5 The Witches of East Malling

by steve higgs

  ‘That’s right. Seven o’clock, don’t be late.’

  ‘As if.’ Dad knew my thoughts on tardiness. Reminding me to be on time could not be what he wanted to see me for. I was waiting for him to get to the point though.

  ‘Well, anyway, I thought I ought to… I wanted to talk to you about presents.’ He was acting a little odd. Like he had an uncomfortable subject to reveal and was struggling to work out how. ‘Can we, err… Can we go and sit? Can your friends bring the drinks across?’

  I sent him to a table. Something was bothering him, I might as well find out what it was. I gave Amanda a twenty pounds note to pay for drinks and snacks. Ordered two coffees and asked her to get me a banana and an apple.

  At the table, I said, ‘Spit it out then.'

  Dad was fiddling with a handkerchief. He laid it on the table. ‘Well, I wanted to get your mum something special, but she never gives me any money, so I had been tussling with what to get her for some time. What do you think of these?’

  Dad didn't look sheepish anymore. He looked like the cat that got the cream. He opened the handkerchief and sat back in his chair, his hands steepled under his chin. On the table was a broach and a pair of earrings. Describing them like that though is like saying Buckingham Palace is a rather fancy house. Set into the centre of the broach was a ruby the size of my left testicle. It was so big that to fully describe it one needed to use expletives.

  The earrings matched, their rubies less daunting in size but massive nevertheless. I gawped at the jewels, my mouth hanging open. I did not want to estimate their worth, it was somewhere between a lot and an obscenely large amount. I also knew where they had come from - a certain boat moored off Cawsand a week ago.

  I looked back up at my father. He grinned and waggled his eyebrows. He had purloined himself a pocketful of the jewels when he went on the boat. I was starting to feel silly that I hadn’t.

  Just then Amanda and James started towards us. Dad folded the handkerchief and stuffed it back into his pocket.

  ‘We got talking to one of the girls behind the counter.’ Amanda said as she handed out the coffees. ‘Hayley?’ she was looking at me to see what reaction I had to the name.

  ‘Yes.’ I replied neutrally. I didn’t know where she was going but she already knew Hayley. She and I had spent a night together about a month ago. Amanda had met her at my house wearing my shirt and very clearly nothing else having spent the night. What might have been something went south fast after she got confused about my assistant Jane and thought the two of us were an item making her the bit on the side.

  ‘It seems that she was blissfully unaware that James and Jane are the same person.’

  Oh.

  ‘You should have seen her face, boss.’ James said. ‘It was a picture.’

  ‘Anyway, I thought you would want to know.' Said Amanda, locking eyes with me. ‘It seemed to be important information to her.'

  I looked across to the counter. Hayley was already looking my way and trying to catch my eye. She mouthed “Sorry” and mimed that she would call me.

  Okay.

  I shook my head to clear it. Suddenly Hayley was interested again. What next? I get home and find Poison naked and waiting for me in my bed? I told myself I shouldn’t joke about such things, picked up my coffee and took a swig.

  Amanda made small talk with my dad about the Bluebell Hill hag case and about her recent fun with voodoo. James played on his phone. I stared at the wall and vowed to pick one woman and see if I could manage a relationship. If it didn’t work out and all the other women were gone again by then, well so be it.

  ‘I might have something for you to look into actually, kid.’ My dad said to bring me back to the room.

  ‘Hmmm?’ I grunted intelligently.

  Dad ignored my demonstration of intellect and pressed on. ‘There are some odd things happening at the yard.' He meant Chatham Royal Navy Dockyard where he worked an occasional shift as a tour guide on the ships they had there.

  ‘Like what.’ I asked.

  ‘Odd noises coming from the rope room and no one there when we go to investigate. It is probably nothing. I shouldn't have brought it up. It is not as if they would pay for it to be investigated.' He shifted about in his chair, making himself comfortable, then had a thought. 'Why are you all in Rochester High Street? Your office burned down, didn't it?'

