Remotely Exhumed

By Jove Withington

Imagine having the ability to envision where missing people are buried just by looking at a photograph. It's been nearly two decades since Maureen's seventeen-year-old daughter disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Completely broken and living under the constant agony of life without closure, she enlists the help of private investigator Mi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jove Withington
• Release date: Aug 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781802276541

Book preview

Prologue

Maureen sat in silence on the old brown velour armchair. Her silence matched the silence of the living room. The large TV set sat directly in front of her. It hadn’t been replaced since 2001 and looked very out of date with the VCR underneath it.

She got up slowly and walked across the room to use the landline phone, another relic of the past. Her home seemed to be frozen in the early two thousands. As she crossed to the cabinet that the phone rested on, she stopped as she caught sight of her reflection. She looked much older than her fifty-four years, with gaunt cheekbones, heavily sunken eyes, a heavily furrowed brow and prominent crow’s feet.

She thought she looked more late-sixties, with her short, grey hair and haggard features, but she didn’t care. She looked how she felt, dead inside. I’m half dead now; I live on tablets. This has ruined my life, and I’ll probably die before anyone ever learns the truth. Maureen remembered saying those words over eleven years ago, and even back then, they seemed so final. She had said it to a reporter back in 2010, seven years after her daughter disappeared.

It was now 2021, and she knew Kirsty was dead. Everyone did. The police had done their best, but there were just no leads. They had a lot less to go on back in 2003. There were no social media, mobile data or digital resources to help trace people in these kinds of cases, not that they guarantee success, even in this day and age.

Maureen was tired of ruminating in the mirror on her perpetual state of misery. She no longer cared whether she lived or died, and there was only one thing left to do. Her mother, Gladys, had recently died. By some miracle, she had reached her late eighties. She had smoked like a chimney all her life and lived by the maxim Work hard, play harder, like so many people of her generation in ex-mining communities.

She had left a sizeable sum of savings, not to mention what her husband had accumulated when he was alive. He had received generous pensions from his time in the iron foundries and mines of Derbyshire. Unfortunately, he had lived out the last of his golden years choking to death on brown mucus and attached to an oxygen tank.

Now both Maureen’s parents were dead, she had decided to put their money to good use. She lit up a Berkeley Superking and picked up the phone. It rang several times. Maureen drew hard on the cigarette once more, blowing out the blue-tinted smoke. It hung around the room like an encroaching fog, ready to swallow up her underweight frame.

Hello, said a man on the other end. He sounded middle-aged, and his voice was similar to the ones she had heard in the area all her life.

Is this Michael Radcliff? asked Maureen in a raspy smoker’s voice.

Yeah, it is. How can I help? replied Michael in a flat tone. It would be a long conversation on the phone, but it was her last chance.

Chapter 1

Michael Radcliff stood in front of his hallway mirror, his dark, deep-set eyes staring back at him. He ran a hand through his short, dark hair that was flecked with strands of grey and white. His face was heavily lined, with deep furrows across his brow and a five o’clock shadow that made its way below his chiselled jawline and to his strong neck. He sprayed himself a few more times with his expensive aftershave, admiring the way his slate grey suit and black shirt fitted his strongly built frame so well.

He smiled to himself as he thought about how, at forty-five, he still had it. He had no intentions of being any younger model’s sugar daddy, though. Not now, not ever.

Michael had worked the force in Nottingham for his entire career, made his way up to D.I. and was considered a somewhat grizzled veteran. He had received a call the previous evening from a woman named Maureen, describing to him her daughter’s earlier disappearance.

He vaguely remembered the disappearance of Kirsty Rainsworth, but like so many cases, it had found its way into obscurity and was all but forgotten. He wasn’t surprised. A working-class seventeen-year-old girl, who had been described as having a somewhat chaotic life, wasn’t going to have gathered much publicity beyond the local news in the early two thousands.

Michael wasn’t even sure whether he could really be that much help, but it was what he was paid to do and he could only try to do his job. He had left the force several years earlier and now operated exclusively as a private investigator. It paid well and was much more cushty than his time on the beat in Nottingham, working vice in Forest Fields and as a D.I. investigating the many gangland murders in Nottingham’s underworld.

