The Sandman

by steve higgs

  So, he looked like a monk, sort of, but he clearly wasn’t one. The tattoos on his neck and knuckles and a scar on his jawline were other indicators. I couldn’t see his feet, but I doubted he was wearing sandals. From the grimace on his face, I thought combat boots were more likely.

  ‘You should watch where you are going, sonny,’ he growled.

  Honestly, I thought the man I walked into connected with me on purpose, but I had no time for nonsense right now, so he was getting the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘Terribly sorry,’ I offered him, making my face as emotionless as possible. ‘I was distracted. Are you hurt?’

  ‘Hurt?’ he sneered. ‘You think you can hurt me?’

  I was being challenged, something which would normally be seen as free permission to demonstrate why people ought to not challenge me. This was not the time.

  Amanda returned with my phone. ‘Everything okay?’ she asked.

  I was already on edge and very much wanting to find someone to punch – namely the Sandman. Monk-from-Hell would do for now but venting my frustration in public was only going to delay me getting to Jane – hospital security were only yards away.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I replied, setting off for the doors again and putting the idiot from my mind.

  ‘Go on. Walk away,’ he goaded to my back. ‘Next time it won’t be an option.’

  Amanda sensed me tense and grabbed my arm. ‘There’s no time,’ she reminded me needlessly.

  I felt the sense of urgency most keenly. We were likely to pull an all-nighter, refusing to stop our research and investigation until we found a thread to unravel. How could we give up and go to bed when we knew Jane was out there somewhere?

  Exiting the hospital, I spotted the chief inspector ahead and started running. He was about to get into his car.

  ‘Yo! Quinn!’ I shouted loud enough to make him turn his head. There were other officers around him - his small entourage of butt kissers no doubt.

  He didn’t bother to wait to see what I wanted. Despite observing me running in his direction, he opted to doff his hat and slide into the passenger seat of a squad car instead.

  The car was pulling out of its parking space by the time I got there, the chief inspector pointing for the driver to go around me.

  I threw myself on the bonnet of the car. Try driving now.

  Quinn puffed out his cheeks in annoyance and a small tick appeared by the corner of his left eye. That I was upsetting him bothered me not the slightest.

  ‘Jane Butterworth has been kidnapped by a serial killer!’ I shouted through the windscreen.

  Reluctantly, he motioned for his driver to switch off the engine and picked up his hat once more.

  I waited until he got out of the car before I slid down from the bonnet and back onto my feet. ‘That music you hear on her phone, Chief Inspector, surely you recognised it?’

  He twitched an eyebrow. ‘What of it?’

  ‘The Sandman,’ I knew he knew what I was talking of. ‘He was responsible for terrorising a woman called Karen Gilbert. That was at the start of this month. There was a fire at her house, and she is still in hiding. Jane’s research showed there were other cases going back years. Do you really not have someone looking into it? You were involved in the case,’ I pointed out while doing my best to keep my exasperation in check.

  He tapped a thoughtful finger to his chin and crossed his arms. ‘The Sandman. Yes, I do remember Mr Butterworth expressing some concern about it.’

  I snapped. ‘She saved your life, Ian,’ I pointed out, coming forward a foot so I was right in his face. ‘She nearly lost hers doing it, and yet you cannot manage to respect her right to determine her own gender.’

  There were several things I knew for sure about Chief Inspector Ian Quinn: he hated being addressed by his first name, and he truly hated that his life was saved by a person he privately considered to be a crossdressing freak.

  Before he had a chance to retort, I launched my next salvo. ‘You have a serial killer operating in the area with murders going back years. If you don’t get off your backside and get involved in trying to find Jane Butterworth, so help me when I bust this case open and catch the guy behind it, I will publicly destroy you.’

  My teeth were gritted together as we stared menacingly into each other’s eyes.

  His driver was out of the car, so too a pair of sergeants from the other car. Had they not known who I was, or had former constable, Amanda Harper, not been with me, I think they would have moved to intervene.

  They didn’t, and Quinn was forced to deal with me. He broke the gaze first, fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief. Using it to wipe his face as if I had covered him in rabid spittle, he said nothing until he was ready.

  ‘The Sandman is a figment of an overactive imagination, Mr Michaels. There is no serial killer operating in Kent and if you tell the press there is, I shall seek to destroy you for inciting panic. Mr Butterworth,’ my fists clenched, ‘is most likely engaged in some strange and sordid sex event. I shall, nevertheless, diligently explore the possibility that something untoward might have befallen him.’

  There it was. Chief Inspector Quinn would never willingly admit he could be wrong or agree with any course of action I might suggest. However, now that he had stated what a waste of time it was going to be, he was going to rush back to the station and start a full investigation.

  Much like Hell Monk – I renamed him in my head - my frustration and anger at Jane’s situation were behind my outburst and desire to resort to violence. Hitting Quinn might be one of the most satisfying things I would ever do in my life, but I would hand him the chance to lock me up and that had to be right up there on his top few most desirable things to do.

  Letting a slow breath go, I relaxed my posture and brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his left shoulder.

