‘You didn’t think to tell me?’ Brady hissed. ‘That my wife had left me?’
‘Ex-wife, sir,’ Conrad pointed out.
Brady punched the wall. It was the only way he could stop himself ramming his fist into Conrad’s face.
Conrad moved back and waited for Brady to calm down.
‘She said she would call you, sir,’ Conrad tried in an attempt to appease him. ‘Explain what she was doing. I told her that this was between the two of you, that it’s not my business. That I didn’t want to get involved.’
‘Fucking right it’s none of your business!’ Brady replied as he flexed his bruised and scraped hand. But he knew that Conrad and Claudia had been close – once. He had not realised that she had been in contact with Conrad, during the last five months, let alone confided in him. Then again, there was a lot he had not realised.
Conrad waited for Brady to absorb the information and calm down.
‘Sir, she’s not well . . .’
‘Tell me something I don’t know. I’ve been living with her. Remember?’ Brady snapped.
‘I know. But now she needs medical help,’ Conrad said.
‘Says who?’
‘She’s ill. She’s very ill. She needs to be somewhere where she can have access to doctors twenty-four hours. Just in case she . . .’ Conrad faltered. He didn’t need to say it.
‘No!’ shouted Brady. ‘She’s fine! She doesn’t need a shrink and she doesn’t need to be locked up!’
Conrad persisted. ‘Her parents arrived today. I’m sorry. Really I am. They’ve sorted out some country house in Kent that specialises in dealing with patients like Claudia.’
Brady looked at Conrad. His eyes searched his face.
‘Please tell me you didn’t contact her parents?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Conrad said.
Brady felt winded. He could feel the panic rising. Overwhelming him. ‘They haven’t taken her? Not yet? I . . . I need to talk to her first . . .’ he said, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice.
Conrad’s expression told Brady that he was already too late. Claudia had already gone.
‘Get out,’ Brady ordered.
Conrad did not move. ‘I want to explain, sir.’
‘You’ve had plenty of time to tell me.’
‘I didn’t know how to,’ Conrad replied.
‘No? Seems like there’s a lot you don’t know how to tell me,’ Brady said.
Conrad didn’t answer.
‘Go on. Get out!’ Brady repeated.
Conrad did as ordered.
THURSDAY
Chapter Forty-Three
Thursday: 12:17 a.m.
Brady couldn’t face going home, the reality of it too much for him. So he had stayed at work.
He had been sitting at his desk for the past hour. It was now after midnight and the last thing he felt like doing was sleeping. He was too wired. Too raw. He needed something to distract himself. Anything to stop himself thinking about Claudia. About the fact that she had left him. That . . . that Conrad had been party to it. Had known about it since Monday.
Fuck . . . fuck . . . fuck!
Brady took another hit of scotch in an attempt to silence the tortured thoughts racing through his mind. He had solved De Bernier’s sadistic murder. But at what cost to his personal life? His wife had gone. Left him. Alone – again.
He thought of Conrad. The betrayal he felt was overwhelming. He took another drink. An attempt at numbing the hurt.
His eyes fell on the files in front of him. Something was still gnawing away at him. Chewing him up inside. He wanted to ignore it. Dispel the doubts with the facts of the case. But he couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried, he could not silence the uncertainty that he felt. He was certain that Smythe was innocent. But how? And why?
Who would want to set you up, Robert? Who had a motive so powerful that they were prepared to torture and kill a young man in the style of The Joker and then frame you for it?
It was then that it hit Brady. He thought of the press gathered like vultures at Newcastle Airport waiting for their next meal. As soon as Smythe had appeared under arrest, the media had gone wild. Someone had told them. That person had wanted him publically persecuted and vilified.
Brady knew who it was. All he had to do was prove it.
He needed to go over the CCTV footage again. And he needed more of it.
He picked up his phone. He had no choice. He had to call Conrad.
‘Conrad?’
‘Sir,’ Conrad replied uncomfortably.
‘I need you back at the station.’
