Blue Moon Investigations Ten Book Bundle

by steve higgs

  Forty-five minutes of soaking, scrubbing, exfoliating and moisturising later I was getting hungry. The pizza, eaten in a wine induced haze of false hunger was now forgotten, demanding I forage for sustenance again very soon.

  First though, I would call Brett. It was a call I had been planning in my head for a couple of days. I wanted to get him naked and I wanted him to know that this was my plan, but in a subtle, sexy way that would leave him hopeful, but not certain of my intentions.

  I really ought not to feel nervous. I found it both exhilarating and worrying that I did. Brett Barker was very much unlike any other man I had ever met. Ignoring the bank account that equalled a small European Country's GDP, he was a man that was at the same time utterly confident and yet still somehow unsure of himself. That he could nurture in me a desire to look after him while also willingly giving myself up as his sex-slave gave me a rush. He was exquisitely handsome, and I could only imagine what he would look like naked. On the few occasions when my hands had touched his arms, or torso or anything else, it was clear he was lean and muscular beneath his clothing. Not like a bodybuilder, but like a well-toned athlete.

  The phone was ringing at his end. ‘Amanda, hi.’ He even said my name like the words were caramel being spooned into my ear.

  I had it bad.

  ‘Hi, Brett. Are you free to talk?’

  ‘Absolutely, I just got back from the gym. I am on my way to the shower, but I am in no rush and would much rather talk to you than do anything else.’ He was naked! Slutty Amanda wanted to ask him to send a selfie right now. Fortunately, the sane Amanda was in charge at the moment, so I came up with a different question instead.

  ‘What are you doing tomorrow night?’ I specifically said tomorrow night and not tomorrow evening although I was not sure he would pick up on the subtle nuance of the words.

  ‘Dear lady, I will be doing whatever you tell me to do.’ His voice had deepened and taken on a husky tone as he spoke. It made me think that he was thinking sex thoughts. ‘It is your turn to host me for a date after all.' He added his voice back to normal and full of enthusiasm.

  ‘Well, Brett. I was hoping you would be okay to come to my flat tomorrow. I have something special planned.’ I had not intended to say the word special so breathlessly, but I did and was certain it had left no ambiguity in my intentions for the evening.

  ‘That…err. That sounds like an event I shouldn’t miss.’ He said, stumbling but recovering well, the husky edge back. I could only imagine what my playful words were doing to his blood flow. I was already imagining the blood flowing somewhere very particular.

  ‘Eight o’clock. Bring wine. I’ll be waiting, lover.’ The last word had slid out as an intended promise.

  I heard him swallow at the other end of the line. He got it. ‘I am… looking forward to it already, Amanda. I will see you at eight.’

  ‘Until then, Brett.' I breathed into the phone. My God, I was aroused already thinking about him. He bid me a very good evening and was gone. Off to get a shower, possibly a cold one.

  I needed to get off the bed and think about something else. Making a shopping list/list of things to do was required, so I sat on the couch and got on with that. I needed to buy condoms for starters. He might well bring some, yet it felt better to be prepared. I needed to have food in that was easy to prepare. I needed to get a wax, but it was already too late for that and I needed to clean the flat, wash and remake the bed linen and very possibly buy new underwear.

  While I had been on the phone to Brett, I had received a call that I had of course ignored. Now that I looked though I saw it was the same number as earlier and I now had no fewer than five missed calls in the space of just over an hour. It seemed easier to call it, deal with the salesman on the other end and then block the number than it did to continue ignoring it, so I pressed dial and set my face to angry, so I would be ready to deal with the annoying person at the other end.

  The voice though was that of a young woman. ‘Tempest Michaels?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘No. Amanda Harper. I am Tempest’s business partner. Can I help you?’ I hoped this was a client and not a girl he had met in a bar.

  ‘I think he took my cat. I don't know what to do. He just won't leave me alone and the Police won't do anything.' The words had come out in a torrent, like they had been building up, threatening to overflow and were suddenly without a barrier to hold them in place.

