by steve higgs
Lord Hale’s Monster
Blue Moon Investigations
Book 13
Steve Higgs
Text Copyright © 2019 Steven J Higgs
Publisher: Steve Higgs
The right of Steve Higgs to be identified as author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved.
The book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
‘Lord Hale’s Monster’ is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all the fans of the Blue Moon series who harassed me mercilessly until I wrote this instalment. It was so much fun to craft the latest adventure, please pester me again.
Sorry it took so long.
Hi there,
Firstly, thank you for purchasing this book. I hope that you enjoy reading it anywhere near as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you do, then I have a growing library of other books to make you laugh and keep you turning pages when you really ought to be going to sleep.
There is a FREE book on offer which you may have already found. Under a Blue Moon is the origin story to the Blue Moon Investigation Agency universe. You can buy it if you want but I will send you it for FREE. You just need to tell me where to send it. If you do that, you will also get access to another FREE story – Zombie Granny, which isn’t available for sale anywhere.
It’s a fun story and it sits neatly between book 3 – Amanda Harper Paranormal Detective and book 4 – The Klowns of Kent. If you want it, you need only ask. Please click the link below and tell me where to send it. Here’s the link:
Yes, please! Send me my FREE story!
Click the links to find the books in your local Amazon store.
Blue Moon Investigations
Paranormal Nonsense
The Phantom of Barker Mill
Amanda Harper Paranormal Detective
The Klowns of Kent
Dead Pirates of Cawsand
In the Doodoo With Voodoo
The Witches of East Malling
Crop Circles, Cows and Crazy Aliens
Whispers in the Rigging
Bloodlust Blonde – a short story
Paws of the Yeti
Under a Blue Moon – A Paranormal Detective Origin Story
Night Work
Lord Hale’s Monster
Table of Contents
Hale Manor. Saturday December 5th 1704hrs
Lord Hale. Saturday, December 5th 1724hrs
Guest List. Saturday, December 5th 1947hrs
Ham Hock Terrine. Saturday, December 10th 2008hrs
Mirror. Saturday, December 5th 2058hrs
Reflection. Saturday, December 5th 2121hrs
The Body in the Library. Saturday, December 5th 2152hrs
Big Problem. Saturday, December 5th 2301hrs
Escape. Saturday, December 5th 2312hrs
Frank. Saturday, December 5th 2345hrs
Where is Lord Hale? Sunday, December 6th 0004hrs
Knights. Sunday, December 6th 0016hrs
To Trap a Demon. Sunday December 6th 0056hrs
Criminal Behaviour. Sunday, December 6th 0114hrs
Closing the Circle. Sunday, December 6th 0131hrs
Demon Trap. Sunday, December 6th 0148hrs
The Guest in the Elevator. Sunday, December 6th 0237hrs
Concussion, Injuries, and a Prisoner. Sunday, December 6th 0249hrs
Control Room Raid. Sunday, December 6th 0313hrs
Busted. Sunday, December 6th 0346hrs
A Crazy Plan. Sunday, December 6th 0409hrs
Quinn. Sunday, December 6th 0454hrs
Escape Room. Sunday, December 6th 0512hrs
Final Stand. Sunday, December 6th 0547hrs
Pesky kids. Sunday, December 6th 0622hrs
Miscount. Sunday, December 6th 0908hrs
Hale Manor. Saturday, December 10th 1704hrs
‘This place sure is spooky.’ Tempest was sitting in the passenger seat of my Mini and was staring out the windscreen to the enormous manor house to our front. Rain lashed down against the car, another early winter storm and it was the type of day when you would be glad to just stay indoors.
We didn’t have that option though. We had committed to attend a birthday party event at a manor house a few miles from where we lived and worked in Rochester. The rather eccentric Lord Hale was turning eighty and believed he would be visited by an ancestral curse this very night. The story, which was a great one to tell around the campfire, was that every second generation of Hale died on his eightieth birthday when an unspeakable monster visited the house. The generations that avoided the horror of this fate, died at a ripe old age as had been the case with the current Lord Hale’s father.
Tonight, with a few friends, Tempest’s parents and a sense of adventure, we were having dinner at a party in Lord Hale’s honour and seeing if we could usher him through the weekend still alive. That was the challenge it seemed, and he offered the firm a substantial sum just for turning up. Whether we still got paid if Lord Hale perished was yet to be discussed.
Lightning sheeted across the sky, blinding me for a second with its brilliance. ‘We are going to get wet,’ I observed. The manor house was hundreds of years old and parking was going to be outside, not in a convenient underground garage that a modern building might have. The dash from the car to the great house was going to be through deep puddles and even if we could run through it quickly, we were going to have to come back for Tempest’s parents to help them with their bags.
It was a formal dinner tonight in ball gowns and dinner jackets. That made it extra fun because Tempest looked great in a suit and I was certain he would look even better in a black bow tie. My name’s Amanda Harper, by the way. I used to be a cop, but I met Tempest a while back and took a job working for him as a paranormal detective. Somehow we got close, I guess that’s one of those things that happens in a close working environment and mutual respect led to mutual attraction and suddenly we seem to be a couple.
