by steve higgs
Now, sitting in a dark spot on the street, parked well away from any streetlights, I felt anything but ready. This no longer felt like a good idea. What if the Sandman did show up? I should have left this case for Tempest. I bit my lip. I was letting nervousness manifest as indecision. To be an investigator, I would have to be tougher than this. Able to walk into any situation and take charge. That was how I needed to be.
I swore at myself in the quiet or my car, shoved the door open with a reluctant shoulder and got out. Just along the road I could see the gap in the garden walls that marked the entrance to the alleyway. It looked different in the dark but I reminded myself that all I had to do was jump a couple of low fences and I would be there. Once inside Karen’s house, I could relax. There was very little likelihood the Sandman would show up tonight. He had never come two nights in a row before. Most likely he was off bothering someone else.
That thought made me pause though. What if I was right? What if the reason he hadn’t been to Karen’s house two nights in a row was because he was doing the same thing to multiple people? Paused at the entrance to the alleyways while I pondered that thought, I felt suddenly exposed. Looking about to see if anyone was watching, I hurried down the path and let the blackness envelope me.
Karen’s house was three doors along, so I had to climb over three fences to get to her back garden. The first one felt sturdy enough and was only three feet high, so I placed my hands on top of it and vaulted over. Landing nimbly the other side, I felt my confidence growing again. The next fence was much the same though I had to pick a spot because there were lots of rose bushes on the other side. The fence into Karen’s garden was higher though; four feet instead of three which I wasn’t sure I could just vault over. I could get over it, sure, but I wanted to do so quietly and without snagging my leggings. Looking about, I found a garden chair and dragged it to where the fence was clear of plants on both sides. With the chair up against the fence for added stability, I climbed onto it and then much the same as before I placed my hands on top of the wood and drove myself upwards to vault over.
The fence collapsed.
The two previous times on approaching the fence, I gave it a quick if gentle rattle to check how sturdy it was. The overlapping pine fence panels were notoriously weak, but people bought them because they were cheap. In the dark I couldn’t see it, but this one was rotting and falling apart. My weight had been far too much additional responsibility for it to bear.
The wood splintering as I crashed to the ground on top of it made a deafening racket but as I lay stunned and winded on the lawn, no faces appeared at any windows, including Karen’s.
There were lights on inside her house but no sign of her. I guess she had been looking out for me, seen me approaching and got to turn the TV on or something. I stole quietly up to her back door and let myself in.
I couldn’t go further into her house because it was carpeted beyond the kitchen tiles and I had muddy boots from the alleyway and the garden, plus bits of grass on my knees and elbows from my tumble. I placed my handbag on the kitchen counter so I could unzip a boot but when someone came into the room, it wasn’t Karen’s feet I saw through my fringe as it hung over my eyes, but a pair of man’s shoes.
The Sandman was already in the house!
The jolt of adrenalin sent my pulse skyrocketing, but I came back upright ready to fight. He was reaching for me, his right hand extended forward, so I grabbed it just the way that Sensei Dave showed me with Ken.
The man was somewhere around sixty, with thinning hair and a bloodshot face. His nose was pointed, with a large hooked bridge and a weak jaw. He looked like someone that would cut off a person’s skin and wear it around the house as a coat.
Driven by terror, I yanked him off balance before he could even say a word, twisting his hand around so the wrist went beyond its natural stopping point.
He yelped in pain and protested, ‘What are you doing?’ I had the upper hand and I wasn’t about to let it go. I couldn’t see a weapon but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one, and what about the drugs he was using to knock her out each time? They had to be on him somewhere. As I applied yet more pressure to his arm and forced him to turn away from me, I swung a kick at the back of his right knee and down he went.
Now I had him. Yay! Go team Jane!
Drawn by the ruckus, Karen screeched to a stop in the kitchen doorway. ‘Oh, my life! What’s happening?’
‘Quick. Call the police. I’ve got him.’ I couldn’t resist the smile that forced its way onto my face. Wait until I tell Tempest about this.
