'He argued with the gas board?'
'Oh no, he stayed out of their way, but when they'd finished Bernard got someone in to clear up the mess. The gas board had churned up the fields and they'd agreed to pay for someone to come and sort it out. So, Bernard did just that, but he also got the man to do the ditches as well and then he claimed the money back from the gas board.'
'So, he tried to pull a fast one?'
Dot looked at Lasser, the smile back in place as she nodded. 'He charged them an arm and a leg and laughed about it, but when the man with the digger wanted paying Bernard refused.'
'Do you know why?'
'Oh, he never paid what he owed, that's one of the reasons this place is falling down. He used to get people in to do jobs and then refuse to pay, word got around about how mean he was, so the tradesman stayed away.'
'And it was the same with the man with the digger?'
Dot sniffed and nodded. 'I liked him, he was a nice young man, but Bernard was out there arguing with him, I can hear them now. The man called Bernard a tight old cunt.'
Bannister cleared his throat as Dot carried on oblivious.
'In the end, my husband gave him something, but I know it wasn't the full amount. I do remember a couple of days after he left, all the tyres on the Land Rover were slashed and the lights had all been smashed.'
'And Bernard thought it was the same guy who had done the work?' Bannister enquired.
'To be honest, he never really talked to me about stuff like that, but I remember for a couple of weeks after he used the cane on me every night.'
Lasser felt Bannister tense as Dot continued to smile.
'Do you know the name of the man he used to do the ditches, Dot?' Lasser said in a quiet voice, heavy with emotion.
'Oh yes, it was Davy Rowntree.'
'You knew him?' Bannister asked in surprise.
'I knew his mother, we went to the same school, Mary was lovely, but I don't know if she's still alive, you see my husband wouldn't allow me to have friends.'
'Do you have any idea where they lived?'
'Over Coppul way, but I couldn't tell you where exactly.'
Bannister glanced at his watch, before giving Lasser the nod.
'I'm sorry, Dot, but we have to get going,' Lasser explained.
'Oh, I'll be fine, your lady friend called around with another lovely young woman and they filled my cupboards with food, they even put some fresh things in the fridge and bought me some flowers and the heater and now I even have my own wireless,' she beamed.
'Right, well, we'll call back soon to make sure you're OK.'
Dot merely smiled as they left the house.
Back in the car, Bannister shook his head. 'How the hell has she coped all these years without cracking up?'
'Not a clue.'
Starting the car, Bannister clipped the seat belt into place. 'We have to help this woman, Lasser, we need to make sure she's OK.'
'I know,' he replied as he fished out the cigarettes. 'So, what do you want to do about Rowntree?'
Taking the offered cigarette, the DCI clamped it between his teeth as he turned the car around.
'It's tenuous to say the least but it will still need checking.'
'You want me to do it now?'
Adjusting the mirror, Bannister shook his head. 'Not yet, we need to get back to the station and see if anyone has found anything more tangible that we can run with.'
Lasser looked at the house as it diminished in the wing mirror, feeling like some kind of bastard as he thought of Dot Marsh smiling away in the rat-infested shithole of a house. Left to rot, simply because her husband had insisted on ripping everyone off who had ever come to the farm to do work. Leaving her to live a life of abuse and loneliness within the dank walls of the run-down farmhouse.
82
Beth trekked along the pavement, her feet freezing as they sank deep in the snow. Both hands were thrust into the pockets of her pink jacket, the hood pulled up in an effort to keep the cutting wind at bay.
The anger she had felt at being questioned by her sister had faded but only slightly. The truth was, Kath had always looked down on her, all her life she had been forced to put up with it. Kath doing well at school, head girl, the one most likely to achieve, while Beth had struggled to follow in her footsteps.
On her sixteenth birthday, instead of a party and celebrations for her, they were for her sister instead as Kath married John. Once again, Beth was relegated to the background.
Every time she had reason to celebrate, Kath would come up with something to steal her thunder.
By the time Beth had graduated from university Kath had been giving birth to her first child, the family waiting to hear the outcome on tenterhooks, while Beth sat in her bedroom wondering what she had to do to get noticed.
She remembered getting married but even that had been a low-key affair, her parents had never really got on with her husband, never really, ''warmed to him''.
As she walked, Beth started to wonder if that was the problem, perhaps she had got married to spite her parents. She pictured her mother's sour face every time she came to visit the house in the woods, she would give a slight shake of her head as if she couldn't believe that her daughter was living in the outdated house. In the end, they had stopped coming altogether and it had been over three years since they had last set foot in the house with the thick stone walls and open inglenook fire.
Beth lifted her head, she could see the snow-covered fields left and right, in the distance the swell of the Pennines looked beautiful despite the freezing conditions.
She pictured her husband at home, probably sat there on Christmas Eve, wondering what the hell had happened to make her leave him and go to her sister's. Suddenly, a freezing blast of wind hit her full in the face and it felt as if her mind was being blasted clean, removing all the clutter and confusion, leaving a clarity behind that made her gasp, her hot breath drifting out in a cloud of shame.
