Story Excerpt

Cadere ex Stellae
by Pat Black

“This is some place,” DS Linklater said, gesturing towards the sky, the sea, and the rocks. “I mean, if you were going to do it . . .”

“Don’t say that,” D.I. McIntyre said, shortly.

“Well . . . You know what I mean.”

McIntyre had dressed for the occasion. A long dark coat complemented her tall, slim frame and long limbs. For the most part, the buttons resisted the wind, which came in great gusts and shrieks. It brought the smell of the sea that drowned the background, a silvery tumult raging at the moon.

Linklater had not dressed for the occasion; his suit jacket wanted to detach itself from his paunch and fly off into the wind. “You reckon he went over here?” he said, peering over the edge of the cliff. “Had to be here, really.”

“I think so.” McIntyre went closer to the edge than Linklater. She felt no sense of discomfort, though perhaps she should have done. A few inches beyond the toes of her boots, a sharp ledge chiselled by the wind and rain of ages abruptly gave way to a shark’s-teeth cliff, dropping sixty or seventy feet to more rocks and the beach beyond. This was no picture-postcard bay; below the cliffs a crooked black finger beckoned the waves, an aggregation of rocks, sudden eruptions of foam and seaweed. The sands beyond this were luminous under the full moon—pale blue, except for the saurian lumps of rock migrating to the surf.

Danworth Heights would make a fine haunted painting, McIntyre thought; a social-media image you wouldn’t linger on. The stark lights of the forensic officers down below were an intrusion upon a twisted scene; you expected to see slimy things shrinking away from the white beams.

“Got to log every footprint down there,” Linklater said. “What a job.”

“And we’ve got to speak to everyone who made them.”

“You reckon this wasn’t suicide?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Could be an accident. I mean, this wind . . . seemed to come out of nowhere. All calm, then . . .”

“Nah, I don’t think it was the wind.”

“Spooky McIntyre,” Linklater sneered. “Go on then. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Look at the ledge. Most likely where he took a header—I’d accept that. You saw the ledge and you thought: ‘This is where he jumped off.’ I see this ledge and think: ‘This is a great place to shove someone off.’”

“Please don’t do that,” Linklater said.

“Do what?” McIntyre’s dark hair flailed in the wind, obscuring her face for a moment.

“Don’t stand so close to the edge. It gives me the wobblies.”

“Not great with heights?”

“Not brilliant.”

“Just look at the horizon. The moon and the stars. It’ll settle you.”

Linklater did so, but still sounded unsettled when he said, “I wonder if that’s what he was doing. Just before he went over. Looking at the stars. That was his whole life.”

McIntyre stepped back from the edge to join him. “Not the worst thing to look at.”

“There’s a conjunction for the next few days. In the night sky. Three planets, queueing up for the moon. See that red one there? That’s Mars.”

McIntyre threw him a cool look. “You reckon?”

“Yeah. I looked that up. And the big bright one—it’s not Jupiter. That’s Venus. The least bright one, the smallest one, is Jupiter.”

“You were going to say, ‘It’s actually that it’s further away,’ weren’t you? I saw your lips moving. You were getting ready to say that.”

“I bring you the facts, Rosie. I am here to provide the straight dope.”

They both stared at the clear night sky above. The moon traced a bridge of light from the far horizon to the beach; its glare had driven the farthest stars away, but light pollution was negligible at Danworth. The glimmer and sparkle above them was rich, and irresistible.

“Be some fuss over this,” Linklater said. “Papers will be crawling all over this place as soon as they find out. Superstar, they say.”

“People openly mentioned him as a successor to David Attenborough.”

“I don’t think David Attenborough had the female fan base this guy did.”

McIntyre smiled. “I think you’d be surprised.”

“We’d better get back down,” Linklater said.

Before they turned towards the path leading down from the cliffs to the beach, McIntyre gazed down at the beach one last time.

There, under the lights, figures in white hazmat suits were photographing the twisted limbs of the dead man. For one match-struck moment, McIntyre could see the red slick on the rocks surrounding the body.

