The Return of Charlie Stoner

By Chester Stern

Charlie Stoner has a remarkable capacity for finding trouble and a natural talent for righting wrongs. Honour is her guiding principle.  Confrontation is at the core of her being.  Where there is evil she will face it head-on.  Where there is danger she will not shrink.  Her moral compass always points towards good.

She has two pnhysical attribuitesw which make her a fearsome opponent - her abnormal size and her lightning-fast reflexes.

Charlie was back among her own folk...and they weren't all pleased to see her.  At least, those who lived their lives outside of rhe law weren't pleased.  They weren't pleased at all.

Charlotte Amelia Stoner, Olympic weight-lifter, ex-Military Police Sergeant, and one-woman crime-fighting machine was simply doing waht she did best.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chester Stern
• Release date: Apr 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224573004

Chester Stern

CHESTER STERN has been a writer and broadcaster on crime and police matters for more than forty-five years. A former head of the Press Bureau at Scotland Yard, he has lectured extensively on terrorism and the media in Britain, Europe and the USA. He was Chief Crime Correspondent for The Mail on Sunday for nineteen years and is past President of the Crime Reporters' Association. In 2001 he became Corporate Affairs Director for Fulham Football Club and Controller of Public Affairs for Harrods, acting as media adviser to Mohamed Al Fayed and advising on the investigation into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. He has published two true crime books: Dr Iain West's Casebook – the investigations of Britain's leading forensic pathologist, and The Black Widow – the story of Linda Calvey, the UK's most notorious female gangster, (written in collaboration with Kate Kray, widow of Ronnie Kray). He has also written three works of fiction – a faction thriller about the death of Princess Diana called The Decoy, a terrorism thriller based in South Africa called Code Zulu, and a murder mystery detective novel based in the newspaper world of Fleet Street called The Green-Inker. Since the early seventies, he has also been a sportswriter and broadcaster on football, rugby and golf for the BBC, The Sunday Telegraph, The Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror.

Book preview

Prologue

The congregation gathered in the tiny Chapel of Rest at Springwood Crematorium was not large.  Perhaps two dozen grim-faced souls - a rag bag off scruffily-dressed people most of whom had not even bothered to wear black.

With a barked command from the rear of the chamber they all rose obediently to their feet as the first few bars of canned music stuttered out of the sound system - an incongruous and wholly inappropriate version of ‘Always Look On the Bright Side Of Life’ played on an electronic keyboard.

Four men in black frock coats with a coffin balanced between them on their shoulders began a slow, solemn, march down the aisle.  As they reached halfway the leading bearer, a thin man with a dropping moustache and a scar running from the corner of his eye to the tip of his chin, felt two distinct blows on his shoulder.  He glanced across at his companion.  He had felt it too.

Moments later the two men at the rear of the bearer party, with arms clasped around each other’s shoulders for stability, noticed three heavy downward blows from within the coffin.  All four men continued their measured procession towards the front of the chapel.  Once there they lowered the coffin gently, and with exaggerated reverence, onto a raised plinth and stepped respectfully aside to stand in the corner of the room with heads bowed and hands folded in front of them.

The celebrant, a scrawny woman with a beaky nose, stepped forward and stood behind a wooden lectern.  Please be seated, she said.  As she did so there was a loud thump from inside the coffin.  Those seated in the front row heard it.  The celebrant turned around.  The scar-faced man glowered at her and nodded curtly.  She turned back and, gazing balefully over her half-rimmed spectacles, continued: Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today...

There was a muffled cry from inside the coffin.  This time the whole congregation heard it.  The man with the scar coughed loudly.

...we are gathered here today to say farewell to...

Scarface stepped forward and brushed the celebrant roughly aside.  He bent down and pressed a  button beneath the lectern.  The coffin began to move very slowly towards a rose-covered archway behind which, everybody knew, lay a blazing furnace.

Pandemonium broke out among the congregation.  Everyone talking at once.  Amidst the hubbub few noticed the striking figure of a tall woman striding purposefully down the aisle.  By the time most of them spotted her she could only be seen from behind.

She wore a tight-fitting black business suit which hugged her large but shapely figure.  Broad shoulders, nipped in waist, wide hips and, beneath her knee-length skirt two muscular calfs which would have done justice to any rugby front-row forward.  Her long blonde hair was styled in a chunky plait which fell between her shoulder blades and reached down to the base of her spine.  Her height was accentuated by a pair of impossibly high black stiletto-heeled shoes in which she tottered - clearly footwear she was not used to.

