by steve higgs
‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ I asked. Was I slurring? Had I drunk that much? I decided that it was just my paranoia making me worry.
‘Are you slurring?’ she asked.
Nuts.
‘I have been at the pub with Ben, licking our wounds.’ Best to come clean.
‘Oh. If this is an inconvenient time I can come back tomorrow. Or visit you at the office next week.’ she said.
All hope of naked entwinement evaporated immediately as she was clearly not here to take a ride on Mr. Wriggly. Disappointed, but trying not to show it, I invited her through to the kitchen. ‘Watch the dogs do not claw your legs.' I advised as I opened the kitchen door and they tumbled out. ‘They can get a little over excited.'
‘It is so nice to see both together again.’ Amanda said from her crouched position where she was petting them. ‘Dozer seems none the worse for his adventure.’ My dopier dog had ended up in the river while I was battling the serial killing vampire wannabe and had been missing for several days. I had presumed that he was dead until he joyously turned up a few miles downriver and was found by a little old lady.
‘His waist is still a little thinner than it was, but the vet assured me that he is in good health and will not suffer any long-term problems for his temporary starvation in the wild.’ I replied.
Amanda stood up and followed me into the kitchen. ‘Can I offer you a drink?' I asked. I was keen to hear why she was on my doorstep after dark on a Friday night if it was not a social call, yet manners dictated that I play the host before I pressed her for an answer.
‘Just a tea please.’ her reply.
I nodded and set out two mugs while the kettle boiled. I selected an Ironman mug for myself, I felt it set the right tone and dug to the back of the cupboard where the guest mugs were kept finding one with a pink unicorn on it.
The silence felt like it was stretching out while I was waiting for the tea to brew. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of your company tonight?' I asked again while stirring the tea bags around. Amanda had been fiddling with her phone but put it away in her tiny clutch handbag now. She smiled at me as I crossed the room to get milk from the fridge and had to take a short step back to allow me access. Her perfume hit my nose and went directly to my groin as always.
‘I have a proposition for you.’ she said plainly.
That got my attention and instantly I could hear Mr. Wriggly humming Barry White tunes to himself.
‘I am looking for a job. I wondered if you wanted a partner?’
‘Oh.’ I said a little dumbly.
Not here for rampant sex then.
I rallied my disappointment in case it was glaringly obvious that I was and fixed her with a quizzical expression. I hoped it was quizzical anyway. The alcohol was making me a little woozy, so there was a chance my face just looked intellectually challenged. ‘I thought you had a job and wanted to progress in it?'
‘I thought so too. However, the last couple of weeks has shown me that there are other opportunities. I think, in fact, that I am fed up being a police officer and would much rather be a private investigator. Like you.' She left that hanging for a moment.
When it dawned on me that I was holding both cups of tea and not doing anything with them, I managed to engage my brain and pass her one.
‘Thank you.' As she took it from me. She sipped it a little, her eyes focused on the cup or perhaps the floor. Then she looked back up and spoke again. ‘So, what do you think?'
‘You have caught me a little off guard I’m afraid.’ I wanted to open up and tell her that I was really attracted to her and that I had hoped for her as a different kind of partner. The more sensible part of my brain was arguing with the horny part though and was trying to convince it that if she wanted sex we would already be in bed and that therefore I should stay quiet. Sensible won the day. ‘Have you already quit your job?’ I asked, somewhat deflecting her question.
‘No, but I spoke with my career councillor yesterday about my options for advancement and they are less promising than I had hoped. I think I will be quitting no matter what you say.’
I was trying to work out all the variables. I needed a partner; I had acknowledged that to myself already and here was a trained and experienced police officer applying for the job. Okay, I was a little bit in love with the job applicant, but otherwise, she was ideal for the post. The tussle I was having then was whether I could work with her and forget my attraction or whether having her work with me would, in fact, result in the attraction developing into something mutual.
Why is being a man so difficult? Or is it just me making hard work of it?
‘Tempest?’ Amanda spoke to break my train of thought.
‘Sorry?' I answered, making eye contact with her.
‘Err, you haven’t spoken for about five minutes and your lips were moving like you were having a conversation with yourself.’ she sipped her tea again. ‘Do you need some time to think?’
‘No. Err, sorry. Just having a little internal debate. I guess my answer must be, yes. Yes, please in fact. I need the help. My caseload keeps increasing and I will not be surprised if the recent exposure from The Vampire case results in even more calls for my services.’
Amanda blew out a breath as if she had been holding it. ‘Well, that's a relief. We need to have a serious discussion about it all, but I feel that now is not the right time.' Amanda put her cup down and stood up straight. ‘I ought to go home. I'm sorry for just dropping by like this, I have been wanting to speak to you about this for days and knew I would not sleep tonight if I didn't get it over with.'
‘That's okay.' I said slowly. My fantasy woman was leaving, the chance of playing humpy-bumpy tonight now non-existent. ‘I would like the weekend to consider how we proceed, please. I have never run my own business before, never had to consider payroll or expenses or tax for employees and need to do some research. Can we meet on Monday?'
