by steve higgs
I did not think that Ian or Brad was losing enough blood that their lives were in danger, provided of course that they were treated and taken to the hospital fairly soon. I wanted to go. I wanted to find Deadface.
‘Basic.’ I called him over to me.
‘Yur?’
‘I need you to hold this in position here and keep pressure on it until the paramedics arrive?' I said, showing him the clean handkerchief I had stuffed into Ian's wound. It was now soaked with his blood, of course, but it was doing its best to slow down the blood leaking out of him.
‘Tempest, what are you doing?’ asked Amanda. She was a few feet away from me on the floor tending to Brad and his similar wound.
‘Ian is fine, Amanda. Deadface is out there. We catch him now or he slips away and…’
‘Don’t you dare leave, Tempest. That man needs you.’ she snapped at me.
‘Amanda, the man needs proper medical attention. Until then he will be just fine being looked after by Basic. I am going to find the Klown. When I get back, we can discuss how you and Quinn were using me as bait.' My words were angry and harsh. I doubted she had been complicit in the concept of using me as bait to draw the Klowns in, but she had known about it or had become aware of it at some point and had not told me. It compromised the trust I expected to exist between us as work partners. It was something I would have to address with her soon, but not now. Now I was filled with rage and I planned to use it as fuel to finish this.
I stood up as Basic manoeuvred himself into the position I had occupied. I patted my pockets and set off.
‘Tempest!’ Amanda shouted from behind me. ‘Tempest, damn you!’
She was right to be upset about me leaving Ian to bleed while I went after Deadface, but I needed to do this.
Back up the ancient stone steps, I re-entered the Castle grounds. It was still devoid of people, the only noise I could hear was from the items being blown about by the wind. I stood still and listened.
Nothing.
I was certain the Police would have blocked off all access roads by now making escape by car improbable. On foot, they might manage to slip through, but I knew there were Police Officers looking for them.
The Castle grounds were too vast though, with too many shadows for me to believe the Klowns could not slip through whatever net the Police might try to cast. I had to guess where Deadface would go if I wanted to catch him.
So where would he be trying to get to, which route would provide the greatest chance to slip away? I spun in place, my eyes closed and my mouth open to amplify any noise that might be available to hear. I had no way of applying intelligence to determine a likely direction to head in. There were so many possible streets that led away from the Castle. To the north and just beyond the outer Castle wall was the river.
The river?
I stopped trying to work it out and started running. I would be right or wrong.
It turned out I was both. Deadface wasn't trying to run. He was waiting for me. I ran through the Castle grounds heading towards the Castle itself. To the right of it was a door in the wall that led to a set of steps down to street level. As I went through the door, he hit me. The blow came full in the chest, his bat swinging hard. It might have killed me had I not been wearing armour and been fortunate enough that the blow landed squarely on the Kevlar plate.
I was shocked more than hurt although there was enough force to drive the air from my lungs. I fell, tucking into a roll to get some distance. He was alone, or at least I could not see another Klown with him. Perhaps the other guy has seen the sense in making good his escape.
Deadface came at me with the bat. I was still on the ground, in pain and short of breath, he was going to try to kill me, I was certain of that. He raised it above his head as he came running forward. I kicked him in his knees before he could complete the downswing and ruined his aim. The bat struck the ground next to me and was momentarily motionless. I wrapped my right arm around it, ignoring the pain in my ribs and rolled my whole body over to wrest it from his grasp.
Now I span my legs around to get them under me and came up fast with an uppercut to his chin delivered courtesy of the top of my head. I heard the connection of bone on bone reverberate through my skull. I did not have much fight left in me and I was alone, so I either ended this quickly or I would lose.
He stumbled back holding his face, blood coming from his mouth.
‘Where are my dogs?’ I demanded.
‘Dead.’ He sneered, pulling out the wicked knife he had been brandishing earlier. ‘Why don’t you join them?’
