by steve higgs
Not only was I doubtful I was going home tonight, I was also now worried someone might target it.
I had Hilary call her with my phone, my right foot getting heavier on the accelerator now that I didn’t have a squad car tailing me.
She answered with, ‘Good evening, Tempest, are you home already, dear?’
I could picture her watching her evening soaps with my dogs snoring either side of her lap. Dozer was most likely upside down with his top lip hanging loose to reveal his scary fangs – he’s about as scary as an enraged cheese sandwich. Bull would be more alert, poised in case there was food or to repel an intruder if someone were to knock on the door.
‘Good evening,’ I replied. ‘I’m afraid I might not make it home at all tonight. Would it be inconvenient for you to keep the boys at your house until the morning?’
‘Not at all, dear. They just sleep on the couch when I go up to bed. Are you chasing a maniac?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘A maniac,’ Mrs Comerforth repeated. ‘It seems you are always trying to catch some maniac who is doing something evil and twisted.’
I could not recall ever discussing my work with my neighbour, but then my line of work is hardly a secret. I had to assume I was talked about in whatever circles she moved or maybe she just reads the paper.
To give her an answer, I said, ‘Yes, I guess you could say that.’
‘Well, take care then, dear. Try not to get hurt. I’ll bring them around in the morning if your car is on the driveway.’
That was the dogs taken care of then. With the call ended, I asked, ‘How much longer to our destination?’
Hilary picked up his own phone and poked it to bring it back to life.
‘Fourteen minutes.’
‘Can you call Amanda for me, please?’
Hilary switched phones again, set it to speaker and held the phone in the middle of the car. ‘Hey, babe,’ Amanda’s all too sexy voice filled my car’s interior. It wasn’t her intention to use a bedroom voice, only that my brain heard it that way. All the time. It is so distracting.
I glanced at Hilary to find his cheeks burning. Maybe it wasn’t just in my head then.
‘Are you at Karen’s yet?’ she asked.
‘Nearly. A few more minutes. I’ll confirm when I have her.’
‘Are you planning to bring her back to the office?’ Amanda sounded surprised by the concept.
‘Yes. I need her to look at pictures. Plus, if she is with us, I will know not to worry about her. She’s been in hiding for weeks which makes this the first time she has raised her head above the parapet since she fled her house. That has to make her nervous.’
‘I guess.’ Amanda sounded less sure. ‘What do we do with her if we all leave the office. If we get an address for the Sandman, she is not going to want to come with us.’
That was a fair point.
‘We give her to Big Ben?’ I suggested.
It got a laugh from my girlfriend at least. Big Ben would charm Karen’s knickers off in under a minute. However, if we were to raid the Sandman’s lair, he would be coming with us. Heck, I doubted I could leave him behind if I tried. Plus, he is like employing a siege weapon. I wouldn’t want to break into anywhere without him because that would be like owning a bazooka and opting to not take it to a battle.
Coming up with a better plan, I said, ‘We can have Patience pick her up, or leave her with Jagjit and Alice. It’s not an issue I need to deal with yet, so I guess I am happy to ignore it until I do.’
Amanda had no argument to offer and more pressing things to tell me. ‘We’ve been looking at neighbours for the ladies in Jane’s file. We went through relatives and jobs, co-workers etcetera. So far finding any kind of pattern or link is defying us. They all come from different areas, they all had different jobs … there’s nothing we can find that would tie them together or single them out.’
‘But unless his targets are completely random, he found a reason to target each of these women,’ I concluded the point she was making.
‘That’s right. Whoever he is, he came into their lives and chose to kill them. That they all look alike cannot be coincidence either and there has to be something in that.’
‘Except you cannot find anything that links them so far.’
‘No,’ she agreed, sounding frustrated. ‘Not so far. That’s why we are looking at neighbours. It goes back to what you said about someone having a key. It feels like a long shot though. Big Ben has a theory about the Sandman being a locksmith.’
‘Not exactly a theory,’ I heard Big Ben’s voice in the background. ‘More of a wild stab in the dark.’
I ran the idea through my head. ‘I guess that makes sense. A locksmith would be able to pick a lock or know how to get around one.’
Amanda said, ‘It’s on our board. It’s another reason we are looking at neighbours, but I worry that Big Ben could be right. If it’s a locksmith doing this, then he might have met the women on a callout to fix a lock and there will be no traceable record of that happening.’
I pursed my lips and wished I had something to kick.
Changing the subject, I asked, ‘Anything from Jan yet?’
Jane’s boyfriend would drop whatever he was doing and race to help us I had no doubt. Only if we got hold of him though.
Amanda’s voice came back with a side order of severely irked. ‘No, and it’s starting to bother me. I called the station again; he’s not on shift tonight. I’m thinking of going to his apartment to hammer on the door.’
‘I’ll go,’ offered Big Ben, his voice easy to make out as it came through Amanda’s phone. ‘There’s a key to his apartment on Jane’s bunch. I noticed it when I took them from her car.’
‘Did you hear that?’ Amanda asked.
