by steve higgs
The doorbell was broken so I knocked on the door. To my left and right were discarded free papers that might be months old. They were sun-bleached and tatty. Weeds, crisp packets and other small pieces of litter were caught in the few plants desperately clinging to life in the front garden. The whole house had an abandoned look to it, but a shadow moved through the light behind the frosted glass of the front door and I could hear music coming from within the house.
The name of the friend, the owner of the house I was knocking on, was Mason Armitage. I knew nothing about him but assumed his approximate age to be that of Bartholomew's. I also assumed he would be Haitian, or Afro Caribbean so imagine my surprise when a skinny white kid answered the door.
It was the same skinny white kid with greasy dreadlocks I had chased down for stealing purses yesterday. He was out already and was now stood leering at me from the doorway. I reached into my handbag for a business card. I would stay professional.
‘Mason Armitage?’ I enquired.
‘Nah, love. He’s inside. Come in, you are expected.’
The house smelled of marijuana. That was the first thing I noticed. The house was a typical semi-detached place. There would be a lounge and dining room coming off the corridor to my left and a kitchen dead ahead. Up the stairs on the right would be three small bedrooms and a joint bathroom and toilet. I had been in dozens, if not hundreds of these houses. Many of which were on this estate.
I followed the skinny white kid into the lounge through the first door on our left. The room was mostly in darkness, the curtains were drawn to shut out the daylight. Someone had turned the music off and now the room was silent. Two dozen faces were staring at me. I spotted Bartholomew nestled on a long sofa against the far wall from the doorway in which I was now stood. He was naked from the waist up and smoking a large joint. Either side of him were two women, their dark skin almost merging with the black leather of the sofa in the dim light. They were both stripped down to their underwear. Around the room, most of the other occupants were only partially dressed, though thankfully no one had their junk hanging out, and many of them were smoking. The room was filled with the heavy, cloying, sweet stench of marijuana.
The skinny white kid had gone into the room ahead of me. He took up a position at Bartholomew’s feet. Like a dog might. Bartholomew reached forward to pat him on the head.
Everyone was still staring at me, no one was speaking. It was quite unnerving, but I was not going to let my rising fear show. ‘Bartholomew King.' I said as I tried to make my way across the room to shake his hand. I had to go slow, there were legs and feet and hands on the carpet where the occupants had spilled from the furniture to the floor.
I didn’t get to cross the room though before he started speaking. ‘You dare to disturb my parents?’ his voice was calm, the accent educated, but the tone carried malice. ‘Insolent white bitch.’ I sooo loved being called names.
‘Bartholomew, I think you and I need to have a little chat.' I wanted to extricate him from the crowd of people around him, but I was beginning to worry that this would not happen. Clearly, he was not as innocent and well-behaved as his parents liked to think he was. ‘Shall we go through to the kitchen?' It felt like a futile request when I said it. I really wanted to leave, but I was here now and had a good chance to deal with my client's case if I could just get him alone and talk some sense into him.
‘Woman.’ He started, still utterly relaxed and laying back on the sofa. ‘Woman you have done me wrong, but I will forgive you, for you are beautiful.’ He leaned forward then, locking eyes with me and smiling. ‘Come upstairs with me now and you can be Bartholomew’s woman.’
No thanks.
A hand brushed my leg. I jolted in reaction and spun my head around to see who it was in the dark. When I looked back at Bartholomew a heartbeat later he was off the sofa and only a few feet away from me. He was reaching out with his hand to take mine.
‘Woman let us join ourselves now. To say no would be truly dread.’
I thought about taking his hand and leading him from the room. It seemed like a safe way to get him away from his friends, who were creeping me out with the continued silence. When I didn't respond immediately, he grabbed my left arm, pinning it with a strong grip.
I reached my right hand across, dug my thumbnail into the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger to break the grip then turned his wrist against itself. As I forced him to the floor at my feet, everything in the room changed.
