The Sandman

by steve higgs

  His foot soldiers were deployed to slow them down, the less important pieces anyway. That giant brute was supposed to end up in hospital and for his injuries to look like a random altercation. There were teams deployed to several obvious locations, Jane Butterworth’s house being just one of them. Had it been Tempest who arrived there, they would have left him alone. However, it hadn’t been and his instructions on the matter were simple. That they failed to remove the big one from the board was unacceptable.

  However, the same acolyte leading the charge there, had earlier succeeded in placing the tracking device on Tempest Michaels. The Sandman switched to a different app, checking the Blue Moon’s lead investigator’s location.

  A smile crept across his face because he was right about the biggest reason to take Jane Butterworth. She was an outlier – someone he would not normally have taken an interest in. Only when she denied him Karen Gilbert did he choose to save her.

  It wasn’t really about saving Jane though; he took her to set in motion a series of events that would lead him back to Karen Gilbert.

  Looking down at the map in his hand and the dot blinking away at its centre, he knew he had to postpone returning to check on his current captives. There could be only one reason why Tempest had gone out tonight – he was visiting Karen Gilbert.

  Her disappearance had been most bothersome, yet in many ways, being made to wait made saving her more satisfying. His acolytes had already tracked Tempest to one address only to discover Karen wasn’t there. They were trailing him still, so perhaps Harrietsham, where the paranormal P.I. was currently shown to be, would reveal Karen’s secret location.

  He would know soon enough.

  Big Ben. More Bad News. Friday, December 23rd 1933hrs

  Jan Van Doorn’s apartment is in a block of flats near Tovil. More accurately, it was near the dodgy end of Tovil just outside the city centre. One only had to travel about another mile to find wide open countryside and beautiful detached houses with swimming pools and expensive cars parked on the drive. On a drive in Tovil, one was more likely to find an old refrigerator with a couple of drunk fourteen-year-old kids sitting on it.

  My car with its broken window was going to fit right in.

  Sticking my head out of the hole where the glass should be, I scanned the ugly, square block of flats for a name to confirm I had the right building and stopped the car.

  ‘Dis it?’ asked Basic, happily playing a Gameboy in the passenger seat.

  I squinted into the dark, looking for movement or signs that there might be anyone here waiting for us.

  When I was content we were not going to find a fresh ambush awaiting us, I said, ‘Yes,’ and got out of the car.

  Basic followed suit, pocketing his electronic toy and pushing his sleeves up to his elbows. I guess he had the sense that there might be more trouble too.

  The building sat dark and quiet. On the Friday before Christmas there ought to be more noise and more people. There were lights in a lot of the windows, not just of the flats but also of the houses around us. There were very few decorations outside though, most likely because they would be stolen in seconds. Or already had been.

  The main door was fitted with an electronic lock to keep unwanted people out. Surprisingly, it worked. They are easy enough to defeat, especially if you have someone like Basic around, but there was an easier way to get in than breaking the lock.

  I jabbed a bunch of the buzzers, alerting the residents in about twenty different random apartments.

  Several answered at once, to which I replied, ‘Pizza,’ and heard the pop and buzz as the door was opened.

  Thereafter, it was a simple case of climbing the stairs to find Jan’s apartment. His door was locked, and no one came to answer it when we thumped as hard as we dared. I didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to our presence so shouting through the door to wake Jan up – if he were in there asleep – was not a good option.

  Instead, I used the key I found on Jane’s bunch of keys. It was helpfully labelled, Jan’s place.

  A neighbour’s door opened across the landing and a woman popped her head out. We had made enough noise to make her curious. Seeing me put a key in Jan’s lock, her face took on a worried expression. I think it was largely caused by Basic’s rolled up sleeves. He looked like a crap hitman escaped from a nineties film. He also looked like a bear and a caveman had a child and someone had then put clothes on it, so I wasn’t surprised by her reaction.

  With a turn of the key, the door opened, and I swung it wide with a gesture that Basic should go inside. Then I hit the lady with a smile and started walking her way. She was maybe twenty-five or twenty-six, had freckles that went with her strawberry blonde hair and she was dressed for a night out.

