'I'm sorry I haven't called sooner but you know what this job is like,' he explained sheepishly as he eased down onto the sofa, Medea sitting down by his side.
Patrick sat down opposite in a swivel chair and then the ancient Jack Russell came hobbling in from the kitchen and Medea picked him up and placed him on the sofa, the dog immediately heading for Lasser.
'Hello, T, how are you, old lad?' Lasser said as he patted the small dog's grizzled head.
'I take it you're here to pick Patrick's brain?' Medea asked with a faint smile.
'Afraid so,' Lasser admitted.
'OK, what would you like to drink?' she asked.
'Anything cold will be fine.'
'Lager, cider, glass of wine perhaps?'
'Pop if you have it.'
Medea smiled. 'I think we have some dandelion and burdock.'
'That'll do me,' he said as she headed towards the kitchen.
'So, what can I do for you, Lasser?' Fossey asked.
Lasser explained about the case, about his suspicions that Foster being manipulated to the extent that he had killed for the man on the phone.
'And you think the two of them met on a suicide site?' Fossey asked.
'We know Foster visited some of the sites, though we have no actual proof that he spoke to anyone.'
Fossey nodded thoughtfully. 'Though you suspect that's where this Foster was groomed?'
'Yeah, but proving it is the hard part.'
'What I don't understand is what I can do to help?' Fossey queried as Medea walked back into the room with a small tray in her hands, Lasser took the glass of dark liquid and took a gulp as Medea handed Patrick a glass of red wine.
Lasser sighed as he realised that coming here could very well turn out to be a wasted journey. 'Well, any insights you could offer into the type of man who would do such a thing would be helpful,' he said lamely.
'But you already know it will all be about control for this person, they'll be looking for the weak and the needy, the ones who seemingly have nothing to lose.'
'Yeah well, he found the perfect match with Benny Foster,' Lasser said as he stifled a yawn, suddenly wishing he had gone straight home to the barge rather than coming here.
'There are a lot of damaged people out there, Lasser.'
'Tell me something I don't know,' he replied wryly as he drained the glass.
Fossey looked at him and pursed his lips. 'You look tired out,' he said.
Lasser blinked at the words. 'I always look shagged, but we need to catch this guy before he trains someone else to do his dirty work.'
'He might already have someone ready and willing to do as he says.'
Lasser rubbed at his aching eyes. 'The thing is I have an idea who could be behind all this, but again, proving it will be difficult,' he paused, 'in fact, I think we questioned the guy for doing the same thing once before, but we couldn't make anything stick.'
Medea lifted her feet onto the sofa, a slight look of concern in her eyes as she saw the stress on Lasser's face. She thought back to when they had been together, she had loved him – there was no doubt about that – but she had also known that he was slowly running himself into the ground with the job and she had worried that eventually the day would come when he crashed and burned and she had been unable to stay for fear of what that would have done to her.
'The fact that this man is taking his time to find people to manipulate means he will also make sure he covers all the bases.' Fossey said.
Lasser sighed in agreement. 'Murder by remote control, I mean, how the hell do you combat something like that?' he asked, though he expected no answer.
Placing his glass on the small table, Fossey leaned forward slightly. 'I would imagine that whoever is responsible has had to spend a lot of time trying to find the right person.'
'Meaning?'
'Well, something like this would not be achieved in a matter of hours, it could take weeks or even months to manipulate someone to the extent that they would kill for you.'
'Mm, I thought the same thing myself,' Lasser agreed.
'And even then, he would have to try a lot of fishing before he found someone who was receptive to what he was offering.'
'''Offering''?' Lasser asked with a slight frown.
Fossey nodded slightly. 'The truth is the people who use suicide sites are for the most part desperate, for some visiting those sites can be a final solution after years of struggling with life.'
'I remember reading once that there are people on these sites who actually encourage others to take their own lives,' Medea said, her dark eyes laced with disgust.
'Under the guise of helping them,' Fossey said. 'Though the person you are after is looking for a specific type of person, and they will not be easy to find.'
Lasser thought of Benny Foster, a man who had been forced to give up his job to look after his mother, a mother who had been anchored to the bed until she fell out of it as she tried to get her heart pills.
No doubt having to put his life on hold had left Foster feeling desperate, no friends, no family to try and lean on and even the hours he had spent at the library, the sense of normality that meeting people could bring, had eventually been taken from him.
'Foster lost everything, his life seemed to consist of sitting in his bedroom self-harming and trying to look after his mother. We found her dead on the living room floor, her care worker said she hardly ever left her bed, and we know that Foster walked out of the house – just left her there. And a few hours later he attacked a woman in Ince park, he clubbed her with a bottle.'
Medea's hand fluttered to her mouth. 'I saw that online, they said the attack was unprovoked and…'
'Oh, she provoked him all right,' Lasser broke in. 'She filmed him on her phone and the truth is he was just sitting on the grass, and she called him a paedophile and demanded he buggered off or she was going to ring the police, then his phone rang, he answered it and then went ballistic.'
'You think he attacked her because he was told to do it?' Medea asked, her face now ashen.
