Kiera Hudson & The Creeping Men (4 page)

I sat across the table and looked at Heather Locke. The tears that she had fought for so long to hold back now spilled down her pale face.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice broken and husky.

“We understand how hard it must be for you to lose someone you thought of as your daughter,” Potter said.

“It’s not your understanding I need, Mr. Potter,” Locke said, taking a hanky from her pocket and mopping up her tears. “It’s your help I need.”

“Look, sweetheart,” he said, as I cringed. “We can’t stop Sir Edmund from sending his daughter away to be educated. I admit it’s a bit odd how he snuck her away in the middle of the night, but perhaps he did that because he knew how upset you would be. As far as I can see, no crime has been committed.”

I looked at Potter agog. Did he really believe that? I wanted to ask him, but to do so in front of his client would be unprofessional of me. However much I disliked the idea, Potter was my boss in this new world. I had to tread carefully if I wanted to stay close to him. In this world I meant nothing to him. As far as he was concerned, I was just some pretty bimbo a temping agency had sent him. He could easily send me back, however much he thought my lips were hot and my cheeks sweet.

“But I haven’t told you everything,” Locke beseeched him.

“Look, I’d love to stay and chat,” Potter said. “Don’t worry, I won’t charge you for this consultation.”

“Money isn’t a problem,” Locke said. “I have managed to save some money over the last sixteen years while in Sir Edmund’s employment…”

“I don’t come cheap, lady,” he said, getting up again. “And besides, I wouldn’t want to charge you for something I can already see is going to be a big fat waste of time. My advice to you is, keep your money, take a nice, long holiday, and try and forget all about this Amanda kid. You never know – you might meet someone on holiday and have a kid of your own. That should sort you out.”

I looked at Potter, mouth open. I felt like punching him like I had so many times before. But I didn’t tell him how I felt. Heather Locke did that for me.

“Listen to me, Mr. Potter,” she said, her voice now suddenly cold and stern, eyes bright. “If it wasn’t for the fact that I am so desperate for your help, I would have thrown my drink in your face, you brute. You might think me just another hysterical woman, but you have not even bothered to hear everything it is I have to tell you. Now, we had a professional agreement that we would meet here tonight, and I’d like you to honour that agreement. So show me enough professional courtesy to sit back down and listen to everything I have to tell you. If then, you still think my case is just some trifling matter, I will happily part company with you and pay you for wasting your time.”

“A brute, huh?” Potter smiled, flexing his chest muscles beneath his shirt as if she had paid him a compliment. Lighting another cigarette, he slowly took his seat again. Then looking at her, he said, “Just one thing. Don’t make threats you can’t make good on.”

“Threats?” she mused.

“You said you were going to throw your drink over me,” Potter smiled wistfully at her as if she had somehow gained his respect. “You don’t have a drink.”

“Yes, she does,” I said, sliding my bottle of water across the table toward Locke.

“Whose side are you on?” Potter asked.

“The side of truth,” I told him.

“Oh, Christ, that agency has sent a right girl guide this time around,” he grunted, sticking the cigarette between his lips.

Ignoring his smart mouth, I said, “Please, Ms. Locke, tell us what happened next.”

Shifting in her seat as if composing herself again, Ms. Locke continued. “I left Sir Edmund in the kitchen and went straight to my room. On the way, I had to pass by Amanda’s bedroom. I stopped in the doorway. Sensing that something other than Sir Edmund’s odd manner wasn’t quite right, I looked into the room. It was then I realised what was vexing me so. As a child, Miss Amanda had a blanket that she liked to cuddle at night. She had kept this all of her childhood and into her teenage years. She couldn’t sleep at night unless she had her blanket. It was a dirty old thing as far as I was concerned, but to hold it close to her face at night was comforting for her. The rows we’d had when every now and then I had washed it. Amanda would complain that I’d washed away its smell. So I was alarmed to see the blanket lying across the foot of her bed, as I knew she would have not gone anywhere willingly without it. So stepping into her room and closing the door behind me, I checked her wardrobe. Not one of her garments was missing. The same was for her favourite books, and her iPod. All of her belongings, in fact, were exactly where they had been had she still been living at the house. Could it be possible that she would have gone to move abroad without taking anything with her?

