Lasser pictured Tom Barry puffing on his pipe as he waxed lyrical about the past and Finder in particular, talking about the reunion a couple of years earlier and how Finder had sat there sipping wine while ignoring everyone.
Finder eased forward and placed his elbows on the desk, his eyes now keen as he studied Lasser's face. 'It's easy to believe someone when they are criticising authority isn't it, Sergeant?'
'I'm only interested in truth, authority has bugger all to do with it,' Lasser replied.
'Yet you came here with Tom Barry's words ringing around your head, you came here ready to criticise me as someone who had been a high-ranking officer and your natural instinct was to believe Barry over me.'
'Like I said, I'm only interested in the truth, and you sit there and claim you did everything you could to catch the killer of Ethel Brab and…'
'I've already explained, Bob Ross was in charge, I was a lowly PC and…'
'See, when you say something like that it makes me want to throw you through that window,' Lasser snarled. 'I mean, what gives you the right to think that being a PC is lowly?'
'It was just a figure of speech,' Finder replied easily as if he suddenly had the measure of the man sitting opposite.
'Not everyone wants to be a ''high-ranking officer''.'
'But Barry wanted it more than anything else and when he didn't manage it, he became a very bitter man, the truth was he was lazy, he expected to get on in the job without putting the effort in, he thought the world owed him a living and it does not work that way.'
Suddenly Lasser pictured Steve Black and the anger inside scrabbled at his guts as he superimposed Tom Barry's grizzled face onto Black's stooped shoulders.
'You've believed what Barry told you, but he was always good at playing people for fools. The truth is he never pulled his weight he could never be trusted to do his job, even someone like you must realise the importance of trust in the job that we do. So, before you come here accusing me of not doing my job then I suggest you think again.'
'Whichever way you paint it you were in charge when some of the murders took place, you never even got close to catching the killer, you…'
'Why do you keep using the word ''killer'' do you have proof that one person was responsible for the deaths?'
'We're looking at all options,' Lasser replied, though even to his own ears his words sounded hollow.
Finder smiled though there was no warmth in his eyes. 'You're clutching at straws, aren't you, Sergeant? You see links that don't exist, no doubt it was Barry who put the notion that the crimes were all linked into your head, and you never questioned that, did you?'
'What makes you say that?' Lasser asked.
'Because he was always a conspiracy theorist, always jumping to conclusions that didn't exist.'
'You used to discuss the cases then?'
Finder tilted his head slightly. 'Let me guess, he told you that I was unapproachable, he gave the impression that no senior officer would ever take advice from a PC?'
'And you're saying different?'
'We joined the force on the same day, we did out training in Preston, we shared a room while we were up there, then we came to serve in Wigan. We were both PCs for five years, often we were teamed together, and you think that in that time I acted like a senior officer, you think I ignored my partner, refused to listen to him?'
Lasser could feel the heat start to bloom in his face and suddenly he felt as if he was the one being grilled.
'I will admit that by the time I made DS my attitude had changed somewhat, but when I came back to this town, I realised that Tom Barry was not someone you could trust to get the job done so, yes, I sidelined him, I gave him jobs that were not vital, and he saw it as snobbery. He had already failed his DS exams and he hated the fact that I had made the grade, so before you cast aspersions, I suggest you take a step back and think before you start shouting the odds.'
Lasser could feel the walls of the office start to close in as he considered the possibility that Finder was right, Tom Barry had played him for a fool, and he had taken it, hook, line and sinker.
Behind closed lips, his teeth were clamped together in anger and shame at being played so easily. The truth was he found himself caught between two men who had started out as friends and then Finder had moved on and Barry had always resented that fact. He had told Lasser that he had been happy to be a bobby on the beat, and yet Finder was saying the opposite.
With a mammoth effort, he pushed the image of Barry from his mind and concentrated on the man in front of him. 'So, you don't think the murders were linked?'
'I have no idea which murders you are talking about so how can I answer that?'
Lasser drew air in through his nose, and then he was telling Finder about the unsolved killings starting with Brab and ending with Sharon Bliss, her body found on the lane leading to the stables.
When he had finished, Finder sighed heavily. 'You are talking about a series of murders spanning almost thirty years and as far as I can remember none of the MOs were the same, the ages of the victims were different so, no, I saw no links, though Barry was always convinced that one person had been responsible for the six unsolved murders. Just like you, he made tenuous links that would never have stood up in a court of law, so I suggest you go and see him again, you never know he might be able to add to your delusions, you can share theories, but I have heard enough of this nonsense, so I want you to leave right now.'
Lasser tried to find a thread to follow but he was reeling from Finder's words, his face now red with uncertainty as he rose to his feet and turned for the door.
'When I said that I intend reporting you for your behaviour then that still stands, Sergeant, people like you are dangerous and should not be tolerated.'
At the door, Lasser turned ready to fire out a barbed comment and then he stopped himself as a thought came lancing into his mind. 'Can you explain something for me?' he asked.
