The Needle House

by Robin Leslie Roughley

  'I think forensics are here, sir.'

  Apparently, the button they had found at the house came off a Barbour jacket, according to Carl it was, ''an expensive piece of kit''.

  Closing the coat, Lasser counted the buttons, lining them up with their corresponding holes, the bottom one was missing.

  'Sir, forensics.'

  Lasser turned, he could see two white-suited figures moving beneath the trees, like a couple of stark, white aliens looking for someone to abduct.

  'Right, you said Radfield was in the study?'

  'That's right, sir.'

  'I'll go and have a word but don't let anyone remove this body without my say-so, is that understood?'

  She snapped to attention. 'Yes, sir.'

  He clattered his way back to the entrance, images of dead kids and buttons floating around his brain.

  39

  Jenna paced back and forth like a death row inmate hoping for a last-minute reprieve. An image popped into her mind, her mum and dad lying in bed with their backs to one another, the slab of an argument separating them. Her father waiting for the morning to come then he could get on the tractor and kill himself some reporters, and her mother dreading the first sign of light at the bedroom window.

  It was all so unfair.

  She sat in front of the computer her fingers hovering over the keys, the small sensible part of her mind told her to wait. Patrick wasn't some personal crusader working on behalf of the Fotheringays but perhaps he could help, perhaps he knew how to handle the media.

  She began to type; it wasn't as if she was expecting him to come dashing straight over. Though of course that would be great. She read the email twice, replacing any words and phrases that made her sound desperate or needy, then she sent it on its way and stood up to peek through the curtain.

  It was dark outside, but she could still see a couple of vans parked on the lane, tiny interior lights sparkling in the night. Letting the curtain swing shut she pulled an exercise book from her bedside cabinet and tried to do some revision. Two minutes later, she closed the book, learning about the reproductive lifecycle of the Sea Horse seemed somehow unimportant when your liberty was at stake.

  Crossing the room, she went onto the landing and made her way downstairs. As she entered the kitchen, she half-expected to see her grandad sat at the table smoking a cigarette but the room was in darkness. Shimmying around the table, she pulled open the fridge door, the small interior light pooled around her feet like a miniature spotlight. Jenna grabbed a carton of orange juice, pushing the door closed with her hip.

  This had become something of a ritual, when she needed to think, or a piece of revision had refused to sink in she would come down to the kitchen and either stand at the sink looking out of the darkened window or sit at the table to sort through the problem. She knew her mum worried about her not having enough friends but then again, her mother had never met the idiots who went to college. She filled a glass and took a sip, it was all so unbelievable, she thought back to the time when she'd gone up to the old house but had been unable to go in. Had she had some sort of premonition, had she picked up some weird vibes that had stopped her from entering the house? She shivered, watching her own reflexion in the darkened glass, her eyes wide and alien to her. Jenna turned away from the image, annoyed at the fear she had seen in the reflexion. Crossing the kitchen, she made her way back to her room, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Sitting in front of the computer, she took small sips of the drink, all the time her fevered brain itching to check her mail to see if Patrick had responded.

  Get a grip, it was half-twelve at night, he'd probably be in bed. The fact that she now thought of him as Patrick was unbelievable, it was as if she had stopped being just a teenager and morphed into a woman overnight. Well, almost, the fact that her mum and dad still treated her as if she was a little kid sort of blighted the fantasy. Maybe Patrick was at his computer going over the research that she'd provided. She felt a rush of pride, he hadn't picked holes in it, in fact, he'd told her how good it was and how much he appreciated the effort she had put in.

  Then a thought floated into her head, like a discarded Coke bottle washed up onto some pristine beach, maybe sending him the email had been a mistake. Here she was trying to convey the image of someone who was young but in control, someone he could rely upon not to become carried away with fanciful notions, a balanced individual. With a groan, she went to the sent box and reread it. Oh, she had done away with all the really cloying 'Please help me' shit. Yet the text still read like some seventeen-year-old bimbo had written it, as if she was being held captive by some shady character who was threatening to sell her into the sex trade if he didn't come to her rescue, like this instant.

  She slammed the lid down, bastard emails. Why did they never read the way you wrote them? Snatching back the curtains, she glared out into the night, her eyes shining with frustrated tears, then she flopped back onto her bed gazing up at the sliver of a moon. Cringing inside as she imagined him opening the email and wondering what she was wittering on about. Thinking he could have a bunny boiler on his hands, he would probably send her a polite message, saying he had decided not to run with the idea and he was going to some far-off Scottish island for the foreseeable future.

  She pulled the duvet over her head in mortification, it was always the same, in the end she always screwed things up.

  40

  Lasser couldn't remember the last time he'd woken with a sense of purpose. Instead of disappearing under the covers cursing his shitty job and his own stupidity, he headed straight for the shower with a spring in his step. Twenty minutes later, he was sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee and munching on a piece of toast smothered in Marmite.

  Six forty-five, too early to ring forensics, the lazy sods only seemed to start work after they'd munched down a couple of Danish Pastries and drank a gallon of Café Latte. Drumming his fingers on the table top, he yawned. It had been half past one when he finally got home to a house that was stifling, he'd moved from one room to another opening windows before heading into the back garden to escape the heat.