Not that I am picking out what flowers I want in my bridal bouquet or anything, it’s just some casual fun, but I like him, and it would be nice for things to work out for once.
I wasn’t entirely sure about having his parents along with us for the weekend though. I liked his dad; he was funny and lot like Tempest in a slightly cheekier way. However, his mother is an acquired taste. She always seemed to say exactly whatever was in her head and looked at me as if Tempest’s only interest in me should be my ovaries.
Another flash of lightning lit the manor house. Tempest was right; it was spooky. It looked like the house from an episode of Scooby-Doo. All it needed was some bats flying around the turrets. Even the trees around the castle looked nasty. Devoid of leaves now that autumn had denuded them, their twisted bl
ack branches looked like evil fingers clawing at the sky.
Looking up at the tower now, I noticed something and pointed. ‘Hey, Tempest. The light is on in that tower.’
He craned his neck to see. ‘It certainly is.’
‘Huh.’ There wasn’t much else to say about it. It looked odd, a single lit window way up at the top of the tallest tower, but maybe it had been turned on for something weeks ago and they forgot to turn it off and hadn’t noticed. Or maybe they put it on for effect with the dinner tonight and the storm. Just as I took my eyes back to the road, something passed in front of the window. I glanced at the road, to check I was still on course and not drifting and looked back up. ‘I saw something.’
Tempest craned his neck again. ‘In the tower?’
‘Yeah, I think someone’s up there.’ We both continued to stare for a few seconds but whatever I thought I saw didn’t come back. ‘Maybe I imagined it.’
Tempest shrugged and settled back into his seat.
‘Hey, girl,’ said Patience from the back seat. ‘I don’t like the look of this place. I think we should turn around and go home.’
I glanced at her in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were bugging out as she scooched down to look out the front of the car. ‘I thought you were looking forward to seeing Big Ben.’
‘I was. I am. Maybe he and I should go somewhere else though. You two crazy people can stay here at the death castle and I’ll take Big Ben to the Travelodge.’
‘Big Ben doesn’t know you’re coming remember. It’s going to be a big fancy dinner plus drinks and entertainment.’ I turned to look at Tempest. ‘Is there entertainment?’
He pursed his lips and frowned. ‘The invitation didn’t say. It said we would be fed and have full use of all the facilities at the manor house. It went on to name some of the things we could do but I doubt anyone is going to bother with the tennis courts this weekend.’
‘I’m sure there will be some entertainment,’ I assured my nervous friend on the backseat. The single road leading to Hale House took us far off the beaten path and out onto the Hoo Peninsula where the backdrop to the house was nothing but open sky. Half a mile behind the house the countryside ended and fell into the sea. There was nothing out here for miles around.
‘Hey, girl!’ Patience was sounding worried again. This time she was staring at her phone. ‘I just lost all signal to my phone.’ She was swinging the phone from one side of my car to the other and holding it up to the sunroof in a bid to get the signal back. ‘Oh, my goodness. I have no phone signal!’
Next to me, Tempest slid his phone out of a pocket and checked it. ‘No signal,’ he concluded. ‘I guess we are too far out from populated areas.’
‘You mean we’re in a dead zone,’ gibbered Patience on the back seat.
I frowned at her. ‘You’re being dramatic. We can manage without our phone signal for a few hours. Besides, I bet they have a signal at the house. It will be hardwired in so once we are there your phone will work just fine.’
‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ said Tempest as he put his phone away. He was right; we were nearly there now. The only manmade thing in sight in any direction was the manor house. There were no cows or sheep in fields, no pylons running across the countryside; we were truly miles from anywhere but somehow still less than sixty minutes from the office.
The manor house’s dominant position and the view it had over the countryside meant that no one could easily sneak up on it. We were expected of course, but as we reached the end of the long drive and swung the cars around in front of the house, one of a pair of very large oak doors opened and a man came out with an umbrella above his head. He had several more umbrellas hooked over his right arm.
I noticed that Tempest was squinting out of the windows. ‘Do you see that all the windows have shutters on them?’
I looked. ‘Yes. What of it?’
He pursed his lips and he frowned. ‘Nothing. They just look out of place on an ancient house and they look so solid, like they might be designed to keep things in not out.’
One thing to note about Tempest was that he could be a little paranoid. Admittedly, it saved his life every now and then, but I doubted our host had anything sinister planned for us. ‘Is that Frank’s car?’ I asked, pointing to a dirty brown Rover 400.
Tempest nodded. ‘It sure is. I wonder if he came with his date or is meeting him here?’ I rolled my eyes at Tempest’s question. Frank didn’t have a date. He was attending with another man though, a man that specialised in the paranormal and one who was known to us both: Dr Lyndon Parrish.
