He realised it was Melissa Ryecroft.
‘Lithuanian, you said?’ Brady questioned, his mind racing.
He thought of the two Eastern European looking brothers and the Lithuanian licence plate on the black Mercedes his brother was driving.
Johnny Slaughter’s words had also got under his skin, making him uneasy.
‘Lithuaks’, Johnny Slaughter had said. ‘Lithuaks’ who dealt in sex trafficking.
‘Yes, definitely Lithuanian,’ answered Claudia. She caught his eye, curious as to what was going through his mind.
‘I believe these initials belong to the two Eastern European brothers who are running this operation,’ continued Claudia.
‘Eastern European?’ questioned Brady.
Claudia nodded. ‘Yes. Edita Aginatas had told this punter that one of them was her boyfriend. He was Lithuanian also. They’d met allegedly in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and he had persuaded her to come over to the UK. She flew into London a few months ago, flight paid for by him. When she landed, he was waiting … with his brother. They took her passport and took her to an undisclosed house in London where she was raped and beaten by both men, until she acquiesced.’
Claudia noticed the confusion on Daniels’ face.
‘They rape and beat these girls to break their spirits. Sometimes it takes a couple of days to break them, for others it can take up to a week. Then they get put to work, maybe servicing up to twenty punters a day, working a fifteen-hour day.’
‘Why don’t they escape then or go to the police?’ asked Daniels.
‘They’re threatened that if they run, or tell any of the punters what’s really going on, then they’ll be punished. Or worse, a family member back home will get hurt. They’re also watched twenty-four-seven by these men. They’re valuable commodities that can earn these men tens of thousands of pounds.’
Daniels looked taken aback.
Brady had to remind himself that the kid was working in Whitley Bay, not London or Paris or Frankfurt. This was a small seaside resort that relied on stag and hen parties to keep the pubs and clubs afloat. Or more to the point, to keep North Tyneside Council in revenue.
‘Brothers? You said the two Eastern European men were brothers?’ questioned Brady.
Claudia nodded.
‘That’s all the information we got. No names, nothing. Just that the men were Lithuanian and were brothers. Evil by all accounts,’ she added.
‘Why did they move her up here from London? And the other girls, I presume they were moved as well?’ asked Brady.
‘Maybe they’ve relocated here because it was starting to get too difficult for them in the South. They could be getting squeezed out. Or it could simply be that they’re expanding. I don’t know. All I know is that they brought this girl up with them along with the others. But this is the first time we’ve come across this type of branding up here in the North East. So they’re new to the area.’
‘Did you get a description of the brothers, apart from the fact that they’re Eastern European?’ asked Brady.
Claudia shook her head.
‘The girl was too scared to tell the punter. Thought they might kill him if he found out too much. And she was scared they would harm her for talking.’
Brady nodded, disappointed.
‘Two rules when you’re a sex slave. Never say no to a punter, regardless of what they want. And rule number two, you don’t talk. Nothing personal about your old life or who’s pimping you.’ Claudia paused as she looked around the room. ‘Sorry. Wish I had more to give …’
‘You’ve told us a lot more than we expected,’ assured Brady.
He sat back and thought over what she had told them. His eyes were automatically drawn to the images of the sex slaves on the whiteboard whose whereabouts were unknown.
Brady leaned forward, turning his attention back to Claudia. ‘You said the punter was attacked? Who attacked him? Did he give you a description of them?’
Claudia shook her head. ‘No, it was dark and the attacker was wearing a hoodie under his leather jacket. Had it pulled right over his head, partially covering his face. The punter reckoned he was tall, about 6´2? and well-built. As if he went to the gym. He also reckoned he had an Eastern European accent.’
‘I see,’ muttered Brady. ‘Can we talk to this punter?’ He realised he could have some information that could help the investigation.
Claudia shook her head. ‘No … last Sunday evening, the night after we’d raided the Dock, his first-floor council flat in Elswick was firebombed. The front door was the only way in and out and it had been locked from the outside. He was barricaded in. I don’t know if you remember it on the news? It made national headlines.’
Brady nodded, as did everyone else. They had heard about it.
A single man in his early fifties had burnt to death, unable to get out the front door. Even if he hadn’t been locked in, he would have had to run through the petrol that had been poured through the letterbox and set alight. And then there was the Molotov cocktail they’d thrown in for good measure.
What the hell were they up against, Brady mused as he looked at Claudia.
He wondered if she knew more than she was telling him. If she was holding something back. Something connected to Simone Henderson. But what?
And as for the Eastern European brothers, he wondered whether they were the same men that Nick was working for and perhaps, as Claudia had suggested, the same men connected to Melissa Ryecroft’s murder. Brady didn’t want to think about the part Simone Henderson had played in all of this. Whatever she had found out had cost her more than she could ever have anticipated.
His biggest problem now was keeping Adamson in the dark as much as possible. He needed to get to Nick first. Talk to him before he brought these men down. He still couldn’t believe that his own brother could be involved in organised crime of this nature. And until he had confirmation from him and him alone, Brady still held onto the belief that Nick was being forced to do this against his will. That these men had some hold over Nick.