  I tried to calm her. ‘Miss, I need you to slow down. Then we need to back up a little. Can you tell me your name please?' I snagged a notepad and a pen from the coffee table and sat on the sofa.

  ‘Sorry.’ Her voice was close to a sob. ‘My name is Kimberley Kousins. I am being stalked by a Voodoo priest and I think he may plan to kill me.’

  I switched to cop mode. ‘Kimberley, where are you now?’

  ‘At home.’

  ‘Are you by yourself and is the house secure?’

  ‘Yes, and yes.’ She answered confidently.

  ‘Do you believe the man will attempt to force entry? Has he displayed any behaviour so far that would suggest he is violent?’

  ‘Not so far, no. He is very scary though.’ She told me.

  ‘Okay, Kimberley. Where is home for you?’

  ‘Maidstone, the Magdalene Estate.’ This was not welcome news. The Magdalene Estate in Maidstone is a lot like Mogadishu in Somalia – the shitty bit of it. During a particularly nasty turf war. Burning tyres, cars and random flying bullets were not uncommon. The people living there were not very nice generally, at least the ones you saw were not, the nicer ones stayed inside their houses hoping the world would end soon.

  I had Kimberley give me her address and I promised to be there within the hour. As I hung up the phone, I considered calling Tempest to see if he had any advice, or had given any thought to the case, but I didn't. Part of me taking the job at his firm was me standing on my own feet and being able to operate on my own as an independent investigator. I would see him at the office in the morning where we could discuss this and other cases. In the meantime, I would interview the young woman and see if there was a case here or not.

  The Magdalene Estate. Sunday, October 30th 2052hrs

  The app on my phone claimed the outside temperature to be four degrees. It felt cooler than that and I had been shocked when I got outside to find my car not parked in its usual spot by the bins. A brief moment of panic that it had been stolen or had perhaps run away at the thought of going to the Magdalene Estate, seeped away to be replaced by shameful regret when I remembered that the car was still parked at the Police station more than a mile away because I had gotten drunk for lunch.

  I tussled with the idea of calling Kimberley to tell her I could not make it until the morning, but she had been so grateful that I was coming that I could not in good conscience now do that to her. I slung my handbag over my shoulder and started speed walking through town.

  My hands were frozen by the time I got to my car, making me wish I had one with a heated steering wheel. The hot air blowers warmed up a few minutes later, so I pointed them at my knuckles, trying to balance the air flow so that some of the blissfully warm air would also hit my face and body as it defrosted my fingers.

  I left the town centre on the A229, sweeping up the hill towards the village of Loose, but turned off before I reached the tranquillity of that area and entered the Estate. Magdalene was such that someone controlling the budget had decided many years ago that it was cheaper to build a small Police Headquarters there than keep dispatching units from town. Even this late at night, with the temperature outside barely above freezing there were dodgy looking youths hanging out on street corners, younger kids riding their bikes and smoking cigarettes and older kids and adults hanging out in cars, probably doing drugs. They were not all male either, lots of them were girls, but girls that looked like they might mug you or knife you. And then very possibly pee on you for good measure.

  I did not like that my car had been spotted the sec
ond I turned onto Magdalene Avenue. Laughably it was called an avenue still even though all the trees had long since been burned down or dug up. I wondered if maybe some of the trees had evolved due to necessity, grown legs and moved.

  Kimberley’s address placed her on the nicer side of the estate, which was to say there were fewer cars on bricks or refrigerators laying in the street outside her house. Not that she lived in a house. She had a flat in a building much like mine only nowhere near as nice. She lived at number two on the bottom floor. The curtain twitched as I got out of my car and stood looking at it, forlornly hoping it would still be there when I came out.

  I hurried around the building to the entrance at the front and down the path to get inside, not willing to hang around in case I was spotted by the next gang of layabout kids. There was probably no danger to me, but dealing with them, even verbally was a task I would sooner avoid.

