Third Eye - DS Lasser Series 25 (2021)

by Robin Roughley

  'But why?'

  Morgan ignored the question. All that mattered was the party, all that mattered was being with Scott.

  'Fool.'

  Her feet splashed through a shallow puddle, water seeping into her dolly shoes, an image of Clara Bell rose to the forefront of her mind, her makeup thick, her skirts short. She had big breasts, no, she had massive breasts that defied gravity and swayed from side to side as she walked. A few weeks ago, Morgan had been in town doing some shopping and she had spotted Bell coming out of McDonald's and had gawped at her in amazement. At school, Clara Bell always looked older than the other kids, but this time she had looked about nineteen or twenty. Despite the weather her golden midriff had been on show, the jeans had been tight, and her hair had fallen to her shoulders in a mass of golden waves, her makeup had been done to perfection, glossy red lips and false lashes adding to the illusion of perfection.

  Morgan had watched with spiteful eyes as Clara sashayed away with her friends, men and boys turning to watch her walk by.

  Morgan could remember seeing the lust in the eyes of men who looked old enough to be Clara Bell's father, and she had felt the disgust rise inside.

  Walking through the rain she pictured Scott taking Clara to the party, and suddenly felt inadequate, she felt like a kid trying to compete with a woman, a beautiful woman, and she felt her shoulders slump. Even if she did manage to get to the party, she knew she was no Clara Bell. Morgan thought back to the conversation with Scott at lunch time, the way he had thrust his tongue into her mouth, the blast of nicotine making her feel sick, and then he had looked at her with a dark gleam in his eyes telling her that he couldn't wait to get his hands on her.

  Beneath the umbrella, she shivered at the implication and yet the urge to be with Scott swamped her burgeoning fears.

  The battle continued to rage inside, though deep-down Morgan knew she would go to the party, no matter the consequences, in the end, being Scott Clark's girlfriend was all that mattered.

  17

  Bannister opened his jacket and lifted his arm as he dipped his head inside to light the cigarette, then he took a pull and set off walking again. The rain was driving hard into his face forcing him to narrow his eyes against the onslaught. Every time his mind started to relive the moment when he had got up and walked out of the station, he felt his shame deepen.

  The truth was he had no real idea why he had left the building like Elvis throwing a hissy fit, he only knew that he'd had to get out of there. His mind had been full of Suzanne and the girls, and he had suddenly felt like a fraud, sitting there pretending to be focused on the dead woman who had been found at Dove Cottage.

  Before the loss of his wife, he would have been on the case one hundred percent, focused on hunting out the clues needed to chase the murdering bastard down, and yet now it felt almost unimportant and he grimaced in disgust. How could it be unimportant, how could murder be trivial, and yet as far as he was concerned it was exactly that?

  He was aware of the traffic moving to his left as he blew the smoke out on a sigh, the cigarette cupped in his hand in an effort to keep it lit.

  Ever since Lasser had picked him up that morning, he had felt the tension inside grow, even as he learned about the woman found at the derelict cottage, he had only been half listening, and that simply wasn't good enough. Throughout his career he had always been focused, and in doing so he had ignored the important things – his family and his home life. The people he loved had all suffered because he was obsessed with one case after another.

  It felt ironic that now he was alone he couldn't focus on the job anymore. He thought back a few weeks to the horrific case of Milly Sharples and Josie Grant. Milly had been eight months old when she had been snatched from the back of the car as her mother put the shopping in the boot.

  For a while they had thought that Milly had been snatched by the same animal who had taken another infant – Josie Grant – whose remains had been found on a landfill site in Warrington. Although he had been mourning Suzanne's death, he had found himself wrapped up in the case to such an extent that he had been there at the end when they had caught up with Aaron Crisp, child killer and monster.

  As he trudged along, his shoulders became more stooped under the weight of memories bearing down on him with crushing force.

  Taking another desperate pull on the cigarette, the smoke trailed over his shoulder, and then he heard a horn beep at his side, the sound of tyres splashing through standing water, and he stopped and turned.

