by steve higgs
‘Oh, my goodness. That’s even worse,’ she had a hand to her heart and the other gripped tightly on the arm of her chair as if to anchor herself. ‘I can’t go back there. I can’t.’ She looked me in the eye to make sure I knew she meant it.
I nodded my head. I knew what I had to do. ‘Karen, do you feel safe there during the day?’
‘I guess.’
‘Meet me at your house at two o’clock this afternoon. I will set up some recording equipment and dust for prints. I assume the police didn’t do that already?’
‘No. No, they didn’t do anything like that.’
‘Then I will. Tonight, I will return to your house and I will lie in wait for your mystery guest. You will have to be there though.’ I figured I could stay up a while and sleep in a chair downstairs where I would be disturbed if someone came in. Simon wouldn’t like it, but it was what I was going to do. ‘First though, I’m afraid I need to go through our fees.’ Feeling like I had my feet back on firmer ground, I went through the numbers, something I handled daily for the business. I knew Tempest always did that bit last, making them feel comfortable first and then giving them the confidence that he could solve their problem before telling them what it might cost. It was a tactic that worked as I couldn’t remember when a potential client last elected to leave without signing the contract.
Karen was no different but though I was sure Amanda had contract forms in her office, I couldn’t find them. I didn’t want to rifle through every draw so excused myself to fetch one from my desk.
‘Good morning,’ I called to PC Van Doorn as I crossed the office. He was sitting with his back to me in the little area by the coffee machine. He swiveled his head to see me. ‘Help yourself to coffee. I won’t be much longer.’ I encouraged him, reaching the desk and vanishing behind it to find the forms I wanted.
‘I tried that already,’ he laughed. ‘I couldn’t get it to work. That machine is way too complicated for a cop to figure out.’
I returned his grin. I liked him a lot. ‘I’ll just wrap up what I am doing and be right with you. It’s quite easy once you know how it works.’ Then I paused because I was about to say his name and realized I didn’t know it. ‘I can’t keep calling you PC Van Doorn. I need a first name.’
‘Jan,’ he replied, saying it with a Y so it came out as Yan.
‘I won’t be long,’ I said again as I hurried back to Karen in Amanda’s office.
In ten minutes, the forms were signed, and she was getting up to leave. ‘So, you are coming at two o’clock?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll meet you there. I’m a little freaked out by it all so I’ll be waiting in the car.’ I felt a little sorry for her; she was too scared to go into her own house and I wondered how much of that was down to me convincing her that it was a real man and not a ghost. It was an odd case, that was for sure, but she was willing to pay for my investigation and that made her a client.
I let her out of the front door and turned to face Jan. ‘Coffee then?’
‘Yes, please.’ The grin, that seemed a perpetual fixture on his face, stayed in place as I showed him how the machine worked and when I handed over the tiny cup of steaming espresso.
He put his nose over the cup and took a deep sniff. ‘Wow! That smells strong.’
I chuckled at his antics. ‘You better believe it. I had three one morning and I swear I could smell colours.’
My comment made him laugh, a hearty rumble I found infectious. As he tipped his head back to guffaw, I found myself checking him out; he was tall, with lean limbs that suggested strength but not an abundance of muscle. His arms made me wonder what it might be like to be wrapped up in them and with that I glanced at his groin, the bulge in his jeans keeping my attention for a moment too long because I was still blatantly staring at his package when he brought his head back to level.
I blushed, going deep scarlet beneath my makeup and I looked away, quickly changing the subject to hide my embarrassment. ‘Is that the case file?’ I asked.
He let me off the hook about his package thankfully, pretending it had never happened as he relaxed back into one of the chairs. He put the coffee down and picked up the folder. It was exactly that in the very sense of the word and for me it was like being transported back to my father’s office in the late nineties where they were still using bits of paper and seemed terrified of the computers they had bought.
‘Are you expecting any more clients?’ he asked as I took opened the cardboard outer case and started to inspect the contents.