Karen grabbed my arm. ‘That’s my neighbor, Mr Hengist.’
Oops.
Not wanting to let go yet, I asked, ‘You’re sure? You’re sure this isn’t the Sandman? Couldn’t he be the Sandman?’
‘No,’ she cried, flapping her arms for me to stop hurting the man and let him go. ‘He just brought a parcel around that got delivered this morning. He helped me carry it in.’
‘Oh.’ I let go of his wrist. ‘Um, sorry about that.’
Mr Hengist stood up, rubbing his wrist and rolling his shoulder to ease off the strain I had put it under. ‘Where do you get your friends, Karen? This one is a bit nuts.’
‘Sorry,’ I said again. ‘I thought you were here to hurt Karen.’
‘Why on earth would I hurt Karen? You know what; nevermind. Karen, I’m going home. Thank you, it was lovely, I’ll let myself out.’ Still shaking off his arm, Karen’s neighbor walked to the front door and slammed it shut behind him.
Karen and I exchanged an embarrassed glance. ‘Oops,’ she said. ‘That was quite impressive though. You weren’t kidding about being a ninja, were you?’
‘Ah, no,’ I lied
Karen went around me to make sure the back door was closed, then locked it and threw a bolt at the top and the bottom. ‘That’s got me all on edge. Let’s go watch some TV, yes?’
In her living space, Karen sat down next to a large glass of wine and I could tell from the condensation line that she had taken a big gulp out of it already. ‘You said you don’t want any?’ she confirmed. I actually did but I said no anyway. The encounter with her neighbor had me rattled even though it had gone my way. I was certain though that were I to have a glass, I would want another and drinking while on a stakeout couldn’t be a clever move. Neither of the other detectives at the firm would entertain the idea, so I didn’t either.
Within a few minutes I had installed the cameras in her bedroom and checked they worked; the feed to my laptop was clear and crisp, and I was back downstairs on Karen’s couch wondering what I should do next. I wasn’t sure what I had expected from my first stakeout, but it certainly wasn’t what I got. For months now, living with Simon, we went out on a Saturday night, so I hadn’t watched weekend TV for ages. Over the next two hours of the evening, Karen and I burned through a game show and a live TV singing contest where we got to say unkind things about the fools who had volunteered to go on stage to show the world they couldn’t hold a note.
It was fun. Probably more fun than I would have had out with Simon and his friends. I say his friends because they were all people that he worked with or knew from school or something. I was friendly with them and they were pleasant enough to me, but none of them ever made separate plans with me; they were very much Simon’s friends.
At ten thirty, when the singing show finished, Karen yawned and stretched and told me she was going to bed. Her bottle of wine was long gone, as were the two gin and tonics she made to wash the wine down with. I was going to stay on the couch. It was close to the door out of the small living room which was directly opposite the stairs. From the couch, no one could get to the stairs without first having to get by me. I didn’t think it was all that much in terms of security but Karen said she felt safe enough to get some sleep so that was where she was heading. She asked me to be with her when she unlocked the backdoor to call for her cat to come in for the night and seemed relieved when he appeared.
The answer was not very long at all as my eyes soon got heavy and I didn’t bother to fight it.
All too soon though, I came awake and was instantly gripped by utter panic.
Fire. Sunday, December 4th 0048hrs
The piercing noise of a smoke alarm took me from deep slumber to instantly disorientated panic in half a second. There has to be a primordial instinct still wired into all of us because the fear of fire is right up there on my list of top ten worst ways to die.
Coming awake had caused me to sit up but as smoke filled my lungs, I started coughing. From upstairs came an equally panicked shout as Karen also began coughing. I could hear her feet on the floorboards above as she started toward the stairs.
Slowly, my sleep addled brain came online, and I remembered what I was supposed to do: get low. I threw myself off the couch, landing on my handbag which I gratefully hooked an arm through. There was a thin pocket of air right by the carpet and though it was dark, I knew the way out. Smoke filled the air above me, glowing orange with the fire though I could not tell which direction it was coming from until I got out of the living room and into the hallway.
