The Sandman

by steve higgs

  ‘Won’t be a minute, love,’ came a wobbly old-lady voice from behind the door.

  We could hear someone grunting with something heavy inside. Was there something behind the door?

  The familiar sound of a lock tumbling preceded the door opening.

  ‘You’re supposed to text when you are on your way, Jane,’ wobbled the voice. Then the door opened enough for the lady inside to look out. ‘Oh,’ she gasped upon seeing Basic looming and me rubbing some life back into my right leg.

  Before she could slam the door shut again, I gave her a friendly smile and wave. ‘I’m Ben, this is James,’ I indicated Basic who did his usual goofy grin that always made him look harmless. ‘We’re friends of Jane. Can we come in?’

  Granny looked rightly uncertain about agreeing to my request. ‘She’s not here,’ Granny told us. ‘Maybe you should call her.’ Jane’s grandmother wore house slippers and a long, thick winter coat which she held closed with one hand at the top rather than do all the buttons up just to answer the door.

  Her hair was getting thin and had turned to an almost pure white, but there was plenty of it. Either freshly permed or naturally curly, I suspected the former to be true, it made her head look like a snow-covered novelty microphone.

  I wanted to deliver our news and have a chat with Jane’s grandmother inside the house, not in the street. Not just because of the cold outside, I had serious concerns about delivering my bad news and what it might do to the old dear’s heart.

  However, faced with little option, I said, ‘Her phone is in her handbag which is in my car. I found it in her car along with her laptop and other things. We believe the Sandman has her.’

  The old lady gasped and gripped her coat more tightly to her neck.

  ‘You’ve heard that name before,’ I stated. It was clear from the way she gasped that she understood the significance of my claim.

  She took a step back. ‘You’d better come in, boys.’

  Amanda. Research at the Office. Friday, December 23rd 1652hrs

  Rightly or wrongly, Jane had not entered any details in the file, hardcopy or electronic, by which we could contact Karen Gilbert. I hoped Tempest would get what he needed from the couple in Chartham Hatch, but would try to solve the problem here too if I could.

  That Karen, the Sandman’s most recent target that we knew of, could provide us with any helpful information was debatable. However, she presented a worthwhile target for our efforts and we needed to speak to her. If she were able to identify the Sandman from a picture, it might prove pivotal.

  I was working in my office using my PC while Alice and Jagjit were next door using the computer in Tempest’s office.

  I left them to it, compiling a list of likely people who might be able to lead me to Karen’s current whereabouts. I had already tried her listed place of work only to discover she quit three weeks ago. I had to feel sorry for the woman. She’d been to the police and reported her night time home invader only to have her claims dismissed. As a result, she was in hiding, sleeping on someone’s spare bed probably, and had no job.

  She had several living relatives including a sister in Dudley. I started there, but the woman I got through to was both evasive and rude. My guess was that Karen had briefed her to not give out any details so it was no great surprise when the phone went dead in my ear.

  Usually, when we have a task like this it falls to Jane. She has a natural skill that allows her to find details via the internet the rest of us might never uncover. I knew she used social media to track people down a lot of the time. Once inside someone’s personal account it is simple to look at pictures and pick out the people who appear most. If you take lots of pictures of someone and display them, it’s likely they are close to you. Armed with that knowledge, she could begin to pick apart their lives.

  Unfortunately, I had no idea how to hack my way into someone’s social media account.

  ‘Amanda?’ Alice’s voice floated through the air.

  I got up and wandered around to Tempest’s office on the other side of the wall to mine.

  Jagjit and Alice were sitting shoulder to shoulder, both transfixed by whatever was on the screen to their front.

  ‘Found something?’ I asked hopefully.

  Their eyes never left the screen. ‘Maybe,’ Alice murmured. ‘A clue, perhaps.’ I was all ears. ‘Jane recorded that the Sandman was able to get into Karen’s home despite it being locked. There was no damage done so he had to have a key, right?’