I replied without looking up, ‘I wasn’t expecting that one actually. She walked in when I opened up.’ The folder contained police reports and photographs, forensic reports and details of interviews. There was a lot to read. ‘This is going to take me a while to get through,’ I said looking up. ‘Are you familiar with the contents?’
‘The cases? Yeah, I know all about them. I think that’s why Chief Inspector Quinn assigned me to be your liaison. What do you want to know?’
‘Let’s start with who the two victims were and how they came to be at the lake.’
‘Okay, well, the two cops were Martin Gregory and Craig Farnell. Martin was thirty-four years old, divorced and living with his mum. It was his mum that reported his absence when he didn’t come home for two days and she couldn’t raise him on the phone. She said it wasn’t unusual for him to stay out for the night because he would meet girls and she didn’t like him bringing them back to the house. Craig was thirty-seven, also divorced, his birthday occurred two days before his body was found and he went missing on the night of his birthday. Martin lived in Ashford; he took a promotion to detective sergeant last year and transferred to an open position. Craig lived in Lenham.’
‘Neither one had any good reason to be out near Biddenden lake then? It’s nowhere near their homes.’
‘Exactly. Quite what they were doing there or how they got there remains a mystery. Their cars were found at their home addresses.’
Jan and I talked on for an hour as I pieced together a picture of their last movements. Martin was found by a Labrador out with its owner for a long Sunday walk. The owner, Mrs Faversham, called the dog to come away believing he had found some discarded clothing. Only when it refused to obey did she amble over to see what the dog was obsessed by. When Craig went missing a few weeks later, CI Quinn sent a squad car to the lake to have a look just in case.’
I asked, ‘Does he think someone is going after police officers? Or is it just coincidence?’
Jan shrugged. ‘I doubt we can rule anything out. What I do know is that the chief inspector is under a serious amount of pressure to solve this. While I am here with you, there is a lot of other resource working on this elsewhere.’
I placed the contents of the file back inside the cardboard folder and closed it. I would go through it in more detail later. ‘Are you staying with me all day?’ I asked the delicious young policeman as I tried hard not to think of him in such terms.
‘That’s my job,’ he replied, once again hitting me with a smile that went straight to my groin. I was going to have to tell him I was a boy at some point soon. The poor guy was flirting with me in a very subtle and flattering way and I didn’t want it to stop though I knew no good could come of it.
‘I need to visit someone. A business around the corner actually. Then I have to ditch you after lunch to work on another case and I will be working tonight and having a late start tomorrow in all likelihood.’
‘Ooh, what’s the case?’ he asked in an engaging way. We were both on our feet and heading to the door.
‘Creepy old man sneaking into a woman’s bedroom and singing to her at night. I also think he is drugging her somehow.’
‘Wow! What’s he singing?’
Surprised by the question, because of all the things I might want to know, the name of the tune wasn’t one of them, I told him anyway.
‘Never heard of it,’ he concluded. ‘Where are we going anyw
ay?’
‘Here,’ I said, pointing up to a sign above our heads. We had walked no more than about sixty yards and turned the corner by the ancient Northgate that was once the entrance to the city.
He followed my finger. ‘Mystery Men? It looks like a bookshop.’
The door at the bottom was open as usual, but it led immediately to a set of stairs to take us up to the next floor where the quaint little bookshop sat on the first floor. Framed pictures of aliens, the Lock Ness Monster and other conspiracies adorned the walls on both sides, Jan paused to look at them as we climbed. ‘What is this place?’ he murmured quietly.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I pushed through the door, the little bell above my head jingling excitedly to announce customers to the people within. Not unusually for a Saturday morning, the shop was busy, lots of teenage boys buying comics and three girls with black and blue hair, fishnets tights, lots of leather and too much black makeup were perusing horror movies. I always felt like the shop attracted stereotypes as all I ever saw were geeks and grungy emos. I had to wonder what they made of me in my immaculate office wear.
