Vanishing Point (24 page)

‘What? What’s wrong?’ he asked as he walked over to his old friend.

‘Just left the station and was about to get in my car and this kid came at me out of nowhere. Thrust this at me. Said it was for you and it was urgent,’ he said, holding his trembling hand out.

Brady took it. It was a blank envelope but he could feel something inside.

‘Where did he go?’ asked Brady, trying to keep his voice level despite the rising panic.

‘Disappeared before I could say anything,’ answered Turner, his voice still shaky. ‘Legged it down the back lane behind the station.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘I dunno … short, scrawny kid with a hoodie pulled down so I couldn’t make out his face. Said he’d been paid a tenner to take it into the station but didn’t have the nerve so waited for someone to come out …’ Turner faltered and sighed as he looked at Brady.

Brady didn’t say a word.

‘I’m too old for this game, Jack. Too bloody old,’ muttered Turner.

Brady rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on, Charlie. You’ll still be here when I’m long gone,’ he consoled.

Turner looked up at Brady, doubting his words.

It was then that Brady realised how frail and old Turner actually was without the protection of his uniform and front desk.

‘Charlie … don’t mention this to anyone. Let’s keep this between us, yeah?’

Turner nodded.

Brady gripped Turner’s shoulder, surprised that this kid had shaken Turner to this extent. He had been a copper for over thirty years and had dealt with more than his fair share of crime. Brady put his loss of nerve down to Simone’s attack. Everyone at the station was feeling jittery. Watching their back. Nobody more so than Brady, he mused bitterly.

‘He did what he was paid to do. Trust me, he’s not coming back,’ he reassured.

Turner’s shoulders suddenly slumped forward. He raised his eyes up to meet Brady’s.

‘What are you involved in, Jack?’ Turner asked as he nervously licked the spit from his thin lips.

He’d been in the game too long not to know that kids wearing hoodies didn’t make a point of hanging around police stations waiting to hand a note over to a copper.

Brady shook his head.

‘It’s nothing,’ he answered.

Turner sighed heavily and walked out, leaving Brady with his own troubles.

*

Brady closed his office door and automatically went over to the window and looked out. It was approaching 9pm and it was already dark. The hazy orange glow of the street lights cast shadows up and down the street.

Was he still being watched? He wasn’t sure.

‘Shit!’ he cursed to himself, angry at his own paranoia.

But who could blame him? He had seen the irrefutable proof on the hospital grounds security tape that he had been followed. And then they had watched and waited for an opportune moment to dump the victim’s head in the back of his car along with a note. A message clearly meant for him.

He walked away from the window and resignedly sat down at his desk. He steeled himself before opening the envelope. Inside was a handwritten note. Immediately, he recognised the distinctive swirling letters.

It was from Nick. It had to be.

He held his breath as he read the words:

You’re losing your head Jack. You’re not thinking straight. You need to see an old friend to find out about N. You maybe need to look at their trademark – or TM in short.

N

Brady held his head in his hands as he tried to steady his breathing. His heart was racing as adrenalin coursed through his veins.

Then it hit him.

The note left with the severed head wasn’t from the Eastern European brothers. Or the Nietzschean Brotherhood; it was also from Nick.

It was a warning, not a death threat.

Nick was warning him not to lose his head. Which was exactly what he was starting to do. And now his brother had sent a second note, stating the obvious. It meant he was watching him. Watching his every move.

Brady remembered that the ‘N’ had been printed in blood in the first note – the victim’s blood, taken from a signet ring. Was that Nick’s way of telling him that the Nietzschean Brotherhood were involved? That this was bigger than just some sex trafficked girl washed up on Whitley Bay beach?

‘What do you want from me?’ whispered Brady, desperation in his voice.

But he knew Nick too well. He wasn’t playing a game with him; he was trying to help him.

Brady lifted his head up and slowly breathed out as he allowed relief to flood through him.

Nick may have been embroiled in some covert, sick sex trafficking operation but he wasn’t a willing part of it. He was trying his damnedest to lead Brady towards the central players.

