Dark of Mind

by Robin Roughley

  'The question is if Foster was responsible for the acid attack on Marshall and the death of Mitchell Banks then was he acting alone or simply doing as he was told by the person on the phone?'

  'I think he was following orders,' Lasser said.

  Bannister sighed heavily at the assumption and Lasser ignored him. 'We have the images of Foster on the High Street, hood up, head down, then the day after he appears in the park, dressed in the same parka, again with the hood up, and we have a witness, Phillipa Jennings, who heard Foster talking as he headed towards the woods and shortly after Banks was murdered.'

  'The question is where is Foster now and who will he attack next?' Odette asked in a whisper.

  The room fell silent, even Bannister kept his mouth closed as they thought about the implications of Benny Foster following the orders of some maniac, doing their bidding without question.

  51

  Foster sat by the side of the river, the covering of trees and bushes offering concealment as the water gurgled over the pebbled bedrock. He had done as his master asked and threaded his way down the side streets before heading out into the fields and eventually to the dense woodland. Reaching into the plastic bag he took out the second pie, battered and squashed in places but still edible. Taking a bite, he sighed in satisfaction and then he pictured the woman in the park, her eyes searing with hatred, and yet he had given her no reason to feel that way towards him. His mother had been right, he should have avoided the park, but then again why should he capitulate to the morons and hate-mongering skanks?

  Foster scowled as he took another bite from the meat pie, chewing aimlessly as he contemplated a world where a man could not even sit in the park without being accused of being a filthy paedophile. The anger grew inside, and if his master hadn't demanded he leave the park then he knew he could have happily stayed there all day slamming his fist into the face of the spiteful woman who had called him such horrible names. Suddenly, his appetite vanished, and he tossed the remains of the pie into the water, watching as it disintegrated to nothing. Slowly the familiar feelings of despair started to take hold again, all his life he had battled against the sense of hopelessness, occasionally he would win a skirmish and feel the weight lift from his narrow shoulders, though over the years he had come to realise that the anguish would always return with a vengeance, leaving him desperate to die.

  He thought of the hatred he'd had for his mother and yet deep inside he knew that she had been the reason that he hadn't slashed his wrists and drifted away into oblivion. Loyalty could be a terrible thing, it had kept him tied to a woman who had done nothing for him, a woman who had made his life an empty shell that had gradually filled with despair as he cooked for her and washed her and cleaned up after her for as long as he could remember. When he had worked in the library he had loved it as it gave him the chance to pretend he lived a normal life, helping people to choose a new book had been a joy, and often when they returned they would talk to him about the stories he had recommended. In the end a lot of readers didn't bother perusing the shelves they simply asked him what he recommended.

  Then even that small glimmer of pleasure had been snatched away and he had spent his days in his shrinking bedroom leaving only to go downstairs to feed the beast or heading out a few times a week to get the shopping in.

  He had lost count of the times he had sat on his bed, the knife parting the flesh on his arms and legs, the tears sliding from his eyes, the pain the only thing that made him feel anything, feel alive, yet loyalty had always stopped him from making that final long cut.

  Foster blinked back to the here and now, the stream gurgled and the realisation that he no longer had to feel a sense of loyalty to his mother seeped into his brain. The smile flickered on his haggard face and then it vanished as he realised that she might well be gone, but all he had done was transfer the loyalty from his fat mother to the voice on the phone.

  For the briefest of moments, the clouds in his mind parted and the truth of what he had done sliced through his brain, keener than any blade. He pictured the man in the woods, his eyes full of agony as the knife slashed across his throat. The moment had been thrilling and yet now he felt the sense of creeping guilt build inside; closing his eyes, he conjured the man's face in the forefront of his mind and felt the sharp breath hitch in his throat.

  The image suddenly changed from the man trying to scream with the blood cascading onto his jacket to one of the same man smiling as he handed the book over. 'Great read, Benny, I really enjoyed it.'

