Dark of Mind

by Robin Roughley

  Lasser and Bannister remained silent as he turned over another page.

  ''Some say pills are the best way to do it, but I'm not sure, I can't make up my mind what to do or how to go about doing it. I wish I could talk to my dad but he's just so sad all the time about losing mum and the last thing he wants is to listen to me moaning about how I feel.''

  'Christ, I don't like the way this is going,' Bannister all but whispered as Lasser turned over a page.

  ''I talked to someone today on the site and they said they could help me!!!!''

  Lasser felt the dread close around his heart as he hesitantly turned another page.

  ''Not sure what to do, a lot of what they say makes a kind of sense. I mean, my dad should be there to help me, that's what they said today. He should put his grief to one side and take notice of me but he won't do it and I don't know why, he's acting now as if nothing's happened, he even went back to work and I have nothing to do but sit around the house. I keep looking for my mum, but she isn't there.''

  Lasser could see a stain on the paper and he had no doubt that it had been caused by a falling tear of despair.

  'For Christ sake, Lasser, turn the bloody page,' Bannister said in a gasp.

  Lasser took a deep breath and his heart leapt as he read the next passage.

  ''He wants me to cut myself.''

  'Bastard!' Bannister snarled.

  ''He says it will let out all the hurt and pain and I so want to be free of the pain, it hurts so bad.''

  Lasser went to turn the page but the anguish stopped his hand.

  'Give it to me,' Bannister said as he reached out to take the diary.

  Lasser shot out a hand and grabbed his wrist. 'I've got this,' he warned.

  Bannister grunted as Lasser flicked the page over.

  ''I tried to do as he asked but I couldn't make the cut and I feel like such a failure; he was only offering to help and now I've let him down as well.''

  The next few pages were blank and Lasser thought that they had come to the end of the entries and then suddenly a block of writing appeared, and they read the words together, their faces etched with sorrow.

  ''I am useless, he has told me that I don't deserve to live. He said my dad would be better off without me and I know he's right, after all I'm not even his real daughter, that's what the man said. I know now I should never have been born in the first place, my real mother never wanted me, and she gave me away and all I ever brought was pain and now Mum is dead, and Dad is hurting so bad. The man told me the best way to kill myself was to cut my wrists, but he says it's quicker to go down the road rather than across the street. At first I wasn't sure what he meant but when I asked him he said to cut down the arm and not across the wrists, it's quicker, according to him it's just like falling asleep and I want that so much, I want to just sleep and forget everything''.

  Bannister ran a shaking hand across the back of his neck and Lasser hitched in a trembling breath as he turned the last page.

  ''I'm sorry, Dad, I love you, but I know Mum is waiting for me on the other side, the man has promised me that. Your loving daughter, Jilly''.

  Lasser closed the diary, his hands gripping the book tight as the sorrow welled inside followed a second later by the ice-cold blast of fury.

  'Bradley fucking Robbins!' Bannister snarled, before yanking the phone from his pocket and stabbing at the screen.

  Lasser stoked the fury inside until it raged, the beast inside dragging steel claws through his soul.

  122

  Odette was heading towards the car when her phone rang, by the time she made it across the car park she had fished it from her pocket.

  She listened as Bannister filled her in on what they had found at Stone's house.

  'So, you think Robbins was responsible for her death?'

  'I know there's no way to prove it, but Beth Robbins is missing and we suspect that she's been targeted by her ex-husband and now we have the diary, and if Bradley Robbins was the man Jilly Stone was talking to then it all links up.'

  'OK, what do you want me to do?' she asked as she opened the car door and got behind the wheel.

  'Head over to Robbins's house, if Stone has got Beth Robbins then she will have told him all about Bradley and as much as I hate the little bastard, we can't have Stone getting his hands on him.'

  'Understood,' she replied as she started the car and clicked her seat belt into place.

  'We'll finish up here and then head over to meet you.'

  'No problem, I can be there in fifteen minutes, so I'll catch you later.'

  By the time she pulled through the gates she had flicked the headlights on, her face fixed with concern as she drove off down the road.

  123

  The headlights speared out into the darkness, illuminating the road ahead, shadowing the towering oak trees.

  Beth Robbins sat ramrod straight in the passenger seat, her hands locked together in her lap, her face pale with latent fury as she pictured her ex-husband gloating because he thought she had been murdered, the delight in his voice when Stone had told him she was dead, the absolute joy as he said he wanted to see her remains, her head dumped in a litter bin in the middle of nowhere.

  'Are you OK?' Stone asked, slowing down for a tight left-hand bend.

  'I'm going to kill him,' she hissed into the darkness, her narrowed eyes glaring at the unfolding road.

  'That's not going to happen.'

  She turned to look at the man behind the wheel, her eyes flashing hatred. 'After what he did to your daughter, you're telling me you don't want to see him dead?' she asked in disbelief.

  Stone took a deep breath and let it out slowly, on the drive over to Rivington he had told her all about Jilly and the despair she had felt over the death of her mother, his eyes shimmering with tears as he explained about finding her in her bedroom, how she had been there for almost twenty-four hours, the blood dried on the duvet, before he even bothered to look for her.

