by steve higgs
My throat went dry and I found myself swimming inside my own head as I formed the words in my brain and tried to connect them with my mouth. I could see her in front of me, waiting for me to speak.
Like a rubber band snapping inside my head, I found the gumption I needed and opened my mouth. ‘Because I can’t date my employees.’
The planet has always conspired against me, so my statement came at the exact moment the DJ stopped the music to make an announcement.
Everyone heard me.
We were standing in a crowd of people at the bar, all of them silent now to see how she would respond. Most of them didn’t know me, they were guests and relatives of either the bride or the groom but they could all tell what they were witnessing and almost everyone from my immediate circle of friends was there too, frozen in time, waiting for Amanda to speak.
She didn’t speak though. Her eyes had been locked with mine for the last five seconds. She broke the moment by looking down to the floor. Then as if she had arrived at a decision, she looked up again, stepped forward and kissed me.
Postscript: Call from Hilary. Tuesday, 29th November 1809hrs
I hadn’t looked at my phone for hours because I had been lying in ambush and then dealing with the man I caught. The case I was on had been easy to solve, however, catching the perpetrator proved to be trickier because I couldn’t predict where he would strike next. He had been targeting children’s playparks and scaring the life out of kids while they played. That was all he was doing, there was nothing more devious going on, but I had met some of the kids he had terrorised and they were traumatised by the costumed idiot jumping out on them.
Anyway, it had been necessary for me to operate in silent mode until he fell into the trap I had arranged with the help of my clients and their children. It was cold out and we had been just about to give up when he was spotted approaching.
Now he was in custody, but the process of catching him, calling the police to our location and giving statements had eaten up another chunk of time. It was after the dogs’ dinner time and I was getting hungry myself, but I paused in my car to check my phone.
I had a stack of missed calls from Jagjit, all within the last hour. Wondering what he wanted so desperately, I pressed the button to call him, but a fresh call connected as I did. The caller was Hilary, a surprise as I couldn’t remember the last time he had called me, if ever. Usually we sent text messages.
I answered, ‘Good evening, buddy. What’s up?’
‘Hi, Tempest.’ Hilary spoke rapidly as if the message was important. ‘Jagjit called me. He’s been trying to get hold of you all for hours.’ Hilary explained.
‘I’ve been on a bust, dealing with the police and stuff. I was just about to call him. Did he say why he was calling?’ I asked.
‘Yes! He has a case for you in France. Or rather he has a client with a case. There’s a yeti on the loose!’
The End
Tempest and the entire crew will be back very soon in Paws of the Yeti. There is an extract from it if you click down a couple of pages. You can also find a link to it and all my other books on the next page.
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Books by Steve Higgs
Click the links to find the books in your local Amazon store.
Blue Moon Investigations
Paranormal Nonsense
The Phantom of Barker Mill
Zombie Granny – a Short Story
The Klowns of Kent
Dead Pirates of Cawsand
The Witches of East Malling
Whispers in the Rigging
Bloodlust Blonde – a short story
A Typo, a Werewolf, and Two Dopey Dachshunds – an Origin Story
Paws of the Yeti
The Harper Files
Spooky Shopping Mall
In the Doodoo With Voodoo with short story Guys and Dolls
Crop Circles, Cows and Crazy Aliens
Coming soon
Lord Hale’s Monster – The Harper Files Book 4
Extract from Paws of the Yeti
The Mountain. Wednesday, November 30th 1413hrs
Hurtling up the mountain on the gas-powered Ski-Doos was great fun. They flew over the snow as we sort of followed the police chief while also racing each other at the same time. If we had known where we were going, it would have been an all-out battle to get there. As it was, like boys, we kept picking the next spot to get to first. The machine was not one I had ever ridden before, but the controls were familiar, resembling those of a motorbike with a twist-grip throttle and handlebar brakes.
It was cold out, which might seem like an obvious statement, but the sun was beating down on us and would have been warm if the air had been still. Our passage through it at break-neck speed was creating the chill.