He looked at the photograph of the missing Lithuanian girl, Edita Aginatas. He had a gut feeling that she had suffered the same fate as Melissa Ryecroft. And what of the other girls that had been relocated?
The odds of finding them were heavily stacked against them.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘So, what have these European brothers and the sex business they’re now believed to be operating here in the North East got to do with “The Nietzschean Brotherhood”?’ Brady asked.
Claudia nodded at him. ‘That was my next point. The note left with the victim’s head in your car,’ she said, bringing up an enlarged image of the note. ‘It’s been signed with the letter “N”. Unfortunately, no forensic evidence was found on the note. Whoever left it was very careful not to leave any traces behind.’
Brady nodded, dreading what might be coming next.
‘From the source we have regarding the Nietzschean Brotherhood they wear a crest ring or a signet ring with the “N” emblem. Just like the “N” on the note here.’
Brady did his utmost not to react.
‘So you think someone from this Brotherhood followed me and dumped the victim’s head and a note in my car?’ he said calmly.
Her look said it all.
‘Why?’ asked Brady.
There was a heavy, pregnant silence in the room.
‘Can we discuss this in private?’ Claudia replied.
Brady frowned. This was obviously what she had wanted to talk about earlier.
He looked from Claudia to Conrad.
Conrad dropped his eyes.
He obviously knew what it was that Claudia was holding back.
Brady cursed under his breath, feeling very much left out of the loop. But it was his own fault. He had chosen not to listen to her. She had tried to tell him and he had insisted on starting the briefing regardless.
‘Look, Jack, this organisation is not to be messed
with … These are powerful men who so far have eluded justice.’
Brady didn’t say a word.
Instead he looked at the brutal images of Melissa Ryecroft’s tortured body.
He then looked back at Claudia.
‘I don’t give a damn how rich or powerful this group is, no one has the right to rape, sodomise and torture a young girl,’ Brady said, his expression darkening as his voice slipped into a thick Geordie accent. ‘And I for one will not be threatened or scared away by anyone. So you tell your informant, whoever he is, that they can go fuck themselves.’
Claudia looked at Brady, her eyes burning a vivid emerald green.
‘Highly commendable, I’m sure, Jack,’ she said after some deliberation. ‘As for our informant …’ Claudia turned back to the whiteboard and brought up a new image.
A slender, tall, bleached-blonde-haired girl was unceremoniously laid out on an autopsy slab.
Brady looked at her. Her spiky, short punkish hair was discoloured a dirty rust colour: blood. The damage was as brutal as Melissa Ryecroft’s, if not worse. Apart from not having a hole through her head. Her body was covered in what appeared to be cigarette burns. But he wasn’t sure. He then caught sight of the autopsy photographs of the victim’s genitalia; damning evidence that she had been brutally gang-raped.
Brady turned away, sickened to his core.
‘Katya is her name. That’s the only detail we have. That and she said she was Russian. We tried tracing her with what few details we had, but nothing …’ She pointed at the murder victim. ‘Unless you’re psychic it would be difficult to talk to her,’ Claudia said, as she looked at Brady.
‘She was a nineteen-year-old Russian girl. Beautiful, model material. Brought over to London by a sex trafficker and bought by two men in the Brotherhood. She lived long enough to tell the Met officers who got there what we now know … The hotel she’d been taken to was in the West End of London. Old school money. A fellow guest had heard screams coming from the hotel room and had thought that she was some high-class hooker. He’d evidently seen her being led in by two well-dressed men. Heard her accent and knew that she was Russian. Room got raided and there she was tortured and bleeding to death on the bed. The two men torturing her had received a warning from someone that there had been a complaint made to the hotel staff and that the police were being called. They left before they had the opportunity to put the captive bolt pistol to her head. You see, Katya told us that one of the men had pulled out what looked like a black pistol and had put it to her head saying, and I quote: “This will be the best and last fuck of your life.”’
Claudia paused for a moment. ‘From her description the weapon put to her head matches a captive bolt pistol.’
She brought up a photograph.
To Brady’s eye it looked like a black hand pistol, but the end of the barrel was thicker, chunkier.
‘Forensics found DNA evidence on her body and in the room. Hair samples, fingerprints … but they don’t match with anything we have on the database. We’ve cross-referenced the DNA evidence with agencies in Europe and America. Nothing …’ Claudia’s voice trailed off. ‘But the victim did say that the man who pulled out the pistol was right-handed and on his hand he was wearing a platinum signet ring on the third finger.’
This jarred with Brady.
‘What about security camera footage?’ asked Brady, keen to see what these men looked like.
‘The hotel doesn’t have surveillance cameras. Guests don’t like it. Their attitude is they pay too much money to be spied on. And no one remembers the men coming in with the Russian girl. And, all transactions were paid in advance online by a stolen credit card. So no trail. The only eyewitness we had was the guest next door who reported the screams.’
She looked Brady straight in the eye, anticipating his next question. ‘He was found dead the following morning. Two weeks ago to be precise. Gunshot wound to the head. Armed robbery, held up at gunpoint a street away from the hotel, coincidentally before the police got a statement from him. Too coincidental if you ask me.’