Lasser ruffled the dog's ears between finger and thumb. 'Yeah, a few hours later he attacked Frank from the chippy on Broadway.'
Medea's eyes widened slightly. 'I remember Frank, is he OK?' she asked.
'Thankfully yeah, but it was his dog that saved him, we know it was Foster, we know he was picked up after the attack but now he's just vanished.'
Lifting his glass, Fossey took another sip of wine before placing it back on the table. 'The man responsible will be looking for people who have a hatred of the world or their circumstances, he won't be interested in those who are serious about taking their own lives.'
'And then he feeds that hatred and offers them a way to put things right,' Lasser suggested.
Fossey nodded, Medea still appeared horrified.
'Chances are he will have tried lots of time to find the type of person he needs and each time he will have honed the way he approaches these people. Ultimately, he is dealing with damaged individuals, so I would imagine once he realises they are not right he will simply cut them loose and move onto the next one.'
Lasser felt the anger grow as he imagined the manipulator pretending to give a damn, no doubt he would start out using empathy as a tool to try and gain their trust but, like Fossey said, if they failed in any way he would then leave them standing on the edge of the abyss.
Suddenly, an image squirmed into his brain, an endless line of shadow people walking off the clifftop like lemmings, plummeting into the void below, and the anger increased, his rage building, picturing Robbins in the shadows watching people shuffle to the cliff edge before falling into the void.
'Whoever he is then he is an extremely dangerous individual,' Fossey said as if reading Lasser's mind.
'He could have gone through dozens of people all desperate for help and then he just walks away unless they agree to help him, reinforcing their belief that the world doesn't care about them,' Medea said in a whisper.
'And once he finds a successful approach it makes it easier to manipulate others, he will have learned to ask the right questions, streamlining his approach…'
'Cutting to the chase,' Lasser almost snarled.
Fossey took another quick sip from the wine glass. 'Leaving more damaged people behind as he searches out the right individual.'
Lasser suddenly realised that even if they did manage to catch the bastard then there could be a raft of victims that they would never know anything about.
'I don't envy you your job,' Fossey said.
Rising to his feet, Lasser pulled out his car keys. 'Well, thanks for the help, but I'd better get going.'
'Just sorry I couldn't have done more,' Fossey said as he followed Lasser across the room and down the hallway, Medea by his side.
'He looks so tired,' Medea said as they watched Lasser climb behind the wheel of the Audi.
'Mm, he does,' Fossey agreed and raised a hand before heading back into the house as Lasser turned the car around.
Medea watched the tail lights flicker a couple of times, feeling the prickle of tears in her eyes as the car vanished into the darkness.
72
'Have you done it, have you killed the worthless worm?' Robbins asked, his hands felt tacky on the wheel as he headed for home, sweat peppering his brow.
'It's done,' Zero replied.
'Did he beg, did he cry?'
'He did both, Master, now what do you want me to do with the body?'
Robbins's hands twitched on the wheel and the car swerved slightly. 'The body?'
'Yes, I dragged Foster from the car and beat him to death with the hammer, the body is here in the lay-by.'
Suddenly, Robbins realised that he hadn't planned for the disposal of the body, he had merely wanted Benny Foster dead and yet now there was a body to contend with.
'I can take him to the lake and weigh the body down, would that be satisfactory?'
Robbins tried to think but his mind felt strangely stagnant. 'Yes, yes I will allow that,' he replied, though his voice sounded weak and unsure, the realisation that he had acted on impulse rather than planning began to nibble away at his resolve.
'Or I have a hacksaw in the car, if you would sooner me dismember the body and spread it around in separate locations then I would be more than happy to do it.'
Bradley Robbins suddenly imagined Foster's body cut up into chunks and the thought made him feel sick. 'I'll leave it to you,' he mumbled as he turned left at the junction.
'Have I upset you, Master?'
'What are you talking about?' Robbins snapped.
'I didn't mean to suggest ways to dispose of the body, I'm sure you had plans of your own to get rid of the evidence.'
The word evidence slithered into Robbins's brain making him shiver in fear. 'Cut him up and dump him,' he gasped out the words.
'Consider it done, and I'm glad you're not angry with me.'
Taking a deep breath, Robbins tried to calm his nerves. 'You performed admirably, Zero.'
'Thank you, Master. I am always here whenever you need me.'
'You'd better be, when you've disposed of the body parts you can go home, but I shall need you tomorrow for a particularly important job.'
'Understood and I promise that, unlike the worm, I will not let you down.'
'You'd better not,' Robbins barked, feeling some of the control seep back into his system as he ended the call.
Five minutes later, he stopped on the canal bridge, leapt out of the car and tossed the cheap phone into the murky water below before getting back behind the wheel and driving away.
Then an image of the saw biting into Foster neck shot into his mind, the blood flowing, muscle shredding as the head was cut free from the rest of the body.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, he burped and felt the bile rise hot and sour in his throat.
High above, the new moon shone down as he headed for home.
73
Lasser walked under the canal bridge, morning sun speckled the water, the ducks quacking as he headed for the Audi parked on the patch of dirt by the towpath.