Then she turned away as the wind rose. About half a mile away to the east, on the edge of the promontory, was the lighthouse.

 

A woman accosted them on the way to the lighthouse. She had long dark hair with a wave in it, a prominent forehead, and was in some agitation. McIntyre took a defensive stance as she ran towards them on the cliff-top path.

“Did something happen down there?” she said. “What’s up?”

“Yeah, something happened,” Linklater said. “Someone fell off the cliff.”

“Oh my God!” The woman clutched at her mouth. “I thought I heard someone scream . . . it could have been the wind, but now I think on it . . .”

“We’re police officers,” McIntyre said, presenting her warrant card. “I’m D.I. Rose McIntyre; this is my colleague Fergus Linklater. Can I ask when you heard the scream?”

“Maybe half an hour ago . . . God, it’s treacherous up there. Pretty, but treacherous. Known suicide spot, I hear. Jeez . . . I heard Clark Frehley was about. Wasn’t Clark Frehley, was it?”

McIntyre said: “What’s your name, can I ask?”

“Uh, Sunday name, Lesley Davies. Showbiz name, the Mooncatcher.”

“Showbiz?” Linklater frowned. “You on the telly?”

“Well, if you’re counting a snap getting on the national weather, yes. But otherwise, no. I’m a photographer. Social media. The Mooncatcher.”

Linklater rubbed his bald scalp. “And, sorry to ask a silly question, but you’re a photographer of . . . ?”

“Moonscapes,” Lesley Davies said. “Scenes like this. The sea, the night skies. I’m on social media. I’ve got three thousand six hundred and eleven followers. Well, hopefully three thousand six hundred and thirteen after tonight. . . . They’re not dead, are they? The person who went off the cliff? The rocks are really sharp, and there’s a hell of a drop, just at the point. Unsurvivable, I’d say. I didn’t want to set up there. Too dodgy, with the wind, you know?”

“Whereabouts are you set up?” McIntyre asked, glancing from the direction the woman had come, then back towards the rocky cliff tops where they’d come from.

“Further up the hill. Got some gorgeous shots. Took in some of the lighthouse too. Matt and Chloe Warner live there, did you know that? They hosted Night Sky Watch from there, last year, with Clark Frehley . . . think they’re doing a new series next February.”

“When did you hear this scream?” McIntyre asked, making a note.

“I would say about an hour and a half ago. . . . It was when the wind dropped. You know that way you hear something and you tell yourself you haven’t heard something? It was a scream, though. I’m sure of it. My God. I hope Clark Frehley wasn’t around. Someone told me he was around. Works closely with Matt and Chloe, you know.”

McIntyre sighed. “I’m afraid I have some bad news, Lesley.”

 

“Dramatic, in’t it?” Linklater said. “Like a fairy castle or something.”

“I was thinking more sci-fi.” McIntyre gazed up at the dark tower as they crossed the promontory. The wind blasted them, and with it came the promise of the sea, closer now, and louder. The lighthouse above was spotlit, its peeling white facade scattered with the odd windows, leading up to the spectacular light up above. It was still an automated lighthouse, but the cupola was permanently lit in spectral blue, a cosmetic effect that marked a chilly counterpoint to the stars above.

The door grated open, and a handsome man with a cleft chin and short, prematurely greying hair appeared. A slight runner’s frame was engulfed by a huge woollen jersey that McIntyre envied at that moment. He looked from McIntyre to Linklater.

“Hi—we don’t tend to get visitors. What’s the deal?” His Australian accent thickened in competition with the wind. It was odd to see him in the flesh; like seeing a famous football player on television for years and then witnessing them at an actual match.

“We’re here officially, Mr. Warner.” She presented her card. “I understand you were broadcasting tonight?”

He frowned, taking in the lettering and the photo. “Just streaming video, some stuff for our podcast . . . what’s up?”

