Blood Reckoning: DI Jack Brady 4 (13 page)

He looked around the room. Even empty, it was still a dump. It stank of damp. Not surprising, given the fact it was on the top floor of the old six-bedroom Victorian house. The walls were painted a subtle light blue. It was the only piece of information Brady had about the victim. For this was recent, showing that it had been Alex’s choice – or his attempt at improving the room, not that it did. The paint only added to the overall bleakness. The carpet was a Seventies statement of swirling diarrhoea browns and yellows.

‘Where are you, Alex? Where did you go?’ Brady muttered to himself.

Conrad cleared his throat. He was standing in the doorway. ‘He’s in the morgue, sir.’

‘Hah bloody hah! Since when did you become a stand-up comic?’

Conrad didn’t answer.

‘I want to know where he went when he packed up here. And why he never told his parents or his girlfriend. What was he hiding, Conrad? Eh? What the bloody hell was he hiding?’

Brady sighed. He pushed his hand through his hair as he thought about it. It didn’t make any sense. His eye suddenly caught something wedged between the carpet and the chipped skirting board under the window. He walked over and bent down. It was a business card for a discreet members club in Newcastle. Brady had heard of it, but for obvious reasons had never been. It was an exclusive members-only club for the moneyed in society. Brady turned it over. The back was blank.

Why would you have this card, Alexander?

‘What do the victim’s parents do for a living, Conrad?’

‘Both retired lecturers. Why?’

‘Wealthy?’

‘Not from what I’ve gathered. They’re comfortable. But that’s it.’

‘And from what we’ve learned so far about our victim, he was by no means affluent?’

‘No, sir.’

Brady only had to take a look at the student share that Alexander had been living in for the past eleven months to see that.

‘So tell me, why was he wearing Italian designer clothes? The Gucci watch? He had three hundred quid in his wallet, tucked in beside numerous gold credit cards. Tell me how a Masters’ student could afford all that?’

Conrad shrugged. ‘He’s racked up a lot of debt, sir? Students do that. It’s not unusual for them to get carried away with bank loans and credit cards.’

‘And what would a twenty-two-year-old student be doing with a business card for a members-only club in town?’

‘Can I?’ Conrad asked, curious. Brady handed it over.

Conrad’s eyes gave him away. His face may have been typically impassive, but his eyes showed a flicker of recognition. He quickly attempted to regain control but he was too late.

‘How do you know the club?’

Conrad seemed reluctant to explain.

‘For fuck’s sake, this is a murder investigation. If you know something about this club, bloody well spit it out!’

Embarrassed, Conrad avoided Brady’s eyes. ‘It is a gentleman’s club like you said, sir. Private members only. Been established for years. Some members’ families have been in the club since it first opened in 1890. Most members are old money. Some nouveau.’

‘And? How do you know it?’ But Brady already knew the answer. He understood why his deputy was stood there wishing the floor would open up and he would disappear into the bowels of student housing hell.

‘I’m a member,’ Conrad answered, his voice barely audible.

‘Right,’ Brady replied. It was all he could think of to say. He wanted to ask the obvious question. How the hell are
you
a member? But there was a lot about Conrad that he didn’t know. He was sure that the ribbing Conrad had received from Daniels and Kenny was partly to do with this class difference. They were Northern working-class lads and proud of it. They wore it as a badge of honour. Conrad was the opposite of them. His background was something he kept very private. As was his sexuality. But now it seemed that both Daniels and Kenny had taken a keen interest in Conrad’s personal life. And not in a good way.

‘And Alexander De Bernier?’

Conrad looked at Brady. ‘He’s not a member.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Yes, sir. I’m sure. He was a bartender there.’

‘What?’

Conrad dropped his eyes. His face was crimson. ‘I’ve been trying to place his face. I was sure it was familiar. And now . . . this card. I realised where I recognised him from.’

‘You kept that bloody quiet!’

Conrad awkwardly shuffled his feet, not sure how to respond. ‘I . . . I hadn’t seen him there for nearly a year. I assumed he had quit.’

Brady dragged his hair back from his face as he absorbed Conrad’s admission.

‘Sir . . .’ Conrad began.

‘Shut up! I’m trying to get my head round this.’

