by steve higgs
I mulled that over.
‘How long since you last saw him?’ Patience asked rhetorically then answered her own question before I could speak, ‘A few hours, right? You saw him yesterday. Don’t you go looking all pathetic and needy by calling him just because he is hot and rich.’
‘Okay. Okay.’
‘You promise now?’
‘Yes, Patience. I promise that I will not call,’ she seemed satisfied finally, ‘For how long?’ I asked.
This prompted another lecture about being the one that is chased rather than the one chasing. It went on for a while, interrupted only by us having to actually do our jobs. Patience was single as well and I wondered if her stance on approaching men or putting herself into a relationship was holding her back from changing her relationship status. I kept my mouth shut on that subject though.
The Pentagon Shopping Centre, Chatham. Monday, October 18th 1924hrs
I had contacted the shopping centre manager during my afternoon coffee break and arranged for him to meet me after my shift finished. I didn’t tell him I had to wait to finish work of course as I was representing the Blue Moon Investigation Agency and had changed into my usual clothes before I left the station. As far as he knew, I had been on other casework until this evening and this was the earliest I could get to him.
The shops were all shut, and the building was locked up at this time of day, so we had agreed to meet at a service entrance on The Brook, the road that runs between the Pentagon and the County Courts. I must have driven or walked past it hundreds of times but had never once noticed it was there. Looking for it though I had spotted it immediately and the client, Mr. Miller met me outside as I pulled up.
‘Am I alright to park here?' I asked, half out of the car. I couldn't be sure it was the client, so it could be a security guy coming to usher me away.
‘Amanda Harper?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Good evening. Are you Martin Miller?’ I offered him my business card; Tempest had provided a box of them last week.
‘Yes. Good evening. Thank you for being on time.' I had agreed to get there by half past seven, so I was a few minutes early but had not been sure where the service entrance door was and had allowed some time for circling.
I locked the car and followed him inside, pulling my notebook from my bag as I went. The corridors were darkened but not dark, only minimal lighting was on at this time of day. He told me we were heading to his office and that it overlooked the shopping centre, but we could have been going anywhere. The maze of corridors was vast and the route we took was intersected several times. He knew where he was going, but I would need him to escort me back to my car when I was finished here, or I would never find it.
We came to a lift. We had been talking as we walked, although the corridor was narrow, and I was walking behind him with him talking over his shoulder. He was a thoroughly average Caucasian man, by which I mean that he had no outstanding characteristics by which one could describe him. He was wearing a cheap but functional and new looking suit over his average frame. He was about my height, but my boots had a short heel, so he was roughly five feet eleven inches tall. His hair was brown, his eyes were brown, his complexion was clear and free of any trace of a suntan. He had told me that he had been the manager of the shopping centre for eight years and that it was rarely eventful or exciting. I had to steer him onto the subject of the spooky elevator he had reported, for fear he might ramble on about his job and the shopping centre for hours.
As we got into the lift, he finally started telling me about it. ‘We have eight banks of two lifts here. Five of which service the shopping centre and the car park. The remaining three service just the car park. There has never been a problem with any of them until two weeks ago apart from the odd breakdown.'
‘What date was the first reported problem?’ I asked, pen poised.
‘I have it all diarised in my office. We are nearly there,’ he answered. Sure enough, the lift pinged and stopped at the second floor. We exited onto a corridor running perpendicular to the lift and turned right. His office was the second door on the left. He opened it with a key.
Inside was just as drab as the outside. There clearly wasn't much budget for decorating or improving any of the functional areas. The wall opposite the door was one large window which looked down onto the central atrium in the middle of the shopping centre. Looking down at the shops I worked out that we must be above Wilkinson’s. Odd that I had never noticed the window from the other side before. The area looked very different at night and devoid of people. I felt a little voyeuristic as if I was peeking inside someone's house when they were not there.
‘Here it is,’ Martin announced holding up a piece of paper, ‘I made a copy for you,’ It showed the events in a chronological order and recorded which lift the event had occurred in, whether anything was taken and what the shopper reported had happened.
‘There are forty-seven reports from four different lifts, Martin. Did you shut any of the lifts at any point?’ I asked.
He drew my attention to a map of the shopping centre on the wall to my right. ‘The lifts are colour coded. The first event occurred in the rightmost orange lift on Wednesday 6th at about three o'clock. A pair of old ladies reported that their shopping had been taken, that the lights had gone out etcetera. I saw them myself actually because they were harassing security and making quite a fuss. We called the Police in the end, who came and took a statement, but they left it at that and I dismissed it, assuming they had just put their shopping down somewhere. Then it happened again the next day and twice more the day after that. I decommissioned the lift at that point and had the maintenance team check it out. I figured if no one went in it for a while the problem would cease.'
‘But it didn’t.’
‘No. It didn't. I have two engineers that are responsible for the lifts and the escalators among other things. They checked the lift out and said there was nothing wrong with it. They both reported that they felt cold when they were inside it though. I went into it and couldn't feel anything,' he paused then as if remembering something, ‘Sorry, would you like a cup of tea or something?' he asked. ‘I totally forgot my manners.'
