by steve higgs
Above the glass front, the name of the business was displayed in large letters: True Paranormal Solutions. Large, glass windows sat either side of a glass door leading into the business. The bottom five feet of the glass was frosted so that one could see indistinct shapes inside but little more. The façade was very modern and inviting.
Frank pushed open the door with his left shoulder and went inside, leaving me standing in the street still taking it all in. After a few moments, I followed him in to find that he was nowhere in sight. The inside of the business was as plush and modern as the outside. It was everything my office was not. To one side was a reception counter made from chrome and even more frosted glass. Behind it, on a high stool, was an attractive woman in a business suit. Probably in her late twenties, she looked like a lawyer from a US TV show – all professional and glamourous with a side order of massively intelligent. She offered me a brief smile and a salutation but otherwise left me to look around.
On the other side of the office space was an area in which customers could wait. There was a middle-aged couple there now, looking slightly out of place amid the sleek surroundings in their ordinary clothes. They were sat on one of a pair of plush-looking leather sofas which were arranged around a coffee table.
I looked around the room. On the far wall, opposite the entrance, were two office doors. One was blank, but the other had a frosted glass nameplate on the outside. It claimed the office in the name of Dr. L Parrish. Next to the door was a framed certificate. I walked across the room to inspect it. It was a Ph.D. awarded to Lyndon Parrish. He had studied paranormal psychology, a subject I knew nothing about. I moved on. Around the office were large framed pictures of crop circles, the Loch Ness Monster, a grainy photograph of what one would assume is a flying saucer. Frank had many of the same photographs in his bookshop but, in contrast, his were ratty old posters held up with blue-tac. The overall impression of the office and business was money. Lots and lots of money.
On top of the reception counter, was a cardboard holder in which I spotted a leaflet with the word Rates in the top left corner. I smiled at the receptionist and picked one up.
‘Is there anything I can help you with today, sir?’ she asked politely.
‘Not just yet, thank you.’
‘You will find our rates very reasonable,’ she assured me.
Very reasonable? Compared to what?
Looking at the leaflet I realised that they were reasonable compared to mine. I honestly believed I charged a sensible, acceptable rate but the prices in front of me were undercutting mine by a good margin. I wondered how his business could turn a profit. I was making okay money from my work, but I was hardly rolling in it and my overheads must be a fraction of theirs.
My time to consider this was cut short as Dr. Parrish emerged from his office with Frank. The pair were deep in discussion.
‘Oh, my word!' exclaimed Dr. Parrish as he noticed me. ‘Tempest Michaels. The very man himself. In my office no less.' He was bubbling over with excitement. I could not fathom why.
I extended my hand, which he took. His grip was weak. I made no comment.
‘Dr. Parrish?' I asked.
‘Goodness, please call me Lyndon. I must say this is a real honour.’
‘Why is that?’ I really wanted to know why I suddenly seemed to be getting treated like the lead singer in a boy band.
‘Anastasia, why does Mr. Michaels not have a drink?' he asked the receptionist. Somewhat flustered, she hopped off her stool.
‘There is no need, really,’ I said.
‘Nonsense, Tempest. You are something of a personal hero of mine. You gave me the confidence to set out on my own quest against the forces of darkness.’
‘What forces?’
Frank leaned in to whisper in Lyndon's ear. His face turning from confusion to surprise. ‘A non-believer?' he uttered in a hushed tone. He locked eyes with me again. ‘Mr. Michaels, you do not believe in the supernatural forces, and yet you battle them anyway? It takes a lot to impress me, but my goodness you are quite the man.'
‘Lyndon,' I started then stopped. I scratched my head as I tried to work out how to frame my question. ‘Lyndon, there is no paranormal. It's all a load of rubbish and every one of my cases has proven that. What solution do you offer your clients if you do not solve their cases by presenting them with a rational answer?' The question felt like I was directly insulting him. Perhaps I was, but I could only assume that he was ripping people off by performing fake exorcisms or painting sigils on people's houses to ward off ghosts while charging them for his nonsense.
