‘For fuck’s sake! Tell me!’ he spat.
Brady had no choice but to look him in the eyes.
He reluctantly nodded.
‘I wish I could say I wasn’t sure. But … there are a lot of similarities between your missing daughter and the body.’
‘What the hell do you mean, similarities? You’ve got a photograph of her surely? You must be able to tell?’
‘That’s the problem, sir, the damage to her face is so extensive that it’s difficult to say. But the hair and body type match, as do the brown eyes … and …’ Brady looked Ryecroft in the eye.
He had already had word back from Wolfe before the interview that the head matched the body. No question.
‘But … the autopsy shows that the victim had had an abortion about a month ago …’
Brady watched as the realisation hit Ryecroft.
In that moment Brady knew that Ryecroft was certain it was his daughter lying in the morgue.
Ryecroft stared at Brady as he absorbed this final, damning fact. He shook his head. ‘Whatever you do don’t tell my wife. She didn’t know that … that Melissa was pregnant. She needed money to go private. So she came to me and asked. I wouldn’t give her the money until she told me why. But she promised me it had nothing to do with that bastard Marijuis… . she promised me… . she promised … All she wanted was to be a model … that’s all she wanted …’ he mumbled.
‘Did you personally take her to a private clinic?’ asked Brady.
Ryecroft looked at Brady, surprised by the question.
‘No … I … she said she would take care of it if I gave her the money. That she was too embarrassed as it was … She told her mother she was staying at her friend’s for the weekend a month back and I presumed that’s when …’ he shook his head. ‘I asked when she came back on the Monday and she just said she didn’t want to talk about it.’
Brady wasn’t sure what Melissa had spent her father’s money on, but it definitely wasn’t a private clinic.
‘So, you didn’t know where she went for the abortion?’
Ryecroft shook his head, ashamed at his answer.
Brady caught Ryecroft as his body suddenly collapsed forward sobbing with anguish at what he had just been told. Until then he had been holding out that it was just coincidence. That she’d turn up unharmed and life would automatically go back to normal.
Brady held him and waited for the man to compose himself.
Conrad opened the door and looked at Brady.
Brady shook his head, signalling to Conrad to give them a few more minutes.
Conrad understood and discreetly closed the door.
Brady continued to hold Ryecroft as his bulky frame convulsed with agonising sobs.
Brady had had a gut feeling that Ryecroft hadn’t been as forthcoming as he could have been during the interview. There were a few moments when Ryecroft had over-reacted, or had got angry. Too angry. And he had seemed too adamant that his daughter didn’t have a boyfriend. And that she had never had one.
Even a fool wouldn’t believe that of a girl who holidays abroad for her sixteenth birthday with her girlfriends independently of her parents. Throw into the mix the breast augmentation job. This girl was clearly way ahead of her sixteen years.
Brady could imagine that Ryecroft and his eldest daughter were close enough for her to have managed to borrow money from him to get an abortion done privately. She wouldn’t have gone to her mother; that much was clear. She was a daddy’s girl. And she knew how to work it. And Ryecroft obviously adored her. He was no different from most parents today. When it came to their children, it was easier to pay their way out of trouble. And the trouble here was this Eastern European man named Marijuis.
And whether that was his real name was debatable.
Ryecroft suddenly straightened up. ‘I’m sorry …’ he mumbled, embarrassed.
He went over to the table and picked up a fistful of tissues from the box that had been put there intentionally.
‘It’s perfectly understandable, sir,’ replied Brady quietly as Ryecroft roughly dried his face.
Brian Ryecroft had to go out looking strong. He needed to have his head together. For the sake of his wife and his youngest daughter. They were all he had now. And he would be damned if he’d let anything happen to them. What had happened to Melissa was his fault. He knew that. And he would live with that knowledge until the day he died.
He was relieved that they hadn’t witnessed his breakdown. He breathed in deeply as he composed himself, making a promise to himself that it wouldn’t happen again. No matter what.
