by steve higgs
I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘That’s the plan, big man. That’s the plan. I have just reviewed my policy of never hitting girls and discovered it is no longer politically correct.’ They were guilty of far more than scaring off English workers. I was going to find out what it was and bring it all crashing down around them.
For now, though, we were just going to have to suck it up and finish our shift.
‘What do we do with the map?’ He asked as we pushed the wheelie bin toward the next set of bins. What he had done was identify the shortfall in my plan. I had been so absorbed in getting my hands on it, I hadn’t considered how I would get it out of the Dockyard.
I could only see a couple of options. I could leave it in the bin and retrieve it in the morning. Or I could stash it somewhere else and retrieve it in the morning which did nothing to improve the first plan other than reduce the risk that it went to the tip – I had no idea what day the bins got emptied. The final option was to remove it from the protective tube and carry it out, folded flat against my body. They didn’t search the staff at any point because there was nothing here that could be easily stolen.
‘What about the two Daves?’ Big Ben asked when I outlined my options.
‘Top idea. Let’s give them a call and find out.’ I pulled my phone from my back pocket with a small groan – my abs were complaining already.
‘Hello.’ A cautious voice answered.
‘Dave. This is Tempest Michaels. I need your help.’
‘Oh, err. Give me a minute.’ He didn’t hang up and came back on the line a few seconds later. ‘Sorry, I was in the rest room warming up. Dave and I have all the worst shifts now. I am starting to wonder if they will just ban us from the rest room. They are trying everything they can to get rid of us. What is it you need from me?’
‘It will be easier if I show you. Are you going out on patrol again soon?’
He said that he was and gave us a place to meet him.
The underground. Wednesday, November 23rd 0037hrs
We went to my place with the map because it was closer to the Dockyard than Big Ben’s. The two Daves had dutifully done as requested, smuggled the map out and placed it inside my car. Their belief that no one was paying any attention to what they were doing proved true.
‘Hey dogs.’ Big Ben called out as my Dachshunds recognised him and tried to climb his legs. I shooed them into the garden to empty their bladders, then made two coffees while Big Ben extracted the map from the tube and rolled it out on my dining room table.
The contents of the tube turned out to be three maps, each drawn at different times when the tunnels had been added to. They were not complete though and failed to show where the buildings above ground were in relation to what we were looking at. What I needed more than anything was a way into the underground chambers. Finding it was proving frustrating.
Big Ben sipped his coffee. ‘Got anything stronger?’
‘Are you planning to stay here?’
‘Yeah. Too late for shagging now. I should have set something up earlier. This will just have to be one of those rare days when I don’t get any. I’ll make up for it at Jagjit’s wedding this weekend.’
I was listening to him as I fetched tumblers and rum from the kitchen. ‘Want it over coke?’ I asked.
‘Nah. Ice will do.’
I poured two drinks and focused back on the maps. Big Ben wasn’t done with his plan for the weekend though. ‘Jagjit doesn’t have any sisters, does he?’
‘No, four brothers. All older.’
‘Many female cousins that will be attending?’
I laughed at his continuous need to meet new ladies. ‘I believe so. Alice will also have a selection of friends along. I am sure some of them will be single.’
‘Doesn’t really matter if they are, mate, so long as they don’t bring their boyfriends with them.’
‘Didn’t you only just get a girl pregnant? Do you not remember how scared you were a couple of weeks ago when you thought it was more than one?’
‘Oh. Did I not tell you? Bianca isn’t pregnant anymore. I think what she meant to say was, her period finally came a month later than expected. Do girls get that? Their period just misses a cycle?’
‘I couldn’t tell you mate. It is not the sort of thing I remember from my biology classes and I have never found myself in a position where I needed to ask.’
‘Fair point.’ He conceded. ‘You know, this map might not tell us how to get in, but it looks as if there is an entrance at the water.’
‘Where?’ I asked, my curiosity making me stare harder than I had been.
