Third Eye - DS Lasser Series 25 (2021)

by Robin Roughley

  Now, the building had been derelict for over thirty years, buddleia bushes grew from the brickwork, all the windows had been smashed, and he had climbed through one, camera in hand.

  Inside the building, he had caught the faint scent of oil-soaked timber, the flooring made up of huge planks of oak that still looked indestructible. Thick iron struts ran from the ground level up through five floors, each supporting the level above. He had stood there in the shadows, imagining the machinery as it banged and clattered, the people dashing about, making sure the machines were always working, small children crawling beneath to move the debris that came from the raw cotton to avoid it getting clogged as the thread was spun.

  His furtive imagination had filled in the gaps, men in cloth caps and clogs walking away from the factory at the end of another day of toil, hand-rolled cigarettes hanging from their narrow mouths as they headed home through the fog of industry to their tiny two up two down hovels.

  He had spent a couple of hours walking through the building taking pictures of the vast space, exploring the smaller side rooms no doubt used by the gaffers, the ones responsible for making sure the mill owners' profits were maximised at any cost. Times had been hard, harder than they were today, his face soured as he thought of the modern generation who did nothing but moan about how their job was rubbish. Complaining about tea breaks or smoke breaks or the fact that they only had four paid weeks off a year, it made him angry, it made him furious, these people would not have lasted a day if they'd had to work in the old mills.

  Climbing the stairs, he had made it to the top floor and pushed open a rusted metal door that had led directly to the vast roof, the lead still intact, the whole space encased by a five-foot brick wall. He had breathed in deeply and looked out over the town, watching the cars move along the one-way system, the people below small and insignificant.

  Tapping at the pad he studied the images he had taken of the town far below, and then he came to one that showed a corner of the roof where the wall ran at a forty-five-degree angle, the leaded floor puddled with dirty water, a couple of empty crisp wrappers floating on the surface.

  This was the exact spot where the woman had died in nineteen seventy-three, her name had been Norma Rowbottom, aged eighteen, she had been strangled and then her eyes had been gouged out, leaving twin trails of blood trickling down her cheeks.

  He knew all about it, though the experts had been in disagreement with one another, there were those who claimed that her killer had taken the eyes, though others had suggested that carrion had removed the soft gelatinous orbs, but he knew the truth, he knew exactly what had happened to Norma Rowbottom.

  It had been like the murder of Ethel Brab three years earlier, another crime that had been forgotten about. Time was wonderful in that regard, in the end it wiped out the memories and turned fact into folklore, when the tales were told they were embellished, the truth warped out of shape, things were added and things were left out, then forgotten completely.

  Manipulating the cursor again, another image popped onto the screen, this one showed a stream that ran into a tunnel of red brick, he had made his way down to the riverbank to snap off some images, the tunnel ran for almost seventy feet, the space dark and dank apart from the semicircle of light that shone at the far end. After taking a few pictures he had stepped down into the water that had rose close to the top of his Wellington boots before making his way into the tunnel, the water had been running fast as it was funnelled between the bricks, picking up speed until he had felt the weight of the water almost pushing him along.

  Once or twice damp cobwebs had brushed across his face, the bricks overhead dripped water from the saturated ground above, ground made up of old slag that had been taken from the mines and built into an embankment. In the past, railway lines had run directly above to transport the coal from the mines to the foundries and mills to be used for power or loaded onto the canal network to be shipped to Liverpool and Manchester for consumption. In nineteen seventy-seven Susan Hope had been found in the dark tunnel, she had gone missing after walking home from her boyfriend's house, the whole town had turned out to look for her and she had been discovered in the murky water, leeches stuck to her pale face, long hair writhing in the water.

  She had been beaten to death and dumped into the river, though the police had been unable to ascertain where she had actually entered the water. But the man knew well enough, he was under no illusion, there was no need to guess or ponder, he knew the truth, knew it all.

  With a sigh, he closed the laptop lid and then checked his watch, the temptation to try and set the scene rose inside but he knew that patience was key, to rush now could prove problematic or even dangerous, it was all about taking your time to make sure that everything was in place for when he re-enacted the murders from the past.

  Moving back to the window, he looked down at the brick building seen through the trails of water that ran down the windowpane.

  'Soon,' he whispered to himself as the thrill inside continued to grow.

  38

  Morgan and Elle clung to one another, both crying as their embrace tightened, they were in Morgan's bedroom, the small bedside lamp spilling warm, pink-infused light around the room.

  'God, Morg, I'm so sorry about your dad,' Elle said as she eased away from her friend.

  Tears rolled down Morgan's cheeks and she lifted a hand to swipe them away. 'I'm so scared, he was in so much pain and he looks terrible.'

  Elle gave her another hug and then they sat side by side on the bed, Morgan's head bowed.

  'But he's in the best place, right?' Elle asked.

  'Oh God, I hope so,' Morgan started to cry again, her shoulders shaking.

  Elle licked her lips, unsure what to say, it had been months since she had spent any time with Morgan, ever since she had started going out with…

  'What about Scott?' Morgan suddenly asked as she sniffed loudly.

