Gone Too Far : DCI Miller 4: Britain's Most Hated Celebrity Has Disappeared Read online

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  PART TWO

  PART THREE

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  PART FOUR

  PART FIVE

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  EPILOGUE

  Prologue

  Kathy Hopkirk, The UK’s most notorious super-bitch media commentator had been un-reachable for three days. Her manager, Sally King had been trying to resist this moment. But now, she felt that there was no other option. She was going to have to report the most hated celebrity in Britain, missing.

  Sally wasn’t rushing into this. The successful media agent had been on the phone none-stop for most of the weekend. Sally had contacted all of Kathy’s family and colleagues, as well as her small circle of friends. Sally was now confident that all of Kathy’s contacts had been contacted. All had been asked one simple question; had any of them seen or heard from Kathy in the last few days?

  Not a single contact had provided a positive reply. One or two of them had however mischievously spoken to the press, alerting them to the fact that Kathy Hopkirk’s manager did not know where her star performer was, sure that there was possibly a very juicy story waiting to be picked up on, for a fee of course.

  Sally was now completely out of ideas, and most worryingly, had run out of people to ask. Kathy was supposed to have been on that morning’s “Sunday View Point” show, discussing her opinions on immigration.

  When ITV had phoned Sally to ask where her client, the “star” of the show was, just minutes before the broadcast was due to air, Sally knew that this wasn’t just another stupid attention seeking stunt. Sally knew in her heart that something wasn’t right. Kathy wouldn’t miss a live TV show which attracted over two-million viewers. Two-million people to wind-up and infuriate. After all, it was all Kathy lived for. Sally lifted the phone to speak to the Metropolitan Police, and to report the country’s most detested, most widely reviled living woman, missing.

  Chapter 1

  “Ey, bloody hell fire, Andy, come and look at this!” Manchester’s best known detective, DCI Andy Miller was standing at his kitchen sink, peeling some spuds for the Sunday roast. His wife Clare was in the garden with the couple’s twins, three-year-olds, Leo and Molly.

  “Andy, quick. Come here!”

  “What’s up?” he asked as he reached the patio doors. The twins were giggling and shrieking at one another as they played on their see-saw and Clare was sitting back in her chair, enjoying the sunshine, holding out her phone. Andy looked at the screen, and saw that it was a news app.

  “Kathy Reported Missing” said the headline. Kathy Hopkirk was so famous, she was one of an extremely small group of British celebrities that could be identified just by their first name. Cliff, Ant, Dec, Adele and Jedward were the others. Kathy was so famous, there was no need to mention her surname to identify which Kathy this was about.

  Clare laughed when she realised that Andy had no idea what the headline meant. She pulled the phone away and mocked her husband. “You don’t even know who Kathy is do you? No wonder nobody invites you onto their quiz teams Andy!” She laughed at him playfully, but returned her attention to the phone screen.

  “Go on then, who is Kathy?”

  “You do know her Andy, she’s the woman off the telly who always has an outrageous point-of-view about everything! She’ll say anything to get in the news.” Clare was reading the phone.

  “Oh, right, I think I know who you mean. She started off by saying that obese people should be locked away in disused trains and fed lettuce until they were an acceptable weight, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, that’s her! Well, I mean, she says something like that at least once a week.”

  “Why disused trains though? I never understood that.”

  “Oh, there was a reason. I think it was because they already have toilets on them or something. She always says bonkers stuff like that to guarantee that people will talk about her. Don’t you remember when she said that women who breast-feed are mental?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, Google her Andy, she is an absolute gob-shite.” Clare looked quite annoyed, it was amazing how quickly the thoughts and opinions of Kathy Hopkirk could wind people up.

  “So, she’s gone missing?” Andy’s face suddenly changed from vague amusement to professional concern.

  “Yes, she was supposed to be on telly this morning, and hasn’t turned up. This report says that certain people in the media have known that she’s been unaccounted for all weekend – but now its all official, its been reported to the police.”

  “She isn’t very well liked, is she?” asked Andy.

  Clare looked up and smiled sarcastically. “Andy, I know you don’t really bother with the news or anything, but Kathy is the most hated woman in the country. Nobody likes her, and I really mean nobody. There was a poll that put Margaret Thatcher above Kathy in the popularity stakes!”

  Andy screwed up his face, he looked as though he’d just heard that his car had been found in a river. “Well, God bless the poor bastards that have to investigate this. That’s going to be a nightmare job.”

  “Ah, well that’s the thing, Andy.”

  “What?”“It says here that the last time anybody has seen or heard from her was on Thursday night, when she left the Midland Hotel in Manchester city centre.”