‘See here.’ He pointed. ‘The elevation changes. The river sits well below the level of the Dockyard but at high tide this tunnel might be low enough to be accessible. Why build it that way otherwise?’
A water entrance. What a great way to sneak in and out. It wasn’t definitive, but what he had suggested made sense. ‘If we assume you are correct and where they have drawn the terminus of that tunnel is the river, then we can orientate the maps.’
We spent the next minute working out how the maps overlaid. The oldest-looking map had a single tunnel and a set of stone steps drawn leading down into it. It was more pictographic than the others, clearly hand drawn, as each of them were, but there was no scale to it, which made it hard to work out if the whole tunnel was represented on the later maps or if it had been extended at some point. Neither of the other two maps showed a way in. So, we had a possible river entrance and a set of stone steps that led down to the original tunnel but no way of knowing where they started.
It was quite frustrating.
‘This is a bit difficult without a scale to work from.’ Big Ben observed. ‘Plus, I’m not confident of the direction the tunnels are running.’
I scratched my head and yawned. ‘If people are coming and going from the tunnels they must be doing so visibly. Maybe I need to stake the place out during the day and see if I can spot human traffic where it shouldn’t be.’
‘What about the river entrance? Do you want me to look for that?’
‘Have you got access to a boat?’ I asked.
‘I have a canoe if it comes to it, but that seems like the long-winded version. I’ll pop down to the marina tomorrow, there’s bound to be a boat with a lady on board.’
‘And what? You flash her your winning smile, she throws her knickers off and then lets you take the boat down the river to scout out the Dockyard?’
‘Pretty much.’
Annoyingly, that tactic would probably work for him.
‘I need some sleep.’ I announced. ‘Come on boys.’ I gathered up the dogs, carried them up to bed and left Big Ben to sort himself out, he knew where the guest bedroom was.
Drifting off to sleep, I wondered what this was all about and how long it was going to take me to solve the riddle I faced.
Murder. Wednesday, November 23rd 0715hrs
The day started with an unwelcome phone call. I didn’t recognise the number when it rang so gave my standard answer. ‘Blue Moon Investigations. Tempest Michaels speaking.’
‘Tempest, this is Alan Page. There’s been a development.’ He said the word development very carefully like it wasn’t the word he wanted to use.
I hedged a bet, ‘Who’s dead?’ I was guilty of sometimes forgetting that people didn’t like to talk about death. I had grown hardened to it through my almost two decades in the Army. Iraq, Afghanistan and a few other places I had been deployed to were as unpleasant as you might imagine. I wasn’t too worried about Alan though, he would have endured much the same experiences.
At the other end, Alan licked his lips before saying, ‘Julia Jones.’ The name hit me like a slap to the face.
My question contained only one word. ‘How?’
‘They found a suicide note in her office. She washed up a few miles downstream in her car.’
A suicide note. I didn’t believe it for a second. They had killed her. Whether it was to get rid of h
er as part of their plan or as punishment for hiring Big Ben and I, there was no way of telling.
‘How do you know already?’ I asked when I realised it was too early for him to even be at work. I was only up because I had wanted to go for a run.
Alan had an answer for me. ‘I woke up to a message from Dave Saunders. I guess they found out at some point in the night.’
‘Alan, I will see you at the Dockyard. I’ll be there soon after opening time.’
When the phone disconnected, I stood in my kitchen staring at the wall. I started to tell myself that they had escalated to murder but caught myself. I doubted Julia was the first person they had killed.
‘Hey, man, what’s up?’ Big Ben asked as he wandered into the kitchen.
I was gripping the edge of the counter with my head bowed. Now I had to tell him what had happened.
He did not take the news well. The thing with Big Ben is that he genuinely believes he is performing a service for the ladies he sleeps with. He gives them the best sex of their life as far as he is concerned, providing one golden memory for them to treasure for all time. I would accuse him of being hugely egotistical, but I worry that he might be correct. He might go through them at a rate unprecedented outside of the adult film industry and not even try to learn their names, but on some level, he still connects with them.
