Tethered to the Dead: DS Lasser series volume three (The DS Lasser series. Book 3)

by Rob Roughley

  ‘I hope I haven’t done anything wrong?’ Hannah whispered, her eyes kept flitting to his face and then away again, as if she were afraid of what she might see there. ‘He said you were having problems with your computer and he seemed like such a pleasant young man.’

  Fulcom tried to smile but the sight of it made Hannah take a nervous backward step.

  ‘Did you leave him alone in the house?’

  ‘No of course not,’ she paused and swallowed. ‘Well for no more than a minute. You see I thought I’d left the iron switched on, but I was only gone for a few moments and like I said he seemed like...’

  ‘Such a nice man?’ Fulcom finished for her.

  Mrs Foxtrot nodded. ‘Even when he went into the attic he didn’t snoop, a quick look and then he came straight back down again.’

  ‘He went in the attic!’ Fulcom ballooned toward her, incensed. Hannah Foxtrot backed up, petrified, her bottom lip quivering.

  ‘Only for a few seconds, that’s all,’ she wailed.

  Fulcom stopped and took a massive shuddering breath. ‘Tell me, was he about my height with short black hair?’

  Hannah nodded vigorously. ‘That’s right and he was wearing ever such a nice suit.’

  ‘Key,’ Fulcom thrust out his hand.

  The old woman looked at him in confusion. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Give me the key to the front door.’

  ‘But why? I mean, if I’d known you didn’t want him in the house, then...’

  ‘Give me the fucking key!’ he screamed in her face, showering her with spittle.

  Hannah tried to move back, but the hedge blocked her way, she tried to think what she could have done to make Christopher use such foul language. ‘I...’

  ‘I left you a key because I thought you could be trusted...’

  ‘But you can trust me, Mr Fulcom,’ she started to cry, Hannah Foxtrot was seventy five and yet she suddenly felt like a schoolgirl again, dragged up in front of the Headmaster, to receive her punishment.

  ‘I think not,’ he thrust out his hand again and Hannah pulled the key from the pocket of her flowery apron, it dangled from the end of the string, glinting in the sunshine. Fulcom plucked it from her fingers and strode away.

  Hannah watched him go inside and slam the door, all seen through a blur of tears.

  67

  As Lasser turned onto the Lancaster Road estate he spotted Zoe Metcalf walking out of the public baths, a small sports bag slung over her left shoulder, she was laughing with another blond haired girl. Zoe pushed at her friend and the friend pushed back, the sound of their laughter increased through the open car window as he drove past.

  Five minutes later, he pulled up outside her house; the gleaming Range Rover looked oddly out of place alongside Metcalf’s dusty old Escort van. Lasser dragged out his phone and when Bannister didn’t answer he fired off a text to let him know that Suzanne Ramsey was no longer missing.

  Walking down the path he pressed the doorbell and waited, after half a minute Lasser rapped his knuckles on the door and then moved onto the lawn to peer through the window. He could see Metcalf through the French windows that led through to the rear garden, he was sitting on the grass, Suzanne Ramsey standing above him, jabbing a finger in his face. Metcalf reached out a hand; and she shook her head violently before taking a backward step. Lasser frowned, moved from the window, and made his way along the path that ran alongside the house.

  As soon as Metcalf saw him, he leapt to his feet. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Suzanne turned, when she saw Lasser she threw him a look of contempt dragged her handbag over her shoulder and strode towards him. When Lasser didn’t budge she thrust her hands onto her hips and glared.

  ‘Move.’

  ‘I’d like a word.’

  ‘Yes well, I don’t have the time, unlike you, I’m trying to find my daughter,’ she spat.

  Lasser could see the builder standing like a spare part on the garden, hands locked behind his back, his suntanned face watchful.

  ‘Bannister’s been trying to contact you,’ Lasser said.

  Suzanne shrugged as if this news was of no consequence. ‘Get out of my way.’

  ‘Can you tell me what you’re doing here, Mrs Ramsey?’

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ she tried to step around him and Lasser moved to the side blocking her path.

  ‘Are you thinking of having some more building work done?’

  When she slapped his face, he figured that maybe he deserved it.

