2 In the Doodoo with Voodoo Read online

  Patience assures me that if I do not take him to bed soon I will lose him. Actually, that was not what Patience said. She said… never mind. Let’s just say it was a more graphic version of hurry up and take him to bed.

  And it was what I was planning to do. He was gorgeous. He was lean and athletic with a handsome face that smiled easily. He was an absolute gentleman and he was seriously rich. Like, buy me an island for my birthday kind of rich. We were taking it in turns to entertain each other. One date he would call the shots and take me out. Sometimes it had been swanky and expensive, like the first date when he put me on a commercial jet flying first class to Paris for an overnight stay at the Penthouse of the Ritz, but he had also taken me out for dinner in a perfectly ordinary restaurant. That we earned vastly different amounts was of no concern to him it seemed, it would only be a concern in our relationship at all if I decided it was, so I had to get over it. When it had been my turn to entertain him, I had brought him to my house for pizza, or out to the local cinema because there was a film I wanted to see. Five dates had elapsed now though. Was that too many without some intimacy creeping in?

  I had answered the question for myself days ago but had done nothing about it yet. Now it was time to fix the problem before it became one. I would call him tonight, invite him to my flat tomorrow night and shag his beautiful brains out.

  The clock on the wall assured me it was nearly finishing time for me. I would have to return in a couple of days to hand back my uniform and again on November 8th to hand over my ID card. I felt no pang of separation at the thought of being without that vital piece of equipment. It was just something I had carried around with me for the last few years.

  Just as I was getting out of my chair to leave, my phone rang. The caller ID on the screen told me it was Jane/James calling. Jane/James is Tempest's cross-dressing office assistant. A young man that with a wig, some makeup and a dress, looks more convincing as a woman than I do.

  ‘Amanda Harper.’ I answered the phone. The thing with Jane/James is that he/she wants to be addressed as a boy or a girl depending on which way he/she has decided to dress that day. Over the phone one cannot tell of course, so he/she has learned to say which it is and we have learned to not assume and wait for him/her to tell us.

  ‘Hi, Amanda. It’s James.’ He said. ‘Are you coming to work tomorrow? We have a couple of promising cases.’

  ‘I will be there. Just one question: Where is there now?' Two days ago, the Blue Moon office had been subjected to a firebomb and had burned to the floor. It would be rebuilt, but for now, it was very much unusable.

  ‘Tempest has set me up in the office in his house. It feels a bit odd wandering around his house without him here, but at least we are still in business.’

  ‘Tempest isn’t there? Where is he?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you about it in the morning. Or Tempest will call you I guess.’ He replied.

  That was cryptic. I dismissed it though. Tempest would come and go in pursuit of cases as he saw fit. He wasn’t there to hold my hand and had hired me because of my ability to work independently. The pair of us might work together on cases at times but would just as often attend to separate clients.

  ‘What are the cases?’ I asked him.

  ‘There are a few actually. The Tonbridge ghost tours are once again claiming to have a ghost that they want us to investigate, there are some farmers out towards Cliffe that have reported mysterious crop circles coupled with odd behaviour from their cattle. However, the most pressing seems to be from a young lady that has become the target of a voodoo priest.'

  ‘Voodoo?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In Kent?’

  ‘Apparently so. She met some guy on a dating website and he got a little scary and when she broke it off he cursed her, and her hair has fallen out.’

  I had picked my phone up, air-kissed Patience and headed out the door. I had to leave my car in the space behind the station as I was not at all certain I was sober enough to drive home. Fortunately, it was only a little more than a mile to my flat by the train station. I was still talking when I got outside and discovered it had started to drizzle.

  Nuts.

  ‘Are you still there, Amanda?’ James asked.

  ‘Yes, still here. Just fighting with my umbrella.’ I needed both hands. ‘James I will see you at Tempest’s house at nine o’clock tomorrow. Okay?’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  ‘I expect the cases can wait until then.' I said goodbye and disconnected. The damned umbrella catch was sticking and refusing to open. I was hovering in the doorway at the back of the station grunting and swearing. Finally, it popped, and the handbag-handy brolly flung itself from closed to inside out and then mockingly refused to go back to a useable state. It learned to rue the day as I shoved its useless arse into the first trash bin I came to.

