by steve higgs
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Patricia Fisher Mysteries:
The Missing Sapphire of Zangrabar
The Kidnapped Bride
The Director’s Cut
Blue Moon Investigations:
Paranormal Nonsense
The Phantom of Barker Mill
The Klowns of Kent
Dead Pirates of Cawsand
The Witches of East Malling
Whispers in the Rigging
Bloodlust Blonde – a short story
A Typo, a Werewolf, and Two Dopey Dachshunds – an Origin Story
Paws of the Yeti
The Harper Files
Spooky Shopping Mall
In the Doodoo With Voodoo with short story Guys and Dolls
Crop Circles, Cows and Crazy Aliens
Extract from The Kidnapped Bride
‘What was that all about?’ asked Barbie as we headed back to my suite.
I did my best to explain what Lady Mary and I had overheard. There being no need to embellish, I quoted verbatim some of their plans for Cari. She gasped in surprise a few times and joined in my disappointment that they had escaped.
‘We should tell Mr Rutherford about the notebook anyway,’ she said when I finished.
I nodded as I fished for my door card. ‘I agree. Thank you for parading like that, by the way. I had no idea it would turn out like that. I expected they would jump up and help you.’
‘Yeah,’ said Barbie. ‘They didn’t even really look at me.’
The light on the door control switched from red to green and I pushed it open. I was dripping wet and my feet were squelching in my shoes. I needed to get dry and find some dry clothes. Barbie had so little clothing, it was probably already dry but as I thought that, she fished her lycra sports gear from her bag.
‘Do you mind if I use one of your bedrooms to get changed?’ she asked.
‘Got any gin, sweetie? I’m terribly parched?’ asked Lady Mary.
‘Would you like some afternoon tea, madam?’ asked Jermaine, appearing silently in my living room from his attached cabin.
All three were facing me and waiting for answers. ‘Barbie, of course, please pick one. Lady Mary help yourself or ask Jermaine to make you something. Jermaine, yes please, something herbal would be delightful. And get me Mr Rutherford if you would, please. Tell him I have news for him.’
‘Very good, madam,’ he replied as Barbie vanished into a bedroom and Lady Mary laid herself across a chaise lounge.
While everyone got on with something, I went into my bedroom and closed the door. It had been a busy day already, so I leaned against the closed door for a second, gathering myself, before pushing off to round the corner from the little corridor that led into the part where my bed was located.
Then I screamed. Or, at least, I tried to. The sound was cut off before it left my mouth because a hand clamped over it to silence me.
‘No need for any of that, missy,’ said a voice by my ear.
The hand had come from behind me as I entered the bedroom proper, but what had made me scream was the two men sitting on my bed. They were both close to retirement age; somewhere around their mid-sixties and had thinning grey hair and fine lines around their mouths and faces. They were clearly brothers, but not twins, the resemblance was there but if asked to guess, I would say there was a couple of years between them.
The one on the left said, ‘That’s enough now, Maurice. You can let the lady go. Mrs Fisher isn’t going to cause any bother. Are you, Mrs Fisher?’
I stared at him dumbly as Maurice took his hand away from my mouth. I drew in a hard breath to yell for Jermaine, but the hand clamped back over my mouth again, stifling any noise I might want to make. I tried to bite at it but couldn’t get any purchase.
‘Mrs Fisher,’ the same man on the bed addressed me, ‘we intend you no harm. We just need to have a quiet chat with you.’
I nodded mutely. Unable to speak, and barely able to breathe with Maurice’s giant hand covering my mouth and most of my nose, I had to convey my answer with my eyes. They probably demonstrated the panic I was feeling.
The man on the bed smiled and nudged his brother. ‘You see, Roberto, I said she would be reasonable.’ He kept his gaze fixed firmly on me when he stopped smiling to say, ‘Now, Mrs Fisher, Maurice is going to remove his hand again. If you scream, I will have to silence you. I’m sure we would all rather avoid that, now, wouldn’t we?’ As he finished the sentence, he moved the bed covers to reveal a small handgun – the threat inferred but not spoken.
I nodded again and the hand slowly came away from my face. Sagging in place, my legs didn’t feel like they could support me, and I suddenly felt dizzy from the adrenalin. ‘I need to sit down,’ I said as I began to topple.
Maurice caught my right arm and kept me upright until Roberto, acting like a gentleman, brought the chair from my dressing table. The other man, the one that did the talking, fetched a glass of water from the nightstand.
‘What do you want?’ I asked once I had taken a drink and the lights had stopped dancing in front of my eyes.