When she was being grilled by her sister, she'd come up with some truly pathetic excuses for walking out and now she realised that she had no concrete reason to leave her husband. Kath had asked all the obvious questions, had he cheated on her, hurt her in anyway, was he a bad father to Sam? The bombardment had forced her from the house, her anger burning inside, eating away at her. But now, as she stood on the deserted road in the freezing snow, she realised that Kath had been right. She had a good life, no, she had a great life, a lovely home, a son she adored and a husband she had pushed away, simply because she thought she wanted more from life.
Her parents were partly to blame for the way she felt, her mother looking down her nose as she peered around the cottage, hands in her pockets as if she didn't want to touch anything for fear of what she might catch. Her father sighing heavily as he watched her husband toiling in the yard with a piece of ancient machinery, dressed in dirty jeans and a T-shirt, his arms full of grease and dirt as Sam watched his father with awe, the huge German shepherd sprawled in the dust.
'Well, Beth, I can't say I'm happy about you living like this, but if you want to settle for a life full of straw and chicken muck then I suppose there's nothing we can do about it,' he had said.
Beth remembered her face burning with shame, as if she had somehow let them both down. That was the last time they had visited and now she saw them once a month if she was lucky, and normally as soon as she arrived her father would vanish from the room, as if he couldn't bear to look at her.
Her mother would go through the motions, making the coffee and pretending she gave a damn about her youngest daughter. Inevitably, the talk would turn to Kath and how well she was doing, how she had gained even more promotion at work and how her children were excelling at school.
She never asked Beth how she was doing, how her job was, or if Sam was doing well at school.
Her pace quickened as the cutting wind blew again, laying her existence bare, all her life she had tried to please other people, mainly her parents, and all t
hey had done was ignore her and concentrate on Kath.
She thought of her sister and suddenly the realisation hit that Kath had been under pressure to live up to their parent's expectations. She thought back to when they shared a bedroom, Kath sobbing because she had only got ninety-five percent on a maths test. Their father had ranted, calling her a disappointment and asking how she could have failed them so badly?
Beth could remember sitting on the bed and reaching up to thread an arm around her sister's shoulder as she cried.
Her hands were now bunched in her pockets, the anger rising as she realised they had both spent their lives trying to please their parents. Parents who had played one off against the other, treating Beth with disdain whilst pressurising Kath into achieving and yet never being completely satisfied with her efforts.
Despite the treacherous conditions, Beth quickened her pace as the truth was at last revealed to her. She had a man who loved her, who worked hard and never gave her reason to complain and she had thrown it all back in his face simply because her parents didn't like him and made her feel as if she had married someone who would never match up to their high ideals. Beth felt the tears break free as she realised her mistake, she was in the process of throwing away a marriage that worked just because it would please her spiteful parents, and yet knowing that if the marriage crumbled they would not welcome her with open arms. Her father would still treat her like dirt, and her mother would simply continue to shake her head, her eyes full of disappointment.
She needed to sort this, to put things right again, even if it meant begging for forgiveness.
The thought that it could all be too late took her breath away, she stopped again and yanked the phone from her pocket. She noticed three missed calls from her sister before scrolling through the names.
Tapping at the screen with freezing fingers, she slid the phone beneath her hood as the phone rang, her anxiety building.
When it went through to voicemail she sighed. 'Davy it's me, I'm so sorry for the way I've been acting, if you get this message can you ring me, please?' she paused and licked her cold lips, 'I love you,' she finished before dropping the phone into her pocket, her head bowed in shame. The snow continued to drift down around her as she trudged through the barren landscape.
83
Spenner glared at Lanark as he cracked the back of his hand across Odette's bloodied face. The pain in the back of his hand had subsided slightly, though he still couldn't bring himself to look at the gash. His hands and feet were tied with blue nylon rope, gaffer tape stretched over his mouth.
'I want to know where Plymouth is hiding, I know he has a place in the Lakes and you're going to give me directions,' Lanark snarled as Odette glared up at him, her lips smeared red, her left eye almost swollen closed.
Then she swirled the spittle around in her mouth and spat up at him, the red flecked globule landed on his cheek and Spenner tried to cheer behind the tape.
Lanark wiped the spittle away, his eyes blazing with fury.
'If I knew where he was then I would tell you, because I know Plymouth would slaughter you and dump your remains where no one would ever find them. You think you have the ability to kill him, but you are laughable, a joke, a…'
'You're the fucking joke, I played you big time, played you and fucked you.'
Spenner saw the pain flash across Odette's face, her eyes suddenly full of disgust, disgust at herself and the way she had fallen for the bastard's bullshit.
Lanark smiled, sensing her pain. 'You might not know where he is but the pain of what I've done to you will never fade. You're meant to be smart, a detective,' he snorted a laugh. 'I know all about Plymouth, the way he works, and if I cut you deep enough then he will come for you, and I will take the cunt down and you can watch while I carve him up.'
