Driven by Fear (The DS Lasser Book 27)

by Robin Roughley

  Taking a step back, she braced herself, unsure whether she was going to run again or stand her ground.

  'Well done, Rea, excellent, truly excellent,' his voice was full of admiration as he continued to clap and then he suddenly stopped as he started to move towards her.

  She held the gasp inside at the use of her name and then she realised that whoever the man was he must have taken her handbag after clubbing her unconscious on the road.

  'Feel free to run again, you covered quite a lot of ground and I must admit you caught me by surprise.'

  'Stay back,' she warned in a voice quivering with tension and fear.

  The smile remained plastered on his face and as he drew closer his features became more distinct, pale grey eyes, a full mouth, he was over six feet tall and slender, not thin, but athletic and suddenly she realised that to run again would be pointless. He had followed her with ease, he wasn't sweating or breathing heavily, in fact, he looked calm and pleased at the same time.

  When he was ten feet away, he came to a stop.

  'I must admit last night didn't work out in the way I had planned,' he paused and tilted his head, looking her up and down. 'Though something tells me you have the makings of a good replacement.'

  Rea blinked the sweat from her eyes confused by his strange words, her body thrumming with adrenalin. 'Replacement for what?' she managed to ask.

  The man frowned for a couple of seconds and then the smile was back. 'Why, for Julie of course, the woman who died on Hamley Road, the one you tried to help and believe me, I want to thank you for your kindness, I realise it cannot have been easy.'

  Rea had no idea how to reply so she took another backward step.

  'I realise it's confusing, but I will explain it all in time, I promise you that,' he said with a nod.

  'What was she doing there?'

  'As strange as it might sound, Julie was in training.'

  Rea tried to follow what he was saying but his words were inexplicable. 'Training?' she mumbled.

  'Julie was very special to me, I treasured her in a multitude of ways,' he shook his head, his expression suddenly one of deep sadness. 'I still can't believe this had happened, I heard the impact, it was truly terrible and by the time I reached her she was already dead and the animal responsible had driven away, leaving her to die alone.'

  'Did you see the car that hit her?' Rea asked, her mind in complete turmoil.

  'I did, it was a dark grey…'

  'BMW?' she interrupted, her heart leaping in her chest.

  'How did you know?' his eyes narrowed, his voice coming out as a low hiss.

  Rea's hands closed into tight fists as she pictured Mark, drunk behind the wheel, crashing into the woman named Julie and then leaving her there in the road. Like the man said she had been left to die and…

  'I asked you how you knew about the car?' he broke into her thoughts before taking half a dozen long strides towards her.

  Rea felt the anger coming off him in waves and the realisation came back like a freight train, whoever this man was he had knocked her out cold and locked her in the strange windowless building in the woods, and he had been…

  'You were chasing her, you were the reason she was running!' she fired out the words instinctively knowing they were the truth.

  The man suddenly dashed forward and then he was standing in front of her, his eyes narrowed, and at last she saw the fury in the depths.

  'Tell me about the car!?' he suddenly roared.

  Rea lurched back at the intensity of the man. 'I know who was driving the car,' the words dashed from her mouth in a rush of fear.

  'How, how do you know?'

  Rea closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, her heart hammering. 'His name is Mark,' she paused and tried to quell the fear, 'he was my boyfriend.'

  'Was your boyfriend?' the man asked with a hint of confusion.

  Opening her eyes, she took a deep breath as she raised her head and met his brittle gaze. 'I'd been in the car with him, but he was drunk, I told him to pull over to let me out, then he drove off and…'

  'This Mark character was drunk when he hit my Julie?'

  All she could do was nod in reply.

  'A drunk driver?' he spat out the words, his rage all consuming.

  All she could do was nod again, finding it almost impossible to hold his gaze as he glared at her.

  Then she was reeling backwards, her eyes fluttering closed, by the time she hit the ground she was once more unconscious.