“Confused more than ever and sensing that something terrible had happened to Miss Amanda, I went back to my room. I slept little that night. It was warm in my room, and I had opened my bedroom window to let some air in. It was in the dead of night, as my mind wrestled with my fears of what might have happened to young Amanda, I heard a noise that chilled my blood and almost stopped my heart.”

“What did you hear?” I asked.

Potter was scribbling in his notebook again.

“It was a deep growling sound, like that of a lion loose in the grounds of Bastille Hall. Pulling my dressing gown around me, I crept from my bed to the window. There was a half-moon in the sky and it cast its pale light down onto the lawns stretching away from the front of the house and toward the wood. It was then that I saw what was making such a noise. In the poor light I could see the silhouette of what looked like a giant hound. It was making its way along the treeline of the woods.

“As I peered from the safety of my room, I heard another sound, this time a voice. I recognised it. It was the voice of Sir Edmund,” Locke said, just above a whisper. Again, I noticed her look toward the door of the pub, then back across the table at us.

“It was difficult for me to hear, as I was so far away and high up, but from my hiding place, it sounded like Sir Edmund was saying over and over again, ‘leash, leash, leash.’ At first I wondered what it could mean, then I saw that he had the giant hound tethered to a long leash he held with both hands. I saw Sir Edmund pull on it several times, and on each occasion, I heard him say in a disturbing voice, ‘leash! Leash!
Leash!’”
Ms. Locke whispered, her eyes wide with dread.

“So he got himself a dog,” Potter said, closing his notebook and stuffing it back into his jacket pocket.

“That’s what Sir Edmund told me the following morning when I asked him about the matter,” Ms. Locke said, picking up the bottle I had given to her and unscrewing the cap.

I couldn’t help but notice how Potter leant back in his seat and away from her.

“You have nothing to worry about, Mr. Potter. So much talk has made me thirsty that is all,” Locke said.

I smiled to myself and Potter scowled at me. “So, did you tell Sir Edmund exactly what it was that you saw from your window?” I asked her.

“No!” she gasped. “I didn’t want to put him on the spot like that. I feared another confrontation with him, but I couldn’t let the matter go. I said that I’d heard the sound of a terrible roar during the night and asked whether he knew what it might have been. He told me that he had returned from Switzerland with a dog.

“‘Now that Amanda is abroad,’ he explained, ‘and you will soon be leaving too, I thought I would get myself a dog to keep me company.’

“‘But where is this dog?’ I asked him, as I hadn’t seen any such creature since his return.

“‘I have locked it in the old outhouse on the edge of the woods,’ he said, picking up the morning newspaper and opening it.

“‘Locked it away? But why?’ I dared to push him.

“Without glancing up from his newspaper, he said, ‘The dog is very large – it’s a Flanders Cattle dog. I was assured that the animal had a good and loyal temperament, but now I’m not so sure. Perhaps it finds its new surroundings unsettling. I will just have to see.’

“‘But…’ I wanted to question further, unsatisfied by Sir Edmund’s answers.

“‘Do you not have any chores to do?’ he asked, now peering over the top of his paper at me.

“‘Yes,’ I nodded, leaving him alone in his study.”

“Did you make any further enquiries as to this giant dog?” Potter asked before yawning.

Giant dog? What was Potter thinking? What Ms. Locke had seen had been a wolf. I was sure of it. Potter hated wolves – didn’t he? The Potter I’d known and loved took delight in hunting them down and killing them. So why was
this
Potter so disinterested?

“Later that day, Sir Edmund went out for a few hours,” Locke continued. “I took this opportunity to creep out to the edge of the woods. I went to the old outhouse that he spoke of. Standing on tiptoe, I tried to peer in through the windows, but they had been boarded over from the inside so it was impossible for anyone to peer in. The door had been secured with a huge padlock. I rattled the lock over and over, but it was no use, as the door would not budge even one inch. But it was then I noticed something very strange…”

“And what was that?” I asked, sitting forward in my seat, skin prickling with excitement.

“If there truly was a dog locked inside the outhouse, why hadn’t my rattling and banging on the door disturbed it?” she whispered. “I did not hear so much as a bark or howl from inside. As I walked back to the house, I was left with the impression that there was no giant dog secured inside the outhouse.”

