Broken Silence (3 page)

It had taken two male nurses to get him off Conrad and to forcibly hold him down until a doctor came with an injection so strong that it knocked him out for the rest of the night. Conrad had dutifully stayed by his bed for the next twenty-four hours, despite Brady having broken two of Conrad’s ribs in the struggle. But Brady had no memory of Conrad’s vigil. Nor did he remember repeatedly calling out for Claudia, unaware of what had happened. The days following came and went in a painful, drug-induced blur until eventually he accepted that Claudia wasn’t coming back.

Not that Conrad had told him that. It was his psychologist who had shared this information. Allegedly, Conrad had refused to even tell Gates how he had sustained the injuries, despite visibly having a broken nose and stitches zigzagging over his top lip and across his eyebrow. Add to that the medical report that had been filed on Brady’s sudden insanity. Even a fool would have realised that Conrad had got caught in the crossfire. But Conrad was loyal and he had done his best under the circumstances to protect Brady. And even Brady had to acknowledge that Conrad was protecting him when he went to Gates.

‘Look … Conrad, I understand. All right?’ Brady quietly conceded.

It wasn’t until now with Conrad stood in front of him that he realised he wasn’t angry at Conrad. He was angry with himself for putting Conrad in that situation in the first place. And he knew the real reason Conrad went to Gates wasn’t because he wanted him to lose his job; it was the opposite, he wanted him to hold on to his job. And if that meant bringing in the police psychologist, then Conrad had no qualms in requesting that Gates did exactly that.

‘Honestly, I understand,’ he repeated.

Conrad nodded, grateful that they had finally cleared the air.

‘Jack? Jack? What’s going on?’ interrupted a soft voice from the top of the stairs.

Brady felt as if somebody had stuck a knife in his stomach and twisted it. He’d completely forgotten about her.

They both turned and looked up. Sleeping Beauty was standing shivering in what appeared to be just her T-shirt and skimpy knickers. She pushed her dark tousled hair out of her sleepy face as she stared in bewilderment at the two men below her.

‘It’s nothing. Go back to bed,’ Brady answered, embarrassed. His throat felt dry and tight. He didn’t want anyone knowing his private business; especially Conrad.

Looking at her standing there, vulnerable and still drunk, he felt disgusted with himself. He realised in that moment that Claudia was right about him. He was a bastard. He would never change, not really. And here in front of his and Conrad’s eyes was the evidence. He couldn’t believe how low he had stooped. He could now see what had eluded him last night: her age. If she were twenty-one it would have surprised him.

‘Come on,’ he said as he turned to Conrad.

Conrad didn’t say a word.

Brady knew what he would be thinking. And if he were in Conrad’s shoes right now, he’d be thinking exactly the same thing; that he deserved to lose Claudia.

‘Jack? Jack?’ she called out in a tremulous voice.

He turned and looked up at her still standing there, shivering.

‘I’ll … I’ll leave my number so you can call me about tonight … yeah?’

Brady nodded and then walked out into the black, empty night after Conrad. He knew for her sake the best thing to do was not call her back. Let it go and pretend it had never happened.

He could see nothing but blackness as he reached the path at the end of his long, front garden. But he could hear the thunderous crashing of the heavy waves as they beat against Brown’s Bay below. He lived on Southcliff, an imposing and exclusive row of Victorian houses that lined the cliff, facing out towards the North Sea. Nestled on a tight bend between Cullercoats and Whitley Bay, Brady had never been sure whether the row of houses fell in the sought-after fishing village of Cullercoats or whether it marked the very edge of the shabby seaside resort of Whitley Bay.

Claudia had fallen in love with the place as soon as she had seen the bending cliff with its dramatic plunge to the waiting rocks below. On a good day the view from the first-floor living room and second-floor study were breathtaking; dazzling azure waters lay perfectly still as far as the eye could see. White sailing boats and small, brightly coloured fishing boats would serenely blend in against the backdrop of stunning blue. But when the sea mirrored the grey, blackening skies overhead, the brooding waves would thrash against one another as they threw themselves against the cliff, violent and furious. At times the waves would be so high they would crash against the path lining the cliff, covering the large windows of the house in a thick, salty sea spray. If one of the local fishing boats was unfortunate enough to be out collecting lobster nets during a storm, Brady would watch through the murky windows mesmerised, while the tiny boat would be mercilessly tossed from one black wave to another.

