Paul Simmons suddenly came to Brady’s mind. His gut feeling was telling him that both the victim’s step-father and teacher knew more about her life than they were letting on.
Brady turned to Jenkins who was sat in the back of the car.
‘What did you make of him?’
Jenkins swept her hair back from her face as she thought about Ellison.
‘He was very uncomfortable when you showed him the photograph, that much was clear. And he tried very hard to hide his surprise that you had it. Other than that, it’s difficult to say,’ offered Jenkins.
‘Is that it?’
‘What more do you want? Do you want me to tell you that I thought he was a jerk? Is that it?’ Unlike him, she didn’t react to hunches or gut feelings. Her job was to remain rational and impartial.
‘His reaction to that photograph was understandable,’ Jenkins stated.
‘Maybe,’ answered Brady.
His steady brown eyes penetrated hers, holding her gaze. She was surprised at how gentle his eyes were, realising she had never noticed before. There was something about Jack Brady that she found intriguing. Jenkins suddenly felt a flush of irritation as she tried to suppress the attraction she felt. She firmly reminded herself that he was an ex-patient and a colleague. Nothing could ever happen with him, more so given the fact that it was painfully obvious to her that he was still in love with his estranged wife.
Annoyed with herself, she shifted her gaze, breaking his hold over her.
‘You have to think about how Ellison would have felt. A student of his has been found murdered. And then you turn up with a photograph of the two of them suggesting he was having an inappropriate relationship with her.’
‘I didn’t exactly say that,’ retaliated Brady.
‘You didn’t have to. Subtlety isn’t your strong point, Jack.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘All I’m pointing out is that Ellison wouldn’t be human if he didn’t react guiltily when you handed him that photo. Most people in his situation would. It’s the ones who don’t that you have to watch out for.’
‘You mean like Simmons?’
‘I didn’t say that, Jack,’ replied Jenkins.
‘You didn’t have to, I did,’ stated Brady.
Jenkins sighed. Why, she questioned, had she ever allowed Gates to talk her into working with Jack Brady?
‘Anyway, talk about me being heavy-handed. What about you with the accusation that he’d slept with a previous student?’ Brady asked.
Jenkins smiled at him.
‘I just wanted to see his reaction.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘Do you think he slept with her?’
Jenkins looked straight at Jack.
‘I’m not paid to make assumptions. That’s your job,’ she answered, smiling lightly. ‘But between you and me, there’s no smoke without fire.’
‘What about you? Do you believe that Ellison was nothing more than her teacher?’ Brady asked as he turned to Conrad.
‘Why not?’ Conrad questioned.
‘I don’t know. It just seems to me that everyone’s lying to save their own neck, while we have a victim who’s turning cold. Very cold.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Brady looked around the Incident Room. It was crammed with over thirty detectives and officers. They were tired and restless and he couldn’t blame them. It was 7.10 pm on a Friday night and their shift still wasn’t over. He had spent the last ten minutes briefing the team on what they had so far; which wasn’t a lot. But what concerned him was what they were going to find if they kept digging. Matthews’ name kept uncomfortably coming to mind.
‘Harvey, Kodovesky: I want statements taken from all of the bar staff working in The Beacon last night,’ Brady ordered. ‘And I want you to scrutinise the security tape if they have one. The pub is right next to that abandoned farmland which means someone could have seen the victim before she was murdered. The person we’re looking for might have been drinking in The Beacon for all we know.’
Harvey nodded.
‘I thought we were looking for someone known to the victim? The modus operandi points to the murderer having a personal attachment to Sophie Washington, sir?’ questioned Kodovesky.
‘We still are,’ Brady answered. ‘Forensics found male hand and footprints at the opening in the fence leading out ontothe back lane next to the victim’s house. Prints that match ones found at the murder scene,’ Brady replied. ‘Someone was either waiting for her there, or she was already with them.’
Brady looked around the room.
‘She then had sex, consensual sex an hour before she was murdered. So we can take it as read that this boyfriend her classmates talked about, who may be older, does exist. It’s crucial that we find out his identity.’
‘Are we sure she actually walked home?’ asked Harvey.
‘We know that the victim left Evie Matthews’ house in Earsdon at around 10 pm on foot,’ Brady answered.
