by steve higgs
Could she make it? A half second of hesitation as she calculated the variables, then she gunned the accelerator and threw the gearstick into third. Working the little engine far beyond its intended limits, she shot past the back end of the oncoming car just as it cleared the narrow bridge, clipping her paintwork on the right-hand side as it caught against the stone. The bridge was centuries old and thus built in an era when a mode of transport more advanced than a horse was inconceivable. It was also medieval stonework and as solid as can be, plus humped in the middle to create an apex for taller boats to slip under. As she hit the apex, her wheels left the ground and she lost all ability to control where she landed.
The van coming down the hill had not been paying attention and had not slowed to allow her to pass. Only now, as it was about to reach the entrance to the narrow bridge, did the driver see the approaching danger. The wheels of Jane's tiny Ford bit into the road as it came back to earth and smacked a glancing blow against the stonework on the left-hand side of the bridge before Jane could wrestle the wheel back under control. The poor car was battered but she knew then that she had escaped.
The van could not stop in time, but she was at the exit from the narrow portion of the bridge, so swept past it without touching either it or the widening stonework. It was not her that the van was trying to avoid though for the crazed Land Rover full of Klowns was still right on her back bumper. It slammed headfirst into the Luton van as she sped away up the hill to safety.
A hundred metres after the bridge the road reached a tee junction where traffic forced her to stop. Glancing in her rear-view mirror, she could see the Luton van reversing out of the way. The crash looked to have been convincing, but she was not going to hang around to find out whether the Klowns could continue their pursuit. She pulled into traffic at a more normal pace and the Land Rover was soon lost from sight.
By the time she arrived at the office in Rochester, her heart rate had almost returned to normal and she had finally stopped shaking. The adrenalin had diffused back into her bloodstream and left her feeling spent. She stopped the car and turned off the engine but remained in the driver's seat trying to gather herself.
That was when I had turned up. She had not called the Police, so I did that next. However, I called Amanda rather than dialling 999.
‘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.' I heard Amanda make a shocked noise, her breath being drawn in quickly, so I added quickly, ‘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 the question,’ 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 said 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, standing 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 nowhe
re, which was not exactly their fault, the crimes the Klowns were perpetrating seemed to have no connection to each other and no visible motive. What I said was, ‘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 hadn’t 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. The fight occurred because I erroneously sent Hayley a text which was addressed to Jane. It was yet another example of my brain betraying me and had happened because I was talking to Jane at the time. 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 facing 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. I thought.
‘Good Morning, Tempest,’ she said from my right elbow where she had been clearing a table in the bay window.
Nuts.
‘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 toward Jane with her head. ‘I keep seeing her in here recently.’
‘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, but 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 the 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 beneath the cute lady clothes, but he did make himself look convincingly girl-like 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 in return.
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 The latter would most likely result in the trauma resurfacing later, but 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 which advised me that the flowers I 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 and watched as he pushed open the door, poked his head inside and looked about hesitantly as if unsure if he was allowed in. I waved to get his attention, getting a broad smile in return. ‘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 and I waited for him to make a decision. ‘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. Can you travel with her and I will follow? If you then stay with her, I am going to Maidstone police station.’
‘Amanda 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 followed Jane and Basic to the garage in Chatham as planned. 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 ti
me. 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.
‘Show 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.