A woman wearing striated pink-and-purple exercise gear, with wild blond curls tied back tight across her scalp, appeared at his shoulder. “Sorry,” she said peremptorily, hand raised, “we don’t accept callers at the lighthouse. I’m sorry if this seems curt, but we get a lot of people just turning up here—this is our house for half of the year. I’m sure you understand.” The smile was so tight, her chin almost butted her nose.

“This isn’t a social call, Mrs. Warner,” McIntyre said. “We’re police officers. It’s about Clark.”

 

“We’ve just put pictures of him up on our wall,” Chloe Warner said, once she’d calmed down a little. “Here, I’ll show you—here.”

She shredded a tissue as she led them up the spiral staircase. “Here it is.”

Clark Frehley appeared to be tumbling out of the frame, on his way down the staircase. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and he was halfway through a somersault on a sandy beach—maybe the one a few yards away, almost certainly the last thing he’d seen. The most dynamic element in a very busy shot was his hair—long and dark, like his beard. His good looks had given him many fans, as Linklater had said earlier. Part of the appeal was that he could look moody and broody in a photo shoot—but it wasn’t his nature, and his face could brighten in a moment. When he smiled, you smiled. McIntyre was doing it involuntarily, watching him tumble, arms and legs blurred, grinning.

Better than that was his sense of fun and enthusiasm, which marked him out in his chosen field. He had broken through in children’s television, presenting STEM subjects with verve and brio that picked up positive notices on social media and the traditional press. His looks had not gone unnoticed either. That had earned him a BAFTA—and from there, he’d presented The Sky at Night, then stylishly shot documentaries on BBC 4, before finally joining Night Sky Watch with the couple in the lighthouse. This was a live interactive show where amateur astronomers could rub shoulders with some of the world’s foremost experts, as well as actual astronauts and other aerospace pioneers. The ratings had been . . . well, astronomical, warranting a move to the main channel, prime time. More BAFTAs, a Royal Television Society Award, an OBE, various fellowships and honorary awards, and several best-selling books had followed in a seemingly endless stream for Clark Frehley. And now . . .

“He was here last night. He recorded a segment for the podcast . . .” Chloe turned to her husband, whose hand was on her back, just where the neck ended.

“We were live tonight—we played his section of the podcast,” Matt Warner added. His eyes were bloodshot, his expression tense. “For God’s sake, when did this happen?”

“Is there somewhere we can sit?” McIntyre asked.

“Sure . . . up in the cupola. We’ve still got the cameras set up. I’ll take you.” Matt led the way.

 

Linklater nodded at the semicircular couch the Warners sat on. “You must have, you know, designed that couch,” he said. “What’s the word? Ergonomics?”

“I think so,” Matt said. “But don’t take my word for it—physics was never my strong point.”

They all laughed, a little too loudly. “I never could get my head around it,” Linklater continued. “How would you work out a section of a circle? I think my brain switched off round about Pythagoras’s theorem. But don’t get me wrong—I watch all your shows. You and Clark’s stuff.”

“Clark had the touch,” Chloe said, preparing to blow her nose on a fresh tissue. “That was his gift. He could communicate this stuff. Physics teachers up and down the country adored him . . . we all did. My God, this is going to be bad. The press . . .”

“Oh yeah,” Linklater continued, “he was the star—no disrespect to you folks. Now I wouldn’t say I understand physics and the universe and string theory and all the rest of it, but you guys made it easier to hear.”

If Matt Warner was stung by his late colleague being placed on a higher shelf, he gave no indication of it. He nodded. “That was Clark, all right. I can’t believe this, mate, honestly.” He turned away to look at the moonlit seascape behind him. The curved window gave way to a star-drenched panorama. Inside the cupola was the great telescope, an immense piece of equipment that seemed better suited to Heath Robinson’s designs.

Matt’s wife hugged him then, and they shared the same sob.

“Take your time,” McIntyre said.

