by steve higgs
Steve had looked like he was going to argue but instead, he nodded and led her away. I wondered if the girl was upset because it had been another sexual attack. Had the ghost grabbed her as he had Poppy? I then wondered how many other girls might have been fondled but not reported it. Experience told me that for every victim that came forward there were many more that did not.
That was not the case though she assured me. She was upset because she had just bought herself a bracelet in Pandora and some new underwear and a pair of shoes. Her boyfriend was a soldier at the local Army unit, but he was in Afghanistan currently, so had sent her money for her birthday with instructions on what to get herself. There was a lot of sobbing in her retelling of the incident.
I had missed the ghost by a minute or so. Had I ridden the lift again it might have been me. I was annoyed and could not decide if I was more annoyed that the ghost had not picked me to attack or that I now had to go back to riding the lifts once more. The ghost was here today. I had to hope he would strike again.
I left Steve and Karl to deal with the tearful young woman and went back to the lifts. Did I try the orange lifts again or would he have moved on to a different one? I figured it was absolute guesswork, so I went to the nearest bank of lifts and pressed the call button to summon one of them. Seconds later the right-hand lift pinged, and the doors swished open. I stepped in and got an instant hit of garlic sausage. I suddenly knew that this was the smell that people had been trying to describe to me. I also knew that I was breathing in the smell of Charles Spencer's farts.
Wrinkling my nose and putting up with it, I turned around to face back towards the doors and put my shopping down. I pressed the button for the top floor. Just as the doors closed a hand snuck through the gap and stopped them. Two boys in their late teens got in as the doors reopened. They were laughing about something and barely acknowledged my presence. The taller of the two leaned across and pressed the button for floor five.
My heart was beating hard when the doors finally closed, and the lift started moving. I was convinced that this was it. Any second now…
Then the lift pinged and stopped at the second floor to let on an old couple. The two boys moved further back into the corner of the lift. It was getting crowded in the small steel box and it would have been more polite for me to pick my bags up and move, but I kept myself and my shopping next to the panel. I needed to be ready. The doors shut just as the old man pressed the button for floor four. I had only a few seconds now until the lift would stop again. Would the ghost attack now?
The lights went out and the lift jolted to a halt.
One of the boys let out a squeak.
‘Danny, you faggot,’ his friend laughed.
Then I felt it. There was movement next to me. I could not see anything but that didn't stop me from acting. Imagining where the ghost might be, I turned towards it and reached out with both hands. I intended to grab hold, get the person into a lock and subdue them. At that second, I realised that once I had done so I would still be trapped in a lift with no power or light and could not get out, but too late now, I was committed.
My right hand caught hold of an arm, which shoved me away. I lost my balance momentarily but threw myself back at the place it had been, grasping for purchase again. This time I got a good hold. The ghost had his hands full of my shopping bags, which he tried once again to use to push me away. He was retreating into the hidden compartment. I pushed off my left foot, stepped into him and kicked my right knee upwards. Hard.
It connected. There was an audible outrushing of breath and the figure I was holding doubled over.
I followed him down to the floor of the elevator and knelt on his back, ‘Oh, my balls!’ he groaned pathetically. I needed light to be sure, but the voice sounded like it was Charlie. He had curled into a foetal position. I had hit his nuts hard – he was going nowhere.
Suddenly the interior of the lift was bathed in light. One of the guys had turned on the light on his phone. The other chap did likewise, making it almost as bright as it had been with the main light on.
Beneath me was a man wearing a mask.
‘What the devil is going on?’ asked the old man. He was backed into a corner with his wife pushed behind him protectively.
‘All is well, Sir. This man is a thief that has been plaguing the Pentagon and stealing shopping using a false panel he fitted in the lifts,' I explained without taking my eyes off the man beneath me. He was groaning softly now and nursing his testicles with both hands.
‘I told you we should have gone to Bluewater,' the old man's wife complained, referring to the bigger and newer shopping mall a few miles away.
‘Guys,’ I said looking over my shoulder at the two younger men, ‘Can one of you please check inside the panel and see if you can find a switch to turn the power back on?’
‘Err, yeah,' one said. He had to climb over me to get to the panel and peer inside it, but he found the switch almost straight away. The light flicked back on and the lift started moving.
I pulled out my phone and called Steve Brooms, ‘Steve?’ I confirmed when he answered, ‘I have your ghost. Meet me on the ground floor of the blue lift bank in two minutes. Okay?’
He said that he would. He sounded shocked.
The lift pinged as we reached the fourth floor and the old couple got off looking thankful to be able to leave. Still kneeling on the ghost's back, I turned to the two young men again and asked them if they would kindly accompany me back to the ground floor where I would be met by security. They said they were happy to do it. The lift continued to the fifth floor and to the sixth because it knew no better than to do as it had originally been instructed, then started back down again. It stopped on the third floor where a family of five wanted to get on. With shocked faces, they elected to wait for the next one.
Charlie appeared to be recovering from his abdominal discomfort. He was beginning to move about and make noises.
