2 In the Doodoo with Voodoo

by steve higgs

  I hurried around the building to the entrance at the front and down the path to get inside, not willing to hang around in case I was spotted by the next gang of layabout kids. There was probably no danger to me, but dealing with them, even verbally was a task I would sooner avoid.

  Inside the building’s little foyer, several of the lights were out, but there was enough still working that I could read the graffiti. It was sprayed liberally on every surface like I had just walked into a breakdance club from the eighties. All that was missing was a couple of rival gangs having a dance fight and a gold-toothed DJ. Three steps led up to the first floor, a poor design given how many single mums must end up in buildings similar to this one.

  The door to number two was open a crack, a sliver of a face showing just above the security chain. The person inside decided that I was who they were waiting for, the door closed to the sound of the chain being rattled and then opened again to reveal a woman of about twenty-five.

  Kimberly Kousins was pretty but was doing her best to hide it. Despite a pronounced overbite her face was well proportioned and covered in small pimples. True to the fashion of the area though, she had on a full face of makeup and crazy-long false eyelashes just to sit at home watching television. She stood five feet seven inches tall, making her quite average in height, her eyes were brown to match her hair which was pulled back into a ponytail, the length of which dictated that once released it would fall to just about touch her shoulders. It was also stuffed into a black diamanté ball cap. She wore huge gold hoop earrings which were filled with a bold letter K and were paired with no less than six more smaller hoops running up the edge of her left ear, but oddly none at all in her right. She had a nose piercing which was another gold hoop and around each wrist were colourful and sparkly Pandora bracelets. A brief pang of jealousy shot through me at seeing those particular items as I had coveted them through the shop window for many months now. I could buy them for myself but somehow that felt like cheating. I wanted a boy to buy the pretty trinkets for me, just like the wonderful advertisements on television.

  Kimberly beckoned for me to hurry in. I felt no need to quicken my pace. There was no one else in sight, nor could I hear anyone, so I was sure I could cross the eight feet of foyer and get inside before a marauding horde descended upon us.

  ‘Amanda Harper.’ I said as I got close to her door. I was putting out my hand to shake, but she was only interested in getting me inside and shutting the door.

  As I squeezed by her, I readjusted my assessment of her height and gave her an extra half inch. I also gave some consideration to her weight which I estimated to be fifty-five kilos. She had on grey flannel sportswear. The uniform of the stupid, Tempest had once called it. I understood his sentiment. Wearing a warm-up suit when not doing sports is completely fine, but I had interviewed people in my capacity as a Police Officer that had been wearing their favourite Sunday Best crappy grey outfit and thought they looked good.

  ‘Please hurry.’ Kimberly begged as got inside. The door all but slammed behind me. ‘I don't want Mrs. Hamilton to see you. She keeps telling the other neighbours I am a prostitute. She will think you are my social worker.'

  I didn’t know whether this was an insult or not. Did I dress like a social worker?

  ‘Will my car be safe outside?’ I asked.

  ‘God, no.’

  Jolly good. So glad I checked.

  ‘Let’s make this quick then, shall we?’ I asked as I took myself to the front of the house where I could see out the window to my currently unmolested car outside.

  I had arrived in her small galley kitchen. She had followed me in, looking pensive and holding her hands together as if she was about to start wringing them.

  I pulled out a notebook from my handbag and clicked my pen. ‘Kimberly, please tell me why you called and how it is that you think I can help.’

  ‘Like I said on the phone, I met a man online, on a dating website and now he is stalking me. The Police will not do anything, and I am scared.’

  She was bordering on hysterical, almost in tears. I wanted to calm her down so that I could better question her. ‘Kimberly, why don’t you put the kettle on and make two nice cups of tea?’

  ‘I only have coffee.’

  ‘Coffee will be fine.' I replied, wondering what kind of person did not have the means to make a cup of tea. It was the action though, not the beverage itself that I was after. The mundanity of making a hot beverage would focus her on something else and help to re-establish a normal pulse rate. As she busied herself at the sink filling the kettle, I started asking questions.

  ‘Kimberly let’s start with a few basic pieces of information.’ I found it was better to get a person talking about facts first. It established a baseline and got them into the frame of mind for answering questions. I asked her age, her profession, where she worked, where she had grown up and noted the answers on a fresh page. I kept going with the details of her life until the coffee was made. Then switched tack. ‘The man’s name, what is it?’

  ‘Bartholomew King. He calls himself the Magdalene King.’

  ‘The Magdalene King.’ I repeated as I wrote.

  ‘Ridiculous, isn't it?' she asked, a nervous laugh escaping with the question. ‘I had heard of him, or at least I had heard of the Magdalene King, but I didn’t know it was him until we went on a date.’

  ‘Explain how you met please.’

  ‘It was online. There is a dating website called Meet Market? Have you heard of it?' Her face coloured as she named the website. I made no comment. ‘I found him on there. You can search by distance from your postcode. No point finding a guy if he is in Scotland, right?'

  I indicated that I was listening and wanted her to continue.