He had slept with Julia Jones to bribe her into giving the two of us jobs. It had cost her dearly and he felt guilty about it. The guilt manifested as anger and he was ready to split heads.
When he left my house, he was fired up for finding the river entrance. We both really wanted to get back to the Dockyard tonight, but we couldn’t blow off Jagjit’s stag party for it. The draw of the case, the thirst for blood if you will, was beckoning. Neither one of us felt like going out socially right now, but our next chance to sneak around the Dockyard in search of the entrance to the tunnels was going to have to wait until Thursday. This morning he was going to look for the river entrance while I scoped out the Dockyard itself. Using the map, we had narrowed the entrance points down to a handful of options. Between us we needed to obtain hard evidence, like video footage maybe, of a criminal operation so we could force the police to take notice.
My plan, in fact, was to present my proof to the CEO of the Dockyard, Alex Jordan. He could call the police himself and remove any danger that they might ignore it because it was me calling.
Alone in my house, there was nothing constructive I could do this early, so I went for a run. I had been slacking on the exercise front and my guilty conscious wouldn’t shut up about my fat belly. I argued that I had a distinctly bruised abdomen from the beating last night. In reply, the gym instructor in my head called me several non-PC names and made me put my running shoes on. Outside, clouds had cleared overnight leaving a thick frost on the cars and hedgerows. It sparkled where the streetlamps touched it but made the pavement a little dicey.
Rather than be defeated, I ran in the road. Early morning traffic around the village was light though there were a few cars I needed to dodge. The purpose of the run was partly to alleviate the growing stress I felt about not exercising. I don’t know whether that is normal or not, but I always find that after a few days away from the gym I begin to get twitchy. This would take care of the twitch, but it also gave me time to think. There were few distractions when I went running, habitually I used the time to organise my thoughts regarding whatever was bothering me.
What was bothering me today was the Ukrainians. What were they capable of? I had accepted that I had met with organised crime. I had suspected it from the start, right back when it became apparent there was a strong Ukrainian flavour, but the death of Julia Jones nailed the thought home. So far though, all I had seen them do was guard the Dockyard and keep it clean. It had to be a front to the real operation. Whatever that was had to be criminal. It would have helped if Quinn had talked to me. Maybe I had been too hasty in leaving the police station yesterday. He had finally found his way onto my hook once I said I had evidence, by then though his aggravating nature had done a trick on me and I no longer cared for his company.
I had left the village through the vineyards. In the pre-dawn darkness there was no sound from critters running back into their holes in the ground and no traffic noises penetrated this far away from the roads. It was quiet, the only noise my laboured breathing as I slogged up the hill that would eventually cross the main artery into Maidstone known as Bluebell Hill. Before I reached it, I turned left at the edge of a field and began the route home, pushing myself despite the slippery grass under my feet. The frost coated everything, but the soil was not frozen. There were puddles I could see and navigate around and soggy patches of mud I could not.
Back at the house, I had to strip off my socks and shoes outside and carry them in. They went in the sink for me to remove mud from later. At the top of the stairs, having heard me come home, were Bull and Dozer, wagging their tails and waiting for me to fetch them.
Despite any misgivings about the case and the danger I might face, the dogs always made me smile.
Thirty minutes later, I was placing a freshly dog-licked plate into the dishwasher. The plate had once held bacon, eggs, spinach and courgette, a healthy breakfast that had met my needs if not exciting my taste buds.
My watch said the time was 0841hrs. It was time to go to the office.
Round Two with the Chief Inspector. Wednesday, November 23rd 0900hrs
The second I opened my car door to get out, the dogs bounced over my lap to plop on the tarmac and scurry to the office back door. Quite what they found so exciting about getting into work would forever be a mystery. They stood at the door, impatiently waiting for the slow-moving human to open it, looking at me, looking at the door and repeating the action until I locked my car and produced a key to open the office.