  It was mid-evening, so she probably had a friend or friends over for a few drinks to get them going before they grabbed a taxi into the city centre to hit a nightclub or two.

  This was going to be easy.

  Widening my smile, I said, ‘Hey, babe. I’m Big Ben, but I guess you already worked that part out for yourself.’ She lifted an eyebrow. ‘Did you have plans over Christmas that included screaming my name multiple times? Because you do now.’

  A second lady appeared next to the first, confirming my theory about having friends over for drinks first. She was mixed race, African and Chinese perhaps. Whatever her racial origins, she was a knockout. I hit her with the same smile.

  ‘That goes for you too, kitten.’

  She curled her lip at me, ‘Oh, wow, what a creep you are.’

  This happens occasionally, and I mean occasionally. So rare that I forget it even can happen, but I was being knocked back.

  Caught off guard, I mumbled, ‘Excuse me?’

  The mixed-race lady hooked her friend’s arm, guiding her back inside the flat with a sneer thrown in my direction. As the door slammed shut on my face, I heard her say, ‘Old men are such pigs.’

  ‘Old men?’ I repeated, still staring at the closed door. Okay, I’m not in my twenties anymore. I’m not even in my early thirties but why would that matter when I look this good?

  They were clearly lesbians. At least that’s what I told myself as I wandered thoughtfully back to Jan’s front door. It was that or I was losing my touch. First the girls outside gran’s house in Aylesford and now this. It was unprecedented, but it wasn’t the start of a trend and nothing you can say would convince me otherwise.

  Still, the word old was going to stick in my head for a while.

  I found Basic standing in the middle of Jan’s living space.

  ‘Did you do this?’ I asked.

  Basic looked at me, his eyebrows doing a little dance as he tried to figure out what I was asking.

  ‘The destruction?’ I waved my right arm to indicate the desolation of Jan’s apartment.

  ‘Wasn’t me,’ Basic rumbled.

  I walked through to the bedroom and checked in the bathroom and tiny broom closet by the door. I wanted to be certain Jan’s body wasn’t stuffed somewhere before I spoke to anyone. His apartment had been turned upside down, but not like it had been burgled. It looked like there had been a struggle. It didn’t extend beyond the central living space, but that area was trashed.

  A wireless speaker had been knocked off a shelf and was broken on the floor. Two potted plants had followed it. The TV was askew and framed photographs had been knocked from one wall. No attempt had been made to tidy up, the perpetrators choosing to leave as quickly as possible.

  With a frustrated sigh that rippled my lips, I took out my phone to make a call.

  Amanda. Toby Carter. Friday, December 23rd 1940hrs

  ‘Here’s something.’

  Jagjit’s announcement brought my head up from the screen and the boring-as-wallpaper report I was reading. The search for information had got us nothing but sore eyes and stiff necks so far. I was on my fifth or sixth cup of coffee and I knew none of us were going to stop until we found Jane.

  That Jane might alrea
dy be dead was something none of us were prepared to voice. Tempest was with Karen Gilbert; he’d sent a text to confirm he’d found her, and we were pulling together pictures of men who we believed met the right demographic.

  Unfortunately, all we had to base that demographic on was a description Karen Gilbert gave Jane three weeks ago.

  ‘What is it, Jagipoos?’ asked Alice, the man’s wife employing what had to be one of the world’s worst pet names ever.

  He was working in Tempest’s office, trawling through … something. I’d lost track of what each of us was working on. I left my office to join him.

  ‘I’ve been looking at neighbours,’ he announced.

  ‘We all have,’ Alice reminded him.

  He looked at her and blinked twice. ‘Their properties specifically, I mean. Would you believe there is a chap who was a neighbour to River Tam who was also living right next door to Naomi Parker fifteen years ago when she went missing?’

  This was big news! I’d been lounging in the door waiting to hear what he might have to say. Now I was bumping hips with him because I needed to see what he had found.