‘Get off me,’ he demanded. I ignored him. The lift was on its way down now, just passing floor two, ‘Get off me,’ he repeated with more force and volume.
I grabbed his stupid mask and ripped it off. It was Charlie beneath the mask, and as habit would have it, he farted. I felt it vibrate through my whole body and since I was kneeling on his back the stench of it hit me as I took my very next breath.
I gagged. It was disgusting. The lift pinged, and the doors opened. Steve Brooms, Karl the security guard and three other chaps in the same security guard uniform were outside. They were blocking my exit, but I was leaving anyway before I threw up. I rolled off Charlie and into the fresher air outside, coming to rest at Steve's feet. The two young men were trying to get out as well and the security detachment was trying to get in. The doorway became a jam of bodies. Charlie saw his opportunity and dived back through the false panel. It shut behind him just as security guard Karl's fingers grabbed for it. Through their legs, I could see that he had escaped.
I had been beaten by a fart!
‘Quick, guys. We need to get to the back of the lift shaft. He is getting in and out through the maintenance hatches.' I was grabbing Steve's arm while I said this and dragging him back to where I knew we could access the maintenance areas. Then we were running, the security guards coming along behind us. I glanced back to see the pudgy face of security guard Karl falling behind.
Steve fumbled for his pass as we reached the door, buzzed it open and lead the way through and down to the lift shaft that I had been shown by Charlie and Jack a couple of days ago.
He was gone when we got there.
Dammit.
I checked the time and pulled out my phone. It connected, and a voice came on the other end.
‘Hey, girl…’
I interrupted her rudely, ‘Patience, where are you? Are you still in uniform?’ It was two minutes past three, so she should have just finished her shift. If she wanted this collar it was now or never. I explained what I needed her to do and where she needed to go, then I told S
teve to find Jack and to hold him and ran back to my car.
This morning I had tasked Patience with finding where Jack and Charlie lived and with looking for the list of stolen goods on eBay. They might be selling them anywhere but new in box items were easy to shift on eBay, so it was my best guess. She had tasked her sister and mother with looking for a seller that was selling multiple items new in box from the list of stolen shopping. Since the shopping had been taken from people of all ages and genders it was a very odd mix to be selling and ought to stand out instantly. I had been right as it had taken them less than an hour to find a seller with almost all the stolen goods listed. Patience had then been able to obtain the name and address of the seller using my PayPal account to purchase an item for collection. I had no idea what she had bought but since it was stolen goods it would be going back to the owner anyway.
The address was Charlie's. At this stage, I could not tell if Jack was also involved but it seemed likely. Highly likely given that they both maintained the lifts and refitting them with the hidden compartment could not have been a one-man job.
Charlie lived at an address in Walderslade. It was halfway between where I was in Chatham and where Patience was in Maidstone and about ten minutes’ drive for either of us provided the traffic played along. I was impatient and got stuck behind an immaculate 1982 Vauxhall Chevette. It was being driven by what appeared to be a dead body going at snail's pace up the Maidstone road. There was nowhere to pass, so I pootled along, swearing under my breath until he finally turned off.
I shot forward as there was no traffic ahead of me, took the corner at Pattens Lane on what felt like two wheels and headed down Waterworks Hill at a speed that bordered on dangerous. I suddenly had flashing lights in my rear-view mirror.
I swore again, but I had only a few hundred yards left to go, so I kept going, certain they would follow me. I turned off the main road, took a side street and screeched to a halt in front of the address I had for him. Patience had pulled up seconds ahead of me and was just getting out of her car.
The squad car chasing me also screeched to halt, its sirens blaring.
‘What the hell, Amanda?' demanded Brad Hardacre as he bailed out of his car and recognised me.
‘Hi, Brad. Arrest to make. Thanks for the assist,' he had been planning nothing of the sort when he gave chase, but he conceded and came with us anyway. Both he and Mike Bayfoot, the fellow driving the car, got out and came with Patience and me.
The arrest was an anti-climax though. The front door opened as we went up the driveway to Charlie's house. Charlie was standing in the doorway looking glum. He had nowhere to go and as we found out when we got inside, he had altogether far too may stolen items to hide. Patience read him his rights and slapped the cuffs on. Brad and Mike took him away just as other officers arrived to begin the process of cataloguing the stolen goods.
Stood amid the bags and boxes spread out in his living room, dining room and kitchen, it was apparent that he had stolen far, far more than had been reported. I breathed in deeply and let myself relax. I felt good. I had caught the damned ghost and it had only taken me a couple of days while I was simultaneously holding down another full-time job. I had been so nervous about quitting my steady, but boring job in the Police. It was stable, and I was swapping it for an undefined role in a new business where the firm investigated people's paranormal mysteries. I felt rewarded though for the first time in so long that I could not even remember getting the same feeling at any time in the Police.
‘Here you go,’ Patience said handing me an Ann Summers bag.
‘What’s this?’ I asked her.