He reread the note, forcing himself to focus.

‘Trademark … TM …’ he muttered, shaking his head.

Then it hit him. The only old friend Nick had in the North East was Trina McGuire.

His gut feeling had been right when he had rung Trina earlier that day. But what he hadn’t realised was that she had information on ‘N’, which he assumed could be the Nietzschean Brotherhood that Claudia had talked about. He thought back to the ‘N’ burnt into Simone’s breast and the ‘N’ on the gold signet rings worn by the two men who had been captured on the hospital surveillance footage asking about the condition of the mutilated DC.

He took out his phone and rang Trina McGuire.

He had no choice. He had to make her talk.

He listened as the phone rang for a couple of seconds and then cut off.

It was clear that Trina had no intention of talking to him.

Deciding that there was nothing else for it, he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and stood up. He’d have to pay her a visit.

He shoved the handwritten note in his pocket for safe-keeping.

Suddenly there was a knock at his door.

‘Christ!’ muttered Brady, startled.

He had to get his head together otherwise he would be no use to anyone – especially Nick.

Before he had a chance to call out the door opened and Conrad walked in.

‘Thought you might need something to eat, sir? The rest of the team ordered in Chinese so I thought I’d salvage some for you before it disappeared,’ explained Conrad.

It took the younger man a second to realise Brady was going somewhere. He shot him a questioning look.

‘Thanks, Conrad. Just put it down on my desk. I’ll get it later. There’s something I need to do first, and I need your help,’ answered Brady.

‘Sir?’

‘Get your car keys, Conrad. We’re going for a drive.’

Chapter Thirty-Two

Brady waited by the station’s heavy wooden double doors. He drew heavily on the cigarette he’d rolled as he uneasily looked up and down the dark street. Even though it was deserted he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched.

Conrad pulled round the corner in his dark silver Saab.

Relieved, Brady threw his cigarette away and walked over and climbed in.

‘Where to, sir?’

‘Gainers Terrace, Wallsend,’ answered Brady.

‘Sir?’ questioned Conrad, worried.

‘Know it?’ asked Brady.

‘Not personally, sir. But I have heard enough about it to know that we won’t be welcome.’

Brady didn’t answer him. Instead, he distractedly glanced in the passenger wing mirror as Conrad reluctantly pulled out left past the Northern Rock bank hitting the traffic lights in the centre of Whitley Bay.

Brady looked over at the Town House pub where two scrawny men with tattooed bare arms and Toon shirts were stood outside tabbing. He watched them uneasily, realising that right now he didn’t trust anyone.

He turned his head away and looked across at St Paul’s Anglican Church, on the corner of the traffic lights opposite the Fat Ox. It was a beautiful church built out of slabs of sandstone, surrounded by old trees. Headstones dating back a couple of hundred years still stood, despite the decades of lashing rain coupled with the hard, biting northerly wind that would sweep in from the North Sea.

It passed Brady in a shadowy, ghostly blur as Conrad put his foot down and headed up the small incline towards the roundabout which led out of Whitley Bay.

*

‘Wait here, will you, Conrad?’ instructed Brady as he made a move to get out the car.

Conrad cast a glance over at the Ship Inn and the ruins and the ominous, unlit flat lands surrounding them.

‘Are you sure about this, sir?’ asked Conrad.

Brady could understand Conrad’s reticence. He felt exactly the same way.

The Ship Inn – or the Hole, as it was known locally, for obvious reasons – stood alone against a backdrop of a shipping industry that had long gone. The house lights of the Hole cast the only bit of warmth in this black, bleak, evacuated landscape.

The place was deserted. A no-man’s land. The River Tyne and docklands, once crammed with ships and twisting sky-high cranes, were empty. All that was left behind were the shadowy, iron-crusted bones of what looked to be part of a helicopter landing platform and the weather-beaten base of an oil rig.