By then, Karen was coming down the stairs, coughing great racking lungfuls of smoke as she fought to get out of the house and away from danger. I grabbed her ankle when a foot appeared next to me, her scream of terror shut off as she coughed again. Doing what I felt necessary, I grabbed her other foot and yanked them both so she landed on the floor next to me.
I screamed in her face, ‘Front door!’ then pushed her in the direction she needed to go. No more words were needed, but one of us had to stand up to open the door when we got there. Karen was barely able to stop coughing at all so took a last desperate lungful of the slightly less smoky air and stood up. I knew from a health and safety video I had once been forced to watch that a lungful of hot air will destroy your lungs instantly and that in a household fire, the temperature can be expected to reach over one thousand degrees in a matter of seconds. Whatever else I did, I couldn’t afford to take a breath.
Keeping my eyes shut, I found the safety catch and yanked the door open. Merciful light spilled in from outside along with blessed cold air, but the door caught on something unseen. Was it Karen? I gave it another yank with the same result. The heat behind us was building, but we couldn’t escape even though I could sense sanctuary mere feet away.
‘The chain,’ coughed Karen from by my feet. ‘The chain!’
Of course. She had a safety chain on the front door. I still had my eyes shut and no intention of opening them. Instead, I braced myself, pushed the door shut a few inches and yanked with all my might. To my surprise the chain broke, ripping free of its mooring point on the frame and the door flew open.
Cold air billowed in just as smoke billowed out, the two intertwining and dancing like sparring partners looking for an opening. I tumbled onto the front lawn with my bag and looked around to find Karen right behind me. We were out.
‘Mr Bagatus,’ Karen wheezed. It took her three attempts to say his name between coughing fits but if the cat was inside, I didn’t fancy his chances. I couldn’t go back in to look for him. But as I worried for the cat, he appeared, strolling along to waft his tail under Karen’s nose. She scooped him up.
Sirens, which I realised I had been able to hear from inside the house got really loud as they pulled into the street, their flashing lights bouncing off every surface. Suddenly boots were running down the garden path as a flurry of activity happened all at once. Firefighters came to tend to us both, soothing voices assuring us that the paramedics were right behind them and there were insistent questions about who else was in the house.
The blaze was out in a minute, but Karen’s house was not fit to be lived in anymore and the repairs would take weeks or months. ‘Karen, I’m so sorry,’ I said as we sat in the back of an ambulance. The paramedics had us both hooked up to oxygen and were monitoring our vital signs.
She waved me to silence. ‘You didn’t set the fire, Jane. He did.’
‘He who?’ asked the paramedic as he checked her blood/oxygen level again. ‘Did someone start this fire deliberately?’
Karen and I looked at each other. We couldn’t prove it but we both believed the Sandman had turned to arson. Maybe it was because he knew I was there, maybe it was something else that triggered it, but there was too much coincidence for either of us to believe this was just an unfortunate accident.
A firefighter came to the back of the ambulance. His uniform displayed his rank as did his helmet so I knew he was the crew chief. ‘How’s everyone doing? Are you ladies okay?’ I nodded and Karen gave him a thumbs up. I wasn’t sure she meant it. His face turned serious then as he delivered the next bit of news. ‘The fire was started deliberately. Someone put paraffin under the back door and lit it. The police will want to talk to you. Any idea who might want to do this?’
I nodded again. ‘Yes, but at this time the likely perpetrator is an unknown person. A stalker if you will.’
My comment got raised eyebrows from the fire chief. ‘Well, the police will want to talk to you.’ He repeated.
As he made to move away, I stopped him with a question, ‘How did you get here so quickly?’ He turned back to face me. ‘We had barely had time to register that there was a fire and get out. The fire couldn’t have been going for more than a couple of minutes before you arrived.’