  Chapter 2

  “Welcome to the ITV Weekend News, I’m Ranvir Chaudhary. Our major story this evening is the disappearance of one of Britain’s most famous, and most divisive characters.” The TV news presenter looked very serious and intense as she spoke to the millions of viewers on the other side of the lens. “Kathy Hopkirk, the columnist and presenter, famed for hundreds of inflammatory remarks and insensitive opinions, has today been reported as a missing person. Our show-business editor Pamela McNulty is outside the star’s home in London, where she sent us this report.”

  The ITV studio image on the screen switched to a very solemn looking woman who was standing amongst dozens of other broadcasters and crews on a noisy residential street in Hammersmith, West London.

  “Than
k you Ranvir. This shocking story was released by the Metropolitan Police’s press office this morning. The statement confirms that a Missing Person Inquiry has been launched following the complete disappearance of Kathy, who has not been seen, nor heard from since Thursday evening, when she was seen leaving her hotel in Manchester. Kathy’s manager has been trying to make contact with her client since Friday morning, when Kathy failed to arrive at a book-signing event at Manchester’s Waterstones bookstore. A statement from Sally King, who manages Kathy, and dozens of other high-ranking celebrities was released this afternoon,” the screen switched from the correspondent, to a picture of the press-release. Pamela McNulty began reading the statement;

  “After doing all we can to make contact with Kathy since Friday morning, and contacting all of her friends, colleagues and family members, we can confirm that nobody has heard from, nor seen Kathy since Thursday evening. This matter is now in the hands of the police. We can only say that we are all hoping, and praying that no harm has come to our bright, confident, and exceptionally talented friend and colleague. We sincerely hope that she turns up safe and sound. We are all desperate to hear what has happened, preferably from Kathy, so that we get her uniquely entertaining viewpoint regarding this extraordinary situation.”

  * * *

  “Good God Donna! Have you heard the news?” shouted Paul Cresswell, a former driver of Kathy’s, as he slammed shut his front-door and walked quickly into the lounge. His wife, Donna was standing in the middle of the room, watching the news, she nodded sombrely at Paul, her husband of thirty-four years.

  “I told you! I bloody told you didn’t I love?” Paul had a mysterious look on his face. Donna couldn’t quite work out if he was in shock, or if he was excited by this news. “Told you about three years ago that this would happen! You can’t go about pissing everyone off, and think you’ll get away with it! I bet she’s been chucked off the fucking Vauxhall Bridge, I bet she’s got a pair of those concrete wellies fitted as well!”

  “I’m really worried about it Paul. Do you think this was why Sally phoned yesterday?”

  “Yeah, without a doubt! I told her, I said, why would I have heard from Kathy when I told you I never want to drive her anywhere ever again?”

  “What did she say to that?”

  “She said she was phoning everyone she could think of. So I asked her what was going on and she just told me it was nothing. Well it obviously wasn’t nothing, was it? She’s been bumped off mate! Told ya, didn’t I? I promised you this was going to happen, and that’s why I refused to drive her anymore. I thought I’d be getting bumped off with the slag! Didn’t I?”

  * * *

  Andy Miller was sprawling out on the sofa whilst Clare was upstairs bathing the twins. Andy was smiling, he was full up and satisfied from the roast beef dinner, feeling grateful for an enjoyable, relaxing day with his family. He had almost mustered enough motivation to stand up and get started on the washing-up, when he felt a text-message vibrate against his leg. He grabbed the phone out of his pocket.

  “Oh my days! Have you seen the news?” The text message was from Andy’s number-two at the Serious Crimes Investigation Unit, Detective Inspector Keith Saunders. Andy rolled his eyes and deleted the message. It was Sunday, and he had practically managed to get through the entire day without thinking about work. Typically, it seemed that Saunders was getting excited about the potential of having even more work to do.

  “You’re a one-off you Keith,” muttered Andy as he made a loud groaning noise whilst pushing himself up off the sofa. “Right, let’s get these dishes sorted out, and then I can relax properly.” Andy popped his head around the door and shouted up the stairs. “Do you want a brew love, or a glass of wine?”

  “Ooh, tough question Andy! What do you guys think mummy should choose? WINE,” she said with her eyes wide open and a great big smile on her face. “Or a brew?”

  “Wine mummy!” shouted Leo as he splashed his hands in the water, making Clare roar with laughter. Molly was splashing around and giggling at Leo’s quick-decision.

  “You’re a bad influence on those kids Clare!” shouted Andy as he headed off into the kitchen and began scraping the leftover contents of the plates into a carrier bag.

  Fifteen minutes later, the pots were all washed, and Clare’s glass was filled with a generous portion of Merlot.

  “Okay, over to you mate. They’re washed, dressed and in bed waiting for Daddy’s funny story. Don’t rush… I want to see the news about Kathy’s disappearance.” Clare kissed Andy’s cheek as she took the wine glass off the side, and sensed that he wasn’t as excited about this major news story as she was.

