‘Fuck if I know.! Fucking miserable bastard!’ Sourly replied one of his friends.
Brady smiled as a half-empty lager tin flew past him.
‘Sir,’ promptly addressed one of the uniforms.
‘Get rid of them will you?’ Brady said jerking his head towards the four spectators. ‘It’s bad for business.’
‘Yes sir,’ answered PC Hamilton as he uncomfortably weighed up the drunken men.
The other uniform dropped his eyes, safely fixing them on the ground.
For a brief second Brady felt for the red-faced constable. Even he wouldn’t want to try to break them up; not when they’d been up drinking all night. Brady could still remember the days when the public were respectful, if not fearful of the police. Nowadays the police were treated with contempt; both by law abiding citizens who were frustrated by how little jurisdiction the police had when it came to actually dealing with the scum who made their lives a misery; scum who knew their rights better than the solicitors called into represent them. Instead of the police reading them their rights when arrested, it was now the other way round.
‘What do you fucking mean we can’t fucking stand here? Eh? It’s a fucking free country isn’t it?’ Shouted one of the four drunken revellers, aggressively.
Brady couldn’t make out Hamilton’s reply only that his delivery was calm and to the point.
‘Hey, don’t you fucking tell me I can’t drink where the fuck I want to!’ Angrily garbled another of the men as he threw a scrunched up lager can at the officer.
‘I’ll fucking give you a Glaswegian smile if you’re not careful you wee shite!’
Brady didn’t know which members of the group were giving PC Hamilton grief and didn’t want to know, he had other things to worry about now. He bent under the police tape and started making his way down the steps looking for what his guts were already telling him was going to be trouble.
Brady caught sight of Conrad. His deputy’s erect, stiff figure stood out from the crowd; for all the right reasons. Unlike Brady, he had the makings of a Chief Superintendent and soon enough it would be Conrad kicking Brady around. But for now, it was Brady’s job to do the kicking.
Conrad had already noticed Brady heading down the steps. He promptly finished talking to one of the white-clad SOCOS and made his way across the beach to meet him.
Brady nodded in response as the young, clean-cut figure of Conrad approached him.
‘I take it this isn’t an accidental drowning then?’
Conrad stiffly shook his head.
‘No sir. This definitely was no accident.’
‘Explains the amount of coppers we’ve got crawling all over the beach then,’ Brady said.
‘We’re still looking for the rest of her, sir,’ Conrad quietly answered.
Brady questioningly looked at him.
‘Better you see this for yourself sir,’ replied Conrad.
Brady followed Conrad’s eyes as he uneasily looked towards the large, white forensics tent.
Acknowledgements
I would first like to thank all my family and friends for their invaluable support. Thanks especially to Francesca, Charlotte, Gabriel and Ruby, without whom I would never have started the book, let alone completed it. The four of you are my raison d’etre. Thanks to Janette Youngson and Paula Youngson for their constant encouragement, and to Mark Burrell. Particular thanks to Vicki Walton, Kaaren Turner, Victoria Cox, Patricia Savage, Suzanne Forsten, Pamela Letham and Gill Richards for being there when I needed them. Thanks to my long-standing friends, Dr Barry Lewis for his sound advice, and a heartfelt thanks to Eliane Wilson and Professor Peter Wilson to whom I am heavily indebted to for their kindness and constant support.
I am eternally grateful to my literary agent, Jenny Brown. Thank you for believing. Thanks also, to all at Avon, for being so wonderful, and in particular Kate Bradley for being such an incredible, inspiring person to work with – no writer could have a greater editor.
And finally, thanks to my horse, Tico who in all the stress of writing kept me firmly grounded – at times literally!
About the Author
BROKEN SILENCE
Danielle Ramsay is a proud Scot living in a small seaside town in the north-east of England. Always a storyteller, it was only after initially following an academic career lecturing in literature that she found her place in life and began to write creatively full-time. After much hard graft her work was short-listed for the CWA Debut Dagger in 2009. Always on the go, always passionate in what she is doing, Danielle fills her days with horse-riding, running and murder by proxy.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
Copyright © Danielle Ramsay 2010
Danielle Ramsay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-1-84756-229-6
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-38707-6
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