With one arm she yanked the coffin partially off the plinth where it sat swaying at a crazy angle while the wheels on the conveyor belt beneath it rattled and squealed.

One of the four coffin bearers threw himself on her back wrapping a muscular forearm around her neck in a choking half-Nelson.  The speed and power with which her right elbow crashed into his diaphragm caused the sound of his cracking ribs to reverberate and bounce off the chapel ceiling.  He gasped and sank to his knees moaning and clutching his chest.

A second man grabbed a huge brass candle stick from a stand by the door and, wielding it like a club, swung it at the woman’s head.  In a single movement she grabbed the candlestick with her left hand and smashed her right hand into her assailant’s jaw with a fist observers compared to the size of a small ham.  The man’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he toppled backwards like a felled tree.

While her back was turned towards him Scar-face grabbed her plait and jerked her head towards him.  She allowed herself to fall backwards and executed a perfect bicycle kick, thumping her left foot into his face.  Her stiletto heel opened a jagged cut just above his left eye which spurted blood down the front of his white shirt.

The fourth man picked up an alabaster vase containing artificial flowers, raised it above his head, and hurled it against the woman’s back.  It shattered, sending tiny ceramic shards flying through the air.  She wheeled around and planted a karate kick between his legs.  As he bent double in pain she grabbed a fistful of his hair and smashed his forehead against the blunt edge of the plinth.  He made no sound.  Just slowly slid to the floor where he lay motionless and silent.

But Scar-face was not done.  Fists balled, he rushed towards his female opponent.  She parried his right-hook with her left arm and delivered a devastating uppercut with her right.  He went down with a yelp, scrambled to his feet and fled back down the aisle.

The celebrant was cowering in a corner so the blonde woman made a hasty attempt to find the button beneath the lectern which would stop the conveyor belt, still creaking and groaning beneath the coffin.

Frustrated by her inability to find it she lifted the entire lectern off the floor, causing sparks to fly as the electrical wiring was ripped from its connections.  Raising the lectern above her head she brought it crashing down on the plinth blocking the entrance to the furnace which the coffin had been slowly edging towards.

She turned to face the congregation.  She was breathing easily.  She tugged at the bottom of her tunic, pulling it down to show off the curves of her well-rounded bust.  The only sign of exertion was a tiny bead of perspiration on her upper lip and a single strand of blonde hair dangling over one eye.  Facially she was striking to look at.  Not pretty.  Not beautiful but striking, with high cheekbones and large almond-shaped eyes.  He make-up was immaculate.  She smiled, revealing a perfect set of gleaming white teeth, the obvious product of very expensive dentistry.

When she spoke it was in a calm but high-pitched, sing-song, girly voice completely at odds with the physical violence she had just displayed.

Best you all go home now.  There’s nothing to see here, right?

She paused.  Don’t worry about the mess, she added, it’ll all be cleaned up.  And I think we all know who’s gonna pay for it.

Charlie was back among her own folk...and they weren’t all please to see her.  At least those who lived their lives outside of the law weren’t pleased.  They weren’t pleased at all.

Charlotte Amelia Stoner, Olympic weight-lifter, ex-Military Police Sergeant, and one one-woman crime-fighting machine was simply doing what she did best.

Chapter One

Charlie Stoner has a remarkable capacity for finding trouble and a natural talent for righting wrongs.

Honour is her guiding principle.  Confrontation is at the core of her being.  Where there is evil she will face it head-on.  Where there is danger she will not shrink.  Her moral compass always points towards good.

She has two physical attributes which make her a fearsome opponent - her abnormal size and her lightning-fast reflexes.

Charlie was born in San Francisco to a Japanese mother - the daughter of a celebrated Sumo wrestler - and an American Air Force pilot.

The family moved to London when she was a toddler but when her mother died of breast cancer and her father became an alcoholic vagrant Charlie was taken into foster care.

She joined the Army as soon as she was old enough and rose to the rank of Sergeant in the Military Police while serving two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

Encouraged by the Army to take up weightlifting she represented Great Britain at the Rio Olympics in 2016 winning a bronze medal in the 76kg Clean and Jerk category.