  Alice hit him from the other side, the pair of us ladies making a sandwich filling of Tempest’s Indian friend.

  See this guy,’ he pointed to a name: Toby Carter. ‘I mean, it could be coincidence - I don’t have a photograph for comparison, but the names are the same. Is this the sort of thing you were looking for?’

  The question was aimed at me and though it was too early to get excited, I could already feel my pulse beginning to race.

  ‘This is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to find.’ I was staring at the name, feeling it etch itself indelibly into my brain. ‘We need to focus on him now, find out if he pops up again anywhere else. Can I leave you doing that, Jagjit?’

  ‘Sure, I’ll stay on it,’ he promised me, sounding equally excited though he was probably picking up on the emotion coming from me.

  Alice asked, ‘What do you need me to do?’

  I started toward the door. ‘You and I are going to trawl the internet for Toby Carters, and we are going to find this guy.’

  Hurrying after me, Alice questioned, ‘Won’t there be hundreds of them? That doesn’t sound like a rare name.’

  I agreed. ‘Probably, but we know his rough age and we know he is local. Unless we are unlucky, we will eliminate all but one or two in just a few minutes. You tackle social media, I’ll go on LinkedIn. He has to show up somewhere.’

  Alice jogged back to the reception desk to work on the computer there and I placed a call to Simon and Steven in the crime lab.

  Simon answered. ‘Ah, Amanda. I was just about to call you.’

  ‘You have identified the fingerprint?’ I was literally holding my breath.

  Simon cleared his throat. ‘I have, yes.’

  I waited a beat, expecting him to say a name or tell me he was just emailing over a file. When I got nothing, I blurted, ‘Well, who is it, Simon?’

  I could hear Steven chuckling in the background when Simon said, ‘My colleague advises me to hold the name to ransom until doughnut payment is made.’

  I closed my eyes and tried to stay calm. ‘Simon, I cannot express how urgently I need that information. I’ll pay you double. I’ll pay you triple. Heck, I’ll buy out the doughnut store if I need to, but I have to have that name and I need it now!’ By the time I finished ranting, my calm had dissolved, and my voice was close to a shout.

  Simon said, ‘Whoa! Okay, Amanda.’

  I needed them far more than they needed me, and I was leveraging their good nature to get them to do things that might get them in trouble.

  ‘I’m sorry, Simon. I just really need that name and whatever else you have on the person. One of my friends has been kidnapped and I think the fingerprint comes from the person responsible.’

  Desperately hoping he would say, ‘Toby Carter,’ it felt like a punch to the gut when he said, ‘Ramsey Mitchell. Aged sixty-three. He was booked for shoplifting in 1974. Nothing since. I’ll send you over the file. Usual email address, yes?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ I sagged, wishing I hadn’t shouted at him. ‘I’m sorry I shouted.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I should have known you would need it urgently. You wouldn’t trouble us otherwise. I’m sending it over now,’ he assured me.

  ‘I’ll bring the doughnuts by as soon as I can.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ he laughed. ‘My wife says I am getting fat. I don’t dare tell her I have a young, blonde woman buying me sweet treats. You can have this one for free. There’s already enough sugar in my house to sink a ship. Have a good Christmas.’

  I heard Steven in the background echoing his work partner’s sentiments, thanked them profusely, and got off the phone. Rushing to my desk, I found the email waiting for me.

  Before I could read it, Jagjit called out, ‘I found another one.’

  Tempest. Defeated. Friday, December 23rd 1942hrs

  The call from Big Ben interrupted me before I could get to the point where I started begging Karen to see sense. She was terrified to do anything other than hide in her friends’ house. That didn’t work for me, but I didn’t feel that physically dragging her with me was a move I could allow myself to make.

  She was looking at me with accusing eyes as if I were the one threatening her life, and Marion had called Buck to come back to the kitchen. I was terrorising their guest and they were going to ask me to leave.

  Hilary was keeping quiet, wishing he’d stayed at the office probably.

  Trying to figure out something I could say that might make her change her mind, or to come up with a way to make this work without her leaving the house, I lifted my phone to my ear.