'Another conspiracy theory?' Finder replied with a look of disgust on his face.
'You were right when you said the murders had taken place over a long period of time, but we do know the killings stopped in the times when you were away from the area and…'
'And that accusation is the final nail in your coffin, I can assure you of that,' Finder snarled.
'You're saying it's a coincidence that when you were away from the area no one died and then when you returned within months another murder had taken place?'
'I have no idea what you are talking about, but I assume that is another seed planted by Tom Barry, another comment that you believed without hesitation.'
'Wrong,' Lasser said. 'And you can call who you like, but I'll be back, Finder, don't for one-minute think this is over,' he said before going through the door and stalking down the hallway.
When the door slammed, Finder's face twisted in a picture of hatred and then he slammed both hands onto the desk, the façade cracking as the fury came spilling out.
97
Robert Flack sat on the bed, crossing and uncrossing his legs, tapping his feet on the carpeted floor, the thought that he was having to wait to kill Morgan Pence was slowly driving him mad. The excitement was still there the way it had been when he had killed the nurse in the bedroom of Dove Cottage, the moment when he had hit her with the hammer had felt like an epiphany, the culmination of periodically dreaming of what it would be like to end someone's life and get away with it.
He had come to realise that when he had been younger and he had made those constant trips to the local library to take out the books on killers, he had secretly been fantasising about doing it himself. That's what it had all been about, in the same way that some people would read those tales about children who had led terrible lives and then written about it as adults. The truth was their stories would never have been told if it wasn't for the fact that the publishing houses slowly realised that the market for those kinds of books was huge. People read them simply to make themselves feel better
about their own miserable existence, they found it cathartic in the same way he had found reading about serial killers from the past cathartic.
Opening the laptop, he went straight to his inbox before going to the file marked ''mentor'' and the long list of emails popped onto the screen. Taking a deep breath, he started to open them, reading all the correspondence that had taken place between the two of them.
Even now, six months later, he couldn't believe how quickly things had escalated, and he still had no idea how his mentor had found him, how he had known about the secret urges, how that was even possible?
At first, the messages had been no more than a line, the first one simply read. ''You dream of killing, don't you?''
He could remember staring at the screen for what felt like an age, the fear thrumming through his mind, he had ignored the email and closed the laptop down as if it were somehow toxic.
The rest of the night had been spent pacing the room, and at one point he had even gone out in the car trying to figure what the message meant and who had sent it. Later on, returning home, he had run himself a bath and lay in the hot water, trying to turn his mind onto something else but the message couldn't be ignored, so he had towelled himself dry before heading into the bedroom and logging on. There had been a number of emails, most work related, and he had ignored them before opening the message and re-reading the short sentence.
'Who is this?' had been his simple reply.
He had sat up until gone midnight waiting for a reply, but none had arrived in the inbox. The following day he had gone to the office and sat there staring into space, then he had logged onto the desktop and almost gasped as he saw the reply.
This time the words had taken his breath away. 'Murder is a wonderful thing, especially when you have got away with it for as long as I have.'
That had been the start, and suddenly all the teenage emotions he had thought had vanished came flooding back, he realised that they had never really left him, they were still there, they flooded through his system leaving all his senses heightened in such a way that he felt euphoric with the thrill of it all. Images flashed through his mind, the solitary teenager sitting on his crumpled single bed, his father downstairs watching dross on the television. His mother had left when he was ten years old, she had met a man at work and it had all happened so fast, one minute she was there and the next she had moved away. As far as he was aware there had been no conversation between his parents about who was to have custody of their son. His mother had left, and he had never set eyes on her again. Over time he had become glad of the fact that she was no longer in the house, it made it easier to pursue his hobby, after all his father never came to his room, never showed an interest in how his son was filling his time. His mother would no doubt have stuck her nose around the door wanting to know why he was reading books about serial killers, but his father had never read a book in his life.
Occasionally, they would pass on the stairs and his old man would grunt at him before vanishing into his bedroom that stank of sweat and something else that had no name.
He could still recall the day he sneaked into the room when his father was at work, the disgust had been instant and even as a thirteen-year-old he had recognised the signs of a sick mind, after all hadn't he read enough books that offered pointers to how unhinged some people could be.
He had found the scattering of pornographic magazines under the bed and he had sat there flicking through them, men in rubber with women cowering at their feet, whips and chains and blood on every page. His erection had grown, his eyes narrowed as the images were superimposed onto his young brain and yet the pictures hadn't thrilled him in the same way that the books could. Somehow, he had known that the pictures he was looking at were all staged, all fake, the women sporting shocked looks on their painted faces. It was all an act, though the details in the books were all facts and his mind had no trouble making images from the words he read about Ted Bundy or the Yorkshire Ripper, and these images would make him ejaculate without even having to touch himself.