But deep down Charlie is a loner and whilst she had natural leadership qualities and was much admired by her soldier colleagues for her courage under fire, she found the atmosphere of camaraderie engendered by shared danger suffocating.

So, when she qualified for an early Army pension at the same time as a trust fund, set up for her by her grandfather, paid out, she quit the military as a woman of independent, if modest, means.

She bought a little pied-a-terre in the Spanish resort of Marbella and, having completed a serious crime detection course in the Army, began to amuse herself by acting as a private detective - for fun, not for money.

* * * * * *

The Paseo Maritimo in Marbella was busy.  It was always busy.  Night and Day.  Year round.

An assortment of elderly ladies with unnaturally-coloured permed hairdos tottered by accompanied by various tiny rare-breed dogs on leads.  Tanned young men with well-toned torsos wove in and out of the crowds on roller blades.  Pretty girls puttered past on motorised scooters.  Joggers of all ages - and sizes - ran up and down.  Some panting.  Some sweating but none slowing down.  On the sea wall beneath the waving palms sat clusters of dull-eyed African men with collections of unsold leather handbags at their feet.  Occasionally a couple of helmeted policemen ticked past at walking pace on their motorcycles, wearing wrap-around sunglasses and looking sinister.

Everywhere there was a babble of voices.  African languages, Asian languages, European languages, occasionally English and, once in a while, even a snatch of Spanish, could be heard. Beyond the sea wall the beach was pretty much deserted. It was often pretty much deserted.  It was March - the worst month weather wise on the Costa del Sol - but today the sun shone warm and strong out of a cloudless blue sky.

Charlie lay on a towel reading a cheap romantic novel she had picked up for a euro at one of the many news-stands dotted along the Paseo.  She was not at all romantic herself but she loved reading about romance.  She found it undemanding and heart-warming.

She was wearing a green, pink, and blue floral bikini bought online from one of the Plus size outlets which specialise in clothing for the larger lady.  All Charlie’s clothing came from the largest-size range of garments provided by Ladies’ Oversize stores.  But that was all she had in common with the regular clients of these outlets.  Those women were all variously described as obese or morbidly overweight.  That was not Charlie.

Charlie was big.  Very big.  She stood six feet four inches tall and turned the scales at fourteen stone and eight pounds - the perfect weight according to her Body Mass Index reading.  But there was not a spare ounce of fat on her and her musculature was taut and toned.  She was just big-boned.  Her skeletal frame was simply unique.

It had always been that way.  For most of her pregnancy Charlie’s mother had believed that she was carrying twins.  But a late scan revealed just one foetus and so, following a successful Caesarian section, she gave birth to a healthy 16 lb baby girl - twice the average size and a matter of fascination for curious medical staff in the maternity ward.

Cots, high chairs, baby buggies - all the paraphernalia provided for the care of new-born babies proved way too small for Charlie.  Her parents had to improvise from the outset but there was one compensation.  The child had lightning-fast reflexes.

Her family discovered this special talent by accident one day when the baby was just eight months old.  As her father was feeding her he clumsily knocked her bowl, containing mashed vegetables, off the kitchen table.  But before it could fall to the floor the baby shot out a chubby little fist and gripped the bowl in mid-air.  Holding it steadily the right way up she carefully placed it back in front of her on the table.

Her parents stood, open-mouthed for several seconds unwilling to believe what they had just witnessed.  Surely they had not produced a miracle baby?  But as time went on and Charlie grew into a toddler they began to accept that their child had been born with a gift for rapid reaction.  As she played with blocks on the floor, for instance, none of the simple towers or pyramid structures, through which small children routinely experiment with building and balance, ever collapsed or fell over in a heap.  Charlie always caught them as they fell and quickly reassembled them.

In her early life Charlie became a case study for Paediatricians from several of the world’s top Medical Institutions but they all concluded that there was nothing physically unusual about her.  All her organs were normal and functioned normally.  She was not deformed.  Her skeletal frame was perfect in every respect.  She was just bigger than average.  In proportion, but bigger all over.

Human nature being what it is, a child of such abnormal size would ordinarily have suffered a miserable childhood being classed as a freak, constantly teased, bullied and called names.  But Charlie’s natural agility and athleticism won her much admiration and many friends.  She excelled at sports, especially those games, like netball, where height was an advantage.  And she was hero-worshipped among many of the smaller children for whom she was a constant defence against bullying.  A quick slap from one of Charlie’s enormous hands usually left the bully’s ears ringing for hours.

