by Rob Roughley
Bannister took a backward step. ‘Why are you telling me this, I mean, what good will it do?’
‘I’m trying to bare my soul and when has that ever been about doing good?’ she sneered at him. ‘You do realise if you’d stayed, I’d never have done any of these things. I was a virgin when we met and I believed all the crap you spouted, about how you loved me...’
‘I did love you,’ he could feel his own anger stirring.
‘So why did you leave me?’ she screamed, her words blasting around the room.
‘Because I was young and selfish,’ his voice grew louder with every word. ‘Because I was an idiot who thought a career was more important than being with the one you care most about. And not a day went by when I didn’t regret that decision.’
‘Liar,’ she snapped out a finger, ‘Fucking liar!’
The force of her anger made him take a step back. ‘It’s the truth.’
‘So why didn’t you come back to me, I was carrying your child and you walked away?’
‘Because by the time I realised my mistake, you were with Jonathan and I didn’t think I had the right, not after the way I treated you.’
She scrabbled to her knees; the shirt swung back open, her nipples erect. ‘And you expect me to believe that?’
Bannister felt his will sag and his energy vanish, he felt old and obsolete. ‘When you lived near the park I used to watch the three of you. Every Sunday you went to the small playground, I would see him pushing my daughter on the swings, spinning her on the roundabout. Lifting her up and swinging her around, I can still hear her laughter in here,’ he slammed a hand against the side of his head. ‘You looked happy, all I did was watch and think that it should have been me. But don’t you see, I’d blown it, I couldn’t just barge in and say take me back,’ he paused and looked at her. ‘I was there when the dog went into the duck pond...’
Suzanne gasped, she remembered that day, Kelly was six years old, and Jonathan had been at work so she took her down to the park for a picnic. She’d been busy doing all the things you did at picnics, finding a sunny spot, laying the blanket on the ground, fishing out the small sandwiches and pouring out the fruit juice. When she turned she had seen Kelly flying toward the pond, the small Jack Russell they owned had leapt in and was splashing around chasing the ducks. She remembered the utter sense of dread as Kelly headed towards the steep embankment. Leaping to her feet, she’d sprinted across the grass all the time with a terrible sense of the inevitable. Kelly was twenty maybe thirty yards ahead, everything seemed to slow down, she could remember her daughter’s hair had been tied in pigtails bouncing as she ran, she’d been wearing polka dot shorts and a Little Miss Princess top.
As she reached the bank, inevitably her legs had become entangled and she’d fallen, the still surface sparkled and rose up to meet her. Then a man had appeared and plucked her from the air. Suzanne had carried on running watching as the stranger placed her on her feet, she blinked, and he was walking away. By the time she reached her, all she had wanted to do was pick her up and hold her. She could remember the scent of strawberry shampoo in her hair. Kelly had been laughing as she watched the small dog scrabble from the water and shake itself.
Suzanne had looked along the path, she could see the man striding away, something familiar in the way he walked, something...
‘That was you?’
‘I’m sorry, I stalked you and it’s pathetic and hurtful but I just want you to know that I never stopped thinking about you both.’
Looking at him, she could see the bewildering pain in his eyes, the raw sense of wasted years that could never be retrieved. Suzanne tried to imagine what it must have been like for him, watching from the side-lines, as another man brought up his child. Wanting to intervene but terrified in case the revelations did too much damage. She thought of the affairs, all the time trying to replace the one man she had ever truly loved.
Bannister turned away and began to walk toward the bedroom door, the sight of him made something inside her snap.
‘Alan?’
He turned, the tears broke free, and he didn’t even have the willpower to wipe them away.
She didn’t know what to say, how to build the bridge between now and then. In the end, she simply opened her arms. Alan Bannister staggered across the room, Suzanne lay back on the bed, a moment later they were both crying. He placed his head on her breast like a child seeking solace from a hostile world.
