A Typo a Werewolf and Two Dopey Dachshunds Read online

  A Typo, a Werewolf, and Two Dopey Dachshunds

  Blue Moon Investigations

  Origins

  Steve Higgs

  Text Copyright © 2019 Steven J Higgs

  Publisher: Steve Higgs

  The right of Steve Higgs to be identified as author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved.

  The book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ‘A Typo, a Werewolf, and Two Dopey Dachshunds’ is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  This book is for the wonderful people that love books and have found me and my fun little world

  Note from the Author:

  Hi there,

  Firstly, thank your purchasing this book. I hope that you enjoy reading it anywhere near as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you do, then I have a growing library of other books to make you laugh and keep you turning pages when you really ought to be going to sleep.

  If you would like to keep up with what I am up to and get a FREE copy of Zombie Granny from the Blue Moon series, then you can sign up to my newsletter service where I will email you a couple of times a month. No spam, I promise, just bargains, discounts and fun.

  Here’s the link: http://eepurl.com/dnm8Dj

  Books by Steve Higgs

  Click the links to find the books in your local Amazon store.

  Blue Moon Investigations

  Paranormal Nonsense

  The Phantom of Barker Mill

  Zombie Granny – Blue Moon 2.5 a short story

  The Klowns of Kent

  Dead Pirates of Cawsand

  The Witches of East Malling

  Whispers in the Rigging

  Bloodlust Blonde Blue Moon 6.5 a short story

  The Harper Files

  Can I Kick a Ghost in the Nuts?

  In the Doodoo With Voodoo with short story Guys and Dolls

  Crop Circles, Cows and Crazy Aliens

  Coming soon

  Paws of the Yeti – Book Moon Book 7

  Lord Hale’s Monster – The Harper Files Case 4

  Table of Contents

  Day One. Thursday, March 18th 0545hrs

  First Client. Thursday, March 18th 0941hrs

  Research. Thursday, March 18th 1002hrs

  Mrs Mayfair. Thursday, March 18th 1041hrs

  The Invisible Man. Thursday, March 18th 1122hrs

  Lunch. Thursday, 18th March 1217hrs

  Mr Claythorn’s House. Thursday, 18th March 1322hrs

  Batman. Thursday, March 18th 1637hrs

  The Werewolf. Thursday, March 18th 1917hrs

  Chatham Police Station. Thursday, March 18th 2117hrs

  Cyril’s Invisible Man. Friday, March 19th 0213hrs

  Frank’s Bookshop. Friday, March 19th 1127hrs

  Movies. Friday, March 19th 1403hrs

  Missing Client. Friday, March 19th 1627hrs

  Pub O’clock. Friday, March 19th 1847hrs

  Game Time. Friday, March 19th 1942hrs

  Case Closed. Friday, March 19th 2019hrs

  Extract from Paranormal Nonsense

  After Demedicus. Saturday, September 25th 1257hrs

  Mum and Dad. Saturday, September 25th 1443hrs

  Roast Dinner Ambush. Saturday, September 25th 1500hrs

  Day One. Thursday, March 18th 0545hrs

  I had the local newspaper in my hands. I had been staring at the advert on page forty-seven for at least five minutes because I couldn’t work out what to do when I finished staring at it.

  Sitting in my small office with its sparse decoration, my entire focus was on a single word in one line of text. It was a word in the title of the advert I had paid a local newspaper to run for my new private investigations business.

  Upon seeing it for the first time five minutes ago, I had reacted with uncharacteristic panic as my heartrate spiked from the shock. As I had forced myself to calm down, my next task had been to check what I had submitted to the newspaper just in case I had suffered an aneurism when I wrote the text for the advert and the error I could now see was somehow my fault.

  It wasn’t.

  Having confirmed the disaster was not of my own making, I picked up my phone and called the paper. When the line connected, I asked for the editor and was transferred to someone who was not the editor, got transferred again and finally reached someone I felt it was okay to shout at.

  ‘Martin Coruthers. How may I help you?’ I didn’t know the editor so there was no relationship to leverage or damage, but it was a small, local paper that circulated to a readership of a few million and I knew the staff to be a small team thus the editor was a person that had sway over every element on every page. Unlike with a large national paper, he would be a person I could reach and deal with.

  ‘Mr Coruthers. My name is Tempest Michaels. I paid to have a half page advertisement for my new business. I’m unhappy to report that you have misrepresented me.’

  ‘How so?’ he asked, his voice wary.

  I was staying calm. Raising my voice would achieve nothing and make me appear less in control. ‘I run a private investigation business, Mr Coruthers. Today is my first day of operation and I find my business erroneously advertised under the heading Paranormal Investigation.’ He said nothing, ‘Worse yet, the person that wrote the advert elected to use some artistic license, by which I mean they added a short poem.’

  ‘A poem?’ he echoed.

  ‘Yes. A short verse or a ditty one might call it. Shall I read it to you?’