At once, everyone was on their feet. Adrenalin caused my heart rate to rocket, but no one moved towards me. ‘Can I let go of you, Bartholomew? Will you behave?' I asked. I was terrified, surrounded by a crowd of people and hoping that I could keep the fear from my voice. Maybe if I sounded like I was the one in charge they would not do anything foolish. Then I remembered my Police ID.
Using my free hand, I reached into my bag to find it. ‘I must warn you that I am a Police Officer…’
‘That will not save you, woman.' Bartholomew said from his position at my feet. He began chanting. A low eerie noise using words I could not understand. Around me, the crowd in the room began to sway. A woman let out a whoop. Looking around, my panic threatening to overwhelm me, I could see that their eyes had rolled back into their heads. Every one of them was showing me white eyes. It was freaking freaky and I was scared enough to call it a day.
I dropped Bartholomew’s arm, letting him regain his feet as I backed towards the door. No one tried to stop me, so I turned and ran. ‘I curse you.’ Bartholomew called after me. As I ran, I felt a tug on my scalp like something or someone had snagged my hair.
I reached the front door, turned the handle and damned near fell out of the house into the thankful daylight outside.
‘I curse you, woman. I curse you with a plague of snakes and spiders. You will perish this very week.’ His voice carried down the street as I ran to my car. ‘Please convey to Kimberly that she has made her predicament worse.’
I risked a glance over my shoulder to make sure I was not being followed and almost sobbed with relief when I saw no one behind me. I reached the end of the row of houses and turned the corner to get back to my car. I was fumbling in my bag for my keys but could not locate them with my panicked hand. With my other hand, I held the bag open to peer inside as I ran.
Consequently, I was not looking where I was going and failed to see what was waiting for me.
‘Going somewhere, bitch?’
It was Terrance and Trevor. They were both sat on the bonnet of my car again. This time though they had brought about twenty of their friends with them.
Not the Best Day Ever. Monday, October 31st 1257hrs
My heart rate was still calming down after escaping Mason's house and now I had these morons to deal with. I was not in the mood. I whipped out my Police ID. I was going to get them off my car and drive away.
Terrance had other ideas though. ‘Don’t think that ID will save you this time blondie. You disrespected the Magdalene Massif. No one does that.’
‘Yeah.’ Said Trevor.
‘You need to pay a toll.’
‘Yeah.’ Said Trevor.
I was wishing I had my baton with me, or perhaps a gun. The twenty or so young men that were with Trevor and Terrance had begun to fan out to surround me. Once again, I was getting thoroughly uncomfortable. This was not a safe situation. I turned to retreat back along the road. I would run for it if I had to, but my path was blocked. There were even more of them behind me.
‘Now then.’ Started Terrance, his voice full of confidence and good humour. ‘What sort of toll do you think we should make the lady pay?’ he asked the crowd.
I turned back to face him. ‘You had better enjoy this Terrance. In a short while you are going to be in a cell. Do you really want to assault a Police Officer?’
‘Oh, blondie. I'm not going to assault you. Far from it. I am going to give you the chance to perform a simple task.' He patted his groin, making it abundantly obviou
s what the simple task was. ‘Now, I know there is a lot of it.' He said as he unzipped his fly. ‘But we already know that you have a big mouth…'
I slumped my shoulders in resignation. All his entourage were jeering and making filthy noises of encouragement. I hiked my bag onto my shoulder and moved towards him. Encouraged, Terrance showed me what he had for me. I grabbed hold of it with both hands and tried to lift him off the floor with it.
‘You dirty little stain.’ I screamed in his face. As his friends leaped to get me off him, I let go and kneed him hard in his nuts.
Then hands were grabbing me and there were too many of them to fight. I struggled and punched and kicked at anything I could get to, but no more than a couple of seconds later I was hauled off the ground and into the air, my limbs no longer mine to control.
Panic was rising. I had made so much noise that people had to have heard. I needed someone to call the Police and get them here before I was bundled into a car or a house and lost from sight. Then, I was falling. The young men had let go of me and were swearing and yelling about something new.
