Broken Silence (6 page)

‘I’m in deep shit, Jack,’ Matthews started, his voice quivering.

Brady waited tensely.

‘I … I don’t know where to start …’

Brady felt his stomach objecting to the greasy breakfast.

‘I … I knew her … I fucking knew her …’ muttered Matthews shaking his head.

‘Who?’ asked Brady, not wanting the answer.

‘The girl … the one who was …’ Matthews’ voice trailed off.

‘You can’t have done.’

Brady cleared his throat as he waited for Matthews to agree with him.

‘Jimmy? Come on, man.’

‘Don’t you think I’d fucking know?’

‘Come on, Jimmy. You can’t have known her. There was nothing left of her face to recognise.’

Matthews didn’t answer.

Brady swore to himself.

‘For fuck’s sake, Jimmy! Do you know what you’re saying?’

‘What kind of question is that? Do you think I’m crazy or something?’

‘Do you want the honest answer?’

Brady tried to get his head around what Matthews was saying. But it didn’t make sense. None of it was making sense.

Matthews stared hard at Brady, trying to anticipate his response.

‘I … I took her home in my car last night and—’

‘You what?’ Brady asked, incredulous.

He realised then that Matthews must have been screwing her, or at least attempting to. He tried to control the panic he could feel rising through his body.

‘When I got to the crime scene … you can’t imagine what it was like,’ Matthews said through trembling lips. ‘When I saw her lying there … what had been done to her … I … Oh Christ!’

He paused and looked at Brady with the hollow eyes of a man who had death shadowing him.

‘I panicked, Jack! I fucking panicked …’

Brady was speechless.

‘That’s why I covered her with my coat. Don’t you think I realised that my DNA might be on her? I mean I… fucking hell! I drove her home in my car … and then she turns up hours later … dead …’

Brady could feel the knot in his stomach tightening. It explained why Ainsworth, the senior SOCO, was so pissed off when he and Conrad had arrived. He had had enough of CID literally messing up his crime scene.

‘At first I thought … I thought it was Evie … it was her jacket … She was wearing Evie’s jacket …’

Brady sat upright, his head buzzing.

‘I … I don’t follow?’

‘The long blonde hair … the clothes. Fuck, Jack! When I first saw her I thought it was Evie! I thought it was my little girl lying there!’

It was at that moment that Brady realised that Matthews was in shock. He didn’t know what he was saying. He couldn’t, because it didn’t add up.

‘The last time I saw Evie she was still a skinny kid with pink braces. There’s no way that the victim was her age,’ he stated, relieved.

Matthews just stared at him as the madness slowly returned to his eyes.

‘Come on, Jimmy, she looked as old as the girl I took home last night!’

Suddenly the atmosphere in the room chilled. Matthews’ green eyes had dangerously narrowed to glinting slits.

‘You bastard! You sick bastard!’ Matthews hissed between gritted teeth.

‘Whoa!’ Brady said, holding his hands up as he tried his best to defuse the situation. Matthews wasn’t the kind of guy that you wanted to piss off. ‘She was just a kid … a dumb kid!’

‘Come on, Jimmy! She looked at least twenty. She was no doubt out drinking and shagging last night before this happened to her,’ Brady perilously insisted.

Matthews stood up, ready to lunge at him.

‘What? Bloody hell, Jimmy, she had … you know … it was all there! She had tits and everything!’

‘For fuck’s sake, you sick bastard! She was only fifteen!’

‘I can’t do this, Jimmy.’

‘The hell you can!’

Brady slowly shook his head.

‘I can’t keep quiet. If you’re right then this is somebody’s kid we’re talking about. Somebody’s fifteen-year-old kid with their face gone, for fuck’s sake!’

Yet Brady knew he owed him. Owed him big time. But what Matthews was asking was the impossible. He was expecting Brady to risk going to prison for him. He picked up the bottle of Scotch and thought the better of it. Damn Matthews; all he’d wanted was to return to work quietly.

Suddenly a sharp rap at the door added to the tense atmosphere.

Matthews signalled for Brady to get rid of whoever it was.

Brady got up from his seat wincing.

A more persistent rap followed.

‘I’m coming!’ Brady shouted as he limped towards the door.

He yanked the door open, but not wide enough to allow a view into his office.