A cop in our corner wouldn’t hurt at all. ‘Do it.’ It might be a wasted trip, or it might bolster our numbers and provide a new element with contacts inside the local police. Either way, it felt better to be doing something.
Amanda’s voice came back on the phone. ‘He just left with Basic. Jan’s probably just asleep with his phone off. I remember how tired I used to be after a run of shifts.’
The call had eaten up most of the remaining journey time and I was leaving the motorway. Wanting to be able to concentrate on the directions, I wished everyone back at the office better luck and got off the phone.
Harrietsham was not a place I knew, nor one I believed I had ever been to before. That it was unfamiliar mattered not in the era of satellite navigation as Hilary’s phone’s built-in system took us directly to the address Karen gave.
The street was lit much like the last one in New Ash Green, Christmas lights making the houses look inviting and warm. It wasn’t hard to imagine the palpable excitement bubbling away inside those houses with children inside. As I pulled to a stop, I got the notion that I might enjoy being a father. The idea snuck up and jumped out on me, catching me by surprise and I thought that it was perhaps the first time parenthood had ever occurred to me as an attractive possibility.
There being no time to dwell on such things, I checked my watch, patted my pockets to make sure I had all my things and swung the door open. Hilary bailed from his side, fighting to get his feet under his backside as the car delivered him almost level with the pavement.
The house to my front had a driveway with a single car parked on it. There were lights on in the back that shone through vaguely to the frosted glass in the front door but for the most part, it did not look like there was anyone home.
I was expecting there to be someone watching for my arrival, but looking for a tell-tale twitch of a curtain in any of the windows facing out to the street, I saw nothing.
‘It’s awfully quiet,’ observed Hilary.
Alert as I walked up the driveway toward the front door – which is to say I was looking for danger – I felt the person approaching before I saw them. Someone was moving stealthily, sneaking up on us from behind a clipped hedge at the prop
erty’s boundary.
I lifted my left hand to my face, a single finger in front of my lips as I silently begged Hilary stay quiet. His eyes went wide, and I saw him gulp with nervousness.
My shoulder bag came over my head to be set down on the ground as I slid soundlessly into the shadow thrown by the hedge.
When the person – a man, I could tell the moment his lead foot came into view – slunk around the edge of the twiggy shrub, I struck.
Good timing and the element of surprise gave me all the advantage I needed. The man, overweight by fifty pounds or more reeled backward and squealed in fright when I suddenly appeared in front of his face but by then it was too late.
I already had hold of his coat and was converting his backward motion into a throw. Yanking him off balance, I planted my feet and spun. He went over my legs, falling and twisting at the same time to land on the driveway with a hard thump.
The air rushed from his lungs in a whoosh, and I heard his head crack on the solid concrete surface. It was the perfect time to follow up with blows to soft body parts such as his throat, eyes, and groin, but I had no idea who he was and had already tackled one innocent person today.
I stepped to his side to make striking with his feet less easy and loomed over him, looking down with threatening malice on my lips.
‘Start talking,’ I insisted.
Hilary came at him from the other side, a snarl on his lips. ‘Yeah, punk! Start talking.’
I had to hitch an eyebrow at my partner but didn’t get to say anything to his odd display of machismo because a voice called out from the across the street.
It was accompanied by a squeal of horror. ‘Tempest! Don’t hurt him!’
I stepped back and away from the fallen man, taking myself out of strike range while also keeping him in sight. Doing so allowed me to swing my attention to the two women running across the road.
One was Karen Gilbert.
Putting two and two together fast, I said, ‘You’re not staying in this house at all are you?’
The woman with her had to be the man’s girlfriend or wife; she ran straight to his side to check his condition. Karen came to me.
‘Sorry,’ she apologised. ‘It felt safer to lie about the address and then be able to watch who turned up. Just in case, you know?’
I nodded and turned my attention to the man on the ground and offered him my hand to get up. ‘Are you okay, big fella? I hope I didn’t damage anything.’
He was doing his best in front of the ladies to pretend it didn’t hurt – I would have done the same. Thankfully, he took my hand and didn’t appear to hold a grudge.
‘That was quite the move you put on me,’ he said.
‘I caught you by surprise, that’s all. You probably would have snuck up on me, but I was already watching for someone to attack when I arrived.’ Okay, so I was being generous – this wasn’t a competition and I thought it likely the man had gamely volunteered to be the one to make first contact with me.
Karen did some quick introductions. ‘Tempest this is Marion and Buck. I went to university with them both. They have generously been letting me live here for the last week.’
I shook Buck’s hand and gestured with my eyes into the darkened street. ‘Which one of these is yours then?’
Their home was across the street in a diagonal line. From it, they had been able to see us arrive and send Buck to intercept. He was supposed to bring us back to their place. No one expected me to tackle him.
Safely inside their house, Karen wanted a full breakdown of what had been going on, what happened to Jane and why I thought I was going to be able to do what the police were not even trying to achieve.