58
Lasser hated the morgue, despised the smell of the place and the knowledge that one day he would be the one laid out on the steel slab, another piece of meat, a plaything for those who spent their lives poking and prodding the dead.
The man who looked like a cave troll was called Shannon, the lumberjack beard now hidden behind a vast paper mask.
‘And you say you know this girl?’ Shannon asked in surprise.
‘I’ve seen a photograph of her.’ Lasser looked down at the face of the dead girl. Death altered people, he’d known wives deny the body laid out before them was that of their husband, the same man they woke up to every morning, the same man they had breakfast with. Perhaps it was a defence mechanism by those left behind, a way to block out the pain of sudden loss.
In the photographs, they had found at Marshall Brooks’ house she had looked different, smiling in some, frowning in others, but imbued with the spark of life that was now absent. Her image had taken up almost half of album number three, each picture encased behind a plastic dust cover, each with a small tag written in Brooks' spidery handwriting. ‘Sophie getting into a taxi,’ the image was self-explanatory it showed the short haired blond opening the rear door of a private hire car, a deep red Mondeo. She had been wearing a short skirt and sparkly top, her blond hair gelled back, slick to her head, a smile on her face.
Lasser closed his eyes and tried to conjure up the other images, Sophie walking the dog, a small terrier on a pink lead. She’d been wearing sweat pants and a crop top; it looked like a canal in the background. Opening his eyes, he looked back down at the body on the slab, trying to slot the dead girl into one of the pictures. It was her all right, if not, then she had a doppelganger.
‘And you’re sure she was strangled?’ he asked.
Shannon slid down the mask; the beard sprang alarmingly into view. ‘Positive, you can see the finger marks,’ reaching out a huge hand he tilted the head slightly. Lasser leant forward; he could see the dark blue circular smudges beneath the skin. ‘The trachea is partially crushed, that alone would have been enough to cause death.’
‘Anything else?’ Lasser asked.
‘Well the girl had been sexually active prior to her death, though it’s a bit of an odd one.’
Lasser frowned, ‘In what way?’
‘There are traces of lubricant in the vagina, and also around the anus, though no sign of any sperm.’
‘Perhaps she practiced safe sex?’
Shannon’s beard scrunched as he pursed his lips. ‘Possible I suppose, anyway there are no obvious marks to suggest that she struggled in any way. Though she does have some light bruising around the wrists but I’d say they have nothing to do with her death.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand?’
‘The bruises are probably a few days old, and if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say they were caused by some kind of bracelet, or perhaps handcuffs.’
‘Handcuffs?’
‘Mm, but she doesn’t look like the type of girl who would have had a police record.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I was thinking about the lubricant and the lack of sperm.’
‘You think she was a lesbian?’
Shannon shrugged, ‘Possibly.’
Lasser thrust his hands into his pockets as he absorbed what the pathologist was saying. ‘What about the rope?’
Shannon peeled off his rubber gloves and dropped them into a steel flip-top bin. ‘Well I don’t think it was bought to use specifically to tie the girl up.’
Lasser looked at the man in surprise, ‘The reason being?’
‘It’s old, I mean, anybody planning this kind of thing usually goes out and buys themselves a nice shiny new length of rope and nowadays it’s almost all made from nylon or some other manmade fibre.’ he picked up a section of the rope. ‘This however had been used before, probably in a garage setting, it’s laced with diesel oil and there are traces of grease, so I would imagine it was used simply because it was at hand.’
Lasser smiled, it made a change from having Molder spout ‘no comment’ every time he asked a question. ‘I’m impressed.’
Shannon shrugged. ‘Common sense really.’
‘So, we could be looking for someone who works in a workshop of some kind?’
The pathologist looked unconvinced. ‘Possibly, though I did find traces of dog hair in the weave.’
‘A scrap yard?’
‘Well if the rope was used at some stage to tie a dog up then a scrap yard seems plausible.’
Lasser nodded. ‘Well thanks for your help, Doc.’
