Vanished Beneath: DS Lasser six (The Lasser series Book 6) (36 page)

'Just what we need,' Lasser said his voice heavy with sarcasm. 'Another DI with a chip on their shoulder.'

Bannister stabbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. 'You don't have to worry Sergeant, she'll hold your hand and keep you on the straight and narrow.'

'
Wonderful
.'

Bannister suddenly clapped his hands. 'Right do you want to meet the lady herself?'

'No thanks.'

'Sorry that wasn't really a question. She's going to keep you company while you go to the boozer in town.'

Lasser looked at Bannister with eyebrow raised.

'And before you ask, no, it isn't some kind of sick joke. In fact here comes the lady herself.'

Lasser peered through the windscreen as a tallish women walked across the car park towards them.

'
That's her
?'

'One of the youngest DIs on the force, I'd say she's at least three years younger than your good self.'

Lasser felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. 'This just gets better and better,' he mumbled.

'Cheer up Sergeant, she doesn't bite, now come on while I introduce her to her new whipping boy.'

Lasser sighed as he clicked open the door.

It turned out Bannister had been lying; Odette Noble was the same age as him not three years younger as the DCI had said.

Lasser was driving towards the town centre, Noble in the passenger seat watching as the view through the window changed from open fields to terraced houses.

'So have you worked in the area long Sergeant Lasser?' she asked.

Lasser glanced sideways, her face was narrow, light green eyes framed with shoulder length ash coloured hair, she wore a dark two-piece trouser suit her hair tied back in a neat ponytail.

'I was born around here,' he replied.

She smiled. 'I thought the accent was local.'

'Yeah I know it's not the most flattering of twangs, but I can't do much about it now.'

Odette folded her hands in her lap.

Lasser kept his eyes on the road, when Bannister had introduced them she'd offered her hand and Lasser had been surprised by the strength of her grip.

'Pleased to meet you DI Noble,' he'd mumbled.

'Call me Odette I'm not one for formality.'

Lasser had looked at her in surprise. 'OK, Odette it is then.'

He had to admit it made a change, in fact he'd worked with DIs Cooper and Chadwick for over five years and he didn't have a clue about their Christian names, they both insisted on being called
'sir'
which did little to break down Lasser's
us
and
them
mentality.

'I've never been to Wigan before,' she said as they pulled up at the Tesco traffic lights.

'Yeah well, it's not the kind of town people come to visit. Usually they're just passing through, and when they see the place they tend to get their foot down. I tell you the speed cameras make a fortune for the council, all those people breaking the speed limit as they make a mad dash for the motorway.'

Odette tilted her head. 'Bannister said you had a way with words.'

Lasser frowned. '
He did
?'

'Like John Cooper Clark on speed, he said.'

'
Cheeky sod
.'

'He also said you were the best sergeant he'd ever worked with.'

Lasser snapped his head sideways. 'Now that's got to be a bad joke?'

She returned his gaze straight faced. 'I worked under Bannister when he was over in Manchester and he rarely pays
anyone
a compliment.'

'Tell me about it,' Lasser said as he pulled away from the lights.

'So when he does, then I take him seriously.'

'Yeah well maybe he's spent too long in the sticks.'

'I doubt it, Bannister doesn't seem to have mellowed, besides I've been looking into this place and for a town this size you seem to have a lot of colourful characters knocking about.'

'Well it can't be as bad as Manchester?'

Odette shrugged. 'So what do we know about Sharon Cliff?'

'Apart from the fact that she liked to wave broken bottles around then not much at the moment.'

'Bannister seems convinced it's all tied in with the bodies you pulled from the lake?'

'It seems that way,' he said before having a quick nibble on a fingernail.

'I don't mind if you smoke Lasser.'

He looked at her in surprise. '
That obvious is it
?'

'Believe me I know what it's like.'

'
You're a smoker
?' he asked in surprise.

'Used to be but I managed to give up it's over four years now but I still get the odd craving.'

Lasser turned right and drove past the McDonalds in town, when he spotted a gap he pulled tight to the curb and yanked on the handbrake. 'I've tried everything, gum, tablets, e-cigs.'

'Keep at it you'll get there,' she said as she unclipped her seatbelt.

The High Street was busy with afternoon shoppers; every one of them seemed to be carrying a Primark bag or a McDonald's meal.

'So where are we going?' Odette asked as Lasser locked the car and walked onto the curb.

'We pulled Cliff in about eight months ago.'

'The incident with the bottle?' she asked as they weaved their way along the pavement.

'Yeah and Bannister wants the boozer checking out, see if anyone remembers her.'

'You think it's likely?'

Lasser shrugged. 'Well we know on the night of the attack she'd been in the Vic for most of the day.'

'So you're hoping it's her local?'

'That's the idea though it could just be that she was too drunk to get out of her chair.'

'
Ah
, there's the sarcasm Bannister warned me about.'

Lasser came to a sudden stop and Odette looked around in surprise.

'OK, I get it, Bannister gave you all the gory details, but he also told me one or two things about
you
.'

This time it was her turn to look surprised. 'Go on I'm listening.'

Lasser smiled. 'Ah, now that would be telling.'

'So you're withholding evidence is that it Sergeant Lasser?'

Lasser held up his hands. 'He said you were switched on, and missed nothing.'