  'Mr Banks,' Foster mumbled the words as the water continued to gurgle over the pebbles.

  Mitchell Banks had been a regular at the library, one of those who trusted his judgement, especially when it came to western novels.

  The memories came thick and fast, Mr Banks taking out a stack of recommended books, a wide smile splitting his weather-beaten face. 'Everyone a winner no doubt,' had been his stock comment as he left the library.

  Foster groaned in anguish at the image of Banks falling back as he slammed the knife into his chest, he tried to picture the ''big I am'' his face melting as the acid ate away at his false-tanned face but he couldn't seem to manage it. The thug had deserved it, but Mr Banks had been a kind man and always ready to smile, showing his whiter than white dentures in the process.

  When the duck went paddling by on the water Foster watched it, his eyes shining with tears as he realised that he killed an innocent man and no matter how hard he tried to justify his actions he found he couldn't quite manage it.

  Eventually, the tears slid free and Benny Foster lowered his head, the despair well and truly back but now heavier than ever.

  52

  Robbins tapped the ball towards the hole, his cap pulled down over his ears as the white ball rolled across the green.

  'The wait is over, I have a job for you,' he said in a quiet voice as he bent to retrieve the ball from the cup.

  'I am here waiting to serve.'

  Robbins smiled at the reply. 'Do you drive?'

  'Yes.'

  'Good, now I want you to head over to Hindley.'

  'I can be there within twenty minutes.'

  The smile on Robbins's face grew wider, this was more like it, he loved the instant no-nonsense approach, the willingness to serve without waffling or asking questions. 'Do you know Broadway?'

  'I have satnav,' Zero replied.

  Robbins felt the satisfaction thrum through his body as he walked to the next hole, waving to a couple of fellow golfers in the distance. 'Park close to the parade of shops at the top of the road and await further instruction.'

  'As you wish.'

  'I'll ring you back within the hour and I expect you to be in position,' Robbins demanded as he stopped to sink a tee into the ground, placing the ball on top before pulling a three wood from the bag.

  'Do you want me to bring anything with me?' Zero asked, his voice clipped and to the point.

  Robbins felt the first flutter of annoyance at the question. 'What are you talking about?'

  'Knife, hammer, axe or perhaps some rope?'

  Robbins felt the surprise widen his eyes. 'Bring a hammer and an axe,' he snapped as he squared up to the ball.

  'Understood.'

  The call suddenly ended, and Bradley Robbins felt the sudden rush of confusion crease his brow, Zero had hung up on him!

  The idea seemed preposterous and yet it was the truth, when he sent the ball into the air the scowl deepened and he sliced the shot to the left, well off track.

  53

  Lasser stood by the side of the small Perspex smokers' shelter, a cigarette burning away between his fingers as he thought about Benny Foster leaping up from the grass, the glass bottle clasped in his right hand.

  'Do you realise something, Lasser?'

  Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Bannister standing less than six feet away.

  'Realise what?'

  'That we are literally a dying breed,' the DCI answered as he pulled out his pack o
f cigarettes.

  'I don't follow?' Lasser asked with a frown.

  'There's only the pair of us who use this smoking shelter, no other bugger bothers with these things,' he said as he slid a cigarette from the pack and studied it with a grimace.

  'You thinking of quitting again?'

  'I wouldn't have even started again if it wasn't for you,' Bannister complained.

  Lasser didn't rise to the bait, instead he took another pull and blew the smoke out on a sigh. 'What are we doing about catching Foster?'

  'We've got everyone out there looking for him, but it's the bloody damage he can do in the meantime that worries me the most.'

  Lasser nodded in agreement before dropping the half-smoked cigarette into the receptacle. 'Bradley Robbins,' he suddenly said.

  Bannister looked at him and raised an eyebrow. 'What are you talking about?'

  'All this reminds me of Robbins.'

  Bannister looked thoughtful as he drew hard on the cigarette, casting his mind back to the charred remains of the man hanging out of the bedroom window of the council house, his burned body dripping greasy water to the flags below from where the property had been doused in water by the fire services as they tried to stop the blaze from gutting the house completely.