  All the guilt and shame had come pouring out and for a few minutes he had felt some strange kind of relief for having purged his soul, though the feeling had been short-lived and now the guilt was back stronger than ever, a black stain that could never be diluted or removed.

  'I just don't understand how you can suffer that man to live after the things he's done,' Beth spat into the darkness.

  Stone kept his eyes on the road as he tried to hold on to the moral high ground. 'I blame myself for what happened to my daughter, the world is full of bad people, people who will take advantage of those who are vulnerable and as her father it was my job to protect her, and I failed to do that because I was too busy wallowing in self-pity. I have to live with what I've done, and I know my wife would hate me for letting Jilly down when she needed me the most.'

  'Well, you're more forgiving than I could ever be, I want to see the bastard on his knees before me, I want to be the one who gloats while he does the dying,' Beth snapped.

  Stone glanced at her and felt the disgust rise inside. 'How long were you married to the man?'

  'Not that long,' she said her voice suddenly defensive.

  'And why did you split up?'

  'That's none of your business,' she fired back, her shadowed face scowling.

  'Did he cheat on you?'

  Beth laughed at the notion, a harsh bitter sound. 'Don't be ridiculous, he would never have cheated on me, he…'

  'So, were you the one who did the cheating?'

  Silence.

  Stone grunted to himself as the lights continued to illuminate the darkness ahead.

  'Like I said, that's none of your business,' she eventually replied but now her voice had lost the spiteful edge leaving her sounding as guilty as hell.

  Suddenly, a thought came into his mind, all he had was the name Bradley Robbins, the man responsible for poisoning Jilly's mind to such an extent that she took her own life, but how had Robbins ended up so twisted, so damaged in the first place?

  Glancing to his left, he
saw the woman in the passenger seat glaring at him, her face blighted with a hatred for the world, and suddenly David Stone had his answer.

  For the briefest of moments, he felt the fury clamber through the heart of him and he grasped the wheel tight determined not to react to the wash of savage emotion that swept through his mind.

  'Why are you looking at me like that?' she demanded, her voice coming out as a hiss of anger.

  Ignoring her, Stone turned back to the road, his teeth grinding together as he suppressed the fury that continued to build inside.

  124

  Lasser answered the phone as Bannister pulled off the drive of Stone's house.

  'How's it going, Odette?' he asked as the DCI flicked on the main beam.

  'I'm following Robbins.'

  'What are you talking about, I told you to wait at the house until we arrived?' Bannister asked in his usual gruff voice.

  'I was heading over there, and he pulled out in front of me, so I decided to follow.'

  'Where are you now?' Lasser asked as Bannister fumbled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

  'I've just gone past the cenotaph at Aspull, heading out towards Blackrod,' she replied.

  Bannister tossed the pack at Lasser and he pulled out two cigarettes before hurriedly lighting them.

  'Right, Odette, we're going to head out to you, so keep us informed of his destination but don't get too close, we don't want the prick to know that he's being followed,' Bannister said as he took a pull on the cigarette.

  'It won't be easy, there are hardly any other cars on the road, but I'll do my best.'

  'Well, we can be at Aspull in fifteen minutes so Lasser will give you a ring for an update when we get there,' the DCI said.

  'No problem, speak soon.'

  Then Odette was gone and Lasser felt the familiar feeling of unease flutter through his mind as he slid a crack in the window to let the smoke out.

  'I owe you an apology,' Bannister blurted out the words.

  Lasser glanced at his boss in surprise. 'What for?'

  'For not taking your concerns about Stone seriously.'

  'Forget it.'

  'No, I won't bloody forget it, you were right, and I was wrong.'

  The car swept down a steep incline in the road, forcing the DCI to ease off the gas and press the brakes.

  'Look, I had no idea about Stone, when I said we should check him out, I was just grasping at straws.'

  'I realise that,' Bannister paused as he eased around the bend before hitting the gas again, 'I just can't believe what was written in the diary, that poor girl losing her mother and then feeling responsible for her father and then along comes that bastard and pushes her over the edge.'

  Lasser blew a stream of smoke from his nose but before he could answer his boss his phone rang, and he tapped at the screen. 'All right, Rog, what have you got for us?'

  'I've just been going over the information we have on Jilly Stone, after she died Stone gave us all the information he had on his daughter, including a transcript of the conversations she'd had on the suicide site. If Robbins is responsible, then he must have been using a different computer somewhere because there's nothing on the desktop seized from his house and his phone is clean as well.'

  'Jesus this gets worse,' Lasser mumbled as he pictured Robbins working on a secret computer, perhaps moving around the local coffee shops that had free Wi-Fi tapping out his messages of filth and ending a young girl's life in the process, confident that he wouldn't be traced.

  'PC Black attended the initial scene and as far as I can tell he passed the information on to DI Cooper, but it was never followed up.'

  'Just wait, just fucking wait,' Bannister snarled.

  'Stone called at the station on three separate occasions to see if any progress had been made, his concerns were logged by the desk sergeant but that was all.'