  Jackie looked at him through the side window of the car, her face obscured by the rain, then the door opened, and she stepped out.

  Bannister walked towards her and came to a stop. 'Lasser rang you?' he asked.

  'He did and I've got a casserole in the slow cooker and you are coming back to the boat for a proper meal.'

  'Dumplings?'

  'Yes, Alan, dumplings and uncut homemade bread to mop up.'

  Dropping the cigarette to the ground, he slipped his hands into his pockets before tilting his head to the darkening sky. 'I warn you now, I'm not much company at the moment.'

  Stepping forward, she kissed his wet cheek. 'Come on let's get out of this rain.'

  Half a minute later he was in the passenger seat, the whippet leaning between the front seats to sniff him. 'All right, Poppet,' he said as Jackie pulled the car away from the kerb, the wipers on full to shift the driving rain.

  'I'm drenched,' he said with a grimace.

  'Don't worry, Lasser's got a spare tracksuit.'

  'Bet it's a shell suit?' he quipped dragging the rain from his face with the palm of his hand.

  Jackie laughed at the quip, and even Bannister managed a ravaged smile as they headed along the rainswept road.

  18

  The lane that led to the cottage was rutted and filled with water, and a couple of times Lasser had to slow down to ease through the troughs, the wheels spinning in the mud before fighting their way free. Flicking on the main beam, he slid a cigarette from the pack and sparked up, his face granite-like as he made small adjustments to the wheel.

  When his phone beeped, he dug it from his pocket and checked the text from Jackie saying she had found Bannister and they were on their way to the boat. He sighed in relief, when Bannister had left the station, he had decided to leave him alone, let him try and sort through the problems, but then the rain had come down even heavier and he had decided to ask Jackie if she could find him.

  Sliding a gap in the window, he thought about his boss and the suffering he was going through. He had no doubt that if Kelly and Belle had been younger then Bannister would have packed the job in completely to make sure they were OK.

  Though they were no longer kids they were young women, their whole lives ahead of them, which left Bannister in a detached five-bedroom house alone and vulnerable, wandering from room to room like some fading ghost trapped for eternity within the four walls.

  The headlights speared out into the gloom as Steve Black came unbidden into his mind and his features soured.

  For as long as he had known Black, he had been a waste of space in every way, but it was worse than that, he was a sly bastard as well, always moaning and whingeing about the way he was treated, as far as Lasser was concerned, he should have been kicked out on his arse years ago. He suddenly thought of the reporter Brewster, and in his mind the two faces blurred into one, Brewster and Black were cut from the same cloth, both only ever interested in themselves, both had an inbuilt hatred for anyone who seemingly had more than they did.

  Black had put himself forward for promotion twice and both times he had been knocked back. You could see the resentment on his fat face, the bitterness adding premature lines to his features, and Brewster was just the same. He still sported the ridiculous poodle hair, though now it hung lank around his pinched features like a grey mophead, his eyes swam with spite, and the older they both became the more they realised that they would never achieve their aims in life, and that made the
m even more dangerous than they already were.

  When the house came into view, he flicked the wheel to the left and then right as he steered around an old truck tyre half submerged in the water.

  Twenty seconds later, he pulled up in front of the house and grabbed the Maglite from the glovebox before climbing out and heading to the boot to retrieve his waterproof jacket.

  Slipping it on, he flicked the cigarette into the long grass before turning on the light and heading towards the gap where the front door used to be. When he heard the wracking cough, he flicked the light to his left and brought the torch to bear on the man who stood in the shadow of the house.

  The figure raised a hand against the glare, and turned his head away, Lasser could see a thatch of grey hair sprouting out from beneath a flat cap.

  'Bugger off with your spotlight,' the man complained.

  Aiming the beam to the ground, Lasser strode forward until he was six feet from the shadowed figure.

  'Who are you and what are you doing here?' Lasser asked.