Had the Police arrived already?
‘Take that, dickhead.’
Hold on. I know that voice. I spun myself around on the pavement where I had painfully come to land. There, in front of me, was Big Ben. He was standing on the inert forms of three or four different young men, had another one hanging limply from his left hand which was wrapped around the smaller man's throat and was looking for someone else to hit.
‘Come on, boys. Is that all you’ve got? There is only one of me.’ He goaded. ‘Come on, have another go.’
‘Having fun, Benjamin?' I asked.
He turned to look at me, dropping the possibly dead man from his grip. ‘Hello, Amanda.’ He offered me his hand to help me up. I was soggy from rolling in a puddle and had bits of leaf litter in my hair. ‘Shall we go?’
‘I should call the Police and have these gentlemen rounded up.’
‘Well… I might have accidentally killed one or two of them. I didn’t think I had hit them that hard, but they haven’t moved for a while, so if it is alright with you, I think I would rather just leave.’
The crowd of boys had scattered. No one able to stand was still in sight so it was going to be problematic finding them. Big Ben might have a point about the damage sustained as well, there were at least seven men on the ground that were not moving. Then I spotted Terrance, trying to limp away.
I moved to intercept him. Big Ben grabbed me around the waist and hauled me towards my car. ‘Come on, Hotstuff. I can hear sirens already. Unless you want to waste the whole afternoon explaining things, we need to get moving.’
He had a point. I needed to focus on the case I was trying to solve, not spend my time earning no money dealing with lowlife criminal scumbags that would probably be out again tomorrow and causing more problems.
Big Ben put me down at my car and ran around to the passenger's side while I fumbled in my bag for my keys again. I slid in and gunned the engine but had to wait for Big Ben while he tried to fold himself into the passenger's seat.
‘How do people get into this thing?' he complained, trying now to reverse his bum in first. ‘Honestly, it's like getting into a child's toy.'
‘I fit in it fine, Ben.’
‘Yes, Hotstuff, I can see that.' With a final huff, he settled into the seat. He had his knees either side of his ears.
‘Seatbelt.’ I prompted.
‘You have got to be kidding.’ He replied. He was probably right.
‘Okay, but you have to travel in the back from now on. You can fit better back there.’ Big Ben had been in my car before. That time I had Tempest with me who is a more normal size for a man. Big Ben was like man plus, but I had better not voice that opinion: His ego was inflated enough as it was.
I nailed the accelerator, thrusting the small car forward with Big Ben bracing himself against the side window and the roof. I whipped around the corner, leaving Terrance, Trevor and all their friends behind. I was fairly sure Big Ben was joking about killing some of them. Fairly sure. Nevertheless, I kept going and escaped the Magdalene Estate as quickly as I could.
My House. Monday, October 31st 1312hrs
A few minutes later my pulse had returned to normal. I was driving in traffic, heading into Maidstone and passing Mote Park. A thought occurred to me.
‘Benjamin, what were you doing on the Magdalene Estate and where is your car?'
‘I wondered when you would get around to asking me that. I was just leaving a young lady’s house and she took me there, so my car is still parked in its garage.’
‘Your hook up from last night?’ I asked. I was trying to keep the judginess out of my voice but had probably failed.
‘No. Goodness, Amanda. My hook up from last night got kicked out this morning so I could go to the gym. Then I met a girl at the gym. She was new and asked me if I could show her around. One thing led to another. She took me home and when I was leaving I spotted you heading towards your car and figured I could get a lift back into town. When I crossed the road, you were surrounded by chaps who were behaving in a most ungentlemanly manner. I intervened.’
‘You certainly did. I owe you one.’
I could feel Big Ben looking at me. I turned my head to look at him. He was grinning at me with a lecherous smile.
‘You owe me one?’
‘Yes. Benjamin. I owe you a favour in return. It will not be what you are thinking. Honestly, you get so much action, how is it that you don't get bored?'
