‘I’m sorry, Amelia. Honestly, I am.’
‘I hope it’s worth it, Jack.’
Brady shook his head, confused.
‘Being able to crack the case on your own before the others. Because from the way Gates is acting you may as well pack up your things and go home now. Just so you know, Adamson has a copy of the same surveillance footage.’
Brady visibly reacted – Amelia would have got the same response if she had slapped him.
‘Adamson is heading this investigation. Don’t you think he needs every bit of information and evidence he can get? I was curious about what it was that you wanted so badly. So I talked to the receptionist and she told me what she told you. It wasn’t hard to find them on the surveillance tape once I knew who I was looking for.’
Brady didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He was still trying to get his head around the fact that she had taken this information to Adamson.
‘You compromised my loyalty and … and after what I saw on the tape I had no choice.’
Brady looked away, unable to look Amelia in the eye.
‘What’s really going on, Jack? Why wouldn’t you want Adamson to see something as significant as that?’
‘It was just a hunch … that was all. Remember, I still haven’t seen the tape.’
‘Bullshit!’ retorted Amelia. ‘What? Two men just so happen to walk in to Rake Lane Hospital by chance and ask at reception about the condition of a copper who has been brutally attacked. Jack, no one could have known about this, don’t you get that? When they turned up, the news still hadn’t been released to the press. Only we knew about it. No one on the outside did, which means they were involved in her attack. Maybe they turned up because they thought they’d left her for dead. Now they’ll be worried about whether she’ll talk.’
Amelia suddenly realised what she’d said. But it was too late.
The look in Brady’s eyes told her that her words had cut him.
She knew, as they all did, that Simone Henderson would never talk again.
‘Look, if there had been any way of withholding the tape I would have done. But it’s too crucial to the investigation,’ explained Amelia.
‘I understand that you had no other option,’ answered Brady. ‘And I’m sorry for putting you in such a position,’ he added quietly.
Amelia looked up at him. Something about the wounded look in his eyes at the mention of Simone Henderson’s condition had got to her.
She didn’t know what it was about Jack Brady. He was the only person who could make her feel this way. He worried her. It was rare to see him look so vulnerable.
Something about him at this moment told Amelia that he was in trouble.
She watched as he dragged a nervous hand through his long, dark brown hair again. Pulling it back from his handsomely rugged, albeit beaten-up, face.
‘I promise it won’t happen again,’ assured Brady as he made a move to leave.
Amelia placed a hand on his arm, stopping him.
She made sure no one else could hear before she spoke.
‘I also got the security tape for the hospital grounds. There’s something there that you need to see. I haven’t handed the grounds CCTV footage to Adamson yet. And he hasn’t asked for it. But he will. Once he’s had a look at the surveillance tape of the two men talking to the receptionist he’ll be on to it. You haven’t got long before he requests it.’
‘Thanks, Amelia …’ Brady said falteringly.
Without another word he turned and left.
* * *
Brady ran along the first-floor corridor, ignoring the pain in his side. He turned the corner, and continued until he reached his office. He didn’t have much time.
Whatever was on that security tape, Adamson now had access to it.
He reached his office door. It was unlocked.
Had Amelia got someone to unlock his door? Or had it already been unlocked? He couldn’t shake the feeling of paranoia he’d had ever since he found the victim’s head, along with the note, in the rear of his car.
Then he remembered that Conrad had said Claudia was waiting for him in his office.
He prepared himself before walking in. He wasn’t in the right frame of mind for a face-to-face meeting with Claudia. The only thing on his mind was watching that DVD before Adamson.
He opened the door and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the room was empty.
On the table sat an envelope.
He picked it up and ripped open the seal.
It was a DVD accompanied with a note: You know where I am if you need me. A.
Brady crumpled the note up and threw it into his waste paper bin. There was nothing Amelia could do to help him. In fact, no one could help him right now.
He sat down behind his desk and opened up his Apple Mac laptop.
He shoved the DVD in and waited for it to load.
He could feel his heart starting to pound.
The DVD started playing. Fuzzy images from inside the reception area kicked into life. Patients, visitors and staff entered and left through the revolving doors by the reception area. He watched and waited.
Then he saw them.
Two well-dressed men made their way through the revolving hospital doors straight to reception.
He narrowed his eyes as he tried to get a clearer image of the two men. It was impossible. All he could make out was that they were tall, well built, with short, cropped dark hair and in their late twenties to early thirties. But what he could see was a glint of white gold on one of their hands: the third finger, right hand. Any identifiable trait at this point was crucial.
He thought immediately of Jed, the force’s computer forensic expert. He’d have to call in a favour. He had no choice. Jed was the only person he knew who had the ability to digitally enhance the image of the two men’s faces and the rings.
Brady watched as the men spoke to the receptionist before leaving through the revolving glass doors. He waited, wondering exactly what it was that Amelia had seen.
Nothing happened.
He saw himself come into the reception area. Talk with the receptionist and then leave, heading off towards the ICU. He fast-forwarded until he saw himself return. This time looking the worse for wear. Clothes dishevelled, face bleeding.