‘Bugger me! It’s cold!’ he said as turned up his jacket collar against the cold, bitter air coming off the North Sea.

Conrad didn’t reply as he made his way along the walkway towards his car parked on the tight bending road at the edge of the jutting cliff.

Brady knew Conrad wasn’t impressed with what he’d seen. And Brady couldn’t help but agree with him.

Conrad pulled the car over, joining the ominous line of police cars and vans parked along the edge of the road.

Brady inwardly steeled himself as he looked out at the twenty or so uniformed and plain-clothes officers. It felt as if he had been gone for a lifetime, not six months.

And given that it was only six-ten on a bitter November Friday morning, he had every reason to resist getting out of the car.

‘Are you sure you’re up to this, sir?’ Conrad asked as he turned to look at him.

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘No reason, sir,’ answered Conrad uneasily.

‘Do you really think Gates would have called me in if I wasn’t?’ Brady asked him darkly.

Without waiting for an answer he got out of the car and slammed the door. He left Conrad to find somewhere to park and headed towards the blue and white police tape flapping miserably in the biting northern wind. The tape was sealing off a cumbersome iron gate. Brady presumed that the abandoned farmland beyond it was where the victim had been discovered.

He turned back and looked at the main road. It was
deserted, blocked off by the police. A dismal, magnolia-painted Modernist building stood bleakly opposite. West Monkseaton Metro station; Brady knew it well enough. He could smell the stale piss drunkenly sprayed by passers-by against the badly-lit damp corners. He could hear the clinking of leftover bottles of cheap alcohol from the teenage kids who would travel from Shiremoor or North Shields and stand in huddled groups, shivering and laughing against the bitter night. Soon it would be swamped by early morning bleary eyed business-suited commuters clutching their latte or espresso from the local deli. They would dodge their way past the rolling, broken bottles and the pools of stinking piss trying not to breathe in the stench.

Brady shivered as he turned back to the farmland. He tried his best to walk without a limp, aiming for the two brutish officers guarding the entrance to the farmland.

‘Sir,’ PC Hamilton nodded. He quickly dropped his eyes and fixed them on his feet as he moved out of Brady’s way.

‘Inspector Brady?’ queried the other younger officer.

Brady looked at him. He knew that his black jeans, black polo shirt and black leather jacket didn’t adhere to the Superintendent’s dress code which was how he presumed the rookie had guessed right about him being the DI. Brady’s lack of suits was legendary at the station. It wasn’t to say that he didn’t look professional, but casual professional was how he liked to term it.

‘Sir, the DCI was expecting you—’ the young officer faltered, flustered.

‘And?’ prompted Brady irritably, aware that he was late.

‘The problem is you’ve missed him. He left a few minutes ago,’ the constable mumbled uneasily.

‘Shit!’

The last thing he wanted to do was piss Gates off. Not on his first day back. If Conrad had put his foot down like Brady had said then they would have gotten here over five minutes ago.

‘Do either of you have any mints?’

‘Sorry, sir?’ questioned the young officer, confused.

‘Bloody mints! Do you have any?’ replied Brady losing his patience. The knowledge that Gates had already gone had left him in a foul mood.

PC Hamilton hurriedly pulled out a packet of mints from his jacket pocket and handed them to Brady.

He would need them when he came face to face with Gates. The last thing Gates would tolerate was the smell of booze. A reformed alcoholic, Gates had led a Puritanical crusade against the vice, intolerant of any officer who came in to work oozing the telltale lingering perfume of a heavy night’s drinking.

Brady pocketed the mints and bent down under the tape and walked through the open gate.

Below in the distance he could see the cold glow of lights set up over the crime scene. The constant hum of the generator to power the spotlights muffled the low talk of the officers behind him.

He walked down the dirt track that had been ravaged by weeds and long, wild grass.

‘Never knew this existed,’ said Conrad catching him up.

Brady nodded as he looked around. It was a dark, lonely spot; an ideal location to murder someone or dump a body. All around him thick clumps of bushes loomed threateningly, wild and overgrown, hiding a multitude of sins.