  It was a logical conclusion, and I didn’t wish to derail her train of thought so I said, ‘Could be a relative?’

  She tore her eyes away from the screen to look at me. ‘That was my immediate thought, but if we believe him to be responsible for killing dozens of women, he cannot be a relative to all of them. Who else do people give keys to?’

  I saw it instantly. ‘Neighbours.’

  Alice continued. ‘I bet Karen had someone she was friendly with. Someone must have had a key, but even if she didn’t give them one, it could have been the previous owners who gave a key away. How many people change the locks when they move in?’

  Her argument was logical, but I could see a major flaw. ‘You said the Sandman couldn’t be a relative to all his victims. Surely, he wasn’t a neighbour to them all either.’

  Seeing my point, she grimaced. ‘I should have thought of that.’

  Not to discourage her, I said, ‘This is good. We are spit balling different ideas. One of them will pay off and lead us to the next logical step. Maybe there is something in this after all. I’m going to speak with Tempest and see if he wants to do a drive by Karen’s house. He can speak to the neighbours and see what he digs up. One of them might have a forwarding address for her mail.’

  Alice turned her attention back to the computer screen. ‘Wish him luck from me.’

  Luck. We were going to need it.

  Big Ben. Inside Grandma’s House. Friday, December 23rd 1653hrs

  Coming into Jane’s gran’s house, I let the old lady know our names. ‘I’m Benjamin. I work with Jane and the others sometimes when they want a hand with something. This is James,’ I indicated Basic and gave her his real name rather than confuse things with an explanation.

  Basic said, ‘Hullo, Jane’s gran.’

  Granny frowned as if deep in thought and wriggled her top dentures from left to right. ‘That would make you Big Ben and Basic, yes?’

  Surprised, I could only nod and chuckle. ‘Guilty,’ I admitted.

  ‘Jane talks about her work a lot,’ granny explained. ‘She says you’re a bit of a dick.’

  A snort of laughter escaped me. ‘Guilty,’ I said again.

  Now inside the small living room, I could see why I hadn’t been able to break down the door. Either side of the door frame were two steel brackets. Mounted to the wall, they were a U shape. Their appearance and purpose might have been confusing were it not for the large oak beam leaning against the wall.

  ‘Can you give me a hand to get this back in place, dearies?’ asked Jane’s gran. ‘It’s ever so heavy.’

  It wasn’t. I picked it up with one hand, but though I didn’t struggle to lift it, I had to acknowledge that it was solid. I slotted it back into place where it formed a barrier behind the door. Held in place by the brackets, no one was ever getting into the house without a battering ram.

  I felt a little better about failing to even make the door rattle when I kicked it.

  ‘Did Jane fit this?’ I asked, examining the brackets. There were tiny traces of brick dust on the carpet where the vacuum cleaner had failed to get them, a sure indication that someone had been drilling holes recently.

  Gran nodded. ‘There’s another one on the back door. Jane said we needed a countermeasure because the Sandman was able to open doors even when they were locked. Is he magic?’ she asked.

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Magic? No, I don’t think so. A locksmith maybe, but not magic.’

  A locksmith?

  I’
d said it as a throwaway comment, but now I found myself questioning if maybe that thought held some merit. How many of the victims reported no damage to their locks and doors when they were visited? I had no idea what the answer to that might be, but my impression was that we didn’t know much about the other victims at all. What I did know, from a chance conversation with Tempest, was that the victim who came to us reported her doors were locked when she was visited.

  ‘When did you last hear from Jane?’ I asked, as Jane’s gran led us deeper into the house. The building had oak beams running along the ceiling, and built several centuries ago, it was not intended to accommodate people of my height. Even standing between the beams, I had to tilt my head to the side to make it fit.

  Gran shuffled through a door and past the foot of the stairs to access the back of the house. There would be a small kitchen and dining room there.

  She called over her shoulder. ‘I was just making a cup of tea, boys. Would you like one?’

  I could think of no reason not to. ‘That sounds lovely. We really need to know about Jane though,’ I prompted her.