A couple of months back Dr Parrish set up a rival firm and began poaching customers from Blue Moon. It didn’t last long, and Dr Parrish reconsidered his business plan after he ended up in hospital and we ended up with his abandoned and rather plush office. It worked out well for us in the end.
‘Do you know who else is attending?’ I asked as I pulled on the parking brake.
Tempest shook his head. ‘The guest list is secret. I only know about Dr Parrish through Frank and I only know Frank is coming because I asked if he wanted to come with us and he had to admit he already had an invite. All the crazy people are coming to town.’
‘Mm-hmm,’ said Patience, ‘and we seem to be leading the march.’
The rain continued to beat down as we gathered our belongings. Mercifully, my ballgown was inside a plastic cover, as was Tempest’s dinner jacket. Patience hadn’t been so forward thinking though so her taffeta number with sequins was going to get wet and be ruined if we couldn’t cover it. In the end we decided to come back for it with my plastic cover once my dress was safely inside.
A knock on my window made me jump. It was the man with the umbrellas. I powered the window down just a touch so I could hear him speak as he was bending down to the window. The man looked to be ninety years old and frail as a dry twig. He was dressed in tails and black bow tie: the quintessential butler. He might have been with the house since it was built.
Rain bounced off the edge of the window to splash my face. ‘I have umbrellas to protect you from the rain,’ the man said. His voice came out like he was chewing gravel.
‘Wow!’ said Patience. ‘That’s a zombie. Amanda, this house is the spookiest place on earth, the butler is a zombie and we are all going to die. You need to get this car back in gear and get the heck out of here.’
Ignoring her, I glanced at Tempest. ‘Ready?’
He grabbed his door handle. ‘Not much point waiting.’ We bailed out simultaneously, my overly dramatic friend on the backseat still swearing that we would die if we went inside as I ducked under the partial protection of the butler’s umbrella. Tempest ran around the car to join me and we both took umbrellas from the man’s offered arm.
Tempest’s mum was in the car next to us and staring out the window. We motioned that we would come back and ran with our umbrellas, bags, and suit carriers to the wide-open doors at the front of the house. Then we ran back to get Patience, though I had to more or less force her from the car and then we went back for his parents.
‘It’s a bit wet,’ said his dad as we sploshed through the puddles to the house. We were in though and not that damp really. Behind us, the large oak door swung shut with a terrible creaking groan. The butler pushing it with both hands to make it move. Just inside were two more men, one younger than the butler by about sixty years which made him about Tempest’s age. He was also about Tempest’s size which stood him in stark contrast to the other man who was closer to Big Ben’s height but bulky rather than lean and muscular. He was in his late forties and might have had grey hair showing though if his natural hair colour wasn’t white blonde. His eyebrows matched. The more attractive man’s hair was dark brown, and both wore it very close-cropped. They were collecting bags and loading them onto a trolley. They wore a similar uniform to the butler.
As Patience came in, she caught sight of the younger man bending over to pick up a heavy bag and murmured, ‘Hubba, hubba. Mmm
hmmm. If Big Ben doesn’t show, I get first dibs on him, okay?’
‘If you would like to follow me, please,’ croaked the butler to save me from having to respond to Patience. ‘I am Travis, Lord Hale’s butler,’ he announced. ‘I started here as third footman in nineteen thirty-nine and have been the head of the staff for forty-seven years.’
I exchanged a glance with Tempest. The man had been working here for eighty years. Assuming his age wasn’t in single figures when he started, he had to be getting close to a hundred years old now.
‘How many staff are there now?’ asked Tempest taking an interest.
‘Just five, sir. Mrs Holloway the cook, Miss Polonowski the cleaner, young Matthew and Alexander, the footmen,’ he indicated the men pushing the trolley of bags, ‘and myself.’
Patience flared her eyes. ‘There’s got to be a hundred rooms in this house. How do they manage?’ she asked the question on a hushed breath but if the butler heard it, he didn’t bother to answer.
Tempest stopped though and was rummaging in his bag. ‘Travis, my dear fellow, the invitation states that there is a spa and gymnasium and a butler in every suite.’
‘Oh, no, sir,’ the old man seemed tickled at the suggestion. ‘I think someone was having a little joke with you.’ If that was the case, then I didn’t see what was funny about it.
From the large entrance lobby, we followed Travis along a wide passageway. It had bare floorboards, polished to a high shine and covered here and there with expensive-looking rugs. Rooms appeared in pairs on either side, one left one right, with large doors that were closed to mask what might be inside. The passageway opened out ahead of us. As it did, we came into a grand hub with four spokes going off it and twin staircases sweeping left and right to the next floor.
At the top of the stairs was a man in an elegant suit.
Lord Hale. Saturday, December 10th 1724hrs
The old man spread his arms wide in welcome and cracked a broad smile. ‘This must be the Tempest Michaels’ party. Welcome all of you to my humble home.’ He began descending the stairs. ‘Thank you for arriving in good time.’
