the only way we can start to get somewhere is if we can get the locals in the villages further along the road to keep an eye out for any unusual activity and report back to us.’

  ‘The magistrate who covers the next five mile stretch of Great North Road has already been informed that we think the highwaymen are likely to attack again any day now. We must be careful because his men will be patrolling the road looking for the highwaymen as well. Don’t mistake them for the highwaymen and shoot them, or we will be in even more shit than we are right now. The last thing we need is a shoot out with the lawmen in the county,’ Duncan warned, his voice ripe with disgust.

  ‘We have been into the taverns even in the areas where the highwaymen have struck. Nobody is talking,’ Morgan sighed. ‘We can patrol the Great North Road but that is a twenty-five mile stretch of road the highwaymen are working their way along. They strike in random locations we cannot predict and are gone before we can get there.’

  ‘They know this area well and have a place to hide,’ Zach said. ‘It is a long stretch of road that is simply impossible for us to keep watch over by ourselves. We need help.’

  ‘Sir Hugo says that nobody is available. Everyone else is involved in investigations. We are on our own for the time being, until he can find reinforcements for us,’ Al warned. ‘We have to find a way of catching them ourselves.’

  ‘Then we have no choice but to make ourselves a target. If we find a luxurious carriage and flash money in the local taverns, the highwaymen will hear of it and might be tempted to attack,’ Elias suggested. ‘If a couple of us are inside the carriage waiting, and others are patrolling the hedgerow, we can catch them.’

  ‘There is just one major problem,’ Zach growled. ‘Someone has to be the coachman who drives the carriage. Anybody who agrees to do it is signing his own death warrant. During the last two robberies, witnesses have reported that the coachmen were shot from a distance and the highwaymen stopped the carriage themselves. Any coachman who sits up top is basically a target. We cannot just assume that we can identify a gunman in a crowd of horsemen and shoot him before he kills the coachman.’

  ‘I’ll do it. I’ll be the coachmen,’ Elias offered, mostly because he wanted to go home. He suspected that if something didn’t happen to break the stand-off they were currently experiencing then the Star Elite were going to become the scourge of the country rather than the heroes they presently were.

  ‘No!’ The word boomed around the room with adamant force.

  Elias sighed heavily. ‘Well, what are we going to do then?’

  ‘Where were these robberies again?’ Al prompted when a heavy silence settled over the room.

  Reube
n unrolled a huge map in the middle of the table and pinned it into position with the men’s tankards. Everyone stood to peer at the red line through the middle of the map marking the Great North Road. At various points on that red line were crude black crosses, the locations of the highway robberies.

  ‘The sites of the attacks are so unevenly spaced out it is impossible to get ahead of them and be waiting at their next location,’ Duncan said as he tapped the map before running a finger around in a vague circle. ‘We must focus our attention on the next stretch of road. If we narrow down the area we patrol and keep an eye on it, we should already be in place when they turn up. They must have to scout the area and look for places to hide. If we do that before they reach the area, we should be able to lie in wait for them.’

  ‘As long as they don’t notice us and we don’t get ambushed by them,’ Evan warned. ‘These highwaymen are wily sods. They are cunning, hide just as well as we do, and are crack shots.’

  Al scratched his chin and winced when bristles stabbed his fingers. ‘They have to be ex-military.’

  ‘Until we can get someone to talk to us about where they are staying, we can’t find out who they are or where they have learnt their exceptional skills. I hate to say it, but their abilities mirror ours with unerring accuracy,’ Morgan sighed.

  ‘I would hate to think that one of our own team from London has turned traitor on us,’ Elias murmured. ‘But that is what it is starting to feel like. It is like fighting ourselves.’

  ‘I agree.’ Zach pursed his lips. ‘The usual tactics aren’t working. We need a bloody miracle.’

  Duncan tapped the map. ‘The next five mile stretch of road has two villages nearby. There is nothing to say that the highwaymen don’t live in one of those villages and are hiding amongst the locals, waiting to strike.’