‘Give me thirty minutes and I’ll be there,’ answered Conrad without question.
Brady disconnected the call. He needed to talk to the hotel to get access to their security tapes. Then he would know for certain if his hunch was right.
He searched through his phone for Wolfe’s number.
‘Laddie, do you know what time it is?’ Wolfe answered, disgruntled.
‘Sorry, but I need to run something past you,’ Brady explained.
‘Go on,’ Wolfe wheezed.
Brady could hear him lighting a cigarette and inhaling deeply as he waited. Brady could almost taste the cigarette himself. An overwhelming desire to have one consumed him.
‘I think the trace of semen that was found on the sheets at the crime scene was planted,’ Brady said.
‘Interesting,’ Wolfe replied. ‘But how?’
‘That’s what I’m hoping you could tell me.’
Brady listened as Wolfe sucked on his cigarette as he contemplated the question.
‘Collect it and freeze it until you want to use it, I guess,’ Wolfe answered.
‘Yeah . . . that’s what I thought. Thanks.’
Eleven hours later and Brady had the evidence in front of him. He had studied the CCTV footage again. And again. There was no disputing it.
There was a knock at his door.
‘Yeah?’ Brady called out. He knew it would be Conrad. He had turned up at the station after midnight and had worked doggedly since then, trying to help Brady piece together Sarah Huntingdon-Smythe’s movements.
The door opened. Conrad walked in. He still couldn’t quite look Brady in the eye.
‘Did you talk to the member of staff who said that she was at dinner that night?’ Brady asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ Conrad answered as he walked towards Brady’s desk. ‘He apologised profusely. He had made a mistake. They were incredibly busy that night. She had a reservation with a group of other diners from the medical conference she was attending at the hotel but she wasn’t at the dinner with the rest.’
Brady sighed heavily. He knew this would be the case. But he just needed it verified. After all, he had seen her climbing into her metallic blue Mercedes-Benz in the underground hotel car park in London and driving away at 3:01 p.m. It was indisputable.
‘But she was seen in the Covent Garden Hotel the following morning?’
Conrad nodded. ‘Yes, for breakfast at nine a.m. in the dining hall. She ate with four other colleagues attending the medical conference.’
It came as no surprise to Brady. It had taken her six and a half hours to drive from London to Tynemouth. Then another five and a half for the return journey. At 9:38 p.m. the car could be seen passing through the Tyne Tunnel. Then at 12:34 a.m. the same vehicle went back through, heading for the A1 South back to London. A close-up shot of the driver confirmed it was Sarah Huntingdon-Smythe – the politician’s wife. The car was also registered in her name.
Brady thought about what he had found on tape. If it had not been for the doubts that kept tormenting him over Smythe’s guilt, then he would never have suspected that his wife could have set him up. Without a reason to be suspicious, he would never have looked. Never have scratched beneath the surface to see what ugly truth lay waiting.
CCTV cameras had followed her Mercedes-Benz down Coast Road. She had parked it in Tynemouth Front Street. On foot, she was caught on
surveillance camera leaving Front Street in the direction of her home in Priors Terrace.
When Sarah Huntingdon-Smythe had arrived home on the night of the murder, she had waited for her husband to come in and leave, as he always did, his keys and business phone on the hallway table. Unbeknownst to him, she had then texted De Bernier, setting in motion the events of that fateful night. She had been the one who had replied to Alexander’s blackmail threat, and had already made the arrangements. She had then deleted the email. Jed had found it. It also explained why Smythe had been adamant he had no knowledge of the email, or the arrangements to meet the victim at the Royal hotel.
Why her? Why suspect the accused’s wife?
But it had seemed obvious to Brady. Robert Smythe had said his wife was pregnant and yet the forensics team searching the house had found female contraceptives in her toiletry bag. That was what had got Brady thinking. That little detail. At the time he hadn’t even questioned it. But last night it had hit him – what if?
‘It was the female condoms or femidoms that Ainsworth’s team found. Why would she be using them if she was pregnant? She was quite clear to us when we interviewed her that she didn’t cheat. That she was faithful. So why the contraception?’