  ‘Well, it was me that approached him. You could say I brought this on myself. He had such a nice smile and it said he was only a couple of miles from me. We exchanged messages for more than a week and he was quite sweet. He talked about still living with his mum and dad and working with them as a chemist. He was very keen to meet, right from the start. He said lots of nice things, which wore down any misgivings I had.' She stopped to take a sip of her coffee and to shudder a little. Retelling her story was taking some effort.

  ‘Go on.’ I encouraged.

  ‘Two weeks ago, we met for coffee in town and he was still this really sweet guy. I liked his bald head and he has a perfect smile that made me want to take my knickers off.’ I didn’t write that bit down. ‘I kissed him at the end of the date and we arranged to meet each other two days later. That was where it all started going wrong.’

  She paused to drink more of her coffee. I did likewise but didn't get more than the first mouthful in as it was quite awful. It was instant coffee but must have been a supermarket or budget brand. I managed to swallow the foul dishwater rather than spit it back into the mug, but I was not going to drink the rest of it.

  ‘He texted me later that evening to set up the next date, but he wanted to see me the next day. I had already said that I could not because I had a Zumba class that evening. He wouldn't take no for an answer though and he said he had a special purpose for me and how much I was going to enjoy it. When I said I thought it best if we didn't see each other again he got quite angry.'

  ‘Did he threaten you?’

  ‘Not in a text message or on the dating service. The Police said that because I had no evidence to show that it was anything more than a lover’s quarrel they could do nothing about it. Not even speak with him.’

  ‘That’s right, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked me mystified.

  ‘The Police have limited resources to appropriate to their workload and have to prioritise constantly. Inevitably, cases where there is no provable crime get very little attention. Stalker cases are very hard to prove and of course, they get lots of false reports each week.'

  ‘But he cursed me.’ She said with a sob, burying her head in her hands.

  ‘What do
you mean by that?' When she failed to answer after several seconds I had to repeat the question. She still didn't answer and just as I was about to speak again she reached up with one hand and pulled her ball cap from her head. Several pieces of her shoulder length brown hair fell out as she did so, and she met my gaze with a glum expression.

  ‘He came to the house two days after I had met him in town for coffee. He was waiting in the bushes out the front with some of his crew and ambushed me before I could get into the house. He was naked from the waist up and he had bones painted all over his skin to make him look like a skeleton. He had a small snake in one hand and a headless chicken in the other. He flicked the chicken at me and covered me in its blood. It was so disgusting.’

  I was making notes but thinking that I really didn’t want to ever meet this guy.

  Kimberly had more to say. ‘He kept chanting the whole time. Chanting and laughing, like it was funny to him. The rest of them were laughing too. They were blocking my path in every direction.'

  ‘Did any of them touch you?’

  ‘No, none of them did. I screamed at them to get out of my way, but they just laughed some more and then he clicked his fingers and they all stopped. That’s when he said I was cursed. That he had laid a curse upon me and I would be afflicted with ugliness for spurning him. My hair would fall out, my teeth would fall out… all that sort of thing. Then they walked away. Just walked away like it was done. I locked myself in my flat and kept expecting them to come back. But they didn’t. I saw him the next day though. When I was leaving for work he was stood on a street corner, like he was watching for me or something. He smiled and waved, but not in a friendly way.’ She finished her coffee and saw that I had let mine go cold.

  ‘Sorry, I’m not really thirsty.’ I said. She didn’t seem to care. She got up to put her mug in the sink. ‘Kimberly, I need to fill in a few missing details. What was the date when you first made contact and when you went on the first date?’

  ‘The first date was a Monday night, two weeks ago.’

  I did some mental maths. ‘The 17th?’

  ‘If that was a Monday two weeks ago, then yes. I made first contact with him on the Saturday night a week and a couple of days before that. I am so stupid. Why the hell did I contact him?’ I Understood the sentiment, I had asked myself the same question about a boy before.

  ‘So, what happened after he claimed to have cursed you?’

  ‘Nothing. At least not for a while. It was four days later when I noticed there was more hair than usual in the shower drain. I didn’t think anything about it at first but the next day there was blood on my toothbrush and even more hair in the shower. I saw him every day after that. He was always somewhere different, but it was as if he knew where I was going to be. I saw him in town on my lunch break, on my drive home, outside my window at night. When it wasn’t him it was one of his awful crew of followers. By the time I gave up on hoping the Police would do something and called your investigation agency my face was breaking out into spots and my hair was coming out in clumps.’ The last sentence came out between sobs. The poor girl was having a bad time of it, picked on by a gang of bullies led by a man that sounded like a real charmer. He and I would be having words in due course, but for now, I needed to wring whatever more information out of her that I could.

  ‘Kimberly, I think I should start by ruling out the possibility that you have been cursed. Voodoo, like all supernatural legends, is nothing more than embellished stories and fantasy for the gullible. You are however the victim of some nasty stalking and, if you wish to engage the firm, I will do what I can to put an end to it.' It wasn't much of a case. I expected that once I had confronted the man he would decide it was too much effort and find some other way to use his time.

  ‘If voodoo is all fantasy, how do you explain my hair and my bleeding gums and loose teeth and my spots?’ Kimberly was all snot and tears.

  It was a good question. One for which I did not have an answer.

