Tethered to the Dead: DS Lasser series volume three (The DS Lasser series. Book 3)

by Rob Roughley

  ‘Did she say why she left?’

  ‘You don’t know our Jodie; she’s not one for talking. I tried to get her to see sense, and she nearly bit my head off.’

  ‘So, you were disappointed?’

  Pauline Moss snatched out another cigarette. ‘Disappointed? I was livid, but she didn’t seem to care, it’s as if jobs like that are ten a penny to her.’

  Bannister ran a hand across his eyes, ‘This guy who picked her up.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Did you manage to get a look at him?’

  ‘Actually, I did, the car had these tinted windows, but you see as she climbed in, I realised she’d left her purse in the hall so I ran out to give it to her,’ she struck another match and drew hard on the cigarette.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, let’s just say I’d have given him one,’ she leered at Bannister, a glint in her eyes.

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘Late thirties maybe, he had fair hair and the car...’

  ‘Was it a black Range Rover?’

  ‘Well, it was definitely black, but I’m not good with the actual models. But I do know his first name...’

  ‘Jonathan?’

  He watched her eyes grow wide through the cloud of smoke. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Just call it a lucky guess.’

  ‘Look, what’s going on here?’ she shifted her bulk again, flicking her ash into an empty curry tray.

  Bannister ignored the question; he could feel the pieces locking into place, Suzanne’s words drifted into his mind, ‘the last little tart had only just left school.’

  Dipping a hand into his coat, he pulled out a small folder that Jansen had been kind enough to hand over, an image of Haigh Hall stencilled on the front, opening it he slid out a photograph. ‘Is this your daughter?’

  Pauline leant forward grunting with the effort she plucked it from his fingers and studied it for a moment. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said and reached onto the table to pick up her glasses. Bannister looked at her in disbelief. Sliding the glasses on, she lifted the image close to her face and then smiled. ‘That’s our Jodie.’

  ‘You don’t sound too sure?’ he asked his voice heavy with sarcasm.

  ‘No, that’s definitely her. My Zoe would never wear that much slap...’

  Bannister shot to his feet; it was as if someone had put a rocket up his arse and lit the blue touch paper. ‘What!’

  Pauline looked at him in surprise, for a copper he was a highly-strung sod.

  95

  Steve Reynolds slipped into a pair of Armani jeans, snapping the belt tight, before shrugging into a T-shirt.

  Rachael stretched beneath the duvet, smiling as he looked towards her.

  ‘You’re awake then?’ he asked.

  She slithered up the bed, plumping a pillow before falling back, her auburn hair spread out on the linen like spilled red wine, ‘Mm.’

  ‘Don’t forget to lock up when you leave.’

  She frowned. ‘Why, where are you going?’

  Reynolds slipped his bare feet into a pair of trainers. ‘To see your stepfather before he decides to do something stupid.’

  ‘You mean like slash his wrists or jump in the canal.’

  Reynolds gave her a sidelong glance. ‘It isn’t funny Rachael; I told you I would decide when it was time to end this...’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s been like living with that prick,’ she pouted.

  Reynolds walked over to the bed and slid down beside her. ‘I know, sweetheart, and you’ve been magnificent, but you shouldn’t have smashed that cup in his face.’

  She folded her arms, her breasts crushed together. ‘I wanted to kill him.’

  ‘Well, you never know your luck, it might come to that one day and if it does than I promise you he’s all yours,’ he kissed the tip of her nose. ‘But not yet, not before I’ve had the chance to spell out his limited options.’

  Rachael slid the duvet down her body. ‘Do you have to go now; can’t it wait till morning?’

  Reynolds leant forward and curled his tongue around her nipple. Rachael groaned and arched her back, suddenly he leapt to his feet and grabbed his car keys from the bedside cabinet. She looked up at him, her eyes shining with disappointment.

  ‘Please stay,’ one hand strayed between her legs.

  ‘Well, if you’d done exactly as I said then I wouldn’t have to go, now would I?’

  ‘Please....’ she squirmed on the bed, her fingers probing, her mouth open, her lip-gloss shining in the artificial light like a porn star striking a pose.