‘It is what you bought on eBay,’ she was grinning at me. I didn’t like that she was grinning. I looked in the bag. There was an utterly insubstantial pair of knickers and matching bra. They were so pointless they could have been spun from spider’s web. I hooked them out with one finger and held them up, ‘That’s not all,’ Patience said, still grinning.
I noticed that the bag was too heavy to be empty. I peered inside once more. At the bottom of the bag was a giant vibrator.
Oh, my God.
‘What is wrong with you, Patience? Why on earth would you buy me a vibrator?’
‘Hey, I didn’t buy it, girl. It was your PayPal account. Seems to me you need some encouragement with your sex life anyhow. There you are surrounded by fine men and you ain’t sleeping with any of them. Big Ben, Tempest, Brett,’ she said counting them off on her fingers, ‘I don’t know why you ever have your knickers on.’
I rolled my eyes and put the bag down. It was stolen goods, so it would be catalogued along with everything else and go back to its rightful owner, assuming they could find her.
My part in this case was concluded. I had already made a call to Martin Miller and explained who his ghost was. He had already heard it from Steve Brooms, his head of security but I gave him the more complete story and of course the detail of what had happened after I left the Pentagon. Astonishingly, Martin sounded quite dejected by my news. Losing both of his lift service engineers meant he was not allowed to have the lifts in operation it seemed and that presented him with a bigger problem than he had with the ghost. Jack and Charlie were of course in it together. Jack had confessed as soon as Steve had confronted him. They had hatched the plan over a year ago when the lift refit was proposed. Incredibly it was not even their idea. They were copying something they had read about in an industry magazine after a similar case had occurred in South Korea a while ago. They would go to jail, I was certain of that, but the firm could bill the hours and report another successful case and that was what was important to me now.
The next call was to Tempest. He answered almost before the phone started ringing.
‘Amanda. How goes it?’
‘The ghost case is concluded. I am just wrapping things up now. It was the lift engineers behind it,' he listened while I explained what they had been doing and how they had been doing it. I needed to file a report that would go to the client with the invoice and submit my expenses as they were catalogued by the case where possible. Jane would handle all the paperwork, I just needed to fill it out.
‘Amanda, I would love to be able to say that I am duly impressed, but I never had any doubt that you would be a natural at this. Despite that, I must congratulate you on the successful conclusion of your first case. Well done.' He managed to not sound patronising, it was great to hear his praise. I am a big girl and shouldn't need my ego massaged but I welcomed his comments nevertheless.
I was free the next day, so I agreed to see him at the office at 0900hrs (he insisted on using a twenty-four-hour clock whenever he made time references) where we would look at new cases.
Patience was waiting outside by her car for me to leave the house. In a rare moment of seriousness, she thanked me for giving her the collar. We hugged and went to our separate cars. It felt like it had been a long day. I was hungry, but then I had eaten half a panini since breakfast and it was now quarter past six in the evening.
I had a date tonight and needed to get home for a bath and spruce up. Could my hunger wait until I was out tonight? I didn’t think so, but I had fruit in the house and that would keep me going without ruining my appetite.
On the short drive home, I thought about what Patience had said about my sex life. Was I too concerned about being labelled? Should I just get some every now and then like she did? I was not sure how well that would sit with me, but my thoughts turned to Brett and whether the same rules applied to him. After a date tonight and the weekend in Paris, the idea of feeling his weight on top of me was appealing. Was he just waiting for me to decide the waiting period was over and then prove that I was worth the wait? How long would he wait for that matter? He was firmly placed in the eligible male category and like Patience had said he could probably have any woman he wanted including models, actresses, and famous heiresses. What was it that I was waiting for?
I told myself to shut up and enjoy my evening out. Brett woul
d be along soon, there would be another case tomorrow and I felt like I had nothing to worry about. Was I going to end up marrying Brett? Unlikely. I had been on one date with him. He was good-looking, and he was rich, but I really didn't know anything about what he was like as a person. Maybe he would have a tiny penis. I distinctly doubted it, yet I could not rule out the possibility that, notwithstanding all the boxes he was already ticking, there might be a deal breaker in there somewhere.
I parked my car with that thought reverberating around my head. Now I needed to find out.
A Date with Brett. Thursday, October 21st 1911hrs
I gave serious consideration to buying a bottle of champagne on my way home. I felt like I ought to be celebrating my success with a liquid high five. I resisted though, knowing that not only could I not afford to buy myself a decent brand, but I would also then be stuck with an entire bottle to drink by myself. Plus, I was going out with Brett tonight so really ought to be sober when he turned up to collect me. I wondered then what car he would be driving. I was quite certain he had several to choose from, so would we be in a chauffeur-driven Roller? A Lamborghini? The Batmobile? I would find out soon enough.
Stood in my bedroom, having finally dressed in what I was adamantly telling myself was the final outfit choice for the night, I turned and checked how I looked in the mirror. On the bed behind me were more than half the outfits I owned. Each had been held up, tried on, rejected and now required hanging or folding and putting away. I still wasn't one hundred percent happy with what I was wearing.