  ‘I’m going to be ugly.’ She wailed loudly. ‘And he took my cat.’

  I hated when the victims got all emotional. It was an unavoidable part of the job as a Police Officer, but I had hoped it would be a less regular event as a private investigator. Noticesw of bereavement, whenever I had been tasked to deliver them, had been a two-person job and I had had always positioned myself nearest the kitchen, so I could offer to make the tea and not be the one putting an arm around the bereaved. Here I was though with a sobbing, snot-dripping young woman and no chance of back up.

  ‘Tell me about your cat. When did it go missing?’ I asked by way of a distraction.

  ‘He took her three days ago. At least that is when she went missing and she has never gone missing before. She is a two-year-old Persian with a blue-collar inset with Swarovski crystals.'

  I jotted the information down. Given his trick with the chicken, I worried for the cat. ‘Her name?'

  ‘Miss Pussy.’ She replied with a half giggle that escaped her lips between the sobs.

  I wrote the name down without making comment. ‘Are you sure she has not got locked in somewhere? Cats do that.'

  ‘No, I cannot be certain. But I would not put it past him to have taken her.' Kimberly gave herself a shake. ‘Here, I have a photo for you, just in case you happen to see her.’

  I slipped the photograph into the cover of my notebook, then looked down at the pages worth of jotted lines. Plenty of detail. The question now was how to approach the case. ‘Kimberly, what outcome do you want to get from this?' I asked. I had learned at some point that a lot of people reporting crimes against themselves are not seeking justice, mostly they want to offload the information and never think about it again. Some though want the perpetrator behind bars and yet others want the Police, or perhaps God, or whoever is feeling most into retribution that week to deliver a broken arm or something.

  Kimberly fixed me with an expression that suggested I was stupid. ‘I want him to lift the curse, return my cat and leave me alone.' She stated with some frustration as if it were obvious.

  Return her life to normal I wrote on my page and underlined it.

  ‘Okay, Kimberly. I am going to take this case, but we need to discuss fees first.' I wondered what the girl could afford. If she had any worthwhile money tucked away she would be spending it on moving somewhere nicer. I wondered how Tempest would feel about me taking a case at a lower fee than usual. He has often said the business cannot always be about profit and I had noticed in him a need to play the part of the hero when there was a woman in trouble.

  I outlined to Kimberly our standard fees, watched her eyes widen and her bottom lip wobble again and offered her a discount. The discount came courtesy of her agreeing to help on the case where she could.

  We settled on a rate that she could afford, and I explained what my likely next steps would be. I asked if she could go to stay with her mother or a sister or other relative, but her parents lived in Scotland and she could not go there and keep her job, she was an only child and had very few other relatives. I wanted her to stay in the house and thus defuse his ability to intimidate her while I gave some thought to how it was that she was losing her hair and teeth and suddenly getting spots. She would not though. She had work in the morning and refused to call in sick. I didn't say it, but I was impressed by her determination to soldier on.

  I could do nothing else for her tonight. I closed my notebook, put it away and promised to call her the next day with an update. I wasn't going to do anything more tonight. As I thought that, a yawn forced my mouth open. I was tired. It had been a long day already which had started at six o'clock this morning with a trip to the gym.

  Kimberly showed me out, her parting comments to wish me luck and to beg me to help her once more.

  I left the building, walking fast to cover the distance to my car which was around the corner of the building where the car park was situated. On the bonnet of my car were two young men.

  Annoying Young Men. Sunday, Oc
tober 30th 2157hrs

  ‘Alright, Darling.’ Said one in greeting. He was maybe eighteen, he had a can of Supertennents lager in his right hand and he was all smiles. ‘Out by yourself?’

  ‘I reckon she looks like she needs a date, Terrance.’

  ‘I reckon you are right, Trevor.’ The two were not drunk, I decided. They were just dickheads. Just enough alcohol in them to make them brave. ‘Is that right, sweetheart. Are you looking for a man?’

  ‘Why? Would you like to help me find one?' I plipped the car open, my stride never slowing as I approached them. Other women might be intimidated by such behaviour. But as a Police Officer, I was used to dealing with mouthy, unruly, idiot teenage boys. If they didn't get off my car I would drive away with them still on it.

  ‘What did you say?’ asked the one who had spoken first. His lecherous smile replaced by an angry mask as he slid off the bonnet and to his feet. ‘You think you are clever? How about I show you how much of a man I am? You won’t walk straight for a week, babe.’

  ‘Yeah.’ His friend echoed.

  Were they going to get aggressive? It was always hard to tell. They were blocking my path to the car, forcing me to stop. I could trade petty insults with them all night, but I was tired, and I wanted to get home. My right hand was fishing in my bag. Finally, I found what I had been rooting for and produced my Police ID.

  ‘Boys, if you want women to treat you like men, you need to start treating them like ladies. Go home, grow up and don’t let me find you hanging around here again.’

  Neither of them seemed to have a retort. It was the Police ID that had quelled their tongues, not my demeanour. They were not quite done yet though.

  ‘Gonna be watchin’ for you, bitch.’ Terrance said, his voice an insistent threat.