Odette shook her head in a savage sideways motion. 'I might be a pathetic fool, but I know how this will end, you will die – and die badly – if you go looking for him, he…'
Lanark lashed out, this time his hand had closed into a fist and Odette's head snapped back, the blood spurting before she fell forwards, the ropes biting into her breasts as the darkness claimed her.
Behind the gaffer tape, Spenner roared, his own anger reaching fever pitch as Lanark stepped back, the smile still in place.
When he turned to Spenner and winked, Spenner screamed like a wild animal, the sound muted but his eyes blazed.
'Well, what am I going to do with you, you worthless piece of shit?'
Spenner continued to strain at the bonds that held him, desperate to get at the bastard who had hit Odette, though inwardly he knew the fury would subside and he would remain bound and gagged and at the mercy of the bastard who stood before him, the warped smile splitting his face.
84
Ashley was dreaming about his wife, it was summertime, they were at the house in the Lakes, sitting in the large rear garden with the perfect lawn and flowers blooming all around them, looking out at the magnificent view encompassing Windermere and the surrounding fells.
Carmen was sipping from a glass of cold white wine, a smile of pure joy on her face.
'Who would have thought we would have ended up owning a place like this,' she said.
Ashley was by her side, smiling, they both worked hard, yet they also knew how to make the most of life. The cottage at their back was testament to that fact, roses grew around the door, the thatched roof golden in the afternoon sunshine.
The dream shifted, and they were on their boat on Windermere, again the sun was out, dappled on the water, the surrounding hills smothered with mist as they glided through the still water. Carmen at the rudder, her head tilted slightly, the ever-present smile on her face as if she could somehow picture the rest of their lives together, lives full of work and play.
Early on in the relationship they had talked about what they wanted from life, and they had both admitted that children had never been part of their individual plans. It had been a whispered conversation, almost as if they had felt guilty about admitting the fact that they didn't want kids. After that they had concentrated on building the business, working long, hard hours to make a success of their lives. As the business grew, they started to enjoy the fruits of their labours, and in all that time the thought of having children had never been spoken of, they were content with one another and being able to do what they wanted, without having to consider how it would affect a child.
In the dream, the weather suddenly changed, the wind rose, the mist clinging to the hillsides was shredded and the water started to get choppy.
Carmen had still been smiling when the boat started to rock from side to side, Ashley could see her profile, her eyes closed as she enjoyed the wind in her face the sail now billowing under the onslaught.
Typical Cumbrian weather he thought as the wind increased, screaming across the lake, the boat now dipping and rolling, spray flying into his face, cold and wet.
Ashley held onto the rail, his stomach lurching as the boat rode a deep swell before crashing down, licking his lips, he tasted the dark tang of the water. Carmen turned to him and he screamed. The left side of her face was slick with blood, the rain washing it away to reveal the mess of flesh and white bone shining through the gore.
In the back of the van, Ashley's terror-filled eyes flew open and he tried to scream, but the tape over his mouth forced the sound back inside until he thought his heart would burst.
He managed to lift his head slightly, he could vaguely make out amber-coloured eyes in the darkness, eyes that froze the blood in his veins.
Ashley Dean started to cry as the last vestiges of the dream vanished and the horror of his reality swept in to take its place.
85
Beth stopped walking to unzip her jacket, heat flooded out as she pulled the ringing phone from her pocket.
When she saw her sister's name flashing on the screen, she paused for a moment before answering.
'Jesus, Beth, I've been trying to ring you for t
he past couple of hours and…'
'I'm sorry, I…'
'Where the hell are you?'
'On Feather Lane.'
'What are you doing all the way out there?'
'I'm on my way to see Davy, I've made a terrible mistake,' Beth replied in a pant, feeling the cold air against her tacky skin.
'What do you mean?'
'You were right, I'm being a bitch, I love him, I love my life and…'
'You mean you're walking to the house?' Kath asked in dismay.
'I tried ringing him, but he's not answering, and I need to see him.'
'Wait right there, I'll come and get you.'
'I'm not coming back, I need to make this right, Davy's a good man and…'
'Well, thank God, you've come to your senses at last, but I'm still coming to get you.' Kath said, her big sister voice brooking no argument.
'But…'
'Look, Beth, I think it's great that you want to make things right with Davy, but it's going dark, and unless you've forgotten, there's a maniac out there, and the police haven't caught them yet.'
Suddenly, Beth looked around her, the light was fading, woodland bordered both sides of the road, still and silent. She had been so locked in the past that she had paid scant attention to her surroundings, but now she paid attention, noticing how the shadows had started to lengthen.
'Where are you exactly?' Kath asked.
'I'm about halfway along the lane, the wooden bus shelter is about thirty feet away.'
'Right, go to the shelter and wait there, I'm setting off now.'
'But…'
'Please, Beth, it's not safe out there.'
Beth heard the hint of fear in her sister's voice and it ignited her own, making her snap a look over her shoulder, convinced she would find a hulking shape ploughing through the snow towards her, murder in his glowing red eyes.
'OK, I'll wait in the shelter,' she whispered, both her hands now gripping the phone tight.
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