  Evan nodded. ‘They could live miles away from the Great North Road and travel to it as well, we just don’t know.’

  Morgan nodded. ‘They would be bloody fools if they lived in the area that they were stealing in. They cannot pay everyone to keep quiet about their crimes. Someone has to be prepared to talk to us.’

  ‘So far, nobody is. The highwaymen have either scared everyone into silence, or the villagers are helping them.’ Zach ran a weary hand down his face. ‘Alternatively, the highwaymen are just like us and the villagers are telling the truth in that they haven’t seen hide nor hare of the thieves. If that is the case, we are fighting shadows.’

  ‘We are fighting ourselves,’ Elias corrected with a sage nod.

  ‘So if we were highwaymen, what would we do?’ Reuben asked, running a languid gaze around his thoughtful colleagues.

  ‘Not live anywhere near the Great North Road, work at night so we are shrouded in darkness, and find shrubs and undergrowth to hide in and wait for carriages. I would choose locations that are remote or have few houses nearby so there are few witnesses. Once the attack has taken place, I would then get the Hell out of the area and lie low for a few days,’ Zach suggested.

  ‘Which is what they are doing,’ Al sighed.

  ‘We have to get out there, along the next five mile stretch of road,’ Morgan said.

  ‘Yes, but there are nine of us and we have to cover an area of five miles,’ Evan snapped. ‘It’s impossible.’

  ‘Nothing is impossible,’ Reuben corrected. He grinned suddenly to lighten the tension and slid a look at Duncan. ‘I mean, nobody thought any woman would be foolish enough to marry Duncan, yet the damned fool is wed.’

  Duncan grinned and tugged the lapels of his waistcoat in a gesture of masculine pride. ‘Phoebe knows a prize catch when she sees one.’

  ‘Oh, have you seen him then?’ Elias teased.

  The men laughed when Duncan cursed at him. Just those few moments had lightened the atmosphere, but it didn’t last for long. Within seconds, everyone’s attention turned back to the map. Unlike moments earlier, though, they were all a little more determined and focused just that little bit harder on trying to find a way to turn the investigation in their favour.

  ‘The magistrate, Augustus Compton, has his men searching the taverns for groups of men who appear to be meeting. He has instructions not to intervene in the meetings but to watch the suspects and follow them to find out where they are living and who they are. Sir Hugo has sent a warning out to all of the magistrates that if the highwaymen are working in their area, and the Lord Chief Justice decides that the magistrates haven’t done enough to try to capture the highwaymen, heads will roll,’ Greg told them with a rueful look. ‘It has prompted the magistrates to redouble their efforts to catch the blackguards themselves, and not just leave it to us.’

  ‘The Star Elite catching the highwaymen is a matter of reputation and pride rather than just catching criminals,’ Morgan warned.

  ‘Yes. The problem is that Sir Hugo wouldn’t have sent us here if he thought that the investigation would be easy. This is what we do, gentlemen. It is our task to find these highwaymen. The magistrate wouldn’t have a chance of catching us. If the highwaymen are working like us, and we must assume that they are, then the magistrate won’t stand a chance of catching the highwaymen either.’

  ‘We are back to the same question then,’ Zach growled. ‘How in the Hell are we going to crack this case?’

  ‘We have to get the magistrate’s men to keep going into the taverns and asking the locals, but I think it is highly unlikely that the highwaymen would be bold enough to meet in public. The problem is we cannot go and speak with Compton to find out what he knows because we don’t even know if the magistrate is trustworthy. If the magistrate learns of anything, he must tell Sir Hugo, so news will go to London before it reaches us. Sir Hugo doesn’t even know where our safe house is, so there will be a delay in us getting any information from London or the magistrate,’ Al warned.

  ‘The magistrate cannot be relied upon for either information or help,’ Zach sighed. He struggled to contain the urge to beat his head against the hard surface of the table in sheer frustration.

