Read the book: «Vanishing Point»
DANIELLE RAMSAY
Vanishing Point
For Re – you know why.
Table of Contents
Title page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Read on for an extract of Danielle Ramsay’s compulsive debut novel, Broken Silence, out now.
Danielle Ramsay’s Writing Tips
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By the same author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
Friday: 2:40am
‘Kales vaikas!’
‘Gaukite sušikti kekše!’
‘Oh God … no …’ she muttered.
She didn’t hear the foghorn in the distance, or feel the wet sea fret as it wrapped itself around her thin, cold body. All she felt was fear.
She turned and ran as hard as she could up the dark street, away from the glow of the main road where she’d managed to jump out the car.
She could hear them continue to shout in what sounded like Russian followed by the roar of a car’s engine. She knew it was them. They wouldn’t give up until they caught her. She knew too much. Had seen too much for them to let her disappear.
Suddenly a hazy white glow appeared at the top of the dark street as a car turned down it, heading towards her.
Seeing her chance she ran as fast as she could towards the blinding glare of the approaching vehicle, grazing her bare feet against the jagged, uneven pavements. She suddenly tripped over the kerb and fell, landing heavily on her hands and knees on the road.
‘Fuck!’ she cried out.
She staggered up, her long dark hair clinging in damp clumps to her waxen, terrified face. Ignoring her bleeding knees, she lunged into the middle of the road, right in front of the oncoming car.
Skidding, the car slammed on its brakes, just missing her.
‘Help me, please … help …’
Furious, the driver punched his horn to get her out of the way.
‘Please …’
Visibly pissed off, the driver blasted the horn again.
Desperate, she ran round to the passenger door and tried to open it.
The door was locked. She started pounding at the window.
The driver, a dark-haired man in his late thirties, looked at her with contempt.
‘Please …’ she begged. ‘You’ve got to help me … please … They’re going to hurt me …’
‘Piss off home, you drunken cow!’ he said in disgust as he looked at her.
Her face was covered in a sheen of cold sweat as smudged black eyeliner and mascara trailed down her cheeks. Her short, strapless black dress was ripped halfway down the side, immodestly showing the scanty black lacy bra and thong underneath.
‘No, you can’t leave me here! They’ll kill me!’ she begged.
‘Too right I can, you slapper!’
He put his foot to the floor, threw the gear stick into first and took off, tyres screeching as he did so.
‘No … God … no …’
Feeling sick she watched the car speed away. She didn’t know what to do or where to run. All she knew was that if she didn’t hide, if they found her … She didn’t want to think about what would happen next.
She had to keep moving. And fast.
She turned and started running, following the direction the car had come from, hoping that she would find someone. Anyone who could help her.
Then she heard them turn into the street. Their footsteps pounding hard against the road, gaining on her. They were fast. Faster than her.
‘Stop jūs sušikti apskretėlė!’
She didn’t know what he was saying but she instantly recognised the voice and it caused her stomach to tighten with fear.
She stopped, paralysed.
Despite her instinct to run, she turned around.
He was standing less than twenty feet away. Six foot tall, if not more, wearing a designer black suit, an open-necked white shirt. Beside him, his muscle-bound brother. Virtually identical in height, build and dress. Both dark-skinned, covered in stubble that crept up their necks and across their prominent jawlines and cheek bones. Their hair was the same length as the stubble on their faces; coarse, thick and black. Their eyes just as dark with a hard, menacing edge.
Unable to move, she watched as a car idled up the street, coming to a stop behind the two men.
‘Ateiti cia kale!’
‘No … please …’
‘Ateik čia apskretėlė. Dabar!’ his brother barked, gesturing for her to come to him.
She shook her head as tears started to trail down her face. She didn’t need to understand the words to know what he wanted. He wanted her.
‘No … no …’
‘Fucking bitch!’ he cursed in a heavy accent as he strode over to her.
‘Help me! Someone! Help me!’ she screamed.
He grabbed her aggressively from behind. Yanking her head back by her long dark hair as his other leather-gloved hand silenced her. She struggled, unable to breathe as his hand covered her mouth and nose.
‘Sustabdyti!’ he ordered, snapping her head back as punishment.
She stopped fighting him.
‘Good girl,’ he muttered.
He then forced her over to the idling black Mercedes with blackened windows. The rear passenger window buzzed down to reveal a man in his early forties, tanned with short blond hair and piercingly blue cold eyes.
He momentarily held her terrified gaze, enjoying her fear.
The man put his right hand out the window and gently touched her cheek. His gold signet ring with the emblem ‘N’ catching her skin.
She winced, noticing that his smallest finger was deformed. Half a gnarled stump remained where the finger had been chopped off.
Terrified, she stared into the man’s eyes.
A delicate smile played at the corner of his lips.
He then nodded at the man restraining her.
‘Please … please … let me go … I won’t talk …’ she begged.
He ignored her.
She watched with sickening realisation as the dark tinted window buzzed up.
Her captor suddenly relaxed his grip on her.
‘Good. You’re learning …’ he whispered hoarsely, brushing his lips against her cold, glistening cheek.
The pungent smell of strong, stale tobacco lingered on his sour breath.