  When the man lifted his head, Lasser felt the surprise register on his face, he looked ancient, his face a mass of deep wrinkles gouged into the leather-like skin, he wore a pair of old national health glasses, black frame, the rain-speckled lenses making the man's rheumy eyes appear huge.

  'I owns the bloody place, cottage and land, so I should be the one asking you what you're doing here,' the man said, tilting his grizzled chin slightly as if in defiance.

  'You own the house?'

  'Aye I do, and I heard on the radio earlier that some poor woman had been found dead inside.'

  'Are you a Brab?' Lasser asked.

  The old man looked at him in surprise before nodding. 'Arthur Brab and like I said, I own this place.'

  Lasser shone the torch towards the house, the beam illuminating the grimness of the derelict property. 'And what are you doing here lurking in the darkness.'

  'Lurking, bloody lurking, you can't lurk on your own property!'

  'In my book you can, now what are you doing here?' Lasser asked again.

  Arthur Brab glared at Lasser for a moment and then his shoulders sagged. 'When I heard about the murder it just brought all the old memories back.'

  Lasser could see the long ago remembered pain in Brab's eyes as he pulled out a hankie from his pocket and wiped his nose.

  'Do you want to sit in the car, get out of this rain?'

  Brab coughed, sounding like an old engine rumbling to life. 'Aye, that would be good, I set off over two hours ago, and I forgets that I'm an owd fart now, it took me a bloody age to get here.'

  'Come on let's get you in the warmth,' Lasser said as he turned and headed back through the wet grass before holding the passenger door of the Audi open.

  'Thanks, lad,' Brab said as he carefully eased into the car, his face set in a wince.

  Closing the door, Lasser headed around the car, once inside he started the engine and flicked the heater up to full before turning on the map reading light.

  'I need a smoke,' Brab said as he pulled out the brown leather tobacco pouch.

  Lasser watched as his gnarled fingers rolled the cigarette with surprising dexterity.

  Lighting it with a battered Zippo, Brab relaxed back as Lasser slid the passenger window down about three inches.

  'Are you OK?' he asked.

  Brab gave a shrug. 'I'm ancient and knackered, but apart from that I'm not too bad.'

  Lasser smiled at the quip before lighting a cigarette of his own.

  'Not often you get folks smoking these days, they all have them steam things.'

  'You mean E cigarettes?' Lasser asked.

  'Don't know what they are but they stink to high heaven, I mean, who wants something that reeks of strawberry or vanilla when you can have some good old quality shag?' Brab looked at Lasser through his rain-speckled glasses.

  Lasser hid another smile behind a raised hand, it was something old Ronnie Fotheringay would have said and, for a brief moment, he felt a sense of sadness over the passing of Ronnie.

  'I take it you're a copper?' Brab asked.

  'For my sins,' Lasser answered.

  Brab blew the smoke out on a sigh of pleasure as he looked through the side window at the house. 'Poor woman,' he whispered.

  'You said it took you almost two hours to get here, so did you come on foot?'

  Turning back to Lasser, the old man nodded. 'Aye, they took my licence off me a couple of years ago, said I weren't safe no more, but that was all bollocks.'

  'You still live in the area?'

  Brab tapped cigarette ash into the palm of his cupped left hand. 'I have a bungalow in Hindley.'

  'That's a fair walk.'

  'Well, I bussed it some of the way and walked the rest,' Brab paused, his face suddenly serious, 'have you any idea where the woman was found?'

  Lasser looked closely at the old man and then he nodded. 'Upstairs in the back bedroom.'

  Brab took his glasses off before pulling the handkerchief from his coat pocket to swipe at his eyes. 'That's where they found my mother,' he said, wiping the specks of rain from the glasses.

  'I know.'

  'You do?' Brab asked in surprise.

  'We've been looking into the history of the house and naturally we found out about what had happened here.'

  For a few seconds, Brab's face seemed to crumple, making him look like a freeze-dried walnut, and then he took another pull on the cigarette, his narrow cheeks hollowed. 'If they'd caught the bastard who killed my mother then perhaps, I could have got over it, but they never did. I've lived the past fifty years knowing that there's someone out there guilty of killing her, getting on with their lives,' he paused, 'though chances are the bastard died years ago, but it still bloody hurts, you know?'