  Inside the building’s little foyer, several of the lights were out, but there was enough still working that I could read the graffiti. It was sprayed liberally on every surface like I had just walked into a breakdance club from the eighties. All that was missing was a couple of rival gangs having a dance fight and a gold-toothed DJ. Three steps led up to the first floor, a poor design given how many single mums must end up in buildings similar to this one.

  The door to number two was open a crack, a slither of a face showing just above the security chain. The person inside decided that I was who they were waiting for, the door closed to the sound of the chain being rattled and then opened again to reveal a woman of about twenty-five.

  Kimberly Kousins was pretty but was doing her best to hide it. Despite a pronounced overbite her face was well proportioned and covered in small pimples. True to the fashion of the area though, she had on a full face of makeup and crazy-long false eyelashes just to sit at home watching television. She stood five feet seven inches tall, making her quite average in height, her eyes were brown to match her hair which was pulled back into a ponytail, the length of which dictated that once released it would fall to just about touch her shoulders. It was also stuffed into a black diamanté ball cap. She wore huge gold hoop earrings which were filled with a bold letter K and were paired with no less than six more smaller hoops running up the edge of her left ear, but oddly none at all in her right. She had a nose piercing which was another gold hoop and around each wrist were colourful and sparkly Pandora bracelets. A brief pang of jealousy shot through me at seeing those particular items as I had coveted them through the shop window for many months now. I could buy them for myself but somehow that felt like cheating. I wanted a boy to buy the pretty trinkets for me, just like the wonderful advertisements on television.

  Kimberly beckoned for me to hurry in. I felt no need to quicken my pace. There was no one else in sight, nor could I hear anyone, so I was sure I could cross the eight feet of foyer and get inside before a marauding horde descended upon us.

  ‘Amanda Harper.’ I said as I got close to her door. I was putting out my hand to shake, but she was only interested in getting me inside and shutting the door.

  As I squeezed by her, I readjusted my assessment of her height and gave her an extra half inch. I also gave some consideration to her weight which I estimated to be fifty-five kilos. She had on grey flannel sportswear. The uniform of the stupid Tempest had once called it. I understood his sentiment. Wearing a warm-up suit when not doing sports is completely fine, but I had interviewed people in my capacity as a Police Officer that had been wearing their favourite Sunday Best crappy grey outfit and thought they looked good.

  ‘Please hurry.’ Kimberly begged as got inside. The door all but slammed behind me. ‘I don't want Mrs. Hamilton to see you. She keeps telling the other neighbours I am a prostitute. She will think you’re my social worker.'

  I didn’t know whether this was an insult or not. Did I dress like a social worker?

  ‘Will my car be safe outside?’ I asked.

  ‘God, no.’

  Jolly good. So glad I checked.

  ‘Let’s make this quick then, shall we?’ I asked as I took myself to the front of the house where I could see out the window to my currently unmolested car outside.

  I had arrived in her small galley kitchen. She had followed me in, looking pensive and holding her hands together as if she was about to start wringing them.

  I pulled out a notebook from my handbag and clicked my pen. ‘Kimberly, please tell me why you called and how it is that you think I can help.’

  ‘Like I said on the phone, I met a man online, on a dating website and now he is stalking me. The Police will not do anything, and I am scared.’

  She was bordering on hysterical, almost in tears. I wanted to calm her down so that I could better question her. ‘Kimberly, why don’t you put the kettle on and make two nice cups of tea?’

  ‘I only have coffee.’

  ‘Coffee will be fine.' I replied, wondering what kind of person did not have the means to make a cup of tea. It was the action though, not the beverage itself that I was after. The mundanity of making a hot beverage would focus her on something else and help to re-establish a normal pulse rate. As she busied herself at the sink filling the kettle, I started asking questions.

  ‘Kimberly let’s start with a few basic pieces of information.’ I found it was better to get a person talking about facts first. It established a baseline and got them into the frame of mind for answering questions. I asked her age, her profession, where she worked, where she had grown up and noted the answers on a fresh page. I kept going with the details of her life until the coffee was made. Then switched tack. ‘The man’s name, what is it?’