‘Thank you, DI Brady. I would like to be taken to Rake Lane now if you don’t mind. Get this over with,’ Ryecroft stated.
Brady nodded.
‘Of course, sir. Our family liaison officer is already waiting for you.’
Brady knew it wasn’t worth asking Ryecroft why he’d withheld information. He was suffering enough as it was without Brady adding to it.
And anyway, the worst was yet to come, thought Brady.
Brady hadn’t told him the cause of death.
He was still waiting on Wolfe’s call to confirm his suspicion. And until then, he couldn’t release that information.
Not even to Brian Ryecroft.
No matter how much Brady wanted to prepare him for the horror of what some maniac had done to his daughter, he couldn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Conrad, get Harvey and Kodovesky to check out flights on Thursday from Newcastle to either Heathrow or Stansted,’ ordered Brady as he and Conrad walked along the corridor. ‘I need to know whether Melissa Ryecroft was booked on a flight and if so, who was booked next to her. And crucially, who made the booking.’
‘Yes, sir. What about CCTV footage of the airport and the grounds?’
Brady nodded.
Conrad seemed to be thinking what he was thinking. That she hadn’t got on any plane to London. That much was clear. Brady’s gut feeling was telling him that someone picked her up from the airport. And he was certain that this twenty-eight-year-old Eastern European – or perhaps Romanian – boyfriend going by the name of ‘Marijuis’ was involved in Melissa Ryecroft’s disappearance. Brady wouldn’t have been surprised if he had been behind the Facebook message offering her the false promise of a meeting with a top London model agency.
But they had to check out all possibilities.
‘And make sure we get a copy of all numbers logged to and from her phone ASAP, will you?’ ordered Brady.
‘Yes, sir,’ replied Conrad.
‘We should have had those by now,’ muttered Brady distractedly. ‘And tell Daniels and Kenny not to bother continuing going through the CCTV footage last night down on the Promenade.’
Conrad shot him a questioning look.
‘They’re going to have their hands full going through the footage at the airport,’ said Brady.
His mind was preoccupied with the surveillance footage that Jed was currently digitally enhancing for him. He was struggling to focus on the work at hand. All he could keep thinking about was Nick and who and what he was involved in. He didn’t need any CCTV footage of the anonymous 999 caller to know that it had been Nick. He had more damning evidence.
‘Conrad, can you make sure we’ve got everything together for the briefing? Chase up Ainsworth if you have to for the crime scene photographs of the head.’
Conrad’s steel-grey eyes narrowed at the prospect of asking Ainsworth for anything, let alone telling him his job.
Brady reached his office door. He paused before entering.
‘And, Conrad, tell him I need images of the note and any forensic information they have,’ instructed Brady.
‘Sir?’ questioned Conrad, puzzled.
Brady still hadn’t told anyone about the note. There was only himself and Ainsworth’s team who knew about it. He still hadn’t quite figured what it meant and why it had been left for him.
The obvious came to min
d. But until he had more evidence he didn’t want to accept who could be behind the murder of the girl, and who had left him the note along with the victim’s head.
For all Brady knew, they could be two separate crimes. But he seriously doubted it.
He looked at Conrad. He was waiting for Brady to explain himself.
Brady shook his head.
‘Let me fill you in at the briefing, Conrad. There’s a couple of things I need to check out first,’ Brady said feeling guilty that he was holding something as crucial as this back. ‘Trust me here. I just need a bit more time,’ added Brady.
‘Yes, sir,’ answered Conrad, knowing better than to ask his boss what exactly was going on.
‘And ask Ainsworth when he’s releasing my car, will you?’
Conrad nodded.
‘Thanks,’ replied Brady.
He turned and walked into his office, closing the door behind him.
He breathed in deeply, relieved to be alone.