‘That’s what I’m here for, Sergeant.’
Heading for the door, Lasser dragged the mobile from his pocket and scrolled through the numbers. When he reached Bannister’s name he paused, it wasn’t going to be easy telling him that the girl on the slab had been one of Brooks’ unwitting models. Pushing through the door, he wandered over to the coffee machine, trying to figure out the best way to break the news. What if he was mistaken about the girl, he tried to imagine a scenario where he informed Bannister only to discover that the girl on the slab wasn’t the one in the album. The thought of such a monumental cock-up made him shudder. Bannister would probably throttle him and then sack his corpse for incompetence. Lasser scrolled down until he reached the station number then pressed the call button.
‘Bamfurlong Station.’
‘Meadows, it’s me.’
‘Oh, hello, boss.’
‘Listen, I’m at the hospital, I want you to get in touch with Steve Black, tell him to get down to records and bring me album number three that we collected from the Marshall Brooks case...’
‘Album number three?’ Meadows repeated as if he were writing it down.
‘Yes,’ he paused, ‘hang on, tell him to bring album one and two as well.’
‘OK.’
‘I’m at the path lab and tell him to get a move on its urgent.’
‘Will do.’
Lasser fed fifty pence into the coffee machine. ‘I’ll ring back in twenty and he’d better be on his way, not stuffing himself with one of Beryl’s pies from the canteen.’
‘I’ll get straight on it.’
Meadows disappeared and Lasser jabbed at a couple of buttons waiting for the machine to do its worst. Cup in hand he sat down on one of the moulded chairs of death, took a deep sigh, and pressed the call button.
59
Sally Wright watched in dismay as Bannister ran from the house, his face slick with tears, hair rigid as if he’d just spent five minutes in the electric chair. Without uttering a word, he dashed to his car, leapt in and headed for the gates. For one crazy second she thought he was simply going to crash through the obstacle barring his way. At the last moment, he slammed on the brakes and the Audi slid to a halt inches from the metal barrier. As soon as the gap was large enough he set off, the front wheels spinning as they tried to gain traction. She watched open mouthed as he rocketed down the narrow lane.
Stepping onto the front lawn, she looked up at the block of light shining from the bedroom window. For almost ten minutes, she’d listened to the shouting and screaming, although the words had been inaudible she had been sure it was Bannister and the widow of Jonathan Ramsey, after all there was no one else in the house. Sally had hovered nervously on the doorstep, under normal circumstances she would have hammered on the door with the nightstick, called for backup, a serious domestic in progress. However, she’d been unable to separate the fact that it was her boss in there, not some scank off his head on cheap booze and even cheaper drugs. Therefore, she’d waited, all the time trying to quell the image that something terrible had happened inside the huge house.
When the front door flew open, Sally jumped in surprise; Suzanne Ramsey glanced at her as she stalked onto the drive, wearing a short leather jacket and jeans, a handbag slung over her shoulder.
‘Can I help you, Mrs Ramsey?’ Sally offered.
‘I doubt it.’
‘But where are you going?’
Suzanne turned; her makeup looked like a cracked mask, hiding the scars beneath.
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘But what should I say if DCI Bannister asks...’
‘Tell him I’m conducting my own investigation.’
Sally didn’t know what to do, as far as she was aware the woman had committed no crime, but somehow it didn’t feel right letting her simply walk away. She heard the beep of the car alarm and saw the interior light blink on as Suzanne slid behind the wheel.
Sally hesitated and then began to hurry towards the car as it backed down the long drive. Waving her arms, she was pinned in the headlights for a moment, and then the car swept around in a tight circle and headed for the exit. Sally broke into a run, hammering on the rear window as the gates swung open. She saw Suzanne look at her in the mirror, her face set like stone. Then she was accelerating away, leaving Sally standing in the middle of the road, breathing hard. Somehow convinced that she’d just made a calamitous mistake but unable to fathom exactly what it was.