‘Of course.’ Amanda said. She scooped up her little clutch purse, tucked it under her left arm and extended her right hand to shake mine. I didn’t want to shake her hand. I wanted to grab it and pull her into a kiss - to tell her how I felt. The voice from my pants was convinced it was what she was waiting for and that I just needed to show her my dominant manly side for her to succumb and be my woman.
I bet she isn’t wearing any knickers. The voice said.
Like a chump, I ignored it, shook her hand and watched her walk towards my front door. ‘Why the fancy outfit?' I asked. She looked like she was going to or coming from a cocktail party or event of some kind.
‘Oh, I was on a date.' she replied casually as if the answer would not cut me to the bone.
She was out the door and I was closing it behind her, bidding her a good night as she went. Of course, she had been on a date. She was an attractive woman and ought to be out on dates. Come to think of it, the world would be a topsy-turvy place if women that looked like Amanda were in doing the ironing on a Friday night.
Since I needed a partner to share the caseload, she was an obvious choice. Amanda knew police procedure and was trained for conflict management among other things. She was strong, confident and brave and she did not believe in the paranormal any more than the next sane person. That notwithstanding, I worried that working with her would be a continuous loop of me pretending not to dribble in her direction every time she bent over to pick something up. It was a conundrum, but one I could not currently see a way to avoid. Besides, it seemed abundantly clear that she was not interested in me. I never fooled myself that I was that much of a catch anyway. I looked after my figure as best as I could, but at six feet I was neither short nor tall, my face was as unremarkable as many others and being a great guy does not win first place in the here's-the-key-to-my-knickers contest. Ever.
By the time I had finished walking the dogs and reflecting on last Friday night, I was wandering back down the path to my house. I had subjected myself to twenty minutes of chastisement over my feelings for Amanda and
felt I was ready to employ her and make the best of it.
An hour later, it was 0906hrs and I was in my office, fresh macchiato from the coffee house across the street cooling on my desk and local paper The Weald Word spread out in front of me. The Weald Word was so called because the area it reported on was known as the Kent Weald. Technically, or perhaps that should be geographically, I believe that Maidstone and in fact Rochester, where I was now reading the paper fell outside of the Weald, but the paper was popular enough to be sold throughout most of Kent. Amanda would be with me shortly, so I had too little time to kill to get on with anything worthwhile and reading the local paper seemed as good a pursuit as any other.
The paper was the one in which my business advert ran and the one that had managed to misspell it in the first place. I had never thanked them for doing so and often wondered what kind of success I would have enjoyed as an ordinary, vanilla private investigator. I doubted I could do that now. I had found my niche, or perhaps it had found me, and I was too well known and being too successful to risk changing tack.
I sipped at my macchiato and turned to the next page. So far, I had found nothing in the local news to pique my interest but at the top of page three was a photograph of a sinister looking clown. I had never been one for clowns, something about the painted-on smile that seemed suspicious I guess, but this clown did not have a painted-on smile, instead its facial expression said: "I am going to gut you like a fish and wear your liver as a hat." The story below was not really about anything. The picture of the clown had been taken late at night by a woman on her way home. She had spotted the clown when she got off the bus but thought nothing of it. The text claimed that she had dismissed it as someone on their way home from a fancy-dress party. However, as she walked home, she spotted it again and then again, which had freaked her out. She had called out to ask him what he wanted and snapped his picture before running the last one hundred yards to her house. The clown had not spoken to her, had not been threatening and had made no attempt to chase her she said. Despite that I could see why she had run - the clown's face was terrifying. The photograph was black and white, so I could not tell what colour its outfit was, but it wore a long-sleeved top with horizontal stripes of at least three colours and large waisted pants held up by braces over his shoulders. The feet were out of shot but I suspected I would not see over-length clown shoes if they had been visible.
Something about the story bothered me, something about the eyes was familiar. I read on but there was not much more to ingest. The lady that took the picture had not revealed her name and although she gave a description of the height, weight etcetera of the man inside the suit, I was not convinced it would be all that reliable.
I turned a few more pages but found adverts for local services, local forthcoming events, and a centre spread on the Birling harvest festival that had taken place over the weekend. I sucked down the last of the coffee, dropped the cup into the trash bin next to my desk and before I could consider what to do next, I heard the door at the bottom of the stairs open and someone coming up.
My office sits above an aging travel agent's office in Rochester. It is only about twenty-five yards from the cathedral and I picked it up for a song as the chap had never thought to rent it before. The travel agent business had been far busier a few years back before computers and online holiday agents had made it far harder for independent high street firms. My office had once been storage space for the many thousands of brochures he needed to keep, but as the business had dwindled, he needed the space less and less and then needed extra income more and more. I had got lucky and was looking for an office precisely when he was talking to a real estate firm about renting it. I had helped him empty all the old junk out of it and had decorated it myself to encourage the low monthly rental price.
‘Good morning, Tempest.’ Amanda called out from halfway up the stairs. I had expected that it would be her as visitors at this time would be unusual and it was now 0928hrs, bang on punctual for her 0930hrs appointment.