When we set off, Francois had warned of a storm approaching the region. It might veer away yet, but warnings were in place for heavy snow and high winds which this far up the mountain might be dangerous. Unfortunately for the police chief, whose intention had been to convince us to postpone I think, he instead provided an excuse for driving the Ski-Doos as fast as we could.
My lips were going numb from the cold, but I wasn’t about to slow down as I was winning this particular heat. Ahead of me, the ski-lift support that Big Ben had picked out as the next target was getting close. I couldn’t get the throttle to open any further and had lost every race so far because the other machines all went faster than mine, even the chief’s probably though he had declined to join in the fun. This time I had gotten a head start by unashamedly cheating. Despite that, the chaps were now catching me. Hilary’s machine was closest, bearing down on my right-hand side. He had made it to the marker first more than half the time and I wondered if he was just better at controlling his machine, if his machine was actually the fastest one or if, because he was the lightest, his machine was able to skip across the surface a little easier.
Whatever the case, I swerved to block his path, forcing him to alter his course and go around several trees he might otherwise have hit. The manoeuvre defeated Hilary but slowed my machine by just enough that Jagjit overhauled me to pip me at the post. It was all in good humour though.
The route had taken us up the piste that led back down to the hotels and the resort of Harvati. Skiers were whipping by to our right as we stuck to the left-hand edge of the trees that bordered the slope. We were stopped now at a junction where several slopes met as we waited for the Chief to catch up to us. He rumbled along a minute later, halting his machine perpendicular to ours.
‘We turn off the piste just up there,’ he pointed. ‘It’s not far now and we will have to go single file through the wo
ods.’
I replied with, ‘Roger,’ a habit I probably needed to shake. He led off with the rest of us following in a snaking line of Ski-Doos. True to his word, we shortly took a left turn through the trees but continued on slowly for what felt like another twenty minutes before I spied yellow barrier tape through the trees.
The attack site wouldn’t be found by accident, it was on no one’s route to anywhere. The police chief brought his machine to a stop, killed the engine and got off, stretching his body in place as if it had stiffened during the ride. The rest of us pulled up along the same trail but spread out wherever we came to a halt.
‘It’s just through here,’ said Francois as he ducked under the barrier tape.
I didn’t move, turning instead to face the guys, ‘Chaps, that’s an actual murder scene ahead. If you want to stay here and guard the Ski-Doos…’
‘Sure,’ said Hilary, ‘I have no desire to see buckets of blood in the snow. It’ll give me nightmares for weeks.’
Jagjit grimaced. ‘Yeah, that sounds unappealing. I’ll stay here too.’
Big Ben had already ducked the tape and was following the chief as he wound between the trees. I hurried to catch up, my feet sinking in the deep snow and branches catching my clothing. I reached them just as Francois stopped.
‘This is it,’ he said, indicating the general area with his hand. ‘We found the foot over by that tree and the blood trail and footprints went off through the trees to the east until it reached the cliff edge about seventy metres from here.’
‘What happened to it then?’ Big Ben asked.
‘It appears to go over the edge as if the creature climbed down but we could find no trace of anything on the ground below, not even a drop of blood. The footprints just stop as if the creature learned to fly or indeed went over the edge but there are no caves for it to go into. The body was found about fifty metres to the north.’ The police chief’s tone was professionally removed. He was just doing his job but I got the feeling that he had taken the job here because it was easy, and the worst crime he ever had to deal with was petty theft. Now he had a grisly death and too few ideas about what he was supposed to do next.
The blood was still visible in places but fresh snow and drifting snow had covered most of it. Whatever footprints there had been were obscured now so all I had were the photographs he had shown me this morning.
‘How far is the drop?’ I asked.
Francois swung to face me. ‘That’s what we call the knife edge. It’s a thousand metres straight down. Climbers kill themselves on it every year.’
I turned in place, looking about me and trying to visualise the scene. The attacker had to have charged them, knocking Priscille down and possibly inflicting her facial wound with the first blow. She hadn’t been the target though and the killer was confident enough that he allowed her to live. The body had been torn apart, one foot and the head getting removed and since the head was still missing it made sense to me that the killer had stabbed or shot her in the head and then inflicted the wounds to resemble an animal attack.