  'I rented a new place. We are moving in today.'

  'That was fast work.'

  ‘Do you want to see it?’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  Amanda and James were chatting, and both had drinks and a piece of cake, so we left them where they were and took our coffees to go. Across the street, the sign writer guy was taking down the old sign, he and the other chap were on ladders to unscrew where it was attached.

  I checked my watch as I went. It was 1137hrs, so Big Ben might turn up at any point. I showed dad around the new office and answered his questions about the increased cost of rent. He was just taking an interest, he had no genuine concern about my ability to manage my business and finances.

  He did have some things he wanted to talk about though. ‘Now you know your mother is going to invite most of her friends from the church and that many of them will accidentally bring their daughters.’

  I nodded. It was inevitable.

  ‘Your mother is just going to keep on matchmaking until you find a woman of your own, you know.’

  ‘It's not like I haven't tried, but I cannot just magic up a suitable lady, dad. I have a date this Wednesday, but whether there is a second date or a third etcetera, is not something I can think about at this stage.'

  ‘You want to bring her Thursday?’ he asked.

  ‘Not a damned chance.’ I replied swiftly. Expose Natasha to my mother after one date? That was the sort of relationship test I would only subject a woman to if I was convinced she intended to marry me no matter what.

  Dad chuckled, ‘Probably a good idea. It does mean that mum will consider you to still be available and will thus be pimping you out to her friend’s single daughters.’

  ‘Not for the first time. Can I assume that Debbie will not be coming?’

  ‘Uh, I think she might be. Her and her mother. Why?’

  ‘Because she scares the crap out of me and because with her and her mother in the house there will be too little room for anyone else.’ I was being deliberately unkind about Debbie’s waistline. To be fair though, it wasn’t exactly a waistline. The very term suggested that it pinched in at that point - a waisted section in engineering is where a thing gets thinner. She was a big lady. BIG. That my mother thought Debbie and I might be compatible did not bode well for Thursday night.

  ‘Is Rachel coming with Chris and the kids?' I hadn't seen my sister's husband for a long time.

  ‘Apparently, so.’

  Bull barked, the noise splitting the air and making me jump slightly. Dozer barked in reaction to his brother barking.

  ‘Hey, it’s the Michaels family.’ Big Ben was coming through the door behind us as I was pointing out some of the office features to my dad. He was what the dogs had been barking at.

  I shook his hand. ‘Hey, buddy.’

  ‘Benjamin.’ My dad extended his hand.

  ‘Mr. Michaels.' Big Ben said as he took it. ‘Nice place.' He observed.

  ‘I have to be going.’ My dad said. ‘I’ll see you Thursday.’

  We shook hands again as he left. I was still shaking my head over the jewellery he had for my mother. She was going to be very happy with it, I was quite sure. There was a part of me that wondered what it was worth though. My sister or I would inherit the estate at some point in the future. Such things are inevitable. So, I was curious if any questions would be raised when we had it valued and discovered the ruby was worth half a million.

  ‘Where're the others?' Big Ben asked. ‘Jane and Amanda.'

  ‘It’s James today and they are both at the coffee shop. I expect they will be back soon. What did you learn la
st night?’

  ‘To business then. I learned several things. Relearned, one might say as I had forgotten how enthusiastic older women can be.’ Big Ben stopped talking as I had held up my hand. ‘You have a question?’

  ‘I just want to hear about things you learned that pertain to the case. Which of the ladies gave the best blow job is not going to help me.’

  ‘Okay.’ He replied, a little snippiness to his voice. ‘The answer to that would be Dorothy, but since you don’t want to hear about the interesting bits… Edna hates her husband. That became obvious quite quickly. He was out when I knocked on her door. She called him a cheating whatnot several times and was only too happy to get naked with me as she felt massively overdue some payback. I was able to ascertain that she has a massive life insurance policy on him and thinks that she will get to cash it in. She was suggesting that he had ill-health rather than openly talking about any intention to kill him. I got kind of the same from Dorothy, although she seemed disgruntled rather than filled with hatred. I couldn’t find out from her if she had a life insurance thing going on, she didn’t want to talk much at all and she couldn’t for large portions of our time together because she had something in her mouth.’

