The Way That It Falls: DS Lasser series volume 2 (The DS Lasser series.)

by Robin Roughley

  ‘What about, Munroe?’

  ‘Leave that with me, I’m going to have him brought in for questioning...’

  Lasser looked at his boss in surprise. ‘But I thought he lived on the Wirral?’

  ‘He does, but he’s been informed about the situation and apparently he’ll be coming over here by about seven tonight, so I’m going to take the opportunity to have a quiet word with the man.’

  ‘I doubt whether he’ll tell you anything.’

  ‘I don’t expect him to, but I’ll throw the name Plymouth at him and see how he responds.’

  Lasser nodded, it seemed reasonable enough and besides what choice did they have.

  ‘So when you’ve grabbed a brew, go and see his sister and explain the situation to her.’

  ‘She’s a Green, she won’t be happy.’

  ‘Well, Sergeant, if she realises her big brother isn’t going to be there to protect her and that there’s a total nutter trying to wipe them all out then she might have a change of heart.’

  Lasser smiled. ‘Leave it with me.’

  ‘Right then, ring me when you get up there and don’t forget, eyes and ears open at all times.’

  Bannister pushed himself up from the desk and left the room. Lasser rubbed a hand across his eyes, the image of Green hurling himself across the desk flashed into his mind. The man had been furious, but there had also been terror in his eyes, a realisation that this was one situation over which he had no control. As they dragged him from the room, he'd started to scream about his sister, how she was at his place and in danger.

  He stood up and thought about Munroe, if he was the one who had put the wheels in motion then surely having a double murder at the premises he owned had not been part of the plan. These guys liked to keep things low key; they hated it when the spotlight was thrown in their direction unless they were completely prepared. It was one thing posing for Cheshire Life while you handed over a fat cheque to some polo club. It was different when you had to answer questions about your business dealings and why someone would want to slaughter two people inside your shop.

  Leaving the room he walked through the deserted station and into the refectory, the serving hatch locked for the night, no sign of Beryl. Wandering over to the coffee machine, he slid in some change, while the plastic cup was filling with hot chocolate he moved to the food dispenser.

  Behind the glass, an array of goodies slowly revolved; a pork pie that looked as if it had been in there since the year dot, a cheese and onion sandwich with the curling crusts and a bad boy Pot Noodle. In the end he decided to play it safe, he pressed the buttons and a Mars bar fell into the slot. Grabbing the brew, he plonked himself down in one of the moulded chairs and began to munch on the chocolate bar.

  Whoever the killer was it was obvious they knew exactly what they were doing. Tommy Speel had died from a single cut across the throat and he hadn’t been the sort of man who let his guard down very often, a lifetime of being dragged up on the streets had seen to that.

  He must have been in the shop trying to find out about Plymouth or possibly Munroe.

  Lasser closed his eyes and pictured the scene, Tommy talking to Caroline, trying to pick her brains, becoming frustrated when he realised that the shop assistant knew next to nothing. Plymouth had either been in the back room or had come in through the front door. There had been no sign of a struggle, chances are Tommy wouldn’t have known anything about it until it was too late and before Caroline could blink, he was ending her life, there would be no more commission for her.

  Jesus, he shook his head, as far as she was concerned she worked for a high-end jeweller, she must have been pleased when asked to go to the new store and look where it had got her.

  He rolled the chocolate wrapper up and thrust it into his pocket before heading for the door, when his phone began to trill, he pulled it out and checked the number.

  ‘Hello, Cathy, are you OK?’

  ‘I was just watching the news and I saw you coming out of Munroe’s...’

  ‘You caught my five minutes of fame, how did I look?’

  ‘Knackered.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m not sleeping very well, bed feels too big.’

  ‘So what’s happened?’

  ‘Tommy Speel and the girl who worked in the shop are both dead,’ he paused at the door and took a sip of the hot chocolate.

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘And Green is ranting in the cells as we speak.’

  ‘It’s all kicking off then?’

  ‘You could say that, I bet you’re glad to be on leave?’

