The Klowns of Kent

by steve higgs

  ‘Tempest.’ she answered. ‘I’m working. Will this be quick?’ I could hear voices in the background – she was working on the dispatch desk.

  ‘This is work actually. Jane was attacked by some Klowns.' Amanda made a shocked noise. ‘She is fine, just a little shaken. They tried to run her off the road and had they succeeded I am not sure what they might then have done. Her car is a bit trashed, but I was really calling to see if there had been a report of an accident on the Teston bridge?'

  ‘Hold on, I’ll check.’ The line went dead for a minute. ‘Yes, we have two cars there now.’ she said when she came back on the line.

  ‘The Land Rover was used by the Klowns. I am going to guess that they did not stay at the scene to exchange insurance details.’

  ‘No, it was reported as stolen just a few minutes ago. I guess they nicked it during the night and the owner came out this morning to find it gone.’

  ‘Where was it stolen from?’ I asked suddenly curious.

  ‘Ah. Hold on. It was a farm in Pluckley.’

  ‘Pluckley. Okay. Look, Jane is not injured. I don't think there is any mileage in her making a statement but with two attacks on me, my friends getting injured and now them going after Jane specifically, I cannot help wondering if I am somehow connected. Are the two Klowns that attacked us yesterday still at the station?'

  ‘I don’t know, but it is a fairly safe bet that they will be. We will not have processed them to go anywhere else yet although that might happen today.’

  ‘Is there any chance Chief Inspector Quinn will let me see them? I asked yesterday but he refused point blank. I only want to ask them a couple of questions. If I am somehow connected my presence might cause them to gloat or reveal something worthwhile.' I was asking Amanda what she could do, even though I knew I needed to speak with Quinn himself. The problem was that I could not just call CI Quinn and he would most likely ignore me if I went to the station front desk and asked for him.

  He was a bit of a tit.

  ‘I cannot predict what he might say, but I will find him and ask him.’ she replied.

  ‘Well, I can ask no more than that.' We disconnected, and I turned my attention back to Jane. Her tea was finished but the empty mug remained clutched in her hands as she stared at the floor. I had seen this many times before, the after effect of an intense situation. The brain tries to process what occurred and rationalise it. Usually, the person focuses on asking themselves what they could have done differently, running the event over and over in their head to work out how they could have avoided what happened. The answer was always nothing, but quite often counselling was required for the truth of it to take permanent root.

  The best that I could do for her right now was keep her busy.

  ‘There was something about the Klown in the passenger's seat.' Jane said suddenly, still staring at the floor. I sat myself down again, expecting there to be more. A few seconds later I was starting to wonder if that was all she had to say on the matter. ‘Something familiar about the eyes.' she added before I could prompt more from her.

  I nodded mentally. Whatever disguise a person wore the eyes remained the same. One could tackle that with coloured or patterned contact lenses, but few ever did in my experience.

  ‘I know him.’ she blurted. ‘I just don’t know who he is. Like I know that I know him, but I cannot work out where from.’ Jane was looking at me now, the sense of frustration clear on her face.

  ‘Give it time. It will come.’ I tried to reassure her. Experience with my own swiss cheese memory was that the piece of information I was searching for would generally surface only once I stopped trying to find it.

  Abruptly, Jane stood up. She took her mug to the sink, moving as if she had purpose suddenly. ‘Is it okay if I take some time off to get my car sorted out? I gave it a pretty good thrashing this morning and worry that it might be more than the bodywork that needs attention.'

  ‘Of course. Take the day if you need to.’

  ‘My brother works at a garage in Chatham. He will fix it and make sure I pay a sensible rate for the work.’ She was already shrugging on her coat and checking herself in the mirror. She spotted that her wig was out of place and fixed it with a tut and a sigh.

  ‘Before you go, there is the small matter that the Klowns specifically targeted you this morning. They have targeted me twice, so I think it wise to start thinking in terms of defence. I see no reason to believe that they will not come after us again.'