  ‘For some reason, Alan thinks you’re good at your job, where as I think you’re a fool. Now, if you don’t get out of my way, I’ll tell him what you said and I dare say he won’t be impressed.’

  Lasser wriggled his jaw from side to side, nothing broken. ‘Come on, Suzanne, something must have brought you here...’

  When she lashed out again he grabbed her wrist, he could see Metcalf striding towards them, a bitter frown setting up home on his face.

  ‘Get your hands off her!’ he barked.

  Lasser kept hold. ‘Did you come here to have a word with Zoe, is that it?’

  She blinked, hesitating for a fraction of a second. ‘Yes, I wanted to know if she could remember anything.’

  Lasser released her arm, Metcalf stood behind her, his big hands resting on her shoulders.

  ‘Look, pal, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but Zoe isn’t in.’

  ‘Where is she, Suzanne?’ Lasser asked.

  Metcalf opened his mouth and Lasser threw him a cold look.

  ‘I’m asking her, not you.’

  ‘I presume she’s at college,’ Suzanne replied and Metcalf gave a brisk nod.

  ‘Well, that’s strange I just saw her coming out of Hindley baths, with another girl.’

  Lasser saw the look that flitted between them. ‘Can you tell me, Mr Metcalf if you knew Marshall Brooks?’

  Metcalf licked his lips. ‘What?’

  ‘The man we found dead two days ago, according to the headmaster of Hindley High you two were neighbours for a while.’

  Suzanne spun, his hands slithered from her shoulders. ‘What!’

  Dave Metcalf’s sunburned face glistened with sweat. ‘Look, we used to be neighbours but that was years ago...’

  ‘You never told me that,’ she hissed.

  Lasser kept his mouth shut interested to see how the conversation would unfold.

  Metcalf shrugged apologetically. ‘I didn’t see the point; I mean, what difference does it make?’

  ‘According to Harper, he helped you out on a few building projects.’ Lasser prompted.

  Metcalf snorted in disbelief. ‘Jesus Christ, they weren’t bloody projects; it was just a bit of labouring that’s all.’

  ‘When was this?’ Lasser asked.

  ‘I don’t know, eight maybe nine years ago.’

  Suzanne jabbed a finger into his chest. ‘Did you ever bring that pervert to my house?’

  Metcalf looked dumfounded. ‘For God’s sake, Suzanne, I hadn’t seen the man for years and he was no pervert when I knew him.’

  ‘Liar!’ she lunged at him and Metcalf raised his arms as she tried to rake his face with her long scarlet nails.

  Lasser encircled her in his arms; trapping her hands at her sides, he lifted her away from the astonished builder.

  ‘Get off me!’ she screamed.

  Metcalf took a hesitant step towards her. ‘Bloody hell, what are you accusing me of?’

  ‘Filthy bastard, you must have known what he was like...’

  ‘Take it easy, Suzanne,’ Lasser whispered in her ear.

  ‘Look, he was just some guy who’d had a hard time so I offered him a bit of work, that’s all it ever was.’

  She thrashed her head from side to side, struggling to break free. Lasser tightened his grip, and she suddenly slumped forward, all the fight left her, dissipating in the late afternoon sunshine.

  ‘So you never took him to the Ramsey house?’ Lasser asked.


  Metcalf looked bemused, his barrel chest rising and falling as if he’d just shovelled a ton of wet sand. ‘Christ no, like I said, Brooks did a bit of work for me but that was at least eight years ago. I mean, come on Suzanne, we didn’t even know one another back then.’

  Lasser eased his arms away from the woman, ready to grab her again if she tried to lunge for the builder. Perhaps Bannister was right, if Metcalf were telling the truth then the girls in the albums would all have been little kids when Brooks was helping Metcalf with the building work and as far as they could tell Brooks had shown no interest in girls until they reached puberty.

  Suzanne pushed a strand of hair from her eyes and glared at Metcalf. ‘You’re all the same aren’t you?’

  ‘Come on, I never knew the man was like that. I mean, do you honestly think I’d have let him watch my Zoe if I thought there had been anything dodgy about him?’

  ‘Are you saying he used to look after your daughter?’ Lasser asked in disbelief.