‘I think that last bit might change,’ I let her know. ‘I think the police are going to get on board quite fast now.’ Seeing that she wanted more explanation than that, I said, ‘I threw the gauntlet down at one of the local senior officers. He and I do not get on very well and he wants nothing more than to stop me from successfully exposing a killer that he knows he ought to be pursuing. If I know the man at all, he’ll be forming a secret taskforce to identify the Sandman right now.’
‘That doesn’t help Jane though,’ she pointed out.
We were in Marion and Buck’s kitchen, leaning against the counters while Marion made coffee.
I decided not to hide the truth from Karen. ‘I am worried for Jane. She is resourceful but if we cannot find him and therefore her, she will have to fight him alone and he may have kept her unconscious.’
Karen’s eyes widened. ‘You think she’s already dead?’
I gave her a grim expression by way of reply. ‘I doubt he plans to keep her alive. If she is still alive, then she is in serious trouble. I need you to come back to the Blue Moon office. We are working on this problem to the detriment of all other cases, and I want you to help us identify who he is.’
Karen’s face was white with fear and horror at the thought of the Sandman killing Jane, but it flushed with colour now as she recoiled from my request.
‘What? No! No way! I’m not leaving this house!’
I had to raise my hands in a bid to calm her, but I was too late, and she was already starting to hyperventilate.
The Sandman. Dancing to my Tune. Friday, December 23rd 1922hrs
‘What do you mean you weren’t able to take them? You said there were only two of them.’ He was anxious to return to check on his captive but there was something far more important he needed to do first.
Finally, he was going to be able to save Karen. That she had been hiding from him was typical of all the girls he saved. None of them understood the gift he was giving them until it had been given, but that was what made him so special. It was how he had drawn a small army of followers to aide him in his quest.
They were foot soldiers, nothing more, but useful for what they could do. They all had dirty pasts, filled with crime and lustful thoughts. None of them were pure like him, but then the pure would be too good to waste and he liked how disposable his foot soldiers were.
What he did not like, was the incompetence.
‘There were only two of them, master, but they are not normal men. They fought back with the strength of a hundred and one used a wheelbarrow.’
‘A wheelbarrow?’ Had his ears deceived him?
‘Yes, master. They are not to be underestimated.’ The man making the excuses was Paul Sutcliffe. The same man who Big Ben chose to name Smiler. He was one of the master’s longest serving followers and proud to be considered loyal. The master had promised him a kill soon and he intended to remain worthy.
The Sandman did not underestimate the Blue Moon team. Not one bit. That they had been able to come as close as they had when the police had never so much as detected his existence spoke volumes. He’d met two of them and was impressed by both. Not so impressed that he cared to change his plans though. The woman, Jane Butterworth, was already his captive and soon the others would fall into the neat trap he’d set in motion.
The man waiting for instruction was just another acolyte, an employee he’d hand picked for his very specific set of skills. They were all alike, his followers, all looking for something to give their lives purpose and all without a rudder to help them steer through life.
He became that rudder for them. They were criminals, lowlifes with no skills or qualifications to give them hope for a better future. He gave them that too, seducing them with all that he promised before exposing them to the truth of what they needed to do to obtain it.
They did not all accept his gift, but those who did not were few and soon dealt with by those who already had. The secret of their society protected them all.
Now the Blue Moons threatened it.
Allowing his thoughts to return to the man on the phone, the Sandman commanded, ‘Go to the woods. Make preparations.’
Paul frowned in his lack of understanding. ‘They will come to us?’
‘I have foreseen it.’ He hadn’t foreseen anything, but his
planning allowed for someone to figure out who he was. Despite his care over the years, there was always the danger his mission would be misunderstood, and his work condemned. Expecting it allowed him to plan. Part of that plan made the foot soldiers necessary. Another part was the trap he was leading Tempest Michaels and his friends into. They would all die and what they might have discovered would vanish with them.
In awe of his master’s powers and wisdom, the acolyte said, ‘As you command, so I will obey.’
With the conversation complete, the Sandman put down the phone and drew in a slow breath. He knew Jane Butterworth was up to something in her cell, but he wasn’t there to determine what it might be. She was doing things that most others hadn’t and had blinded him to her activities somehow.
There was a need to return to her location. He doubted she could do what no other ever had, but why risk it. He would go soon.
He checked his camera feed again. It was the same blackness it had been since just after he left her in the building more than an hour ago. Since leaving, every time he checked on her, he could hear grunting and straining. Oddly, she sounded more like a man than a woman as she fought to get free of her bindings, for that was what he felt certain she was doing.
Confused, he checked the feed to his second victim, the one he took as a precaution, but that one was still unconscious, the camera feed showing the still form lying on the bed. He shrugged, accepting that he overestimated the dose of etorphine to administer. It wasn’t a problem; there was plenty of time before the ceremony for the drug to work itself out of his body.
Jane was fighting to get free. The thought brought a smile to his face. How far would she be able to get? Taking her was the right thing to do, of course, no one could argue that.
He expected the Blue Moon team would pick up on their colleague’s absence and that in turn would make them look hard at his case. Ultimately, there was a purpose to their inclusion, and it was an important one. It exposed a danger they might uncover his identity, and that was why he planned to kill them all. However, they would give him that which he could not get for himself.