  ‘What are you proposing?’ she asked.

  I drummed my fingers on the desk. ‘Basic should be here soon. I don't want you moving around alone. It is a cliché, but we need to be lucky every time, they only need to be lucky once. Until we can work out why we are targets and do something about it, we need to keep together.'

  ‘Okay.’ she conceded, putting her bag down again. ‘What about work? What about the caseload?’

  ‘A valid point, but I feel that the need to keep ourselves safe must be given a higher priority. What if I go out and the Klowns come to the office and find you here alone?’ It was not really my intention to scare her, but I clearly had that effect. She was staring at me now, stood by the door with her eyes as wide as saucers.

  ‘Do you think they will?’ she asked, a tremor in her voice.

  ‘I guess my point is that I don’t know what they might do next. No one knows who they are, or what is motivating them, so since they appear to be coming after me and mine I intend to focus all effort on finding them.’

  ‘How will you do that?’ she asked me directly.

  It was a good question. The Police were getting nowhere, which was not exactly their fault, the crimes the Klowns were perpetrating seemed to have no connection to each other and no visible motive. ‘Through sheer force of will, Jane. Sheer force of will.' I meant it. What would they do next if I didn't stop them? Would they kill someone that I know? Would they have killed Jane this morning? I felt that the answer to that particular question was probably yes. Would they come after my parents? My sister and her kids? The Police might get lucky and find them, but I was not going to use hope as my success strategy, I was going to pull all the available information together, lean on whomever I needed to, and I was going to find the guy at the centre of this and slap his painted-on grin clean off his face.

  ‘I could do with a coffee.’ Jane said breaking my train of thought. It sounded like a good idea, so I grabbed my coat and took Jane to the coffee shop around the corner. It was a place I had been avoiding for more than a week – ever since Hayley, the rather lovely barista there had slapped my face in public.

  It was time to face her.

  The Coffee Shop. Wednesday, 26th October 0957hrs

  My stomach was threatening to betray me as I held open the door for Jane. I had been avoiding the coffee shop because the effort of dealing with Hayley, and the potential for another entirely unnecessary fight, seemed worth avoiding. I had not done anything wrong, other than failing to give Hayley sufficient attention after our night together, albeit on her instruction that she wanted something super casual. I had erroneously sent Hayley a text which I had addressed to Jane. It was yet another example of my brain betraying me. I had been talking to Jane at the time and it had been days before I saw my mistake. That I was nervous about speaking with her again was annoying me. I faced tougher challenges on a daily basis, so why was the girl that weighed less than I could bicep curl such a scary proposition?

  Because I was rubbish at handling, dealing with or even generally talking to women. That’s why.

  Maybe she will not be in today.

  ‘Good Morning, Tempest.’ she said from my right elbow where she had been clearing a table in the bay window.

  Bugger.

  ‘Good morning, Hayley.' I replied, wondering what I was supposed to do next. Ahead of me, Jane joined the back of the short queue at the counter.

  ‘Who is that?’ Hayley asked, indicating Jane. ‘I keep seeing her in here recently.’

&nbs
p; ‘That is my assistant, Jane.’

  ‘Aaaah.' Hayley drawled. ‘The infamous Jane.' Hayley gave the table a final, angry wipe with her cloth and picked up the tray she had placed the dirty cups on. I was in her way, so I stepped to the side to let her go by. She stopped in front of me and looked up to make eye contact. ‘Look, Tempest. We had a fun night together. I misread the cues, that's all. Please don't feel you need to avoid coming in here and I am sorry I slapped you. I had no right.'

  ‘Errr. Okay.' This was not had I had expected. I was thankful for her revised attitude though. The coffee shop had been a working day haven for me since I opened my business back in Spring.

  ‘I hope you and Jane are… I don't know. I don't know what I am trying to say. She is very pretty though.' I suddenly realised that Hayley didn't know. Could it be that she had never spoken to Jane or heard her speak? This made her actions make more sense. To me, it was obvious that Jane was a man, but he did make a convincing girl until one heard him speak or paid close attention, whereupon one would notice the hairy knuckles, Adam's apple, and stubble.