  Metcalf looked embarrassed. ‘Well, only a couple of times, it wasn’t long after Zoe’s mum buggered off and left me and I was pulled out with work, so Marshall watched her until I could get her into a childminders. I mean, it was only for a few hours and I tell you no matter what the papers say he wasn’t a weirdo back then.’

  Suzanne shook her head. ‘You left your little girl with a child molester.’

  Metcalf looked up at the sky and sighed. ‘How many times do I have to say this, he wasn’t like that and I had no choice, we don’t all get to live in the big house with a matching bank account.’

  ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  David looked at her, a shimmer of anger in his eyes. ‘Don’t stand there and judge me, I had no one to watch my daughter so I left her with a mate for a couple of hours.’

  Lasser watched as Suzanne’s face curdled.

  This time Metcalf jabbed out a finger. ‘Yeah you heard me right, Marshall Brooks was a mate.’

  ‘Well your so-called mate was the one who was taking photographs of my daughter. He was the one sneaking around in the trees with his camera. But then again perhaps you think there’s nothing wrong with that either?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Something must have happened to him because when I knew him he was a regular bloke, nothing dodgy, nothing weird...’

  ‘But how can you be sure?’ Lasser asked.

  Metcalf opened his mouth and then closed it again. ‘It was only for a few hours,’ he whispered. ‘And every time I arrived home, Zoe was always playing in the garden. I mean, it was the middle of summer, she had a sandpit, and slide and she’d spend hours just climbing up the steps and sliding down, she bloody loved it...’

  ‘And you honestly think he didn’t?’ Suzanne looked at him with a kind of rancid pity.

  Lasser saw a fleeting look of uncertainty in the man’s eyes and then he shook his head. ‘No way, whatever it is you are thinking, it didn’t happen.’

  She turned to Lasser. ‘Are you going to get out of my way?’

  Lasser held up his hands. ‘Just give me five minutes.’

  She studied him through narrowed eyes, ‘Five minutes and no more.’

  68

  Fulcom ran through the house like a demented clockwork toy. Dashing from one room to the next as if engaged in a hideous game of hide and seek. His normally perfect hair lay plastered to his head, his face blotchy with tension. As soon as he arrived in the kitchen, he spotted the cup standing on the granite worktop. It felt as if a thief had entered the house and took a shit on the drainer. Walking across the room on unsteady legs, he picked it up, and studied the cup as it were a foreign object, he even raised it to his face and sniffed as if he could somehow detect the smell of the bastard copper.

  ‘Fucker!’ he threw it across the room, watched as it hit the wall, and shattered, leaving a dark stain on the pristine paintwork. Nothing was ever left out of place, cups, plates, cutlery were all washed and put away, a place for everything and everything in its place. You had to keep your life ordered; you had to be in control at all times. However, right this second he felt anything but, he felt abandoned by his regimented thought, cut adrift in a sea of uncertainty. Turning, he ran to the foot of the stairs, paused for a moment and tried to catch his breath, taking huge gulps of warm fetid air, his hand gripping the banister tight. Everything was unravelling, even his own body seemed to be rebelling. He could run a marathon and his heart wouldn’t slam in his chest as it was doing now. Fulcom wiped a quivering hand across his brow and looked in amazement at the sweat that coated his fingers.

  That filthy bastard had been in his house, prying through his private things. He headed up the stairs, the anger fizzing through his brain, the fury building with each step. The stupid senile bitch had let him in without even realising what she was doing. He could see it with a clarity that turned his stomach; she’d even made him a drink while he ransacked the house, flapping her big mouth while the bastard soaked it all up. Then from nowhere an image of Rachael flitted into his mind, he had his hands wrapped tightly around her throat as he thrust savagely into her. Her eyes full of terror as her air supply diminished; in his fevered mind, she thrashed beneath him though her futile movements only spurred him on. Half way up the stairs, he slipped and fell, his shin slamming into the wooden step. Fulcom yelped in pain and the image in his head fragmented and disappeared. Scrambling his way to the top, he remained on his hands and knees. Twisting his fingers into the thick pile of the cream carpet, he tried to empty his mind but it felt clogged, like filthy sand packed tight into a bottle. Everything backing up until it became a single solid mass of chaos. Nothing could be separated, nothing could be compartmentalised and for a man who had lived a life full of structured order it was unbearable.

