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

by Rob Roughley

  This time he couldn’t help himself, he staggered back as if pushed by the schoolyard bully. ‘How..?’

  ‘Because according to you I am just some dumb bitch who knows nothing, someone to spank daddy when he’s been a bad boy, someone to stoke his stupid fucking ego,’ she jabbed a finger towards him. ‘But I know everything, every single fucking thing about what you do.’

  Sinclair’s brain juddered like a freight train coming off the rails, he opened his mouth, and nothing came out except a rasp of desert-dry breath.

  ‘You talk about designer clothes and money in the bank as if I should be grateful. You think a new handbag makes up for allowing you to fuck me, well you can think again, because you will be bled dry...’

  Sinclair scuttled back across the kitchen floor, hands held up in front as if to ward off some terrible blow. ‘This is just another one of your stupid little games, and if you think I’ll fall...’

  ‘Oh you will fall, make no mistake.’ Now it was her turn to lean across the table, her hatred blasting out at him. ‘By the time we’ve finished with you, you won’t have the fancy house or the flash cars...’

  ‘What do you mean, we?’ The train in his head crashed through the barrier that said ‘stop end of the line.’

  Rachael smiled, the little-girl-lost look that he always found so appealing carved across her face. For the first time Paul Sinclair knew that it was nothing but a twisted facade, he saw the contempt beneath, the ridicule. This sudden bitter knowledge erupted and sent him staggering blindly towards her, his hands outstretched, fingers twisted into claws.

  Rachael waited until he was almost upon her and then she lashed out, the mug slammed into the side of his face, scalding coffee spattered into his lacerated skin. Sinclair squealed in pain and collapsed to the floor, legs drawn up his hands hovering over his damaged face, mewling like a damaged cat. Rachael walked calmly around the table and stood over him, a sad half smile on her face, as if disappointed that he was still breathing.

  ‘You’ll never touch me again, do you understand? You’ll pay whatever he demands and if you don’t I’ll go straight to the police and tell them what you’ve done.’

  Sinclair gurgled up at her like a grotesque infant.

  ‘I’ll tell them how you used to come around to my mother’s house when I was six and they’ll know all about the little games you used to play. How you brainwashed me into thinking that it was somehow normal for a six year old to perform oral sex on a grown man,’ she slid down to her haunches. ‘About how you threatened to have me taken away from my mother if I didn’t do everything you said...’

  ‘But I didn’t,’ Sinclair glared up at her through a world of pain, believing her utterly. Closing his eyes he saw the train steamrolling to the cliff edge, he rode it all the way to the bottom, screaming all the way.

  74

  Lasser rolled over burying his head beneath the pillow, desperate for sleep, blocking out the image of Fulcom’s battered face was proving an impossible task. The bedside clock ticked another minute into oblivion, the moving second finger stoking his anger. Groaning, he rolled onto his back and stared up at a ceiling in desperate need of a coat of paint. The paper stained yellow with cigarette smoke, a spider’s web hung gossamer thin from the light fitting.

  Sitting up, he plucked a packet of cigarettes from the bedside cabinet. According to Shannon, Fulcom had been kicked to death, his face obliterated, the skull split and broken, until it was nothing but a gory mash of red and grey, pulped into the cream carpet.

  ‘Well, whoever did this must have been covered in blood when they left.’ Shannon had been kneeling down studying the body on the carpet.

  The SOCO team had arrived and were hanging around on the lawn like a group of aliens, suited and booted ready to go through the house like a plague of locusts.

  ‘And you’re sure no other weapon was used?’ Bannister asked, standing in the hallway, his hands thrust into his jacket pockets.

  ‘Until I get him back to the lab I can’t be one hundred percent certain, but I don’t expect to find anything. It seems to me that he was initially attacked at the top of the stairs,’ he pointed upwards. ‘We have blood on several of the steps and a light spattering on the wall.’

  Lasser eased away from body, the sight of it making his empty stomach roll and pitch. ‘So, by the time he hit the deck he could have been unconscious?’ he’d asked.

