Puppets on a String

By Laura E Simms

What is expelled American student Chandler Jackson still doing hanging around like a bad penny?
He was supposed to return home. Why hasn't he?
What's his plan?

A tense situation begins to develop and it's up to DI Ivor Gunn and DS Arthur Jobb to defuse the situation before things get out of hand.

However one big question remains. Are they up to the task?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura E Simms
• Release date: Sep 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301879489

Laura E Simms

Laura Simms 1987-BooksEnd GameThe Legend of the Talking SwordTaken for a MugHorses For CoursesMillionaire's PlaypenGemini BloodThe Irony of de ja vuI have wanted to be an author since I was 6. So this is a dream realised for me.The last year has been very productive with lots more writing to come hopefully.But I will let you be the judge of what you read, so all that remains to be said isHappy reading

Book preview

Puppets on a String

by Laura E Simms

Puppets on a String

Laura Simms

Copyright Laura Elizabeth Simms 2013

Smashwords Edition

For Sue Gray

The English teacher who cultivated my creative imagination. Encouraged me, even if I didn’t like writing essays. When you moved on, I believe my education definitely suffered, but I know for a fact you rescued the education of others after me.

For this I thank you with all my heart

Prologue

The Puppet Master carves out his craft. He’s an expert craftsman. Slowly he tightens the string and tests out limits. No one knows where he learned his trade or who taught him.

His cunning and somewhat devious mind is always working. He’s the master of manipulation. Complicated workings are simple to him.

He is the master of destiny. Fate was decided on his decisions. He moved his hand and people lived or died. The flip of a coin was bull. It was all up to him. Offend him at your peril.

He isn’t God, God is the only person the Puppet Master answers to, but God gives him a free reign, most of the time.

This evening he is carving out the new characters in the latest soap opera called life. He pulls the string recently glued and it dances to his touch. Time slows, when he asks.

The third in line is the time keeper. He can turn back time. The Grim Reaper is nothing in the order of things. He’s mightily pissed off about it.

Witchcraft is nothing compared to his power. Harry Potter and Harry Dresden were nothing, mere amateurs. The puppet master makes Houdini look green.

He grins as his entrance is atmospheric. The next strike of lightening splits the sky. The thunder is practically on its tail. Deafeningly, it crashes. He can even control the weather. There is nothing he cannot do. Just you remember that. His giant shadow is cast alarmingly across the workshop carpet.

Human beings are just sport to him. Squishable bugs, stand on us and he wouldn’t even notice. The Grim Reaper wants to improve his standing in the pecking order, so he takes his frustration out on the poor weak human beings.

There are plenty of us after all. At least one born every minute, and just as many depart this world. It’s like a massive queue at the bank. Everyone has their place in the world. You just need to know where your place is, because more often than not, you’re put back in it, in spectacular fashion.

But one thing the Puppet Master should remember is, he is mortal. Judgement Day gets closer for him every day as it does for all of us.

Chapter 1

You can say that again DI Ivor Gunn laughed, as DS Arthur Jobb finished reading out an article he’d found in the Daily Mirror.

I can’t believe you read that piece of shit rag he added.

What’s wrong with it? the Detective Sergeant enquired.

It’s full of crap. Crystal ball rubbish. Horoscopes Ivor nearly pissed himself.

DS Jobb was glad to hear the sound. It was a long time since his boss had last laughed. He’d been far too stressed recently. DS Jobb could hardly blame him. There had been the Zodiac Conspiracy case, the Matherson, Mayhew, Webb case and of course the final conclusion of the Memory Lane High School murders.

Ivor had made it his personal mission to bring these three cases to a close and taken it hard when this had proved difficult. The only one of those cases that remained anywhere near resolved was The Zodiac case.

In the Matherson case Zachary Mayhew and Danny Webb were still milking their fame. Mayhew’s real life crime novel was still topping the bestseller list a year after it had been published. It was showing no sign of being knocked off its perch either.

Mayhew was a money-grabbing, gold-digging motherfucker was Ivor’s assessment, right or wrong they would never know. The case was closed. That particular horror would never resurface, except in nightmares.

Hey, help me with the crossword clues DS Jobb said to distract him.

What’s wrong you’re brain not working? DI Gunn teased.

It’s the detective brain Arthur replied.

The Zodiac Conspiracy case had turned out nicely, with the main person who was kidnapped being returned safely. The last case’s body count had climbed extremely high before it became anywhere near a conclusion.

The person who was in prison for the crimes was dying of a terminal brain tumour. He had months or weeks left to live. Ivor felt rather sorry for him. He had done what he’d done to avenge the love of his life Tanya Rhiannon Amelia Margaret Parker, who’d died as a teenager.

His whole life had been stolen because they would have ended up married and with a child or three, possibly four. Their plans had been laid and had she lived, they would no doubt have come to fruition.

But no matter how understandable motives were, it didn’t make crime right. He knew the respite from the storm of work would end sooner or later, but he couldn’t know just how violently things would turn out.

Chapter 2

Joanna Trueman, a teaching assistant who had just had her 51st birthday and had fantastic dreams of taking early retirement at the end of the summer term, which wouldn’t come true in a million years, walked briskly across the school car park. Her neat grey hair, streaked liberally with black and cut shorter than she’d like, blew in the wind.

She took a deep breath of crisp clean, early Autumn air. She didn’t know why she was dreaming about the summer now, it was only 9th September, and Wednesday though, midweek always cheered her.

She wasn’t sure why she’d spent two hours of her life at the hairdresser on Saturday, or why she’d paid for the end result. Her husband had raised his eyebrows, usually he didn’t notice such petty things as when she changed her hair.

He had outwardly winced when she’d revealed just how much she’d paid for the experience.

You look like Cruella De Ville he’d smirked.

Love you too she responded.

Oh I love you dear. I just don’t understand why women feel the need to reverse time he replied.

She’d playfully hit him on the shoulder and he’d howled like a werewolf at full moon. She wondered whether Aurora Carpenter was in today. Joanna was down to scribe Aurora’s A Level English Literature re-sit exam. The school were letting those students who wanted to, re-sit exams in early September. Aurora had broken her arm recently, falling out of a tree, she said.

Yesterday Joanna had invigilated for another of the exams. She’d spent an hour and a half counting ceiling tiles. The exam had passed without incident. Aurora had a lengthy history of absconding and playing truant.

She supposed that this had to do with the fact she had been viciously bullied in the lower school. Joanna had known Aurora a couple of weeks short of 6 years. Joanna had sat down in a Maths lesson, next to a terrified 11 year old.

She was painfully shy at first, answering questions politely, but volunteering nothing. But Joanna had persisted, asking colleagues for advice. The teaching assistant who had come with Aurora from primary school related how Aurora had become insolent in her final year there.

But Joanna had long suspected that that was because the teaching assistant’s own attitude stank. Joanna had watched from afar while the teaching assistant tried to get Aurora to complete a worksheet. Aurora had done so, but with very bad grace and only after giving the teaching assistant a mouthful of the most choice swearwords. Joanna herself had intervened, getting Aurora somewhere quieter.

Aurora had then