Brady focused momentarily on the Victorian sash window. Droplets of condensation trailed down the glass, pooling onto the mouldy wooden windowsill. Outside, the street lamps threw out a burnished orange haze. The street below was quiet. It was a Sunday night. Most of the students around here would be sobering up after a weekend of drinking and smoking whatever was on offer.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

He couldn’t stop thinking about what Conrad had just admitted.

He needed to still his mind. Stop the panic taking hold. He could feel his guts twisting and knotting. He had to get his head around this and figure out what the fuck he was going to do.

‘Who else knows that you’re a member of this club?’ Brady forced himself to ask. His voice was hoarse. The words were strained.

‘No one.’

‘Daniels and Kenny? DI Adamson?’

‘No.’

‘Then what the fuck was that all about back in the Incident Room? Daniels and Kenny were cockier than usual. Seemed to think they had something on you. Are you sure it’s not this?’ Brady said gesturing at the card.

‘I’m certain,’ Conrad replied, unable to look Brady in the eye.

‘Then what the fuck was it about?’ Brady demanded.

Conrad remained silent. He kept his eyes averted from Brady’s. His face was cold and impenetrable.

Brady didn’t need Conrad to admit it. It was his business what he got up to in his private life. Not that Conrad had ever intimated anything, let alone said anything to him. But he knew, all the same. Had caught snippets of private conversations when Conrad had thought he wasn’t within earshot. Had put two and two together. Not that he had a problem with it. But what hurt was the fact that Conrad now had an opportunity to just come out and say it. He should have known that Brady would support him. That he would back him up against any form of prejudice from other colleagues.

‘You do know that if something is going on at the station and you feel you can’t handle it, you can come to me?’

Brady waited until Conrad felt forced to say something.

‘Nothing is going on.’

Brady looked at him. Conrad’s eyes still avoided Brady’s, his cheeks now flushed a deep crimson.

‘Have it your way, Conrad. But I’m not an idiot. You know something?’ Brady asked, unable to hide his hurt. ‘I’m not the one who has a problem with it. Who you sleep with is your business. But it becomes my business when dickheads like Daniels and Kenny start in on you. It’s your choice as to whether you see that.’

Conrad looked at him. His jaw was clenched, his eyes narrowed and filled with indignation. It was rare to see Conrad angry. But he looked as if he wanted to knock seven bells of shit out of Brady.

‘I didn’t say you had a problem with “it”, sir,’ Conrad replied, his voice thick with derision. ‘Now if you wouldn’t mind, I’d rather drop the subject.’

Brady held Conrad’s hostile gaze. He was tempted to push him. Hard. To just get it out there. Acknowledge it and move on. But he knew from the look in Conrad’s eyes that he had already gone too far. It was obvious that Conrad wasn’t ready to disclose his personal life – especially not to him. Whether Conrad liked it or not, Brady had known for some time. But if Conrad wanted to keep things on a professional footing then that was fine with him. He decided to let him fight his own battles with the Daniels and Kennys of this world. That was his choice. Conrad had made that perfectly clear.

Brady walked out of the room, then turned and looked back. Conrad hadn’t moved. He was still standing in the room with his back to the door, rigid, with clenched hands by his side. ‘I trust you on this, Conrad. But—’ Brady paused, waiting for a reaction. Nothing. ‘If you’ve lied to me. If you actually know the victim in a personal capacity . . .’ He left it unsaid. Brady then turned and left the suffocating, damp, cold room. Conrad remained there: back straight, head held high, fists balled, trying his damnedest to keep it together.

Chapter Fifteen

Sunday: 7:38 p.m.

‘What do you mean she’s gone?’ Brady exploded.

‘Just what I said. Look, Jack, it’s not my fault.’

‘I didn’t say it bloody was, did I?’ he snapped. But he felt like telling DS Tom Harvey that it
was
his bloody fault. And then some.

Brady sighed as he massaged his temples. Why could nothing be bloody straightforward? It felt like he’d never left the job, or his team. His desk was as overrun with inconsequential crap as ever. An in-tray that was in a permanent state of disarray. Files and papers toppled over one another, spilling onto his large wooden desk. He couldn’t quite figure out how, on his first day back, he had such a backlog of paperwork waiting for him. He picked up his red Che Guevara mug and took a hit of much-needed caffeine. He would have preferred a cigarette. He winced. The coffee was cold. He wanted that cigarette.