Jed had tried calling him while he’d been in the interview room with the Ryecrofts. He had left a message telling Brady he’d emailed the information he’d asked for.
Brady steeled himself as he went to his desk and sat down. He opened his laptop.
There it was: an email with attachments from Jed.
Hands shaking, Brady opened up the attachment and downloaded the freeze-framed digitally enhanced photographs.
He breathed out a sigh of relief. The photograph of the driver was still grainy and poor quality. The features were blurred. It would be difficult for Adamson’s team to put the image out to the public and hope for anyone to identify the driver.
But Brady knew it was definitely Nick. There was no mistaking it. He would recognise his face anywhere. Just as he had recognised his face on the security tape Madley had given him of Nick walking out of the gents’ in the Blue Lagoon.
The question was, who was he working for and why?
Brady knew two things: Nick would never cross someone close to him. That included Madley. Like Brady, Nick had never forgotten his allegiance to Madley. Growing up in the war-torn Ridges did that to you. Madley was his friend, as much as he was Brady’s. Admittedly, Nick’s contact with Madley was infrequent given the fact he had left the North East, but he still made a point of seeing him whenever he returned. And, just as Trina McGuire had said, Nick had morals. He was a man of principle. A man who Brady was certain would never touch something as heinous as sex trafficking.
Brady breathed deeply, trying his damnedest to keep himself together as he moved onto the next set of images.
They were freeze-framed close-ups of the two men who had gone to Rake Lane’s reception desk asking about Simone Henderson.
They were good-looking men, albeit dark and dangerous. From what Brady could make out, they looked like brothers, in their late twenties to early thirties. They both shared the same dark eyes and straight nose, and their chiselled cheekbones were identical. Both had coarse black stubble that blended in with the brutally short number one haircuts they sported. There was definitely no doubt in Brady’s mind that they were the men he had seen on the CCTV footage wearing the rings.
Brady jumped onto the next photograph.
He sighed heavily.
He was right. Jed had digitally enhanced the partial CCTV image of the licence plate. There was no mistaking the car’s country of origin was Lithuania.
He moved onto the next image.
An enlarged photograph of the platinum signet ring with the letter ‘N’ as an emblem.
It was similar to the ‘N’ branded on Simone.
And identical to the ‘N’ signed on the note he had received earlier.
The note left with the head in his car.
Signed was the wrong word, mused Brady: it had been embossed onto the paper.
In blood.
Brady jumped from photograph still to photograph still. One thing he was aware of was their ethnicity. Their dark looks and olive skin suggested an Eastern European background. Not only that, thought Brady, they both looked ex-military. The expensive black pinstriped Yves Saint Laurent suits couldn’t disguise the fact that there was a menacing air about them. No amount of money could disguise that.
‘Who the hell are you involved with?’ Brady said aloud. ‘And why are you involving me?’
He moved onto the photograph of the black Mercedes driver.
There was no doubting it.
The same man in Madley’s nightclub was also the driver of the black Merc.
‘Nick?’ questioned Brady as he looked at the blurred, grainy image of his brother’s taut, expressionless face.
But there was a determination about him. A coldness that Brady didn’t recognise.
No one on the force knew Brady had a brother. It was something he had kept quiet. He hadn’t even discussed Nick with Claudia. She knew he existed. But that was as far as it went. She had never met him. Nor had she ever seen a photograph of him.
As far as Claudia was concerned, Brady had lost touch with his brother when they had been placed in separate foster homes as young children.
Brady had made a point of never talking about his past. Claudia had accepted this without any questions. She knew that his mother had died a brutal death. And that his father had served time in Durham Gaol for the murder.
Reading the court records had been enough for Claudia. She knew not to ask any more. Nick’s name had come up, but Claudia had resisted questioning Brady.
There were no photographs of Nick. None had been taken of him or Brady as children. And if they had, they had been permanently lost when they had been shunted from one foster home to another. And as an adult, Nick had refused to have his photograph taken. As far as Brady could tell, Nick lived off the grid. Nothing tied him to the state. No bank accounts, no mortgage, no council tax, no electoral vote.
