by steve higgs
She locked eyes with me. It was quite deliberate, and she pointed a bony finger at me, pinning me to the spot.
‘Spy.’ She announced, her voice like fingernails on a chalkboard. ‘He is spying on us.’
Whoever she was, how she had identified me, did not matter. I was not going to be able to eavesdrop on their conversation and they would be looking for me now which would compromise my investigation. I could worry about that later. Right now, I needed to leave and to do that I needed to get my dogs back.
‘I think I’ll take these, thank you.’ I said, scooping the dogs from the laps of Dorothy and Edna. They both looked a little shocked, but then all the ladies did except for the witch. She was just watching me, her eyes accusing.
It was a little unnerving. She somehow knew who I was or at least knew my purpose in the bar. Had she just guessed? Did my actions somehow betray me? I was back at the door of the pub and walking away, but then had a thought. I was busted anyway, so why not do something to advance my investigation?
I walked back to the table, pulled out my phone and took a photograph of the surprised witch’s face. With a quick nod of thanks, I made good my escape. As I went, I emailed the picture to James with a request that he try to find her. It was a tough task I suspected but he surprised me all the time with what he could achieve sat at his computer.
I had not managed to get the dogs their promised packet of crisps and was now going to bundle them back into the car yet again. I paused before I got to it though, there was another course of action open to me.
Surveillance. Monday, November 7th 1404hrs
I kept a few items of basic surveillance equipment in the boot of my car in a bag. One of the items was a small, battery-powered camera that linked to my laptop. It was very likely that all the ladies, except for Dorothy, had parked in the town's main car park behind the pub. I just needed to mount the camera in a place where it would pick up the cars as they left. I could see what car the witch was in, very probably get a shot of her number plate and through that James would be able to find out who she was. If she had a car and could drive, of course.
I hit the button on my key fob to open the boot and fished out the bag with one hand. It had a shoulder strap which I hooked over my head to fish around in it as I crossed the road. If the dogs were confused about where we were going or what we were doing, there was no sign of it. Both were trundling along happily by my feet, their tails wagging as they went.
Not far from my car, I found a convenient road sign that faced the car park exit. The camera had a magnet on the back so attaching it I barely broke my stride. I doubted anyone would see it, it was not much bigger than a fifty pence piece, but there was a risk it would get stolen and it wouldn't do well with rain if the weather changed.
I gambled that the ladies were not going anywhere for a while having only just arrived, so I packed the dogs into the car and took them to the nearby park. I could leave the car at the park and walk back, find myself a shady corner to stand in and have myself a little stakeout until they left. I was also a little worried that they might know my car. The witch seemed to know me, so it didn't feel like much of a leap. If they did, then I wanted them to believe I had left.
Of course, I didn’t really think she was a witch. She was just an ugly old lady, but my natural conclusion was that she was at the centre of the deaths. Possibly even the one causing them since the wives each seemed to have iron-clad alibis. How she was doing it remained a key question.
At the park, I wandered slowly back in the direction of the town centre, letting the dogs scamper back and forth. As they entertained themselves, I phoned Frank DeCaux, owner and manager of the Mystery Men bookshop in Rochester.
‘Mystery men. For all your supernatural literature needs.’ It was Poison that answered the phone. Ivy Wong, AKA Poison was Frank’s very attractive assistant. She was his only member of staff, she was nineteen years old and she had a thing for me that I was refusing to take advantage of.
‘Hello, Ivy. It’s Tempest. Is Frank there, please?’
‘Hello, Tempest.' she purred down the line at me, her voice instantly demure and suggestive. ‘He's right behind me. Somewhere you should be.' Her flirty words went straight to my groin. Mr. Wriggly had been very grumpy with my decision to not pursue nocturnal activities with Poison. If he could have sworn at me, he would be doing so right now.
‘Tempest?’ Frank’s voice came onto the line.
‘Hi, Frank. I have a picture to send you. I think this one is really a stretch, but I am wondering if you can identify a person. Hold on.’ I took the phone from my ear and switched it to speaker. ‘Photo is on its way to you now.’
I waited for him to receive it and looked around to make sure I still had both dogs. They were just off to my left. I was on a path and they were in the field it bisected. They were watching three crows. The large black birds were too far away for the dogs to have any hope of catching but close enough to make their dopey brains think they should try.
I made no attempt to stop them as they both took off. Stealthy as a one-man band going for a run, both dogs announced their attack by barking all the way across the field. The crows waited until the dogs were getting just a little too close, then took off. They flew fifty yards and touched down again, which was close enough that the dogs kept on running. As they neared the crows they took off again and the cycle repeated. They were getting good exercise and probably enjoying themselves.
‘That’s a witch.’ Frank said.
I turned my attention back to the conversation with him. ‘I am sure that is what she wants us to think.'
‘It is the heterochromia iridium that gives it away. Not that it cannot occur in ordinary people but in witches, it is very common. Combine that with the Wiccan symbol hanging from her neck and the three rings on her fingers, I am certain that you have found yourself a genuine witch.'