  ‘We are back to where we were at the beginning of the meeting,’ Greg hissed. ‘Again.’

  ‘That’s half an hour of my life I will never get back,’ Duncan muttered in disgust.

  ‘We need to expect another attack within the next few days, along the next stretch of five miles, around the small village of Simmerton. If we focus our efforts around that village, we should be able to at least see who our highwaymen are.’

  ‘We don’t just need to know who they are; we need to find out where they are staying, who is protecting them, and who they use to get rid of their stolen hoard. The things they are taking are expensive, family heirlooms and the like, and cannot be sold on at a pawn shop,’ Evan warned.

  ‘The stolen jewels have to be smelted by someone and the clothing pawned somewhere,’ Jarvis suggested.

  ‘Before we get involved in any of that we have to catch the blackguards; find out where they are going to strike next and hopefully catch them mid-attack,’ Al warned. ‘The rest of the investigation, like dismantling their network of helpers, will have to be looked at once the highwaymen are behind bars.’

  ‘Simmerton it is then,’ Zach said. ‘It is our only option.’

  ‘We have to find an empty house in the area that the highwaymen aren’t going to want to use as well,’ Morgan warned.

  ‘We have to find locals in the village who are prepared to help us,’ Jarvis sighed. ‘It isn’t going to be easy.’

  ‘Someone will help us if we offer them enough coins or warn them of arrest if they don’t agree to tell us about any locals behaving suspiciously,’ Al said, throwing a pointed look at his colleagues.

  ‘We will move on to Simmerton before dawn then,’ Duncan announced.

  As the men discussed what they were going to do about finding a safe house, Zach ambled outside. The night was still dark, unfettered by moonlight, and cast everything in eerie shadows which seemed to reach out to him as if trying to draw him into them. The only
sound that broke the unearthly silence was the occasional hoot of an owl, and squeak of a woodland animal. Zach shivered and tugged his jacket tighter about him as he studied each shadow. The sound of his own breath was somewhat disturbing but reassuring because it warned him that whatever challenges he faced in life, he was able to survive them. In moments like this, Zach was grateful that he could step away from his troubles and focus on simply being alive for a while. He felt human again, normal even.

  Even though I am still outside in the dark, in the middle of the night, watching shadows like I always do.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Greg asked quietly from behind him.

  Zach jerked and looked over his shoulder at his colleague. He had been so lost in thought he hadn’t heard Greg close the back door of the house. Sucking in a breath, Zach mentally chided himself for not paying a bit more attention and shook his head.

  ‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ Zach murmured, seeing no reason why he shouldn’t be completely honest. ‘My gut feelings have never let me down before. I cannot escape a plaguing sense of worry that everything is very, very, wrong.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Zach murmured, staring down at his boots. ‘I wish I did. These highwaymen are skilled; clever. Too clever.’

  ‘Do you think one of them might be Star Elite?’ Greg asked quietly.

  ‘One of our team?’ Zach didn’t need to think about his answer. ‘It’s not possible. We would know. We would have noticed one of them behaving oddly. They are just as annoyed and frustrated at our inability to catch the highwaymen as I am. It might be one of our predecessors, or one of the other teams, though. It depends how much they feel let down by King and country.’

  They both gazed out into the night for several long moments. Each man was lost to his thoughts, his inner troubles. Zach didn’t tell his friend, but he had been struggling with a growing sense of disquiet about his work with the Star Elite over the last several months. It was as if something were missing from his life, but he couldn’t be sure what it was. Outwardly at least, he had everything a man could want. He was free to do whatever he wanted, had money in his pocket, a lot more at home, a huge house to call his own whenever he needed a break from his work with the Star Elite. His friends were with him practically all the time. He could fight and chase across the countryside and didn’t have to fear anything. There were women around he knew he could call upon if he needed female company. He didn’t have to answer to anybody except Sir Hugo and had no personal troubles.