by steve higgs
‘I’m afraid he is away on a course and will not be back for several weeks.’
Well that ended that line of enquiry. Even if I could get him via his mobile later he would have no idea what was going on with cases back at the station.
‘Oh.’ I said simply. ‘Well, thank you anyway. I’ll catch up with him later.’ I added just to wrap up the conversation.
I popped the phone in my bag, slung the bag over my shoulder and stepped out into the street.
It was cool out, one of those early autumn days that people call fresh rather than cold. It would be cold if you stayed out in it but of course most do not, they merely travel through the cool air on a brief transition between house and car, car and office. There was no need to button my coat though as it was only a handful of strides from the coffee shop to my office door.
I bounded up the stairs to my office, unlocked the door and left it open while I pulled together the gear I would need. While I had not been engaged by anyone to investigate The Vampire murders (might as well call it that since everyone else was) I had nothing better to do and perhaps solving this would get me a truck load of publicity.
As I set the business up I had invested in decent cameras, recording equipment, hidden microphones and professional looking stationary and notebooks that I could take to client meetings and wherever else my work took me. Since then I had bought ancient looking texts and grimoires to complete the image of the serious paranormal investigator and carried ridiculous extras such as salt, stakes and silver. So far, I had seen a lot of weird stuff but nothing that could convince me that the supernatural existed.
I carry a shoulder bag with me just about everywhere I go. I started doing so not long after I left the army and no longer had a back pack for daily use. I have phones, business cards, notebooks, cameras and recording equipment in it generally and trivia like a pack of tissues because you never know when a lady might need one and a condom because the lady might be impressed by the tissue. I’m a man okay? It’s how we think.
Bag packed I locked the office and jogged down the stairs, out the front and around the back to the car park where my car was waiting for me. I love my car. My twin sister says I am compensating, but I think that is a load of clichéd nonsense. If I swapped it for a 1970s battered Austin Allegro in shiny turd brown it would not suddenly transform Mr Wriggly into Penisaurus Rex so having a car that I enjoy driving does not mean I am hung like a baby carrot. It was a beautiful black 2009 Porsche Boxster S with a full Porsche body kit and fat nineteen-inch Porsche cup alloys.
I plipped it open and got in, swinging my bag of goodies onto the passenger seat. The journey was perhaps five miles or so and would take anything between twenty and forty minutes depending on traffic. I used to run a lot of the route I was about to take whenever I was spending time at my parents’ house in Rochester, so I knew the roads could often be jogged faster than driven. Nevertheless, driving was the right option and I got there in twenty-four minutes.
I parked at the River Angel pub that Sharon had said was near to the scene. The pub was an attractive two-story building set on the river front. I had no idea how old it was although it had old oak beams set into the walls and a several centuries old look to it. It was shut, no lights on but at 0937hrs this was no surprise. I wondered if anyone lived there. It looked like a nice place to live so perhaps the landlord and his family were in residence.
I walked around the side passed the wooden trestle tables laid out for al fresco dining and spotted the on-duty police officer on the river path immediately. From where I stood the river looked lovely, the setting was beautiful and must draw scores of people all year round making it a great site for a pub. Mooring points allowed boats to pull up right at the pub and they were fitted along the river bank as far as I could see in either direction. Beyond him there were the familiar white tents they erect to preserve a scene and prevent gawking passers-by from having anything good to look at. There were a number of persons moving about in full-body forensic suits and several more police officers in uniform along with one or two others in suits and coats that were probably also police. All were near to the tents and not visibly doing much. The established perimeter was set at a distance that meant conversation at the site could not be heard and the detail of what people were doing was impossible to make out.
The tents were tucked in under a few straggly trees just off the path that follows the river. It was cooler here than elsewhere, the local temperature kept low by the river. I approached the uniformed police officer blocking access to the site.
‘Good morning. I understand there has been another murder. I am a private investigator looking into the deaths for a third party.’ Okay so I was the third party but the lie was far better than saying ‘Hi I investigate weird stuff like vampires and werewolves for a living.’ because that never gets me very far.
I didn’t really expect help or an invite to see the victim for myself. ‘I know who you are, Sir.’ said the officer much to my surprise. I noted his number in my notebook just in case I needed to refer back to whom I had spoken with. ‘I saw you in the local papers after that Werewolf thing.’ he was grinning now. ‘Watch too many episodes of X-Files by any chance?’ clearly entertaining himself.
It occurred to me that I could simply be an equal arse to him and leave him feeling small and pathetic, but that would not get me any information. I grinned back in what I hoped was a congenial way ‘Too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer actually, but what I proved in the incident to which you refer was that the supernatural does not exist. I get paid to prove it does not exist by people that fervently believe that it does.’ mostly true. ‘The very fact that this is being called a vampire slaying means a pay day for me so I am hoping you can help me out with a few very basic facts.’