Conrad stood in front of him.

‘Oh shit. Don’t tell me it’s already started?’

‘Five minutes ago,’ Conrad replied. ‘Gates sent me to find you. He’s in a foul mood, sir.’

‘That’s all I need. Make up an excuse for me, will you? I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘I’ll do what I can, sir,’ answered Conrad.

Brady breathed out slowly. He could trust Conrad. He was a good bloke, which made Brady feel even worse about the way he had treated Conrad after Claudia had walked out on him.

He shut the door and waited until Conrad’s footsteps had disappeared.

‘What do you want from me?’ Brady asked, turning to face Matthews.

‘I need your help. I need you to make sure my name doesn’t come up in this investigation.’

Brady numbly stared at Matthews. He couldn’t believe what he was asking. How the hell was he going to keep Matthews’ name out of it? He didn’t want to think about the fact that someone could have witnessed him with the girl before she was murdered.

It was impossible; he couldn’t do it.

‘Call it payback,’ prompted Matthews.

Brady didn’t move, didn’t say a word. Matthews had him by the balls and he knew it. Matthews was the only person he could have gone to when he was on the verge of losing everything. Without question, Matthews dealt with it discreetly. Brady had never asked how, didn’t want to know, but needless to say Matthews had made the problem go away. Now Matthews had a problem of his own. A problem that Brady somehow had to fix.

‘All right,’ agreed Brady unwillingly. ‘But tell me you’re not involved in any of this?’

‘You of all people know me better than that!’

‘Are you sure?’

‘What the fuck’s got into you, Jack?’ snapped Matthews. ‘Did I ask you any questions when you came to me desperate for my help?’

Matthews was right. Brady realised he had overstepped the mark. He didn’t know what had got into him. Matthews needed his help now. Quid pro quo. It was that simple. The problem was it didn’t feel that straightforward. Even if he didn’t end up inside because of this, there was a good chance he was going to lose his job. Matthews was asking Brady to keep quiet about his involvement with a murder victim hours before she turned up brutally dead. Too much was at stake. But they both knew Brady didn’t have a choice; he had rolled the die a long time ago.

‘All right, I’ll do what you say,’ conceded Brady. ‘But Jimmy, I need more than your word. You need to let me in on what the fuck is going on here.’

Matthews didn’t say anything.

‘For fuck’s sake, Jimmy! This is me you’re talking to.’

‘I … I don’t want to get you involved,’ Matthews blankly stated.

‘Fuck it. You come to me with the news that you knew the murder victim. Not only that, but you were with her the night she was murdered. Bloody hell, man! Tell me how I’m not involved?’ demanded Brady.

Matthews sighed and cradled his head in his hands.

‘You don’t understand,’ he muttered.

‘Too right I don’t understand.’

‘I’m … I’m in trouble, Jack. Way over my head. And … and if I’m honest I don’t even know where to begin,’ Matthews said shaking his head.

Brady had never seen Matthews like this before. The man was scared shitless.

‘Jimmy?’

Matthews looked up at him dejectedly.

‘You didn’t do it, right?’

‘No …’ mumbled Matthews.

‘Then we can—’

‘Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!’ Matthews shouted.

He suddenly stood.

Brady watched as he started to pace the floor.

‘You don’t get it! No, I didn’t fucking murder her. But that’s the least of my problems right now.’

‘So tell me what’s going on.’

‘I can’t.’

Brady sighed. He realised that it wasn’t worth talking to Matthews in the state he was in. It was better to let him get some rest first and then they’d decide what to do later.

‘Go home, get some sleep and then we’ll talk,’ suggested Brady.

Matthews looked at him and wearily nodded before making his way to the door.

‘Jimmy?’ Brady questioned. ‘The murdered girl, who is she?’

‘Like you said, I need to go home and get my head around what’s happened. After I’ve figured out what I’m going to do, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.’

Matthews opened the door and then turned round to face Brady.

‘And remember, if this gets out I’m not the only one with something to hide.’

Brady did his best to sneak in. As usual, his best wasn’t good enough; at least not where Gates was concerned.

‘Ah, Jack! Pleased to see that you could join us,’ Gates greeted coolly.

‘Bugger,’ Brady muttered under his breath, feeling heads turn as he closed the door. The briefing had started at precisely 8.30 am and he was twenty minutes late; not a good thing with a boss who hated tardiness.

