Blue Moon Investigations Ten Book Bundle

by steve higgs

  The dogs appeared, offering to clean the plate as I was scraping up the last piece of courgette, so I left them licking at it on the floor as I headed for the shower. In the bathroom, I inspected my ribs in the big mirror that dominated the wall above the bath. The bruising was starting to colour, so that where it had just been dark red across an area of about fourteen inches diameter it was now tinged with yellow at the edges. Washing my hair was still a task I had to manage one-handed, but it reminded me of the many servicemen I had witnessed without limbs that got up every day and just got on with life. I kept my mouth shut rather than whine about how hard some tasks were currently. Instead, I attempted to emulate their attitude.

  The air outside was dry but cold this morning, barely more than a few degrees by my estimate. I put coats on the dogs and took them for a brisk stroll around the village to ensure the lazy creatures got some exercise. They had been reluctant to leave the warmth of the house but tugged willingly at their leads to drag me forward once they accepted the inevitability of it.

  Soon enough, they were getting back into their bed in the lounge and I was going out the door to work. My warmed itself up and scared away the frost while I grabbed my bag from the house.

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled up next to Jane's car. She had beaten me to work as she often did but she was sat in the car still so must have just arrived. Getting out of my car, I spotted a fresh dent and a two-foot-long scrape along the front left wing and passenger's door. The leading edge of the passenger's door had been peeled back slightly and I could see mud and bits of grass stuck in her wheel arches. I rounded her car to the driver's side to check she was okay since she had obviously been in an accident of some kind. Then I found a further scrape along the right rear quarter; also fresh. The car looked like it had been savaged by a bear. Possibly one made of rocks.

  ‘Are you okay?' I asked, opening the driver's door. Her face swung towards me, her expression all shock and bewilderment. There was mascara on her cheeks where tears had carried it south and her blonde wig was on a bit skew-whiff. I offered her my hand as I said, ‘I think tea is required. Come along.' I hauled her out of the car, opened the office and got her to sit in the office chair upstairs where the trauma of whatever had happened would be far less present and memorable. I busied myself with the kettle and mugs.

  ‘It was the Klowns,’ Jane said in a quiet voice. I stiffened.

  I handed her a hot mug of tea and pulled a chair up to sit right in front of her. ‘Tell me.’

  Jane sipped the drink and clasped it between her hands as if needing to warm them. Then she started telling me about her journey to work.

  While I was at home getting ready for work, Jane was kissing her boyfriend and leaving her flat to get to work. The pair of them rented a small flat in West Farleigh on the banks of the river Medway. I had never been there but had a vague idea where their apartment was, plus Jane had once shown me a picture of the view from their bedroom window. Their view was the river Medway winding through the countryside not far from the local park. Okay, they didn't own the place, but it looked like a very nice place to live.

  The route to Rochester from West Farleigh was about twelve miles and took about half an hour most days. Jane slid being the wheel of her 2009 Ford Fiesta and wished, yet again, that she had a garage. The car was cold this morning and she hated scraping frost from the windscreen. By the time the task was done, her right hand was thoroughly frozen, and the steering wheel was as cold as ice to touch.

  She turned the heating up to full blast, now that it was starting to show signs of producing some warmth and pulled away. The inside of the windscreen was misted up, the blowers inside just beginning to clear the bottom portion so that she had to duck her head to see out, but she got to the end of the street she lived on and turned onto The Hunt. By then, enough of the screen had cleared that she could sit up in her seat again. As she moved to turn left onto Smith's Hill, she thought she saw someone move in the trees on the other side of the road. She paused and looked again but there was nothing there. Had she looked up she might have seen the red balloon floating away but she decided she must have been mistaken and pulled out from the junction.

  Driving along Smith's Hill and down towards the junction where the road joined the B2163 at the Tickled Trout public-house, she saw a car in her rear-view mirror. She noticed it mostly because it was going so fast. The car was a battered looking Land Rover which seemed oblivious to the frosty conditions; the driver unconcerned about ice on the road.