I got up and moved around the desk, so I could meet her at the top of the stairs rather than sitting imperiously behind the desk. As I got to the office door Amanda was just getting to the top of the stairs. She smiled at me and shook my hand as we went back inside to sit in the two seats by the window that overlooks Rochester High Street.
‘Would you like a tea?’ I asked, being polite.
‘No, thank you. I just had one.’ She replied. ‘Shall we get down to business?’
‘Of course.' I leaned across to my desk and grabbed a notebook and pen which I keep there. I had made some notes to make sure I went through everything I thought necessary. ‘This isn't an interview thankfully, so we need not bother with any daft questions. I do feel it pertinent though to point out that I have never run a business before, never had to consider employing anyone before and largely have no idea what I am doing.'
‘Yes, I got most of that from speaking to you. Lack of experience does not seem to be holding you back though, Tempest.’
‘That’s very kind of you, but I wanted to make it clear that you are looking for a job at a business that has not been long established, is reliant largely upon idiots as its customers and may not have longevity. Forewarned and all that.’ I crossed warn her what she is getting into off the list.
‘Understood. I do not believe there is all that much to worry about. I believe that you will continue to get clients and will be able to build and expand this business if you choose to. I am throwing my lot in early based on that belief.’ I wondered if she was right. There did seem to be no end of people trying to engage my services.
Amanda and I talked for well over an hour and she left just before 1100hrs. By that time, we had established wages and expenses, what could and could not be charged to the firm's account, how we would share the workload, sift clients and how we would respond to those we elected not to represent. I took her through my business plan so that she understood the overhead and what she added to it, where our breakeven point was, where we started making profit, and how we could maximise profit by tackling the right cases. Amanda had asked whether I had considered getting an admin assistant to deal with sifting emails, responding to clients and dealing with invoices and expenses etcetera. I had, and when I had considered taking someone extra on it had been for precisely those tasks. Now that there were two investigators instead of one, I still needed the admin assistant but the added overhead it created, which was holding me back before, was now even greater on the concerns list. Despite that, I suspected she was entirely right and that our time was best spent solving cases and billing hours than it was sifting emails and shuffling paperwork. I had promised to give it some thought.
With everything seemingly settled, Amanda had gone to work, she was not actually on duty today but needed to see HR and officially quit. I guess she wanted it done. Before she left, I had brought her up to speed on my latest cases - there were none. My next task was to look for more work I had told her. She was due to officially start at the business full time in four weeks but was going to tag along on anything I was doing from now on, provided she was not still working one of her final shifts for Kent police.
With the office empty once more, I turned to my computer and read my emails. Client enquiries came via email or phone and occasionally by regular mail. I preferred email simply because I could sort and dismiss the truly crazy ones, not so easy to do once they are on the phone unless one is prepared to be rude. The email app claimed I had one hundred and thirteen unread emails. I performed a very basic sift to get rid of the spam, then started at the oldest unread email and went through them one by one.
The first email was from [email protected]. Herbert believed his supervisor at work was a ghoul and wanted me to provide him with a safe method of ensuring that once he had killed him, he would stay dead. I filed that under probably need to inform the police and moved on. The next email was from [email protected]. She (I assumed a she, but it could easily b
e a three-hundred-pound sweaty man in a tutu and a tiara sending the email) needed to engage my services because she had been cursed with a fat spell. I was unsure what to do about this case. There would be no fat spell, just cupboards full of inappropriate foods and a bin filled with takeaway cartons. I felt inclined to help but was certain there was nothing I could do that I could justify being paid for.
There were several enquiries that held merit, but from a business perspective, almost all the enquiries were asking me to bill them money to find the perfectly ordinary explanation for the problem they faced. With an admin assistant to sift these, I suspected that the ninety minutes I had just spent on it could have been used to solve several without even the need to leave the office.
One case though stood out as both immediately solvable and directly associated with my line of work. The client, Paul Blake had fairies in his garden. In his email, he explained that had told everyone, called the papers and TV but no one would listen to him or take him seriously. Whenever he was able to get a person to come to his house the fairies would not show themselves. He was begging me to bring whatever specialist paranormal equipment I might have to record them and prove their existence.
I called the number he had given in his email.
He answered with, ‘Hello.’
‘Mr. Blake, this is Tempest Michaels of the Blue Moon Investigation Agency. You emailed me about fairies in your garden.'
‘Oh, thank God. They are out there right now. I am going nuts that no one believes me. How soon can you get here?’
‘Mr. Blake before we go any further, I think I must explain that I do not believe you have fairies in your garden. I am a paranormal investigator, but nothing I have yet seen has proven to be even slightly paranormal.'
‘Well, you are about to be shocked to your very core, Mr. Michaels.' I could almost hear his knowing smile. I was certainly curious.
‘Okay, Mr. Blake. If you are quite sure you wish to engage my services, this is what it is going to cost.' I outlined my appearance fee with the aim of putting him off. He was however convinced that he was on the cusp of making the scientific discovery of the century and that I was the key to it. Furthermore, he was happy to pay whatever I asked. I took his address and left the office.