He thought about joining Gates at the front of the room, but as soon as he spotted DS Adamson standing there, the idea lost its appeal. He made his way to the back wall and leaned against it.

Brady caught the mocking stare of DS Robert Adamson. He held it for a second too long, forcing the uptight bugger to shift his arrogant gaze. Adamson belonged to North Shields CID and was presumably here because they needed extra bodies for the murder investigation. He was a young, arrogant man in his early thirties who typified the new breed of copper that accelerated their way through the ranks after graduating from University.

Adamson was five feet ten but his stocky build made him appear much taller. Brady hated the way his reddish blond
hair was trendily gelled to look messy and tousled. His heavy-set square jaw was typically clean-shaven while his intelligent bright blue eyes lacked any subtlety or compassion. Simply put, he was out for what he could get. Unlike Brady, Adamson toed the line. His suits were always dark and imposing, with matching ties and plain white shirts. Overall Adamson reminded Brady of a politician. In other words, he couldn’t be trusted.

Brady had known from the first time that he’d been introduced to Adamson that he was a bullshitter. Adamson had tried to win Brady over with his false bravado but it hadn’t worked. Consequently, Adamson had since treated Brady with competitive contempt. Brady had the rank that Adamson so clearly thirsted after. But as Adamson stood beside Gates, Brady had the uncanny feeling that he was sizing up Brady’s position as DI.

Brady looked about the crowded room and quickly found Conrad. He nodded at his deputy, relieved that he had Conrad by his side and not a backstabbing Iago figure like Adamson. Harvey then caught his attention, making no attempt at disguising his amusement at Brady’s typical tardiness. Brady surveyed the rest of the room realising that out of the thirty or so faces before him he only recognised about twenty. He had either been gone longer than he had realised or, as Adamson’s presence suggested, Gates had called in CID from other Area Commands; standard procedure with something as high profile as a murder investigation.

Brady’s head was still foggy; the result of his conversation with Matthews. Consequently, it was too easy to drown out Gates’ voice, focusing instead on Anna Kodovesky. She was sat directly in front of him with her long legs crossed,
forcing her skirt to ride up further than she would have liked, but Brady wasn’t protesting. And neither were the coppers on either side of her.

Kodovesky had made it clear from her first day at the station as a Detective Constable that she was only interested in the job. And Brady didn’t complain; she was a damned good copper. But some of the guys at the station couldn’t see past her legs and were laying bets on who would get into Kodovesky’s knickers first. So far, no one had succeeded and the bet was now standing at a grand. Brady knew that Kodovesky was too smart to fall for any of his colleagues’ lines. If he really thought she couldn’t hold her own, then he might have broken up the wager. But Brady knew that if Kodovesky found out he was protecting her honour, she would have chopped his balls off.

He suddenly started as he realised that Gates was bringing the briefing to a close. He relaxed his body against the wall as he thought about what they had so far, which was effectively nothing. All they had was an unidentified murder victim. And as for motive, nine times out of ten, it was sexual, which was the line Gates was following. But Brady wasn’t so sure. Nothing about the body suggested that the victim had been raped. Given the ferocity of the attack, there was one thing he was certain about; this was personal, the victim had known her murderer.

He pulled out the packet of mints from his pocket, placed one in his mouth in preparation for Gates, who he knew would be more than eager to greet him on his first day back.

‘All right people, we have a job to do, so let’s do it. And remember, no one, and I mean no one goes home until we
have a positive ID on the murder victim. You hear me? As of now all leave is temporarily suspended and I’m expecting no less than eighteen-hour shifts from you lot. This isn’t just your jobs on the line here, it’s mine as well,’ Gates reminded them.

Brady knew that the jibe was intended for him.

‘I want to see everybody back here in four hours and by then we better be making some headway. I need something to give at the press conference this afternoon and it better be good!’

It was no secret that Gates was after the Chief Superintendent’s job. O’Donnell was rumoured to be moving on and Gates didn’t want anything or anyone messing up his chances of promotion. Brady decided to leave before Gates cornered him. He needed to talk to Matthews. The more he thought about it, the more he felt uneasy. Something wasn’t right. He had questions that needed answering; questions he should have forced out of Matthews instead of letting him go.