  ‘Claim the collar if you must, Ian. I genuinely don’t care. But please put some resources to this case. The clock is ticking, and the sun is beginning to set.’

  It was already getting dark.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. ‘You don’t get to tell me my job, Mr Michaels.’ He stepped away, grabbing the handle of his car to open it but pausing to deliver one last line before he did. ‘If you ever touch me again, I’ll arrest you. Is that clear?’

  He expected me to say, ‘Crystal,’ or something like that. Instead, I hit him with a smile and walked away. We needed to get to the office and fast, but I had one last thing to say. Calling over my shoulder, I told him, ‘I’ll send you a copy of our file. Everything you need will be in it.’

  If he had a response for me, he chose to keep it to himself. The sound of the squad car doors closing was followed a moment later by their engines starting.

  ‘Where’s your car?’ I asked Amanda, scanning around for her Mini.

  She chuckled. ‘It got blown up yesterday, remember?’

  I had, in fact, forgotten that inconvenient truth. Her beloved Mini Cooper burst into a ball of flame that was intended to kill the pair of us. It happened right outside Maidstone Police station as a demonstration of confidence by the men we were after. They thought themselves to be untouchable ghosts, but ultimately that was their undoing.

  ‘So what are you driving?’ I wanted to know.

  I got a wide and sexy grin in reply. ‘That.’ She pointed.

  How I hadn’t spotted it when it was not only the sexiest car in sight but was also mine, defied belief. The sleek, white series 1 Lotus Esprit was a gift I received the previous day. Or was it the day before? The last few were nothing but a blur as days merged into nights and I got altogether far too little sleep.

  Had it not been for my brush with hypothermia and subsequent hospital stay, my tank would be close to empty right now. As it was, I had slept for a good chunk of the day, obeying the doctors because I knew I ought to.

  ‘I pinched it earlier so I could collect you. I hope you don’t mind,’ Amanda knew I wouldn’t but was being polite anyway. Not waiting for
me to answer, she said, ‘It is sooo much fun to drive, by the way. And fast. My goodness, you hit the accelerator in this, and it tries to leap off the side of the planet.’

  My girlfriend/business partner was gushing with excitement, her face flushed with the memory of driving the low-slung, vintage British sports car.

  With a smile that felt out of place given what we needed to do, I said, ‘Well, we are in a hurry. Why don’t you show me?’

  Jane. First Steps. Friday, December 23rd 1554hrs

  The Sandman prattled on for what felt like an age but was probably only fifteen minutes. I wasn’t offering much by way of conversation, of course. He excused himself ever so politely when he needed to end our little chat, as he put it; he had other matters to which he felt he must attend.

  He did not specify what those matters might be.

  I’d been stripped of my possessions, my handbag with phone and other items I might be able to use was somewhere I was not. It could be in my car still for all I knew. The point is that it wasn’t with me so all I had to work with were the items in the room.

  There were no windows, and the door was electronically sealed I assumed since it didn’t have a handle. The only item of furniture in the room was a single bed. The mattress was made from memory foam and the bed was bolted to the floor. The walls were smooth; one might even call them faultless, and there was no light switch.

  Wherever I was, it was a place designed to hold people captive and give them no hope. I wanted to curl into a ball and weep. I almost did, but rolling back onto the bed and feeling sorry for myself, I knew I was choosing to accept my fate.

  And I did not accept it.

  For three weeks, I had been trying to figure out who this guy was, but he just didn’t leave any clues behind. There was no way of even knowing how many victims there might be. Any woman who went missing could be one of them.

  The woman who led me to the case, Karen Gilbert, said there was no sign of forced entry to her house - the Sandman just let himself in. That meant he had a key. I asked her to name all the people who had keys, but it was a pool of one: her parents.

  The Sandman had a specific method of operation. In each case, he would select his victim and break into their house multiple times to sing to them in their sleep. He induced an alert yet immobile state – I still wasn’t sure how – so his victims could do nothing about their predicament. Once he’d toyed with them for long enough, he kidnapped and killed them. Or, at least, that was my best guess. Like I said, he left very few clues.

  After three weeks of patient research in between my other cases, I still hadn’t found any more victims I could be certain were his. I found one early on by the name of River Tam. She was found in a field, posed as if sleeping with a pillow and blanket. She’d reported dreaming about the Sandman on a website for insomniacs which was how I could be fairly certain she was one of his, and it was her face that took me a stage further.

  She resembled Karen Gilbert so closely the two could be sisters. When I started looking for other women with the same features, who were roughly the same age, and were also missing, I found a trail going back three decades.

  It was chilling and I had little doubt I was going to be right about a great number of them because he wasted no time in threatening to sing me to sleep as well. The way he had just spoken to me made it sound like he believed he was doing his victims a favour.

  With no clock and no sun, I had no idea what time it might be or how long I had been unconscious before I woke up here. I wasn’t tired. In fact, I would go so far as to say I felt refreshed. Given how tired I had been before, did that mean I had been asleep for hours? I was certain I’d been grabbed in the middle of the night. Was it afternoon now?