Conrad waited for Brady to give him the answer.
‘She must have inserted one before having sex with Robert as a means of keeping her husband’s sperm. She then froze it until the opportunity arose to plant it on the victim.’
‘How can you be certain, sir?’ Conrad asked.
‘The lab have come back. They said that they had found unusually high traces of spermicide in the traces of sperm found on the sheets.’
‘Maybe Smythe wore a condom? Maybe he didn’t want to leave biological evidence?’ Conrad suggested.
‘And what? It broke?’ Brady replied shaking his head. ‘I admit, I had thought that. So I asked the lab to examine the sperm for any form of damage.’
Conrad frowned.
‘To see if it had been frozen,’ Brady explained. ‘I was right. The lab said that some of the sperm had been damaged, consistent with having been frozen and then defrosted.’
‘Why?’ Conrad asked. ‘Why would she do it? She’s an eminent heart surgeon. And she’s pregnant. Why risk all she had?’
‘Because she had already lost everything. There was nothing left,’ Brady answered, unable to hide the sadness he felt.
Proving Sarah Huntingdon-Smythe’s part in De Bernier’s murder had left Brady feeling profoundly empty. Lives had been destroyed. And for what?
Chapter Forty-Four
Thursday: 11:31 a.m.
Conrad frowned. None of it made sense to him. Sarah Huntingdon-Smythe had everything. Even without her husband, she was still the leading surgeon in her field. And she was expecting a baby. As far as Conrad could make out, she had everything to lose and nothing to gain.
‘But why set her husband up? Apart from the obvious, that he was having an affair.’
‘Not just having an affair,’ Brady pointed out. ‘It wasn’t another woman. She could compete with that. This was a young man. Imagine how humiliated she must have felt. She admitted to us that her husband had his “indiscretions”. I assumed that she accepted those if they were with women. But the public shame and embarrassment if the press found out he was sleeping with men . . .’
Conrad looked uneasy at this statement. Brady realised he had hit a raw nerve. He quickly continued: ‘And it wasn’t just sex. Robert had fallen in love with Alex. She must have found out about the holidays, the money and the expensive gifts that we traced back to the politician’s bank account.’
‘All right, I can accept all that. But why set him up for murder? That’s extreme, don’t you think? For a woman with so much to lose?’
Brady shook his head. ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘She had already lost everything. Including her husband. Do you really think a baby would have kept him there? Playing happy families? Smythe would have eventually left her for a man. Whether it was De Bernier or someone else. He had been living a lie. He married her to have the right look in the public eye. The problem was, she had had no idea. Not until she confronted De Bernier with her suspicions. And then she had had a rude awakening. I’m sure the victim would have left her with no doubts about her husband’s true sexuality. Think of the content of those DVDs.’
Conrad looked at Brady. ‘She knew about the DVDs?’
‘She had accessed her husband’s email account on her laptop. It was taken into custody with the desktop computer when forensics searched the house,’ Brady explained. ‘Don’t ask me how Jed does it, but he managed to find evidence that she had opened up her husband’s emails and watched the films that De Bernier had sent him as a blackmail threat.’
Conrad breathed out. He still looked uncertain.
‘Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of time to ask her questions when we bring her in.’
‘I understand the motive for setting her husband up. But murder? She’s a doctor, sir. She’s taken the Hippocratic Oath.’
‘You do remember the blood tests that came back? That confirmed Alex was HIV positive. We saw in the DVDs that he practised unprotected sex with Smythe and Hughes and others.’
Conrad nodded.
‘The DVDs date back to last October. So the odds are that he will be infected.’
‘Yes,’ Brady answered. ‘So will his wife.’
‘Oh, Christ!’ Conrad muttered.
‘Four weeks ago she had an amniocentesis. She would have had her blood tested and if she was HIV positive it would have shown. What do you think the ramifications would be for her? Aside from the health ones?’
‘Her career would be over.’
