by steve higgs
She answered on the third ring. ‘Hi, Tempest. Where are you?’
‘Just outside Maidstone Police station. Where are you?’
‘We just left Chatham. My brother arranged a loan car for me while he is getting mine fixed. He is very good like that. Very generous. Shall we come to you?’
‘No. You should head home. It is long after your working hours and you should be safe enough there. You are no longer in your car, so chances are they will not recognise you now. Just watch for cars following you and can you drop Basic off at the office first please?'
‘Of course. See you there.’ She disconnected.
I arrived at my car but did not get in it. Calling Mrs. Plumber to inform her about her brother was top of my to-do list. She was pleased to hear from me and very excited to hear that I had found her brother. The news that he was in custody and had been representing the Klowns as their legal council did not go down so well though. There was a significant amount of swearing at the other end of the phone and I found myself listening politely to a monologue about what she was going to do to him when she got hold of him. Eventually, she realised I was still there, briefly apologised and thanked me. We disconnected, and I got in my car.
The Blue Moon Office. Wednesday, 26th October 1426hrs
I went home via my house as I needed to make sure the dogs were okay. I used to worry that I did not walk them often enough when I was tied up with work but had since learned that they were really quite lazy and preferred to stay asleep. Back when I was in the Army, I would take them to work with me most days. They had fun barking at soldiers, chasing squirrels on the rugby pitch and consistently got lots of exercise as I was always going somewhere. Now though, like me, they had settled into civilian life and the reduced level of activity.
Nevertheless, I kicked them out of the house for a run around the garden, gave them a piece of carrot to crunch on and settled them back on the sofa before I headed to the office.
I found that I was checking my rear-view mirror far more than I would usually. After two Klown attacks in a few days, followed by them chasing Jane this morning, I was being sensibly wary. Would they target my house? I could not come up with a reason why they would not, and the thought worried me. What if they set fire to it while I slept? What if they set fire to it while I was away? How would the dogs get out? Ever more disturbing derivations along the same depressing line surfaced in my consciousness. It was freaking me out. I turned the car around and went back for the dogs.
‘Dogs.’ I called going through the door. I had only been gone a few minutes, so I got the usual response in such circumstances which was no response at all. I found them on the sofa still pretending to be asleep in the hope that I might go away. They had undoubtedly heard me pick up their leads and collars as I came through the house. ‘Boys, it is really necessary to be this lazy?’ I asked them as I threaded their collars over their heads.
Reluctantly, they plopped off the sofa and came with me to the car where I deposited them both on the passenger seat. The trip to work was only a few minutes’ drive but I got there after Jane and found both her and Basic in the office. The dogs charged ahead of me to get to the top of the stairs as they could tell there were people up there and people meant fuss and possibly treats.
‘Doggies. Hur hur.’ I heard Basic talking to the dogs and when I got to the top of the stairs he was kneeling on the floor to tickle their bellies. He was a gentle soul, loving and giving and he liked the dogs. Most people did.
‘Hi, Jane. Thank you for staying with Basic. What is your plan now?’ I asked her.
‘Actually, I think I would like to hang on here, maybe help out with whatever you have planned. If I go home now, I will just be at home by myself and I think I would rather stay with you pair until my boyfriend is home. Is that okay?' she asked the question carefully as if I might say no and send her away.
‘Of course, Jane. Our next task is going to be to sift as much of the available information on the Klown crimes as possible and see what we can add up. The Police are wilfully ignoring the possibility that I am somehow at the centre of the whole thing, so we are going to start with that and see if we cannot make the crimes make sense using that as a motive.' I looked at Jane and Basic for their opinion, then realised they were looking for me to lead them and were ready to follow whatever daft idea I might have.
I grabbed my bag from the desk where I had placed it and fished out my wallet. ‘Let’s start with some lunch, shall we?’