His hands gently encircled her throat.
‘No … no … please?’ she implored as she looked at the other brother.
He stared at her, unmoved, with eyes that had seen it all before.
She tried to prise the gloved hands from her neck.
His grip tightened.
Terrified, she struggled, clawing and scratching at his large hands.
Grunting with satisfaction he squeezed even harder.
She frantically tore with bloodied, broken nails as her lungs began to burn.
Ten seconds later she felt hot urine trickle down her legs as the fight started to leave her body.
‘Sssh, little bird …’ he moaned gutturally as she began to spasm.
He picked up her eight-stone body, threw her over his shoulder and carried her to the rear of the waiting black Mercedes. He released the boot and stared in admiration at the immaculate thick black plastic-lined interior. Without effort he dumped her into the prepared space. Smiling, he pulled out a ten-inch serrated knife from inside his coat and gently caressed the gleaming blade against the faint pulse in her neck and then slowly ran the tip down towards her full, pert breasts.
‘Later,’ he muttered in a heavy Eastern European accent before slamming the boot of the car shut.
He then looked around the shadowy street checking to see whether anyone was about. Nobody. The street was in darkness. He expected as much. It was after two-thirty in the morning. But he knew they had been lucky. This time.
Chapter Two
Saturday: 3:15am
Moaning, she lifted her aching head up off the cold tiled floor. It was dark, too dark to make anything out. The acrid stench of urine filled her nostrils. In the background, the razor-sharp noise of dripping water echoed again and again.
She tried to remember what had happened but her head hurt too much. It felt heavy and foggy. It took her a couple of moments to realise that she was cold, very cold, and another few more before she became aware that she was naked. An overwhelming sense of panic started to build. She couldn’t figure out where she was or how she had gotten there.
All she knew was that she was hurting. Really hurting.
She tried to swallow and gagged, forcing saliva and blood to dribble out the corners of her mouth. She attempted to gulp back the thick, metallic taste in her mouth but found herself choking. She knew something was wrong as blood continued to pool at the back of her throat.
Panicking, she staggered to her feet, causing a searing white burst of pain in her abdomen. She instinctively placed her hands over her stomach and felt a warm stickiness. She ran her fingers across the gnarled slash realising that it ran from hip to hip. Horrified, she slipped on the wet floor, falling backwards.
The only noise emanating from her mouth was a gurgling splutter as she continued to choke.
Suddenly the door was kicked open and harsh light from the hallway flooded the men’s urinals.
‘Fucking hell!’ muttered a male voice as he took in the carnage in front of him.
‘Get Madley! And I mean now!’ he shouted as he ran over to her thrashing body.
He knelt down beside her and gently moved her into the recovery position, ignoring her moans of agony as he turned her. She suddenly began convulsing. With two fingers he started to pull out the blackened blood clots which were choking her.
It was then he realised where the blood was coming from.
Her tongue had been cut out.
His eyes dropped to her mutilated left breast. Scorched deep into her skin was a four-inch ‘N’. On the other breast, the word ‘PIG’ was cut into it. He then noticed that the pool of blood he was kneeling in was coming from the deep slash running across her stomach.
He had recognised her immediately as the copper who had been in earlier.
She had come looking for trouble. And it seemed that it had found her.
She was now passing in and out of consciousness. It was bad enough having a mutilated copper found in Madley’s club, let alone a dead one.
She didn’t have much time. Blood was continuing to ebb from the knife wound across her abdomen.
He turned towards the corridor.
‘Get Madley. Fucking get Madley!’ he yelled as he looked around for something, anything to stem the flow of blood. He quickly took his shirt off and pressed it hard against her slashed stomach.
‘Shit! Shit!’ he muttered as he waited for instructions.
He couldn’t figure out what was taking Gibbs so long. All he had to do was ask Madley what he wanted done. He needed to know whether they had to dump her somewhere.
Then he heard the screech of approaching sirens. It was too late. Some bastard had set Madley up. Whoever had done this to her had made sure Madley had no time to clean up and get rid of her before the cops turned up.
‘Fuck it!’ he cursed, agitated.
He was worried. Madley was in trouble. And this was just the start.
Chapter Three
Saturday: 5:36am
Jack Brady watched as the blood-red sun continued to rise, blazing from the depths of the North Sea horizon. In the background Mazzy Star played, soulful and unobtrusive.
The calm was disturbed by the buzz of his phone. He stretched over for his BlackBerry. The copper in him told him it was bad news.
‘DI Brady,’ he answered quietly.
He listened.
‘Conrad?’
Brady sat forward. ‘Run that by me again.’
‘Christ!’ Brady let the shocking words sink in.
‘Yeah … yes, I hear you, Conrad,’ Brady answered. ‘Yeah … I’ll be ready … No … you’re not interrupting anything …’
He thought about the previous night. After a couple of pints in the Fat Ox watching the band, Damaged Goods, he had left. Not knowing where he was heading, only that he didn’t want to go back to an empty five-bedroomed house. Somehow he had ended up down at the Blue Lagoon nightclub.