I had to dive out of the way as he lunged for me. I came up against the outer wall of the Castle grounds. It was a low wall, perhaps no more than five feet tall. He slashed at me again, I parried as his arm went past me, but he kept hold of the knife. On the backswing I timed his movement, allowing him to get closer, the blade nicked my arm as I ducked back but with the knife past me and travelling away from my body, I pushed off the wall and hit him with my left fist as hard as I could in the side of his head. It changed his trajectory, causing him to topple. The knife was still in his right hand until I kicked his forearm and it flew away into the dark.
I was drawing ragged breaths against my broken ribs. I needed to throw myself on him and pin him, get a sleeper hold in place or something but I felt that I must look like an exhausted boxer in the fifteenth round, barely able to keep my fists up and constantly stumbling.
Deadface was little better than I. The Police had finally spotted us though, they were all the way across the Castle grounds, more than one hundred metres distant but running towards us. I spotted CI Quinn and Amanda among the twenty or so coming our way.
Deadface saw them too. He found new energy, got to his feet and climbed onto the Castle wall. He was trying to escape over it. I tried to stop him but a backhanded swing from him pushed me away. There was a drop on the other side of the wall that was over one hundred feet. I noticed it just before he jumped, changed his mind and attempted to run back past me to get to the door and steps he had ambushed me from just a minute ago.
I snagged his foot as he went by which tripped him. As he fell, he lost his balance and fell to the outer edge of the wall. I caught a flailing arm, not because I wanted to save him but from instinct. He was hanging mostly off the wall, his left hand locked in my right. His eyes locked on mine, showing anger more than fear.
I glanced to my right, the Police were still fifty metres away, they could all see the drama playing out before their eyes. Holding his weight with my right arm, my ribs were on fire, I could not breathe from the searing agony and lights were starting to dance in front of my eyes.
‘This is your fault.’ Deadface squeaked at me.
I let him go.
The Aftermath. Friday, 28th October 2151hrs
I sat in the back of the ambulance hugging my knees and staring at nothing. I had been reunited with Big Ben, Jagjit, Frank, Poison, and Basic. To my great relief, they were all uninjured. The clowns had been separated from the Klowns and the Klowns had been arrested and taken away. I would have to catch up with Big Dick later, for now, I was content with the report that they were also all alive.
The CLITs had been in Rochester receiving instruction from Dr. Lyndon Parrish on how to cast a circle of protection when I had called Big Dick. When he had announced to the group that I was going to fight the Klowns and that they were also in Rochester, Lyndon had decided he could take them all down in one go. He had all the right ingredients to set a huge banishing circle. Dr. Parrish was in the hospital with a concussion from the blow to his head. I figured he would probably make a full recovery and had got off very lightly. The CLITs had followed Big Dick's lead and, having seen the Klowns ignore Dr. Parrish's attempt to magically bind them, had agreed to try it his way. There had been forty-three angry clowns to spring the trap. It was a little ruthless of me to use them like that, I could have easily got someone killed, but I hadn't, and they all had tales of heroic effort to te
ll now.
Deadface was… well, he was dead. He had fallen from the Castle wall onto the street below, but it was too far to drop and survive. The Police were not holding me responsible for his death, but I knew that I was. I had only needed to hang on for another four or five seconds, had I done so, the Police would have been upon us and could have pulled him back.
I had let go because I wanted to. I wondered how long that would haunt me.
For his part, CI Quinn had seen that I was administered to. When he came to check on me I threatened to kill him. My words were not well received. I accused him of using me as bait, of getting two or more of his own Officers hurt and of cowardly subterfuge. He would most likely get a glowing report for his handling of the case. When he departed, Amanda had appeared looking sheepish.
‘Why did you not tell me?’ I asked her. ‘What if they had killed Big Ben, or Jagjit, or anyone? What about my dogs?’
‘What about the dogs?' she asked worriedly.