  Slowing as she reached the junction to check for traffic, it was apparent that the Land Rover was not slowing down behind her. It closed the last fifty metres in no time at all but recalling it later she would say that it also seemed to take forever. The certainty of the crash made her heart rate spike but when it came, she had already taken her foot off the brake and was moving forward.

  The impact forced her head back into the headrest, violently whipping her neck backward as the force transferred forward again. Then before she could consider what to do or whether she was injured, the Land Rover was forcing her car forward across the street. Looking now in the rear-view mirror, Jane saw a Klown at the wheel, its unmistakable, twisted makeup stretching the mouth into an awful permanent grin. In the passenger seat was another Klown and between them, leaning though from the rear seat was yet another.

  Panicked, Jane stamped on her brake, but the small car was unable to arrest the forward motion being caused by the large four-wheel drive car pushing from behind. She tutted at her stupidity, threw the gearstick into first gear and dropped the clutch to leap forward and away from the menacing car.

  She had to twist the steering wheel savagely to avoid the trees on the far side of the road as she shot forward but succeeded and barrelled off down the road toward the Teston bridge with the Land Rover full of Klowns chasing hard behind. She turned toward the Teston bridge and realised her error with a growing dread. The bridge could only accommodate one car going in one direction at a time. If there was anything coming the other way she would be in real trouble.

  The Land Rover took the hard-left-hand corner on two wheels and careened after her. As she turned the next corner, she held her breath, waiting to see if the bridge was clear. It wasn’t; a car was on it and a Luton van was coming down the hill on the opposite side of the river.

  Could she make it? A half second of hesitation as she calculated the variables, then she gunned the accelerator and threw the gearstick into third. Working the little engine far beyond its intended limits, she shot past the back end of the oncoming car just as it cleared the narrow bridge, clipping her paintwork on the right-hand side as it caught against the stone. The bridge was centuries old and thus built in an era when a mode of transport more advanced than a horse was inconceivable. It was also medieval stonework and as solid as can be, plus humped in the middle to create an apex for taller boats to slip under. As she hit the apex, her wheels left the ground and she lost all ability to control where she landed.

  The van coming down the hill had not been paying attention and had not slowed to allow her to pass. Only now, as it was about to reach the entrance to the narrow bridge, did the driver see the approaching danger. The wheels of Jane's tiny Ford bit into the road as it came back to earth and smacked a glancing blow against the stonework on the left-hand side of the bridge before Jane could wrestle the wheel back under control. The poor car was battered but she knew then that she had escaped.

  The van could not stop in time, but she was at the exit from the narrow portion of the bridge, so swept past it without touching either it or the widening stonework. It was not her that the van was trying to avoid though for the crazed Land Rover full of Klowns was still right on her back bumper. It slammed headfirst into the Luton van as she sped away up the hill to safety.

  A hundred metres after the bridge the road reached a tee junction where traffic forced her to stop. Glancing in her rear-view mirror, she could see the Luton van reversing out of the way. The
crash looked to have been convincing, but she was not going to hang around to find out whether the Klowns could continue their pursuit. She pulled into traffic at a more normal pace and the Land Rover was soon lost from sight.

  By the time she arrived at the office in Rochester, her heart rate had almost returned to normal and she had finally stopped shaking. The adrenalin had diffused back into her bloodstream and left her feeling spent. She stopped the car and turned off the engine but remained in the driver's seat trying to gather herself.

  That was when I had turned up. She had not called the Police, so I did that next. However, I called Amanda rather than dialling 999.

  ‘Tempest,’ she answered. ‘I’m working. Will this be quick?’ I could hear voices in the background – she was working on the dispatch desk.

  ‘This is work actually. Jane was attacked by some Klowns.' I heard Amanda make a shocked noise, her breath being drawn in quickly, so I added quickly, ‘She is fine, just a little shaken. They tried to run her off the road and had they succeeded I am not sure what they might then have done. Her car is a bit trashed, but I was really calling to see if there had been a report of an accident on the Teston bridge?'