  I didn’t need him to elaborate and was thankful when he didn’t.

  ‘Mabel said she was glad her worthless husband was dead. Those were her words. I asked her how he died, and she said it was a miracle – he had been hit by lightning inside their house when the bolt had come through the window. I asked her if she thought that was unusual to which she replied again that it was a miracle.’

  To me, it just sounded really suspicious, but I had found a few recorded cases where lightning had done exactly that and struck a person inside their home. The cases I found though were never fatal. Too much of the lightning was dissipated as it hit the building.

  ‘What about Barbara?’ I asked.

  ‘More of the same really. She bragged that her husband had died suddenly, and she was expecting a huge insurance cheque. She didn't go into how he had died though. I managed to ask the question directly, but her response was that he had died in an accident. She didn't elaborate, and I couldn't find a way to ask for more specific details.'

  While he had been talking, I had found a scrap of paper and a pen and had jotted some notes.

  Amanda and James came through the door. They spotted Ben and exchanged greetings. He wasn't staying though, he had a golf match planned. As Big Ben went out the door, James went back to where he was setting up his computers. He had a pair of them on the reception desk with three monitors, to which he was now adding a fourth. He wanted one computer for regular work business such as invoicing and booking appointments for Amanda and me he explained. The other rig was for research. He had started talking geek speak when he was telling me what it would do, forcing me to stop him because it was just an odd language.

  He had research to do already, both for Amanda and for me. I walked into Amanda’s office, it already smelled of her wonderful perfume.

  ‘What's your plan for the afternoon?' I asked her.

  ‘Solve the Bluebell Hill hag case if I can.’ She was putting things into her desk drawers, setting the office up to suit her. I imagine that in a few weeks it would all feel familiar and we would both have personal effects in our drawers and on the walls. ‘I was thinking about it last night.’ She continued. ‘I think that the only thing I can realistically do in this case is work out who the woman in the photograph is, find her and expose him as a lying philanderer.’

  I shrugged. ‘I am confident it will not prove to be a ghost.’

  ‘Yeah. My top theory is that she is a hooker. I might be wrong, and the man just has a girlfriend he doesn’t want his wife to know about.’

  ‘He must have been desperate to hire us. What outcome is he expecting?’

  ‘I think he hopes that we will not be able to prove anything and that by muddying the waters he might be able to deflect his wife's accusation sufficiently to get away with it.'

  ‘So, how are you going to tackle it?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘Inevitably I got to meet a lot of the local prostitutes in my last job, I know where to find them, so I will show a few of them the photograph and see if she is known. If not, I will get Patience to run the picture through the facial recognition database. Maybe she will show up there.'

  ‘I forgot to ask: How is Patience?' she had been kidnapped and held captive last week. Nothing bad had happened but she had been tasered and drugged and stripped naked and threatened with death, so, all in all, it had not been a positive experience.

  ‘She seems fine. They gave her a week off. HR insisted on it and she has some holiday owed which she said she might take. Hey, do you want to come with me this afternoon? Or do you have leads to follow up on?’

  ‘Come with you to see the hookers? I suppose I might learn something that could prove useful later.’ I thought about it for a moment. I wasn’t enthralled about meeting prostitutes. I didn’t like that they existed. Not that I was being critical about their choices, more that I figured most of them didn’t have a choice. I doubted it was the chosen career of many. I might learn something though. ‘Yeah, okay.’ I want to take the dogs home first though and get some lunch. What time to do want to set off?’

  ‘I’m in no rush, I guess. We can just go when you get back from lunch.’

  I checked my watch: 1227hrs. ‘Okay, I’m going for some lunch.’ I turned my attention to James. ‘James, can you stay a couple of extra hours and catch us up on email enquiries and such? We need to have cases lined up.’