At this point over his left shoulder I spotted a second uniformed officer heading over towards us. Very different in appearance to the chap I was currently conversing with though - this one was gorgeous. I have never been impressed by ladies that dress for a night out like they are auditioning for the Pussycat Dolls, nor am I inspired by flawless makeup so the fact that the lady walking towards me now in coppers boots, a heavy, unflattering uniform and bereft of makeup and hair styling could grab my attention so instantly meant she must be a knock out in her usual clothes. Get a grip, Tempest, I chastised myself. There are plenty of attractive ladies around, no need to start dribbling.
Opting to look focused and professional I hoisted the camera out of my shoulder bag and took a few shots of the area in general.
‘My turn again. There are bacon sandwiches if you are quick.’ the new officer informed her colleague on arrival.
He turned to go but looked back and offered ‘Good luck with the investigation, Mulder.’ as he went. I had considered that he might just be bored and thus the initial thrust and parry of our few shared words were merely to brighten his day, but no, I concluded, he is in fact just a dick.
‘What did he mean?’ asked the vision in uniform. Her face betrayed boredom and little else.
‘I’m the guy in the papers investigating supernatural events. Not that I expect you to have heard of me, but he clearly had.’
‘That thing with the werewolf?’
‘Yup. That was me. I’m Tempest Michaels. I think this attack is linked to the previous two, which is no great leap given the proximity of the crimes to each other. Solving it will assist my business.’ I was looking beyond her rather than at her, but focused now on meeting her eyes. Wow! They were fantastic, and boy do I need to get laid at some point soon. I realised I has stopped speaking during the internal dialogue. ‘What can you tell me about the circumstances?’
‘Nothing, Sir. Official statements will be issued once the details of the crime have been verified and the victim has been identified.’ It was the answer I expected although it never hurts to ask.
‘I’d like to give you my card.’ fishing in my bag. ‘I would be very interested in following up on this with you whe
n you are off duty.’
‘To what purpose?’ Okay brain, get it right and you have a shot, get it wrong and the lovely lady will identify that you are a complete knob and that will be that. How can I get across that I am a cool guy just looking to solve a crime and be professional but that I am also available and interested? I opened my mouth to express that I find senior police officers have no time for me and that her colleague was clearly not interested in helping and that thus I hoped that she could provide some perspective so that, through spit-balling our ideas together we might both do well. Then a voice came from behind me.
‘Wotcha, Dangerman. I knew you would get here before me. Still convinced that there are no vampires?’
‘Bollocks.’ I muttered to myself
‘Chatting up another fine woman I see. I don’t know how you keep up with them all.’
Perfect.
The voice, I knew without turning belonged to Frank Decaux. Frank was the owner of an occult book shop and believed with a foaming-at-the-mouth fervour that everything supernatural existed. He stood about five feet four inches tall, had a forgettable face, a scrawny body and light brown hair which was not complemented by a sallow complexion. The overall effect was as if a witch had changed him from a weasel into a man and not done a very good job. Frank arrived at my office about ten minutes after the advert for paranormal investigations went out and I had not been able to shake him since. Largely this was because he was determined to be there when I came up against something that proved to be genuinely supernatural and partly because he turned up anywhere that might have a supernatural link. Such as the site I was now stood at. I think he is harmless and generally well-meaning and I have called upon him on occasion for expert advice. He can be an annoying tit though.
‘Good morning, Frank.’ I replied ignoring my desire to throw him into the river. ‘How unsurprising to find you here. The officer and I were just discussing the case. Or rather, I was asking questions and the officer was deciding how to answer them.’
PC Hotstuff, as the chunk of my brain controlling my penis has now labelled her had a question ‘I have been stood here for ten minutes and so far, you have been called Mulder and Dangerman. Do you get called a lot of names?’
Halfway through turning to look at Frank I turned back to her, smiled and said ‘What I get called depends on whether I have been naughty or not.’
She just rolled her eyes. I had been aiming for cheeky scamp but had clearly missed in her opinion.
‘So, what’s the plan Tempest? What are we up against? Lone vampire or nest? Personally, I think a lone vampire is more likely and a very young one. Very unusual for them to make this much mess and leave bodies around the place. Only a young, inexperienced vampire, a new born, would be so amateur.’ I swivelled to look at Frank’s face, but he was of course completely serious. ‘Traditionally, vampires prey on those that will not be missed or on rural communities, which has of course become far harder this century with the internet, CCTV, mobile phones etcetera. The TV wants to show them as flamboyant creatures that live among us and impress us with their charm and looks, but they are shadow creatures in reality, keeping to the dark and trying to remain unnoticed.’
‘In reality?’ PC Hotstuff had an incredulous look on her face and was staring at Frank as if trying to decide whether he was dangerous or just stupid. ‘In reality, a young woman had her throat ripped out twenty yards from her door by a crazed murderer. If it turns out that the perpetrator is some pathetic moron acting out a vampire fantasy…’ she tailed off as if unsure how to end the sentence.