  'Look, Lasser, I know you always thought Robbins was a slimy bugger and…'

  'He brainwashed Pamela Fitzsimmons into torching his brother,' Lasser interrupted.

  'Got proof of that, have you?' Bannister asked as he tilted his chin slightly.

  Lasser glanced at him before shaking his head. 'No, but someone is giving orders to Foster.'

  'Agreed, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with Bradley bloody Robbins.'

  Lasser scowled before thrusting his hands into his pockets.

  'The world is one sick place, Sergeant, we seem to have an endless supply of nutters out there, some just lose the plot, others plan their crimes in the hope that they can get away with it.'

  'Like Robbins,' Lasser affirmed.

  Bannister wagged a finger in his face. 'That sounds like a vendetta to me.'

  'He manipulated Pamela Fitzsimmons, he told her what to do, we know he spent time with her when they were both in the mental health unit and then when she's released the first thing she does is attack Robbins's brother.'

  'But that's just it, Lasser, Robbins never denied baring his soul to her, he admitted they had talked about his brother and that he had told her all about his life, warts and all, but he denies sending her out to kill Jake Robbins.'

  'Yes, and I never believed the lying bastard.'

  Bannister looked out over the fields; the sun hovered low in the sky as it slowly sank to earth. 'Perhaps he did lie, but he still walked free, when his brother was murdered Bradley Robbins was tucked up in his bed in the mental health unit behind a locked door with reinforced glass in the windows. Now, as much as I believe in trusting a hunch, Robbins had a cast-iron alibi.'

  'Yeah and he knew it.'

  'You sound bitter and twisted,' Bannister said as he stubbed out the cigarette.

  'He thinks he's smarter than everyone else.'

  'Well, if he was responsible for brainwashing Fitzsimmons and getting away with it then perhaps he's smarter than you give him credit for.'

  Lasser slipped his hands from his pockets, his brow creased with annoyance, and then Bannister clapped a hand onto his shoulder.

  'One thing at a time, Lasser, first we concentrate on catching Foster before he has the chance to attack some other innocent bugger. Once we've collared him then we can question him and with luck we might get to find out who he talks to on the phone.'

  'Foster will be clueless.'

  'You don't know that,' Bannister grumbled.

  'Think about it, if he is following orders then the manipulator won't leave himself vulnerable, he'll have told Foster absolutely nothing of value.'

  'Again, you have no idea if that's true.'

  Lasser did his best to ignore Bannister's negative attitude. 'Whoever is on the other end of that phone gets their kicks from controlling Foster, look at the victims – two random people with nothing in common, one has acid squirted into his…'

  'I don't need reminding of the facts, Lasser,' Bannister warned.

  'He chose different methods of attack to make us think that Marshall and Banks were unconnected.'

  'I understand all that, but we still have to find Foster, we have to remove him from the streets and then we can try to make sense of the rest of it.'

  Lasser could feel the frustration continue to grow, what Bannister was saying was the truth, it was Foster who had committed murder and Lasser knew that it was only a matter of time before he was caught, yet what about the man who had been giving him the orders? He was the one they had to find and stop.

  'We know the prick on the phone was talking to Foster,' Bannister said. 'But how did they meet in the first place?' he pondered.

  'Well, Roger is checking Foster's laptop, perhaps they met online.'

  'Everything seems to be done online these days,' the DCI replied with a grimace. 'You can shop online, meet people online, no one bothers actually going out on a date, these days everything is virtual and meaningless.'

  'Now who's being Mr Depressing?' Lasser quizzed with a grizzled half-smile.

  The sun continued to waver in the cloud-free sky as they fell silent, each lost in their own morbid thoughts.

  'Has Faith Hinton decided what she intends doing about the pregnancy?' Lasser asked, drawing a heavy sigh from Bannister.

  'I have no idea, but I don't like playing piggy in the middle.'