Finally, Matt broke off, wiping his eyes and smiling as his wife offered half of her sodden tissue. Warner had been in Frehley’s position around the turn of the millennium—with his blond-tipped spikes, lagoon-blue eyes, Bondi Beach surfer’s body and the strut to go with it, he had found his own niche in the pre–social media era as the blokey, boozy, fighty man of science. However much of this was wishful thinking by tabloids—in McIntyre’s experience, no one could keep up a lifestyle which orbited planet beer and (a) stay in modern television, and (b) stay ripped—he had now achieved a gravitas to go with the grey hair. Much of this was to do with his showbiz marriage, to Chloe Warner—or Chloe Dennis, as she’d been then, a zoology graduate turned action girl of natural-history television, who had been horribly reduced to how well she fitted out her trademark Lycra outfits in the early days. Their marriage was both on and off screen, with their production company producing a number of popular shows, video blogs, and podcasts covering any subject under the heavens, and above them.

“Sorry,” Matt said. “I’ve lost people before . . . my dad died suddenly. I was still a kid. You get waves of shock, you know? It hits you. Like . . . that’s it. I won’t see him again.”

“When did you last see him?” McIntyre asked.

“Last night. He stayed over—we’ve got a pod down the stairs, where he usually sleeps,” Matt said. “He recorded his segment for the podcast we did tonight—he was talking about the conjunction. You know—the planets lining up outside?”

“Venus, Mars, and Jupiter?” McIntyre asked. “We were looking at it just before we knocked the door.”

“He was excited—as excited as I’ve seen him, really,” Chloe said. “He’s a big kid. We’ve got all the footage, it ran tonight. You can download it.”

“How about raw footage?” Linklater asked.

“That’ll be about, won’t it?” Matt asked, waiting for his wife’s approbation. “Yeah, it’ll be on file. We should have a raw edit when he came in to talk to us. We can give all that to you if you like?”

“How long did he stay?”

“Hours,” Chloe said. “We recorded the segment, then had dinner. We had a couple of drinks, then he was off after breakfast this morning.”

“How often did he stay?” McIntyre asked.

“Regular visitor, I’d say.” Again, Matt and Chloe shared a look. “He has a visiting professorship at the university along the coast . . . unfashionable one, but he chose it because he loves this place, and he loves this bit of the coast. You get to dream a bit. He was here once every six weeks or so to do the podcast. More often in late winter.”

“Late winter? Not summer, or spring?” McIntyre asked.

“Nah, mate—clearer skies, brighter stars. Like tonight.” Matt pointed to the curved windows of the cupola. “Perfect conditions. Isn’t always clear, though—this is England, I guess. But he loved it here. He was like a little brother, I’d say.” Matt’s voice faltered.

“And you say he seemed in a good mood?”

“Oh yeah,” Chloe said, enthusiastically. “As good as we’d seen him.”

“Nothing was preying on his mind?”

“Not that we know of. I wouldn’t have put a bet on it. He was of good cheer, you could say. Good heart. He always was.”

“How about his personal life?” Linklater asked.

“How about it?” Matt replied, evenly.

“Well, was he seeing anyone?”

“You know, that’s kind of a . . .” Matt sighed. “He was a closed book, really. He never brought a woman here, you know. Or a guy, for that matter. He always kept that side to himself. There was the model, the one in the perfume adverts . . . he never spoke about that side of things. God knows, he didn’t lack for female company, you know? He needed to keep a big stick on him to keep ’em off!” Matt barked laughter.

“So, he didn’t talk about girls at all? Or, you know, guys?” Linklater said. “Strange he wouldn’t do that—you guys being so close.”

“No,” Chloe said. “I mean, I saw those pictures of him at the movie premieres with Isabella Mayall; good God, what a couple they were. Front page of the tabloids and the broadsheets, those two . . . but I’d say that side of his life wasn’t really so important. And he never talked about it.”

“Then what was important?” McIntyre asked.

“His work,” Chloe continued. “The planets. He wasn’t a show pony, you know. Handsome man, great on the telly, but he was the top man in his field. Number one.” Matt nodded at this. “NASA came to ask him stuff. The Chinese government were constantly in touch. Someone who was friends with Vladimir Putin too. He was in big demand.”