  Shannon shrugged his huge shoulders. ‘Possibly, but there’s no way to be sure, concussed maybe, disorientated and then the killer makes his way down here, no rush, then the fun really starts.’

  Bannister grunted in disgust, ‘Time of death?’

  ‘I’d say six maybe seven hours ago.’

  ‘Any sign of forced entry, Lasser?’ Bannister asked.

  ‘No, both front and back doors have dead bolts and none of the windows have been forced.’

  ‘So Fulcom knew the killer, let him in and...’

  ‘But according to Medea Sullivan, Hannah Foxtrot never left her window from the time Fulcom blew his stack at her, no one came to call, no one was around acting suspiciously,’ Lasser offered.

  Bannister popped a mint into his mouth. ‘She’s an elderly woman, Sergeant; she could have nipped into her kitchen to make a cup of tea, or fallen asleep in the chair. We can’t treat her as a reliable witness.’

  Lasser thought for a moment. ‘It just seems strange that he should have been attacked at the top of the stairs, almost as if someone was lying in wait for him, trying to catch him unaware.’

  ‘Here we go again, more conspiracy theories,’ Bannister had snapped.

  Shannon looked up at Lasser and raised a caterpillar like eyebrow.

  ‘What if Foxtrot is right, then it could mean that the killer was already here when Fulcom got back. He could have been upstairs having a look around, he hears Fulcom having a go at the old woman and waits on the landing....’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  Shannon stood up rubbing at his lower back. ‘Lasser could have a point...’

  ‘For God’s sake don’t you start as well, its bloody simple, Fulcom let the killer in, we know this because there’s no sign of a forced entry, no indication that Fulcom was expecting any of this. If the killer wasn’t known to him then he would have put up some kind of struggle. You arrive home to find a stranger in your house and your natural response is to try to defend yourself, end of story.’

  Shannon had shrugged, ‘Unless the killer had a key.’

  Bannister blinked and then turned and stormed his way through the front door. ‘Right you lot, get in there and I don’t want any stupid mistakes, is that understood?’

  Lasser heard the SOCO team mumbling to one another as they trudged inside. A minute later, he was heading down the long drive, dragging out his cigarettes as he walked onto the pavement.

  Medea Sullivan was standing beneath the yellow cone of a solitary streetlight, like a confused prostitute trying her luck in the countryside. Her arms were folded and every few seconds he could see her shiver as if chilled by some imaginary blast of cold air. When she heard his approach, she looked up and grimaced.

  ‘Is it Christopher?’ she asked, although from the look on her face she already knew the answer.

  ‘We can’t be sure, Medea.’

  ‘But you think it is?’

  Lasser nodded. ‘More than likely, but we need to be certain...’

  ‘Do you want me to identify the...’

  ‘God no!’ he snapped and then felt like a shit when he saw her face crumple.

  ‘I can’t believe what’s happened. I mean, why would someone want to hurt him?’

  ‘Look, I can’t see the point in you hanging around here, why don’t you get off home.’

  ‘But Bannister said he might want a word with me,’ she sniffed and then pushed a shaking hand through her unruly hair.

  ‘Yes well, this is going to take a while and I can’t see you leaving the country...’ he stopped when he saw the hardness s
weep back into her eyes.

  ‘Is everything a joke to you? I mean, a man is dead in there and you don’t seem to care.’

  Lasser looked out over the open fields, the lights of the town centre twinkling in the distance, the dark ridge of the Pennines sweeping up to meet the night sky. ‘Just go, Miss Sullivan, and thanks for your help,’ he turned feeling exhausted and strangely indistinct.

  ‘So that’s it?’

  Lasser turned. ‘I’m sorry?’

  Her eyes shimmered with tears. ‘I know you think he was some kind of...’ she struggled for the right word.

  ‘Deviant?’

  That got him another black look full of disgust. ‘But I spent time with the man and he never acted improperly.’

  ‘That’s the problem, Medea, they rarely do.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty eight, but I fail...’

  ‘Fulcom wouldn’t have been interested; you would have been far too old for his taste,’ he walked away, before she could respond.