  The man stood over her, the fury racing around his mind, the need to kill someone, anyone, roared through the heart of him and he looked up at the blue sky segmented by the branches above.

  He remained that way for a couple of minutes as he tried to control the anger and then he took a deep breath and sighed before looking at Rea Lomax sprawled in the soft grass.

  Reaching down, he hauled her to her feet and then over his shoulder.

  'Got plans for you,' he said as he strode off through the trees.

  22

  They were heading towards the front door when it opened, and Dan Lomax looked out at them, his faced etched with nervous tension.

  'Please tell me you've found her?' he asked in desperation.

  'I'm afraid not,' Lasser paused, 'can we come in?'

  Lomax stepped back and ushered them inside, closing the door before turning to the pair of them. 'So, what's happening?' he asked.

  'My name is Carole Henson, Mr…'

  'Call me Dan,' he interrupted.

  Carole nodded. 'I realise this is very difficult for you, but we have a few questions about Rea.'

  'Are you any closer to finding my Rea?' Lomax asked, his face crumpling.

  Carole held the sigh inside, trying her best to remain professional as Lomax began to unravel. 'We're pursuing one or two lines of enquiry and I want to assure you that we are doing everything we can to locate your daughter.'

  'What about that bastard Draper, what did he have to say for himself?' Lomax asked as he brushed past them.

  They followed him into a neat kitchen, an old mongrel was curled in a basket fast asleep.

  'He has made a statement and believe me, he will be questioned again at length, but right now we need to know more about Rea,' Carole explained.

  Lomax cleared his throat and nodded. 'OK, what do you want to know?'

  'Well, first, do you have a recent picture of your daughter?' Lasser asked.

  They watched as he left the room, returning half a minute later with a framed picture of his daughter.

  Carole took it and looked at the image, Rea Lomax looked to be in her mid-twenties, a wide smile on her face, dark straight hair touching her shoulders, brown eyes alight with life.

  'That was taken a couple of months ago,' Lomax paused, his hands pulling and tugging at one another, 'please tell me Draper hasn't harmed her?'

  Lasser looked at the man and held the sigh inside. 'At the moment we don't think Mark Draper knows where Rea is.'

  'But what about the woman on the road, the one who was knocked down and killed?'

  'Our enquiries are ongoing, but once we are sure of the facts then we'll let you know,' Lasser offered, though he knew that it would offer little in the way of comfort for Dan Lomax.

  'Did Draper knock her down, did he kill her?'

  Lasser took a deep breath knowing that his answer would sound pitiable. 'Again, at this time we can be certain of nothing, but we will get to the truth and…'

  'You need to be out there looking for my daughter, she wouldn't leave me like this – not knowing where she is or what she's doing.'

  'How long has she been with Mark Draper?' Lasser asked.

  'About twelve months, and I told her more than once that he was not to be trusted.'

  'What made you say that?' Carole asked.

  Dan Lomax dragged a hand down his face, the anxiety mounting. 'He likes the drink too much for my liking and as soon as he said it was Rea who wanted to go to a nightclub, I knew he was
lying, and if he'll lie about that then what else will he bullshit about?'

  Lasser nodded in understanding as Carole shifted her feet.

  'Can you tell us what Rea does for a living?'

  'She works as a teaching assistant in Standish, she's been there for the past five years.'

  'What about past boyfriends?'

  Lasser felt for the man as the questions came thick and fast, he looked close to either losing his temper or breaking down completely.

  'She was with a guy called Tom Small for a few months, he was a bloody taker, but what has all this got to do with finding my daughter?'

  Probably nothing, Lasser thought as Carole glanced at her watch. 'Right, thanks for the picture and…'

  'Hang on, you can't just go without telling me what you know?'

  Lasser saw Carole nod as she looked directly at Lomax.

