Excerpt of Jove by Jack Davies

1

Jupiter could have been a star. Formed from the same material as the sun, we could be living in a binary star system, watching two suns rise and fall. But that was not to be; instead, as a young planet it migrated onwards towards the sun, causing the destruction of many super-Earths. Eventually, over a few hundred thousand years, it left the warmth of our sun and headed out again, leaving the rubble to form into the Earth and other inner planets. In old English, its name was Jove, and it was by happy coincidence that his stepdaughter was called Jove, because he was an absolute nut about the cosmos; but none of that mattered now she was dead.

Ron Eldon was looking through his telescope on the top floor of his house, peering at Jupiter, when he took the call. He had retired long ago from the Service, but then you never really retire. A body was at the morgue. Apologies and all that. Her case officer, Jacob, was too ill. Ron was next of kin. Looks like suicide, but we must be sure. And then her name, Jove, the shocking name, and the place where the body now rested, silent and waiting. Ron hung up and turned to look at the other side of the bed, just a small reflex, but his wife, Esther, was not there. She was gone five years now to cancer. There was a deep recognition within of the folly of his look, a betrayal of sorts, something he had promised himself not to do, not to fall into self-pity; but it was a deep longing for her comfort in a smile. He tried Jove’s phone. It was switched off. It wasn’t her, couldn’t be. He went downstairs, put the whiskey bottle away, took the rubbish out and moved the snake plant into sunlight.

Lucy woke and heard a scream. The river couldn’t scream. It could sigh and murmur, rage and torrent, but it couldn’t scream. It was after midnight. The sound came from the river. She went out to investigate because that’s what you do when someone screams. The ground was wet through as she stepped from her back door onto the narrow path and walked carefully down to the gate that bordered the River Avon. She could see Avonmouth Docks. Lights of the gas depots, a glow from scrap metal crushers, smelters pumping out thick white smoke that vanished in the dead night air.

PC Collins had picked up the call at Avonmouth Police Station. A pilot ship had found a body. The tide was ebbing and so they couldn’t come up river, so Collins went down to recover it. The younger police constables never wanted to put their hand up to collect dead bodies, so he did it, old hand that he was.

He met the pilot boat captain. They had found the body just near to where they were moored up, couldn’t miss it really. They waited for the Dead Box people, who came and carried her off the boat and into a box, and into the back of a hearse. PC Collins followed in his patrol car. He had to escort the body back to the morgue in Bristol for continuity.

And now Collins was being interviewed by Eldon at home, a semi-detached house in Southmead, a north suburb of Bristol, on his day off. Patterned armchair, Christmas lights blinking on an over-decorated tree. Collins was dressed in a shirt and blue jumper, grey trousers. He had thought of wearing a tie when he heard someone from the Home Office was coming, but decided against it; not worth showing too much deference, not to that lot, bunch of stuck-ups, he thought. Collins’ thick black eyebrows and jutting chin spoke of an Irish heritage, Eldon thought, though his accent was Bristolian, just it was more South Bristol, more Somerset than north of the river where he now lived.

Collins had followed the Dead Box people’s hearse to the coroner’s place at Flax Bourton, an old converted police station. Eldon noted down the address. The inquest was still to happen. It was likely be ruled suicide. That’s what Collins thought. Eldon sat on an overstuffed sofa, leaning forward, notebook in hand. He smiled at Collins, though you could only tell by the creases around his eyes.

‘Notice any signs of struggle?’ Eldon asked.

‘No, I mean, they get knocked around a bit coming down the channel, so, she was a bit bashed up.’

‘You think she jumped?’

‘Probably, we’ve had a lot.’ ‘Many recently?’

‘Last one was about six months ago.’

‘And they jump from the suspension bridge, that’s correct?’ Collins nodded.

‘Do they have CCTV up there?’ Eldon continued. ‘Not sure, think so.’

‘Isn’t that under your supervision?’

‘Technically, the river is, right up to St Anne’s Board Mills, past the city centre, but the River Police usually cover anything that happens in the floating harbour. But the bridge is in Clifton, above the Gorge. Our area is a mile either side of the docks and a mile beyond the end of the river territory, but for all practical purposes we don’t go much beyond Sea Mills, which is on the Portway.’

‘I know it.’

Collins nodded, ‘You know Bristol?’ ‘Yes, I taught at the University.’

‘Oh, what did you teach?’ ‘Criminal Investigation.’

‘So which department are you from, and why the interest from the higher ups?’

‘Did you search the body?’ Eldon asked, ignoring the question.

Collins shifted in his seat, understanding he had no power here, and that Eldon was mostly a closed book.

Eldon was surprised at himself for revealing a true fact, the lecturing at the Uni. That was strange for him, but then, he’d been out of the field for a couple of years. Why did they ask him to look into this? Where was Jennings? Oh, yes, they said he was very ill. So, best not think bad of him, poor sod.

‘Only her wallet, and a bracelet in her pocket. I saw her identity card. And her watch, which had stopped. That’s how I knew the time of death.’

‘Which was?’ ‘12 a.m.’

‘You said a bracelet?’

‘Yes, in a zip-up pocket, thick bracelet, brass maybe.’

Eldon folded his pocket book away, replaced it into his inside pocket, slotted his pen next to it.

‘Is there anything else, anything unusual about the body, anything different from other bodies that have jumped from Clifton Bridge and drifted down here?’

‘No. Except she was black. Not seen that before.’ ‘Why’s that?’

‘No idea, black people don’t kill themselves? Maybe they’ve got enough going on to not think about that sort of thing.’

‘I’m sure there are people of colour just as much in anguish as the rest of us.’

‘I’m sure.’

Collins flashed a smile and looked down at the thick cream carpet. He was remembering the face of the woman, and the faces of all those he’d dragged from the docks and driven with, back to the morgue, the faces of the relatives at the inquests, the sadness of the whole affair of people’s lives coming to an end at their own hands.

Excerpted from Jove by Jack Davies. Copyright © 2026 by Roundfire Books, an imprint of Collective Ink.