‘No. Thank you, Martin.’
‘Are you sure? I am having one.' I shook my head as he moved to turn on the kettle which sat on a small table next to his desk.
‘You were telling me about the lifts,' I prompted, rather than wait for him to finish making his beverage.
Well, the orange bank of lifts was out of commission but the next day we had the same problem in the blue bank.' He indicated where the blue lifts were on the map. It was at the northernmost end of the complex where it exited onto the bottom end of Military Road and The Brook. On the Saturday morning, the lift opened, and six lads spilled out screaming and yelling. They were in their early twenties or late teens and convinced there had been something in the lift with them. Something had touched one of them. We had seven more incidents that day, so I shut that lift down as well.'
I was scribbling notes furiously. He waited for me to finish. ‘Then what?’ I asked.
‘Then it was Sunday and there were two more incidents that morning. At that point, I shut down all the lifts but that lasted about thirty minutes as apparently, I am not allowed to stay open if there are no lifts. There are stairs going to the upper carpark floors but too many persons with mobility restrictions to make that a viable access route. I thought about closing the whole centre but got quite a few threats from store owners, so I had to abandon that idea,' he seemed a bit lost for direction, ‘So, the attacks have continued, and everyone is looking for me to solve the problem. Visitors have decreased by forty percent and I doubt I will keep my job long if I cannot sort this out.'
‘I need to see the lifts please.’
‘Which ones?’
‘All of them.’
Martin nodded and led me out of the office. We took a long winding walk around the shopping centre using torchlight in places to illuminat
e the dark corners. This took a good while and there was no power to the lifts at this time of day so all I could do was look at the closed doors. I gave up before we got to the ones that served only the carpark.
‘Are the lifts all the same make?’ I asked as we headed back to my car.
‘Oh. I don’t know the answer to that question.’
‘Who would?’
‘The service engineers, Charlie and Jack. They will be in tomorrow if you want to come back and talk to them then. I can arrange for you to be shown the lifts then as well, although I suppose you can just go and look at them yourself at that point.’
I got their full names and told Martin I would be back by four o’clock the following day. I was working a shift until three o’clock, so that was the earliest I could return. He had led me back to my car by a completely different route, but we had been on the ground floor of the complex, not the second floor where his office was. When he had opened a door and street light from outside had flooded in, I had been surprised. We were right by my car though, so I bid him goodnight and plipped my car open.
Then I thought of something and called out to him before he could get back inside and shut the door.
‘I need to be informed whenever there are any other incidents.’
‘Or. Err, of course. I can do that. Or I can get my head of security, Steve Brooms to do so. Is that okay?'
‘Yes. Please pass him my card,’ I produced a new one from my pocket, ‘and have him call me. Also, I need a list of what was stolen. Do you have that already?’
‘Yes. Of course, the Police have it already but do not appear to be doing anything with the information.’ I rolled my eyes. The poor police have plenty to be getting on with and this was petty crime that sounded more like lost shopping when one listened to the explanation. I opted to stay silent on that thought though, ‘Can you email it across to me please?’
‘I will do it before I go home tonight,’ he promised. I nodded my thanks and bid him goodbye again.
Driving home, I went through what I knew. I wanted to find the answer to this case without needing to involve Tempest. He seemed to just eat these cases up, finding the answer as if it was obvious all along. This was my first case though and I needed to prove that I could do this to myself as much as to him. He was so relaxed and laid back that he would think nothing of helping me to work out what was going on.
What I had was a series of odd and unexplained thefts when I boiled it down. If I ignored the selfie with the ghost in it, the reports all said that the lift had lost power, a presence was felt in the lift and shopping bags had gone missing.
But what about the mist like figure in the selfie?
My phone rang loudly in the confined space of my car and I almost wet myself. I punched the button on my steering wheel to connect the hands free. ‘Hello?’
‘Amanda?' It was Brett's voice. The sound of it made my pulse quicken which surprised me.
‘Good evening, Brett. How are you?’ Was that too formal? Did I sound standoffish?
‘Very well, thank you, Amanda. I wanted to see when you were free this week. I had hoped I might entice you into joining me for dinner.’
My pulse skipped again. Goodness, was I that into him? ‘I, um…’ what was wrong with me? ‘I believe I am free Thursday night if that works for you.’
‘Thursday? Yes, I can make that work. Are you okay with Vietnamese food?’
‘Err, we are not going to Vietnam for it, are we?’ I was joking but also slightly worried that he might have something dramatic planned.
‘No,’ he laughed, ‘But there will be a little car ride to get there. Can I pick you up at eight?’
‘Sure thing. Do I need to dress up?’ I was mildly concerned that we might be eating at Buckingham Palace with the Royal family and we were eating Vietnamese food because they were hosting the Vietnamese Ambassador.