He had thought about his father, his face twisting in disgust as he looked at the crumpled tissues on the threadbare carpet, the stink of sweat coming from the bed, the stains on the sheet had made him head for the door, his hands closing into fists.
Blinking back to the here and now he cleared his throat in disgust pushing the image of his father from his mind as he continued to read the emails on the screen.
The conversations had become longer, and he had found himself sitting up half the night conversing with the killer, and the more he learned, the more details he received, the more the need to feel the same visceral sensations grew inside.
When the ping sounded, he frowned as he flicked back to the inbox and saw a new message had arrived, he opened it with hands that were clammy with sweat.
'The girl dies tonight, you know where to go, you know what to do, so get moving!'
For a few seconds, he was convinced that his heart had actually stopped as he hurriedly re-read the words, then he leapt up from the bed and stood there trying to steady his nerves, the thrill and fear colliding as he realised that at last the wait was over.
Suddenly, he thought of Morgan Pence tied and gagged in the building at the bottom of the garden and instantly he felt the seed squirt from his stiffening cock. With a groan, he closed his eyes for a moment as he felt the ache of release, though he knew well enough that the sensation would soon be back, growing until he felt his hands around the girl's throat tightening as her life slipped away and then the glory as he removed her eyes just as his mentor had done almost half a century ago.
It should have been the same with the bitch in the woods, he should have felt the same release, but she had escaped, and he had been left crushed and terrified in equal measure. Now, he had a chance for redemption, that's what his mentor had promised, this time he would not fail, it was unthinkable, he steeled himself and took a deep breath.
He needed to get the girl to the mill and that in itself could prove problematic, but it was getting her to the roof of the towering building that concerned him the most. As the doubt tried to seep into his brain, he shook his head and dismissed the bleak thoughts, he would find a way, he would make it happen, even if he had to knock her out and carry her up the five flights of stairs, he would do it.
Taking a long look around the room, he drew air in through his flared nostrils, then he was grabbing dark clothing from the wardrobe and pulling them on, black combat pants and a matching sweatshirt with a hood.
Moving quickly over to the window, he looked down through the incessant rain, steadying his nerves. She was in there waiting for him to return, this time he would make sure her hands were still fully bound, he wouldn't fall for the same deception twice. His lips curled slightly in anticipation, then he stormed from the room, thundering down the stairs before grabbing the van keys from the kitchen table and dashing outside, every nerve in his body stretched to breaking point as he headed for the brick building at the bottom of the garden.
98
'Jesus, Lasser, Barry fed you a load of shit, but that's happened to all of us at one time or another,' Bannister said through the open driver's window.
After leaving Finder, Lasser had called Bannister who had said they were five minutes away from the house and they had met on the darkened lane, the two cars parked side by side facing different directions.
'I get that,' Lasser said as smoke from the exhausts drifted into the night sky. 'But the truth is nothing's changed, Morgan Pence is still being held by the bastard who tried to kill Clara Bell and more than likely murdered Julie Rawlins.'
Odette leaned forward and looked past the DCI at Lasser.
'What did Finder have to say about the death of Ross?' she asked.
'According to him, he made every effort to find the ''hit and run'' driver, but I didn't believe a fucking word of it.'
Rubbing a hand down his face, Bannister sighed. 'Trouble is, there's no way we can prove otherw
ise and, you're right, we have to get to Morgan before she dies.'
'I'm going to have another word with Barry.'
Bannister glanced at him. 'Why?'
'Because I want to see what else the bastard's been lying about.'
The DCI looked as if he were about to argue the point, but then he sighed again, 'OK, we'll follow you.'
Lasser nodded in reply before moving forward, checking his mirrors as he watched the Audi do a three-point turn, Lasser got his foot down, the anger still churning inside as the red-eyed monster opened an eager eye.
99
When Morgan heard the engine rumble to life, she twisted her head on the mattress, the fear igniting inside, then before she could respond, the door banged open and Robert Flack stormed into the building. Without uttering a word, he snatched her up and manhandled her over his shoulder before turning and walking out into the wind and rain, for a few seconds she felt a sense of relief just to feel the elements around her, but then she was rolled into the van and the door slid shut.
She could feel the sting of tears in her eyes and screwed them closed, trying to regain some sense of control, but all she could see was Flack's face, a man she had known since she had been about ten years old. Images flashed into her mind, barbecues in the summer months when friends and family had been invited, and Flack had always been there, he was her dad's business partner, a man she had never really given much thought to, and yet here she was in the back of the van gagged and tied and…
Her body jerked as the van started to move, her mind felt as if it was close to cracking, all the images and thoughts tumbling together, snapshots of her life, her dad smiling as they walked over the fields, the sun shining down bathing them in warmth and light. Then she pictured him on the kitchen floor, his face screwed up in pain, the image vanished to be replaced by another of him in the hospital hooked up to the machine, and now she had no idea if he was alive or dead. Behind the tape she cried out in anguish as the van picked up speed.
Third Eye - DS Lasser Series 25 (2021) Page 33