I had to search my memory to dredge up the snippet of information that told me the term heterochromia iridium meant the person had different coloured eyes – one blue, one green or whatever the combination was. I looked more closely at the photograph and he was right; the left eye was brown in her case while the right was blue. Now that he had pointed it out, I was shocked I hadn't seen it before. ‘Frank this will come as no surprise to you, but I do not understand the significance of the necklace or the rings.'
I heard him tut. ‘The three rings represent their faith. Wiccans worship the Horned God of fertility and a Mother Goddess. The middle ring represents Wiccans on earth enveloped between the two gods. The odd things about their gods, of course, is that they have no names.’
‘Why is that odd?’
‘Because, Tempest, with the exception of the Christian faith, who are a bit arrogant in just calling their god, God, everyone else gives them names. The Romans, Egyptians, and Greeks all did. Even the Pagans had names for their deities.'
‘Okay, so the pertinent news is that the lady in the photograph is a witch. My follow-on question is: Would she be able to make a man’s heart explode from his chest?’
There was silence at the other end for a while. I was about to repeat myself when he finally started speaking. ‘I, ah… I need to look something up.' Then he disconnected. Basically, he hung up on me. From anyone else, it would seem rude, but Frank's start point was odd. He went down the scale from that point depending on the day and the circumstances.
He would most likely call me back once he had something to tell me, or I would catch up with him later.
A few spots of rain began to fall, signalling the end of our walk. I called to the boys. They had given up their pursuit of the crows when the birds had finally grown bored of being chased and taken to a tree. Now they were snuffling at the base of a promising looking bush for rabbits.
For once they came when I called, bouncing off one another as they ran across the field to me. I clipped them back on their leads to escort them out of the back gate of the park. The town centre was no more than three
hundred metres away, the time to get there insignificant.
No more than twenty-five minutes had elapsed since I left the town centre and the ladies were still in their seats by the window. Opposite them was another pub, not unusual in an English village. If my knowledge was correct, there were no fewer than twelve pubs in West Malling and there had probably been far more than that a few decades ago. I slipped in through a side door, bought a diet coke plus a packet of crisp to feed the dogs and settled down to watch.
I may have mentioned this before, but stakeouts are boring. Really boring. I was sitting in a pub on a cool day in late Autumn and should have been happy to just idly sip a drink and relax. However, the mere fact that I was watching the window across the street made the time drag. It was not that I had a desperate need to be somewhere else, just that I was waiting for them to leave and had no idea how long the wait might be.
A long twenty minutes went by and suddenly they all started moving. The witch had her back to the window, not that I would have been able to see much had she been facing outwards. Light playing off the glass, passing cars and vans and the thirty metres between us all degraded what I could see. If only I had been able to place a one-way radio under their table, I could have recorded the entire conversation.
The ladies vanished from sight, heading further into the pub and probably out the back door to reach the car park. Less than a minute later the white Mercedes SLK came into view as it left the car park. Then Dorothy came out the front of the pub and got into the Range Rover. The next car to leave contained Barbara. I watched for the witch.
Nothing.
Several cars left over the next five minutes, but each had a person at the wheel that was most definitely not an old crone.
I tapped my chin a few times, drummed by fingers, swore quietly and made a decision. I crossed the road, went in the front door of the pub and out the back. There was no other way out of the car park except via the entrance/exit I had been watching. Not for an old woman anyway. A fitter person could easily scale the six-foot wall that surrounded the car park, so she must have gone out on foot or by car in the time I was going through the pub. Regardless of the circumstances, she had given me the slip.
Then I remembered the camera.
Day Time Drinking. Monday, November 7th 1542hrs
By the time I got home, I was very much ready for a cup of tea. I wanted a biscuit to go with it but denied myself the unnecessary calories and ate a banana instead. It was, probably, the same number of calories but the way my body would process and use them was vastly different.
I flicked the kettle on, took the dogs’ collars off and put them into the basket on the shelf next to the front door along with their leads and the remaining baggies I had in my pocket. While my tea was brewing, I went through to the office to fetch the list of signwriters James had produced for me. I was itching to check the video footage from the carpark to see if I had, in fact, caught the witch on camera leaving the pub, but it could wait until I had made tea and sat down.
Checking the list of signwriters, I could not see that any of the firms on the list were better or superior to any other, so I started at the top and called the first number. They could absolutely do what I wanted, but not for another three weeks. I had no desire to operate out of an office that bore the name of a different business. I worked my way down the list, finally getting someone who could come tomorrow on the eighth call. They could come in the morning, remove the old signs, measure up and be back with new signs the following day or possibly the day after depending on what I wanted.
I was sceptical about their lead time for completing the work but did not voice my thoughts. I needed to provide them with a design, but if I did not have one they could, for an additional charge, help me to produce one.