And that was what had led him to spend the early hours sitting waiting for her call. Waiting for an explanation of why she was back in the North East. Why she hadn’t told him, hadn’t warned him. After all, the last time he had seen her was over a year ago. But DC Simone Henderson, his ex-junior colleague, was back. The problem was, she had been more than a colleague. He had regrettably spent a drunken night with her which had resulted in the end of his marriage. Ironically both Claudia, his wife, and DC Simone Henderson ended up transferring as far away from him as possible.
He had spotted her standing at the bar laughing with two men. Her black hair had shone in the dim light.
Brady had stood there, shocked. Not believing that she was actually there. It didn’t make any sense. She worked for the Met now, so why would she be back in the North East, let alone in the Blue Lagoon of all places?
He was about to go over. But in one move she flirtatiously tilted her head back and, laughing at whatever had been said to her by one of the men, turned and caught Brady’s eye.
Her smile froze. Something in her eyes told him to disappear. And fast. She clearly didn’t want him there.
Then, acting as if she didn’t know him, she turned her attention back to the two men.
Brady could see that they had money: their sharp black suits and sharply cut hair said as much.
Resisting the urge to go over, Brady did as she had intimated and quietly slipped out. He had then returned home and took up his vigil by the first-floor bay window, watching the black, unforgiving sea, waiting for her to call. He had played with the idea of ringing her. He still had her number. But he had fought the compulsion; this was her call.
Seeing her last night had uncomfortably awakened emotions that he had tried to suppress when she had suddenly put in for a transfer. She had literally disappeared from his life, refusing to answer any of his calls or emails. Finally, he got the message. But all he had wanted to do was to apologise for forcing her to leave the Northumbrian force.
‘Sir?’ questioned Conrad, interrupting his thoughts.
‘I’ll see you shortly,’ Brady replied.
‘Yes, sir,’ Conrad answered.
He’d only told Brady part of it. What was left unsaid had to be told face to face. The station was reeling from the news. But Conrad knew the news would hit Brady the hardest out of the lot of them.
*
Not a lot had happened to Jack Brady in the last six months. In fact to be fair, not a lot had happened in Whitley Bay; a small seaside resort in the North East of England. Overall, targets had been met and crime figures appeared to be at an all-time low. But Brady knew it was the calm before the storm. Police budgets were being slashed to the bone by the government. The thought of having to tackle the same inevitable crimes of second and third generations who had known nothing but a life of living on shoestring benefits was not one Brady relished. Especially armed with little more than a pencil sharpener and a box of staples.
Brady still had the same hard-nosed boss, Detective Chief Inspector Gates, and the same obtuse, career-chasing sidekick, Detective Sergeant Harry Conrad. And he still had the same old job as Detective Inspector. Simply put, he wasn’t the kind to get promoted. Not after everything he’d been through. Shot in the thigh, too close to his balls for comfort during an undercover drugs bust that had gone wrong. And then there was his affair with DC Simone Henderson.
But he was still a hell of a lot better off than his long-standing friend and now ex-colleague, Detective Inspector Jimmy Matthews. Jimmy’d found himself locked inside Durham Prison, with the very scum he had risked his neck – and at times his career – to put away. Scum who would gut a copper on the inside as soon as look at him, which was why he was in a segregated unit sharing his time with the worst sex offenders imaginable. As far as Brady knew, no one from the job had been to see Matthews; he was a bent copper who had seriously been on the take and in doing so had sold out. Even Brady had not been to see him, despite repeated requests from Matthews. He still didn’t have the stomach to look Matthews in the eye after what he had done.
Showered and changed, Brady slugged back what was left of his black coffee. He picked up his car keys off the granite worktop as he wondered exactly what had washed up onto the shores of Whitley Bay beach. Or to be more precise, exactly who had floated to the surface of the cold, grey murky waters of the North Sea.
Chapter Four
Brady bent under the police cordon and started making his way down the promenade steps looking for what his guts were already telling him was going to be trouble.
It was clear enough where he was heading; it wasn’t difficult to spot uniform on the sectioned-off beach below him. Not to mention the grim-faced SOCOs dressed in black pants and black polo shirts who were methodically working along the beach and lower promenade. As expected, they had created a wide circle around the crime scene, photographing and documenting everything and anything that might have some relevance to the investigation. Directly below him, a tight inner circle was in force, stringently controlled by SOCOs clad head to foot in white, who were painstakingly moving in and out of a large white forensics tent.
Brady caught sight of Conrad.
His deputy’s erect, stiff figure stood out from the crowd; for all the right reasons. Unlike Brady, he had the makings of a Chief Superintendent and soon enough it would be Conrad kicking Brady around. They were the antithesis of one another. Brady was six foot two and lean with muscle, whereas Conrad was a few inches shorter with a heavier, muscular frame. Conrad was invariably clean-shaven, regardless of the hour, with neatly cropped and gelled blond hair. Brady didn’t know how he did it, but he always looked impeccable in his array of suits, shirts and silk ties and tan brogues. Brady was all too aware that his own clothes – t-shirt, battered black jacket and matching skinny trousers and heavy black leather Caterpillar boots – made him stand out against Conrad’s typical CID traditional, conformist image. Not that Brady didn’t look smart, but his look was unconventional for a copper to say the least.