‘Jack? You still there?’ Harvey asked when Brady made no attempt to talk to him.

Brady resisted the urge to disconnect. It would have been petulant. He was better than that. But he was struggling to be civil. Conrad had not spoken to him on the drive back to the station. Brady realised that he might have pushed him too hard. And now he had Harvey on the phone telling him his investigation had come to a sudden and abrupt halt.

‘Where else would I be? I’m not the one on a fucking plane to fuck knows where!’ Brady growled.

His head was pounding. The painkillers he had knocked back had made no difference. The smell of the victim’s body cooking in that infernal heat had kicked it off. And the news that Harvey had just delivered was the punch that left him feeling as if someone had taken a baseball bat to his head.

Harvey held his tongue. Waited a moment before he took a chance. ‘Look, how were we to know that she would disappear?’

‘Oh, let me think. It’s your job to be suspicious?’

‘Jack—’

Brady cut him off. He didn’t have time for excuses. ‘Her parents are certain that she’s taken her passport?’

‘Yes.’

‘But she didn’t say where she was going?’

‘No. From their reckoning she must have got home from work this morning, packed a bag, took her passport and left. They were out. Didn’t return from an overnight stay at a hotel until late afternoon. At some wedding they said.’

‘That’s it? That’s all we have?’

‘Well, she left them a note saying she was going on holiday for a week with the girls and that she’d be back next Sunday.’

‘And what good’s a bloody note, eh? Shall I pass that onto DCI Gates? It’s OK, sir. Don’t worry we haven’t got the key bloody witness in our murder inquiry. Yes, the murder inquiry that’s going to send the press into a feeding frenzy. No. But what we do have is a note to her parents, kindly telling them she’s fucked off on bloody holiday! He’ll have my balls nailed to my desk as soon as he finds out.’

Brady breathed out, exhausted. Rant over.

Harvey didn’t say a word. He knew not to point out that he and Kodovesky couldn’t have foreseen that the receptionist, Chantelle Robertson, would decide to have an unscheduled holiday just before some poor bugger had been found at the hotel where she worked; dead, and with the added bonus of a gender realignment job.

‘And tell me again why it’s taken you—’ Brady paused as he checked the time on his laptop screen, ‘four bloody hours to get me this information?’ It was just after 7:30 p.m. Five and a half hours since he had first walked into the crime scene. Five and a half long, hard, gruelling hours and still he was nowhere close to understanding why the victim had been murdered. The problem was, the victim was too damned perfect. Or was he? Cracks were starting to show. His girlfriend was understandably distraught that he had been murdered. But it was the circumstances in which Alex had been murdered that were causing Molly Johansson so much angst. It was clear in her mind that he had been meeting someone – for sex. And Brady had a hunch that she was right. After all, she knew him better than anyone else.

Or did she?

What interested, or, to be more accurate, concerned Brady, was the fact that Molly didn’t know that Alex had moved out of his student house. Or have any idea where he had gone. Brady had called her on the torturous drive back down Coast Road with Conrad. Despite the fact that she was drunk, she still had enough wits about her to understand the magnitude of what Brady had told her. She had been left not with just the acrid aftertaste of Chardonnay in her mouth but the knowledge that her boyfriend had been lying to her. That, for whatever reason, he had decided not to share all aspects of his life with her. He had been duplicitous. And this duplicity worried Brady.

What did the killer know about you, Alexander?

Brady had to find out what Alexander de Bernier was hiding. The money, gold credit cards, the designer clothes and watch all pointed to something. He needed to find the victim’s new address. And when he did, Brady was certain that it would be in keeping with this new moneyed lifestyle. But who was paying for it? After all, Alexander De Bernier was a postgraduate student from an average middle-class background.

Brady suddenly remembered Harvey. His silence was heavy on the other end of the phone.

‘I asked you a bloody question!’ Brady prompted.

Harvey nearly made the mistake of sighing. ‘Because no one was home when we first called.’

It didn’t appease Brady.

‘And why was that, Tom? Because one of them was already on a plane! I get that you waited around for the Robertsons to return home. What I don’t get is you two spending an hour having coffee and cake and a nice cosy chat. What did they do? Get the family photos out and show you incontinent Aunty Dora on her ninety-seventh birthday?’