  ‘Um, Hayley. Just to clear something up, I really need you to meet Jane.’

  ‘I would rather not, thank you, Tempest.’ she replied over her shoulder as she went to the kitchen with her dirty crockery.

  I caught up with Jane at the counter. I really wanted to show Hayley that Jane was somewhat over-endowed in the penis department when compared to the average girl, but I had given my word to Jane that I would not play on her dual personality/cross-dresser thing, so I was stuck with having to stay quiet. It seemed inevitable that Hayley would find out sooner or later and when she did I would at least then be recast as a gentleman instead of the player she clearly now thought I was.

  I paid for the coffees and the jam doughnut that Jane selected, then settled into a comfortable armchair while we waited for Basic. I had sent him a text already to tell him where we were and got the standard single word reply from him.

  Jane and I chatted about property prices and her plans for a summer holiday while we sipped our coffee. She had endured quite a shock this morning and was either handling it well or ignoring it completely, which would most likely result in the trauma resurfacing later. For now, she seemed disinclined to deal with it and I was no psychologist, so I kept the conversation topics light until Basic wandered in fifteen minutes later.

  During that time my phone had pinged with an incoming text message. The text advised that the flowers I had bought for Sophie had been delivered. I stared at the phone, daring it to receive a text from Sophie. Silently, it defied me.

  We saw Basic wandering by the window at the front of the coffee shop. He pushed open the door, the looked about hesitantly as if unsure if he was allowed inside.

  I waved to get his attention. ‘Good morning, Basic.’ I said as he arrived at our table.

  Jane said, ‘Good morning, James.’ She always addressed him by his name.

  ‘Hi.’ replied Basic.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ I asked.

  He pulled a thoughtful face. I gave him a minute. ‘No, fank you, Tempest.’ He replied after a while. ‘I just had my breakfast and mum made me a cup of tea.’

  ‘Fair enough, buddy.’ My coffee cup was empty, and I was ready to go. ‘We are taking Jane to a garage in Chatham, you travel with her and I will follow. Then you stay with her and I am going to Maidstone Police station.’

  ‘Manda said I was to stay with you no matter what you said.’ He was very good at following instructions, so good in fact that were he to be told to dig a hole he would probably keep going until a different instruction came along or perhaps forever, whichever one occurred first.

  ‘Good man. But Amanda will be at the Police station. If I am with her I will be safe, yes? So, please stay with Jane while they sort out her car and we can catch up later today.' He looked uncertain as if he would be failing in his task if he let me head off on my own. ‘I promise I will go straight to the station and nowhere else.'

  ‘Ok, Tempest.’ he conceded.

  Maidstone Police Station. Wednesday, 26th October 1117hrs

  I had followed Jane and Basic to the garage in Chatham. It was not far from where we started out in Rochester as it sat near the river at the Rochester end of the city. They went inside and seemed to have everything in hand, so I left them there and left Chatham via the Maidstone road, passing the turnoff for my house on the way to the Police Station. I briefly debated pulling off the main road to check on my house and to take the dogs out for a walk, but I was heading to Maidstone to follow up on my earlier request to Amanda. I was fairly certain CI Quinn would refuse my request, so I would go home after that and most likely get there right on lunch time.

  I was wrong though. CI Quinn thought that having the Klowns see me might provoke them to break their silence. I was going to be allowed access to interview them after all.

  ‘We were able to identify them with their fingerprints, but they have not spoken to anyone other than their lawyer since we arrested them.' he said while doing his best to look down at me. We were almost exactly the same height though, so if that was the effect he was going for, it was not really working. CI Quinn and I had an issue, I just didn't know what it was. We first met a few weeks ago when I was looking into the Vampire serial killer case. I had managed to get myself arrested a couple of times in a week mostly by being in the wrong place at the right time. CI Quinn had been leading the investigation for the Police and had decided I was interfering.