  Reynolds smiled and raised an eyebrow. ‘Save it Rachael, this is me remember,’ he turned and headed towards the door, she watched him leave without looking back. Climbing from the bed, she stormed across the room to stand at the window. Her body felt cool, her flawless skin rising in Goosebumps, her nipples erect. She watched as he climbed into the Jaguar and for a fraction of a second he glanced up at the window, Rachael saw him shake his head and smile, then the car pulled out onto the road and vanished from sight.

  96

  Lasser pulled the car into the lay-by and switched off the engine.

  ‘Well you certainly managed to get up her nose.’ Medea sighed and slid the window down. The sun had vanished, the heat of the day bleeding back into the night sky, releasing the heady scent of moist earth. ‘Don’t you get embarrassed asking questions like that?’

  He looked at her with a deadpan expression.

  ‘Forget I asked,’ she shook her head and slid a hand through her hair. ‘So what happens now?’

  Lasser checked his phone, still no reply from Bannister.

  ‘I need to find Reynolds.’

  ‘But she said she didn’t know where he was.’

  Lasser pulled out a cigarette. ‘She also lied through her back teeth...’

  ‘You don’t know that for sure.’

  ‘Believe me I know, when a forty-odd-year-old bloke is messing with a twenty-one-year-old it sets my alarm bells ringing.’

  ‘Some say that age doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yeah, well in my experience it’s always the older bloke who comes out with that little nugget of shit.’

  Medea turned in her seat. ‘Let me get this right, you’re saying that if you were in your mid-forties and some stunning twenty-year-old took a shine to you, then you wouldn’t secretly be thrilled?’

  ‘Yes, but she wasn’t twenty when he started to fu...’ he stopped, ‘when they started the relationship.’

  Medea blushed. ‘She said she was eighteen.’

  ‘At first she said nineteen and I don’t believe a word of it...’

  ‘It sounds as if you don’t like this Steve Reynolds and yet you’ve never even met the man. And when you came out with that comment about Kelly Ramsey, I mean, where the hell did that come from?’

  ‘Look if she’s alive, then she’s staying away for a reason...’

  ‘But you don’t know if it has anything to do with Reynolds, kids argue all the time with their parents. It’s more rational to think that she had problems at home rather than with a neighbour.’

  Lasser grunted, she was right, but still something plucked at his mind.

  ‘And don’t forget, she said it was Kelly who made a pass at her, and if that’s true then maybe Kelly isn’t interested in men at all.’

  He thought back to Sophie Washham’s apartment, the sex toys in the bedside cupboard and Rachael Sinclair with her man-eater eyes. These had been Kelly’s friends, the girls she spent time with, Suzanne had stated that Sophie treated Kelly like a sister, but how much did we ever know about those closest to us?

  The clock on the dashboard showed twenty past nine, another day almost over and they were still floundering in the dark. Lasser felt the familiar sense of inadequacy seep through his bones. ‘I should get you back to your car,’ he started the engine and grabbed the gear lever. When he felt Medea’s hand close over his he snapped his head around, he
r face was a pale smudge in the gloom, her hair blacker than pitch.

  ‘We don’t have to go yet, do we?’

  Lasser suddenly felt hot, his mouth dry, he tried to moisten his lips with a tongue that felt like sandpaper.

  ‘I...’

  ‘I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s been your average first date, but...’

  ‘Date?’

  Her face emerged from the shadows. Her lips tasted of strawberries, he had a sudden vision of Cathy standing outside Fat Olives with a hurt expression on her face, and then the vision segmented and dissolved into nothingness. Sliding a hand into her hair, he gasped when he felt her fingertips brush across his growing erection. Her tongue slipped between his lips, reaching out, he cupped her breast, feeling her nipple rise between his fingers... The sound of his phone bleating filled the car and he pulled himself away with a gasp.

  ‘Jesus.’

  Medea eased back into the shadows. ‘You should get that, it might be important,’ her voice sounded husky, he could hear her breathing rapidly in the dark.

  ‘But...’

  He felt her fingers glide across his lips. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.’