‘You will have to forgive, Tempest,’ said Frank. ‘He would deny the existence of a lycanthrope even while it was eating his arm.’
‘This is disappointing, Mr. Michaels. I had expected to exchange stories of supernatural adventures, of ghost hunting and bringing down foul beasts. Alas, it seems that will not be possible. I have to wonder though what happens to the spirits, ghosts and other creatures that you fail to tackle while you are offering your clients what you believe are rational explanations. You charge them for the pleasure of your time but do not catch, trap or otherwise dispose of the entity that has troubled them.'
Lyndon was neither small nor large. At just under six feet tall he was almost the same height as me but a lighter build. He looked very academic, which is to say that he did not look very dangerous, but his ire was up; he was angry, and the anger was aimed at me. I had no interest in exchanging any further words with him.
‘Good day, Dr. Parrish,' I said, smiling pleasantly. I offered my hand once more and like a gentleman, he took it and bid me a good day also. I nodded to Frank and left them both where they were. On my way out the door, I checked my watch: 1211hrs. I intended to investigate the ghostly footsteps at the restaurant in Faversham tonight, so I went back to the office to check on Jane, let her know my plan and that I was going home to rest.
Jane was sifting emails when I got back to the office. ‘Anything of interest?' I asked her. It had taken some time to train Jane to see the crazy from the genuine cases. When she first started as my assistant, she was… well, actually she was James and dressed as a man… because she was one. But at the start, she had a propensity to believe the claims the clients made and would have signed me up to investigate every case.
‘Hi, Tempest,' she said without looking up. ‘We have another report of strange goings on at Chatham Dockyard, the ghost tours in Tonbridge believe they have an actual ghost now and there is a gentleman in East Malling that says his wife is a witch. I printed off those that might have some merit, highlighted passages for you to read and made up your usual folder to take home.'
I had no idea if all transvestites were this efficient, but Jane was able to admin the heck out of my office. I had managed perfectly well without an assistant for over six months before I hired her but could not now imagine how. She had worked for me for only a couple of weeks and at some point, would take a holiday of some kind. I worried that I would crumble without her.
To reply, I said, ‘Jolly good. Have you much left to do? I am going to go home and rest. I am still quite sore.' I said, sort of patting my ribs as if she needed a reminder that I had an injury.
She looked up then. ‘Of course, boss. I can lock up.’
I considered sitting down for a bit, I felt like I had overexerted myself but the effort of sitting down and then having to get up again at some point in the future sounded like too much trouble. Instead, I decided I would just go. I collected the folder Jane had made up for me and started to head for the door.
‘Oh, err, Tempest,’ Jane called before I could leave. ‘It’s my birthday on Thursday. My boyfriend wants to take me for a drink in Rochester and told me to invite some friends.’ She stopped as if unsure what she wanted to say next. I made sure I was giving her my full attention, hoping it would encourage her to continue. ‘Well, I um… I don't have many friends since the whole vampire club thing went south and I came out, so I was hoping you and Big
Ben and some of the others might be available to come for a drink. I don't want my boyfriend to think I am a total loser with no friends, I guess,' she said with her head down so she didn't have to make eye contact with me. She looked up embarrassed as she finished speaking.
It occurred to me that I knew very little about my assistant.
‘Jane, it would be an honour to come out for a drink with you and your boyfriend. I cannot speak for the others, but I will enquire about their availability and let you know. I feel certain that they will be only too happy to join us. Where are we going?’
‘The Warren.’
‘What time?’
‘Oh. Eight o’cl… I mean 2000hrs.’ I smiled; she was learning to tell the time correctly.
‘Right. I will speak with the others and let you know. I am sure it will be a good night. I am off to see Big Ben now actually, check on how he is doing in the hospital.' I had made the decision to see him in the last half second.
‘Okay,’ Jane said, smiling now with a degree of relief, having managed to ask what she clearly felt was an awkward question.