  ‘Yes, dear. You asked when I last heard from her. That would be yesterday. She doesn’t come home every day. Sometimes she stays at her boyfriend’s place; he lives in Maidstone. Jan his name is. I think it’s spelled with a J but pronounced Yan. Odd foreign name. He’s a police officer. I was always quite partial to a man in uniform myself.’

  She was wandering off topic again. I did my best to keep her mind on the subject.

  ‘Did Jane mention ever that she saw someone watching her? Did anyone ever try to get into the house?’

  ‘Oh, no, nothing like that.’ Gran poured the tea from a teapot that wore a knitted cozy in the shape of a pig. The spout came out of its snout. She used delicate china cups and saucers, the type where one must raise one’s pinky when drinking. The tiny handles were far too small for either Basic or me to get a finger through. She set the cups around a small round dining table I could barely get my legs under. Basic’s chair creaked and groaned worryingly when he sat on it.

  ‘Have you noticed anyone watching the house? Or seen a person in the street more than once in a day? Someone who isn’t a neighbour,’ I clarified.

  Jane’s gran was diligent in racking her brains to come up with an answer, but it was still a solid no.

  ‘Do you think this Sandman has her then?’ gran wanted to know.

  I didn’t like that I had to answer that question. However, I went with the truth.

  ‘I suspect that to be the case, yes.’ Tempest is convinced, which would be good enough for me normally. Having found Jane’s car with all her things abandoned in it, any residual doubt had been swept away.

  ‘Oh, dear.’ Jane’s gran took a sip of her tea,

  Seeing the worry etched into gran’s face I felt a need to reassure her. ‘We are trying to find her, and I can promise you we are pooling all our resources to achieve that. Can I see her room, please? I want to see if she has any notes there that the team don’t know about.’

  ‘Of course, dear.’ Gran pushed herself back out of her chair. ‘I’ll show you where it is.’

  Jane. Muscular Overload. Friday December 23rd 1701hrs

  My arms, particularly my shoulders, were aching to the point that the pain in my joints was becoming a burning sensation. My abs hurt too as I had to crunch them to hold my upper body off the floor enough to move my arms.

  Every minute or so I would take a break. I had to. The rope was fraying, but it was doing so at a glacial pace. It was the case that I believed cutting through the rope required only my persistence, but though I tried to focus on that thought, a miserable voice inside my head kept reminding me I had no idea how long it would take and that once my hands were free, I still had the challenge of getting out of the room.

  However, I was also certain that the Sandman intended to kill me so doing what I could to avoid that fate felt necessary. If nothing else, having my hands free would make fighting easier and I was already resigned to the probability that I would not get away without facing him.

  The thought terrified me. I still didn’t know what he looked like. He could be a hulking bear of a man like Big Ben for all I knew. How would I beat someone like that?

  Gritting my teeth against the pain in my shoulders, I continued to scratch the rope against the tiny burr of steel.

  Big Ben. Jane’s Bedroom. Friday, December 23rd 1709hrs

  Jane’s room looked just how I imagine a teenage girl’s would look. I need to be clear that I have not been in a teenage girl’s bedroom since I was also a teenager. Anyway, there was a lot of Hello Kitty merchandise, fluffy plush toys, and an abundance of pink. In stark contrast to all the girly stuff was a stack of books on her bedside table.

  They were all about serial killers: their psychology, motivations, and behaviour. I tilted my head to read a few titles. Most of them were case studies.

  I couldn’t help but get the impression she was trying too hard to compensate for the penis in her knickers. I didn’t say that though because granny was standing two feet away.

  Jane’s room also had a lot of notes stuck to one of the walls. Some were coloured sticky squares and others were photographs or newspaper clippings. I pulled out my phone to take some pictures.

  There were no notebooks but there was an old vinyl record. I picked it up for a better look even though I felt sure I already knew what it was.

  Basic, usually silent, spoke for once. ‘Ders no record player.’