  ‘Err, okay,’ Mr Coruthers sounded resigned and a little dismayed as if this had perhaps happened before.

  I paused before starting, wanting to read it through without making a mistake, ‘If you have a vampire a werewolf or ghost, call Blue Moon and we’ll make it toast,’ my voice was dripping with false enthusiasm.

  Mr Coruthers had a question, ‘Are you saying that you don’t investigate the paranormal?’

  That was the point at which my calm snapped, ‘No, I damned well don’t,’ the outburst surprised me. I prided myself on always remaining calm, so I was more stressed by my venture than I had admitted to myself. This was my first time running my own business, the doubt regarding the decisions I had been making now bubbling to the surface. There had been no trace of nervousness yesterday when I went to bed, but this morning, with the daylight beginning to lighten the world beyond my window, I had felt my confidence slipping, but then I had to concede that over the last few months everything in my life had changed.

  Since leaving school I had been employed by Queen Elizabeth herself as a solider in the British Army. Eighteen years had slipped by until, in December of last year, I had taken off my uniform for the last time and shuffled off to be a civilian.

  Today, I became a business owner, a path I had chosen for myself, but which was suddenly crushing me flat with worry. Faced with infinite choices, I had been swayed toward working for myself as a private investigator. Finding premises, buying equipment and stationary, setting up a bank account had all been joys to undertake. Even researching where best to advertise and market myself had been fun, but it all led to today and I had no idea if the phone would ever ring.

  Of course, the phone ringing was something I worried about before I saw my joke of an advert. Now I was the proud owner of a business that looked to have little chance of success since my advert was going to be considered nonsense by everyone that saw it. It would be seen though. A half page ad stood out, which was why I had ponied up the cash for it.

  At the other end, Mr Coruthers asked, ‘Can I call you back?’

  I answered with a question that I already knew the answer to but felt was worth asking since it would transfer some of my stress to someone else, ‘Can you change the advert and reprint your paper?’

  ‘Yes absolutely,’ he replied, his voice suddenly bright because he was able to answer a question with a positive response.

  ‘Today?’ I enquired, again knowing the answer already.

  ‘Well, err, actually no. It would be in two weeks’ time when the next edition is published.’

  I pressed home my concern pointlessly, ‘What good is that, Mr Coruthers? I am in business now.’

  The conversation went back and forth for a few minutes while I posited whether I had a right to sue and he tried his best to placate me though he had no tools with which to do so.

  As our discussion reached a natural conclusion, the cell phone in my pocket started to ring. Still talking to the editor, I pulled the phone from its resting place to see who it was. I was expecting to see the name Mother displayed on the screen. She would be calling to congratulate me on my first day of business. All I saw was a number though; an unknown caller. I switched it to silent and let it ring out. r />
  Mr Coruthers asked if he could get back to me while he tried to work out how the error had occurred. I let him go but finished by pointing out that the root cause was moot from my position. It would change nothing, so his investigation was purely for his own purposes, not mine.

  With the office phone handset back in its cradle, I pushed my chair away from the desk, tilted the back and slouched into it. Renting the office furniture, buying equipment and taking a few courses to learn new skills had all cost money. I was relatively risk-averse when it came to money. It was so hard to come by and so easy to spend that it always felt disrespectful to squander it unwisely. Which is to say that I would never gamble but my investment in the business had been just that: an investment. Seed money in a start-up firm of my own. I had been paid a lump sum as a gratuity for my years of service so I was free of debt and could, in theory, afford for this venture to fail. At least that was what I told myself as I stared at the ceiling. I didn’t want it to fail though. I had no other plan for my employment and no desire to start trawling the classified ads looking for a job. The miswritten advert was a problem because I believed a first impression could only be made once. My audience were the people in the local towns and cities, many of whom would see the paper today and assume either that the advert was a joke of some kind, or that the owner was a total kook. Either way, I would get no calls and if I readvertised in two weeks with the text corrected, the chances were people wouldn’t even look at it.

  I started thinking in terms of recovery plan. How long would it take to create a phoenix firm with a new name? Doing so would mean not only changing the business name though. I would need new business cards and new stationary plus I would have to close down and pay to register a new firm at companies’ house and all the tax forms that went with it. I would have to change the sign outside the office and all of that expense would come while billing not one penny until the advert ran correctly in two weeks’ time and I could hope the phone might finally ring.

  I was calming down as I worked the problem in my head. There would be bills, however, the paper had a responsibility for their error. I would convince Mr Coruthers to assist with the outlay.

  My cell phone rang again.

  It was the same number as last time. I answered it, ‘Blue Moon Investigations, Tempest Michaels speaking.’

  ‘Hello. Is this the firm that deals with the paranormal enquiries?’ It was a man’s voice, his accent local and the timbre suggesting that he was young. I assessed those elements in the space of a heartbeat, but I didn’t know how to answer his question. ‘Hello?’ he repeated after I failed to reply.

  ‘Yes, sorry. You read the advertisement in the Weald Word?’ I was going to have to explain the error how many times?