I said I would see her in the morning and left her where she was.
Maidstone Hospital. Monday, 24th October 1307hrs
I pulled into the carpark and for once found a parking space straight away and near the point where the carpark was nearest the hospital. Heading through the main reception, I stopped as I realised that I had no idea where I was going. Big Ben had been spirited away by Dr. Harman and was probably being kept quite willingly as her personal sex monkey. However, I was willing to bet he would show up on the central registry and the lovely, wobbly old ladies in reception would be able to direct me to his location.
I was correct, so two minutes later I was arriving in his private room. I was a little surprised that the NHS had private rooms, I was used to being crammed in twenty to a ward, yet here he was squirreled away nice and cosy. I didn't bother knocking, even though the door was shut. It simply didn't occur to me. So, the sight I received inside was entirely my own fault.
I shut the door again, quickly leaving myself outside. Big Ben had seen me though and thrown me a grin from his prone position on the bed; it was an entirely typical thing for him to do. The other person in the room did not see me, but then she had her back to me and her head down and appeared to be quite invested in what she was doing.
Stood in the corridor, I was calculating whether it was better to knock, or go and find somewhere to sit until the visitor in his room elected to leave. Then someone tapped me on the shoulder and my bowel almost loosened itself.
‘Whatcha doing, Tempest?’ a voice asked from right next to my ear.
As my heart restarted, I turned to confirm that the voice belonged to Patience Woods. Patience was a police officer, a friend of Amanda's, and a larger than life black woman with boobs that probably created their own gravitational field. She was in uniform complete with radio, cuffs and all the paraphernalia they had to carry.
‘Good afternoon, Patience. What brings you here?’
‘That big hunk of man in there,' she answered, indicating the closed door with her head. I had no idea that she knew Big Ben. Considering it now though, it seemed perfectly reasonable that she would know him. He had shagged more than half the single women in the Country after all. And quite a few on the married ones probably.
‘You, err, know Big Ben?’ I asked.
‘Honey, it’s more like Big Ben knows me,’ she replied with a wicked smile. I could imagine a night with Patience would be an adventure. I had no intention of finding out though, which was a decision based mostly on the principle that I had no desire to sleep with a woman after Big Ben had. I suspected I would not fare well by comparison. Patience was looking at me. I was looking at her. The silence was getting awkward. ‘Honey, why are we standing in the corridor and not going in that room?’
‘Oh. Ah. Well, Big Ben is busy.’ Patience raised an eyebrow at me. ‘He has a doctor in with him,’ I explained.
Patience did not look convinced. ‘What is the doctor doing?’ I guess my face told her enough. ‘Huh,’ she said, looking at the door. ‘Time to go to work.’ She straightened her hat, shuffled her belt a little to pull it up, then grabbed the door handle and threw it open.
Inside, the lady in her white coat stopped bobbing her head and leaped away from Big Ben in abject shock.
‘Police, honey. This is a raid,' Patience announced at high volume as she strode into the room. She stopped as she got to the doctor. The poor woman was one of the young doctors I had seen doing the round with the consultant two days ago when I was here. Her face was bright red. She looked like she wanted to say something but had no idea what that might be. ‘Wipe your mouth before you go back to the ward, sister,’ Patience advised.
At the last comment from Patience, the girl fled the room, wiping her mouth with her sleeve as she went.
‘That was fun,’ said Patience. Her voice dropped an octave as it took on a sultry edge when she addressed Big Ben, ‘Hi, lover.’
Big Ben chuckled. ‘Hi, Patience.’ He was shuffling back into his jogging bottoms and once they were back around his waist, I felt it was okay for me to enter the room.
‘Hey, Ben,’ I said.
‘Hey, buddy. Come to rescue me?’ he asked.
‘Do you need rescuing?’
‘Kinda. There has been a steady stream of visitors. I could do with some sleep.’
Patience put herself in the conversation, ‘Sweetie, why are you messing with these skinny white chicks when you could be with me? Patience is gonna take you home but cannot promise you all that much sleep.’