  'The truth is in situations like this, things can move very quickly and believe me as soon as we have something more concrete, we will be in touch, now, I'm going to arrange for a fellow officer to stay with you and…'

  'I don't want any of that, I don't need someone to make me cups of tea and listen to me waffle on, I just want my daughter back, so don't waste resources, just get Rea back to me.'

  Carole nodded in understanding. 'Once again, thank you for your help and we'll be in touch.'

  Lomax walked them back to the door and watched as they headed for the Audi, his face etched with fear, his heart thudding as if he had just been for a strenuous run through the woods.

  23

  Brewster sat at his desk, his corkscrew hair of grey looked as if someone had emptied a large dish of mouldy spaghetti over his head.

  Easing back from the computer, he looked around the room, there were four other desks, each one empty, his fellow reporters were all out looking for stories to cover.

  'Scum,' he mumbled to himself as he thought off his colleagues – three men and one woman – they were all the new-breed type, the type that he truly hated.

  Two of them had come straight from university, and he despised them the most, the continual gushing they did, as if they had the best job in the world, both convinced that they were going to leave their mark in the world of hard-hitting, investigative journalism.

  Trouble was Brewster knew how real life worked, the more arses they kissed the sooner they would move along to bigger and better things, and once again he would be left behind.

  'It's not right,' he pushed to his feet and headed over to the coffee machine in the corner of the office, his face as always bore a sour expression.

  He was halfway across the room when the door opened and a woman in her early twenties bustled into the office, the bag dangling from her shoulder, her face alight with excitement.

  'Tea, two sugars,' she said breezily before pulling out a chair and sitting down.

  Brewster ignored her completely as he fed change into the machine.

  The woman glanced at him while she waited for her computer to boot up.

  Seconds later, Brewster was heading back to his chair, cup of sludge in hand.

  With a sigh, she shook her head before turning back to the computer, her fingers flitting over the keyboard.

  Gemma Fox had been at the paper just short of twelve months and when she had first arrived, she had looked at Brewster with awe, as far as she was concerned, he had been the real deal, an investigative journalist, old school, with a sharp mind and a can-do attitude.

  However, it hadn't taken her long to change her opinion of the man, the truth was he wasn't really ''old school'' he wasn't ''charmingly curmudgeonly'' he was vicious and spiteful, and none of her colleagues had an ounce of respect for the man with the stupid hair and ridiculous sports car.

  One or two at the paper had warned her to watch her back and at first, she had put it down to jealousy on their part. As far as she was concerned Michael Brewster was a legend, over the years he'd broken plenty of big stories, he'd even had his own TV show, though that had been years ago. Only last year he had been kidnapped and held in a hellhole and all because he had put himself in the firing line determined to get to the truth at all costs. Though now she knew the real truth, Brewster was a liar and as far as she was concerned, he was everything she hated in a reporter, the type who gave the profession a bad name.

  'What do you think you're doing?'

  She turned to find the man himself lurking behind her, his eyes fixed on her computer screen.

  'Do you have to sneak about like that?' Gemma Fox asked with a frown.

  'I'm covering the hit and run, so why are you looking at the case?'

  'I didn't realise you had been given exclusivity,' she replied with a thin smile.

  'I did the live to camera, that case is mine,' Brewster claimed.

  'Not according to John, he wants me to look into it as well.'

  Brewster folded his arms, when what he really wanted to do was drag the bitch from her chair and kick her arse out of the office, no, he wanted to go further, he wanted to throw her out of the bloody building and onto the shitty streets where she belonged.

  'John Karmen told you that?' he demanded.

  Gemma nodded. 'If you don't believe me then go and see him, I'm not responsible for the leads we follow.'

  'Lead, what lead?'

  'Like I said, go and see the boss, perhaps he'll fill you in.'

  Brewster could feel his anger building. 'I want you to fill me in.'

  'Sorry, no can do,' she replied, before turning back to the computer screen, her hands resting in her lap, refusing to work while he stood at her back.