He watched as his figure walked out the main entrance.
Then a glitch appeared in the tape as it seemed to jump. Brady didn’t understand why. Then he realised. It was the CCTV footage from the hospital grounds.
He waited, curious as to what it was that had caught Amelia’s attention. Then he saw it. A black Mercedes dropping the two men he was after off at reception. The car idled for a second and then pulled away.
Brady tried to get a closer look at the driver’s face, but it was obscured by an ambulance.
He fast-forwarded again, watching as the men entered the hospital and then reappeared. They then walked over to the car park. The black Mercedes with tinted windows was parked close to the main reception.
Brady continued to fast-forward the tape until he recognised Conrad’s car pulling up outside the emergency entrance. He watched himself jump out, slam the door and walk inside. At the same time, he saw the driver of the Mercedes get out and casually lean against the car. There was no mistaking it: he was watching Brady. Then his attention turned to Conrad’s Saab.
Brady’s stomach knotted. He was being watched. That was what Amelia had seen. Without needing to watch the rest of the CCTV footage, he knew what was coming next. He fast-forwarded once more, feeling sick.
Just as he thought. When Conrad had driven out the hospital grounds they were being followed. It wasn’t obvious. They were two cars behind. But they were being tailed all the same.
He rewound, realising he had missed something: the driver. The driver who had been leaning against the car watching both him walking into the hospital and then Conrad parked up in the Saab.
He found what he wanted and then froze the DVD.
/> The driver of the Mercedes was tall, 6´3? with cropped hair and a G-Star Raw military-style jacket.
There was no mistaking it. The driver was the same guy captured on surveillance camera in Madley’s nightclub.
It was Nick.
Brady rewound the DVD until he could get a freeze-frame of the partial image of the Mercedes’ licence plate. He could barely make out the letters ‘LT’ in the blue square on the left-hand side of the plate and the first two letters of the plate which were ‘AV’. But that was it.
He quickly opened up a browser on his laptop and Googled ‘LT’ to find the nationality of the car and its occupants.
It took seconds before it uploaded. ‘LT’ stood for Lithuania: the car’s country of origin.
He felt as if he had been side-punched. He had been hoping against the odds that Madley had been wrong about Nick.
But the evidence was damning.
Brady thought back to Johnny Slaughter, who had said his brother was now working for the ‘Lithuaks’. He couldn’t shake the memory of Johnny’s words:
‘Nick stopped working for me a month back. Got involved with those Eastern European bastards who are coming over here and taking all our bloody money!’
Brady took out his BlackBerry.
He looked at his hands and realised they were shaking.
He needed a drink. There wasn’t a time in his life when he needed one more than at this precise moment.
Hands still trembling, he reached down and opened the drawer of his desk.
He kept a bottle of single malt Scotch for emergencies. And in his books, this wasn’t just an emergency; it was a fucking write-off.
How was he going to explain this to Gates?
He picked up his red and white Che Guevara mug. Still trembling, he poured himself a liberal measure. He cupped the mug in two hands, not trusting himself to hold it steady, and took a much needed, burning gulp. He then leaned back and sighed, staring darkly at the grey stabbing light squeezing through his dusty Venetian blinds.
He needed a minute to clear his head and figure out what he was going to do.
The only thing he was certain of was that he needed to keep some distance between himself and Gates until he knew exactly how he was going to play it.
First, he needed to call Jed.
He picked up his BlackBerry again. Hands slightly steadier: it seemed his emergency Scotch was already working.
He pressed call and waited.
‘Yeah, Jed here,’ came the reply.
‘Hi Jed, it’s Jack,’ answered Brady.
‘Hey, Jack. Good to hear from you. What’s up?’ Jed asked.
My back against the wall, that’s what, thought Brady. But he kept it inside his head.
‘Not much. Just the usual crap, you know?’ he replied, trying to make his voice sound as relaxed as possible.
‘Tell me about it, Jack. I’m wading knee-deep in shit here! But do they give me a bigger budget so I can employ more people? Do they hell. Resources have been slashed again and they now expect me to do the job of ten people in half the time,’ complained Jed.
Brady breathed in.
In all the time he had known Jed, there was never a good time to ask him to do some work. Never mind asking him to do the impossible for nothing more than ‘I owe you one’.
Brady’s silence said it all to Jed.
‘Alright, spit it out. What exactly do you need me to do?’
Brady massaged his forehead, trying to ease the pressure that had been building all day.
‘How’d you guess?’
‘Like, the silence. I know you too well!’
‘Alright, here’s the score. I’ve got a couple of blurred surveillance tape images that I need digitally enhancing so I can try and get an ID on a couple of suspects. Two men, dressed in suits at reception at roughly 8:10am. I need close-ups of their faces and a close-up of what I think is a white platinum ring that both are wearing on their right hands, third finger. Same suspects leave and wait in the car park. They have a black Mercedes with what I believe is a Lithuanian licence plate. I need you to digitally enhance the licence plate to be certain I’m right. I also need a close-up of the driver who gets out the car at one point.’
‘Is it connected to what happened to that young DC?’