‘Patience, dear. You do remember me saying that I have a strict one night, no second date policy?’
‘Yes, honey, but there is no way you are able to resist another portion of Patience.’
He inclined his head, indicating that he did not necessarily disagree.
‘I’ll come back,’ I announced, heading for the door. I was getting uncomfortable with the continuous flirting and sex talk, largely because it reminded me how unlikely I was to get any.
‘No need to go, Tempest. I have to stay here actually. Doctor Harman turned out to be right, I did have a nick to my bowel. I think someone got in deep doo-doo over not examining me thoroughly enough when I came in. They did a bit of surgery and fixed me up but there was a high risk of infection, so I am on strong antibiotics and have to stay here for a while.'
‘How long?’ Patience and I asked simultaneously.
‘Another couple of days maybe.’
‘I just came to check in on you. Clearly, you don't need me, so I will leave you in this lady's very capable hands.' I was already heading out the door. ‘Take care, brother. Call me if you need anything.'
Quite why I had thought Big Ben might need me to visit, I could now not fathom. I was just the type of person that tried to put others first. Maybe it was an army thing. There had been people under my command, and I had always made sure they ate before me, got rest before I did and when they were sick or injured or whatever, I always visited them and made sure they had what they needed. It was a camaraderie thing, or a leadership thing, or some thing.
I shook my head wryly, acknowledging that I was rubbish at working out what I wanted to say, even to myself. My car was where I left it in the carpark, and I was home in less than ten minutes.
My House in Finchampstead. Monday, 24th October 1443hrs
Rather than go to the office in Rochester, I worked out of my dining room/office at home. I was still kind of half-arsing the Klown investigation because I was not sure what to do about it. There were other cases I could be working on, which I felt could be treated as a higher priority simply because I had a better chance of solving them. One of these was the ghostly footsteps I had sent Amanda to check out last Saturday. The solution to it seemed likely to be simple.
I called the number for the restaurant.
‘Fennucci’s, good afternoon,’ said a young woman’s
voice with a very slight Italian accent.
‘Good afternoon. This is Tempest Michaels of the Blue Moon Investigation Agency. Is Georgio Fennucci available please?’
‘Just one moment,’ she replied. It sounded like she had placed the phone down and walked away. I waited patiently for almost a minute before I heard someone pick it up.
‘Hello?’
I explained once again who I was but I now had the proprietor on the phone and he was very pleased to be talking to me. He said that he had planned to call me today as he had not heard from the firm but had not yet found time to do so.
There was no need for further discussion, so after assuring him that despite my firm belief that there was no ghost haunting his premises, I would visit him this evening and do my best to determine what was actually going on.
He thanked me and promised me a meal on the house for my efforts. Checking my watch, the time was 1521hrs. I needed perhaps forty minutes to get to the restaurant and park, leaving me three hours to fill. I needed to get clean, so a bath rather than a shower as I had plenty of time. First though, since it was so nice out today, I called the dogs for a walk.
They ignored me as usual until I went to the fridge, whereupon the noise of the light inside it coming on had its magnetic effect to drag them from their slumber and off the sofa. They arrived, skidding to a halt by my feet in the kitchen. I gave them each a small chunk of carrot and slipped their collars on.
They were happy enough with a slow meander around the village which gave me some time to consider the restaurant haunting. What equipment would I need? I made a mental note of a few items that I thought were likely to prove useful. Most of them were in my bag already but I wanted to take a tuning fork with me and could not remember where mine was. It was an odd artefact that I had picked up at a church jumble sale where my mother had been running a stall. She was selling cakes and I had gone along to show my support. Where had I put it? I narrowed the search down to a few hopeful locations which I would check when I got home. As I wandered, I discerned a niggling concern that I was forgetting something. Like there was a task I had committed to but could now not remember. It refused to surface and there was no appointment on my phone calendar which there would have been if it were work related because Jane was very good at organising my diary.