  Elle chewed her bottom lip before replying. 'I saw it on Facebook and then it came on the radio, and I thought it was you who'd been taken, and I freaked out, I didn't know what to do and then someone on Facebook said that it was Clara Bell that had been snatched.'

  Morgan Pence felt the shiver run through her body, if she had gone to the party with Scott then chances are, she would have been the one who had been taken, the thought made her swallow the fear, as Elle gripped her hand tight.

  'I can't believe he's dead, I mean, who would want to hurt Scott?' Morgan asked as she turned to her friend.

  'I have no idea,' Elle replied, her eyes saucer-like with uncertainty.

  The two girls looked closely at one another, and then they were hugging again as the rain continued to batter the bedroom window.

  39

  Bannister rubbed his stomach and sighed in satisfaction. 'It's no wonder Lasser's put on so much weight if you've been feeding him food like that.'

  Lasser took a drink from the can of dandelion and burdock, refusing to rise to the bait as the DCI flicked him a sly glance.

  'Glad you enjoyed it.' Jackie replied with a smile.

  'Loved it,' he stated before cracking a yawn and sinking back into the sofa.

  Standing up, Lasser grabbed his waterproof jacket from the peg on the wall and slipped it on.

  'Where are you going?' Bannister asked through half-closed lids.

  'Letting the dog out before I lock up.'

  'Are you sure you don't mind me kipping here again?' the DCI asked, looking at Jackie.

  'We're positive, you can stay as long as you like, you know that.'

  'I know but I'll be heading home tomorrow,' he paused as Lasser whistled and the whippet came dashing along the boat to stand by his side.

  'There's no rush,' Jackie replied.

  'The thing is, I had a word with Kelly about the boat thing and she thinks it's a great idea, so if you want to contact your friend and ask if it's OK, then I'm more than willing to give it a go.'

  'Just don't sink it,' Lasser said as he s
tarted to walk to the back of the boat, the dog at his heels.

  'Sink it, bloody sink it!' Bannister shouted after him.

  'I'll give her a ring now, I know she'll be relieved to know there's someone reliable to watch the boat for her,' Jackie said as she reached out and grabbed her phone from the table.

  Climbing the three steps, Lasser opened the door, the sound of Jackie on the phone fading as he stepped out into the wind and rain, closing the door before moving onto the towpath and turning left. Snatching the hood of his jacket up, he slipped his hands into his pocket and pulled out a mint before popping it into his mouth.

  Poppet went flying into the darkness, head tilted in delight as she stretched her legs. Reaching the bridge, Lasser thought about sheltering from the wind and rain and then changed his mind and carried on walking, ignoring the puddles, his booted feet picked up the pace as he thought back over the day's events. His mind sifted through the information they had, which didn't really amount to much, Julie Rawlins had died in Dove Cottage at the hands of a madman, an exact copycat killing of the murder of Ethel Brab fifty years earlier.

  As he walked, he could hear the rain battering the hood of his jacket, feel the wet wind blowing into his face. Scott Clark was dead, Clara Bell had been taken, though at the moment they had no link between the two cases, and yet as he walked, he felt the strange sense of certainty grow inside.

  In the past, he had learned not to ignore his gut instincts and so he thought things through again. How had the killer known exactly how Ethel Brab had died? Even Roger and Shaun had struggled to find the details, and as far as Lasser was concerned they were the best they had at digging out the facts.

  Which meant whoever they were looking for was smart, had somehow come across the information and then killed Julie Rawlins in the exact same way that Ethel Brab had died. Dipping a hand back into his pocket he stopped to light a cigarette as the dog came hurtling back towards him and then she was trotting along by his side.

  The sense of acute unease started to bloom inside, the killer had gone to a lot of trouble to match the murder of Julie Rawlins with that of Ethel Brab's murder fifty years earlier, and if they had done it once then what was to stop them doing it again?

  He thought of Clara Bell, and the concern he had for her increased, had the same person responsible for the murder of Rawlins snatched Bell from the side of the road after killing her boyfriend?

  Smoke billowed from beneath the hood, forcing him to squint as he saw a couple of ghostly swans go floating by in the darkness.

  Suddenly, he came to a stop, a deep frown forming on his brow, as he thought back to some of the cases he had been involved in, and on the whole most murders had been spur of the moment acts of extreme violence, the killer would flip, and someone would needlessly die. He thought of Cathy Harper, colleague, one-time lover and friend, killed by a man named Robert Flynn, a maniac whose rage had led him to go on a killing spree until he was stopped on the railway line that dissected Borsdane Woods by a high-speed intercity train. Cathy had died a senseless death, there had been no motive, no reasoning, she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid the ultimate price.

  As always, whenever he thought of her death, the sadness was there waiting, and he felt the swell of emotion rise inside, and then the guilt came pouring down in a torrent and he took a ragged pull on the cigarette. He should have been there for her, should have stopped Flynn in his tracks before he got to her, instead she had been left gasping out her last breath alone in the rain-soaked flowerbed.

  With a heavy sigh, he set off walking again and slowly turned his fragile mind back to the murder of Julie Rawlins.