No one answered, at least not straight away. Maurice went back to his position near the door and the two older men took up their positions back on the bed. Then, once they were comfortable, the man whose name I had yet to learn spoke, ‘All we want is the girl.’
I frowned at him. ‘What girl?’
‘There’s nothing to be gained from protecting her or Eduardo, Mrs Fisher. I know my former allies do not have her. Nowak doesn’t have the brain for it and Boris would have called me to laugh in my face if he had already succeeded in getting the prize. Plus, I know you are working for that pig Perez. So, my question is what did you do with her? She isn’t hiding in your suite, we already searched. So, did you stash her in a cabin somewhere?’
‘Do you mean, Cari?’ I asked, still confused.
The man looked across the room to where Maurice was standing. ‘Maurice, Mrs Fisher may need some additional motivation.’
‘No problem, boss,’ he replied, his voice a deep rumble that betrayed excitement at the prospect of motivating me.
I jumped from my chair to back away as he took a step toward me. ‘I’ll tell you everything,’ I blurted. ‘I just don’t know anything. I haven’t got the girl. I don’t even know who she is and I’m not working for Mr Perez; I’m involved only in the interest of the ship.’
The man was not inclined to believe me, and he looked bored when he nodded to Maurice, telling him to get on with whatever it was he had planned. I wanted to scream for Jermaine, but I worried they would just shoot him when he came through the door.
As I hopped backward to keep some distance between myself and the advancing Maurice, I picked up the chair, holding it in front of me like a lion tamer.
The man on the bed said, ‘Okay, Mrs Fisher,’ as he held up one hand to allay Maurice’s advance, ‘let’s say I believe you. You sound like an English dame, so tell me how you are mixed up with Eduardo the Cuban scumbag.’
Thankful that I now had a question I could answer, I said, ‘I was invited to investigate what might have happened to her. That’s all.’ All three men now had a curious look to their faces, so I explained. ‘There was an incident a couple of weeks ago with a missing sapphire. I was able to work out who had done what and solve the crime and now people act like I am some kind of super sl
euth.’
‘Hmm,’ said the man on the bed. ‘And you say that you refused to work for Eduardo?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Well, now you work for me. I want to know where that girl is,’ the man on the bed said.
I had to ask why; my natural curiosity demanded it. ‘Why?’
‘Because Eduardo has something that I want but he has too many men with him for an assault. At least according to the bodyguard we snatched earlier. The girl should provide some nice leverage.’
‘You have one of Eduardo’s bodyguards.’
‘Had,’ said Maurice.
‘You let him go? I asked, confused.
Maurice just smiled at me. His boss answered though. ‘You could say we let him go, yes. In a way: we let him go over the side. Something that could happen to anyone that doesn’t give me what I want, Mrs Fisher.’ He paused, then asked meaningfully, ‘Can you swim, Mrs Fisher?’
I swallowed hard. Then, there was a knock at the door and Jermaine called out, ‘Madam, Mr Rutherford is here to see you.’
Everyone froze for a second, then Maurice swatted the chair I was holding to one side, sending it across the room where it crashed into my nightstand.
‘Is everything alright, Madam?’ Jermaine opened my door so he could call to me. I couldn’t see him because the door was in an alcove, but the change in volume told me he had heard the crash and was coming to investigate.
‘Get out, Jermaine,’ I yelled, believing he would assume I was naked and retreat back into the living area, but the unnamed man on the bed was too impatient to find out if he would, so he picked up his gun and squeezed off a shot that went through the partition wall Jermaine was behind. A curl of smoke escaped from the hole and I could see light through it.
The noise of the shot in my bedroom was deafening, but I was able to hear Jermaine dive back through the doorway into the living area, letting me know he wasn’t dead yet. Maurice was dissatisfied with that though, so he levelled his gun and shot a dozen holes through the wall between my bedroom and the living area. I had my hands over my ears to shield them from the sound, but the others didn’t seem bothered by it.
‘I think it is time to go, Roberto,’ said the unnamed man as he stood up. ‘We want that girl, Mrs Fisher.’ Then he winked at me and said, ‘You work for me now, remember that. We’ll see you again real soon.’ He dropped a card on the bed which displayed a phone number only.
From my suite I could hear shouting as Jermaine did his best to get everyone to safety. I had heard Barbie scream when the shooting had started but nothing from Lady Mary. Mr Rutherford was barking orders into his radio, but backup wasn’t going to get here soon enough, the three men were leaving my bedroom and heading to where everyone else was.
In my living area Mr Rutherford bellowed, ‘Stop right there.’ It was followed by the sound of someone hitting someone else so, terrified of what I might find, I followed Roberto out of the bedroom.