Brady nodded in response as the young, clean-cut figure of Conrad approached him.
‘Sir,’ greeted Conrad.
‘Conrad,’ Brady replied. ‘So what exactly do we have?’
‘Better you see this for yourself,’ replied Conrad, deciding it would be easier than explaining what they had found. Or more to the point, what they still had to find.
*
‘Bloody hell!’ muttered Brady as he held a gloved hand over his nose.
The overpowering stench hit him hard as soon as he entered the tent.
Without even taking into consideration what was left of the body, the smell emanating from it was bad enough to make him want to retch his guts up. The fact that the body had been washed ashore on one of the warmest mornings of the year so far wouldn’t have helped.
He was doing his best not to react to what was lying in front of him. He clenched his hands in an attempt to stop his guts curdling as he grimly stared down at the victim.
Conrad swallowed hard, trying not to breathe as he watched Brady crouch down.
Brady let out a low moan as his leg twinged again. It had been nearly a year since he had been shot in the thigh but the pain remained as a constant reminder of that night. They still hadn’t got the person or persons responsible, though Brady had a fairly good idea who was behind it. Which was one of the reasons that Gates now had him on a tight leash. The DCI didn’t want Brady causing trouble, particularly where Mayor Macmillan was concerned. Brady had been watching Macmillan for some time now. A man whose morals, principals and politics stood about four hundred yards to the right of Genghis Khan. And this was a man who had made powerful friends as a Conservative councillor and now Mayor of North Tyneside.
On the surface Mayor Macmillan was everything his brother, Ronnie Macmillan, wasn’t and that was exactly how Mayor Macmillan wanted it. He wanted no one making the connection. Brady had often moaned to Rubenfeld, a hardened, heavy drinking local hack, about the injustice of Macmillan’s dark past not making it onto the front pages of the local papers – to say nothing of his drug-selling gangster brother and prostitute of a sister.
‘Money, Jack!’ Rubenfeld said scornfully before knocking back yet another whiskey chaser paid for as usual by Brady. ‘Bloody money is what it’s all about! It can buy you anything! Including friends in high places.’
Brady accepted, as had Rubenfeld, that Macmillan was very good at what he did: lying. He was a politician after all. He had removed himself so far from his past life that no one would believe that he was the same Macmillan who had been raised in Blyth with a criminal for a brother who now lived in the deeply entrenched crime world of Wallsend.
‘You alright, sir?’ asked Conrad.
‘Yeah,’ muttered Brady, putting Macmillan to the back of his mind.
He held a gloved hand over his nose and mouth as he moved in closer to what was left of the victim’s neck. Flies had already started to gorge on the brutally hacked wound where bone and flesh ended in a jagged formation.
‘Some kind of serrated weapon was used to …’ he faltered, unable to state the obvious.
He turned and looked up at Conrad.
‘So where’s the head?’
‘I don’t know, sir. This was all that was washed up. The beach has been thoroughly searched, but nothing’s turned up.’
‘Here’s hoping for our sakes it does. Without a head it makes it damned difficult to identify her.’
‘They’re going through missing persons reports back at the station, sir,’ answered Conrad.
Brady raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Damned hard to know whether we do or don’t have a match considering all that’s left of her, don’t you think?’
Brady knew that without a victimology, figuring out the modus operandi would be virtually impossible. To understand why she had been murdered, they needed her identity. Her family. Her friends. Her life story.
‘No identity, no murderer,’ Brady resignedly muttered.
He looked at Conrad.
‘You know what doesn’t rest easy with me?’
Conrad shook his head.
‘Whoever did this wanted her found. They wanted her to wash up on Whitley Bay beach. If she’d been dumped far enough out at sea then she wouldn’t have floated to the surface. Add in the fact that it’s easy enough to weigh a body down so it permanently disappears.’
Brady was worried. Something about this didn’t feel right.
‘Why did they want her found?’
‘I don’t know, sir,’ shrugged Conrad.
Brady turned back to the body. ‘See the bruising on both her arms? Someone’s held her down. There’s finger marks on the upper part of her arms but also around her wrists …’ Brady paused as he stared at what was left of the victim’s hands.
‘We’ve searched, but again, nothing,’ informed Conrad.
Brady carefully picked up the victim’s left hand and closely inspected the stubs of flesh and bone where her fingers should have been.
‘They’ve been cleanly cut off. Different to the neck. Probably garden pruners.’
It was becoming more apparent that whoever had murdered her knew exactly what they were doing; without the victim’s fingers or head it was impossible to positively identify her. Unless, Brady mused, she had some other identifiable traits on her body; that and a missing person’s report to match. Otherwise, Gates had tossed a dead case his way. Brady’s gut feeling told him that Gates knew this case was sunk as soon as the headless body had floated to the surface.
‘No clothes, no jewellery, no plastic. No formal identification. Her fingers and head hacked off …’
He suddenly realised something was wrong. Her breasts looked unnatural. The skin looked too stretched, too taut. He carefully lifted one of her large breasts and looked at the skin underneath.
‘Sir?’ Conrad, asked, curious.
‘Fake, Conrad. See the scar tissue underneath where she was opened up to insert the breast implants?’