  ‘Well, I thought you would have been long gone by now.’

  Christopher Fulcom snapped his head up, the chattering voices in head suddenly stopped apart from one, and the voice screamed only one word, ‘run!’ He saw the boot swinging towards his face and tried to duck but it slammed into the bridge of his nose, sending him back down the stairs, arms spread wide crucifixion style, blood sprayed over the gleaming white walls, seeped into the expensive carpet. By the time he reached the bottom, everything had gone dark.

  69

  ‘So where did you vanish to last night?’ Lasser asked.

  He was sitting in the passenger seat of the Range Rover; the smell of expensive leather and Chanel number five filled the small space. A couple of young kids wandered past, one of them bouncing a worn looking football the other had his index finger rammed up his left nostril.

  Suzanne threw them a look of disgust, fumbled another cigarette from her bag and lit up.

  ‘Do you mind if I have one?’

  She looked at him and shrugged. ‘If you must know I went to see Rachael Sinclair.’

  ‘And what did she have to say?’

  She slid the window down a fraction. ‘According to her father she wasn’t in and I’ve been trying her on her mobile but she isn’t answering.’

  Lasser grunted. No surprise there then. ‘Do you know anything about the girl?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Well, do you have any idea how she ended up being friends with your daughter?’ Lasser could see a trace of lipstick on the filter of the cigarette.

  Suzanne sighed, as if the whole conversation was a waste of time. ‘Whenever a new girl arrives at the school, they have another student allotted to them to help them settle in.’

  ‘And Kelly was given the job of helping Sinclair find her feet?’

  Suzanne nodded, peering at him through the cloud of smoke; her eyes desolate. ‘It’s something of a tradition. Normally the older girls will get someone in the year below them, and they help them throughout their time at the school, but with Rachael only joining in her final year they couldn’t do that.’

  ‘Did Kelly have a mentor when she started at Claremont’s?’

  ‘All t
he girls do, it helps to have an older girl they can confide in.’

  It sounded reasonable enough, someone you could look up to, someone who could offer advice if you were having problems. All very rational, someone like Fulcom would no doubt have loved the idea.

  ‘What was the name of Kelly’s mentor?’

  Suzanne looked at him blankly.

  ‘Come on, Suzanne, it isn’t a trick question, but she might be someone worth talking to.’

  ‘I’ve tried but I couldn’t find her contact details.’

  ‘Well, give me the name, maybe we can trace her.’

  ‘Her name is Sophie Washham, but...’

  ‘Sophie?’ Lasser wafted the smoke from his eyes.

  Lost in her own emotional meltdown, Suzanne didn’t hear the tension in his voice. ‘She was meant to be going with Kelly to the prom, but apparently she didn’t turn up.’

  ‘Could you describe her for me?’

  Stabbing the cigarette out in the ashtray, she threw him a look of annoyance. ‘Look, what is the point in all this...’

  ‘Five foot four, short blond hair, petite build?’

  ‘How do you...’ Suzanne’s eyes sprang open in shock. ‘Oh God, the girl they found at the Hall!’ Her hands grasped the steering wheel like a shipwreck victim clinging to a scrap of flotsam.

  ‘You said she was meant to be going to the prom with Kelly?’

  ‘Yes, yes, she said she’d meet her there but with everything that’s happened I completely forgot. I mean, how could I forget something like that?’

  Lasser grabbed her arm, she snapped her head up, and if looks could kill, he knew he would have been reduced to a small mound of smouldering ashes on the sumptuous upholstery.

  ‘What about her family?’

  ‘Sophie was an overseas student, she comes from Belgium, her parents lived over here for a few years and went back home last year, but Sophie wanted to stay to complete her education.’

  ‘Do you know where she’s been staying?’

  She swept her hair from her eyes, her face suddenly animated, her eyes bright. ‘The last I heard she was sharing a flat with another girl in town, but Kelly told me as soon as the prom finished Sophie was going travelling for a few days before going home to her parents.’