  ‘Sure thing, boss. Ah, Boss?'

  'Yes?'

  'You ask me to do extra hours all the time. Do you want me to just work full time instead?'

  I had not given it any consideration. He was right though, he worked extra hours all the time. 'Nine till five?'

  'Works for me.'

  'Super. Oh, I forgot to ask. Did you get anywhere with the photograph I sent you?’

  ‘The old lady? I’m afraid not. It’s not a bad shot but she either doesn’t have a driving licence or passport and has never been arrested or the facial recognition software cannot find her for some other reason. Normally, I would expect to find her in under an hour, but she probably doesn’t have a social media profile either.’

  ‘Probably not.’ I agreed.

  I whistled for the dogs. Unlike at home, where they would just ignore me and pretend to be asleep on the sofa, here they had no bed so had been continuously sniffing around and poking at the boxes we had brought things to the office in. My whistle caught their attention and they ran to the office entrance, assuming I was taking them somewhere. We were going out the back though, so I opened the door that led that way and called them again. They ran across the office, their tiny legs propelling them at a pace that always surprised me.

  I waved to Amanda and James as the door closed behind me. This was all very new, but also quite pleasing.

  Lunchtime Surprise. Tuesday, November 8th 1300hrs

  I called out to Hilary as I went through the front door with the dogs. I got no answer and there seemed to be no sign of him. He could have been upstairs sleeping soundly, I didn’t bother to check as I was hoping his absence meant my harsh words earlier had driven him to seek out Anthea.

  He might be with her now, talking things through. I pictured the two of them making up and chose to believe that must be why he wasn’t here as I opened the back door for the dogs. They had enjoyed plenty of exercise this morning, I saw no need to take them for a walk. I sent them into the garden though, so they could empty their bladders and chase the birds away. I watched as they snuffled the bushes from my kitchen window while I mixed tuna, grated courgette, and eggs for my lunch. I formed the mix into patties and fried them in coconut oil. They would go well with a dressing-free salad.

  The dogs barked to come in just as I was dishing the tuna patties onto my plate. I gave them each a treat from the dog biscuit jar in the kitchen
and told them they were very good dogs. They didn't hang around to tell me whether they cared for my opinion on their behaviour. However, I was thinking that it might be nice to take them to the office more often. I could buy a new bed for them and have it behind my desk. Would they escape ever? That was the one concern. If they got out the front door they were too inquisitive to hang around, they would wander off along Rochester High Street and then not know where they were.

  My musings on the subject arrived at no conclusion, so I turned my thoughts to the case in hand. I needed to speak with Frank and find out who the mysterious old lady was. It was odd that he hadn't called me, but I hadn't called him either. I would make a point of going to his shop later. I also needed to speak with the coroner, I reminded myself for the umpteenth time. She could prove to be key if I could just get her to listen to the possibility that she had been mistaken about her verdict.

  As I slid off the stool at my breakfast bar, someone knocked on my door. The dogs flew by me, they had been in the lounge, most likely dozing on the sofa, but there was an intruder to repel and they would not be found lacking in their duties.

  I wasn’t expecting anyone, my natural tendency for caution fighting with my logical insistence that it was unlikely to be someone out to do me harm.

  I shooed the dogs into the kitchen, calling out to the unseen person that I would not be a moment. With the terror hounds safely locked away, I returned to the door and opened it.

  The coroner was outside.

  Well, colour me surprised.

  ‘Hello.’ She said since I wasn’t saying anything. ‘Tempest isn’t it?’

  The lady on my doorstep was every bit as attractive as I remembered her. She was definitely a couple of years older than me and probably was in her early forties, but she was still an absolute knock out. She was what I imagined Amanda might look with another decade or so under her belt.

  I was just staring. Mr. Wriggly growled that I should pull myself together. ‘Yes. Yes, hello. Tempest Michaels.' I said as I put my hand out for her to shake. ‘You have me at a loss.'