It was a lot of effort, but if they got away with murder then maybe they had the right tactic. Looking about still, a question occurred to me, ‘Francois, what were they doing here?’
He looked up surprised. ‘They were going from the piste to the fresh powder that borders the knife edge. It’s a bit too dangerous for most skiers and only the locals know about it, but Marie grew up here. The people I interviewed said she skied it all the time because no one else did.’
I looked about again, frowning. ‘But where they were attacked doesn’t link the piste to… anything. The track we parked the Ski-Doos on would be the obvious path to stick to. There’s barely enough room to ski here and all kinds of branches in the way.’ Something about where they had been attacked was wrong. If I wanted to reach this particular spot, I would ditch my skis and walk.
While I thought about that, I walked toward where Francois had said the foot was found. There was a dark stain at the base of a tree which was almost certainly Marie’s blood. Then I spotted something moving in the light breeze. Snagged on a piece of bark was what looked like fur. It had been missed by the police and everyone else that had come to the site.
‘Ben,’ I called. He was a few feet away but answered and trudged through the snow to get to me. ‘Can you cup your hands around this?’
‘Err, sure. What is it?’ he asked.
‘A piece of fur.’ When he squinted, he saw it too. ‘It might be nothing and I need to get a proper look at it but it looks like artificial fur, the type you get in the collar of a coat. I don’t want it to disappear on the wind when I tease it free though.’
He nodded his understanding and cupped his hands to shield it from the air while I produced an evidence bag from my pocket. Then, with bare hands despite the cold, I gently pulled the strands free.
Then a voice ripped through the air to grab our attention. Both Big Ben and I turned to see what was occurring.
With panicked faces, Jagjit and Hilary were running toward us evidently terrified about something behind them. Running though in the deep snow was proving quite difficult and they were part clawing, part swimming, part pulling themselves along by grabbing trees but they were both shouting as loud as they could.
And what they were shouting was: ‘YETI!’
The Yeti. Wednesday, November 30th 1502hrs
My first reaction was to chuckle. My good friends had been left alone and had managed to creep each other out. Now they had seen something and panicked. Or they were trying to play a trick on us.
I stepped forward to intercept them just as Big Ben was making a comment about crazy civilians but then I saw something moving through the trees behind them. I crouched to look. It was a good thirty yards behind them but definitely coming their way and it was big and white.
I stood up again glancing around for Big Ben. ‘Ben.’
‘Yeah?’
‘It’s show time.’ I pointed to the man in the costume coming our way. My adrenalin was spiking but I was feeling victorious. The killer had somehow heard we were here and had come to scare us off. It was a ballsy move. What if we had weapons? This was our chance to wrap the case up though. The chief could cuff him, we could interview him back at the hotel and he could be taken away. Neat and tidy and all done in time for Amanda to arrive to spend a few days with me without distractions.
Now there was a warming thought.
‘Shall we introduce ourselves?’ Big Ben asked but he hadn’t waited for my reply. He was already heading toward it.
I followed, soon catching up to him as he met with Jagjit and Hilary. They were red in the face and out of breath.
‘It’s a Yeti,’ puffed Hilary. ‘We came to warn you.’
I patted him on the shoulder. ‘Get your breath, we’ve got this.’ The shambling white lump was on all fours and heading our way still. The head was pointing toward us, two black eyes shining in our direction. It was a great costume. It even had twin horns from the top of its skull that curled like a ram’s. I had no particular fear. Unless the man in the costume was armed, I doubted he stood any chance at all. Not with Big Ben at my side. Whoever it was had some girth though or the costume had a stack of padding.
We crossed the path where the Ski-Doos were parked and into the trees on the other side. We were ten yards from it now. It was making grunting noises like a bear and it was at this point that a sense of unease began to creep upon me. Next to me Big Ben slowed his pace as he too stared intently at the advancing killer.
Then it stood up.
To get your copy of Paws of the Yeti, just click this link: Paws of the Yeti
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