by steve higgs
‘I will go to the station this afternoon and will get back to you once I have something. Now though, I think I will make good my escape before your mother asks if I am ovulating today.' She said with a laugh.
Her laughter was like music, but the best music I had ever heard. Everything about her was just fantastic.
‘I’ll see you out.’
Amanda still had her boots on and all the things she came with were still in her pockets. As we neared the door, she pulled her keys from her jacket pocket, paused, leaned in through the kitchen door frame and then back out again.
‘Want to give your mum something to talk about?’
‘Hummh?' I grunted, wondering what she was asking me.
‘Nice to meet you both,’ Amanda called through to the kitchen.
My mother appeared suddenly from behind the kitchen counter. ‘Oh, are you leaving, dear,’ she enquired, advancing towards us.
‘Yes, I have work to do.’
‘On a Sunday?’ She asked, her tone now horrified.
‘Police work is never done I’m afraid. Got to be going then,’ she said. Then waved to my parents, leaned in and kissed me on the lips. I was so taken by surprise that I dropped my teacup. It thunked on the carpet, somehow not breaking. She winked again as she broke the kiss and with a little laugh, she opened the door, waved once more and was gone.
I closed the door behind her and slowly turned back towards my kitchen deep in thought. What the hell had the kiss been about? It was only a peck on the lips, but did that mean she was interested? Surely, she must be? Not because I am fantastic but because why else would she kiss me? Surely, she must know how she looks and what effect she has on men in general? Or did it mean nothing and that was just for show? Again, with the wink.
Still thinking, I looked up to find both parents staring at me from inside the kitchen and both dogs staring at me from the floor. The dogs wagged their tails as I made eye contact with them.
‘Um,’ I said, showing off my huge intellect.
‘She has great hips, Tempest,’ Oobserved my mother. ‘And good breasts.’
‘Definitely good breasts,’ chipped in my dad.
‘Shut up, Michael,’ Instructed my mother without looking away from me.
‘Good breasts,’ I echoed, deep in thought. ‘I shall make sure I congratulate her on them next time I see her.’
‘You will do no such thing, Tempest. I am just saying that she is a young woman with all the bits she needs for raising children.’ Mother had moved to join me in the entrance hall now and was picking her boots up to go again. ‘Is it too much to ask that there are Grandchildren before I am in my grave?’ Mother liked to lay in on thick if she could.
The conversation was an old one and I wondered sometimes when it had started. There was a long period in my late teens and early twenties when she was convinced I was going to produce children out of wedlock and expected me to stay a virgin until my wedding night. My dad never really offered an opinion on the subject either way but had warned me to be sensible on a couple of occasions. At some point, she had changed tack and suddenly needed me to procreate lest I miss the window of opportunity. It seemed likely that others suffered the same as I, although I could not recall being lamented with all that many stories.
I wanted to reiterate that Amanda was just a colleague of sorts, but the kiss had made any denial of a relationship seem lame.
‘Off to collect chestnuts then? Would you like to take the dogs with you?’ This was my attempt to navigate past further discussion of babies and Amanda’s breasts. Amazingly it worked.
‘Yes. Have you noticed if they are many?’
‘They are abundant, and you know how few people actually stop and pick them up so there should be plenty for you.’ I turned to call for the dogs but found them at my feet. ‘Time for a walk, chaps.’
A minute or so later, both my parents, accompanied by my two faithful dogs, were out the door and heading down the path. As I closed the door, I could hear her complaining about grandchildren again. They would be back soon enough. I checked my watch. It was 1322hrs. I pulled my phone from its usual hiding place in my back pocket and wrote PC Hotstuff a text. ‘Confused. The kiss was very pleasant, but not sure what it meant.’ I hovered my finger over the send button then elected to delete it while berating myself for being indecisive.
I had time to kill, so I prepared some vegetables to accompany the steaks, performed some basic housework tasks and set the washing machine to clean some laundry. Then I got changed and went out for a run.
There were great running routes around the village located on the North Downs as it is. Plenty of contour, different surfaces and so much better than running on the pavements where the impact jarred my knees and made them ache. Just shy of an hour later I arrived back at my door sweaty, devoid of stress and feeling mentally positive about my day.
I headed to the shower.
Movie Night at My House. 1926hrs Sunday 26th September
Jagjit arrived at 1806hrs with a ten-pack of Cobra beer in glass bottles and two movies that both starred Jason Statham. It took us about eighteen seconds to get the first pair of bottles opened and less than fifteen minutes to drink them. It had been a while since we had done this, so we chatted about work and stuff and enjoyed the cold beer.
I served the steaks at 1930hrs on the dot. We sat and ate them in near silence at the breakfast bar in the kitchen rather than on trays in the living room or at the table in the dining room. Plates clean and in the dishwasher, we went back to the movie.
Sat on the sofa talking about nothing much at all, I told him about having Amanda turn up at my house that morning and how she had then kissed me in front of my parents.
Helpfully, Jagjit just laughed at me and called me a hopeless knob.
‘I need the loo,’ announced Jagjit getting up. ‘You want another beer while I’m up?’
‘Go for it.’ I reached for the remote and paused the film as he left the room.