Brady absorbed the enormity of what had just been said. They were just an under-funded, under-staffed murder team in a small seaside resort. This wasn’t a major European capital and yet here they were, dealing with what effectively could be an international criminal organisation.
‘Have you shared the details of Melissa Ryecroft’s murder with SOCA?’
Claudia shook her head.
‘Not yet.’
Brady breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing he wanted was them coming here to take over his investigation. He needed time to figure this out. More so for Nick’s sake.
‘Thanks, you’ve given us some invaluable information there,’ replied Brady.
Claudia looked at him, not quite able to gauge his comment.
Brady looked around the room. The atmosphere serious, the faces grim.
They were all thinking what Brady was thinking.
Had Simone Henderson been targeted by this group? It seemed likely given the mark left on her left breast.
And was Brady their next target?
Brady thought back to Frank Henderson’s words when he attacked him in the ICU. That Simone had come back up to the North East because of Brady. What if they thought that she had talked to Brady before they got to her? And crucially, what exactly did Simone know about the Nietzschean Brotherhood?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Alright,’ said Brady clearing his throat.
He poured himself a glass of water and took a much-needed gulp.
This was the last place he wanted to be right now. He needed to have a word with Claudia; in his office. He needed whatever the other information was that Claudia couldn’t share with the team.
The investigation had changed. It was much bigger than a murdered girl. This was connected to Simone Henderson and …
Brady couldn’t think straight.
He realised he had to wind up the briefing as quickly as possible. There was too much at stake. He didn’t even know if he was still going to be in charge of the Ryecroft investigation given the fact it could now be connected to Adamson’s case. Add to that, it now seemed that Brady was being targeted.
He looked around the room.
‘This is what we know. The victim, Melissa Ryecroft was a sixteen-year-old student who attended King’s School, a private school in Tynemouth. She was in the lower sixth, studying four A Levels …’ Brady’s voice momentarily trailed off.
He realised that what she had been studying was pointless now.
He took a deep breath before continuing. ‘We know that last November she went to Budapest on holiday with her friends for her sixteenth birthday. There, we are led to believe, she met a twenty-eight-year-old man known only as “Marijuis” to us. Her parents asked her to stop communicating with the man but it seems that she continued, without their knowledge. She returned to Budapest to a clinic to have a breast augmentation operation accompanied by her father, Brian Ryecroft, who signed the consent form and paid for the plastic surgery.’
After re-reading the Ryecrofts’ earlier statements he had a clearer understanding of Brian Ryecroft’s guilt. After all, the man had taken her back to Budapest for a breast enhancement operation and, by his own admission, he spent most of the time in the hotel bar, believing that in the days before the scheduled operation his daughter was in her hotel room watching TV and on her laptop. But Brady was sure that she wouldn’t have been alone in her room. He was certain that her boyfriend Marijuis would have been keeping her company.
Brady had read the logged calls and it was clear that on her second visit to Budapest she had been receiving calls from another unregistered mobile also located in Budapest.
‘We’ve got the call log details through from her mobile phone network and she has received calls and made calls to eight unregistered mobile numbers. None of them traceable. There seems to be a pattern. Every month, sometimes less, that mobile number changes. Some ar
e made from Eastern Europe. Mainly Romania and Lithuania and then …’ Brady said.
The word ‘Lithuania’ had jolted Brady when he had first seen it on the list of logged calls. It had immediately made him think of the two Eastern European men caught on the surveillance tape at Rake Lane Hospital. And the black Mercedes with the Lithuanian licence plate. If he hadn’t noticed the small “LT” in the corner of the licence plate he would have never made the connection. But the image he still couldn’t shake from his head was that of his brother Nick, the driver of the black Merc.
‘… the UK. The calls are predominately located in the London region but in the past month they’ve been traced to the North East,’ Brady explained. ‘It seems that this Marijuis character travels backwards and forwards between the UK and Eastern Europe. Maybe they’ve found a new business partner in the North East, which would explain why they’ve branched out up here.’
Brady noticed the interest in Claudia’s face and had already second-guessed what she was thinking: Marijuis was a sex trafficker. Someone who picked up pretty young girls, promising them the world.
The question was, if the gang did have a North East connection, who was it?
Claudia would be wondering exactly what he was wondering: did Marijuis have a brother? And if so, were they working together? And what was the link to the North East?
‘Harvey and Kodovesky, I want you to interview all of Melissa Ryecroft’s friends and classmates to see if she mentioned Marijuis to any of them. What we crucially need is some information on this character. And on the guy who left a message on her Facebook wall offering to take her to London for a meeting with the Models 1 agency. His Facebook account was fake, as we expected, much as the appointment with the model agency was too.’ Brady paused as he took another drink.
The way the day was going he needed more than just lukewarm water to get rid of the bad taste in his mouth.
‘Melissa Ryecroft got handpicked by this Marijuis character in Budapest. He chose her because she was sixteen and stunning looking. Model material … like your Russian girl,’ Brady said. His eyes rested briefly on the bloodsoaked bed where the Russian had lain while she had been sexually assaulted and butchered.
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