  When she heard the office door slam open, she glanced across the room in time to see the grey mop of hair vanish into the corridor.

  'Dinosaur,' she spat before tapping at the keys, her eyes keen, her brow furrowed in concentration as she chased her lead down.

  24

  Bannister and Odette listened as Carole filled them in on the missing Rea Lomax.

  By the time she had finished, Bannister looked perplexed, and Odette appeared concerned.

  'So, you think the victim was being chased and she dashed out in front of this Draper guy hoping to be saved, but instead he ran her down?' the DCI asked.

  Carole nodded, Lasser was standing over by the window enjoying the warmth on his neck and shoulders.

  'Then whoever was chasing her took Rea Lomax?' Odette asked.

  'As bizarre as it sounds, we can't think of any other explanation,' Lasser said.

  Bannister scratched his chin, his face thoughtful. 'And there's still no ID on the dead woman?'

  'Nothing so far,' Carole replied.

  'When she saw the car, she must have thought it was as a lifeline,' Odette's voice was laced with sadness as she pictured the woman dashing towards the headlights, desperate to reach the driver and then…

  She closed her eyes for a moment as the imagined impact boomed through her mind.

  'Christ, imagine going through that only to find a drunk driver behind the wheel,' Bannister scowled in anger.

  'And you're sure Draper isn't responsible for Rea's disappearance?' Odette asked as she looked towards Lasser.

  'I don't think he was the one who took her,' he answered. 'Sally has taken a statement and he's been breathalysed but the result was borderline.'

  'Yeah well, it would have been after almost twelve hours,' Bannister replied with a scowl.

  Lasser nodded feeling Bannister's frustration. 'He's also trying to backpedal on the things he told me at the house, he now claims he thought it was an animal he'd hit, a dog or a deer. The truth is he will probably walk later and when he does, I'll head over to his house and have another word.'

  Carole nodded before turning to Bannister. 'And what's the score regarding Nash?' she asked.

  Bannister's scowl grew sterner. 'He's a muscle-bound, steroid-pumped time bomb waiting to explode, and I know what you're going to say – we need proof – but even if we get it then there's no guarantee it will be enough to
put him behind bars.'

  'Exactly,' she replied and waited for him to continue.

  'I just have a bad feeling about this one, Carole, Nash is planning something, I know he is.'

  'Knowing and proving are not the same thing,' she paused, 'he will walk later today, we can't hold him, you know that.'

  Bannister's hands closed into fists as he snapped a nod in reply

  'You also know we don't have the manpower to watch Nash, it just isn't possible.'

  She could see the frustration on his face, his shoulder's slumping. 'All the warning signs are there, Carole, big and bloody flashing.'

  'I agree completely,' Odette said by way of support and Lasser nodded in agreement.

  Carole looked at the three of them, she could see the concern in their eyes, and she knew the feeling well. 'At the moment we need to concentrate on finding Rea Lomax and as much as it pains me, Nash will have to take a back seat.'

  'Understood,' Bannister said reluctantly before rising to his feet with Odette following suit.

  Carole watched as the three of them left the office, and this time it was her turn to frown before turning her chair to face the window, the sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky, the fields stretching out to the distant horizon.

  Yet inside, she felt dark clouds gathering.

  25

  John Karmen looked up as Brewster entered his office without bothering to knock.

  'Good morning, Michael.'

  'I did the live to camera about the hit and run, it's my story,' Brewster barked as he came to a halt in front of Karmen's desk, his pasty face scowling.

  'I'm well aware of that, Michael, and you did a first-class job, but I've had a tip off and …'

  'A tip off?' Brewster interrupted.

  Karmen eased back in the chair. 'Take a pew,' he said easily.

  'I don't want to sit down; I want to know about this ''tip off''?'

  Karmen smiled and spread his hands. 'Come on, you know that we all like to keep our sources close to our hearts.'

  Inside, Brewster fumed.