  I trudged home through the increasing downpour, my hair a sodden mess on my shoulders by the time I got there. Mrs. Stone was just wheeling her bin outside when I came hurrying up the path towards our building. I lived in a four-story block of flats not far from Maidstone East train station. The location was favoured by city commuters heading to London as the price of living here was far more affordable than the cost of living inside a London postcode. I was fortunate enough to have secured a flat on the top floor when they were first built five years ago. It was a small place but was still easily big enough for me and had been fitted out with good quality cupboards and appliances in the kitchen and was also well-appointed in the bathroom. The rent was affordable – more so now that I was going to earn more with the switch in jobs and I saw no reason to move. A small, but insistent voice at the back of my head, that sounded suspiciously like my mother, told me I should marry Brett and move into his twenty-five-bedroom palace.

  I ignored it.

  I hadn’t actually been to Brett’s house yet as a girlfriend. The last time I was there I was tossing the place looking for evidence. I would get there soon enough but I was in no hurry to be a wife, or a mother or anything other than what I was. Mostly I struggled to look after myself, all too often discovered that I had no clean knickers to put on and regularly opened the fridge to find there was no food in it. Each time I did so I promised to organise myself better. But I never did.

  ‘Hi, Mrs. Stone.' I called out in passing. She was wearing a pink warm-up suit and pink sparkly fake Ugg boots. Her silver hair was also dyed a shade of pink and to contrast it all, she had on a terry dressing gown in a lemon hue.

  She waved a hand in reply as she manoeuvred her bin into place by the kerb ready for the morning. I made a note that I needed to do the same as they only came every other week and I had missed the last two collections.

  Pushing open my door, I stepped over the mail I found on the floor inside, then scooped it up and quickly sifted it on my way through to the kitchen area. Mostly rubbish I concluded but there was one envelope that looked suspiciously like my credit card bill, I left that one for later, and a postcard from my Mum. I dumped everything but the postcard on the kitchen counter along with my handbag as I continued through to the bathroom where I set the bath taps to run hot water. My hair was already wet, so a bath seemed perfectly timed. I swiped my phone to connect to the speaker and pressed play. A heavy base started thumping through my apartment as I sashayed into the bedroom to peel off my damp clothes.

  I put the postcard face down on my dressing table, so I could read it as I fumbled with my clothes. My mother and her boyfriend, Max were on a round-the-world cruise. Mum had retired earlier this year when Max had convinced her she should. Dad had died six years ago when his battle with cancer was finally done and I thought mum would never smile again. Then last year, about eighteen months ago now, she met Max at a friend’s sixtieth birthday party. He was a few years younger than her but pointed out that at their age it didn't make all that much difference.

  I was happy for her, but her relationship with Max came with one unfortunate side effect – her r
enewed sex life. I had learned, not that I wanted to, that my mother had married the first man she slept with. A fact she only came to regret after he had died, and she found out what she had been missing. Now she was, so far as I could tell, only sleeping with the second man ever, but he was more experienced or more adventurous or more something and she wanted to tell me about it every time we sat down to chat.

  Thankfully, there was no mention of sex in the note she had sent me. They were now on the final leg and having passed through the Panama Canal were in Miami. It would be another couple of weeks before they were home although, of course, the postcard took a while to get to me even in the 21st century and mum liked to send them rather than emails that would be instantly delivered. She was having the time of her life and I was happy for her.

  Now naked and getting cool, I hurried to the bathroom and slipped into the tub. I had expected to feel buoyant this evening. I need never put my uniform on again. I ought to be celebrating. Oddly though, I felt a little uncomfortable, as if I had done something wrong and was about to be exposed for it.

  My phone rang. It was not a number I recognised so I Ignored it, let it ring off and I flicked the button to silent as I slipped into the bath. Ordinarily, I would have taken a glass of wine with me, but after the overindulgence this afternoon I was sipping water instead.

  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 should not 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 second 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.