Having raced inside, their little paws skidding on the plastic tile from their furious effort, they were once again defeated by the inner door that led from the storage, toilet and admin area through to the office proper.
Had they been teenagers they probably would have sighed and tutted. Dachshunds though seem perpetually in an optimistic mood, so they did not complain, they just barrelled through the gap as I pushed the door open, Bull riding briefly on Dozer’s back as they both fought to occupy the same space.
Jane was making coffee. ‘I thought you would be along any moment.’ She said as she held a small white cup to collect the brew being dispensed. ‘Amanda has been and gone already.’ Jane was dressed today in a pair of fake, black, leather, wet-look leggings. A vague memory was telling me the correct name for them was jeggings. Whatever they were called, they were skin tight on her slender legs which, to my mind was not a good look as the legs were not shapely like a woman’s. Rather, they were skinny, like a skinny man’s. Involuntarily, I noticed that where I would expect to see a bulge in the front of her groin area, the fake leather (is it pleather?) was completely smooth as if Jane were in fact post-op.
I opened my mouth to ask how the effect was achieved but closed it again quickly before the words made it through my teeth. I didn’t want to know the answer. Jane’s top half was covered by a loose-fitting jumper that hung off one shoulder to reveal the strap of her bra. Jane didn’t have any boobs to fill a bra but whatever was going on inside her jumper would remain a mystery as it was another question I was unwilling to ask.
The dogs had scurried across the carpet to search for biscuit crumbs, their busy noses leading them in an ever-hopeful search for food. By the time I arrived at the coffee machine, they had either found and eaten all there was to eat or had accepted defeat and stopped searching. Bull hopped onto one of the chairs set out for clients to wait on, turned around twice and settled down to sleep.
‘Thank you, Jane.’ I said as I accepted the offered cup. ‘Not having one yourself?’ I asked as she returned to her desk.
She shook her head. ‘It’s strong stuff. I have had one already and find that more than one in an
hour makes my pulse begin to jitter.’
I knew what she meant. But, oh, it was good.
As Jane sat back in her chair she said, ‘I got a hit on the paper you found.’
It was to be the first thing I was going to ask her. Now I didn’t need to. I joined her behind her desk to see what she had.
‘The writing is Ukrainian. That’s what you expected isn’t it?’ I nodded. ‘The maker’s mark on it is for a firm that makes all kinds of different paper-based products from tissues to writing paper. I had a good look at them, but they appear to just be a firm that makes paper.’ She sounded disappointed because she knew I was hoping this might be a lead or a clue of some kind.
‘What is this particular paper used for?’
‘Oh, ah.’ She clicked the mouse to check her information. ‘The manufacture of cigarettes. Specifically, this is the paper that goes around the outside of the tobacco.’
As I thought about that the front door opened. I glanced up, unsure who it might be coming in, but very much expecting a customer. To my great surprise, the lean form of Chief Inspector Quinn let himself into my premises. He was accompanied by a younger man in a business suit. I took the younger man to be a plain-clothes police officer, but where most plain-clothes guys wear crappy, cheap, ill-fitting suits, this chap’s suit looked hand-cut and of fine material.
CI Quinn’s eyes met mine. His lips were pursed tight and I could instantly tell that he was here to admit that I was right about the Dockyard. His pride was stopping him from doing what he should and leading with an apology. I really wanted to make him squirm and mess him around, but I took the mature approach instead.
‘Chief Inspector, so good to see you.’ I crossed the room and shook his hand vigorously. ‘Might I interest you in a coffee? It’s the good stuff from Columbia.’
His face was fighting with competing emotions. He didn’t like me, and we were always adversarial, but here I was greeting him like an old friend and offering him the best of the house. Finally, the attraction of my coffee, no doubt aided by the wonderful aroma already in the room, forced him to speak. ‘Thank you, Mr Michaels. That would be acceptable.’