  'I can understand that.'

  'I've offered to tell her father if she feels she can't face it.'

  'And what did she say?'

  'No idea, I left all that to Suzanne and the girls.'

  Lasser fiddled with the pack of cigarettes in his pocket, resisting the urge to light another one. 'It can't be easy for the girl, feeling she can't tell her parents.'

  'That's another thing, to make matters worse, her mother died when Faith was eight years old and her father has a girlfriend she doesn't get along with.'

  'That must have been hard, losing her mother so young.'

  'I think it still is, Sergeant.'

  Lasser nodded, and then an image of Foster lurched into his mind, a man who had spent all his life looking after his mother, forsaking the things that most people took for granted, and now you had Faith Hinton too frightened to approach the one person who should have been there for her no matter what. Two people from different worlds and yet both ruled by a parent who seemed to care nothing for their children.

  'Right, time to head home,' Bannister said, checking his watch.

  Seconds later, they were crossing the car park, Bannister getting into the Audi, Lasser slumping into his Audi.

  He watched the DCI wave before driving away, then gave in to temptation, pulled out another cigarette and lit it, watching the sunset tint the evening sky with a blush of red.

  54

  Foster walked along the narrow street lined with rows of dull terraced houses, shoulders drawn in, head lowered, the phone trapped beneath the hood of his new jacket. He had been sitting by the side of the river when his phone had chimed, and the voice had told him to get moving.

  'You've done well to avoid the police, Benny.'

  Foster had mumbled a 'thank you' but the truth was he had still been thinking about Mr Banks sprawled on the cinder path, his life blood sluicing from his neck and chest as he died.

  'Now, I have an important job for you, one that you must complete,' the man on the phone had whispered into his ear.

  'Yes, Master,' Foster's voice had sounded hollow and listless.

  'Are you listening to me?'

  Foster heard the clipped anger in the words, yet still he couldn't shake the sudden feeling that none of this was right. 'I'm listening.'

  'I want you on Broadway within the hour, is that clear?'

  'Yes.
'

  The call had ended abruptly and Foster had sighed, now he trudged along trying to stoke the fury inside, though it felt as if the fire that always burned had been doused with a high-powered jet of ice-cold water, leaving just a pile of smouldering ash in its wake.

  Reaching the main road, he glanced left and right before crossing and heading down another side street, the images and emotions colliding inside. He thought of the woman in the park spitting horrible insults at him as she filmed him on her phone and suddenly, he felt nothing but a deep well of sadness. She had been the one with problems not him, she was the one who chose to see the world through such hate-filled eyes. The last few years he had got used to people on the street looking at him with disgust, occasionally he would catch a brief look of sympathy from a random passer-by which was almost as bad as the disgust. When he had worked in the library people had treated him with respect, he was a man to be trusted not sneered at, the readers had valued his opinion, his expertise. Suddenly, he couldn't remember the last time he had actually read a book, the thought made him lift his head in confusion. At one time reading had been his escape from the mundane task of looking after his fat mother, the one thing that had truly allowed him to escape the confines of his life. Yet as soon as he had been forced to leave the job, he had stopped reading and gradually his life had imploded.

  His head slumped down again as he tried to fathom why that had been the case.

  The truth was he had spent plenty of time in his room, after all as long as he'd fed, watered and cleaned up after his mother then she was happy, and yet he had never considered using the reading to transport him to a new land, instead the knife had parted flesh and the despair had grown to mammoth proportions until the only way out was to look for ways to kill himself.

  So, he had started to trawl the internet on his battered laptop, visiting sites that were seemingly packed with desperate people full of pain and anguish at the way they were forced to live their lives. At first, he had just eavesdropped on the conversations and gradually he had come to realise that there was always someone worse off than you. He had read terrible tales of horrific abuse and torment and these tales should have been enough for him to take stock, yes he led a miserable existence but he had never suffered like some of those on the suicide sites, and yet their stories had only served to make him feel a whole lot worse.