‘Yeah, we weren’t called for a house fire. Someone set fire to a car down the street. The resident that reported it put it out with a couple of fire extinguishers before it really got going, but called us and… well, you can’t be too careful when you have a car fire because of all the combustibles.’
A worry itched at the top of my scalp. ‘What sort of car was it, please?’
His eyes went to the top of his skull as he searched his memory for the answer. ‘A little Ford Fiesta, I think.’
Dammit. ‘Was it a green one?’
Grimly, he said, ‘Can’t tell now. It was a dark colour once. Now it’s just burnt.’
Dammit. The Sandman had torched my car too. I pulled off the oxygen mask and levered myself off the gurney. I needed to see for myself. I was right though; my car was toast. I did a mental tot up of what was in it, trying to work out if I had any of my favourite outfits in there, but all I could come up with was a few CDs. Tears threatened; I was having a tough couple of days.
I sensed someone approaching and turned to find a female police officer approaching with a male colleague trailing just a few feet behind. ‘Is this your car, Miss?’ she asked. I nodded glumly. ‘And you were in the house that suffered the arson attack?’
I nodded again, fixing my face with a wobbly smile as I looked up her. ‘Yeah. I’m not having a good day.’
‘I should say not,’ the officer agreed as she held out an arm to guide me back down the street. ‘I think we should get you back to the ambulance, I don’t think they were finished with you. Then I need to get some basic details.’
I complied. I had no reason not to, but I should have thought about what was going to happen because once I was back at the ambulance, and was sitting next to Karen once more, the cop asked me for my identification.
‘Um, can we do this later?’ I tried.
She eyed me suspiciously. ‘Why?’
I opened my mouth to argue or to try to move the conversation somewhere else, but I saw the futility of it. Feeling everyone’s eyes on me, I took out my purse, slid the driver’s license from its slot and handed it over. She took it and handed it to her colleague so she had both hands free to write in her notebook.
When he didn’t start speaking, she turned to stare at him. He was looking at me and looking at the card. ‘This isn’t you,’ he said, squinting at me like they had just identified something very fishy going on.
He showed the fe
male cop and I saw her eyes open wider just before she swung her gaze back to stare at me. Karen was looking at me too now. Reluctantly, and with a lump in my throat, I reached up to my head, pulled out the pin that held my wig in place and took it off.
‘It’s me,’ I admitted. I did so in my own voice and didn’t have to spare a glance at Karen to know that her face with filled with revulsion. I shifted my head ever so slightly towards her when I said, ‘Sorry,’ but I kept my eyes down.
Just then, a taxi nosed into the street. I spotted it but gave it no thought until it stopped just behind the nearest police car and Simon got out. I texted him when the fire was being fought, asking him if he was having a nice evening and just dropping in conversationally that the house I was in had been fire-bombed so I would be home soon and might need a hug.
Now he was here, coming to rescue me and boy did I feel like I needed him. He got stopped at the perimeter by a cop stationed there to do just that, neighbours had spilled from their houses, many of them with kids, just to watch the spectacle and they lined the hastily erected barrier tape, but when Simon pointed and explained who he was trying to get to, the cops let him through.
With a tear in my eye, I raised my hand to wave, but it faltered halfway up when I saw his face. It had thunderous murder etched into it. Seeing him approach, the male cop leaned forward to speak to his female colleague. He didn’t bother to whisper though when he said, ‘Look out; trouble coming.’
She turned, but Simon was already starting to speak. ‘What the heck have you got yourself into this time?’
‘I.’
‘I told you to steer clear of this paranormal nonsense. I told you not to apply for the job in the first place and now someone has targeted you and this… this poor woman. I take it that was your house that just got burned down?’ he asked Karen.
‘I,’ I tried again but he just steamrollered on.
Or rather he didn’t. I started speaking and stopped because he was looking at Karen and then looking at me and then his hand went to his mouth. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ he sucked in a huge shocked breath. ‘This is why you’ve been avoiding me. Isn’t it? You’ve gone back to women, haven’t you?’