Once behind the wheel, he rummaged a mint from his pocket and popped it into his mouth before starting the engine.
It had been gone one o'clock by the time he made it back to the boat, Jackie had been asleep and he had slid in beside her, feeling her shuffle towards him, the scent of jasmine filling his senses, her breast soft and warm in his hand as he drifted off to sleep.
He had woken at eight to find the bed empty, now he stifled a yawn as he backed up before heading to the junction and turning left.
Halfway down Red Rock his phone rang, and he tapped the answer icon without bothering to check the number.
'Hi Lasser, it's Tess.'
Sliding the window down, he cracked his neck as the warm air rippled into the car. 'Hi, Tess, what can I do for you?'
'Are you OK to talk?'
'Yeah, I'm just on my way to work but I'm hands-free.'
'I should hope so,' she chided. 'I just wanted to thank you again for agreeing to be the best man at the wedding.'
'I'm honoured,' he replied, resting his arm on the open window.
'Well, I know John was worried about asking you in case you said no.'
'That would never have happened,' Lasser replied. 'Besides it's been a while since I've been to a wedding and let my hair down.'
'Great, now I was wondering when you'd be available for a fitting?'
Lasser frowned as he felt the first rumbling of unease in his mind. '''A fitting''?'
'Yeah, you need to be measured for the suit.'
'Oh right.'
'And the top hat.'
Lasser briefly closed his eyes at the words. 'No problem,' he muttered, already cringing as he imagined the photo album and what a dick he would look.
'John wanted a dark-grey suit.'
'Nice.'
'But I told him that was so old-fashioned, eventually he agreed to go with electric blue.'
'''Electric blue''?' he whispered as the image in his head suddenly got a whole lot worse.
'With a pale pink cravat.'
Lasser swallowed the rising panic as the grotesque image formed in his mind.
'And white spats,' Tess finished.
'Sounds colourful,' he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
The phone went silent for a few seconds. 'I thought you'd like it,' Tess said. 'You'll also be arriving with John in a golden horse-drawn carriage.'
'And Spenner's agreed to all this?' he asked, trying to keep the sense of disbelief from his voice.
'Oh yes, the white spats were his idea, I wanted to go with red, but he wasn't keen.'
The junction grew closer and Lasser slowed down, then all of a sudden, the car was filled with the sound of laughter.
'Are you OK, Tess?' he asked in bemusement.
'It's a joke, Lasser, but you should have heard the panic in your voice.'
'By Christ, does Spenner know he's marrying a sadist?' Lasser asked with a shaky smile as he turned left.
'I'm sorry, I couldn't resist it.'
'Cruel woman, that's what you are.'
'I did consider the top hat, but John just said there was no way you would wear one.'
'You mean he's there with you right now?'
'He is, he looks as shocked as you sounded, especially when you agreed to the pink cravat,' Tess started to laugh again and Lasser couldn't help but grin.
'The truth is we will need you for the suit to be measured, but it's black and tasteful and no top hat or cravat.'
'Thank God for that,' he replied as he grabbed another gear.
'But we will need a speech obviously, and please no embarrassing stories about either of us or I wi
ll never speak to you again.'
'I'm afraid after the stunt you just pulled then the gloves are off,' Lasser warned her.
'Oh, fighting talk,' she said and then laughed again.
'So, when do you want me for the fitting?'
'Not sure yet but it will definitely be in the next few days.'
'OK, well, just ring me when you have a time and I'll do my best to be there.'
'Brilliant and thanks again for doing this.'
'My pleasure,' he paused, 'I think.'
Tess was still giggling as she ended the call.
Seconds later, the phone started to ring again and this time he saw Odette's name flashing up at him as he leaned forward to answer it.
'Morning, Odette, looks like another warm day.'
'Where are you now?' she asked, ignoring the pleasantries.
'Just coming through Standish.'
'Well, hang fire, I'm heading that way, I'll meet you at Robbins's house.'
Lasser felt the dislike rise inside at the mention of the weasel-faced man. 'No problem, I can be there in ten minutes.'
'Fine but if there's any sign that he's at home then wait until I get there, the last thing we want to do is give him the chance to scream police brutality.'
'Understood.'
'See you in ten.'
The call ended and Lasser gripped the wheel tight as the anger started to build inside.
74
Bannister was heading to his office, drink in hand, when he heard the sound of a raised voice coming from the reception area. Pausing in the corridor, he listened to a man demanding ''to see someone in charge''.
With a sigh, he made a short detour and pushed through the set of double doors, Sergeant Meadows was standing behind the counter as a man in his mid-forties jabbed a finger at his face.
'I'm telling you right now I will not be leaving this building until I see someone who is willing to take me seriously!'
Meadows planted his hands on the counter, his face soured by a frown. 'I can understand your concerns, sir, but I'm afraid that at this point there's very little we can do.'
'Problem?' Bannister asked as he stood in the doorway.
Meadows glanced at him, the man on the other side of the counter looked furious as he glared at the DCI.
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