  A silence on the phone, the cup held to his lips.

  ‘Listen, I know this probably isn’t a good time,’ she paused, ‘but I’ve decided to hand in my notice.’

  ‘I take it your parents had a hand in your decision?’ As soon as he uttered the words he realised it was the wrong thing to say.

  ‘You don’t give me much credit, do you?’

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry that came out the wrong way...’

  ‘I told you I’ve been thinking about this for a while and my parents had nothing to with my decision.’

  He could hear the subtle change in her voice, a brittle quality that hinted at annoyance and promised much more if he carried on.

  Lasser pressed the self-destruct button. ‘Oh come off it, Cathy, I saw the way your father looked at me. I mean, what’s his problem, is it the fact that I’m shag...dating his daughter or does he think I forced you into being a copper?'

  ‘What did you say?’

  Lasser winced, though his brain seemed incapable of telling his mouth to shut it. ‘You’re good at the job, I thought you were in it for the long run...'

  ‘Good God, listen to yourself, I’ve never heard anyone moan about the job more that you do, you hate almost all the people you work with and bend the rules when it suits. So don’t you dare talk to me about commitment.’

  The door opened and Meadows walked in, punching at the buttons on his phone. It was like watching something happen in slow motion, Meadows was mumbling to himself as he collided with Lasser. The plastic cup in Lasser’s hand crumpled, hot chocolate splashed on the front of his shirt.

  ‘For fucks sake, Meadows, watch where you’re going!’

  The desk sergeant leapt back, the phone dropped from his fingers and fell to the floor the back pinged off and bounced across the carpet tiles.

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry!’

  ‘Moron,’ he could feel the warm liquid soaking through his shirt, a brown stain that looked like liquid shit.

  ‘I...

  He swiped a hand through the air and Meadows grabbed up the pieces of his phone and dashed back through the door without a backward glance. Lasser slapped the phone to his ear, but Cathy had hung up.

  Great, just bloody great.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  ‘Where is he?’ Tammy asked.

  He had led her outside, across the snow-covered lawn and into his car. She sat in the passenger seat of the Mercedes, hands folded in her lap, brain disengaged. Plymouth had driven slowly down the drive and onto the small B road. Now they were two miles from the house, parked in a secluded lay-by hidden from the road by a bank of tall snow covered conifers.

  ‘Where would you like him to be, Tammy?’ he sounded like one of those shrinks you saw in the movies, always turning the question back on the patient.

  ‘I want him dead,’ she whispered.

  ‘Well, I’m happy to say that your wish has come true and I also want to apologise.’

  She turned in her seat and looked at the profile of the man, who peered out into a landscape overwhelmed by white, ‘For what?’

  ‘I’m afraid I bear some of the responsibility for the way he treated you, but I want you to know that if I’d known sooner what was happening then I would have put a stop to it immediately.’

  ‘Do you work for my brother?’ she asked in a quiet voice.

  He smiled at her and somewhere inside she felt someth
ing fracture. ‘No, Tammy, I don’t. In fact, I have another confession to make and one that you’ll find harder to forgive.’

  ‘You killed Craig!’ her hands fluttered into the air, like trapped birds trying desperately to escape the confines of a cage.

  He nodded; for once, the smile had slipped from his face. ‘Guilty I’m afraid.’

  Grabbing the door handle, she tried to yank it open, but it wouldn’t budge. ‘Let me out!’ she screamed, slamming her hand against the glass.

  Reaching out a hand, he took hold of her arm. ‘Try and stay calm, Tammy.’

  ‘Please, I want to go.’

  ‘Go where? Back to your brother who tells you nothing but lies, or your mother who’s known about him for years and said nothing?’ His voice was low and calm.

  Tammy clasped her hands over her ears, so she wouldn’t have to listen to him, wouldn’t have to hate herself for the way he made her feel. ‘Shut up!’

  ‘All they’ve ever done is lie to you and when Jimmy was lashing out you had no one to turn to, because you knew Callum would have killed him. Do you think he would have listened to you, taken into consideration what you wanted?’

