Gone Up In Flames: The Undeterred Detective, #1

By Michael N Burton

This is a Short Story

Louisa Dalton is a thirty something former police recruit. With a messy divorce now behind her, she's settled into running a market stall, selling her home made jewellery. Prenmouth market is usually a peaceful, happy place, but events are about to take a turn for the worse. She discovers an illicit affair, a murder and other wrong doings.
Join Louisa and her new boyfriend Geoff on their investigative journey, as they find out what the hell is going on in Prenmouth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael N Burton
• Release date: Feb 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507075647

Book preview

One

‘Stop the little bastard!’ Louisa Dalton looked up from her jewellery stall to see a scruffy boy of about twelve shoot past carrying a large box, not so closely pursued by a red faced, slightly overweight middle aged man, who Louisa recognised as Bruce Tyndall. Bruce was the husband of her friend Martha, another stall holder on the market. The boy managed to leg it out of the gate and by the time Bruce (who was now walking) got to the gate, the boy had vanished into thin air.

‘What the hell is going on Bruce?’ shouted Louisa from a distance.

‘Oh the little so and so just nicked one of our water guns’ shouted Bruce in between large gasps of air.

‘Not another one,’ sympathised Louisa.

Some of the traders on the market who specialised in toys and novelty items had been suffering stock loss, due to some of the local kids daring each other to steal from them.

‘Police want to lock ‘em up’ said Bruce, who was now a lot calmer and walking past Louisa’s stall.

‘They never seem to catch ‘em though, do they’ replied Louisa.

Bruce sloped off back to his stall with his wife Martha. Louisa could see him on his mobile phone, no doubt ringing the police for the umpteenth time.  This was an unremarkable day on Prenmouth market. Louisa was grateful that her stall never seemed to be targeted. She supposed boys of that age didn’t really like jewellery. A few people had been looking over the items on her stall and had taken no notice of the commotion going on with the boy being chased. She wished they would either buy something or go away.  At last a worthwhile customer turned up. Mrs Enshaw had been Louisa’s best customer since she’d started her stall. Being a young grandmother, Mrs Enshaw was always buying jewellery for her daughter, granddaughters and herself. She was a good looking woman in her late forties and still had the ability to turn men’s heads every time she graced the market with her presence.

‘How much do you want for this Louisa,’ Mrs Enshaw said, brushing away her long black hair from her face as she leaned over the stall, holding forward a green polished stone necklace.

‘Oh that’s eight pounds fifty, but I can do it for you for eight pounds’.

‘Bargain’ said Mrs Enshaw, ‘I’ll take it.’

‘Is it for Emily?’

Emily was Mrs Enshaw’s eight year old granddaughter, who she had brought to the market a few days earlier when everybody had made a fuss of her.

‘Yes it is. Do you think she will like it?’  ‘I’m sure she’d love any present from grandma. She’s a great kid and a credit to you.’ 

‘Thank you Louisa. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Louisa had just broken even for the day. This was reasonable going for just past midday. Louisa glanced over the stock that she had yet to sell. There were about fifteen necklaces, twenty or so bracelets and about two dozen earrings. It shouldn’t be too difficult to shift most of that by the end of the day, she thought to herself. Louisa was a thirty something divorcee with long mousy