  Stubbing the cigarette out in the ashtray, he swung his legs from the bed. Sunlight laughed at the blackout blinds, filling the room with warm light and making his head fuzzy with weariness. He tried to make sense of the jumbled thoughts that jostled for space inside his brain. Opening the bedside cabinet, he dragged out pen and pad and began to scribble down the names.

  Kelly Ramsey, still missing though if Suzanne was to be believed she was at least alive. Brooks was as dead as you could get, and now Fulcom, and of course Sophie Washham, as for Ramsey, well the jury were still out on that one.

  He looked down at the names and tried to think. Brooks and Fulcom were linked through Hindley High; he made a note of the fact and underlined it. Problem was, they had no idea why the two men had been killed, was it someone acting out of disgust for the things Brooks and Fulcom had done, or was it one of their own trying to silence those who could point the finger.

  He scribbled down the name, Sinclair. If Rachael had been telling the truth about Fulcom then she would have plenty of reasons to hate the man, though as far as he knew she had no links to Brooks. Besides, the thought of Rachael Sinclair overpowering someone like Fulcom was ludicrous; he tried to imagine the slender teenager kicking the teacher to death in her Jimmy Choo shoes and gave up in disgust. He thought back to the conversation at Claremont’s, she’d taken great delight in telling them all about the head teacher’s perversions; the gleam in her eye, and the sense of glee had been palpable. If Fulcom had been using her for sex then he was sure that it had been consensual. He dragged an image of Paul Sinclair to the front of his mind, had he known what was going on between Rachael and Fulcom? Perhaps he’d found out and decided to pay the deputy head a visit, not through any concern for his stepdaughter’s wellbeing, but simply out of jealousy. Lasser tapped the pen against his teeth, but that still didn’t explain Brooks or Washham.

  Ripping out the page, he screwed it up and tossed it onto the floor. Maybe he was trying to find links that didn’t exist. Crossing the room, he went into the bathroom to take a leak. Catching sight of his grizzled face in the mirror, he grunted in surprise, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the five o’clock shadow that had long since passed the trendy stage. Turning on the shower, he climbed in and let the water cascade down his body.

  As far as he could tell, Sinclair was the only one who would bear a grudge against Fulcom, but it didn’t sit right in his gut. Sinclair had initially helped Fulcom to change his story about the prom night, though maybe that had been done purely for Rachael’s benefit, rather than to help the deputy head. Opening his mouth, he let it fill with warm water before spitting it out. He would check with Bannister and then go and see the solicitor, find out about the real relationship between him and Fulcom.

  Ten minutes later, he looked at his newly shaved reflection in the mirror, it wasn’t much of an improvement, but at least he no longer looked like a down and out. Climbing back into bed he dragged the duvet over his head and slept.

  76

  Jodie watched as Rod Jansen straightened his tie, checking his reflection in the gift shop window before pushing through the door. When he saw her behind the counter, he smiled and made his way down the narrow aisle.

  ‘Good morning, Jodie and how are we feeling today?’

  ‘I’m fine, Mr Jansen,’ she replied with a smile.

  ‘Good, good,’ he sidled up to the counter. ‘How are you fixed for a little overtime tonight?’

  ‘Well,’ she paused, ‘I was meant to be going out with my boyfriend.’

  Jansen looked crestfallen. ‘But I thought you would have been glad of the extra money, a young girl like you.’

  She reached up to untangle a display of bangles that dangled from the ceiling, her white shirt rose showing an expanse of golden skin, a silver bar shimmied in her navel.

  Jansen licked his lips. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’

  She flicked a strand of blond hair from her eyes. ‘What about your wife, won’t she be expecting you home by five?’

  Jansen grimaced at the mention of his wife, ever since the second kid had been born she’d let herself go completely. The gym membership that had cost a small fortune had expired and all she seemed to do was lounge on the sofa watching an endless round of soap operas and celebrity documentaries. Her stretch-marked stomach rolling over the top of her baggy leggings, it was disgusting. ‘No, Jodie, she knows I’m working late.’