Twenty minutes later the scent of warm pizza floated up the stairs to herald Basic's arrival back at the office. I had suggested pizza and the others were only too happy to fall in line, especially since I was buying. I was wondering whether I should be worried about my food choice. I ate pizza, who didn't? But it was the sort of thing I would allow myself as a rare treat if I was out for food, not something I would order from a second-rate takeaway joint. Since my injury on Saturday night, I was displaying a worrying trend towards eating food that would expand my waistline, which since I could not exercise to combat the unnecessary calories, was the most likely end result. I shrugged mentally, telling myself to worry about it later, I had bigger problems right now, so I selected a slice of glistening, gooey meat feast and went back to the whiteboard I was beginning to make notes on.
Basic was sat at the table by the window eating a piece of pizza, but I noticed that he had gone quiet. As I looked across at him, I saw why. He was in a standoff with Bull who had managed to jump onto the spare chair and then the table and was threatening to dive onto the plate Basic had stacked several slices of pizza on. Basic had a piece of pizza in his mouth and both hands on it, but his eyes were on the dog. Dozer was trying to distract him by climbing his leg, dividing Basic's attention and making the likelihood of pizza theft more probable.
I walked across the room, nudged Dozer’s bum with my foot to knock him off balance and scooped Bull from the table. He grumped his displeasure at me as I placed him on the floor. I gave them each a very small piece of pizza as compensation for spoiling their endeavour and instructed them to leave Basic alone.
Satisfied that they might now give up on their quest for food, but with one eye on them, I went back to what I had been doing. On the wall opposite the desk was a map of Kent. I used to have a map of the local area, but I had bought this one just a week or so ago when I had seen it in a shop and it was proving useful now because the Klowns had targeted people all over the County. I had small, coloured push pins dotted into towns and villages from Pluckley to Pizien Well, Tonbridge to Tankerton. The pins had a white sticker on their heads, on which I had written numbers which corresponded to my notes on the whiteboard. The crimes on the whiteboard were in chronological order, listing the place the person was attacked and the nature of the crime. I had written the recent murders in red ink – the escalation to murder demanded it.
The crimes had all been restricted to Kent apart from one. Was it just coincidence or were all the people they wish to terrorise simply living in Kent? The only time they had appeared outside of the County had been more than a week ago towards the start of their campaign when they attacked a woman in Scunthorpe. Marion Lloyd had been attacked outside her house early on the morning on Tuesday 17th. Four Klowns had kicked and beaten her, leaving her with multiple internal injuries and broken bones. They sprayed their calling card on the side of her car, but the attack had been dismissed by the Police as a copycat attack and thus not perpetrated by the same Klowns at all. I wondered about that.
At the desktop PC, Jane was cross-referencing data, looking into the history of the victims, their lives and careers etcetera and trying to find patterns, links, anything that might tie them to me. The problem was I didn't know any of them. Not one name was familiar and only one name was missing – the murder victim from last night had still not been named. It was quite possible, probable even, that there were other victims that had not yet come forward. There was no point including that possibility in my considerations
though.
I had marked on the board the one connection we had found – the two women that had gone to school together in Charing, a small village just outside of Ashford. They appeared to have no other connection and Jane could not see that there were any other victims that had also gone to that school. There was most certainly no connection to me that I could perceive.
‘I have something.’ Jane said, putting her hand up but not taking her eyes off the screen. I went around to join her behind the desk, pushing a plate with a couple of pizza crusts out of the way with my fingertips so that I could put my hand down and lean in to inspect the screen myself. ‘These two, Mark Tanner and Erica Carpenter worked at the same business a few years ago. I had to dig right back into their work histories to find it. They both worked at Inspirations Web Developers in the late nineties. Their time at the firm overlapped by about two years.’
‘Okay.' I said staring now at the whiteboard for their names. I spotted Erica first. She had been attacked quite early on, almost a month ago now but had not been hurt. The Klowns had chased and harassed her but nothing more than that. This had occurred near her house in Ramsgate. She was fifty-eight and the second oldest person on the list. Mark Tanner had been mugged by three Klowns in broad daylight less than a week ago. It had happened as he came away from an ATM during his lunch break in Rainham. The mugging had been violent in that they knocked him to the ground and kicked him a few times. ‘So, they worked together. Anything else?'