  She flashed a look at him and then quickly turned away; there was such empathy in his gaze that she suddenly felt like crying, like snatching out handfuls of her hair, kicking, and screaming until she got it all out of her system.

  ‘Unlike the rest of your family, I won’t lie to you Tammy. This is just a job to me, it’s what I do for a living. Believe me, people like your brother are my bread and butter, but you never asked for any of this,’ he sounded genuinely sorry, as if he was being forced to revaluate the essence of who he was.

  ‘But why did you have to kill, Craig?’ she whispered.

  ‘Did you love him?’

  She spun around, her face suddenly twisted in anger. ‘What sort of question is that?’ She spat, her hands shot out toward his face, ready to rake his face, gouge his eyes, draw blood.

  Plymouth plucked her wrists from the air and pulled them down. ‘Think Tammy, did you love him, I mean, would you have died for him, killed for him?’

  She blinked. ‘I...’

  ‘Was he good to you, did he make you feel safe, loved. What was he like when you were growing up?’

  She could feel her brain unravelling; he was bombarding her with questions that had no answers or at least answers she could not face.

  ‘Some would say that they protected you, after all, why should you be burdened with their problems, it sounds admirable, but it’s a fallacy. They didn’t tell you because you were insignificant to both of them.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ She glared at him, tears shimmering in her eyes.

  Plymouth raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ve spoken with Callum, he knows about Craig and ultimately he cares more about his reputation than anything else. I could hear it in his voice that’s why I had to kill Craig, because I knew Callum would never give it all up...’

  ‘But what would he be giving up?’ It was as if she were listening to a story about people she had no connection with, total strangers.

  ‘The drugs, the money,’ he shrugged. ‘Perhaps he could have managed without them, after all he has more than enough cash in the bank, but losing the reputation was one step too far.’

  A tractor pulling a slurry tanker rumbled past, the conifers swaying in the draught, loose snow shimmered down from the trees.

  ‘Who’s paying you to do this?’ she asked.

  He was wearing a thick leather jacket, he unzipped it as though he were going to pull something from the inside pocket. Tammy held her breath, when he rested his hands back on the steering wheel she heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Someone like your brother, another self-made man who thinks he can’t be touched.’

  ‘And you killed Craig and my husband because he asked you to?’

  ‘Not at all, he asked me to make your brother an offer, move away from the area so he could take over and use the place as a stepping stone to Manchester, the drugs trade is like any other, it’s all location, location, location.’

  ‘So you killed them for no reason?’ Tammy could feel her anger start to build again.

  Plymouth sighed. ‘I made the offer but your brother wouldn’t listen, you see he believes his own legend, people like him always do. He seriously thinks he runs this town; he believes that what he says goes and he can’t comprehend that someone like me could come and take everything away from him. That’s why I killed Speel.’

  He watched her closely as her eyes clouded over with disbelief. ‘When, I mean, how, I...’

  ‘Don’t look so shocked, the how and why is unimportant, besides what do you think they would have done to me if they’d caught me?’

  ‘But...’

  ‘Does the name Steven Berry mean anything to you?’ he watched as her eyes widened. ‘I see it does, he used to work for Callum, doing a bit of this and that. Mainly he worked on the doors of one of the clubs owned by your brother. Fancied himself as a hard man, he thought he could start his own little sideline selling small amounts of coke to people as they were coming into the club.’

  Tammy swallowed and watched his lips as he mouthed the words, it was as if he'd trapped her in some kind of twisted spell, one in which she couldn’t look away, couldn’t block out the sound of his voice.

  ‘Your brother found out and took him out to the moors and shot him in the head with a twelve bore ...’

  ‘No!’ she snapped her head back as if she'd heard the distant blast from the twin barrels. ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Do you honestly think I just wander into a situation like this without doing my homework? Besides it was your husband who told me all about Callum’s little misdemeanours.’

  ‘I...’

  ‘Jimmy hated your brother but you already knew that didn’t you?’

  ‘Jimmy was a compulsive liar,’ she snarled.