Brady nodded. ‘Precisely. She’d have to stop doing surgery because of the risk to her patients.’
‘So, she went after the two men who destroyed her life?’ Conrad asked.
‘Yeah . . . Seems that way. Her revenge on her husband was meticulous. Setting him up for the murder of the young man he loved. She used his car to go the Royal Hotel, knowing CCTV cameras would record the car travelling along the Promenade. She took her husband’s business phone and used it to text the victim because she wanted him implicated. She took his cut-throat razor and used it to mutilate the victim, then washed it and returned it to their bathroom. She knew there would be trace evidence left on the blade. She took his shoe to the crime scene with the intention of leaving one partial footprint.’
Conrad looked at Brady in disbelief. ‘That is remarkably clever,’ he said.
‘The evidence was difficult to find. Intentionally so. To make it appear as if Smythe had cleaned the room after the murder. The minuscule drop of sperm on the sheets planted so that when forensics did find it, it would place Smythe at the crime scene. Even the partial footprint was made to look as if her husband had been very careful not to leave any forensic evidence at the crime scene. As to why . . .’
Brady felt as deflated as Conrad looked. There was no pleasure in any of this – none at all.
‘I assume he had infected her and put their unborn child at risk.’ Brady paused for a moment, imagining her horror when the amniocentesis results came back. She would not have been expecting to find out she was HIV positive. No one would. Brady was aware that a significant portion of the population were unaware that they were HIV positive. For most, the symptoms when first infected were assumed to be a nasty bout of flu. It could be up to ten years before the virus made itself known.
‘Then there was De Bernier,’ Brady continued, as he thought about the motive behind his murder. ‘Do you remember Molly Johansson saying she overheard them arguing? That Sarah Huntingdon-Smythe was threatening that she would destroy his career in politics before it had even properly begun if he did not leave her alone? She had wanted him out of her and her husband’s lives. She had given him a chance to walk away. But he didn’t. So she murdered him. Lured him to the hotel b
y pretending to be his lover. Requested that he blindfold himself.’
‘So he would not know that it wasn’t Smythe,’ Conrad said.
‘Exactly. Then she bound him, giving her physical power over him. All of this being consensual. The victim had no idea who had walked into the hotel room. Or what was about to happen to him.’
‘That’s the part I still find hard to accept,’ Conrad admitted. ‘What she did to him.’
‘Why? Because she was pregnant or because she was a surgeon?’
‘Both.’
‘Put yourself in her position. This young, arrogant man who had no real interest in her husband, other than what he could get out of the relationship, came along and destroyed her life. Her unborn baby’s life. And what for? Money and power? That’s what he wanted. Malcolm Hughes and Smythe will just be a few on a long list. Who knows how many men Alexander De Bernier unknowingly infected? I’m sure that Sarah Huntingdon-Smythe believed that what she was doing was for the greater good. Permanently preventing him from infecting other men, destroying countless more lives than he already had.’
‘But how did she know about The Joker’s signature?’
‘She’s a surgeon, Conrad. How difficult would it be for her to get hold of the pathology reports from the first seven victims? Not that difficult. Not if you are as focused and determined as her. At the time, the autopsies were carried out at the Freeman hospital. The same hospital she works at now. It was something Wolfe said when he was carrying out De Bernier’s autopsy, that he had accessed the reports on the Seventies victims. Made me wonder how easy it would be to access this material if you’re in the profession.’
‘But why The Joker? Why copy him?’
Brady had spent most of the early hours asking himself why Sarah had attempted to fool the police first by framing her husband, and then by setting up a murder scene to make it appear as if the original Seventies killer had returned.
‘Good question. Hopefully she’ll be able to give you a satisfying answer when we interview her. I personally think she did it because the Seventies killings were so shocking. A copycat murder would be a hit with the media. That was what she wanted. Her husband publicly denounced. Did she think we would consider that Robert Smythe could also be responsible for the first killings? Maybe . . . But I am more certain that she believed that she had come up with the perfect plan to frame her husband for his lover’s cruel death.’
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