Seth sighed. ‘OK.’
‘Tell him you came across me at Green’s house, I was after the sister.’
Even with the smashed window Seth could feel warmth blasting through the air vents, his fingers began to throb with pain as the blood started to flow.
Reaching down he pressed the call button on the phone, sat back, and closed his eyes. Munroe answered on the forth ring.
‘I hope you have some news for me, Barker?’
Seth opened his eyes and looked at Plymouth, who gave him the thumbs up, his eyes crinkled in amusement.
‘I’ve got him.’
The line went quiet for a few seconds. ‘He’s dead?’
‘No, you were right he was at Green’s place, he’d gone for the sister.’
‘I bloody knew it,’ he paused, ‘and you managed to take him on your own?’ Munroe sounded incredulous as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
‘He had some music blaring in the house and I managed to club him before he knew I was there.’
‘Music?’
‘Look, Charlie, I’ve got him, now what do you want me to do with him?’ When I was pulling away from the place a shit load of coppers turned up and I don’t want to be driving around with him in the bloody boot all night.’
‘Calm down, Seth.’
‘I can finish it here and dump him in a ditch, maybe it would be...’
‘Don’t you fucking dare, I want that man alive.’ The sound of Munroe’s heavy breathing filled the small space like an old man on a sex chat line. ‘I’ve bought a small industrial unit on Cale Lane, do you know the place?’
‘How the hell would I know it, Charlie, I’ve never been to this town before.’
‘Stick it in the sat-nav,’ a pause on the line. ‘Meet me there in an hour, I’ll leave the gates open for you.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘You’d better.’
The call ended and Plymouth began a slow handclap. ‘You should have gone on the stage, Seth that was inspired.’
He suddenly felt tired and washed out; the villa on the Algarve seemed a million miles away. ‘So what happens now?’
‘You heard the man, we have an appointment to keep, but I’m going to bring along an interested third party.’
‘Of course you are.’ Seth closed his eyes; it was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
Lasser climbed back into the car and shook the last cigarette from the packet. He watched as Bannister drove away then lit the cigarette and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. The DCI had told him he was going back to the station to break the news to Green that his sister was missing, in the hope that it would help to loosen his tongue. Green would know more than he was prepared to let on, his sort always did.
When he’d asked Bannister what he wanted him to do, he had been poleaxed when his boss told him to get home and get some rest.
‘Maybe you should swing by the hospital on your way home, get yourself checked out.’
Lasser had nodded, though he had no intention of going anywhere near the hospital, he had a bottle of spiced rum at home that would help to ease any aches and pains.
Green’s house was a hive of activity, the SOCO team were going over the premises looking for clues, the meat wagon had arrived and the body from the cellar was on its way to Molder’s cutting room where he would no doubt be working through the night to gain some extra brownie points.
‘Arse-licking bastard,’ he muttered before starting the car and pulling out of the end of the driveway. He could see the frost glistening on the surface of the road; the sky was awash with stars. Easing his way back to the main road, he turned left and pulled onto the forecourt of the all-night BP garage. The door locked for the night, the attendant peered at him through the glass.
‘Could I have forty Benson and Hedges and a sausage roll.’ Lasser asked as he rummaged in his pocket for his wallet.
‘King size or normal?’ The man behind the counter looked well past retirement age, his face a mass of deep wrinkles, a bright yellow baseball cap with the company logo stamped on the front sat perched on top of his springy grey hair.
‘King size.’
‘Jumbo or medium?’
Lasser frowned. ‘What?’
‘The sausage roll, do you want jumbo or medium?’
‘Surprise me.’
Old Father Time frowned, which did nothing for his complexion. ‘Well it depends how hungry you are?’
A gust of wind slammed into him and Lasser turned away with a gasp. ‘I’m starving.’
‘What?’ The man held a hand to his ear.
‘A jumbo, just get me a jumbo!’
The man nodded and pushed himself up from the chair.
Jesus Christ, Lasser watched as he hobbled slowly from behind the counter and headed over to the fridge. When he stopped and started to straighten a stack of Hob Nobs, Lasser felt like hammering on the glass, if the old sod didn’t get a move on he could die of hyperthermia out here.
The man nodded in satisfaction at his handiwork and then continued the long trek to the other side of the shop. By the time he returned Lasser was shivering uncontrollably, his fingers numb as he slid a twenty from his wallet.
‘Do you want anything else?’
Lasser shook his head.
‘That’ll be twelve pounds sixty, please.’
He took the money and fished around in the till for some change, then he dropped it into the metal tray and pushed it through; Lasser struggled to pick it up.
‘Cold out there is it?’
Scooping up the coins, Lasser looked at the old codger in disbelief. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘You look froze to the bone.’
‘Yes well...’
‘It’s lovely and warm in here,’ he grinned through the glass and Lasser suddenly got an image of the old guy sitting at home, alone in a house that he could no longer afford to heat. So to save on energy bills he worked here through the long night-time hours.
‘Have a good night,’ he offered and turned back to the car.
‘Lovely and warm,’ the voice drifted out of the intercom, followed by a contented sigh.