‘Could be,’ Brady said simply.
‘Alright. Email it to me and I’ll see what I can do.’ He paused then asked suddenly, ‘Is this the same footage at the hospital that Adamson sent over?’
‘Adamson’s already sent it?’ questioned Brady feeling sick.
He’d clearly underestimated Adamson.
‘Yeah, he sent me this material over ten minutes ago.’
‘You haven’t given him anything yet, have you?’ Brady asked
‘No … haven’t worked on it yet.’
‘Stall him for me, will you? I just need some time.’
‘If it wasn’t you, Jack, you know what the answer would be …’
‘I know, Jed. But if this wasn’t so important I wouldn’t be asking you.’
‘Alright. But I can’t hold Adamson off for long. You know that.’
‘I know. Thanks, mate.’
Brady listened to the dull tone of silence.
He breathed out. It had been harder than he had imagined asking Jed to cross the line.
Brady had to be certain that Nick was the driver.
Until he had indisputable evidence in front of his eyes, he was still clinging onto a sliver of hope that it was all some horrendous coincidence.
Chapter Twenty-Two
He opened the file left by Harvey on his desk.
It was already 3:47pm. The briefing was now supposed to be going ahead at 4:00pm. But due to recent circumstances it had been postponed. Again, mused Brady with frustration. But this had to be done. Given the fact that the Ryecrofts had suddenly turned up at the station wanting answers, he had to familiarise himself with the report on the missing girl.
Despite a desperate search, the serial numbers for their daughter’s breast implants couldn’t be found. Neither could the paperwork and receipts for the operation. The Ryecrofts weren’t sure whether their daughter had taken them with her or placed them for safe-keeping somewhere. Or even if they had been thrown out by accident. All they knew was that the police wanted the serial implant numbers for a reason. And that a murder victim had washed up on the shores of Whitley Bay. Consequently, Brady couldn’t blame the Ryecrofts for refusing to sit around waiting at home for further news about their missing daughter. Brady reckoned he would have done the same if he had been in their situation.
He looked at the photograph of Melissa Ryecroft.
He picked it up, studying it.
He stared at her face, searching for a similarity.
Long brown hair, large, dark brown eyes.
The problem was, he couldn’t tell.
The damage to the murder victim’s severed head had completely disfigured the face. The extent of the knife wounds and …
Brady stopped.
It was unthinkable what they had done to her.
It was something that Brady had never before witnessed in all his years as a copper.
He looked back down at the photograph.
There was no denying it. Melissa Ryecroft had the same body type as the murder victim.
Brady thought of her father sitting waiting for him downstairs.
How could he tell him that the murder victim had had all her teeth removed? As a consequence, this ruled out the option of using Melissa Ryecroft’s dental records as a form of ID, which given the circumstances would have been preferable.
Instead he would need Melissa Ryecroft’s parents to ID what was left of the body.
He picked up the notes in the file that accompanied the photograph. He needed to make sure he knew everything there was to know about the missing girl before interviewing her parents.
* * *
Brady made his way to the interview room.
He knocked on the interview door before walking in.
Kodovesky gave him a surprised look, reminding Brady that his face was a mess.
‘Go on, take a coffee break. Conrad will be here in a minute,’ suggested Brady.
The young DC looked like she needed some fresh air. He couldn’t blame her. The air in the small room was stale and claustrophobic.
Brady stretched his hand out towards Brian Ryecroft first, then Michelle Ryecroft and finally, their eleven-year-old daughter, Lucy.
‘DI Jack Brady,’ he introduced, aware that the cuts and bruises on his face weren’t exactly the best look for a Detective Inspector.
Brian Ryecroft nodded at him. He was too lost in grief and anguish to pay much attention to Brady’s run-in with a brick wall.
Brady realised that Melissa Ryecroft was very much her father’s daughter. They had the same handsome, perfectly shaped face. Strong, but with precise symmetry. They were both dark: dark hair, eyes and skin with a slight tanned hue to it. They had a look about them which spoke of Italian ancestry.
Ryecroft’s jowly jaw was locked and his full lips were downturned. His receding black hair was peppered with silver strands. More silver than black, thought Brady. What would have been a neat, orderly haircut was now all over the place from where he had obviously dragged a nervous hand repeatedly through it. His brown, heavily bagged eyes were filled with pained acceptance. A pragmatic, cold reality had kicked in. His daughter had been gone since Thursday morning; it was now Saturday afternoon after 4:13pm.
The time jarred with Brady. He was running over. Things were starting to get away from him. If he wasn’t careful he would lose the plot.
It was clear to Brady that this was a man in his mid to late fifties who loved his daughters. Spoiled them, as much as he spoiled his forty-something wife.
Ryecroft had his own business in construction. A self-made man who had made good. Brady imagined the women in his life played him like a fiddle. Not one of them would be wanting for anything. Which explained why his missing sixteen-year-old daughter attended a private school in Tynemouth, sporting her fake breasts amongst other material possessions.
‘I … I …’ Ryecroft broke down. Tears streamed down his jowly, lined face as he dropped his head, unable to look at Brady.
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