‘No Babe. Ordinary going to a restaurant clothes will suffice. No trips to the opera, no private museum tours.’
‘Okay. It sounds nice. I will see you then.’
‘I need your address. I don’t know where you live.’
‘Of course. I will text it to you. I am driving at the moment.’
Dammit, did I really want him seeing where I live?
‘Okay. Well, I will see you Thursday then,’ he said.
‘Yes. Thursday.' There was an awkward silence then as neither of us hung up. ‘Okay, bye then,' I said, trying to make it sound natural and cool, like I wasn't secretly mega-excited about seeing him again. I clicked off just as he was saying goodbye to me.
At the Pentagon with Patience. Tuesday, 19th October 1611hrs
My shift today had been like many others: It had started too early and was mostly boring. I took calls about nothing exciting at any point and was happy when it was over. I had let slip to Patience that I was going to the Pentagon to look into the ghostly elevator case and she insisted in tagging along with me.
We both finished at 3 o’clock, changed out of our uniforms and took my car rather than pay twice for parking. On the way there, Patience had asked me more about the case.
‘The Pentagon Centre manager believes he has a ghost. Or at least he believes he has something odd happening with his lifts. People get in, the lights go out, the lift stops and when the power comes back on several of them have claimed that they felt a presence in the lift with them. Two girls managed to snap a selfie. Here,’ I said offering her my phone, ‘The first picture you come to should be the one.’
‘Whoa! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,' Patience blurted from the passenger seat, ‘That's a ghost, girl.'
‘I highly doubt it.’
She fixed me with a stare, ‘Girl I know a ghost when I see one. My great aunt Rita was a medium.’
‘Nevertheless, I believe there will be a more ordinary explanation for the image and for the reports people have made.’ Quite what that explanation might be I had not the faintest idea yet.
‘What else have they said?’ she asked.
‘There have been reports of shopping going missing. That is something that feels incongruous.’
‘What kind of shopping?’
‘Hmm?’
‘You know, was it bags of groceries or was it fashion wear? If it was fine shoes, then the ghost is bound to be a woman.'
‘I haven’t been able to read that bit of detail yet.’
‘I bet it was. I bet the ghost is a young woman struck down in her prime wearing fine clothes. Ooh! I bet she was killed by her jealous boyfriend because she was flirting with another man and now she haunts the Pentagon because he pushed her down the elevator shaft.’ Patience was creating a whole story arc for her ghost. I had no idea she had this much imagination.
‘Anyway, I am going to visit the two maintenance engineers and ask them to show me the lift shafts and grill them about the lifts themselves. I also want to ride in the lifts and see if anything happens.’
‘Are you crazy? There is a ghost in a lift and you want to get in the lift and close the doors?’
‘It will be fine, Patience. There is not going to be a ghost haunting the lifts in Chatham.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘If you were a ghost would you not pick somewhere a little nicer than the Pentagon to spend the rest of your undead existence?’
She appeared to be mulling that over, ‘It is a little skanky, I suppose.’
Chatham was all of that.
The traffic from Maidstone to Chatham was moving slow. I had shot up Bluebell Hill swiftly enough but the ride down the Maidstone road into Chatham was clogged with traffic backed up behind temporary traffic lights where someone had seen the need to dig a hole in the road. It had not been there yesterday. After much stopping and starting, we eventually got through the lights and our pace picked up again. The final mile into Chatham town centre is always sticky with so much traffic funnelling into a tight space and a poorly organised one-way system, but it continued to move, and we finally pulled in t
o park the car at five minutes to four.
‘Are you hungry?’ Patience asked as I fed coins into the ticket machine. ‘I’m hungry. I might get me some chicken. You want some chicken?’
‘I need to catch the maintenance guys before they finish for the day. I need to do that first, but no, I don't think I want to get food here. I have a meal waiting at home.'
‘This is why you are lean, girl. You can resist the chicken,’ Patience observed, ‘Let’s go see your maintenance men. Then maybe I’ll get me some chicken after.’
I had called Martin Miller from the car, so he was expecting us. I probably could have parked back where I had met him last night, but I planned to check out the lifts myself once we were finished behind the scenes, so it made more sense to park in the main car park. We were on the ground floor, so I had not needed to use the lift to access the main shopping area. There was a staff entrance to the Pentagon management and service area next to Sainsbury’s supermarket in the far corner of the centre from where I had entered. Martin advised that there was an intercom on the wall and that the security guard at the other end of it would be expecting us.
Getting to it proved harder than expected though: Patience was easily distracted.
‘Hey, Amanda girl. Look at these fine shoes,’ Patience had come to a halt in front of a store window, ‘That new man of yours would love to see you in these.’
They were six-inch-high slut heels with a one-inch clear platform on the bottom. I was not convinced I could walk in them but then I was also not sure that walking was their purpose. ‘I cannot wear those, Patience. They scream "Hooker" at a loud volume. I do not own an outfit that they would go with.'
‘Well, that’s fine, girl. Ann Summers is right next door.’