‘Deadface took them. He showed me their collars as a taunt and told me they were dead.’
Mrs. Comerforth!
‘Amanda you have to get a car to my neighbour’s house right now. She was looking after the dogs. She might still be alive but hurt.’ I gave her the house number to be sure she got the right place and sent her away without another word. I was not in a talking mood.
Presently the paramedics told me they were taking me to A&E. I refused though. I was going home. I was bloody and beaten but they had sutured the knife cut to my arm so there was nothing else they could do for me in hospital.
I trudged slowly across the Castle grounds. It was full of Police Officers. Stallholders were being kept at bay behind crime scene tape. One stall had caught fire and burnt to a charred crisp. It was a wet mess now and I wondered if the same fire team now packing away their gear had tackled the blaze in my office.
I felt like I had lost, even though I would be told I had won.
‘Tempest.’ called Amanda from behind me. I still didn’t want to talk to her, but I turned anyway. I was at the edge of the grounds now, about to leave the area and all the drama behind me. ‘A squad car is at your neighbour’s house. She is fine. The dogs are fine. No one went there tonight.’
He had bluffed me.
I let out a breath that I did not know I had been holding. I mumbled my thanks, turned, and painfully, slowly ducked under the tape.
‘Tempest?’ she called me again. She wanted to talk, to clear the air perhaps. I was not ready to do so. I just kept on walking, I didn’t want her to see the anger and betrayal in my face.
My car was in the car park behind my office. At least that was where I had left it earlier this evening. I was genuinely surprised to find it still sitting there, its shiny red paintwork unmolested. As I dug around in my pocket for my keys I looked up at my office. It was a burnt-out shell. Even the roof was gone, the supporting timbers reduced to blackened stubby fingers. There was nothing precious in it, but I had once read the most businesses do not survive a fire. Too much is lost, even if all the people survive, for the business to reopen again elsewhere quickly enough to not be supplanted by a competitor. Well,
I had a competitor now even if he was in the hospital with a dent to his face.
I shut the door to my car and went home.
Postscript. Sunday, October 30th 1115hrs
I was telling myself that I was overdue a break, that the business would function perfectly well without me and that I absolutely was not running away. I had been telling myself that for the past day since I made the decision to run away.
Amanda had betrayed my trust. I was still not sure how I felt about it or about her and I did not want to be here tomorrow to deal with it. I had no live case that I was in the middle of, the cases the business did have could be tackled by Amanda in between her final few shifts, or they could just be left until I returned. I was telling myself it didn’t matter, and on that matter, I was probably correct.
I was going away for the week. I was taking the dogs and the three of us were going to have a holiday. It was a bit cold for a break by the sea but that was what I was going to do anyway. We would have long walks along the coastal pathways and venture into the surrounding countryside and have cream teas by warm open fires in quaint, time-forgotten alehouses. I was genuinely looking forward to it, even if I did worry that what I was actually doing was running away.
Yesterday, I had met with Jane and gave her the task of setting up the new office. We had gone shopping for a new computer and other office-essential equipment, then I set her up in my home office so that she could work from there. New stationary was ordered, and I was confident the business would tick over for a week without me directly at the helm. All Jane had to do was handle calls and emails, set Amanda up to tackle anything she felt like dealing with and maintain a presence for the firm.
My Landlord, Tony Jarvis had called yesterday morning. The building we both occupied was well insured and would be rebuilt. He had a meeting on Monday to sign some paperwork but expected to have work started within a week. I imagined it might take a good deal longer than that but would be pleased to be proven wrong.
I had barely slept the last two nights. The memory of choosing to let Deadface go still too fresh in my mind. It was not the first time in my life that a traumatic event had stolen my sleep. I had been in the Army for too many years and deployed to too many war zones to have avoided such things. One never gets used to it, but coping mechanisms do develop I suppose.
Lying in bed last night, two snoring dogs in the otherwise empty other half of the bed and with sleep cruelly evading me, I had avoided thinking about the death of Nigel Havers by piecing together the final parts of the Klown case.