His bread and butter was following rich businessmen as they fucked their secretaries in travel lodges across the Midlands and the north. He provided various other services, too. Repossessions, evictions and snaring occasional white-collar criminals who were ripping off his wealthy clients.

His house was in the nice, clean-cut suburbs of the Derbyshire countryside. It had been his home since his divorce. He had been married twenty-three years, and although his marriage wasn’t toxic or abusive in any measure, he and his wife had found it increasingly difficult to coexist towards the end. They had both been relieved to part ways and divorced amicably. His daughter was in her early twenties and his son was in his late teens.

He rarely saw them as they were off out in the world doing their own thing. They occasionally came to him when they needed money, and he always obliged. He knew it was a cop-out, but what could he do? From what he could tell, they had turned out well. He had done his job as far as he was concerned.

Chapter 2

It was time for Michael to go out to work. His diary was clear for most of the week, so he could afford Maureen a visit. He walked out his immaculate UPVC front door towards his shiny black BMW and it flashed orange twice as he pressed the button on his key fob. He climbed in and turned the key. The engine came to life, purring at a low growl like a big cat stalking through the brush.

Michael guided his car through the many suburbs and country lanes. He had the feeling of running on rails it was such a smooth drive. He had put Maureen’s address into his sat nav and was nearing it as he headed towards the upper part of the village. His car glided past an expansive green backed up by the row of convenience stores and takeaways that so many council estates have at their centre. Half of the estate was like Legoland, with its newer red brick houses, but the rest were all Coal Board houses, some painted white, others covered in pebble dash.

Michael arrived at Elm Tree Close and parked up next to the kerb. He got out his car and looked around. He was surrounded by prefabricated houses that were all covered in pebble dash. The grey, overcast sky matched the houses well; it suggested misery and gloom in every way, and just being there was enough to induce depression.

Many of the lawns on the close were well maintained, with creosoted fences and well-kept flowers, the hallmark of a street mainly occupied by pensioners. The house Michael was visiting was in stark contrast. It looked neglected, and the grass was long and unkempt. The fence was a dry, greyish colour, and most of the paint had peeled away.

Michael opened the peeling and splintered gate and walked along the concrete path towards the front door, stepping on weeds and tufts of grass in the cracks sticking up like tendrils of nature that had come to reclaim the path. He knocked on the faded and grubby white door and took a step back.

Chapter 3

The door opened slightly, chain still on. A wary, furrowed face with sunken eyes looked through the gap in the door.

Are you Michael? Maureen asked.

Yeah, I’m here about what we discussed last night, replied Michael as she unhooked the brass chain and opened the door fully.

Alright, love, said Maureen as he stepped in through the front door. Sorry about that. I don’t often get visitors. Not long had me tablets, either; wasn’t sure who it was. She paused for a moment as she stood in the hallway. The only visitor I get is Kevin, next door, when he cuts me grass in the summer.

No, that’s quite understandable, said Michael in a low, husky tone, managing a smile, his lined face creasing like a paper bag. He looked at Maureen, her withered frame dressed in a red cardigan, basic slacks and slippers. The house smelt of cigarette smoke and budgie cages. As she led him to the living room, a black and white cat sauntered past with an unmistakable look of arrogance on its face. Its shaggy white fur was grubby, and it looked as if it had rolled around in charcoal.

Maureen had not long boiled the kettle but had forgotten, briefly, and now, not wanting to waste the water, she offered a cup of tea to Michael as she went to make herself one. She returned with two steaming mugs of boiling liquid, handing one of the old china mugs to Michael, who accepted gratefully, holding the mug in his large hands.

So, let’s run through this again, Maureen. Kirsty went out with her friends across the field, the one that backs onto this estate, said Michael.

Maureen reached for a Superking from the low coffee table in front of her that separated them.

Do you want one? she said, offering the packet to Michael.

No, I gave up years ago, but thanks anyway.

I’ve been recommended those vapes and whatnot by me sister. I don’t have a clue what any of that is; not that I care if smoking kills me, anyway.

Michael and Maureen sat and talked for over an hour about the ins and outs of her daughter’s disappearance, and Michael wrote down any pointers he could work with.