But what Brady wasn’t telling them was Jimmy Matthews’ involvement after that. Given what Matthews had told him, he must have picked her up somewhere between Earsdon and West Monkseaton to have then dropped her off home. But what happened after that was lost on him. What worried him was a CCTV camera catching Matthews actually stopping to give her a lift.
‘Our problem is we don’t know what happened between the victim leaving her best friend’s house in Earsdon at 10 pm and then being murdered yards from her own home between roughly 1.30 pm and 2.00 pm. That’s between three and a half to four hours. Our job is to fill those hours in, minute by minute.’
Brady turned to Conrad.
‘I need you to check out any CCTV footage we have between Earsdon and West Monkseaton. Anything, and I mean anything that looks suspicious you let me know.’
Conrad looked mildly surprised at the request but accepted the order without question.
It was simple. Brady trusted Conrad. He knew that if Conrad found something on CCTV footage that implicated Matthews, he would bring it to him first. Not that he knew what he’d do about it, but at least he’d have time to figure something out. Whereas someone like Adamson would go over his head and take it straight to Gates.
Brady couldn’t help but notice Adamson who was stood watching him against the wall to his right.
‘After interviewing the victim’s classmates we have one name to go on: Shane McGuire,’ stated Brady.
A few hushed voices around the room proved he was well-known to police stations across North Tyneside.
‘Seems he was an ex-boyfriend of the victim’s. I want him found. He’s not at his home address in North Shields and he’s not at his nan’s either. Adamson, I want you to pay a visit to The Sunken Ship and hassle his mother to see if she knows where he could be,’ Brady instructed as his eyes rested on Adamson.
Adamson scowled at the prospect of Wallsend on a Friday night. Worse than that, The Sunken Ship on a Friday night.
Not that it bothered Brady. He was only too glad to give him something to keep him out of the way.
‘I know it’s a shit job, but someone’s got to do it. And make sure you take someone with you for back-up.’
Brady knew the flak he would get; the place would be heaving with drunken thugs, ready to have a go at the police just for the hell of it. Whitley Bay had its problems all right, but Wallsend was the land that civilisation forgot. More so, where The Sunken Ship was concerned, known locally as the Hole. McGuire’s mother worked there most nights. She had a habit to feed, never mind her son, and with a henchman for a husband serving time for some particularly nasty crimes, she had no choice but to offer all shehad left; her body. It was the crassest of places where women with needle-riddled, fake-tan-smeared bodies danced in cages suspended from the ceiling.
The last time Brady was in the Hole, it wasn’t money the men threw at the lap dancers, it was cigarette butts and whatever dregs of beer they had left. And spit wa
sn’t the only body fluid the women found themselves being covered in. No, the Hole wasn’t known for its refinement, it was what it sounded like; a hell hole.
‘Can I take Dr Jenkins with me? From what I’ve heard of McGuire’s mother it might be useful to have a woman of Dr Jenkins’ skill on side to help question her,’ Adamson asked as he looked across at Jenkins.
Brady knew from the look on Adamson’s face that he was trying to wind Brady up. The problem was it was working.
Brady was about to say no, but Jenkins beat him to it.
‘I’ve got no problem with it, unless you have?’ Jenkins questioned as she looked at Brady.
He was thrown. He hadn’t expected her to want to be within a mile of The Sunken Ship on a Friday night. He refrained from telling her that if she walked in there, the punters wouldn’t let her walk out, that was a certainty.
‘You haven’t got a problem with that, have you, Jack?’ asked Jenkins.
‘I’m just not sure it’s the sort of place you should be going,’ Brady replied.
‘And why is that?’ quizzed Jenkins as she locked eyes with him.
‘The punters there aren’t exactly the kind of people you’re used to dealing with,’ replied Brady, aware that the whole room was watching. Including Adamson who was clearly enjoying the awkward situation he’d placed Brady in.
The last thing Brady wanted to be accused of was sexism. But even he wouldn’t willingly go in there and that was saying something given his background.
‘If I’m part of this investigation, then it means I get given the same crap meted out to everyone else. It might surprise you, but I can cope with a lot worse than a few drunken men in a strip bar,’ coolly answered Jenkins.