  Plymouth shrugged. ‘I don’t doubt it and if you want to believe it was all lies then ultimately that’s up to you, Tammy, but I’ve put the idea in there,’ he tapped a finger to the side of his head. ‘You can either bury your head in the sand or wake up and smell the,’ he paused, ‘roses, coffee, whatever. Your brother was inadvertently responsible for Craig’s death, all he had to do was convince me he would do as I asked, and Craig would still be alive. Instead he decided that no one would dare cross him and unfortunately he was wrong.’

  ‘He’ll kill you when he finds you,’ she hissed. ‘And I just hope I’m there to see it.’

  Plymouth looked disappointed, he closed his eyes, when they slid open; any hint of warmth or compassion had vanished, replaced by a void that made Tammy suddenly feel as if she were alone in the car.

  He blinked once and the smile snapped back into place. ‘I was hoping you’d see things differently but it seems you share the same DNA as your brother...’

  ‘What do you expect, you sit there and tell me you’re responsible for decimating my family and you expect some kind of thanks?’ Her anger overrode the fear, the realisation that her life would never be the same again, clicked into place. ‘I mean, I take it you intend killing my brother and then what, me, my mother, all of us, is that your plan?’ her voice rose, a kind of blind fury taking over.

  Plymouth tilted his head. ‘Do you want to die, Tammy, because if you do then you’ve come to the right place?’ He didn’t shout, his face remained friendly his eyes crinkled in amusement.

  ‘I...’

  ‘Think carefully about how you respond, because I tend to act on impulse and I wouldn’t want you to suddenly change your mind when it was too late.’

  Tammy opened her mouth to respond, then a voice inside her head screamed, no, and she clamped her lips together, her teeth sliced down the inside of her cheek drawing blood.

  ‘You see the only reason you’re alive is because you are the injured party. If you knew, had the slightest inkling how Callum made his money, then you’d be dead, but Jimmy told me you were clueless about the whol
e thing. At the time I thought he was lying, after all, it sounds implausible that you could be unaware about your brother’s business dealings. Yet the more I found out about you the easier it became to see that your husband was breaking the habit of a lifetime and telling the truth.’

  ‘And you think that makes everything alright, because I was too stupid to realise what was going on?’

  ‘Absolutely not, I’m merely trying to tell you there’s a life at the end of all this, if you want it?’

  ‘A life!’ she laughed, a sound that hinted at madness, the unravelling of everything she thought she had known. ‘Knowing what you’ve done, do you honestly think I could live a normal life, pretend none of this has happened?’

  Plymouth shrugged, as if her reply was of no consequence to him. ‘Think about it, it’s surprising what you can learn to live with.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  As he crossed the M6, Lasser looked down at the motorway beneath, the southbound lanes were static, a long line of stoplights disappearing into the distance. Northbound was moving slowly, cars and trucks battling through the elements as the sun sank slowly toward the horizon and the temperature plummeted.

  Once over the bridge he turned right at the BP garage and headed out into the countryside, surprised by the fact that the gritters had been along the narrow road, piles of dirty snow banked up on either side. He supposed when you lived in an affluent part of town you had priority, bastards. He thought of the back streets still burdened with snow, the occupants of the small terraced houses marooned until the ploughs decided to pay them a visit.

  Wrightington Country Club stood back from the road, a stately home turned into a golf club, with spa, pool, and fully equipped gym. A playground for those with disposable income, the car park was full of four by fours, a huge Christmas tree festooned with lights stood on the front lawn. For those drinking at the bar the recession was non-existent, a myth perpetuated by the lower classes.

  He had thought of splashing out and taking Cathy there for a meal, but the thought of spending the best part of a week’s wages on a plate of food that would require him to nip to the chippy on the way home was galling, yeah well, that wouldn’t be happening now. After being drenched by the idiot Meadows, he'd tried to ring her back but her mobile had been turned off. Perhaps he should just ride over to Southport, turn up unannounced and try to put things right. Problem was he had no idea where her parents lived, he knew it was in Birkdale, but he had no address.