  He was correct. Jane had a wireless speaker sitting on a shelf ready to receive instruction from her phone or other device. I doubted Jane wanted to play this song though, given what it represented.

  I placed the copy of Mr Sandman back where it had been and continued to look around.

  ‘What are you hoping to find?’ asked Jane’s gran.

  I huffed a breath through my nose. ‘A big fat clue would be nice.’ The truth is that I didn’t know what I was looking for. I leave the detective stuff to Tempest. I’m available when someone needs to be punched in the mouth or if there are ladies in need of distraction.

  I had photographs of the things on the wall but if there was anything else here worth finding, it would require a different set of eyes. Chances were the good information would be on Jane’s laptop and that thought prompted me to get back to the office.

  ‘We’re going to go now,’ I announced turning around to face the door. ‘The rest of the team are working on identifying who the Sandman is. Did Jane ever discuss that with you? Did she ever come up with a hypothesis for who it could be?’

  It felt like a long shot, but also entirely possible that Jane would chat about such things with her gran while they ate their dinner or did the washing up.

  ‘No, love, sorry. She did talk about it, but that was because the case was frustrating her. She said it had to be an older person.’ Granny’s eyes rolled up toward her skull as she dredged her brain for more information but came up blank. ‘I think she believed he was someone who avoided social media and was probably killing the women because of something that happened to him many years ago, something traumatic. She could only guess what that might have been, but those books she was reading all pointed to him recreating the act or trying to compensate for what happened.

  Gran backed away from the door so Basic and I could leave, but as she started back along the corridor, she paused, remembering something.

  ‘Jane gave me a number to call. She said if anything happened to her, I should make sure someone called this number. Now where did I put that?’

  My eyes flared. Would this be something of use?

  Following her as she went back to the stairs and started down them, I asked, ‘Do you remember who the number was for?’

  ‘Hmmm? Oh, yes. It was Karen something or other.’

  Tempest. Karen Gilbert’s House. Friday, December 23rd 1730hrs

  A call from Amanda diverted my return to the office and sent me shooting past Roc
hester on a northward trajectory. I hadn’t been to Karen Gilbert’s burned-out house in New Ash Green but though I had no idea where it was, Amanda was able to give me the address from Jane’s file and Hilary used the satellite navigation on his phone to get us there.

  I pulled up outside the house and shot my cuff to check the time. The street was alight with Christmas. At least fifty percent of the homes were bedecked with lights outside. There were fancy ornaments, lights in trees, lights on roofs. Even the more modestly decorated houses bore lights in their windows where the Christmas tree filled the gap between the curtains.

  I found myself filled with a desire to be tucked up in my own place. It was sort of decorated, the lack of effort attributable to how hectic the last few weeks had been. I could be snuggled on the couch with Amanda and the dogs, watching an old movie while ingesting unnecessary calories.

  It sounded heavenly, but out of reach until we found Jane. Remembering the man sitting to my left in the Lotus’s passenger seat, I said, ‘You ought to be at home with your kids.’

  He didn’t argue, but said, ‘What we want isn’t always possible. Nor is it always the right thing to do.’

  I had to agree with him. Opening my door, I said, ‘Let’s get this done.’

  In horrible contrast to all the other homes in sight, Karen Gilbert’s house was covered in a tarpaulin where the fire had eaten away part of the roof. No work had started by the look of it, the house abandoned as she fled to get away from the serial killer stalking her.

  No doubt she was having great fun going through the process of claiming on her insurance policy to get the house repaired, but even once liveable, I doubted she would want to move back home unless the Sandman was caught.

  That was my job. Self-appointed, but my job, nevertheless.

  Out of the car, I looked to my left and right and picked a house at random. Her neighbours might know something, but I doubted it. I was here to get a feel for the case as much as anything else. Jane’s investigation was never completed, the client dropping us when she ran away. In hindsight, I should have teamed up with Jane to tackle this sooner. Something else always got in the way though. There was the werewolf case, and then the crazy ex-soldiers.