Odette pursed her lips. '
Did he really
?'

'He also said you'd keep me on my toes.'

'This is your town you're the one leading me.'

'Yeah, but for how long?'

Her lips flickered into a smile. 'So come on Sergeant why don't you take me for a drink?'

'On a sergeant’s wage?’ ‘I thought
you
would have been the one buying.'

'
Cheeky sod
,' she said and then punched him lightly on the arm.

92

Albie Ross chewed another fingernail to extinction, watching as the man with the dirty blond hair walked out of the bookmakers. For a moment, he looked left and right, his face twisted in anger, then he threw a handful of betting slips onto the grotty pavement before turning left and stalking down the street.

Albie pulled the crumbled photograph from his pocket and studied it for a few seconds. It showed the man with the fair hair grinning for the camera. Someone had ripped the image in half, leaving the man standing to the left with a part of his right arm lifted as if it had been draped over the shoulder of the missing person by his side.

Shoving the picture back into his pocket, he started to follow the man as he stalked along the pavement.

By the time Albie had arrived home, his brain had been in meltdown, he'd sniffed his fingers convinced that he could smell Sharon Cliff on his skin, seared into his brain for all time.

Then he'd looked down and seen the envelope on the floor, his mind clattering with dread as he bent to pick it up with quivering fingers. There had been a thousand pounds inside, a typed letter and the photograph.

Albie had crossed the room and slumped down onto the sofa, unable to take his eyes off the hard cash. Then he'd looked quickly at the picture before thrusting it into his pocket.

The letter had been short and to the point.

'Remember your promise Albie and I will remember mine. The man in the photograph is called David Hancock; he is next on the list. You will find him at Totes Bookmakers on the High Street, every day from ten until eleven. You have twenty-four hours to see the job through, you have the drug and how you administer it is up to you. If he isn't dead by twelve tonight I shall inform the police and then find another contact to complete the work. The choice is up to you.'

Albie had held the letter in one hand, the money in the other, as if weighing up his options on a pair of dubious scales.

Then he'd leapt to his feet and rushed to the shower trying to let the hot water cleanse him.

Later he sat propped up in bed smoking a fat joint and glugging from a can of cheap lager. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see Shaz twitching on the living room floor, her legs thrashing and her head slamming against the corner of the fireplace as she died.

Now he kept his eyes locked on Hancock as he trailed through the crowd of shoppers.

Occasionally, the man would stop to peer in a shop window, once he halted to roll a cigarette. Albie hesitated, oblivious to the people who brushed past as he stood like a shop window mannequin on the gum-stained pavement.

Hancock smoked the cigarette as he climbed up High Street, when he reached the door of the Victoria public house he flicked the stump into the gutter before pushing through the double doors.

Albie glanced at his phone it was just past noon. Pulling a tenner from his pocket, he followed Hancock into the gloomy interior.

93

Lasser slid the photograph of Sharon Cliff onto the bar. 'Come on Bob take a look.'

The barman rammed a grotty looking tea towel into a pint glass and squeaked it back and forth before looking down at the picture, his eyes springing wide when he saw the head shot of Cliff on the cold metal trolley.

'Bugger me Lasser are you trying to give me nightmares?'

Odette tapped a finger on the picture. 'Do you know this woman?' she asked in a no nonsense voice.

Bob glanced at her before looking back at Lasser. 'This your new girlfriend then?'

'New
boss,'
Lasser said with a smile.

Bob placed the glass on the bar and picked the picture up. 'Aye, I know her or should I say I
knew
her?'

'Do you have a name?'

Bob sighed as Odette picked up her glass of orange juice and took a small sip. 'Are you sure you don't want a vodka in that?' he asked.

'I'm on duty,' she said straight-faced.

'Well it never stops Lasser, here.'

The corners of Odette's lips flickered upwards. 'Oh that's
right
is it?'

Lasser could feel his cheeks burning. 'Stop taking the piss Bob and tell me her name?'

The Vic was dark and redolent with the smell of spilled beer and old cigarettes, which considering the smoking ban had been in place for seven years was testament to how much the place needed fumigating. Tables had been pushed into gloomy corners, men sat in chairs like wraiths, hiding in the shadows. In the corner, Lasser could hear the unmistakable sound of dominoes being shuffled on a table top.

'Sharon something or other.' Bob eventually replied.

'So this was her local?'

Bob shrugged. 'Well she always seemed to end up here but it was usually late on.'

'Did she stay for the lock-ins?'

'We have an all-day licence Lasser we don't have lock-ins anymore.'

'But she stayed till last orders?' Odette asked before draining her glass.

'Oh aye a couple of times I had to carry her out the door.'

'So she liked a drink?'

'Amongst other things,' Bob said cryptically.

Lasser and Noble exchanged glances.

'
Meaning
?' Lasser asked.

Bob looked right and left before leaning onto the bar. 'Caught her in the ladies sticking something up her hooter, only once mind,' he added quickly.

'What about the night we came to pick her up?'

'Aye well, she was sat over there,' he pointed into the corner. 'Her and this other girl, pissed out of their heads they were. I had to go over more than once and tell em to keep the noise down.'

Odette used a Tetley's towel to wipe the surface of the bar before propping her elbows on the woodwork. 'So how did she respond when you warned her?'