A fight to the death…

When DI Chris Sigurdsson is assigned a grisly murder case on remote Salvation Island, he knows that it might be his strangest yet.

A forgotten wrestling star of the 1980s has been poisoned whilst in the ring, and amidst the slippery lies of his dangerous opponents, unravelling the victim’s murky past is almost impossible.

And as a storm threatens to cut Salvation Island off from the mainland, the race is on for Sigurdsson to find the ruthless killer before he strikes again…

A gripping debut crime thriller novel from Jon Richter, perfect for fans of Peter James, Stuart McBride and Leigh Russell.

Deadly Burial

Jon Richter

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Excerpt I: Whatever Happened to Vic Valiant?

Sunday

Excerpt II: The End of the End

Monday

Excerpt III: Making a Monster

Tuesday

Excerpt IV: On Immortality

Wednesday

Excerpt V: The Gravy Train

Thursday

Excerpt VI: Vic Valiant, Unmasked

Friday

A Different Friday

Loose Ends

Excerpt VII: Peace

Endpages

Copyright

JON RICHTER

lives in London and spends most of his time in the guise of his sinister alter ego, pretending to be an accountant. When he isn’t doing this, he is a self-confessed nerd who loves books, films and video games – basically any way to tell a good story. Jon writes whenever he can and hopes to bring you more stories in the very near future. If you want to chat to him he can sometimes be found running around East London in an attempt to fend off his diet of ready meals and gin, or spouting nonsense on Twitter. You can follow him @RichterWrites.

This book could not have been completed without the help of all of the friends and family members that read and gave feedback on multiple drafts, including in particular Ashley, Liam, Haydn, Dave, Lucy, Ciara, my mum, my dad, and my siblings Faye, Natalie, Amy and Sam.

I would also like to thank Charlotte for her patience and insight as she helped a first-time author through the editing process, and Lisa for believing in such a weird story in the first place.

Finally, I would like to thank all of the professional wrestlers that have sacrificed their bodies to entertain us over the years, many of whom are now sadly missed.

This book is for my parents, Karen and Peter.

Thank you both for all of your endless encouragement and praise.

Excerpt I: Whatever Happened To Vic Valiant?

My name is Victor Schultz, and I’ve written this book because I’ve had an interesting life.

You know me as Vic Valiant, the former two-time SWA champion. Maybe I was your childhood hero. Maybe you know a little about my problems with alcohol and drug addiction. You might be a big fan of professional wrestling and think you know what goes on ‘behind the curtain’.

Well, I can tell you that there’s a whole lot you don’t know about our business – and there’s a hell of a lot you don’t know about me. A lot of it is dark and despicable, and by the end of this book you most likely won’t like me very much.

But I don’t care, because I suppose I’ve also written this book as a kind of confession. I’m going to tell it like it is, and like it was, and if that means I upset my fans, and my so-called friends, and anyone else in this crazy industry, then so be it.

I don’t precisely know why I’ve decided to write this now. It isn’t because I think it’s going to sell a million copies and make me a ton of money. A bunch of wrestlers much more famous than me are all getting in on this book-writing thing, and their books are probably much better, because they can afford to hire ghost writers and editors and all of that shit. I can’t, because I’m broke as fuck, so what you read here are just old Vic’s thoughts, just like my old promos used to work – words tumbling out.

Maybe it’s because I feel like I’m on the final downhill stretch. Yesterday was my forty-eighth birthday, and my body is starting to break down, and I’m not even sure I’ll be able to drop the big elbow for much longer. My kids haven’t spoken to me for years, the rest of my family for even longer. I’m living in England, of all places, touring with All Action Wrestling, and living with a woman who I won’t name because she’s one of the few people who’s been good to me and done me a favour with no strings attached, letting me stay with her and her kid for free while I try to get myself clean and straight.

We travel around shitty venues and wrestle in front of tiny drunk crowds, then I stand at the merch table grinning like a fucking goon at all these limey assholes who want to tell me about how great I am and how they’ve always been a huge fan and can they get a photo on their phone please, but evidently they’re not a big enough fan to actually cough up any money for a fucking T-shirt. I’m wrestling guys half my size, some of whom are young and talented but the majority of whom are just stupid kids or fat old wrecks – and even the talented ones are heading for the scrapyard way faster than me, because these days it’s all about triple somersaults and 450 splashes and taking chair shots direct to the skull. One of the young kids here is going to be a cripple before he’s twenty-five if the boss keeps putting him in hardcore street fights and cage matches.

The real irony is that most of time I’m jobbing out to help put people over, and I don’t even care any more. That’s a bit of wrestling terminology for you, in case you don’t know the sport. When we’re booked to lose a match it’s called ‘doing a job’. ‘Getting over’ is getting the fans to like you, or believe you’re a big deal, or if you’re a villain it’s getting them to boo the shit out of you every time you set foot in the place. The point is that for every guy getting billed as a legit championship contender, there’s another guy having to lie there and get pinned and pretend he just got his ass kicked. Anyway, the kicker is that I used to be booked to win, and that used to matter to me. A lot. If Lance wanted me to do a job to some kid, some Next Big Thing, he’d damn well better be good enough, otherwise I’d throw a tantrum and refuse to wrestle, or I’d agree but then I’d work stiff, and the kid would go home with a busted nose and broken ribs.

Now, I’ve realised that you get paid, either way. The results don’t matter for shit. The fans don’t care if you lose every week – it doesn’t hurt your character, or your mythos, or your reputation, because they don’t believe any of it’s real in the first place. Kayfabe is dead. There’s some more lingo for you: ‘kayfabe’ is what we call the alternate reality that professional wrestling presents. It’s the reason that bad guys and good guys (we call them heels and babyfaces) aren’t supposed to be seen in public together, doing shots in a bar when they were fighting to the death just three hours before. It’s the reason people went crazy when Hulk Hogan was the first man to bodyslam Andre the Giant. It’s the reason kids like me used to go to the Sportatorium and watch the greats flying off the top rope, seeming to move in slow motion through the air, and dream of being just like them.

These days the fans just want to find out what’s going on backstage so they can one-up their friends in the chatroom with their fucking insider knowledge. They want to ask you about your broken marriage when you’re trying to smile for a picture. They want to talk to you like you’re on their level, even though they’re a fat fucking teenager who’s probably never even seen a girl naked, except online.

So if you’re one of those overweight nerds, and you’re a little sore reading this, I don’t apologise. Go outside. Get a girlfriend. Join a fucking gym. But if you are one of those people then I know you’re dying to hear about the Milwaukee Meltdown, because that’s what you all ask me about most of the fucking time, those that have the balls.

So I’m going to get straight to it.

If you’re a pro wrestling fan then you already know about what happened. But I’ll explain it anyways, because it’s important, because it’s the reason I got fired, although it’s not the reason my life turned to shit, because my life had already turned to shit way, way before that.

The Milwaukee Meltdown was when I reached rock bottom. When everyone found out just how far Vic Valiant had fallen.

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