DS Cross Chronicles [A DS Cross Short Story]

DS George Cross's father, Raymond, always takes an annual holiday in a local care home. He enjoys the company it brings him. He busies himself repairing the residents' wheelchairs and has become their self-appointed tech guru. But this time it's different. A new arrival causes a stir – he's convinced one of the older residents, suffering with dementia, is the man who killed his father decades before. The staff say it has to be a mistake, but after Cross investigates, he discovers that a similar murder really did take place.

David North was convicted of murdering his fiancée. To the rest of the courtroom, it was an open-and-shut case. But as DS George Cross sees the man smile as he's led away from sentencing, he becomes certain something crucial had been missed. After all, two partners dead within six years of each other couldn't be a coincidence. What really happened to North's ex-wife? As Cross takes on this new cold case, he encounters an insurmountable obstacle: the body he's looking into has been cremated.

When DS George Cross is informed that his mother will be joining him and his father for Christmas, he is sent into a tailspin. Soon after, one cold winter morning, Cross goes to inspect a dead body found tangled in thick hedgerow on the outskirts of private farmland. It appears the young man was trying to scramble through the hedge when he died, that he was running away from someone. With frost on the ground obscuring evidence and secretive neighbours not giving anything away, finding the killer won't be easy.