“Seriously?” McIntyre’s pen paused on the pad. “What kind of stuff? I mean, I know he talked about astronomy and the planets, his stuff on what aliens could look like and how they could survive in atmospheres where we wouldn’t . . . but why would the Chinese and Russians want to speak to him?”

“Nothing sinister,” Matt said. “Not that I know of, anyway. He was constantly asked for his opinions on space travel, propulsion. More nebulous stuff, sometimes. He was a futurist . . . he had a very, very big brain, and even bigger ideas, God bless ’im.”

“Had anyone contacted him recently?” McIntyre said. “In a professional capacity, I mean?”

Matt and Chloe shook their heads. “He didn’t mention anything. He was fairly open about that, I’d say.”

“How about admirers?” Linklater asked.

“He had a few, that’s fair to say,” Chloe said, sniffing and looking away.

“A few . . . and then some.” Matt laughed. “Like I said . . . Some days you couldn’t get out of the BBC or wherever for women running after him. He actually had to resign from his professorship at the University of Glasgow, it got too much. Security was hired for his lectures. There was a story about one girl taking things too far, writing . . . I don’t know. . . . Threatening to say and do stuff, he did mention that. It really bothered him, that stuff.”

“What about his relationship with the model—Isabella Mayall?”

“I think it was more friends with benefits,” Matt said.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Chloe said, reprovingly.

Matt raised his hand. “I’m going by little bits Clark told me and the stuff that you or I would have read about. They got in the papers whenever they went out anywhere. It got a lot of attention. . . . And I’ll tell ya—I think that suited her more than him.”

“So, just a casual thing?” McIntyre said. “I thought they’d been going out for months.”

“I’m not sure they were in love,” Matt said.

Chloe gestured helplessly. Matt continued: “I’m not sure what Clark would have told you, darlin’, but he had his doubts about her.”

“What sort of doubts?”

“That she wasn’t one-hundred percent on the level. I don’t think they were in love. That’s the impression I got. The attention suited her, more than him. Just my take on it.”

McIntyre made a note. “And when he came over here, to record the podcast, or film the TV show . . . Were there admirers here too?”

“One or two,” Matt said uncomfortably.

“Matt . . . had his admirers too. Didn’t you honey?” Chloe smiled and patted his hand. “We tend not to go out of doors if we know they’re around. For us, part of the appeal of this place is that it’s hard to get to. All it takes is, I have a word with them, and they disappear.” She gave that gruesome smile again, as if her face had been scrunched up inside a fist.

“Do you speak to them because they’re here for Matt . . . or did you speak to them on behalf of Clark?” McIntyre asked.

“A bit of both.” She shrugged. “I look after my boys.”

“We need to know about times,” McIntyre said. “You say Clark left this morning, after staying here. What then?”

“He said he had some stuff to do back in town,” Chloe said. “Admin, he said. He has a flat where he can stay, when he’s lecturing. I think there’s a cafe there where they know him and leave him alone—he has his own little nook. He takes a laptop down, sorts out whatever he needs to. He could come and go with hardly anyone noticing him. That’s part of the reason he likes visiting here, I think. It’s not just work—and it’s not just because it’s close to the university. He was comfortable here. He didn’t get a hard time.”

“He didn’t mention anything about what business he had to take care of?”

“Nah . . . Wait, maybe he had a lecture series to finish off,” Matt said, clicking his fingers. “Writing, I mean. He’d already handed in his final draft for his next book. Something about comets, what we can learn from them, how we can exploit them. What happens if a comet smashes into Earth, how we can stop it, that sort of thing. But that was done, all sent off to the publisher. Apart from that, I think he was booking some flights to the Big Antenna.”

“Big Antenna?” Linklater frowned. “What’s its real name?”

“That’s it—the Big Antenna. No frills, mate. He was going there for some project he had, after the comets book. He kept that stuff hush-hush. He wanted to look through travel packages, hotel deals, that kind of thing.”

“You can do all that on your phone now,” McIntyre mused. “Why did he head into a cafe to do it? Unless he time-warped back to the year two thousand.”