‘What she said.’ I chimed, agreeing completely but also noting that the victim was a young woman and very local, which given the geography must have meant that she was on her way back from the pub and only had a two hundred metre walk. That alone explains what she was doing out by herself in the dark on a dodgy looking path at night. Not a good place to walk, but if it is only a few hundred metres and the alternative well-lit route is over a mile then I’m sure most would have taken the same option as she had. Doubtless she had taken the same route home hundreds of times before.
‘Frank, you are completely mad, yet thoroughly entertaining at the same time.’ I said turning back to PC Hotstuff. ‘You have my card. See you around.’ I popped the camera back into my bag and left to head back to the car.
Behind me I could hear Frank explaining to PC Hot stuff that the world Joss Whedon created for Buffy the Vampire Slayer had actually been quite accurate on some of the details.
Poltergeist. Thursday 23rd September 0942hrs
Walking back to the car I considered my sum total of facts pertaining to the case. Three victims over two weeks, all within a mile or so of each other and all brutally murdered by having their jugular punctured. Details regarding the first two murders had been sketchy and I had not paid much attention to the case until now. I needed to know where they had been killed, what they had been doing before-hand and try to find some kind of link. From memory, the first victim had been a middle-aged man and the second a little old lady. No obvious connection with either of them to the third victim, but perhaps some delving would reveal something.
I pointed the car back to the office and continued to mull over the vampire case. It would be easy enough to search for all the reports written in the papers and more specialised paranormal press. It might not reveal much but would allow me to create a time line and map and sieve through some data to get a handle on what was known.
The phone began to ring in my bag and a second or so later the hands-free kit in the car picked it up so that I could answer it while driving.
‘Blue Moon Investigations, Tempest Michaels speaking.’
The call was from a Mr Winston Cranfield of 37 Buckley lane, Rochester.
He reported that he had a poltergeist in his house and both he and his wife had fled to the Travelodge on the Rochester/Maidstone Road. A quick mental calculation told me that the address was not far from my office, so I sold him the concept that it was clearly a high priority task for me and he seemed somewhat relieved that someone was taking him seriously. I told him I could be there in under thirty minutes and got off the phone.
I pulled into the Travelodge car park twenty-two minutes later and went into reception to wait for Mr Cranfield. The lady manning the reception desk by herself called through to their room to check they were expecting a visitor and buzzed me through the entry door anyway, so I met Mr Cranfield coming out of his room.
Mr and Mrs Cranfield, or Winston and Barbara as they insisted I call them, were a lovely couple in their late sixties or early seventies which I had already guessed from Winston’s voice and mannerisms on the phone. Winston had a firm handshake and commented on the veterans badge I had pinned to my collar just before I left the car. I suspected he would at least have completed National Service and I was right. Like so many of his generation he could remember the war sort of but most certainly the sense of pride the Nation felt towards the services at the time. His father had served, and we spoke briefly about the Army following the usual question about which branch I had been in.
Winston was neither short nor tall at about five feet nine inches and had probably been taller in his twenties. He wore a pair of hopsack trousers with a collared shirt and pullover, all in new condition. His wife Barbara “Call me Barbara.” She had instructed me, wore what I believe was called a house coat type dress. I may have that completely wrong, but it was the sort of patterned dress that little old ladies wore and still managed to look smart in. I remembered my grandmother wearing them along with a scarf around her head when she went outside.
The clothes told me that the Cranfield’s were not poor and I knew their house to be in a good area of Rochester. This was important because I do not want to rip people off but have to still charge them a sensible rate for the work that I do. I cannot work for free but had done so a few times in the past when I had been presented with a case that I wanted to take on involving persons without the funds to p
ay me. Anyway, it seemed likely that I need not be concerned this time.
Mrs Cranfield busied herself making tea. I noted that she only had two cups due to the nature of their lodgings but bit down my initial need to tell her to keep it for yourself as it seemed likely her dignity would prefer to be able to offer me something. She had apologised several times already for the lack of biscuits and the fact that it was not her usual brand of tea nor her good china.
While Barbara made the tea, I took over. There were two chairs and a table in one corner of the room by the window, so I sat on the edge of the bed, which was still perfectly made, leaving space for the two of them to sit close to each other at the table. To me they seemed calm but perhaps a little upset or confused.
‘It all started about two weeks ago.’ stated Winston when I encouraged him to tell me in slow and patient detail what had led them to make contact. ‘Barbara and I,’ he motioned to his wife who had now delivered the teas and had sat beside him at the table, ‘went up to bed after Midsummer Murders on Saturday night.’
‘So, that would have been just after ten o’clock.’ Barbara interjected.
‘That’s right, love.’ he said patting her hand across the table. ‘We usually go up around that time.’
‘And then we read for half an hour before we turn out the lights.’ Barbara chipped in again.
‘That’s right, love.’
‘So, this is Saturday night?’ I clarified making a note on my pad and jotting down the date.
‘Yes, Dear’ confirmed Barbara.
‘And then what happened?’
‘Well, we woke up when there was a bang from downstairs and then…’
‘One moment please. What sort of bang?’
They looked at me without responding.
‘I mean, was it like a firecracker exploding or like a book falling off a shelf or something completely different?’