  These were good questions, but not ones that were going to get me free. The first thing I wanted to do was lose the gag. Maybe doing so would cause my kidnapper to come to the room. The thought was terrifying, but I also recognised that I needed him to open the door if I was ever going to escape, plus finding out who I was dealing with sounded like a good idea.

  Even if it made me want to wet my pants.

  The gag felt like it was a piece of rag. I couldn’t see it, and with my hands behind my back, I couldn’t touch it either. Or could I? I backed against a wall, folding my arms up at the elbows until my hands were between my collar bones. Then I tilted my head back to bring the back of my skull down. After a few deep breaths, I sunk my weight down the wall. I was attempting to force my fingertips upwards to get to the material as it went around the back of my head.

  I can report that this is not something that a human can achieve. Not a normal one with bones anyway. I got close, which is say maybe less than two inches away, but close wasn’t going to win me any prizes.

  Changing tactic, I got onto the floor and pulled my knees up to my face. I had to shuffle a little but found that getting my arms out from behind my back was far easier than I thought it would be.

  Now with my arms in front of my body, reaching up to my face to lose the gag was equally easy.

  He must have seen me remove my gag. How quickly would he react?

  Working my jaw and lips around to loosen them off once I got the awful ball of cotton wool from my mouth, I waited for the sound of feet outside or for his voice to boom over the speaker again.

  No footsteps or voice came.

  I couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.

  Listening to my heart pound in my chest, I waited what had to be another minute before I moved again. He was able to see me, and hear me, but only if he was watching. Maybe the other things he needed to do took him away from the screen.

  He could be watching TV or doing the ironing. Or sitting with his family for all I knew. Was I in a secret room in his basement and the psycho had a wife and kids who were oblivious to his murderous nature? I could keep on guessing or I could focus my efforts on something constructive, so that was what I did.

  My wrists and ankles were bound with rope that had then been wrapped in duct tape. Starting with my wrists and using my teeth, I worked a corner of the tape free and started to unwind it. I could only do so by yanking it with my head. The process soon gave me neck ache, yet I ignored it much as I was certain Tempest would.

  I wanted to stop glancing at the tiny camera lens, but it was the only thing in the room worth looking at and it drew my attention. My imagination conjured all manner of images, picturing the Sandman sharpening an evil-looking knife or fiddling with the piece of rope he planned to use to strangle me.

  My pulse refused to slow down, and the damned duct tape was getting stuck to my hair. That was a trivial concern, of course, but another one on my list.

  Finally, after several minutes of effort that made my teeth hurt even more than my neck, the last of the duct tape came free. Now able to see the rope binding my wrists together, I could see how difficult it was going to be to get free. Wherever the end was, I couldn’t see it, so it had to be tucked up inside the layers running around my wrists.

  The sandman was good at ropes and knots. Was that a clue?

  Accepting that getting my hands free was going to be the toughest challenge, I had another look at my feet.

  Tempest. The Blue Moon Office. Friday, December 23rd 1607hrs

  By the time Amanda parked the car it was fully dark outside, indiscernible from night-time even though people keeping office hours were still at work. Light from Rochester High Street illuminated the buildings, giving them a soft glow that balanced the deliberate lighting thrown upward to highlight the ancient cathedral. Just around the corner, hidden from view was an even older castle. That I had done battle there more than once and emerged victorious each time made it a special place for me.

  There were no lights on in our office and no cars parked behind it save for the Lotus now. Amanda killed the ignition, plunging us back into semi-darkness as the car’s lights went out.

  Getting out of a Lotus Esprit is not for the infirm or frail. Even lower than my Porsche
Boxster, the people inside are almost on the ground so getting out with dignity is a skill. I can only imagine how complex it must be in a skirt.

  Nevertheless, exhilarated from the ride, we clambered out and went into our building.

  The lights of the office were still blinking on when Big Ben arrived. He was not alone.

  ‘I stopped off in Finchampstead to collect Basic and Hilary,’ he explained as the two men filed into the main office space behind him.

  I gave them both a wave of greeting accompanied by a suitably grim smile. ‘Thanks for coming, guys. I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.’

  Amanda was flicking on the various computers around the office. There were tower PCs in my office and hers plus another on the front desk where Jane still worked most of the time. Originally hired as my assistant, she soon proved to be far more capable. We needed to hire a new receptionist person to perform some of the administrative tasks, but that was a long way from the top of the list on a good day – which this wasn’t.

  The three of us carried laptops most places because our work went home with us – it was just that kind of job, but neither Amanda nor I had ours with us now and Jane’s was probably wherever she was.

  I walked over to the coffee machine, crab-walking sideways so I could listen to Hilary.

  ‘Basic and I were working on his latest product. It’s already proving to be a cash cow.’

  Big Ben asked the question first. ‘Oh, yeah? What is it?’

  Hilary nudged Basic with an elbow. ‘Show ‘em, genius.’

  Here’s the thing about James Burham. We call him Basic because he came loaded with only the most basic programming. He can dress himself and feed himself and he held a job for many years parking trolleys at a local supermarket. Beyond that, most concepts escape his ability to grasp, but if you think I am making this sound like an affliction or a disability, you could not be more wrong.