I went to a medium in Skegness once, said Maureen, blowing out a stream of smoke. It drifted up above the coffee table and hung around in the air. Me sister says they’re all a bunch of frauds; all the woman could tell me was Kirsty died the day she went missing and a man did it, a man she knew, but I think she was just guessing, said Maureen, stubbing out what was left of her cigarette.

Well, I can’t comment on that. I can only deal with the facts, I’m afraid, said Michael.

One thing I haven’t told you, Maureen said, pausing and looking wearily across the table at Michael.

You see, every anniversary of Kirsty’s disappearance until about five years ago, a man would ring the house. I’ve told the police in the past, but he was never on long enough for them to trace the calls. He always asked whether Kirsty was here. Evil bastard. He sounded so smug. The last call I ever got from him, he said she had been cheating with another man. The police recommended I get CCTV after the flowers and funeral cards I kept getting every anniversary, but I could never afford it, said Maureen, looking subdued from having to recount such details.

Michael looked at Maureen, trying to get his head around what she had just told him. After another ten minutes of conversation, he got to his feet and they exchanged pleasantries. He left out the front door, unlocking his car as he walked towards it. He didn’t know what he could really do. The police had done all they could with the little information they had to go on; they had followed every lead but come up with nothing. It didn’t look hopeful, but it was his job. He could only try.

Chapter 4

Michael sat at his computer desk, massaging a tumbler of whiskey. He had spent hours trawling through newspaper articles and YouTube videos. The funny thing was the true crime channels which posted about Kirsty’s case seemed to go into more depth than the papers. Michael had learned more from watching them than he had from any news outlet. From what he could gather, the police had eventually changed her missing person case to a murder enquiry as her bank account had remained untouched for years after she had gone missing, indicating she was no longer alive.

He had seen age-progressed pictures, and only one video had mentioned the malicious phone calls Maureen had told him about. The last thing Michael read was that the police had searched the peak district and used frogmen at the River Derwent as they were, over a decade later, working on fresh intel. What that was, Michael was very interested to know. The police had also stated that with it being such a small estate where she had disappeared, someone within the local area must hold the answers they needed to solve the case.

Michael downed what was left in his tumbler, thinking he had been left with more questions than answers.

Chapter 5

Michael rolled over in bed to see the red glowing digits on his alarm clock as they burned into his retinas. He had been awakened by an incessant buzzing on his bedside table. It had been his mobile as he had turned it onto silent that evening in an attempt to get some sleep. Clearly, it hadn’t worked as the buzzing alone was enough to wake him. He was about to check who would call him at two in the morning when it lit up and started buzzing again. He picked it up and answered, his voice thick with sleep.

It was a woman asking for Michael Radcliff. She had an unmistakable southern accent; to be more precise, he recognised it as either a London or Essex accent.

It’s late; what can I do for you? And how did you get my number? asked Michael.

Look, I’m sorry to wake you. I searched for your P.I. business online and got your number. I really need to speak to you. There was a hint of urgency in her voice.

Okay, what about, and who are you?

My name’s Carol, Carol Barker. Can I meet you tomorrow? I have information. You won’t regret it, I promise. She sounded very sincere. Michael was eager to know what was so important this complete stranger would call him at such a late hour. Why the urgency to meet him?

Okay, Carol, meet me tomorrow. Whereabouts do you live?

I live in Newark-on-Trent.

Okay. Well, I live out in the sticks in Derbyshire, so how about we meet in Mansfield? It’s closer for you then. We’ll meet over a coffee or something. I’ll let you know a time and place tomorrow. Thanks for your call, Carol, said Michael before hanging up.

Michael rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. It would be a long time before he found the peaceful oblivion of sleep once more.

Chapter 6

Michael awoke groggy from his lack of sleep the previous night. Still, he was eager to know what this Carol wanted. He had been so tired he hadn’t even thought to ask her what the information was about. He downed his coffee, then took a shower and got dressed into a black suit.

After spraying on his usual aftershave, he went to his car and fired it up, setting off for the cafe in the centre of Mansfield where he had arranged to meet Carol. He had thought it be best to meet in a busy place in case this Carol’s intentions weren’t honest. His time in the police had made him naturally cautious.

Michael drove through the country lanes of Derbyshire and eventually made his way onto the motorway towards Mansfield. Depeche Mode played through the speakers as he glided along miles of anonymous British motorway.

"Life is full of surprises,