He was well aware of the statistics when it came to young women and anorexia and wondered if the victim was another casualty of society’s body fascism.
Brady let his eyes drift slowly down to her flat navel and then further to her perfectly smooth, waxed groin. Yet another testament to the ubiquitous influence of the porn industry; that and the fake breasts, he mused.
‘We don’t deliver on this one, Conrad, Gates will make damned sure that by the end of the year I’ll be begging for my P45.’
Brady shook his head. There was no way he would be able to cope stuck behind a desk for another six months. He’d go stir crazy; even the threat of being demoted to uniform and walking the drug-ridden streets of Blyth was better than pushing pens for the rest of his days.
He sighed heavily as he questioned his chances of solving this murder. His guts kicked off, telling him it didn’t look promising.
‘Let’s take a look at her back and see if there’s any identifiable marks,’ suggested Brady.
‘Are you sure, sir?’
‘Ainsworth’s finished with her, Conrad, so moving her now won’t make any difference.’
Conrad wasn’t so sure. He knew that Ainsworth, the head SOCO, had a ferocious temper and hated anyone messing with his crime scene. But he kept quiet, accepting that Brady knew what he was doing. He watched as Brady carefully rolled the body onto its stomach.
The victim’s back and legs were covered in bruises. Brady had expected as much, but there was something else which took him by surprise.
‘Look at this,’ he muttered to Conrad as he pointed out the distinctive mark at the bottom of her spine.
Conrad nodded, puzzled.
‘What do you think it is?’ Brady asked as he gently touched the newly puckered, burnt flesh with a white latex gloved finger, lightly tracing the shape of the mark. It was two inches in diameter and seemed to be a scorpion. Below it were the bold letters, ‘MD’.
‘I don’t know, sir. It doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before.’
Brady took out his BlackBerry and photographed the burnt flesh.
He didn’t like what was coming to mind and knew that Gates would like it even less.
He stood up and turned to Conrad.
‘Let’s see what Wolfe has to say. He is carrying out the autopsy?’
‘I believe so, sir.’
‘Good, that’s something then.’
They were going to need all the help they could get with this case. And he trusted Wolfe. He was a cantankerous old bugger who drank too much, but he knew his job. He was the best Home Office pathologist the force had ever had, and they’d had a few. Even Chief Superintendent O’Donnell was aware of Wolfe’s foibles, but since he was the best pathologist around, everyone turned a blind eye.
‘Come on, let’s get out of here. I think we could both do with some fresh air.’
Chapter Five
‘So why didn’t the DCI ring me himself?’ Brady quizzed once they were outside.
He already knew that something wasn’t right.
‘He’s busy,’ Conrad replied uneasily.
Brady raised his eyebrows.
‘He’s dealing with another incident that happened last night,’ answered Conrad.
‘What? Involving Madley’s nightclub?’ asked Brady.
‘Yes, sir.’
That came as no surprise to Brady. He had noted the police tape sealing off the premises and the two uniforms stationed by the entrance as he had crossed the road heading for the beach that morning, and had assumed it was another early morning drugs raid. The nightclub belonged to Martin Madley, reputed to be the boss of the local mafia. Not that the police could ever finger Madley. It was rumoured that his main business was drugs. But right now Madley was the least of Brady’s concerns. He’d leave that to Gates.
‘Sir,’ Conrad said, trying his best to hide the apprehension in his voice. He was acutely aware that Brady still didn’t have any idea about what had happened in Madley’s nightclub. ‘We need to talk … before we go back to the station.’
‘Can it wait?’ said Brady distractedly.
He had only one thing on his mind right now and that was the mark burnt into the victim’s flesh. There was one person he needed to talk to and he needed to do it immediately.
Conrad didn’t answer him but his expression was enough for Brady to know something was troubling him.
‘Meet me back at the station. Then we’ll talk,’ assured Brady. ‘Just let me sort this out first. Alright?’
‘Yes, sir. But I need to speak with you as soon as you get back.’
‘Yeah, no problem. Just give me five minutes,’ Brady replied absent-mindedly. The last thing he wanted to do was make that call, but he had no choice.
Conrad nodded, realising that now perhaps wasn’t the best time. Not that there was a right time for what he had to tell Brady.
He reluctantly turned and walked across the beach back to the steps leading up to the lower promenade. He shoved his hands deep in his trouser pockets as he tried to figure out how to handle the fact that Brady still didn’t have a clue. The problem was, Conrad didn’t know how Brady would handle the news. He didn’t want to be the one to tell him, but perversely, he would rather it came from him than someone back at the station. In particular, someone like DI Adamson, who would take great relish in throwing it in Brady’s face.
Conrad decided the best thing to do was get back to the station and wait for Brady. He had no choice.
*
Brady watched Conrad leave. He had a bad feeling about that look in Conrad’s eyes. It couldn’t be good news.
But it would have to wait. Right now he had bigger problems to worry about.
He needed to make that call. And then he’d have to face the rest of the team back at the station. All hell would have broken loose there. It wasn’t every day that a girl’s body washed up on the shores of Whitley Bay. Never mind a headless one.
He hoped to God that somewhere, someone would be missing the victim. The problem he had was finding that someone. The odds at this moment were stacked high against her.