The Klown spree of assault, battery, theft, and murder really had been all about me in a way. Nigel Havers was a broken man, beaten down by a poor start in life and an enormous chip on his shoulder that he could never get beyond. During his life he had endured the same amount of disappointments as anyone else might have; he had been dumped, been fired, had lost when he thought he would win, but unlike the rest of us who just move on, he had amassed a list of people to exact retribution upon.
When I spoiled his plan to be turned into a vampire, I had cut off his intended method of revenge. Once supposedly made immortal he would have gone after all the people on his list of hate and bitten out their throats. That was my working theory anyway.
Instead, he had formed a cult of Klowns. It was a testament to what he could have achieved with his life had he been sane. Attracted by the promise of revenge on everyone that had ever done them wrong, with a side order of making money through robbery, he had recruited criminals and set them tasks to perform. He had lured Adrian Plumber in by the expedient of adventure and excitement, two things that were missing from his life. The same sad story was probably true of many of the Klowns. The Police would undoubtedly uncover some of the details by interviewing the Klowns they had in custody but much of his motivation, his reason behind the Klowns had gone with him to his grave.
Amanda had wisely given me some space after apologising yet again. Rather than call me or just come to my house, as she had been doing since we met, she had emailed me the news that the Klown I had knocked out in the Lockmeadow carpark, the one with the green wig, had finally woken up. He had missed the whole thing. His injuries were not permanent thankfully, but he was off to jail to join his friends.
The press was having a field day with the story. There had been a local journalist at the Blood Fest, probably thinking it was a rubbish event to be assigned to cover. However, he was savvy enough to continue taking pictures as the crowd fled the Castle grounds and hung around in the shadows after that catching the action in still and video formats. Pictures of Poison in chainmail and helmet, twirling twin swords had made it onto the cover of two National papers. The nimble little minx had caused Frank's shop to be inundated with new customers apparently. I doubted he would be upset at the rush of business
as he had probably lost a lot of stock on Friday night. The chap had also captured images of Big Dick and the clowns. His tiny stature and clown outfit made him stand out, so footage of the fight between clowns and Klowns was going viral on YouTube. My involvement had made no more than a by-line. I had no problem with that. At least, I didn't until CI Quinn swept in and claimed to have stopped the Klowns through his department's great detective work and uncompromising bravery in facing the menace. He had been allowed to make a statement to a swarm of TV cameras on Friday night while the dust was still settling, and I was at home drinking my fifth rum and coke and wondering if my ribs would ever heal.
On the subject of my ribs, I had found myself forced to go to the hospital on Saturday morning to get some painkillers. Over the counter at the pharmacy ones were not going to do it. I had been healing. On Friday morning I had felt much improved, but if anything, the wound now was worse than when first inflicted. It was another reason to take myself away. I needed to find a place of solitude and quiet where I could properly relax. It was a necessary thing.
Nevertheless, I was running away on some level and trying to ignore it as an inconvenient fact. The dogs were playing in the garden while I slowly loaded the car. I had booked a place to stay just an hour ago, a small pub that had two rooms above it. I reasoned that booking a room above a public house ensured an easy walk back to my lodgings once I had enjoyed a few relaxing drinks at the end of a day. They served food, so it was a Bed and Breakfast and probably dinner most nights as well.
A week away to get my head straight. I would tell people tomorrow, once I was there. Was that cowardly? Probably, but it was a tactic that would prevent my parents or Big Ben or Amanda or anyone else from talking me out of it.
I closed the boot of my car, then closed the bonnet as well. The Porsche Boxster might look like it has no room for luggage, but the mid-engine design leaves a surprising amount of space both fore and aft. Enough for a suitcase, all the things the dogs might need, some sturdy walking boots and all the other paraphernalia I had packed just in case. I locked the car and went back to the house.