Climbing back into the car, he ripped the wrapper from the sausage roll and took a bite, flaky pastry fell into his lap, the sudden taste of food made him realise how hungry he was. A minute later, the savoury roll was gone. He looked back at the shop and contemplated going back for another, in the end he didn’t think he'd be able to stand the wait.
Slipping the car into gear, he drove towards the exit, the clock on the dash showed half one. Checking right he eased off the gas as he saw headlights approaching, when the car swept past he looked up. Tammy Green looked directly at him from the side window her face closed down as if she were a shop mannequin staring sightlessly into a meaningless world.
‘What the fu...’
The black Mercedes shot past, Lasser caught a glimpse of the number plate, PLM 0U 1 he could hear Randall from the Oak, ‘top of the range, Merc, with private plates'.
Lasser let the clutch out too quickly and the Audi stalled, cursing he snatched on the hand brake and tried again, the front wheels spinning on the ice, the taillights diminishing as the car pulled away.
He rocked back and forth in the seat as if this would somehow move the car forward, after what seemed like an age, the tyres grabbed at the tarmac and he pulled out into the road.
Up ahead, the black car had reached the junction, he watched as the indicator clocked on and off before the driver turned right. Lasser got his foot down, teeth clenched as the car slipped and slithered towards the junction.
CHAPTER NINETY
Seth sat in the back seat the warmth from the heater making him feel drowsy. He could see Plymouth watching him in the rear view mirror, a contented expression on his face; as if he was spending time with the two people, he cared most about in all the world.
The woman in the front seat continued to look out of the side window; he coul
d see her face reflected in the glass. She looked like survivors do when they've been pulled from a train wreck. It was hardly surprising, Plymouth tended to have that effect on people, it was almost as if he sucked your energy and left you feeling drugged and lethargic. He had no doubt that sometime over the next couple of hours he would end up dead, it seemed inevitable, and yet he felt incapable of doing anything to stop it. There was nothing stopping him from reaching out and grabbing the wheel, yanking it until the car spun out of control, he could see it crashing through the fence perhaps rolling end over end, glass shattering as the they slammed into the frozen ground. Yet he also knew that when it was all over and the car lay like a dead dinosaur in the snow, Plymouth would somehow emerge from the tangled mesh of twisted metal unscathed.
Plymouth saw him watching and winked as if he had somehow read his thoughts.
‘Where are we going?’ The woman turned to look at Plymouth and pushed her dark hair from her eyes.
‘I want you to meet the man who wants you all dead.’
‘And what’s he doing here?’ she looked at Seth, her eyes brittle with suppressed anger.
‘Tammy, this is Seth, he was sent here to kill me weren’t you, Seth?’
Barker sighed. ‘Yeah.’
Tammy tried to understand what was being said but her head still felt disengaged like an engine idling in neutral. ‘So who sent him?’
‘Ah, that would be the same man I’m taking you to meet.’
The road began to twist, a series of tight S-bends, Plymouth eased off the gas, flicking the wheel left and right.
‘His name’s Munroe,’ Seth leaned forward in the seat until the belt locked into place.
‘And what’s going to happen when we get there?’ she asked.
Barker sat back and shrugged his shoulders. ‘I honestly don’t know, love.’
Plymouth laughed a sound full of genuine amusement. ‘No, but I do.’
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
It was a treacherous business trying to keep his eyes on the road while fishing in his pocket for his mobile. When he eventually managed it, he glanced at the screen in dismay the battery was dead. Whenever Cathy stayed at his place, she had always been the one to stick his phone on charge; he supposed it was another small thing he would have to start doing for himself again. Pressing the power button, he felt hope rise as the small screen lit up but before he could scroll through the numbers, the screen went blank again.
When he looked up, he saw the tight bend in the road and snatched at the wheel; the mobile slipped from his fingers and fell into the foot well. A line of dark trees suddenly filled the windscreen and Lasser slammed his foot down on the break. Immediately, the car began to swerve and slide at the same time, he twisted the steering wheel but the car slammed side on into the curb whiplashing him to the left. He heard the rasping sound of branches clattering down the side of the door and closed his eyes. When the expected crunch failed to materialize, he cracked them open, miraculously, the car hadn’t mounted the curb, hadn’t gone smashing into the trunk of the huge oak that stood by the roadside.
Fumbling for the packet of cigarettes, he sparked up and set off again, he kept getting glimpses of the car in front before it disappeared around yet another bend.
Hunched over the wheel, cigarette clamped between his lips, he gave chase, the slowest car chase in history.
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
Munroe sat perched on the edge of the table, it was the first time he had been in the small factory unit. Whenever he moved into a new area, he always insisted on having somewhere close at hand where he could work from.
After all, when you had urgent business to take of you didn’t want to be driving across two counties.
The place on the Wirral had housed some colourful characters, dealers like Green who thought they were a law unto themselves. Munroe smiled, thinking back to Gary Bolan and the blowtorch incident, another hard man who thought he could take a licking and keep on ticking. But the blowtorch on the soles of his feet had proved one-step too far for the man. He was still alive, the last he’d heard he was living on Anglesey, hardly the ideal terrain when you were confined to a wheelchair.