  ‘I need your help, man!’ he wailed, ‘My wife has been replaced by a ghoul. I couldn’t believe it when I saw your advert this morning. I’ve got your address, I’m on my way to you now. I’ll be there in half an hour,’ he disconnected before I could explain the mistake.

  The poor chap was going to have a wasted journey, so I made to call him back but before I could swipe the screen and press a button to make the call, the phone leaped into life again with another incoming call.

  ‘Blue Moon Investigation, Tempest Michaels speaking.’

  ‘Ah, Mr Michaels was it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jolly good. I am in need of your services, I believe,’ the gentleman caller was distinctly less flustered than the last one and more senior in years. Perhaps pensionable age, he spoke well, like a TV announcer, ‘My name is Richard Claythorn, you may recognise it.’

  He stopped speaking as a cue for me to start, the name meant nothing to me though, ‘Sorry, no. How may I help you?’

  There was a disappointed noise from the man, a crestfallen sigh as if his name ought to be known by me along with everyone else. ‘Mr Michaels, I have a celebrity stalker. I was a film star a few years ago and have attracted the unwanted attention of a man that I believe to be dangerous.’

  This sounded more like it. I started making notes on the pad in front of me, ‘Please tell me more,’ I implored.

  ‘This is not my first stalker, you understand. I enjoyed a long career on the silver screen, picking up my share of admirers and nutters as one does. A few weeks ago, I started seeing the same man outside my house all too regularly. I confronted him one morning, at which point I discovered that he had been writing to me for years. He wanted me to join his pack, you see.’ Pack? ‘And didn’t believe that I was just an actor. He got quite upset when I denied his claims and refused to let him in.’ I typed Richard Claythorn into a search bar. ‘Now the letters have turned threatening but the police won’t do anything because the man hasn’t committed a crime and always disappears when I call them.’

  The screen filled with images. I groaned internally. Richard Claythorn was an actor, just not a very good one. He had starred in a succession of B movies in the eighties, almost all of which cast him as a werewolf. The first movie had been a success, I had accidentally caught a chunk of it myself at some distant point in the past, but his success had been short lived as he had not been able to escape the role, eventually finding himself typecast as a werewolf in much the same way that Leonard Nimoy could never be seen as anyone other than Spock from Star Trek.

  I asked a question, ‘How is it that you believe I will be able to help you, Mr Claythorn?’

  ‘The man thinks he is a werewolf. I have to say that he looks like one and for all I know the werewolf legend is true. Just because I was acting doesn’t mean supernatural creatures aren’t real. I want you to catch the man before he hurts me.’

  I was thinking fast now. I had a case. Sort of. Or rather, I had a case that was a load of rubbish but might actually pay the bills. As I was framing my response, I heard the door to my office open. The office sits above a travel agency in Rochester High Street and was accessed by a door at street level around the back. A rickety wooden staircase behind the ground floor door led to another door at the top through which my small office could be accessed. The building was erected in 1804. It said so on a stone plate set into the front façade. Quite what its original purpose might have been, I had yet to find out, but my office had been a store room for the travel agency below until I took occupancy.

  A face appeared through the window in the door as the person coming up the stairs neared the top. I thought he must have a couple of stairs left to go, but he was turning the door handle already. When it opened, I saw that he was simply shorter than I had expected.

  The man could see I was on the phone, gave a little wave of acknowledgement rather than speak and took a chair when I smiled politely and indicated that he should. I wondered who he was since it could not be the man with the wife for a ghoul I had spoken with just two minutes ago.

  ‘Mr Claythorn, I need to conduct some research and come back to you. May I please take an address where I can find you. I already have your number.’ I listened as he recited his address and requested that I call him back within the hour to confirm I was taking his case. As I hung up the phone, the man in the chair leaped up to shake my hand. I had no idea who he was but I met him with equal enthusiasm. I had no reason not to. Yet.

  ‘Greetings,’ he said, ‘Frank Decaux at your service.’ Frank was a mousy little man, with a thin frame and a gaunt face. He was roughly five feet five inches tall and weighed perhaps ninety-five pounds.

  ‘Good morning,’ I replied. ‘I’m…’

  ‘Tempest Michaels,’ he answered for me, ‘Paranormal detective,’ Frank was smiling in an excited manner, ‘I cannot tell you how happy I am to have someone fighting the dark forces that threaten our very existence.’ I decided to keep my mouth shut. It was already a strange day and getting no better. My visitor wanted to speak, so I would listen and learn. ‘Tell me, what was your first supernatural encounter? What brought you into this line of work? Are you imbued with magic abilities?’

  I held up my hand to stop him out of fear that the torrent of questions might continue unabated if I did not. He lapsed into careful silence, waiting excitedly for my responses.

  ‘Frank, right?’ He nodded. ‘Frank… Frank why don’t we start with you telling me about your line of work. You already know what my advert says,’ I had crafted my reply to tell him nothing and quite specifically avoid answering the questions he had posed.