  According to Arthur Brab, his mother had been in her sixties when she had been killed, and yet Julie Rawlins had been in her early twenties, the age difference had been vast and then he thought of Clara Bell, fifteen years of age with her whole life in front of her. The red ember brightened as he took another hurried pull on the cigarette, his feet splashing through puddles of muddy water.

  'Has to be a copycat,' he mumbled as he strode along.

  Then he stopped again and wiped the rain from his face that blew in under the hood.

  Ethel Brab's killer had never been found; his mind sparked as the fog was burned away, leaving the solitary word shining bright in his mind.

  'Unsolved,' he whispered into the darkness.

  Then he lifted the phone from his pocket and got Roger's name onto the screen before tapping it.

  Roger answered on the fourth ring.

  'All right, Rog, sorry for bothering you so late but I was wondering if you could help me out.'

  'Who is it?'

  Lasser blinked in surprise when he heard Odette's distant voice in the background.

  'It's Sergeant Lasser,' Roger answered in a hushed voice.

  Lasser heard Odette say something but her voice had dropped until he couldn't quite catch the words.

  'Sorry about that, boss,' Roger replied, this time his voice had a nervous edge to it.

  'No problem, now I was wondering if you could look into something for me tomorrow?'

  'Yeah, yeah of course, what did you have in mind?'

  'Local unsolved murders.'

  'Oh right,' Roger replied sounding surprised by the request. 'Any reason for that?'

  'Call it a hunch,' Lasser paused, 'look, the truth is we know that whoever killed Julie Rawlins was copying the death of Ethel Brab fifty years earlier.'

  'Agreed.'

  'And if you're planning a copycat then you cannot rush something like that, it takes time to plan,' Lasser said.

  'Well yeah, considering I couldn't find much information, then it's obvious that whoever killed Rawlins must have done a hell of a lot of research to get the details in the first place.'

  'And I can't see the killer stopping there, it's almost as if he loves the research as much as the actual murder.'

  'I guess so,' Roger replied with less certainty.

  'I want you to see how many unsolved murders have taken place since they found Ethel Brab.'

  'You want to go that far back?' Roger asked in surprise.

  'Well, as far as we can tell that's how far back the killer has gone, I want you to look at crimes where the victim was a female, we can always broaden the search if we need to, but I can't shake the feeling that Clara Bell was taken to use as another potential victim, another copycat killing.'

  'Jesus, Lasser, is that what you think we're dealing with?' Odette's voice came through loud and clear.

  Beneath the hood, Lasser mouth curled into a brief smile.

  'I could be way off the mark, but we know this animal copied Ethel Brab's murder and, like Rog said, it would have taken a hell of a lot of research to get the details right. That could be what he's doing, using unsolved murders to ram home his point.'

  'What point?'

  'Think about it, Odette, it would be his way of showing how smart he is, how he can plan and execute the perfect murder, after all Brab's killer was never found, they never even had any suspects, and if the killer can do the same then it will boost his ego. I mean, back then there were no computers, no real technology. Half the coppers were still pedalling around towns on their pushbikes, so imagine how pleased he would feel with himself if he committed a carbon copy of a murder and pulled it off in this day and age when we have all the technology we could ever want, it would make him feel superior to the original killer, a new and improved version if you like.'

  The silence on the phone seemed to stretch out, and then Odette cleared her throat.

  'You're saying he could have his next killing almost ready to go, aren't you, and he will be copying another old unsolved case?' she asked.

  The whippet jumped up and scrabbled her paws against the front of his jacket, and Lasser reached down to tickle her chin. 'What do you think, am I being an idiot?' he asked.

  'You're never an idiot, but if you're right then his plan could already be well advanced.'

  'Be
cause he snatched Clara Bell?' Lasser asked.

  'Yeah, but how are we meant to stop him, and prove that he took Bell as his next victim?' Roger asked.

  Lasser had a sudden image of Odette and Roger with their heads close together as they spoke on the phone and the thought made him smile, but then it vanished as he thought of Clara snatched from the roadside.

  'Like I said, we need to look at past cases, start after they found Ethel Brab and work forward.'

  'But over that length of time there could be dozens of unsolved cases,' Odette said.

  Taking a last pull on the cigarette, Lasser flicked the stump into the wet grass before setting off walking again. 'Like I said, we concentrate on female victims and they all have to be unsolved, that could narrow the search down more than we realise.'

  'We'll start the search right now,' Odette suddenly said.

  Poppet dashed past again as Lasser's stride grew longer. 'Me and Bannister will do the same at this end.'

  'Bannister?' Odette asked, her voice held a note of confusion.

  'Yeah, he's stopping on the boat for the night.'

  'Is he OK?'

  'He's fine, Jackie had cooked a gammon joint and let's face it, I don't think he's been eating much apart from pizzas and Pot Noodle, so he jumped at the chance to have a proper meal.'

  'We've just had a takeaway curry,' Roger suddenly piped up.

  A sudden sense of sadness flashed through Lasser's mind as he recalled all the takeaways he and Odette had shared over the years, and yet he held the sigh at bay. The truth was he was happy for her that at last, she had found someone to be content with, though the brief sense of sadness couldn't be denied.