“I think he liked the atmosphere. It’s a nice place. Surfers’ cafe. We go quite a lot. You should check it out. Or maybe, I dunno . . . It’s a mystery,” Matt said. “All I can tell you is that he was on good form when he met us, we had dinner, he went to bed just about midnight, and he left this morning. He promised to meet us to thrash out a programme schedule for Night Sky Watch, the next series . . . My God. The next series.” Matt touched his lips with his fingertips, then he collapsed, momentarily. “He won’t be there, love. He won’t be there.”

As they rose to leave a few minutes later, Linklater cleared his throat. “Just before we go . . . I hope you don’t mind . . . I always wanted to have a look.” He gestured towards the telescope, ignoring McIntyre’s look of warning, communicated via a widening of her large, dark eyes.

“Sure.” Matt leapt up from the rounded sofa. “’Course. It’s trained right on Jupiter. Have a look, mate.”

“Brilliant,” Linklater said, grinning. “Always wanted to see Jupiter’s rings, me.”

 

“Jupiter’s rings.” McIntyre chuckled into the lapel of her coat as they made their way back onto the high promontory. “You plonker.”

“Ma’am, I resent that,” Linklater yelled, braving the wind and the wet to make his stately, somewhat pompous progress at her back. “I was trying to lull them into a false sense of security.”

“How is confirming to them that you’re an idiot going to help us?”

“Ah, I dunno. It got a laugh, I suppose. Broke the tension.”

“What’re your thoughts?”

“Hmm. There was a lot of speculation about those two, you know. About how secure their marriage was.”

“In what way? With Frehley?”

“Yeah. Frehley and the married couple. Three’s company, and all that.”

“What, there was an affair, or something?”

He nodded. “Usual gossip. Chloe and Clark were photographed coming out of the same hotel. Made the papers. But they had been staying prior to filming something for the BBC. It turned out Matt was in the hotel with them—two separate rooms, of course. They complained to the press watchdog, got an apology. In the small print on page twenty-four or something. Not sure if they sued, or got a payout.”

“That all?”

“Yeah . . . Well, the usual dodgy stuff mentioned on message boards, gossip about whether or not they had an open marriage. Some bit of stuff, back in the day.”

“Yeah, Matt Warner was lovely. I remember him.”

“I was talking about Chloe, but I’ll take your word for it. She was in the men’s glossies, back in the day, when they still existed. Bra-and-pants photo shoot. Amazing to think that everyone lusted after her backside in all that exercise gear, and there she was, about three feet away from me.”

“Fergus,” she muttered. “Lowering the tone, here.”

“So, much ado about nothing, I suspect,” he said, unabashed. “No suggestion that anything has gone on between her and Frehley. But you never know.”

“Think Frehley might have been gay?”

“God only knows. Seemed a bit . . . what’s the word? ‘Fey’? But he was always linked with beautiful women. Not that that proves anything.” He drew closer to her, and she saw he was shivering. “Still not convinced he jumped, are you?”

“Not at all.”

“Could have been an accident. High winds, high cliffs . . .”

“Yeah, but what was he doing there?” McIntyre asked. “Why would he prerecord his segment for the podcast, then show up five minutes along the cliff tops from the lighthouse while it’s going out live?”

Linklater looked to the skies. “Maybe he just stuck around for the clear skies. Maybe he was stargazing. That was his thing, wasn’t it? A conjunction’s quite rare.”

McIntyre’s phone buzzed in her inside pocket. It was the ranking sergeant at the scene on the beach. He had to repeat himself several times before McIntyre got the message.

She thanked the sergeant, then hung up.

“What’s happening?” Linklater asked.

“We’ve just arrested someone who shouldn’t have been on the beach.” She hunched into her shoulders as the wind shrieked momentarily. “Seems Clark Frehley had a stalker. And they were here tonight. . . .”

Read the exciting conclusion in this month’s issue on sale now!

Copyright © 2024 Cadere ex Stellae by Pat Black