  She leaned forward over the counter, giving the estate manager a grandstand view of her breasts encased in a frilly black bra. ‘So what is it you want me to do, exactly?’

  ‘Well I was going to sort out my office, a bit of auditing, nothing too strenuous,’ he tried to avert his eyes, but the small crucifix swayed back and forth hypnotically, the sliver of silver contrasting with her skin.

  ‘I don’t mind strenuous, I’m fitter than I look.’

  Jansen licked his lips again tasting the salt in his sweat.

  Jodie reached over and flicked on the small fan that was perched on the counter. ‘Are you hot Mr Jansen?’

  ‘It is quite warm in here,’ he wiped a hand across his tacky brow. ‘So, what do you say, are you up for it?’

  She raised an eyebrow, ‘Up for what?’

  Jansen glanced around the small shop, as if afraid that a customer could be hiding behind the display of cheap fluffy toys, satisfied they were alone he leaned towards her, ‘A bit of bending and lifting?’

  Jodie stood back and spread her arms, ‘In this skirt?’

  Jansen leaned over the counter taking in the tanned legs and short skirt.

  ‘I promise not to look,’ he could feel his erection growing, the yearning gnawing away at the pit of his stomach.

  The fan drifted her hair to one side, timed to perfection. ‘Ah, but can I trust you to keep your promise?’ her eyes met his, pinning him to the spot.

  ‘Cross my heart,’ Jansen said in a voice heavy with want.

  Jodie smiled. ‘I’ll come up to the Hall at five.’

  77

  At first Lasser thought it was the water board digging up the street, a rhythmic slamming echoed inside his head like a pile driver drilling into concrete. Groaning, he rolled over and tried to block it out. The noise came again; followed by the sound of the doorbell.

  ‘For fucks sake!’ kicking the duvet to the floor, he crossed the room and yanked up the blind. Bannister stood on the front lawn, ankle deep in lush grass his face turned up to the window.

  He could see the DCI mouthing words up at him, his face flushed.

  Popping the catch on the window Lasser poked his head through the gap. ‘What time is it?’

  Bannister looked apoplectic with rage. ‘Half past eleven, I’ve been trying to reach you since nine, so where the hell have you been?’

  Lasser could feel the sun slamming onto the top of his head, his brain still fogged with sleep. ‘Where the fuck do you think I’ve been?’ he snapped.


  When he saw Bannister gawp up at him in shock, Lasser suddenly realised he must have spoken his thoughts aloud.

  ‘Get your lazy arse out here, we’ve found the flat that belongs to Sophie Washham.’

  Lasser nodded and slammed the window shut. Five minutes later, he opened the front door, Bannister was sitting ramrod stiff behind the wheel of his car, his face unreadable. He didn’t even look at him as he slid into the passenger seat, flooring the gas as Lasser struggled to fasten the seatbelt.

  ‘We managed to contact Sophie Washham’s parents and they gave us the address of the flat.’

  ‘How did they take the news?’

  ‘Oh, they were over the bloody moon; the flat was costing them a small fortune.’

  Lasser closed his eyes, great, another day of sarcasm and bollockings.

  ‘They were devastated, you moron, utterly shattered. She’s their only child and some cunt killed her. Now, if that’s all the stupid questions taken care of perhaps we can concentrate on the matter in hand.’

  Lasser looked sideways out of the window; his head began to throb, his own anger slowly building. ‘What about the girl she shared with, do we have a name?’

  ‘According to the parents they had no idea she shared the flat with anyone, the lease was due to end in two weeks’ time. Their daughter was meant to arrive home in a few days to celebrate her eighteenth birthday.’

  Bannister steered the car out of town, his features stern. Lasser noticed that sometime over the last few hours his boss had managed to grab a shave.

  ‘Is there any more news on Fulcom?’

  ‘We’re due to meet Shannon at two for an update,’ Bannister fired back.

  Lasser stifled a yawn. ‘I was thinking maybe it would be a good idea to have another word with Sinclair.’

  Bannister slowed for the speed bumps on Hall Lane, the golf course slid by, the green empty. ‘Why should we do that?’