Book Title: Falling
By: Stevie Turner

Death seems preferable to wasting what remains of his youth in prison.

James Hynde, fortified by several tots of whiskey, climbs up onto the roof of Parker Mews’ multi-story car park and peers over the parapet. The game is up. The police will soon seize his millions, the Maserati, the London townhouse, and the Caribbean mansion on Windjammer Island.

Should he jump feet first or hold out his arms and topple over and over like a somersaulting gymnast? He closes his eyes, feels the breeze on his face, and pitches forward into the unknown.

Sixty feet below, Olivia Benet, a budding ballerina, rushes along Parker Mews towards the entrance to the multi-story. Her interview for the Royal Ballet had taken much longer than expected, and she has but a few short minutes left before her parking ticket expires.

James has no idea of the consequences his action will have on his and Olivia’s lives.

Excerpt

Chapter One of ‘Falling’, by Stevie Turner – March 2010

It was a long way down, but he did not care. Even as the last breath left his body he knew the auditors would continue to delve and ferret out the truth he had managed to hide for so long.
James Hynde, fortified with several tots of whisky, climbed over the barrier and took a slow walk across the roof of Covent Garden’s multi-story car park towards the parapet. A top investment banker at the age of only 28, he had enjoyed many fruits of his nefarious labors; a house on Windjammer Island, a brand new Maserati, and zero mortgage left to pay on a four-bedroom central London townhouse. Now by the end of March, there would be no more money to pick from the tree; he knew the game was up. The police would soon obtain a court order to freeze all his assets, and the townhouse, the Maserati and the Caribbean mansion would no doubt be seized to pay his debts. Fiona would have a shock indeed. However, it had been good while it lasted.
He swayed slightly in the stiff breeze. The walk of shame past his erstwhile colleagues whilst carrying his possessions in a cardboard box and flanked by two police officers was still fresh in his mind. The clink of handcuffs, then being fingerprinted and detained in a cell caused another shiver to run through his body. James listened to the roar of the traffic below and imagined how his ex-wife Fiona might take the news of his suicide whilst still living it large with his ex-best friend Tony at Labrelotte Bay. Back in the day, his parents, and Tony’s for that matter, had all been convinced he was a kind of Armani-suited Second Coming.
Sixty feet below vehicles queued along Parker Mews to gain entrance to the car park, and unsuspecting shoppers rushed along with bags full of purchases. James closed his eyes and felt fresh air on his skin; air that very soon his lungs would have no more need of. He was out on bail but it was only a matter of time until the judge passed sentence. It was best to end it all in one fell swoop.
A wave of nausea overcame him as he let his mind dwell on the task ahead. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. He felt like he should utter an apology to his body for what he was about to put it through.
His heart beat a rapid tattoo. Was it best to jump feet first or hold out his arms and topple over and over like a somersaulting gymnast? Bright sunlight shone through his closed eyelids, and he was aware of a pulse that throbbed in the outer corner of his right eye.
Now or never.
He took a deep breath and imagined his parents’ grief when they read the following day’s headlines. His father, upright and law-abiding, would be horrified. His mother would take to her bed and weep for a week at least. Mental images seared through his brain; himself, happy at the seaside as a child, and with Tony in the common room at Harrow, and then the pair of them racing each other through the maze of corridors at Trinity College. He recalled rays of sunshine in his eyes when punting on the Cam with Fiona, and later on the way she had looked at him when they had made love for the first time and again when he had made his first million. She would regard him with a somewhat different expression when the gravy train of money started to dwindle.
Would he do it all over again? James knew there were no more chances. He had taken the wrong path out of sheer greed and there was no way he could ever redeem himself. All his peers had come from moneyed backgrounds, and he had always felt the poor boy at school, having gone through Harrow on a scholarship. Tony had been the only other scholarship pupil in his year, and they had clicked straight away. James remembered how his parents had been ‘comfortable,’ but no way were they millionaires. Perhaps if he had not attended Harrow he would not have been so intent on becoming super rich. Who knows? Anyway, it was too late now.
Regrets? As the song went, yes, he’d had a few. He had gambled on not losing a job that many young apprentices could only dream about. He had lost Fiona’s love and respect, along with Tony’s friendship and his parents’ admiration, together with substantial amounts of money.
He spread his arms wide, and then with a yell of bravado pitched forwards to let the wind rush past and take him where it would.

Meet Stevie Turner

Stevie Turner is a British author of Romantic Suspense, Humour, Paranormal stories, and Women’s Fiction (family dramas). She is a cancer survivor, and still lives in the same picturesque Suffolk village that she and husband Sam moved to in 1991 with their two boys. Those two boys have now grown, and she and Sam have 5 lovely grandchildren. One of her short stories, ‘Lifting the Black Dog’, was published in ‘1000 Words or Less Flash Fiction Collection’ (2016). Her screenplay ‘For the Sake of a Child’ won a silver award in the Spring 2017 Depth of Field International Film Festival, and her novel ‘A House Without Windows’ gained interest in 2017 from De Coder Media, an independent film production company based in New York. ‘Finding David’ reached the quarter-finals of the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Competition. Her LGBT novel ‘His Ladyship’ reached the longlist of The Page Turner Award for 2021, and her latest novel ‘Falling’ reached the finals of the 2022 Page Turner Award.

Connect with Stevie

Website: http://www.stevie-turner-author.co.uk/
Blog: https://steviet3.wordpress.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevieTurner6
Amazon Profile: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Stevie-Turner/author/B00AV7YOTU
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/stevie-turner
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7172051.Stevie_Turner