  Whatever the case was, he made it quite clear that he did not like me, and he did not trust me and most of all he abhorred my profession. I thought he was insignificant, so I mostly ignored him, but I was concerned that Amanda did not like him and that it might be because he was either a misogynist or he had at some point abused his rank. I had no details about it though as Amanda was not the sort that shared problems she wished to handle herself.

  All in all, CI Quinn and I stepped around one another quite carefully.

  ‘Shown me where they are, please. I will let you know how I get on.' I said, ready to get on and grill them.

  ‘Good grief, man. You don’t think I am letting you go in to speak with them alone do you?’ CI Quinn gave me a derisory laugh. He could be such a dick. ‘You will be accompanied by me at all times. When you speak with the Klowns you will do so one at a time; I am not letting them see each other, and you will have all your questions vetted first. Their lawyer will be present, and I am running out of time to hold them here. Soon I will have to have them charged and processed.’

  I gritted my teeth invisibly against his attitude, his need to be dominant. Of course, I was not going in alone. I had not for one-minute thought I would be. I simply had not expected it to be CI Quinn himself that was with me. I was escorted into a small room where he and I were joined by a legal counsel who explained what I could and could not say. I had to write down my questions and commit that I would not deviate from them and sign to agree with those terms.

  Eventually, after a half hour of being messed around, CI Quinn finally led me from that room to another room where I finally got to see a Klown without said Klown trying to kill me. The Klown was now devoid of make-up and looked like an ordinary man. He was in his late thirties, there were tattoos on his neck and hands which were the only bits of flesh I could see other than his face. I felt it likely there was a lot more ink elsewhere. He had short, brown hair which was beginning to recede, and he was ugly. There was a small scar on his face next to his top lip, it pulled the skin of his face slightly which accented the clearly broken nose. He smiled at me when I came in, revealing teeth that were misaligned and broken, and tobacco stained. Max Travers had not taken care of himself.

  I knew his name because CI Quinn had given me a rundown on what they had already been able to find out. It was not a lot as he had steadfastly refused to speak since his arrest. He had a record though, so they were able to identify him once they took his fingerprints. He lived in Margate, wa
s unmarried but had several children with a number of different women. His list of known crimes included sexual assault, GBH and attempted bank robbery. He was thirty-seven years old, five years of which he had already spent behind bars. A lawyer had turned up within an hour of his arrest, the man was sitting opposite me now, right next to Max. Both of them were looking at me. Max was still smiling.

  I had my list of approved questions in front of me. I ignored them completely. ‘What do you wish to say to me?' I asked him. Next to me, CI Quinn stiffened, looked down at my piece of paper to confirm what he already knew and tapped the paper twice to get my attention. I ignored him as well. The Klown might have kept silent so far, but he looked ready to talk now.

  He was leering at me from across the table. Then he leaned forward in his chair. ‘Tempest fucking Michaels.'

  Not my actual middle name.

  ‘How are you still alive? I was sure someone else would have got to you by now.' His lawyer grabbed his arm and whispered something urgently in his ear. Probably telling him to shut up, however, it had no effect and Max didn't even bother to glance at him. ‘Oh, well. Second chance I guess.' With that, he launched himself out of his chair and across the table at me.

  The move shocked me. I was totally unprepared for it as was CI Quinn and the lawyer who both looked equally stunned. I propelled my chair backward to find I only had a couple of feet before I hit a wall. CI Quinn was up and moving as I brought my arms up to defend myself. Max had overstretched himself to get across the table, giving away any secure footing he might have. His top half was now hanging over the table, so even in my injured state, I was able to lunge forward with my right leg and stamp on the back of his head. This pushed him down and off the table where CI Quinn grabbed him. Arms and legs were going all over the place. My ribs were hurting again, so I watched rather than getting stuck in but before I had to consider whether I would need to, two uniforms came through the door.