Brady sighed heavily he searched his jacket for his pouch of Golden Virginia tobacco. He then took a sheet of Rizla paper and placed some tobacco in the paper with a filter before delicately rolling it tight. He lit it with trembling fingers as he closed his eyes and allowed the smoke to clear the decaying, sickening air from his lungs. He inhaled deeply a couple more times until it was enough to quell the desire to retch. He had tried to give up smoking and had failed, swapping chemical-filled cigarettes for roll-ups. It was an easy cop out. Too easy.
He cast his eyes up at the sky. The day was already changing. The angry, crimson ball of sun was nowhere to be seen, blanketed instead by the heavy, mournful, gunmetal-grey clouds rolling in off the horizon.
It was an all too familiar sky. The North East of England was well known for its continuous grey drizzle, regardless of the seasons. The only difference was the temperature. Brady found he was either freezing his bollocks off during the winter months when the Arctic winds whipped in from the North Sea, bringing snow and treacherous plummeting sub-zero temperatures, or sweating during the humid summer months. But hot or freezing cold, there always seemed to be grey drizzle. Regardless, Brady loved the place. It was in his blood. He knew that no matter what, he’d never leave the North East.
Brady took his BlackBerry out. He needed to make a call. One that he didn’t want to make.
He scrolled through the names listed until he came to the one he wanted. Reluctantly he pressed call and then waited. And waited. And waited until she eventually picked up.
‘For God’s sake! It’s not even seven o’clock on a Saturday morning! This better be good!’ finally answered a familiar voice.
Brady could hear a man’s deep voice in the background asking who was on the phone. A man’s voice that Brady recognised.
‘Who do you think would call at this time?’ came the muffled answer as she covered the mouthpiece.
‘Claudia?’ interrupted Brady, trying to control his voice.
He had heard the rumours but hadn’t wanted to believe them. Now he had no choice.
‘This is work,’ he stated. ‘Nothing else.’
He heard her sigh heavily. ‘Go on …’
‘A girl’s headless body has washed up onto Whitley Bay beach.’
‘Alright … but what’s that got to do with me? You know my job profile. I deal with sex trafficking victims, Jack. Remember?’
‘I know,’ answered Brady, taken aback by the coldness in her voice. ‘But this isn’t just any murder victim. She has some odd markings at the base of her spine.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well … there’s a scorpion and below that two initials: MD. But these aren’t tattoos, the marks look as if they’ve been burnt on to her skin. As if …’ Brady faltered as Claudia quickly cut in.
‘She’s been branded,’ interrupted Claudia.
Brady waited.
‘Can you send me the photos of the markings?’ she finally asked.
‘Sure, I’ll send it to your mobile after this call,’ answered Brady, relieved that she was interested.
But he was no fool. This was work, and this was exactly the kind of thing that Claudia was involved in.
Branding was about registering ownership in the dark world of sex trafficking and sex slavery. And given that Claudia was involved with one of the first projects in the UK where the police and the Home Office worked in conjunction to free imprisoned women and occasionally children – mainly illegal immigrants – from brothels and houses where they were held hostage as sex slaves, he needed to know whether she recognised the brand left on the body.
Once the women were freed by the specialist police team, Claudia then worked hand in hand with the Poppy Project who offered the victims support and accommodation, providing specialist legal back-up to secure the illegally trafficked women rights to stay in the country. Claudia had told Brady enough tragic accounts of young women freed from sex slavery only to be forcibly sent back to their country of origin, straight back into the hands of the organised criminals who enslaved them in the first place.
‘If this is what I think it is, then this could mean she’s not the only one …’
‘I know,’ muttered Brady.
‘I hope for our sake that you’re wrong, Jack.’
Brady didn’t reply.
In the background a male voice complained about her taking too long.
Brady shoved his hand deep into his pocket and tightly gripped the only object he carried with him everywhere. He could feel the cold metal of his wedding ring digging into the palm of his hand as he thought about the implications of the mark on the victim. And more significantly, the implications of the man who was now sharing his ex-wife’s bed.
‘Send me the photo and I’ll start making enquiries my end, alright?’ Claudia instructed.
‘Yeah … thanks,’ muttered Brady.
‘Jack? You do know if this girl has been trafficked and imprisoned then you’ve got a problem on your hands?’
‘I know …’
‘Because the question is, why would someone kill her? These women can sell for something like £3,000 to £4,000, if not more. And her earning potential makes her a valuable commodity. And don’t forget how much money these women can make in one day. So why murder her?’
This was what was worrying Brady. Sex trafficking and sex slavery were growing international crimes; ones that had a stronghold in the UK. He knew the statistics. Claudia had brought her work home often enough for him to be keenly aware of the worrying exponential growth in sex slavery. Girls ranging from as young as eleven up to twenty-five were trafficked from all over Eastern Europe, across the fractured borders of Russia, smuggled through Afghanistan, and even brought in from as far afield as Thailand and China.