Poison, the young Chinese shop assistant was serving at the counter. I caught her eye when she looked over. ‘Is Frank in?’ I asked, raising my voice so I could be heard over the general chatter and the weird-looking science fiction film Frank had playing on a big screen tv.
‘He’s in the back getting something,’ she replied between transactions. I figured she meant for us to wait though it was often hard to tell with Poison. She had an edgy, dangerous kind of character with an attitude to match. It wasn’t that she was rude ever, she just didn’t seem to want to engage with anyone or be friendly. I knew one thing about her; the boys that came into the shop, came in just to see her half the time. She was nineteen or maybe twenty and had the body of a ballerina mixed with a martial arts master; all lean and hard and capable looking.
I stood to one side with Jan behind me but seconds later I could hear Frank’s voice echoing through from behind the counter. What I knew about Frank was that Tempest liked to ask him questions. He was the polar opposite of Tempest though, believing fervently that everything paranormal, supernatural, weird or unexplained was absolutely real and most likely doubted because of a government cover up.
‘You got company,’ drawled Poison to Frank, flicking her head towards me as she dealt with the next customer.
He turned his head to see who it was, peering over the top of his glasses. ‘Won’t be a moment,’ he offered me a quick grin, then turned back to the person waiting for the large box he held. The two men exchanged some hushed words just off to one side of the counter and away from everyone else. Then they shook hands, but not in the normal grip and shake once way that people do. They clasped hands then rotated their elbows and both looked to the sky and crossed themselves with their free hand. The man had the box tucked under one arm but still managed to perform the maneuver. Like I said before: In a world of weird in which I operate, Frank sat near the top of the scale.
With a final nod at Frank, the man left via the stairs, the treads creaking under his weight as he descended.
‘Now, what can I do for you today, Miss Jane? No Tempest?’
‘Hello, Frank. Tempest is in France tackling a Yeti.’
‘A Yeti?’ Frank interrupted. ‘Ursus Petram, the Himilayan rock bear? Odd for it to have travelled as far as France but it’s not the first time.’
From behind me, Jan said, ‘Um?’
‘Frank this is PC Jan Van Doorn. He is a special police liaison for a case the agency is working on. I am getting started in Tempest’s absence.’
Frank extended his hand which Jan took with only a quick glance to make sure it was human and not webbed or reptilian or something. ‘Please to meet you, Jan. Now how can I help you pair? It’s what I do, after all. Honestly, I’m sure it wouldn’t kill Tempest to buy something once in a while. I recognise my place though and I am always ready to assist where I can, fighting the forces of evil that threaten to invade our plain of existence.’
Before Frank could get into full rant mode, I said, ‘What do you know about a swamp monster at Biddenden Lake?’
He stopped speaking and blinked at me behind his glasses; once, twice. ‘You are referring to the recent drownings there?’ he asked making the quotation sign in the air with both hands when he said drownings.
Jan was startled by his response. ‘How can you possibly know anything about that? The whole case has been kept completely under wraps.’
Frank whipped out a Dictaphone from a pocket just as I spun around to clamp a hand over Jan’s mouth. ‘Can you say that again, please?’ asked Frank. ‘Specifically, the bit about the cover up where uniformed agents of the government try to block the truth from reaching the public.’
I looked over my shoulder at him. ‘Put it away, please, Frank,’ To stop Jan from speaking, I had to get right inside his personal space and now there was a lot of me touching a lot of him and I was reluctant to step back. I wanted to lay my head on his chest and breath in his cologne.
Reluctantly, and with some grumpy noises, Frank put the recording device back into a pocket. ‘You cannot deny that I just heard him claim a cover up, Jane. You know as well as I that these creatures are out there, and the public are unable to properly defend themselves because they are misled. You used to be a vampire, for goodness sake.’
Jan prised my hand away from his mouth. ‘You used to be a vampire. What on earth is going on here?’
Blushing beneath my makeup, I turned back to face Frank, letting Jan go in the process. ‘I’ll tell you about it later,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘Frank, the swamp monster?’