‘What do you want us to do when they get here, boss?’
Munroe looked across the room at the two men who stood by the doorway; both looked as if they had been cut from the same cloth. Huge men with small heads sitting on their steroid filled shoulders, arms folded across their barrel chests.
‘Stay out of sight, when I’ve finished with Plymouth I might want you to take care of Barker, I haven’t made my mind up yet.’
Both men nodded as if joined by some invisible mechanism.
Munroe checked his watch. ‘Well, don’t just stand there make yourselves scarce.’
By the time he’d eased himself into the swivel chair the men had vanished.
Somehow, this felt like the end of an era, Plymouth had been his number one man, taking on every job with a kind of inbuilt professionalism that was rare today. He felt almost nostalgic, all great things eventually came to an end, it was the way the world turned.
The thought that he would one day find himself tied to the chair, was something he never contemplated. It was as if death was something that happened to other people, a character flaw that he didn’t share. People came and went, and yet as far as he was concerned, he was as permanent as the moon, all seeing, all knowing.
He pulled out his cigars and coughed as he inhaled the expensive smoke, Munroe cleared his throat, and frowned, the cough had been hanging around now for a few weeks. In the mornings when he woke, he would find his chest tight and rumbling with phlegm and he had a nagging pain in his left...
A tiny voice inside his head tried to whisper about mortality, he crushed it before it could grow.
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
The black car glided along the darkened streets, left at Tesco and back out of town, Lasser followed at what he hoped was a safe distance, though at this time of the night remaining unseen was virtually impossible.
At least he was having less trouble keeping the car on the road, once again, the gritters had been out in force, road salt scattered across the surface like acne on bad skin. Past the hospital and the taillights on the car ahead flashed on and off a couple of times, as if the driver was looking down the back streets. When he saw the right hand indicator come on, he eased off the gas and pulled over to the curb. In the distance, he saw the car turn onto Cale Lane and disappear.
Lasser drummed his fingers on the steering wheel; the question was, what should he do now? He knew the industrial estate had only one entrance, the road-curving round in a horseshoe shape, small industrial units dotted along the road and hidden away down small cul-de-sacs.
He could either go on the hunt for a phone box, ring Bannister and put the ball in his court or he could take a nosey and hope for the best. Lighting another cigarette, he grimaced at the foul taste and tossed it out of the window, bloody things would be the death of him. Moreover, what were the chances of finding a phone box that hadn’t been vandalised, he started to crawl the car forward the wheels crunching over the crusty snow.
Checking his mirrors, he drove past the hospital and over a couple of speed bumps, the jolt making him rise in his seat as if some invisible boot had kicked him up the arse.
Stopping ten yards from the turning, he climbed out and walked to the junction, the wind howled around him making the sleeves of his jacket rip back and forth like sails on a boat, the icy blast ripping away any residue of warmth. The road was deserted and sheathed in white; he turned and climbed back into the car and then headed onto the industrial estate, keeping his speed to little more than a crawl. Most of the units were little more than lock-ups, one had an image of Sponge Bob over the door the words Soapy Bob’s Hand Wash stencilled underneath, another was a tyre centre, one man band outfits.
Rubbing at his tired eyes, he kept the car rolling, eyes peeled.
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
&n
bsp; ‘It should be just around the corner on the left.’ Seth said.
Plymouth pulled the car to the curb and killed the lights before turning in his seat.
‘You know something, Seth, I like you.’
Barker looked nonplussed as if the last couple of hours had fundamentally altered the wiring in his head.
‘I mean, none of this can have been easy for you?’
‘I’ve had better days,’ he conceded.
Plymouth laughed and clapped his hands; Tammy looked at him as if suddenly realising she had been riding around with a mad man.
‘I just want you to know that I appreciate all your help, but there is one final favour I want to ask.’
‘Go on,’ Barker licked his lips, convinced that the twisted bastard would pull out a gun or a knife and then...
‘I want you to drive the car through the gates and leave the rest to me.’
Barker could hardly believe what he was hearing. ‘You want me, to...’
‘Don’t make me say it twice, I’m going to trust you, which, believe me is not something I do very often.’
‘But why, I mean, what’s to stop me from driving off?’
‘That’s where trust comes into the equation and the answer is simple, you could drive away and there’s nothing I could do about it. Though it would upset me greatly knowing that I’d put my faith in someone and they had let me down.’ He shook his head, a look of extreme sadness on his face.
Seth Barker felt a flicker of hope that flared for an instance and then died. Perhaps he could drive away, leave the blonde haired man standing ankle deep in the snow. Make a mad dash back to the farm on the Yorkshire moors, tell Bethany to pack a bag they were leaving and maybe they would manage to get an early flight out to the Algarve, empty the bank account and buy a new place, change their names, start a new life.
Yet somehow he knew that one day he would open the front door of some hidden retreat to find Plymouth standing on the step the bright smile on his face and his crazy eyes glowing with a kind of twisted bonhomie.
The Way That It Falls: DS Lasser series volume 2 (The DS Lasser series.) Page 32