‘Not yet. I was going to pull up employment records for the firm, which might not be the easiest thing to get hold of, but maybe there is a link between them and someone they worked with.’
‘Exactly what I was thinking.’ My very loose theory had been that I was somehow linked to all the victims so that their injuries, murders, attacks were designed to affect me on some increasing level. Was I being egocentric like CI Quinn had claimed? Was this not about me at all? If so, what was all the nonsense about a reward? And why had the Klowns come after me twice now, attacked my friends and tried to run my assistant off the road? ‘Dig up whatever you can, Jane and see if you can get a list of the kids that went to school with the two girls.’
I went back to the board and drew in a link between Mark Tanner and Erica Carpenter. Then on the map, I linked the two pins that represented their crimes with a piece of coloured string. This could all just be coincidence and I was wasting my time exploring a theory that would prove to be a dead end. So far, I had nothing else to work with.
At the table by the window, Basic was colouring in a book he had brought with him in his backpack. I guess his mum packed it for him every day as it contained tissues, a can of coke, a wagon wheel in case he needed a snack and a pencil case of felt-tipped pens to go with the colouring book. He was not inclined, nor possibly able to add much to our deliberations but he had made tea and was quite content to just hang out with us at the office. He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up when he felt me looking across at him. Then he showed me the picture he was colouring; it was the Little Mermaid who he had elected to give bright blue hair. She was having a punk phase it seemed.
A couple of hours ticked by as Jane and I worked separately on the research, she on the PC and I on the laptop, but we uncovered nothing else of use. There was a lot of information to process, so many victims already and for each one, we needed to examine their work history, relationships, family tree and on and on as far as we could go.
I felt Jane moving behind me and glanced up to see her stretching in place. I checked my watch: 1603hrs. I opened my mouth to speak and the phone rang.
I answered the call in my usual professional manner. ‘Blue Moon Investigations. Tempest Michaels speaking. How may I help?’
‘Hello.’ The voice at the other end had said.
‘Hello.’ I replied. ‘This is Tempest Michaels. Do you have a paranormal enquiry I can assist you with?’ I heard audible relief at the other end of the phone.
‘Oh, thank goodness. Mr. Michaels, I really need your help. My son has been possessed by a demon called Fonteneseque. He is speaking in tongues and saying the most awful things. Can you help me?' the voice wailed.
The voice was that of a middle-aged woman if I was any good at guessing ages. I knew of course that she was a mother, which put her age almost certainly above twenty, but I was guessing at closer to forty. Other than that, I didn’t know anything at all so it was time to press for information.
‘Can you tell me your name please?’
‘Oh. Oh, yes. Sorry. It’s Cheryl Carter.’
‘Mrs. Carter, thank you. I need to ask you a few more questions, but if I believe that I can help I will do so. Can you tell me where you are, please? Your address?' I had snagged my notebook and pen and plonked myself back down at my desk. Basic paused to listen. She gave me the address and I repeated it aloud as I wrote it down.
‘Mrs. Carter, can you please describe your son's behaviour with as much detail as you can give?' I listened again while she answered and made notes beneath the address. ‘Thank you. Now please tell me about your son. His age, his hobbies, what he watches on TV, which football team he supports, all of that information please.'
Once again, Mrs. Carter launched into a lengthy description from which I picked little nuggets of information.
‘Finally, Mrs. Carter can you please tell me when this new behaviour manifested and what it is that you would like me to do.' Mrs. Carter answered this question as concisely as she had the others but ended with a surprising piece of detail that I had to ask her to repeat.
‘I said the parish priest suggest we look for other solutions when the exorcism he performed did not work.’