Charlie sucked her teeth and shook her head at the book she was reading as another slushy, panting, blushing, heart-fluttering love scene ended.  She chuckled at the inanity of it all, turned the page and rolled over onto her back.

A shadow fell across her face.

Hola Señorita Sharlee, said a friendly voice. ‘Ow are you today?

It was Juan-Pedro one of the regular life guards patrolling the Marbella beach.

Charlie raised herself on one elbow.  Pretty good thanks JP, she smiled And you?

Juan-Pedro was a fine specimen.  A body-builder’s physique, a tan to die for, and the brooding good looks of a Latino movie star.

Oh you know, so, so, he replied. It’s pretty quiet today.  Nobody swims.  A bit boring, no?

Maybe for you, grinned Charlie, but I like the peace and quiet.  And the sun is nice and warm.

Juan-Pedro shrugged.  I finish at five o’clock.  Would you like to come for a drink with me?

Charlie had never been one for boyfriends.  Most men found her intimidating and those that could match her for size usually turned out to be muscle-bound narcissists more interested in looking at themselves in the mirror than in cultivating any kind of meaningful relationship.

Charlie was a loner.  By choice.  Not by necessity.  She liked her own company.  In the army she’d had plenty of friends - men and women. Mates. Comrades.  But she was not gregarious.  She’d had lovers but never a soul mate.  She told herself she didn’t need it.  But there was no harm in enjoying the occasional drink with a handsome Spaniard.

Okay JP, you’re on, she said.  "Same place as last time.  But listen, no monkey business this time.  Don’t try any hanky-panky or you’ll get a slapping.  And trust me, you really wouldn’t like it if I had to slap you.  You really wouldn’t like it at all’.

She giggled beguilingly.  Juan-Pedro giggled too.  He pushed his Ray-Bans on to the top of his head and gave a thumbs up.  See you at five Sharlee, he said, as he turned and jogged away towards the imposing silhouette of Gibraltar Rock in the distance.

Charlie gazed after him.  He’s a nice guy, she thought.  Good company.  But all he really wants to do is get into my knickers.  I hope I don’t end up busting his jaw.  I’d hate to do that.

Chapter Two

The family-run Bar El Estrecho claims to be the oldest tapas bar in Marbella.  Established in 1954 it is tucked away down a tiny cobbled alleyway called Calle de San Lazaro in the heart of the maze of streets and alleys that make up the ancient Old Town district.

Charlie was there at five o’clock. On the dot. Prompt. Military training. She was sitting with her back to the wall facing the door.  Military training.  She wore jeans and a baggy sweatshirt.  No make-up.  No need to glam-up for this guy.  It was not a date.

Ordinarily this intimate cosy little bar would be heaving with tourists and holidaymakers. But it was March, midweek, and early, so Charlie was the only customer.

On the table in front of her was an opened bottle of Ribero del Duero Rioja - one of her favourites from the Tempranillo grape - and two glasses.

Juan-Pedro turned up late. He had come straight from the end of his shift on the beach.  Just a pair of jogging bottoms and a T-shirt pulled casually over his Life Guard’s kit.

He was respectful and gentlemanly.  Bending to kiss Charlie lightly on both cheeks, apologising for his late arrival and insisting that he would pay for the drinks.  But Charlie noticed that there was nothing of the familiar Casanova-swagger about him. No trace of the cheesy come hither grin. He was a very tactile man where women were concerned.  Normally he would have seated himself alongside Charlie where he could touch her as they talked.  This time he sat down opposite her.

They made small talk for several minutes.  No flirty, suggestive, comments from Juan-Pedro.

Eventually Charlie leant across the table and took Juan-Pedro’s hands in hers. What’s up JP, she asked, sympathetically.  There is something wrong.  You are not yourself.  What is the matter?  Tell me.

The young Spaniard looked up and fixed his eyes on Charlie’s.  There was a look of deep concern, she noticed..

It is my sister, he said softly. I am worried about her, no?

Charlie remained silent.  Time to let him talk.

He went on: She is no talking to me.  She is no calling me.  I cannot contact her. Something bad is happening to her, I think.

Charlie decided to lighten the mood.

I didn’t know you had brothers and sisters JP, she