  Cracking open a can of something cheap and nasty he'd gone over the details of his conversation with the grieving son.

  Radfield junior had turned out to be a cool customer, a million miles away from the Kyle Connelly's of this world. Though Lasser was convinced they shared one thing in common, both of them were liars, the trouble was proving it.

  He'd found Radfield sitting at the kitchen table, a tumbler of whisky clasped in his hand.

  'Ashley Radfield?'

  'And you are?'

  'Detective Sergeant Lasser.'

  'Please, take a seat.' Radfield had gestured to one of the empty chairs.

  'PC Harper informs me that you were the one who found your father?'

  'That's correct.'

  'I'm sorry for your loss; it must have been quite a shock finding him like that?'

  'You could say that.'

  'Can you tell me, when did you last see your father?'

  Radfield had pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and finger as if trying to stop a nosebleed. 'That would have been about two o'clock yesterday afternoon.'

  'And how did he seem to you?'

  'In what context are we talking, Sergeant?'

  Here we go Lasser thought, another man who can't answer a simple question; it wouldn't surprise him if this man turned out to be a barrister. 'Well, did he seem preoccupied or different in any way?'

  Radfield had leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. 'It was difficult to tell with my father. You see I've only recently moved down from Scotland and to be truthful we didn't really keep in touch.'

  'So, your move down here is permanent?'

  'It is now.' Radfield replied, his face impassive, his eyes had closed down like shutters over a jeweller's shop.

  'So, would you say your relationship with your father was a difficult one?'

  '
I would say it was almost non-existent rather than difficult.'

  Under the sink, a pipe grumbled as if taking exception to the answer. 'So, why did you move from Scotland, if you were estranged from your father surely it would have been better to remain up there?'

  Radfield had cocked his head slightly to one side, looking hard at Lasser.

  'I fail to see the relevance of that question, where I choose to live is nobody's business but my own.'

  'Under normal circumstances that would be perfectly true but in situations like this we have to try and understand why someone would decide to end their life in such a fashion.'

  Radfield had lit a cigarette, the smoke trailing from his nostrils.

  'I would have thought that ''fashion'' had very little to do with it, my father was always a practical man, to him it would have been the method most guaranteed to achieve his aims.'

  'You told PC Harper that you noticed a light coming from the greenhouse?'

  'That's correct, it was an old paraffin heater.'

  'Lit by your father?'

  'I presume so.'

  'You saw it from the kitchen window and went to investigate?'

  Radfield didn't bother with a reply he merely nodded, looking bored as if he couldn't wait to get back to his game of billiards or hunt down a fox.

  'And have you been out of the house today, Mr Radfield?'

  'I was in Manchester until about eleven-thirty, when I arrived home there was no sign of my father.'

  'I see.' Lasser paused, looking around the gloomy room. Christ if this was living the life of an aristocrat then you could keep it. 'The car parked around the back, does it belong to you?'

  'No, it's my father's.'

  'So, I take it the car hasn't been moved today?'

  'I couldn't be certain about that, you see I fell asleep around five o'clock, so my father could have returned, and I wouldn't have necessarily known about it.'

  How convenient. 'Never mind we can always check up on that later, if we need to,' he added darkly.

  'So, what happens now?'

  'Well, we try and ascertain why someone like your father, someone with power and influence would want to remove the top of their head with a twelve-bore shotgun.'

  Radfield had narrowed his eyes. 'I sincerely hope you're not suggesting anything untowards about my father's death?'

  'Absolutely not, I'm just doing my job.'

  Radfield regarded Lasser, as if he were some kind recidivist masquerading as a police officer, a hundred years ago, he would have probably had him horsewhipped and thrown off the property.

  'Right, Sergeant, I'm sure you can appreciate this is a very stressful time for me and I have people who need to be informed of this tragedy. So, unless you have any further questions?'

  Lasser had stood up. 'Not at the moment.'

  He had left the mausoleum-like kitchen, smoking a cigarette by the side of the dark-blue Jaguar before making his way back to the greenhouse. By the time he arrived, they were in the process of loading the body into the back of a transit with blacked-out windows.

  'Harper, where the bloody hell are you?'

  'I'm in here, sir.'

  He heard the sound of a plant pot breaking as she clattered her way out of the greenhouse.

  'I thought I told you that the body wasn't to be removed without my say-so?'

  She pushed a stray strand of hair back under her cap, her face flustered.

  'I know, sir, I'm sorry but forensics were told to remove the body as soon as possible.'

  He heard the sound of the late Lord Malcolm Radfield sliding into the back of the van on a metal gurney. 'Who told them that?'

  'According to them it was Chief Inspector Simms, sir.'

  The van started to pull away.

  'Here, what the hell do you think…?'

  His voice was drowned out by the sound of the wheels spinning in the gravel as the van shot off along the drive.

  'For fuck's sake, why didn't you come and get me?'