‘You are telling me that you have an actual priest there and that he has attempted an exorcism?’ I was struggling to believe her. Priests do not perform exorcisms, except on television. I was fairly certain of that.
‘Yes, Mr. Michaels. He came right over when I called him.' I was really curious about this now.
‘Mrs. Carter, I am prepared to visit you and can be with you within the hour.'
‘Thank the Lord.’ she interrupted.
‘I must stress though,' I continued unabated, ‘that I do not believe your son is possessed. Demonic possession was largely the diagnosis given for mental health problems in a less enlightened age. I believe I can rid you of this issue, but I do not expect to find a demon at the end of my investigation. Is the priest still there?' Mrs. Carter said that Father McMeadow was still at the house and still chanting incantations. I outlined what I would have to charge her, that I was bringing a colleague with me and gave her a rough time by which I expected to arrive.
That done, I put the phone down and looked at my notes again. Like every case, I had ever had. I was instantly dismissing the option that there could be a paranormal explanation, but the presence of a priest was bothering me. I was not a church going man, but I respected the belief system and while I considered religious teachers to be deluded, I could not deny that they were also intelligent people.
‘Are we going out?’ asked Basic.
‘Yes, we are.’
‘To Margate? I like Margate.’ I waited to see if Basic had anything more to say on the subject of the seaside town, but he appeared to have exhausted his repository of comments.
‘Well, we need to leave quite soon so if you need the bathroom now is your chance.' I did a quick mental calculation and decided that I did not need to go myself. Wallet, phone, and keys went in my bag or trouser pocket and I stood up to put on my coat.
‘What time will your boyfriend get home, Jane?’
She checked the time on her phone. ‘Soon actually. I should go.’
‘Drive carefully, Jane and watch for the Klowns when you get home. Circle your house and see if you can spot any cars with people in them or cars that you do not recognise. Don't stop your car until you believe it is safe.'
Jane promised that she would do exactly as I suggested and report back when she was home and safe. Basic and
I followed her out to the car just in case there were any Klowns out there, but no one leaped out on us and we were all able to leave the car park unmolested.
With the dogs balanced on Basic's lap, both of them eyeing him suspiciously as they were not used to sharing their seat, we shot off to my house. It was already after the dog's dinner time and I did not want to leave the dogs in my house while I was out. I was still quite paranoid about Klowns attacking it. Instead, I knocked on my neighbour's door and waited for her to answer with the two dogs sat obediently at my feet. The light went on inside the porch and the dog's tails started to wag. I called out so that Mrs. Comerforth would know it was me. Mrs. Comerforth was a widow in her seventies with an abundance of grey hair turning to white, which she held in place with a mass of pins and clips. Her bosom threatened to eclipse her belly button. She was very pleasant and asked little of the strong, young man next door which simply encouraged me to offer her my help whenever she had a use for it. I took out her bins, mowed her lawn, performed minor repairs around the house and in return she very willingly looked after my two stupid dogs whenever I needed her to.
As the door opened, the dogs began to leap about trying to get her to fuss them – so much for obedience. We exchanged pleasantries and I explained that I had to go out for a few hours. She was only too happy to have them for the evening though, so I left them there and received a text on my way to Margate telling me that she had let herself into my house to feed the dogs and had then taken them for a walk. Oddly she was thanking me for the opportunity while I was thanking her for helping me.
A Possessed Child. Wednesday, October 26th 1705hrs
In the silence of the car, punctuated only by the noise coming from the Gameboy Basic was playing Tetris on, I considered what little I knew about the Klown case and wondered just what I could do to advance my investigation. The client that was coming to see me this morning claimed to have information pertaining to the case but she had never arrived, so I assumed that she was either lying to get some attention, quite why I could not fathom or had perhaps changed her mind. Either way, I had got nothing from her, and the excitement of Jane's car chase had caused me to forget about her until now. I could not even remember if Jane had told me her name. If she had, then I had forgotten that also. I would check with her later, or in the morning.