  Turning the heater down slightly, Lasser watched the old man reliving the painful memories. 'Truth is, Arthur, the facts are a bit sketchy about what actually happened to your mother.'

  'Not surprising considering it's half a century since it happened,' Brab said with a heartfelt sigh.

  'You were in Cumbria at the time? Lasser asked.

  Brab studied the glowing end of his cigarette for a moment. 'Aye, I know you can't see it now, but this used to be a proper farm, I'd gone up north to the cattle auction. It's not like it is now, back then it was three days of a job to get up there and back. Whoever killed my mother did it on the second day, and she was found while I was on my way back.'

  'Who found her?' Lasser asked.

  Arthur sniffed loudly. 'My old ma had a friend who used to call for a natter every day, I mean, she was up at five every morning, in fact we both were, my mother worked bloody hard, but she always stopped at eleven when Bertha came calling. They'd sit in the kitchen, have a brew and put the world to rights.'

  'So, this Bertha called as normal and got no answer?' Lasser asked.

  The rain increased, battering on the roof of the car as Brab shifted in the seat.

  'That's right, my mother was never not in the kitchen when Bertha called, so when she got there and found the kitchen empty, she naturally went looking for her, and that's when she found her in the bedroom.'

  'Then what happened?' Lasser asked.

  'We didn't have a phone back then, so it took Bertha twenty minutes to get back to her house, I mean, she was a big woman.'

  'Most Bertha's are,' Lasser commented.

  Brab nodded sagely. 'It took almost four hours before the coppers arrived.'

  'And you knew nothing of this?'

  'Bugger all, I was still coming down from Cumbria, you have to remember that back then the M6 wasn't like it is now, in some parts you had to stick to the A-roads, so it took forever.'

  'So, you got back and…'

  'The coppers were here when I pulled up and stopped – just about where we are now,' he shook his head at the memory. 'At first, they wouldn't say what was happening, they just kept asking me loads of questions about where I'd been. I mean, thank God I'd taken Bill O
ats with me, otherwise I think they would have tried to pin it on me.'

  Suddenly, Lasser pictured an officer like Steve Black conducting the interview, pushing hard and ignoring anything that Arthur Brab said, one eye on the clock, watching the minutes tick down until the end of his shift.

  'In the end, they checked my alibi,' Brab snorted in disgust as he shook his head again. 'For a couple of days, they wouldn't let me in the house, and I slept in the barn out back. Then they all buggered off and I went into the place and stood in the bedroom, and I don't mind admitting I cried like a baby.'

  'That must have been hard,' Lasser admitted.

  Arthur looked at him, steam slowly rising from his wet overcoat. 'They never let me see her, one of the coppers told me it was too bloody horrific, he said her head was all bashed in. I might not have seen her but that image in my head still haunts me, imagining what she went through, how much she must have pleaded, suffered, what her last thoughts were before finally… '

  Lasser kept quiet as Brab took a final pull on the cigarette before dropping it through the window.

  'Can you remember if they questioned anyone else?'

  Arthur shook his head. 'To be honest I have no idea, back then you were kept out of the loop, they told you bugger all. I used to go into town to the cop shop to have a word with the detective in charge, but I only saw him twice, and it was like he couldn't be bothered to see me.'

  'I'm sorry about that,' Lasser said.

  Arthur looked at him in surprise. 'What you sorry for, you weren't even born?'

  'I know, but it sounds as if they treated you like shit.'

  Old Arthur Brab shrugged his narrow shoulders. 'It was just different back then, nowadays no one respects a copper, I've seen the yobbos shouting and screaming at the police, but back when I was young, you would never have dreamed of doing something like that, it would have been unthinkable.'

  Lasser nodded in understanding. 'I get that, but there should be a balance, if a member of the public needs help then the police have to be there for them. Your mother was murdered, and they told you sod all about it.'