The Hole, a solitary, run-down, whitewashed Victorian building had been left to rack and ruin now that the shipyard workers had evaporated to become part of the North East’s ever-increasing dole figures. But it still ran a business. One that involved strippers and sex. And, despite the dubious surroundings, the punters still came. Guaranteed anonymity given the Hole’s unique location. No housing estate overlooked it, no grassland for dog walkers, only the bleak river and empty warehouses and flattened wasteland that spoke of an industrial era that had been sold down the Tyne.

Brady turned and looked behind them at the dark embankment that led down to this pit of despair. Again, deserted.

He thought about Conrad’s question. Was he sure about what he was doing?

He shook his head as he turned and looked at Conrad.

‘No,’ Brady replied. ‘But I’ve got no choice.’

‘Tell me this is connected to our investigation into Melissa Ryecroft’s murder, sir,’ said Conrad, needing the reassurance that whatever Brady was about to do wasn’t going to bring him more trouble than he was already in.

Brady knew he needed his deputy on side. And crucially, needed him to watch his back.

‘I have information that someone in there knows about this Brotherhood that Claudia discussed,’ he explained as he uneasily looked over at the Hole.

‘Surely you want me in there with you, then?’ asked Conrad.

‘No,’ firmly answered Brady. He turned and looked at Conrad. ‘Firstly, two coppers going in there will get us nothing but trouble. Secondly, I need you out here watching who comes and goes.’

Conrad reluctantly nodded. He knew that arguing with Brady was pointless.

‘Look, Conrad … I know the person in there that I need to talk to, alright? And I know for a fact that she wouldn’t come near me if you were there. She hates coppers. I’m not sure she’ll even give me a chance …’ Brady stopped and sighed.

He was tired. Too tired for all this. He wanted to go home and take a long hot shower, followed by a couple of glasses of the full-bodied bottle of Rioja he had in his wine rack, accompanied by some blues music playing in the background. He knew he couldn’t eat though: he had lost his appetite when he had found the victim’s head in his car, along with a note that he was now certain was from his brother.

All he wanted to do was forget this day had ever happened. Instead, his guts told him it was just getting started.

‘Keep your eyes open, Conrad,’ Brady warned before getting out the car. ‘You see anything, you radio it in. Understand?’

Brady was more worried about leaving Conrad out here in the middle of nowhere in darkness with no assistance than he was about facing whatever lay ahead of him in the Hole.

He had noted, as had Conrad, the three other cars parked up. One was a flash white Range Rover Sport, another, a beaten-up blue Volvo estate, and the third, a silver 1.9 Vauxhall Vectra.

Brady hazarded a guess the owners would be inside the Hole. Given the desolate location it was the obvious conclusion. Nobody in their right mind would stray down here and if they did, they sure as hell would turn straight back up the embankment to the main road.

Brady nodded as he approached the lumbering, thick-necked, shaven-headed man in his early thirties standing outside the front door of the Hole smoking.

‘It’s shit! muttered the man, staring straight ahead at Conrad’s car.

‘Thanks for the warning,’ replied Brady as he pulled open the door.

‘Just trying to save you money, mate. Better coming back after eleven. That’s when the good acts are on. Got in some fucking gorgeous young tight-arsed girls with big tits. Don’t speak much English but who’s interested in talking? Better than the old trollops that are in there just now!’

The man scowled at the silver Saab as he drew heavily on his cigarette. He then threw it on the ground and turned to go back in.

Brady held the door open for him.

‘It’s your money!’ the man grunted by way of thanks.

Brady let the door swing shut behind them.

The large room was dark. It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust. And his sense of smell.

The place was rancid.

It stank of men. The worst kind of men.

Wankers that would come here and throw not only their money around. Forcing girls to do things that their mothers had never taught them.

The smell of stale piss, stale beer and sex – dirty, passionless, perfunctory sex – clung to the air.

Brady watched as the thick-necked critic made his way to the bar. A bartender pushed a coffee towards him.

He grunted in appreciation, sat down and picked up a folded paper and started doing what Brady presumed was a crossword.

It was obvious that he was the club’s hired muscle.

Brady looked around the place. It was virtually empty. It didn’t surprise him. It was just after nine-thirty on a Saturday evening, which was early for this place.