  ‘Bartholomew King. He calls himself the Magdalene King.’

  ‘The Magdalene King.’ I repeated as I wrote.

  ‘Ridiculous, isn't it?' she asked, a nervous laugh escaping with the question. ‘I had heard of him, or at least I had heard of the Magdalene King, but I didn’t know it was him until we went on a date.’

  ‘Explain how you met please.’

  ‘It was online. There is a dating website called Meet Market? Have you heard of it?' Her face coloured as she named the website. I made no comment. ‘I found him on there. You can search by distance from your postcode. No point finding a guy if he is in Scotland, right?'

  I indicated that I was listening and wanted her to continue.

  ‘Well, it was me that approached him. You could say I brought this on myself. He had such a nice smile and it said he was only a couple of miles from me. We exchanged messages for more than a week and he was quite sweet. He talked about still living with his mum and dad and working with them as a chemist. He was very keen to meet, right from the start. He said lots of nice things, which wore down any misgivings I had.' She stopped to take a sip of her coffee and to shudder a little. Retelling her story was taking some effort.

  ‘Go on.’ I encouraged.

  ‘Two weeks ago, we met for coffee in town and he was still this really sweet guy. I liked his bald head and he has a perfect smile that made me want to take my knickers off.’ I didn’t write that bit down. ‘I kissed him at the end of the date and we arranged to meet each other two days later. That was where it all started going wrong.’

  She paused to drink more of her coffee. I did likewise but didn't get more than the first mouthful in as it was quite awful. It was instant coffee but must have been a supermarket or budget brand. I managed to swallow the foul dishwater rather than spit it back into the mug, but I was not going to drink the rest of it.

  ‘He texted me later that evening to set up the next date, but he wanted to see me the next day. I had already said that I could not because I had a Zumba class that evening. He wouldn't take no for an answer though and he said he had a special purpose for me and how much I was going to enjoy it. When I said I thought it best if we didn't see each other again he got quite angry.'

  ‘Did he threaten you?’

  ‘Not in a text message or on the dating service. The Police
said that because I had no evidence to show that it was anything more than a lover’s quarrel, they could do nothing about it. Not even speak with him.’

  ‘That’s right, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked me mystified.

  ‘The Police have limited resources to appropriate to their workload and have to prioritise constantly. Inevitably, cases where there is no provable crime get very little attention. Stalker cases are very hard to prove and of course, they get lots of false reports each week.'

  ‘But he cursed me.’ She said with a sob, burying her head in her hands.

  ‘What do you mean by that?' When she failed to answer after several seconds, I had to repeat the question. She still didn't answer and just as I was about to speak again, she reached up with one hand and pulled her ball cap from her head. Several pieces of her shoulder length brown hair fell out as she did so, and she met my gaze with a glum expression.

  ‘He came to the house two days after I had met him in town for coffee. He was waiting in the bushes out the front with some of his crew and ambushed me before I could get into the house. He was naked from the waist up and he had bones painted all over his skin to make him look like a skeleton. He had a small snake in one hand and a headless chicken in the other. He flicked the chicken at me and covered me in its blood. It was so disgusting.’

  I was making notes but thinking that I really didn’t want to ever meet this guy.

  Kimberly had more to say. ‘He kept chanting the whole time. Chanting and laughing, like it was funny to him. The rest of them were laughing too. They were blocking my path in every direction.'

  ‘Did any of them touch you?’

  ‘No, none of them did. I screamed at them to get out of my way, but they just laughed some more and then he clicked his fingers and they all stopped. That’s when he said I was cursed. That he had laid a curse upon me and I would be afflicted with ugliness for spurning him. My hair would fall out, my teeth would fall out… all that sort of thing. Then they walked away. Just walked away like it was done. I locked myself in my flat and kept expecting them to come back. But they didn’t. I saw him the next day though. When I was leaving for work, he was standing on a street corner, like he was watching for me or something. He smiled and waved, but not in a friendly way.’ She finished her coffee and saw that I had let mine go cold.