‘Oh, yes. Well, there was a lot of discussion when this first occurred because someone in my community suggested it could be mermaids. The bite marks are close in radius and teeth pattern to those a mermaid inflicts. The similarities end there though.’
‘Mermaids?’ said Jan.
Frank spared him a very quick glance but didn’t stop talking. ‘Mermaids are strictly saltwater inhabitants. First reported by Captain Otto Schneider in 1746, whose whaling ship, the Dominico, was stranded at sea in four days of doldrums. Running out of fresh water, his crew began to report strange voices singing to them from the still waters. The siren song, a term which wasn’t coined for another fifty years, lured almost half his ship’s company to their graves though they managed to capture one in a net as the remaining crew fought for their lives. The mermaid cut itself free using a crude knife made of seashell, but the legend was born.’ Frank had a faraway look in his eyes as if pondering the majesty of seeing these mythical creatures for himself.
I thought I would need to prompt him for more but the bell above the door tinkled again and the noise brought him back to reality. The person coming in didn’t pass in front of me so must have turned left to look at the books at the back of the shop. Frank spared the person a glance, blinked his glazed eyes and started talking again. ‘Anyway, what you have in Biddenden lake is a nasty case of water sprites, otherwise known as category three water demons. They can be nasty little horrors and they revel in causing harm.’
‘That sounds like a load of old tosh,’ said a worryingly familiar voice from right by the door. I turned my head to discover that the person who had just entered hadn’t turned left at all, she had merely stopped moving so she could listen to our conversation. She saw my opened-mouthed stare and shot me a grin that was full of false teeth.
When I found my voice, I asked, ‘Gran? What are you doing here?’
‘Well, I phoned your house to see if you would like to meet for lunch today, but your boyfriend; oh, he’s ever such a nice chap, well, he said you were working today. So, I got on the bus, well, you know it stops right outside my house and I get a free bus pass on account of my age. Anyway, it comes direct to Rochester High Street, it’s only seven stops and takes less than twenty minutes, you know. So, I found your office, ooh, it’s ever so fancy. I couldn’t see it prope
rly because it was locked but I had a peer through the windows: very nice.’
My grandmother was in full on old-lady-description and anecdote mode. If I didn’t stop her, we would get a full run down of what the bus driver looked like and how she thought he needed a haircut. ‘Gran,’ I tried fruitlessly. ‘Gran,’ I interrupted again but it was like throwing acorns in front of a road roller. ‘GRANDMOTHER.’ This time, my raised voice broke through the sound of her own voice to penetrate her chain of thought.
‘What is it, dear? I was just going to tell you about the lady in the coffee shop. She told me where to look for you.’ Gran looked grumpy now, but she had been talking for two minutes straight while the rest of us stood silent.
‘I’m working, gran. I don’t have time for lunch.’
Jan nudged my arm. ‘We will have to eat at some point. I’m sure we can accommodate stopping for a bite to eat with this lovely lady,’ he said while giving my gran a hearty grin.
Gran gave him an appreciative once over. ‘Ooh, you’re nice. I’m a bit old for you though love. You should stick to ladies your own age.’
‘No, I, ah, I meant,’ Jan tried, but gran had already stopped listening.
She was staring at Frank instead. ‘So, what were you saying about water demons, young man. If my Jane is going to solve another crime, I want to know all about it.’
Frank, wondering if he might be allowed to speak, didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then, with all three of us looking at him, he started talking again. ‘Right. Well, yes, you are dealing with water demons at Biddenden lake. It’s not the first time either. Not that we get many cases, but you needn’t worry, the Kent League of Demonologists will take care of them.’
‘What?’ said Jan, screwing his face up as he tried to get his head around Frank’s last statement. ‘I got lost there somewhere. I don’t understand anything about what is going on. Jane used to be a vampire, this shop seems to operate in an entirely different reality to the rest of the planet and now you have a Kent charter of demon hunters.’