Brady shut his eyes as he massaged his forehead with his other hand. This was exactly what he didn’t want. A body turning up connected to sex trafficking. Not in Whitley Bay of all places. After all, this was just a small seaside resort in the North East of England where organised crime of this level didn’t exist. If it had been a major European capital then Brady would have been more ready to accept such a premise. Even Newcastle he could understand, but not Whitley Bay.
‘Unless … unless she was being made an example of?’ Claudia questioned, interrupting his thoughts.
‘Meaning?’
‘All I know is what I’ve heard from the women we’ve managed to free. But there are some horrendous stories of coercion and blackmail, Jack.’
‘Check out the markings for me first, yeah?’
He didn’t want to acknowledge that this problem had landed on his doorstep. But he couldn’t ignore what Claudia was suggesting. He had the same gut feeling that someone wanted to make a very public statement with this girl’s body.
Admittedly, Whitley Bay had a reputation for stag and hen parties and binge drinking. But that was a world removed from organised sex trafficking and sex slavery. Brady thought back to Matthews’ allegations against Madley and Mayor Macmillan. He had been adamant that between them they had a highly profitable sex trafficking and slavery operation. But Brady had put his crazy accusations down to the ramblings of a cornered man who, about to lose everything he had worked for, had decided to bring down as many people with him as he could. Brady would be the first to admit that there was something about Mayor Macmillan that didn’t sit easy with him. But even he had to concede that sex trafficking was a stretch too far. And as for Matthews’ claims against the local mafia figure, Madley, who was rumoured to be involved in drugs and other such lucrative enterprises, Brady couldn’t take it seriously. Sex trafficking was something that he knew Madley wouldn’t touch. Regardless.
‘Let me worry about why she’s been murdered once we know for certain that she’s been branded.’
Claudia’s only response to Brady’s words was to let out a heavy sigh.
Before he had a chance to say anything else she disconnected the call.
All he could do now was send her the photograph. He watched his phone to make sure that the image had definitely been sent. Satisfied, he put his phone in his jacket.
Now he had to wait. And pray to God that his hunch about the victim being a sex slave was wrong.
Chapter Six
Brady steadied himself before opening the doors to the station. He wasn’t sure why he had been handed this investigation. By rights it should have been Adamson called in; lately, he had been Gates’ first choice when it came to anything decent. Whereas Brady was just being thrown the rubbish murders.
So why this one, he mused? And where the hell was Adamson? It wasn’t like that weasel not to sink his teeth into such a high profile crime. Once the press got their greedy, grasping claws into this story, the seaside town of Whitley Bay would make national headlines.
He sighed heavily, accepting that maybe he was starting to get paranoid. The past six months behind a desk would do that to any copper, let alone him.
The air in the building was still rancid. Regardless of how often Nora, the station’s cleaner, swabbed down the Victorian green-tiled hallway, there was always an acrid, lingering dampness that resiliently clung to the walls and floor. That and the stale smell of old piss from one too many drunken louts dragged in to sleep it off in the cells.
The building was old and decrepit. But Brady felt at ease inside its cold, flaking walls and winding, maze-like corridors. His office, with its high, rattling windows and bulky, rust-stained, leaking radiators, felt more comfortable to him than his own home. Which wasn’t surprising given that over the years he had spent most of his waking life at the station. More so now that he couldn’t stomach going home to nothing.
Brady went through the second set of double doors and was greeted by the scraggy, wizened face of the desk sergeant, Charlie Turner. He was a short, rotund, balding man in his early fifties.
‘I better warn you, Jack, all hell’s breaking loose here,’ Turner greeted as he raised his white spidery eyebrows. It made no difference; his small dark eyes were still hidden beneath his sagging, crumpled eyelids.
‘Tell me about it.’
‘So you heard about the stabbing then? Christ! How bad can things get, eh?’
Brady frowned. Apart from Conrad, he hadn’t caught up with anyone yet.
‘What stabbing?’
‘You don’t know, do you?’ Turner replied worriedly. ‘It explains why the DCI has been desperate to talk to you. You do turn your phone on, don’t you, Jack? Because he’s been chasing my hide for the past hour wanting to know as soon as you turn up! And Conrad’s been hanging around waiting for you. I convinced him to get me a coffee just to get him out from under my feet.’
Automatically Brady reached for his phone.
He had forgotten to turn it off silent mode. He’d missed three calls; two from DCI Gates and one from Dr Amelia Jenkins.
Jenkins was the police shrink who, a year ago, had spent the first six weeks after Brady had been shot in the thigh trying to sort his head out. He had insisted all he needed was a couple of bottles of Scotch and a divorce lawyer but she had wanted to try the more professional method. In the end she gave up. She was into the ‘talking cure’ – which had become a problem given Brady’s refusal to talk.
But why she would be calling him at 7:30am was anyone’s guess. He hadn’t seen her since the last investigation they had worked on together, which was over six months ago. Amelia worked with the force as a forensic psychologist. But for some reason she opted out and had turned to practising clinical psychology instead. Brady presumed something had shaken her to her core. Which was why he was so surprised both that Gates had asked her to be part of the investigation and that Amelia had agreed. He knew that Gates had worked with Amelia when she had been a forensic psychologist, which meant he knew she was good. That, and he trusted her, which was why Brady presumed he had requested her assistance.