With that task done, I drank my tea and thought about what else I needed to do. Frank still hadn't called me back, but he would, so I was going to give him space and if I had not heard anything by tomorrow, I would visit him in his shop. I was looking forward to being back in Rochester High Street. I would have to break the news to Tony at the travel shop. He would be disappointed to lose the rent probably, but I would point out that he could charge more than he charged me and once the office was rebuilt he could yield a greater income from it. I was paid up for the quarter anyway and would not ask for a refund.
I had been going over and over in my head how I was going to learn more about the four women. Now that the witch, or whatever she was, had identified me to them, there was no chance that I could spy on them or eavesdrop on them or even be anywhere near them unless I was in a very good disguise or invisible. But a thought occurred to me. Two of them were widowed and two of them were most likely disgruntled with their husbands. I wanted to know more about them, such as what Dorothy and Edna’s relationships with their husbands was like. Were they unhappy? Did they have massive life insurance policies? Were they performing diabolical Wiccan ceremonies that cause men’s hearts to fly out of their chests?
I could not get close to them, but I knew a man that could.
‘Ben, I have a challenge for you.’ I announced when he answered his phone.
‘Yeah? Am I going to like this?’ he asked, his voice guarded.
‘Probably, yes. I need you to seduce some women, get them to lower their defences and obtain some information without them realising they have given it up.’
‘Sounds easy. How many women?’
‘Four.’
‘Deadline?’
‘How quickly can you get it done?’ I asked.
‘Well, I need their addresses, or where I can most likely find them. Photographs would help so that I can identify them easily. I had no plan for tonight, other than to go into town and pick up some women.' Some women. ‘So, I can start right now if you like. Should have it all tied up before bedtime.’
I honestly couldn’t tell whether he was joking or serious. I told him I was at home and had the information he needed here.
Something thumped against the front door. As I turned towards it, the dogs whooshed by either side of my ankles, barking as they went.
There was a figure on the other side of my door, but through the frosted glass, whoever it was appeared to be leaning on the door, their face was smooshed into the glass.
Curious, I opened the door. Hilary toppled in to land at my feet. The dogs stopped barking, surprised by the sudden human at their level. They climbed on his face.
‘Hey, Tempesht. I found a…’ he paused, partly because Bull had just licked his teeth and partly because he seemed to have lost the thread of what he was saying.
He was drunk.
‘I found a pub. They had beer.’ He announced with utter glee.
I looked down at the figure on the floor of my house. I didn’t do drunk. I liked a few drinks, but once the alcohol started to impact my reaction time, which of course was almost immediate, I stopped. I never got to the point where I was a liability to others. Never had. Doubted I ever would. Nevertheless, I now had a drunk laying at my feet.
‘Come on, buddy. Let's get you up.' I grabbed an arm, hauled him onto his very unsteady feet and walked him through to the lounge where I let him flop onto the sofa. ‘Are you likely to be sick?' I asked. My concern felt legitimate.
‘Goodness, no.’ He replied as he sank into the cushions and made himself comfortable. ‘I only had a few.’ His arithmetic was questionable. ‘There was a lovely barmaid. Well, I say lovely. She had a bit of stubble on her chin and the tattoos on her knuckles read LOVE and HAT. But other than that, she was lovely.’
‘LOVE and HAT?’
‘Yes, she lost the finger with the E on it in a fight when someone bit it off.’ She sounded wonderful. ‘We have a date at the weekend.’
I opened my mouth to ask whether that was a good idea, but the question died on my lips when I saw that he was now asleep. He began snoring. From the information about the barmaid, I surmised that he had walked to the pub in the next village. I had been in
there once or twice, more from curiosity than anything else. The barmaid was something of a local legend, the legend itself being that if you got drunk enough you would wake up with her. It seemed she had a habit of preying on drunk young men and would carry them across the road to her house unconscious if necessary.
Hilary was lucky to have escaped if there was any truth to the rumour. I was standing in front of him, watching him sleep. I felt creepy, so I left him there to sleep it off. As I was leaving the room, Bull and Dozer were climbing onto his lap from either side. They would join him with their snores.
The Hag of Bluebell Hill. Monday, November 7th 1612hrs
It was 1612hrs. I called Amanda. I hadn't checked on her all day. She was operating as an independent investigator, picking her own cases and bringing in fees for her services. I really liked how autonomous she was, but I felt I should check in with her every day and make sure she had all she needed, offer her my support, that sort of thing. She most likely had no use for me, but I wanted to touch base nevertheless.
Her phone rang in my ear, but I could also hear it coming from somewhere else. As I looked up confused, she came through my front door holding it in her hand.
She said, ‘Hi, Tempest.' as she closed the door behind her. I could see that it was raining lightly outside again. There were spots on her clothing where she had dashed from the car to the door and her hair, which was usually full of volume, looked a little deflated from all the moisture around. That said, she was still the most beautiful woman on the planet and we were alone in my house together. Except we were not because Hilary was still asleep on my couch.
The dogs appeared, fussing around her feet until she petted them and cooed at them. Each rolled over to show her a belly to scratch.