  ‘Hold on, I’ll check.’ The line went dead for a minute. ‘Yes, we have two cars there now,’ she said when she came back on the line.

  ‘The Land Rover was used by the Klowns. I am going to guess that they did not stay at the scene to exchange insurance details.’

  ‘No, it was reported as stolen just a few minutes ago. I guess they nicked it during the night and the owner came out this morning to find it gone.’

  ‘Where was it stolen from?’ I asked, suddenly curious.

  ‘Ah. Hold on. It was a farm in Pluckley.’

  ‘Pluckley. Okay. Look, Jane is not injured. I don't think there is any mileage in her making a statement but with two attacks on me, my friends getting injured and now them going after Jane specifically, I cannot help wondering if I am somehow connected. Are the two Klowns that attacked us yesterday still at the station?'

  ‘I don’t know, but it is a fairly safe bet that they will be. We will not have processed them to go anywhere else yet although that might happen today.’

  ‘Is there any chance Chief Inspector Quinn will let me see them? I asked yesterday but he refused point blank. I only want to ask them a couple of questions. If I am somehow connected, my presence might cause them to gloat or reveal something worthwhile.' I was asking Amanda what she could do, even though I knew I needed to speak with Quinn himself. The problem was that I could not just call CI Quinn and he would most likely ignore me if I went to the station front desk and asked for him.

  He was a bit of a tit.

  ‘I cannot predict what he might say, but I will find him and ask the question,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, I can ask no more than that.' We disconnected, and I turned my attention back to Jane. Her tea was finished but the empty mug remained clutched in her hands as she stared at the floor. I had seen this many times before, the after effect of an intense situation. The brain tries to process what occurred and rationalise it. Usually, the person focuses on asking themselves what they could have done differently, running the event over and over in their head to work out how they could have avoided what happened. The answer was always nothing, but quite often counselling was required for the truth of it to take permanent root.

  The best that I could do for her right now was keep her busy.

  ‘There was something about the Klown in the passenger's seat,' Jane said suddenly, still staring at the floor. I sat myself down again, expecting there to be more. A few seconds later, I was starting to wonder if that was all she had to say on the matter. ‘Something familiar about the eyes,' she added before I could prompt more from her.

  I nodded mentally. Whatever disguise a person wore the eyes remained the same. One could tackle that with coloured or patterned contact lenses, but few ever did in my experience.

  ‘I know him,’ she blurted. ‘I just don’t know who he is. Like I know that I know him, but I cannot work out where from.’ Jane was looking at me now, the sense of frustration clear on her face.

  ‘Give it time. It will come,’ I said to reassure her. Experience with my own swiss cheese memory was that the piece of information I was searching for would generally surface only once I stopped trying to find it.

  Abruptly, Jane stood up. She took her mug to the sink, moving as if she had purpose suddenly. ‘Is it okay if I take some time off to get my car sorted out? I gave it a pretty good thrashing this morning and worry that it might be more than the bodywork that needs attention.'

  ‘Of course. Take the day if you need to.’

  ‘My brother works at a garage in Chatham. He will fix it and make sure I pay a sensible rate for the work.’ She was already shrugging on her coat and checking herself in the mirror. She spotted that her wig was out of place and fixed it with a tut and a sigh.

  ‘Before you go, there is the small matter that the Klowns specifically targeted you this morning. They have targeted me twice, so I think it wise to start thinking in terms of defence. I see no reason to believe that they will not come after us again.'

  ‘What are you proposing?’ she asked.

  I drummed my fingers on the desk. ‘Basic should be here soon. I don't want you moving around alone. It is a cliché, but we need to be lucky every time, they only need to be lucky once. Until we can work out why we are targets and do something about it, we need to keep together.'