‘The DCI is out for blood given that one of our own was attacked early this morning in Madley’s nightclub,’ continued Turner.
Brady realised now why Turner was so agitated.
‘Who?’ Brady asked, realising he had been sat behind his desk for too damned long. Once news this crucial would have reached him immediately. Now he was so out of the circuit that it took the watchdog Turner to fill him in on the night’s events.
Then he remembered Conrad. This was obviously what he had wanted to tell him.
‘I’m sorry, Jack … I don’t know how to tell you this …’ Turner uncomfortably began.
‘Who, Charlie? Who was attacked?’ asked Brady, starting to feel uneasy.
‘Henderson,’ Turner quietly replied.
Brady felt as if he had just been punched in the guts. He couldn’t breathe. He leaned forward, resting his hands on the reception desk to steady himself. His head was spinning. All he could think was that it couldn’t be her. She wasn’t the Henderson Turner was talking about. It had to be someone else. But he already knew it was. After all, he had seen her with his own eyes in Madley’s nightclub. And he had turned and left. Left her alone with two men who, for all he knew, were responsible for … He couldn’t bring himself to think about it.
Brady raised his head and looked at Turner’s concerned face, searching for some sign that he had got it wrong.
‘Simone?’ Brady mumbled, his dark brown eyes begging Turner to tell him he was mistaken.
Turner nodded sadly, unable to repeat her name.
‘What happened to her?’ Brady whispered hoarsely, trying with all his might to ignore the panic that had taken hold of him.
‘That’s it. We don’t know,’ Turner answered quietly. He dropped his gaze, unable to look Brady in the eye. ‘An anonymous emergency call came through shortly after 3am this morning locating an injured DC locked in the gents’ toilets in the Blue Lagoon …’
‘And?’ pushed Brady, already fearing the worst.
Brady now understood why uniform had been stationed outside Madley’s nightclub and the reason the double glass doors into the premises had been sealed off with blue incident tape.
Turner shook his head, still unable to look Brady in the eye.
‘She was found naked … whoever had left her there had …’ Turner faltered, not wanting to say.
‘What? What did they do to her?’ Brady hissed, clenching his fists hard, fearing the worst.
‘Someone took a knife to her stomach and sliced her open … and cut out her tongue.’
‘God no …’ He felt as if he was going to throw up. ‘Is she? Is she still …’ Brady couldn’t bring himself to ask the obvious question.
‘She’s in a critical condition, Jack. As far as I know she’s still in surgery.’
Brady numbly nodded as he dragged a trembling hand through his hair. He was trying his hardest to keep his head together.
‘Why wasn’t I called in for this, Charlie?’ he eventually asked.
Turner shook his head.
‘You know better than me,’ he reluctantly answered.
‘What do you mean?’ Brady asked as shock turned to desperation. ‘Surely Gates will need everyone he can get to work on this?’
‘I know, I know, bonnie lad,’ sympathetically agreed Turner.
‘Why would that stop Gates from letting me work on finding out who … who did this to her?’ Brady asked, already knowing the answer.
‘Even you can understand why Gates doesn’t want you involved. Especially now he’s got Claudia back working for the force again. She may not be a duty solicitor here any more, but she’s doing a fine job with that sex trafficking project of hers in Newcastle. A lot of really good PR’s coming out of that for Northumbria Police and that’s down to her,’ explained Turner gently.
Brady said nothing.
Turner shook his head. ‘Come on, Jack. You know Gates was furious with you when she suddenly left for London. And then the next thing, there was Simone requesting an immediate transfer out of here. I’m surprised you didn’t end up in uniform.’
Brady knew that Gates had a soft spot for Claudia. Who didn’t? When Claudia suddenly quit the North East, Gates had found it difficult to replace her. She was damned good at her job and sorely missed by everyone; including Brady.
‘You’ve got too much invested, Jack. Sooner or later it clouds the judgement.’
‘Gates? Where is he?’ demanded Brady.
‘He’s in the first-floor conference room. It’s set up as an Incident Room. You should still find him there,’ Turner replied. ‘But if I was you I’d stay out of the way for now. Let him deal with the briefing on Simone’s attempted murder and then talk to him afterwards. The last person they’re going to want walking into that room is you.’
Brady ignored Turner and started to make his way to the first floor.
‘Jack?’ Turner called after him. ‘Watch yourself, will you? Gates is out to crucify someone and, given your track record with him lately, you want to make sure it’s not you.’
‘Thanks,’ muttered Brady. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’
Brady suddenly halted and turned back. ‘Charlie?’
Turner looked at him.
‘Who’s heading the investigation? Into Simone?’
Brady knew the answer from his silence.
‘Adamson?’
Turner nodded. Brady had expected as much.
‘Jack? Don’t do anything stupid,’ warned Turner.
In all the years he had known Brady, Turner had never seen him react to news this way. Then again, he couldn’t blame him. This was personal to Brady: he had worked closely – too closely some would say – with DC Simone Henderson. And that’s what was troubling Turner.
Brady forced himself to meet Turner’s concerned gaze.
‘Like what?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.
Turner resignedly shook his head. ‘I don’t know, bonnie lad. But that’s what worries me.’
The free sample has ended.