“Why do you think Sir Edmund would lie about such a thing?” I asked her, glancing sideways to see Potter staring vacantly out of the window. He might not be interested, but I was.

“I don’t know,” Locke said. “I didn’t see that dog again, if that’s truly what it was. And just when I thought nothing more peculiar could happen, I was proved wrong.”

“What?” I asked, heart beginning to quicken as my mind began to wonder what new piece of the jigsaw Ms. Locke was going to add to this mystery.

“Things started to move,” she said, glancing over at the door and then back at me.

“I need to go take a piss,” Potter grunted, getting up again.

I yanked him back down onto his seat. This time it was my turn to scowl at him. Rolling his eyes at me and sighing, he lit another smoke.

“What do mean things started to move?” I asked Locke.

“Even though Amanda had been sent abroad by her father to be educated, I still cleaned and dusted her room every day,” Locke said. “I guess I just liked being in her room.”

“Okay, so that’s weird,” Potter muttered, and I thumped him beneath the table. He smirked.

“It was a week after Miss Amanda’s sudden departure that I noticed her iPod had gone missing,” Locke explained. “I was sure that it had been placed on the nest of drawers beside her bed. I wondered if perhaps I had been mistaken, but when I went to her room the following day, the iPod was back again. It was over the next few days or so that I began to notice that other items had been moved also, but more importantly, the blanket that Miss Amanda so loved disappeared from the foot of her bed.”

“Do you not think that perhaps Sir Edmund had moved some of those items?” Potter asked, glancing down at his wristwatch again.

“I did consider that idea,” Locke said. “But there were times when Sir Edmund had travelled down to London and was away a whole day and night or more. There was only me at the house. So who or what was it moving items in Miss Amanda’s room?”

Potter began to hum the theme tune to the movie
Ghostbusters
, eyes vacant-looking again. I kicked him under the table. He glanced up at me.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just thinking out loud, I guess.”

“And that is everything,” Ms. Locke said, looking at Potter for some kind of response.

“Okay,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen. You go back home to Bastille Hall. You only have a week left there before your boss kicks you out, so while you’re getting your shit together, I’ll make some enquires…”

“What kind of enquires, Mr. Potter?” Locke pressed him.

“I’ll contact some of these posh schools in Switzerland and see if they have a student named Amanda…” he started.

“Don’t you think I’ve already tried that?” she cut in. “Sir Edmund was very vague on the name of the school that Miss Amanda is now studying at. I therefore searched the Internet for every private school in Switzerland that I could find. I then set about writing to the head teacher at each of them,” she said, and I glanced again at the bulbous lump of flesh at the top of her right index finger. So it had been letters Ms. Locke had been writing. “Most wrote back saying that to divulge such information would breach the data protection act and others simply said they had no records of such a student by that name.”

Potter stood up, ready to leave. “You just let me work my charms on them.” He winked at her, but I could tell she didn’t look convinced by his so-called charms. “I have my own ways of getting the information I want from people.”

“So how much do I owe?” she asked.

“Let’s just see what I find out,” Potter said. “I’ll be in contact with you in the next couple of days.”

“But if anything else happens out of the ordinary, please call us,” I said, suspecting that Ms. Locke would witness more strange occurrences at Bastille Hall before her departure in a week’s time.

“Here, take one of these,” Potter said, fishing a business card from his wallet. I could see that it had the words
The Creeping Men
printed across the front, followed by the office address and phone number.

“I already have your contact details,” Locke said, glancing down at the card but not taking it.

“Just in case,” Potter said, shoving it into her hand. “Besides, I have three hundred of these things gathering dust in the office and I’m desperate to get rid of some of them.”

She took the card, slipping it into her coat pocket.

“Where’s your car parked?” Potter asked, taking her by the arm and guiding her toward the exit.

“I cycled here – it’s not very far,” she said.

He pulled open the door and stepped out into the night. Outside, Ms. Locked unchained her bike and climbed on. Before cycling away, she looked at me and said, “It was very nice to meet you, Miss Hudson.” Then shooting Potter a quick glance, she added, “Good evening, Mr. Potter.”

Then she was gone, cycling out of the small car park and into the night, back toward Bastille Hall.