Nothing.
If Nick had a passport and driving licence, Brady was certain they would be fake; he knew that the right kind of money could buy you anything. Including a new identity.
Brady stared at the close-up of Nick. No one would recognise him as Brady’s brother – apart from Madley. And no amount of data cross-referencing would bring him up. He just didn’t exist in the police database. Hadn’t ever been caught. He was too clever for that, thought Brady. And he had never got involved with serious organised crime.
Until now.
Brady was desperately clinging onto the fact that someone had a hold over Nick. That they had him by the balls and he had no choice. Brady studied Nick’s watchful, intelligent eyes as they looked over in the direction of the hospital emergency doors.
He was waiting for me, noted Brady.
Why?
To follow me and leave a severed head and note in my car.
It was a cold, unwanted answer. But it was a fact that Brady couldn’t dispute.
Brady’s guts had told him it was a warning.
The question was, did it come from his brother?
The words on the note came to mind.
Cut from newsprint and glued on. Apart from the signed ‘N’ which had been imprinted in blood. And if Brady was right, it was from the platinum signet ring on the Eastern European’s right hand.
He took out his BlackBerry phone and looked at the photograph he’d taken of the note.
A loud rap at the door made him jump.
‘Yeah?’ shouted Brady, abruptly closing his laptop.
Conrad walked in.
‘The family liaison officer has taken Mr Ryecroft to the morgue to ID the body, sir’ he said. ‘We should know for definite in the next half an hour whether it’s Melissa Ryecroft.’
‘Good,’ replied Brady, relieved it bought him time. ‘Anything else?’
‘Ainsworth said your car will be ready when it’s ready.’
Brady sighed heavily.
‘His words, not mine, sir,’ explained Conrad apologetically.
Brady nodded. He’d expected such a response from Ainsworth. E
specially if Conrad was doing the asking. Brady didn’t know what it was about Conrad that riled Ainsworth so much, but the cantankerous old bugger treated Conrad the way he treated uniform. And to say he treated uniform like a bunch of incapable idiots was putting it mildly.
‘I’ve just seen the pictures of the head, sir, and … the note …’
Brady looked at Conrad, waiting for him to say something.
He didn’t.
‘If that’s all …’ Brady said.
Conrad didn’t move.
Brady realised that he looked uneasy. His face was a little too strained, his jaw too tight; even for Conrad.
‘What does it mean, sir?’ asked Conrad worriedly.
‘I wish I knew …’ muttered Brady.
He nervously dragged his hand through his hair, desperate not to have this conversation.
Conrad looked at his boss. He looked a mess. And it wasn’t just that he’d been beaten up by Frank Henderson. There was something else wrong. Conrad could see it in his eyes.
‘Sir?’ tentatively began Conrad, not knowing how to say what he was thinking. ‘Do you think it was a threat?’
It hadn’t even occurred to Brady. Instead, he’d thought Nick was sending him a warning. But for his own good.
Now Brady considered Conrad’s question.
Could Nick be working for someone who wanted to hurt Brady? But why would his own brother be doing this to him? Brady didn’t have the answer and that worried him.
And if Brady was to go by the look on Conrad’s face, then he should be worried.
Brady could picture the smudged black words as if the note was right in front of him:
KEEP YOUR HEAD JACK OR YOU COULD BE NEXT – ‘N’
‘Who’s “N”, sir?’ asked Conrad.
Brady sat silent. He couldn’t answer Conrad’s question.
He wasn’t even sure if he had the right answer anyway.
Brady shrugged as he looked up at his deputy.
‘Your guess is as good as mine, Conrad,’ answered Brady.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Brady picked up his jacket from the back of his chair just as his phone started to vibrate.
He grabbed the phone, recognising the number immediately.
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