  * * *

  It had been half-an-hour. DI Keith Saunders was checking his phone to see if his boss, DCI Andy Miller had bothered to text him back. He was disappointed when he saw that he had not received any new messages. “Ignoring text messages isn’t going to make this go away Sir,” muttered Saunders under his breath, even though he knew exactly what Miller’s absent reply meant. It meant “not-now-for-fucks-sake-Keith.”

  Saunders was flicking between the TV news channels, trying to find out if any new angles or fresh reports had been received since the story had been brought to his attention a couple of hours earlier. There was nothing new being reported, just the same basic facts and timeline being repeated over and over. Basically, all the news stations were saying was that Kathy had been reported missing, and that her management company had released a statement confirming this to be the case.

  Saunders looked at the time, it was almost 8pm. The story had broken at around lunchtime and he had imagined that it would have climaxed by now, with an embarrassed, sheepish looking Kathy crawling out from whatever rock she’d been hiding under all weekend. But, as that hadn’t happened yet, the young DI’s head began churning with thoughts and ideas. How could one of Britain’s most famous, and most hated people simply disappear like this? And even though it had been on the news all day, no further information had come to light? Was it possible that she was responsible for this disappearance herself? Wondered Saunders. After all, it was well known that Kathy was prepared to do almost anything to hit the headlines. Kathy was a professional attention seeker, there wasn’t very much more to her act. There was an extremely good chance that she could have faked her own disappearance, that she might have engineered all of this to grab the national headlines on a slow news Sunday. She really did seem that needy and bonkers, considered the DI.

  Despite it being Sunday night, and Saunders’ day off, he was still concerned that this situation could very possibly dominate the department’s work-load the following morning. He began to take some notes, deciding that he wanted to be as sharp as possible in the morning, when this was inevitably going to be the first item on the SCIU’s agenda. If it wasn’t, and it was all done and finished with by then, well Saunders figured that there was no harm in learning his stuff. It was that, or obsess about another one of the department’s cases again. He relished the opportunity to think about something else for a change.

  “Forewarned is forearmed,” said Keith in a rather exaggerated attempt at his old Headmaster’s voice. He Googled the famous “presenter” as her website described her. Thinking about it, Saunders couldn’t really think of any other job that would describe what Kathy did for a living. She had one sole purpose, and that was to try and antagonise the British public. She wasn’t a “writer” because she didn’t really write anything. She wasn’t a “journalist” because her stories didn’t offer any balance. “Shit-stirrer” wasn’t a valid job title, so Saunders mused that “presenter” seemed to be the only box that her particular profession could loosely tick.

  “Flipping heck,” said Saunders, as he began to discover another, far-less reported side to Kathy Hopkirk. She’d done a lot of serious work before becoming a “presenter.” She’d held some really good jobs in her career. What age was she? Fifty-five. And she’d been a “presenter” for about ten years,
since she appeared on Big Brother. Before that she’d worked in media mainly, at one time she’d been a big boss at Radio One in London, looking after marketing and promotion. It was at the time when the radio station was at its most famous, as well. There was definitely more to this Kathy character than simply behaving like an irritating gob-shite on Twitter.

  Saunders was finding this fascinating. He stepped across his city-centre apartment and headed to the fridge. He opened himself an icy bottle of Peroni, shoved a slice of lime down the neck, and went straight back to the computer.

  “Balls to cooking. I’ll have to ring a pizza now because of you, Kathy.”

  Chapter 3

  In London, at Shepherds Bush police station, the C.I.D. evening shift was just clocking on to start a brand new week of overnight crime investigation in the UK’s capital city. Kathy’s disappearance had been logged with them, and as she was a Greater London resident, the Metropolitan Police’s Hammersmith and Fulham section were in charge of this “Mis-Per” case.

  DCI Martin Paxman was standing before his team of twenty seven detectives. He was smiling, and looking relaxed.

  “Okay welcome back from the weekend guys.” The comment was greeted with groans and chuckles from the staff who were all looking through the paperwork on their laps and trying to catch a snap-shot of what had occurred over the weekend, and ultimately – what they were likely to be working on tonight.

  “Well as you may have read, it’s been a busy weekend. We’ve had two murders, one life-changing attempted-murder, a death by dangerous driving and the usual numbers of stabbings, robberies and violent assaults. There is one tiny difference this week though, we’ve also got a high profile mis-per case, Kathy Hopkirk, the country’s most offensive and outspoken person.”

  There was a moment of rabble and gossip, and one or two sarcastic laughs among the detectives. They’d all heard the news, it had been hard to escape it all day. DCI Paxman continued to brief his team. “She’s not been seen since Thursday – but her last recorded movements were up in Manchester where she was working. So despite it being reported to us because she lives on Brackenbury Road, W6, and she generally works from home, I’m hoping that Manchester will pick up the lion share of this case, mainly because of the inevitable politics involved.”