  She backed up as Lasser loomed over her. 'I'm sorry; they just picked the body up and headed for the door. I tried to tell them that they couldn't without your permission, but they said they didn't need it.'

  Simms sends him on a wild goose chase looking for clues in woodland at night and then admits he did it just to take the piss. Then the old sod drags him over here telling him to be ''professional'', all that ''leave no stone unturned'' bollocks and then he has the body pulled out from under his nose.

  Yes well, two could play that game.

  He flicked the cigarette stump into the garden and decided he had waited long enough.

  It was only half-past seven, but the sun was already slamming down with a ferocity that had him sweating before he climbed into the car. Turning on the radio he caught the last couple of minutes of the local news.

  'And finally, the police have revealed that they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the death of Lord Malcolm Radfield. The seventy-eight-year-old peer, who died from gunshot wounds, was found by his son late last night…' He snapped the radio off, it was always the same, he had only been asleep for a few hours, and yet the media had managed to get their hooks in. That was probably the reason Simms had told forensics to get their skates on and move the body. By the time the reporters got a whiff of the story the body would be tucked up in the morgue, thereby saving Ashley Radfield from having unsavoury types with telephoto lenses climbing up his ivy-covered walls to get a look at the body. As if the death of someone with a title should somehow be handled differently. Lasser could almost feel the enamel on his teeth cracking with rage. It wouldn't surprise him if Simms had told the grieving son to keep Lasser talking while they sneaked away with the body, like Burke and Hare.

  A conversation unfolded in his head like a scene from a bad cop movie, Simms on the phone talking to Radfield.

  'Now look, your grace, you just sit tight, I'm sending over one of my men. He isn't the sharpest knife in the box, so just keep him busy for a few minutes and we'll see to the rest.'

  Lasser pulled out his cigarettes, the anger beginning to build.

  41

  Simms looked across the desk at Hopkins, the Sergeant was sitting ramrod stiff as if he had an invisible plank of wood shoved down the back of his light-blue shirt.

  'Right, what do we know so far?'

  Hopkins produced a note pad, inwardly, Simms sighed; Hopkins was the perfect model of a modern-day police officer. He was efficient and could be relied upon to follow directions to the letter. The only drawback was that he didn't have any real flair for the job; any instincts he possessed were buried beneath layers of officiousness.

  Simms watched as he flicked through the pages, as if they had all the time in the world.

  'What about Connelly and his cronies, do you think they had anything to do with the killing?' he asked.

  'Well, sir, we've established that they were all there the night Jones died.'

  'I realise that but were they responsible, is there any evidence that any of these boys actually went into the house?'

  Hopkins studied his notebook for a few seconds. 'No hard evidence, sir.'

  'And all the clothing these boys owned has been checked by forensics?'

  'Yes, sir, and they've all come back negative, though of course they could have destroyed the evidence.'

  'Hardly likely though is it, three petty criminals, a bit of drug dealing, the odd court appearance for affray. I can't really see them disembowelling a fourteen-year-old boy, can you?'

  Hopkins pursed his lips. 'Difficult to say, sir, if they were high on a banned substance then it's always a possibility.'

  Simms looked out of the window, wishing he were on the golf course. 'Let's look at that, shall we? Say, for instance, Connelly did the killing, he comes staggering out of the house in the pitch black covered head to toe in blood. Now, let's say they've been partaking of a ''banned substance'' and they're all off their tiny little heads. Can you really see them pulling to
gether, showing some team spirit? One of them loading the entrails of this poor boy into a sack and throwing it into the septic tank while the others dispose of the body so well that we can't seem to find it. Then they all make their way home and agree to keep quiet about what they've done. Honour amongst thieves, is that what you are suggesting, Sergeant?' Simms could feel his patience begin to unravel.

  Hopkins might not have been in touch with his intuition, but he could still tell when his boss was getting ready to explode. 'I'll admit it does seem a little unlikely, sir…'

  'What about Kitts?'

  'We're still searching the area, sir.'

  'Right well, I won't keep you any longer, but I want you to widen the search area, Jones's body has to be somewhere, and I want it found before some reporter stumbles across it, is that understood?'

  'Yes, sir.' Hopkins rose to his feet, sliding the notebook into his pocket he headed for the door. Simms watched him go, thinking he was glad that retirement was only a couple of years away. He imagined the police force of the future, manned by an army of people like Hopkins, all with PhDs and not an instinct between them. The mere thought of it made him shudder.

  42

  Lasser wasn't surprised when Fossey told him that Michael had left sometime during the night.

  'I thought he might do a runner,' he said.

  'So, what do you think he'll do?' Fossey was on his way to see Jenna, considering it was a Friday morning the traffic was moving well.

  'I'll get some of the mountain bike plods to keep an eye out for him, besides even if he goes looking for trouble he won't find any. We're keeping his 'friends' in custody for a while yet.'

  'So, you're working on the assumption that either one or all of them are guilty?'

  'No comment.'

  'Come on, Lasser.'

  'If you want my opinion, as much as I dislike the scrotes, I don't think they lost the plot and killed the kid.'

  'So, you're still looking?'