A Body in the Lakes by Graham Smith (great books of all time .TXT) 📕

opened the pickup door to get his phone, reached under his jacket and produced the shortened shotgun. After that it had been easy to get the women to comply. Terror has been his ally.

He knew he’d been too cocky with Willow. Knew he should have been holding the shotgun instead of a knife when lashing her to the bed. He’d managed not to hit her back, but it had been a struggle. Willow had scratched at him, called him names and had even tried to bite him. The insults she hurled at him had stung him to the point where he’d felt the need to gag her.

He understood her terror; after all, he’d seen it on every occasion he’d tied a woman to that bed.

Their fear gave him a buzz like nothing he’d ever experienced.

Now that he had Willow to himself, he was looking forward to feeding off that fear, to drinking it in when he lay with her.

He knew the feelings he got from his victims’ terror were rooted in a sense of control. He was used to being looked down upon, to being mocked and not taken seriously.

When she’d visited him to talk about his investments, Willow had taken him seriously, but he’d known it was an act, that she was just doing her job. She’d been polite and had listened to him, but he knew that he was just another customer who needed to be dealt with.

He was more than that now. He’d gone from genial customer to a dominant force.

Willow was now his to do with as he pleased.

He walked along the passage and took hold of the door handle to the bedroom where he’d imprisoned her. When he stepped into the room, the fear in her eyes filled him with anticipation of pleasures yet to come. He wasn’t going to take her yet. He needed to build up to the moment, prepare himself and, most of all, he had to make her fear build. The more terrified his victims were, the more pleasure he took from sating his urges.

Willow writhed on the bed as he tore her clothes from her body. He could tell she was petrified.

To increase her fear even further he placed a hand on her bare, trembling thigh and looked into her eyes.

‘I’ve a couple of jobs to do, but don’t worry, it won’t be long before I’m back.’

Fifty-Eight

Beth took a right off Curzon Street and wound her way through the housing estate until she found herself outside a semi-detached house. She’d run the visit to Maryport past O’Dowd and had got the DI’s agreement, if not full blessing. Tracking down Willow was a job she could do without, but she couldn’t stop herself from worrying that she had been taken by the Lakeland Ripper.

According to Willow’s parents, she had last been seen by her friends around 12.30 a.m. when they’d parted company when she had gone to get a taxi home. As Willow hadn’t yet been missing for twenty-four hours and wasn’t considered to be a vulnerable person, there was little the police could do officially, but a constable who’d gone to school with Willow had spoken to a few of the taxi drivers and one had recalled arranging to come back for Willow, but by the time he returned from dropping his fare off, she’d vanished.

It was still unknown if Willow had hooked up with someone while waiting for the taxi to return. Her friends had told Willow’s parents she’d chatted to a couple of guys, but hadn’t acted as if she was going to take things further.

So far as Beth could work out, Willow had gone missing around 12.45 a.m., which meant that she’d now been missing for a full eleven hours. That might not seem like a long time, but if Willow had been taken by the Lakeland Ripper, those eleven hours would seem like an eternity to her.

The Lakeland Ripper’s selection of victims had got younger until Felicia Evans and something in her gut had convinced Beth that he hadn’t satisfied his urges with the elderly lady. While only her mother would describe Joanne Armstrong as pretty, Harriet Quantrell was an attractive young woman. However, Willow was better-looking than Harriet, which further fuelled Beth’s conviction that he had taken her to finish the job that had been started with Felicia Evans.

There was always an outside chance that Willow had been abducted by someone else or had taken off of her own accord, but Beth didn’t waste time thinking about either of those scenarios.

Fifty-Nine

Beth took in the area as she walked along the narrow concrete path to the Brown’s front door. Everything was neat and the ages and models of the cars suggested a certain level of affluence. The people who lived in this street wouldn’t be classed as wealthy, but neither would they have to scrimp and save just to survive.

Willow’s father answered the door. He was a short man with a straight back and, while he was obviously worried about his daughter, there was a stoicism to him that boded well should Beth’s fears prove correct. Beth had learned very soon in her career that people who fell apart emotionally were unreliable as witnesses; their recollections were vague, and that rather than give questions proper thought before answering, they blurted something out, rather than face harsh truths that may be uncovered by internal analysis. Mr Brown may not be a witness in the strictest sense of the word, but he was still giving them information and answering their questions.

Mrs Brown was a delicate woman who insisted on making Beth a cuppa. She fussed around, all of a twitter as she plumped a cushion, got a coaster and tossed looks towards the kitchen as she waited for the kettle to boil.

The TV in the corner was showing a cookery programme, but its volume was low and Beth was confident neither of the Browns had paid it any real attention.

When the woman was sitting in a chair, her