‘Bored? With women?' he said it like the concept was completely alien. ‘How do I explain this? I have to assume that you are not a virgin, Hotstuff. And that there is probably more than one man in your back catalogue. Did you notice that each man was different?'
‘Well, obviously.’
‘What I mean is, their todgers were different. The way they touched you was different. The way they felt was different.’
‘Enough.’ I implored. ‘I don’t want to have this conversation.’
‘You know, Hotstuff, you are very uptight about sex. For an attractive woman, you seem astonishingly introverted. The point I was making is that every woman is different. They feel different, they taste different. The way they perform certain acts is different. I doubt I could ever get bored exploring the female half of the race.'
I had no answer, about the need to have sex with every woman possible or about my own introverted nature. I was fine talking about sex, just not with men that I didn’t really know.
‘So, what were you doing there?’ Big Ben asked, sensing my mood and changing the subject.
‘I was on a case. The gentlemen you met were just some local lowlifes.’
If he wanted me to embellish my explanation he didn’t voice it. The rest of the journey to his apartment by the river took a few minutes. Big Ben wriggled around in his seat until he could extricate himself, thanked me for the lift and waved me off.
I went home. I needed a change of clothes before I considered doing anything else. My bum was damp from rolling in a puddle and my trousers had several dirty marks on them. I might even need a shower to get all the muck out of my hair.
As I came into my apartment block I walked through a cobweb, the sticky strands getting stuck on my face and hair. The spider had spun it across the doorway that led into the building, but it struck me as odd that no one else had walked into it already today. It was now mid-afternoon. I rubbed at my face and hair until I could no longer feel it, by which time I had reached my apartment door.
Opening the door though, the spider itself abseiled from my hair to dangle in front of my face. I let out a shriek and did a dance to get rid of it, flapping my hands at my hair to make it come loose without wanting to actually touch it. I was not a fan of spiders.
The offending creature, a house spider with its long legs and tiny body, scuttled away across my floor to vanish under a skirting board just as Bartholomew's words were echoing in my head. That I had
walked into a spider's web was nothing more than a coincidence. I was quite certain of that. Nevertheless, I had my eyes peeled for more arachnids as I went through my apartment to my bedroom. Now that I had icky web in my hair, I was definitely getting a shower.
Fifteen minutes later and feeling much cleaner, I was getting dressed between bites of a ham sandwich. In all the excitement of the day, I had forgotten to eat. Thankfully, my fridge usually had something in it that was edible. It was close to half past two and I still had to get to Tonbridge Wells to visit the ghost tours lady and needed to fit in time to sort myself out for tonight's date with Brett.
Standing up from applying a small amount of makeup, I crossed the room to my wardrobe, slipped a pair of low-heeled, tan boots on to compliment the leather jacket I planned to wear, and I was ready. I snagged the plate from the dresser, depositing it in the sink on my way through to my door.
Was that a spider?
In my sink was another spider. Bigger and meatier than the house spider I had encountered before, it was scrambling around for purchase to escape up the stainless-steel walls of my sink but having no luck. It had most likely come up the drainpipe like incey-wincey.
Another spider.
I needed to get rid of it but did not want to squash it and most certainly had no intention of touching it. I found a cup and a notepad, then berated myself as I ducked back each time it darted towards my hands while I tried to catch it.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally suckered it into the cup and dumped it out the window. Again, I assured myself that this was just a coincidence. Nothing to do with Bartholomew at all.
Angry for feeling unnerved, I stuffed my arms into my jacket and went out the door. I had to get to Royal Tonbridge Wells and it was a good forty-minute drive. Coming back would be worse if I timed it wrong and caught the school-run traffic.
Lily Hallett. Monday, October 31st 1404hrs
I found the ghost tours place easily enough, there were several signs to lead people to their office. It was located just off the main street that ran through Tonbridge Wells and was about one hundred metres from the castle. The town had lots of old buildings, as did many towns and villages in the area and though I had never been on a ghost tour myself, my assumption was that they took small groups around the town and into buildings telling them tales of spectres and ghosts that had been seen over the centuries.