It was just cool enough now for me to have the fancy ornamental electric fire on in my lounge. With the lounge door shut, it stayed nice and warm and there was no need for me to turn the main central heating on. Jagjit left the door open so I hopped up and pushed it closed again to keep the warmth in.
I fiddled with my phone a bit while I waited for him to return. I was checking out local news stories when I heard him scream loudly. I was out of my chair and moving fast and for once not having to trip over a dog as they had not bothered to react at all. Some guard dogs they were - bark like buggery if there was a knock on the door, but if someone broke in and started killing me, they would sit and wait for a biscuit.
I went through the kitchen and into the entrance hall to find Jagjit leaning against the wall holding his chest. I saw no blood, he was alone, and his face looked like he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or scream again.
‘What the hell, man?’ Seemed to be the obvious question.
‘Outside,’ he said indicating with his arm. ‘Outside,’ he paused again, stood himself up and gave an exaggerated full body shake.
I gave him a few moments to sort himself out, curious about what he was going to say. I noted that the outside security light was not on and I could see no one the other side of the door. I folded my arms and gave him a quizzical eyebrow.
Jagjit finally pulled himself together. ‘Tempest, there is a walrus outside your house.’
‘A walrus?’
‘Dude. Outside your house is a large woman wearing lingerie and a trench coat. I heard a knock on the door when I came out of the toilet, so I opened the door and she flashed me.’
‘And that made you scream?’ I enquired.
‘You didn't see it, man. The woman has a mustache like Lando Calrissian.'
Oh, my God. It was Debbie! I hesitated, but then opened the door because hiding inside just felt a bit too weak. It was the wrong thing to do though because Debbie had been vanishing back up the path, beating a retreat to her car, I gue
ss. She caught sight of the shaft of light from my front door and turned to come back when she saw me framed in the doorway.
Behind me, Jagjit moved from where he was slumped against the wall. ‘What are you doing man? Shut the door before she sees you.'
‘Too late,’ I whispered.
‘Oh. Oh, hold on. Tempest, are you shagging her? She looks like Mrs. Potato Head auditioning for a porn movie!' Jagjit's voice was incredulous, which it damned well should have been. He was also being a bit cruel about her figure.
‘What?’
‘I know it been a slow year for you on the lady front, but seriously man is your dick load tested for that amount of woman?’ I wanted to protest my innocence, the evidence was damning though, and she was back through my gate already, so I shut myself outside with her and left Jagjit inside.
‘Debbie, what are you doing here?' I asked as she came to a halt in front of me. She did indeed have on a rain mac, some stilettos, sheer stockings, the type with the seam at the back, and no evidence of anything underneath.
‘I came to surprise you, Tempest. Would you like to get rid of your friend and invite me in?'
No, I bloody wouldn’t.
‘Sorry, Debbie. This is not something that is going to happen between us. I'm just not ready for anything right now despite what my mother believes.'
‘Are you sure?’ Debbie opened the mac and showed me what she had for me. It was not the most appealing packaging I had ever been presented with. Unwillingly, I noticed that her pubes were escaping either side of her gusset like a hundred spiders making a bid for freedom.
My sole thought was that I could never unsee the sight in front of me. Debbie took a step forward and my penis took control of my base motor function, slammed into reverse and had my back pressed against my door before I knew I had moved.
‘I don’t give up easy, Tempest. You should know that.’ I think I gulped at that point. ‘Your resistance is sweet. I look forward to breaking it down.’
I was trying to find the door handle with my right hand so that I could open the door and spill inside. As I edged closer to it, Debbie leaned forward, placed a hand on the door by my head then breathed into my ear, ‘I'll be back soon, lover.' Then she licked the edge of my ear sensuously, tapped my groin playfully and spun around to head off into the night again, pulling her coat around her as she went. The click click of her heels on the path like a staccato beat to match my heart rate. While Mr. Wriggly was considering suicide options, I found the door handle and stumbled back inside.
‘You dog.’ Laughed Jagjit, clearly entertained by my horror-stricken face.
‘Dude, that is easily the scariest experience of my life thus far.' I sat on the floor and leaned back against the door, my limbs just hanging loosely like I had fallen from a great height. Bull and Dozer wandered out to see what we were up to, their wet noses on my hands causing me to get moving again.
‘So, who was that?’ Jagjit wanted to know.
‘Someone I won’t be sleeping with.’ My phone pinged to announce the arrival of an email. Leaning to one side I found the phone it is usual place in my back pocket under my right bum cheek. The email was from Amanda and had attached files.
‘Want to see some crime scene pictures?’ I asked without looking up.
‘Will there be horribly mutilated dead people? Because the answer is no if there is, but probably yes if there are not.’
‘Then grab a couple of beers, buddy, while I get these on a bigger screen.’ I levered myself off the floor, plopping Dozer back on the tile as he had curled on my lap and gone to sleep already.
The contents of the email would be impossible to make out on the tiny phone screen, so I opened the same email on my iMac in the home office/dining room. By the time Jagjit reappeared with two fresh, cold beers, I was scrolling through pictures of Brian Grazly’s cottage.
