The Ghoul of Christmas Past
Blue Moon Investigations
Book 16
Steve Higgs
Text Copyright © 2020 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.
‘The Ghoul of Christmas Past’ 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
To my parents, the inspiration for Tempest’s nutso Mother and Father.
Table of Contents
The Ghoul. Saturday, December 24th 0615hrs
Breakfast. Saturday, December 24th 0900hrs
Captive. Saturday, December 24th 0942hrs
The Library. Saturday, December 24th 1119hrs
The Dickens Museum. Saturday, December 24th 1202hrs
Preparing. Saturday, December 24th 1250hrs
Mystery Men Bookshop. Saturday, December 24th 1331hrs
Chief Inspector Quinn. Saturday, December 24th 1407hrs
Creeping Suspicions. Saturday, December 24th 1422hrs
The House of Richard Glaagard. Saturday, December 24th 1454hrs
A New Plan. Saturday, December 24th 1502hrs
Trouble with Mary. Saturday, December 24th 1525hrs
Shareholders. Saturday, December 24th 1605hrs
More Guests to the Party. Saturday, December 24th 1647hrs
Open Air Theatre. Saturday, December 24th 1722hrs
Look Out He’s Got an Axe! Saturday, December 24th 1737hrs
Waste of an Evening. Saturday, December 24th 2157hrs
Sneaking in the Dark. Saturday, December 24th 2218hrs
Murder. Saturday, December 24th 2220hrs
Theme Park. Saturday, December 24th 2223hrs
Panic. Saturday, December 24th 2238hrs
Mystery Guest. Saturday, December 24th 2246hrs
Blind. Saturday, December 24th 2253hrs
Presentation. Saturday, December 24th 2258hrs
Battle. Saturday, December 24th 2259hrs
The Big Reveal. Saturday, December 24th 2303hrs
Final Battle. Saturday, December 24th 2309hrs
Aftermath. Saturday, December 24th 2323hrs
Author’s Note
More Books by Steve Higgs
Free Books and More
The Ghoul. Saturday, December 24th 0615hrs
The sense that he was being watched crept over him as he left his house in the predawn gloom. Jason Pendergrass was one of those lucky people who was born into money. He’d never worked, not really. His great-grandfather made the family fortune with an engineering firm he started. In the beginning, it made buttons, of all things, but at the advent of the Second World War, he secured funding to convert the factory to produce bullets and later components for armoured vehicles.
Selling over-priced parts that could not be obtained elsewhere proved to be highly lucrative, most especially when Jason’s own father spotted the trend toward computerised components and plugged a whole pile of money into R&D. Now they led the market in thermal imagery and targeting equipment and he couldn’t spend all he had coming in even if he tried.
His father forced him to learn the business and take a job on the board, but ironically, it bored him. Less than a week after his father’s untimely death, Jason stepped down and focussed on doing things that were fun instead.
He was up early this morning to pursue one of his favourite hedonistic activities: snowboarding. He was taking three girls to Tignes in France where he planned to bed all of them. One at a time, or all together, he really didn’t mind. That they were each at least twenty years younger than he didn’t bother him either. They were old enough to know how the game was played, so he was paying for the trip and they would foot the bill in a different manner.
He couldn’t help smiling to himself as he pictured it.
That was until the little hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up. He was still living in his parents’ three-million-pound Georgian house in Higham. Sure, one could argue that he still lived with his mother at forty-seven, but she wouldn’t last much longer so soon the house would be his and he could avoid paying inheritance tax because it was his house too.
The Range Rover was part loaded, but the rest of his gear was still in the house, necessitating several more trips back and forth. He cursed himself for being too lazy to pack yesterday. Had he done so, the handyman or the gardener could have been employed to help him load the car. At this time of the day, there was no one else around.
He paused at the rear of the car, squinting into the darkness. Was there someone there? A chill breeze ruffled his hair, what little of it he had left, and he bit his lip in indecision. He opened his mouth to call out, ‘Is there someone there?’ but realised how clichéd that would sound and so stopped himself.
With a harrumph, he went back to the house, berating himself for being scared of shadows like a child.
Fifty feet away, a shadow detached itself from the pocket of dark in the lee of a tall tree. The shadow was over seven feet tall and appeared taller yet because it wore a top hat, the very top of which was torn so it stuck up at a raked angle. The tall shadowy figure lumbered across the lawn heading for the car but approaching from the front and away from the lights projecting outward from the building.
Moments later the lights came on anyway, the motion sensor triggered by Jason as he struggled out with all the remaining bags, boots, and boards in one load. Something in the dark was creeping him out, so he was going