  'No wonder he decided to go it alone,' Lasser said with a heavy sigh.

  'According to the transcripts she spent a lot of time talking to someone called the Truth Teller,' Roger paused, 'whoever that is they're a total bastard, it seems as if they were trying to help but you can tell they had their own agenda. In the end some of the replies were abusive but always done with a twist, guaranteed to heap the guilt onto her shoulders.'

  'Yeah well, we've got Jilly's diary and you're right about the guilt, in the end that's what made her take her own life.'

  'Like I said, whoever this is then they're one sick bastard.'

  Lasser could hear the anger in Roger's voice and understood it completely. 'Well, keep looking, Rog, we're on our way to check something out but you can get either of us on our mobiles.'

  'No worries and good luck.'

  The screen went blank and Lasser dropped the phone into his pocket.

  'I know I spend a lot of time moaning and groaning about the lack of resources and manpower and I'll cut anyone some slack when they're rushed off their feet, but we both know Black is a lazy bastard and Cooper was just as fucking bad and that is the one thing I cannot abide,' Bannister angrily changed gears, his shadowed face set in a scowl of wrath.

  'Yeah well, Cooper's dead and we both know that Black will hide behind the ''too busy and not enough hours in the day'' routine.'

  'One thing's guaranteed, when this is over, I'll make sure I find enough hours in the day to bollock him.' The Audi shot along the straight country lane, the speed increasing, matching Bannister's ever-growing rage.

  125

  Odette kept her eyes fixed on the tail lights ahead, making sure she stayed well back in an effort not to alert Robbins to her presence.

  She was familiar with the road that cut out across the moorland and although there were places to turn off, she knew that many were just farm tracks leading to a dead end or to open fields.

  When she saw the lights flash and turn to the left, she eased forward in her seat peering into the darkness and keeping her speed down as she approached. The car was parked in the lay-by and she drove past, glancing in the mirror as the headlights were turned off.

  Rounding the corner, she continued for another two hundred yards before pulling over to the left and parking up on a short patch of gravel that led down to the side of one of the reservoirs.

  Lifting out her phone, she scrolled to Lasser's number and tapped at the screen.

  'I was just going to ring you, Odette, we're heading into Aspull now.'

  'Robbins has just parked up on the Rivington road, at the bottom of the lane that leads to the barn, I've parked around the corner and I'm going to head back on foot to the lay-by to see what he's up to.'

  'Be careful, Odette, we know he's a prick but he's a slippery bastard as well,' Bannister warned.

  'Don't worry, I won't do anything stupid,' she replied as she reached over and opened the glove compartment before pulling out the heavy-duty torch.

  'OK, we're about fifteen minutes away so mute your phone but put it on vibrate in case we need to get in touch with you,' the DCI warned.

  'Will do,' tapping the screen she pushed the door open and grabbed the car keys as she stepped from the Audi.

  Somewhere in the darkness she heard an owl hoot as she moved along the path, the sandstone gravel laid out before her shining in the pale moonlight.

  Gripping the phone tight in her right hand, she moved forward into the smothering darkness.

  126

  Robbins walked beneath the towering trees, the pale light from the phone illuminating his face as he tapped out the number before holding it close to his ear, within seconds Zero answered.

  'I'm two minutes away from the barn, Master.'

  'Remember what I said, the first litter bin on the left.'

  'Where do you want me to go when I've dropped the package off?'

  Robbins thought before answering. 'I want you to drive back down the lane and turn left then park up near the castle ruins and wait for my call, but you stay there, you do not move until I ring you back, is that clear?'

&nb
sp; 'Perfectly clear.'

  'And remember, I see everything, I know everything.'

  'Of course, Master, I am only here to serve you.'

  Robbins smiled in satisfaction as he ended the call without bothering to utter another word.

  His booted feet moved him along the gravel path, he knew this place well, after he had been released from the mental health unit, he had spent a lot of time here trying to plan his next move, working through the various scenarios in his head. It was here where he had decided to take a look at the suicide sites, here where he had decided to put his plan into action.

  Now he was back again and this time he would claim the ultimate prize, the head of his bitch ex-wife, the woman who had promised him so much and then shat in his face and laughed about it.

  Yes well, she wasn't laughing now, her death hadn't been as horrifying as he had hoped but surely, she must have suffered, and perhaps strangulation was the perfect way to make someone aware of their own mortality. He had wanted her hacked and stabbed to death but now he was starting to realise that although the terror would have been acute and the pain excruciating it would have been over too soon.

  He pictured hands around her soft throat, her eyes huge as the life-giving air was slowly cut off, no doubt she would have tried to fight back, scrabbling at the killer's hands locked on her neck.

  Gradually her feeble efforts would have lessened, and she would have become aware that she was dying, he could imagine her terror, her horror as her vision slowly faded. It would have been wonderful if she had known that he was ultimately responsible for her murder, although he hadn't been there to witness it, he hoped that in some way the truth had been revealed to her as she died. In the darkness Bradley Robbins sighed in ecstasy, when he heard the sound of the engine he paused to look over to his right, he could see the headlights briefly flare through the bushes that lined the lane and then they swept by.