‘So, what are we looking at?’ Jagjit wanted to know as he placed a bottle on a Spiderman coaster next to the keyboard.
‘I clicked back a couple of pictures which brought up the outside of the cottage at night illuminated by portable lamps. ‘This is the scene of the first vampire murder victim. Or, at least the first one reported.’ I corrected myself.
‘Are you working this case?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Sort of?’
‘Well, I have not been engaged to investigate it by anyone, but I don’t have a current case, and this is National press stuff. I thought it worth looking into. If I get a case that pays, I can always drop this again, but if I can get anywhere with this, I reckon there is some serious exposure for the business. Plus, a hot girl asked me to.'
‘Hot girl?’
‘I’ll tell you about it later.’
‘Gotcha.’
I clicked back to the email from Amanda.
Tempest,
The attached files show the pictures and case notes that you need. Obviously, physical evidence is not something I can get you access to easily. The only way to achieve that, is to have you taken on as an official consultant which is unlikely with Chief Inspector Quinn involved.
You do realise that this is me unofficially leaking you this information and that should you allow it to go to anyone else I won’t only be fired but in all kinds of trouble.
I am trusting you.
Amanda
It had been sent from a private email address. I opened the case notes, which ran to quite a few pages and pressed print. As the machine began to whirr and chew through paper, I clicked back to the pictures.
Jagjit put his beer down to grab a chair from the dining table behind me. He pulled it up back to front and to the side of me so he could see the screen and sat down leaning on the back of it.
‘What are we looking for?’
‘A good question mate, but the simple answer is that I don't know. My experience thus far has taught me that what I see rarely makes sense until later. I am trying to build up a picture of the victims. Through that perhaps I will establish a trend or pattern or find some connection that will enable me to look at something else, which will then focus me in on something that helps me find the culprit. It is very much not an exact science.'
‘Okay, so we just look at pictures, make notes and hope something proves to be useful later?’
‘Pretty much,’ I conceded.
‘Okay. Feels a bit voyeuristic, like we are stalkers or something looking inside the lives of other people.’
‘Yup,’ was all I could say to that.
We were scrolling through shot after shot of the cottage exterior. There were a lot of pictures and none of them seemed to show me anything useful. I clicked forward until the pictures changed from the building exterior to that of the victim. Mr. Grazly had come to rest face down across his path facing away from the house. His face was turned to the right with his neck exposed and horribly torn. His arms were by his sides and his legs straight and together as if he had been standing to attention and simply fallen forward. His head was between two rose bushes, each pruned well down at the end of the season, so they were little more than thorny lumps. There were a few scratches on his face where he may have fallen into one of them.
I made a few notes on my pad. As I did, Jagjit took up the mouse and scrolled through a few more pictures.
I took the mouse back, backed up and clicked to print a couple of shots I thought pertinent and pressed on. There were over a hundred different shots of Mr. Grazly from different angles where the photographer had recorded his hands, his feet, a scrap of mud where his hand had grabbed for purchase in a bid to get away. In all the shots, there was no obvious wound anywhere other than his neck, his clothing was not dishevelled but he was dressed for being indoors with house slippers and a light jumper on rather than shoes and a coat which he would have wanted if he had been intending to be outside for more than a few moments.
I noted this, then drew a short line and wrote: “lured outside?”
The photographs moved inside the house next.
I expected that every room had been catalogued, in which case, there was no sign of a struggle anywhere that I could see. There was no spray of arterial blood on a wall or ceiling, no overturned lamps or smashed photograph frames. The cottage was neat, tidy and well organised.
Most of the walls were painted in a basic white, matt finish. The wooden window fittings all contrasting in deep glossy black. The furniture was solid oak looking items that might have been in the house since it was built. The few modern touches, such as a chrome toaster and a flat-screen TV with satellite system, stood out in bold contrast to everything else in the house.
In each room, the photographer had taken wide shots of the room and then a close up of various items such as a key press, drawer contents, items spread out on a desk.
‘Go back to the keys,’ Jagjit demanded suddenly.
I scrolled back a couple of frames until the single shot of the key press came into view. I went back to the previous shot, which was taken from across the room as a wider shot and showed the small glass-fronted cabinet mounted on the wall about five feet up next to a door to the outside. Probably the back door.
It was a cheap store-bought cabinet made specifically for putting keys into. The back panel was perforated so that keys could be hung at any height in neat little rows using plastic hooks that went into the holes. There were three rows of keys and about ten keys per row. Each had been labelled with a plastic label from an old style dynatape machine, the type where the operator is turning a dial and pressing a hard letter into a plastic strip to create the label, which probably meant they had been there for twenty years or more.
Jagjit leaned forward and pointed to the screen. Under his finger was a label that read, “Family Mausoleum”.
‘What?’ I asked unsure what point he was making.
‘Nothing, I guess. It just struck me that they have a mausoleum in the castle grounds,’ he shrugged. ‘Press on mate. I was just surprised and wanted to check what I had actually seen.’
We continued going through the photographs for another ten minutes, but they revealed nothing new. I felt I had taken up enough of Jagjit’s evening looking at crime scene evidence when we were supposed to be watching Jason Statham kick people in the teeth.