  ‘Okay,’ she conceded, putting her bag down again. ‘What about work? What about the caseload?’

  ‘A valid point, but I feel that the need to keep ourselves safe must be given a higher priority. What if I go out and the Klowns come to the office and find you here alone?’ It was not really my intention to scare her, but I clearly had that effect. She was staring at me now, standing by the door with her eyes as wide as saucers.

  ‘Do you think they will?’ she asked, a tremor in her voice.

  ‘I guess my point is that I don’t know what they might do next. No one knows who they are, or what is motivating them, so since they appear to be coming after me and mine, I intend to focus all effort on finding them.’

  ‘How will you do that?’ she asked me directly.

  It was a good question. The police were getting nowhere, which was not exactly their fault, the crimes the Klowns were perpetrating seemed to have no connection to each other and no visible motive. What I said was, ‘Through sheer force of will, Jane. Sheer force of will.' I meant it. What would they do next if I didn't stop them? Would they kill someone that I know? Would they have killed Jane this morning? I felt that the answer to that particular question was probably yes. Would they come after my parents? My sister and her kids? The police might get lucky and find them, but I was not going to use hope as my success strategy, I was going to pull all the available information together, lean on whomever I needed to, and I was going to find the guy at the centre of this and slap his painted-on grin clean off his face.

  ‘I could do with a coffee,’ Jane said, breaking my train of thought. It sounded like a good idea, so I grabbed my coat and took Jane to the coffee shop around the corner. It was a place I had been avoiding for more than a week – ever since Hayley, the rather lovely barista there, had slapped my face in public.

  It was time to face her.

  The Coffee Shop. Wednesday, 26th October 0957hrs

  My stomach was threatening to betray me as I held open the door for Jane. I had been avoiding the coffee shop because the effort of dealing with Hayley, and the potential for another entirely unnecessary fight, seemed worth avoiding. I hadn’t done anything wrong, other than failing to give Hayley sufficient attention after our night together, albeit on her instruction that she wanted something super casual. The fight occurred because I erroneously sent Hayley a text which was addressed to Jane. It was yet another example of my brain betraying me and had happened because I was talking to Jane at the time. It had be
en days before I saw my mistake. That I was nervous about speaking with her again was annoying me; I faced tougher challenges on a daily basis, so why was facing the girl that weighed less than I could bicep curl such a scary proposition?

  Because I was rubbish at handling, dealing with or even generally talking to women. That’s why.

  Maybe she will not be in today. I thought.

  ‘Good Morning, Tempest,’ she said from my right elbow where she had been clearing a table in the bay window.

  Nuts.

  ‘Good morning, Hayley,' I replied, wondering what I was supposed to do next. Ahead of me, Jane joined the back of the short queue at the counter.

  ‘Who is that?’ Hayley asked, indicating toward Jane with her head. ‘I keep seeing her in here recently.’

  ‘That is my assistant, Jane.’

  ‘Aaaah,' Hayley drawled. ‘The infamous Jane.' Hayley gave the table a final, angry wipe with her cloth and picked up the tray she had placed the dirty cups on. I was in her way, so I stepped to the side to let her go by, but she stopped in front of me and looked up to make eye contact. ‘Look, Tempest. We had a fun night together. I misread the cues, that's all. Please don't feel you need to avoid coming in here and I am sorry I slapped you. I had no right.'

  ‘Errr. Okay.' This was not had I had expected. I was thankful for her revised attitude though. The coffee shop had been a working day haven for me since I opened my business back in the Spring.

  ‘I hope you and Jane are… I don't know. I don't know what I am trying to say. She is very pretty though.' I suddenly realised that Hayley didn't know. Could it be that she had never spoken to Jane or heard her speak? This made her actions make more sense. To me, it was obvious that Jane was a man beneath the cute lady clothes, but he did make himself look convincingly girl-like until one heard him speak or paid close attention, whereupon one would notice the hairy knuckles, Adam's apple, and stubble.