  Lasser reached for the phone.

  97

  Bannister slammed into fourth as the car bulleted forward, the engine screaming, the mechanised drone of the ringing phone filled the car. He could see the flashing blue lights diminishing in the mirror; hear the faint wail of sirens as they gave chase. The car rocketed down the one-way system, soaring over the Seven Stars Bridge, past the Wigan Pier – that didn’t actually exist – then he threw the car to the left heading onto the Miry Lane industrial estate.

  ‘Is that you, boss?’ Lasser’s voice crackled out of the handset.

  ‘Who the fuck do you think it is,’ Bannister stamped on the brake, and the car slithered alarmingly to the right, a plume of smoke poured from the tortured rubber. Then he was zipping down the darkened side street, the small industrial units flashing by on either side, all the time keeping one eye on the mirror.

  ‘Jodie Moss.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shut up and listen,’ Bannister snapped. ‘She works in the gift shop at Haigh Hall; she also spent six months working for Ramsey, she was one of the girls that Suzanne spoke of.’ He saw the gates of the small unit standing open and flew through the gap.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’

  Bannister didn’t bother with a reply, he twisted the wheel and drove between a stack of pallets, snapping off the headlights, he killed the engine and then climbed from the car.

  ‘Boss, are you still there?’

  ‘Listen to me, Lasser, I’m fucked...’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Lasser sounded nervous as if he already had an idea that the shit had hit the fan.

  ‘I went to see Sinclair and things got out of hand,’ Bannister ran a hand across his forehead and flicked away the droplets of sweat.

  ‘Oh Christ, what have you done?’

  When Bannister saw the blue lights, patterning the buildings he flattened himself against the pallets, watching as the squad car stormed past the open gates.

  ‘Jodie Moss is the sister of Zoe Metcalf...’

  ‘What..?’

  ‘And someone has been blackmailing Sinclair, Rachael knows all about it. In fact, according to her bastard stepfather Rachael has been part of it for years...’

  ‘Hang on, slow down; you’re not making any sense...’

  Bannister gritted his teeth. ‘Listen to me, Sergeant, I think someone has been using these girls to blackmail Sinclair, Ramsey, and now that prick Jansen.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Never mind any of that, you need to find out who he is...’ Bannister saw a flicker of blue lighting up the street, growing with every passing second. When the car pulled up at the gates, he screwed his eyes closed and hissed into the phone. ‘Just fucking sort it, Lasser, I’ve got to go.’ Snapping the phone closed, he walked out as the car turned into the yard. Headlights pinned him to the spot, like a Second World War escapee caught in the searchlights, somehow knowing that the game is up.

  98

  Suzanne Ramsey grabbed the sleeve of Zoe’s denim jacket, her eyes frantic. ‘If you know where she is then you must to tell me.’ Ever since she’d taken the phone call her world had been a combination of conflicting emotions, changing second by second from complete joy to soul shredding tension. Zoe had agreed to meet her at ten o’clock, but made her promise to come alone, Suzanne had spent the next few hours watching the clock like a death row victim praying for a last minute reprieve.

  Now they were sitting in the Range Rover on the car park of the all-1night Tesco, though as far as Suzanne was concerned, it might as well have been the surface of the moon. Zoe sat scrunched up in the passenger seat, leaning against the door as if contemplating escape.

  ‘You have to promise me you won’t have a go at her?’ Zoe said, her eyes wide in the gloom.

  ‘I just want my daughter back, nothing else matters to me Zoe.’

  Zoe looked at her with uncertainty. ‘She made me swear I wouldn’t get in touch with anyone and if she finds out...’

  ‘I understand that Zoe, but this is serious...’

  The girl looked at her in disbelief. ‘You think I don’t know that, you think I’ve enjoyed all this?’ she spread her arms in the confined space. ‘I mean, I tried to get her to contact you so you knew she was all right, but she wouldn’t do it and the more I pushed the angrier ...’

  Suzanne let her hand slip away and gripped the steering wheel. ‘Has she said why?’