‘Who do you think comes down here?’ asked Conrad.

‘Kids,’ answered Brady. He had already noticed a couple
of empty, plastic cider bottles dumped in the overgrown bushes.

‘It’s the ideal place to come and get pissed or high. No one is going to bother you,’ continued Brady as he turned his head and looked back at the unlit track leading up to the main road.

He stopped abruptly and sighed.

‘Shine your torch down here, will you, Conrad?’

‘Crap!’ Brady cursed as he looked at the dog faeces stuck to the sole of his boot. ‘There’s your answer, Conrad.’

‘Sir?’

‘Kids and bloody dog walkers. That’s who come down here,’ he muttered as he tried his best to clean his boots.

‘What the bloody hell is this? Didn’t I make myself clear when I said that I don’t want any more bloody footprints messing up my crime scene? You lot have already buggered up enough! Now clear off!’ thundered an irate white-clad figure as he emerged fuming from the crumbling walls that would have once been a farmhouse. Behind the ruined walls spotlights coldly illuminated the crime scene.

Conrad stiffened his shoulders, his jaw rigid as he readied himself for battle with Ainsworth, the Scene of Crime Unit’s senior officer; infamous for his ill-temper and obstinacy.

‘Good to hear that you’re still the same sour-faced old bugger!’

‘Jack Brady?’ spluttered Ainsworth.

‘They couldn’t get rid of me that easily,’ answered Brady as he approached the senior SOCO. He was a short, portly man with a receding head of curly silver hair and a large,
ravaged face that belied the fact that he was only in his mid-forties.

‘Bloody hell! So when did you start back?’ Ainsworth questioned as he shook his tired head in disbelief. ‘I didn’t think it would be for a while yet, not with what I heard had happened to you …’ He paused as his small, razor-sharp eyes quickly took in Conrad who stiffly waited behind Brady.

‘Yeah, well seems the boss thought I was ready to start back so here I am,’ Brady answered with a wry smile.

‘Well, Jack, I’ll say this, you’ve got your work cut out here. It’s a mess … a bloody mess …’ Ainsworth said, shaking his large head. ‘And you better tread carefully. I don’t want you being replaced like that other poor bugger,’ he warned.

Brady felt himself flinch as Ainsworth’s words struck him. He turned to Conrad.

‘Do you know about this?’

‘No sir.’

Brady already had a bad feeling about this investigation without hearing from Ainsworth that he’d been called in at the last minute to replace some other poor sod who had no doubt got on the wrong side of Gates. One thing he didn’t like was surprises. Not where Gates was concerned.

‘Now follow my exact footsteps, and I bloody mean mine not one of the other set of bloody footprints we have all over the place here,’ Ainsworth ordered. ‘Like I said, Jack, it’s a bloody mess.’

‘So it seems,’ answered Brady, feeling uneasy about what lay ahead.

Brady slowly breathed out. From a distance the victim’s long blonde hair hid the extent of the trauma. It was only when you got up close did you realise that her features had been horrifically smashed beyond recognition. The skin hung in shards, exposing lumps of shapeless, raw flesh and bone. Something hard and jagged had ripped and torn at what had once been her face, leaving behind a gut-wrenching, unidentifiable, gory mess.

Brady didn’t want to think about the fact that the body lying there was someone’s daughter. Shoving his hands deep into his pockets he looked up at the oppressive, dark sky.

Conrad attempted to clear his throat.

Brady turned to him. He stood rigid by Brady’s side, his face sickly pale.

‘At least she was dead before …’ Conrad’s confident, privately educated voice trailed off.

Brady nodded, he didn’t feel much like talking.

He forced himself to look back down at the body. He had seen enough murder victims to know that luckily for her she was already dead before her attacker had decided to remove her face, otherwise they would have been looking
at a gruesome bloodbath. The purplish, bluish marks around her neck were indicative of death by asphyxiation. Brady presumed the black scarf loosely knotted around the victim’s discoloured neck had been used to strangle her first, before the frenzied attack on her face took place. He could make out desperate scratches on her neck where he presumed the victim had tried in vain to loosen the choking material.