60
Lasser watched as Bannister snatched the albums from Steve Black’s hands. He was standing outside the path lab beneath the flickering strip light. Bannister and Black were at the far end of the corridor too far away to hear what was being said. A couple of seconds later, Bannister was striding toward him, leaving Black looking bemused, like a bell boy who had been refused a tip.
Lasser winced when he saw the state his boss was in, no way would he be able to keep things under wraps. Steve Black was like an old woman he’d be straight back to the station to spread the gossip that Bannister was either seriously ill or suffering from some mental aberration. It was obvious that the DCI had been crying, his eyes were red and swollen, like someone suffering from a serious hay fever allergy. The five o’clock shadow had gone right round the clock and turned into a mini beard, speckled grey.
‘Where is she?’
Even his voice sounded knackered, as if he’d crossed some blistering desert without food or water.
‘She’s inside.’
Without waiting, Bannister shouldered his way through the door. Shannon looked up from his desk with a frown on his face.
‘Good evening, I...’
‘Where’s the girl?’
Shannon stood up quickly. ‘I’m sorry, but who are you?’
Lasser heard the question as he walked into the room, Bannister looked as if he were about to fly at the pathologist, his hands opening and closing, chest heaving.
‘This is DCI Bannister, Doc.’ Lasser hurried forward, ready to grab Bannister should the need arise.
Shannon smiled, white teeth shining out from the depths of the beard. ‘Oh right, well if you would like to follow...’
‘I know the bloody way!’ Bannister bellowed and slammed through another set of double doors that led to the lab.
Shannon’s smile evaporated as he headed off in pursuit.
He was half way across the room when Lasser tugged at his sleeve. ‘Go easy on him, he isn’t normally like this.’
Shannon looked down at Lasser’s hand. ‘I should hope not.’
Bannister was standing in the middle of the empty lab; the leather bound albums lodged under his left arm, like a desperate encyclopaedia salesman looking for a buyer, his eyes flitting around the room, sweat beaded his forehead.
‘Where is she?’ he snapped.
‘We tend not to leave the dead bodies just lying around; you get all kinds of strange people hanging
around a hospital at night.’
Lasser closed his eyes, the accusation coming through loud and clear.
‘Are you trying to be funny?’ Bannister placed the albums onto a metal gurney and turned.
‘All I expect is common courtesy.’ Shannon said easily.
Bannister stormed forward until he was standing a couple of feet from the squat pathologist. ‘And I expect professionalism, especially when we’re dealing with the murder of a young girl and the disappearance of another!’
Lasser inched forward, from the look on Shannon’s face; it was obvious that casting doubt on his professionalism was the equivalent of calling him a child molester.
The bearded man seemed to inflate like a rubber inner tube, his face florid.
‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you but in here we treat people with respect and that includes the living, no matter how obnoxious they turn out to be. Now if you carry on – Inspector or not – I’ll throw you out on your arse.’
Lasser looked at the man in shock, there was something about the way he stood like an immovable molehill, his huge hairy hands opening and closing, his eyes dark with crystallised anger. This is not a man to tangle with, Lasser thought; he seemed too calm and too bloody big.
Bannister’s mouth dropped open; it was like watching a competition, which of the men could turn redder before their heads exploded. The DCI swallowed, and then looked up at the ceiling; Lasser could see the veins standing out on his neck.
‘I’m sorry,’ he grunted and then looked at the pathologist.
Shannon nodded. ‘She’s over here.’
Without uttering another word, he headed over to the refrigerated drawers, pulled open the door and slid the body out. Bannister picked up album number three and walked over on legs that felt as if they were encased in slow drying concrete.
The girl looked somehow smaller than when he’d last seen her, her blond hair shone in the powerful overhead lights. Clearing his throat he flicked open the book and studied the photograph. She was leaping up the steps of the central library, her left leg in mid-air, her right foot planted firmly on the bottom step.