  Zoe turned away unable to meet her gaze, watching as a mother pushed a heaving trolley to the back of her car and began to load the shopping inside. Her young daughter sat in the trolley, her small legs dangling as she munched on a Curly Wurly. ‘She’s scared.’

  ‘But scared about what, is it something to do with drugs?’

  ‘Kelly doesn’t touch that shit,’ Zoe snapped.

  ‘I know, I know, it’s just that the police had this crazy idea, they said Rachael Sinclair had been caught at the prom trying to give Kelly some kind of...’

  ‘I was there, remember...’

  ‘So, it isn’t true?’

  ‘Oh, it’s true all right but Kelly, would never have taken them.’

  Suzanne chewed the inside of her cheek, she wanted to grab the girl and shake her, slap her, do anything to get her to tell her where her daughter was hiding.

  ‘Is that the reason she stayed away, because if it is then we can sort it?’

  Zoe shook her head. ‘No it isn’t that.’

  ‘Then what is it?’ she paused and swallowed, ‘I mean, does she even know her father’s dead?’

  Zoe’s face suddenly closed down. ‘She knows.’

  Suzanne looked at the haze of headlights as people came and went. ‘And how did she react?’ she eventually asked.

  ‘Look, Mrs Ramsey, I’ve tried to get her to talk but it’s as if she can’t bring herself to do it.’

  For some reason Suzanne found herself smiling. ‘You haven’t answered my question, Zoe.’

  Zoe slumped back in the seat and closed her eyes. ‘On the night of the prom I believed Rachael when she said Kelly had got a lift back home. When the police called at my house, I had no idea where she was. I mean, it drove me mad thinking that something bad might have happened to her...’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean.’

  ‘She rang me late on Sunday night, I couldn’t believe it, I was just so relieved, you know?’

  Suzanne nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes.

  Zoe’s voice dropped until it was little more than a whisper. ‘Then she started talking, she said Sophie had told her something about her father.’

  Suzanne closed her eyes; it was like waiting to be hit by a train, balancing on the steel rails, the metal thrumming beneath your feet, the steady rumble of oncoming disaster.

  ‘What did Sophie say ab
out Kelly’s father?’

  ‘I’m not exactly sure, Kelly, was like really crying, hysterical you know?’

  Suzanne didn’t trust herself to speak she merely nodded and sniffed.

  ‘I just wanted to get her to calm down but she started saying that her dad was....’ Zoe’s mind suddenly stuttered, the hated word on her lips.

  ‘Go on, Zoe, it’s all right.’

  ‘She said he’d been with a girl who was the same age as she was. I didn’t know what to say, what to do. I tried telling her it was rubbish but she started screaming and I didn’t want her to just hang up and disappear.’ Zoe started to cry and Suzanne reached out and took hold of her hand.

  ‘You did the right thing, Zoe,’ she thought of Jonathan with his sickly charm. The way he would look at Kelly’s friends as they bathed in the hot tub, hiding behind his mirrored sunglasses. It was all so obvious, so horribly predictable; she felt shame like a slab of granite settle over her heart, she’d known all along and done nothing, said nothing. She tried to drag her mind back to the present but her brain seemed reluctant to let the guilt go.

  ‘She said that Sophie had been sharing a flat in town with some girl and she’d been the one that her father had been seeing.’

  Suzanne squeezed her hand encouraging her to continue. ‘How did Sophie find out?’

  ‘Apparently the girl told her, she said that it was his idea to get them to share the apartment, according to Sophie this girl worked for Mr Ramsey.’

  Typical Jonathan; another little game played dangerously close to home, though that would have been part of the thrill, part of the challenge. It all made a kind of repulsive sense, a man approaching middle age still trying to prove something, trying desperately to defeat time by having sex with girls who were young enough to be his daughter.

  ‘So, Sophie told Kelly?’

  Zoe nodded. ‘I don’t even know if this girl knew that Kelly even existed, but as soon as Sophie found out...’

  ‘I understand.’ Suzanne felt a new-born hatred for her dead husband spring to life. All this was his fault, all the anguish and mind shredding terror and all because he couldn’t stand to think that he was getting older. ‘Where is she, Zoe?’