  Buck was getting hastily whispered instructions from Marion, but I turned away and put Hilary between us so he couldn’t so easily speak to me.

  To Big Ben I said, ‘What have you got?’

  Bluntly he replied, ‘Jan Van Doorn has been kidnapped.’ He fell silent, expecting me to say something no doubt but my mind was swirling like a hurricane just blew through it. ‘Are you there?’ he questioned.

  ‘Yup,’ I muttered. ‘How sure are you?’

  ‘It’s a guess,’ he admitted. ‘His place is trashed though, and it looks like a fight, not a burglary. My guess is the Sandman got here first. Jan’s phone is on the couch, so I think it’s unlikely he went out and this happened afterward.’

  Hilary was frowning at me, wanting to know what was causing my brow to furrow so.

  ‘The Sandman,’ I repeated for Hilary to hear. I was staring into nothing and beginning to sound like I’d been lobotomised. ‘Why?’ A better question might have been how but they both amounted to the same thing. If this was the Sandman, and I understood his particular serial killer pattern correctly, there had never been a man taken before.

  But what if I was wrong? What if Jane hadn’t found any men because she hadn’t been looking for them. I saw two dozen women in Jane’s file. What if there was an equal number of men? If I accepted that Jan had been taken by the Sandman, I also had to assume it was because the Sandman had taken Jane.

  The exact detail of what he planned to do with them was the stuff of nightmares and insignificant to the problem at hand which remained our need to identify, track and catch the maniac.

  ‘I need to report this to the police,’ I mumbled.

  Big Ben came to my rescue. ‘I’ll do it. I’m going to do it from the office though, or at least not from inside his apartment. I don’t want to get caught up answering questions and making statements tonight.’

  I gave that just a few seconds thought, then argued. ‘No, I’ll do it. I’m going to speak to Quinn. The police need to get on board, and this might tip the balance.’

  Karen overheard me. ‘You said the police were already involved. Were you lying to me?’

  Cursing myself, I ended the call quickly. ‘Ben, I have to go. Call Amanda, see how she is getting on and head back to the office if
that is where she needs you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  ‘How’s it going with Karen?’ he asked, but I cut him off before he could finish asking the question.

  Karen’s eyes had been accusing before. Now they were livid. I was going to try to calm her down, but I didn’t hold out much hope.

  ‘What I said was the senior police officer has the file and would be throwing officers at the case.’

  ‘But you don’t know that he is doing anything, do you?’ Karen raged.

  Hilary tried to calm things down. ‘We are only trying to help.’

  He got completely ignored by everyone.

  Buck took a step forward, though not in a threatening manner – I’d already put him on his backside once this evening. Rather, he was attempting to get his bulk between me and the ladies in the house.

  ‘I think perhaps you had better go now,’ he suggested, his tone making it sound like a hopeful plea.

  Ignoring him, I kept my gaze locked on Karen. ‘I didn’t lie to you.’

  ‘But you stretched the truth,’ she accused with a choke of outrage. ‘You don’t care about me.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I protested.

  ‘You want to save Jane and you want to use me to help you do it.’

  ‘I just want your help identifying the man behind all this. If we get him, you can go back to your normal life.’

  ‘Or I can die in the process!’ she screamed, tears running down her face. She wasn’t being rational, but that train had left the station a while ago when terror turned up to replace it.

  Buck reached out to place a friendly hand on my shoulder. I shot an eyebrow in his direction which was enough to make him reconsider the move. I was done here though. Karen wasn’t going to come with me tonight no matter what I said.

  Making a point of letting my shoulders slump, I put my phone back into my jacket pocket and raised both hands in surrender.

  ‘Karen, I am genuinely worried for you. I believe the police will grab this case and solve it, but I cannot wait for them to get up to speed. Jane can’t wait,’ I added, my voice quiet. ‘I hope that you can. I want you to come with me so we can solve this together,’ she sucked in a sharp breath to start arguing again, and I had to speak quickly to cut her off, ‘but I can see that you are not going to.’