Brady could tell from her expression that she wasn’t going to back down.
‘Fine, accompany DS Adamson,’ he conceded. ‘But just watch yourself.’
There was a reason this place was hidden down by Wallsend docks. And if Jenkins wanted to find out why, then who was he to stop her?
Brady turned and looked at the whiteboard behind him. He pointed at the photograph taken of the victim’s tattoo.
‘We need to know which tattoo parlour is responsible for this,’ Brady said. ‘Two reasons,’ Brady added. ‘The tattoo’s fairly recent, so there’s a chance she went with this older boyfriend. Also, we want to know which stupid buggers would tattoo a fifteen-year-old without checking for ID.’
‘Whoever did it obviously didn’t realise how young she was,’ stated Jenkins.
Brady couldn’t disagree. He had seen the body at the crime scene and had, as they all had, mistaken her for a young woman in her late teens to early twenties.
‘Yeah, but I still think they should be shaken up a bit. There’s a reason that you’re meant to be over eighteen.’
Brady rested his eye on DSs Daniels and Kenny.
‘Tomorrow you two check out all the tattoo shops in thearea. But right now your job is to find our missing lad, McGuire. Check out the local haunts in Whitley Bay and also do a round of the pubs down North Parade.’
Brady could see Daniels and Kenny both wincing at the thought of checking out the pubs in North Parade. Most of the drinkers in North Parade had travelled there for the weekend looking for trouble. And two plain-clothes coppers asking questions were easy targets.
‘Can I say a few words, Jack?’ asked Jenkins as she stood up.
Brady nodded and sat down. He knew what she wanted to say, having already briefed him earlier.
Jenkins moved over to the whiteboard.
‘I know that we’re looking for someone known to the victim,’ Jenkins began as she turned from the board and faced the room.
‘The modus operandi tells us that Sophie Washington knew her attacker. There was no struggle, at least not until she was being choked which suggests that she knew whoever did this to her and she trusted them.’
Jenkins paused as she looked back at the whiteboard.
‘She either met her attacker at the crime scene or went willingly to the location with them. Forensics found no marks on the ground to indicate that she had been dragged or dumped there.’
She turned and briefly caught Brady’s eye.
‘The reason I’m going over what DI Brady has already effectively said is that the gravity of the attack to her face concerns me. And I think we can be blinded into thinking this is just overkill, which you’ll all be familiar with, is any effort that goes beyond what is necessary to kill the victim. I’m presuming most of you will be surmising that it wasthis unidentified boyfriend of hers who killed her and then mutilated her face afterwards?’ Jenkins asked.
The consenting grumbles around the room confirmed her suspicions.
‘What I’m asking of you is to think out of the box for a moment. Think about why her murderer chose to specifically attack her face.’
The silence was heavy and awkward. Brady could see that no one was quite understanding Jenkins’ point.
‘Maybe he was the jealous sort? For all we know she could have been playing around and he’d found out?’ suggested Adamson.
‘Maybe. But why not mutilate her breasts and private parts? Why specifically her face and to such a degree of destruction?’
Adamson shrugged.
‘You tell me, Doctor?’ he said, smiling.
‘That’s the point, I can’t. The attack to her face is definitely overkill, but not the kind I’d expect from a boyfriend. This is different. This hints of repressed anger and jealousy towards the victim. As we can see she was a very pretty young woman,’ Jenkins pointed out as she looked at the photograph of Sophie Washington on the whiteboard.
‘Someone hated her for that. So much so, that even when she was dead they couldn’t bear to look at that face. Her murder wasn’t enough to satisfy their anger and jealousy. Not until every identifiable trait was eradicated.’
‘But isn’t that the same as the jilted boyfriend or husband who throws acid in their ex-spouse’s face? Or even slashes their face?’ Adamson asked.
Jenkins looked at him and shook her head.
‘No,’ she simply answered.
‘Why? It’s the same mutilation surely?’ Adamson queried, confused.
‘No, the two couldn’t be more different. In the cases you’re referring to, the key distinction is that the victim is still alive. The point is to punish the victim. She has to live the rest of her life severely disfigured, satisfying the ex-spouse that if he can’t have her, then no one else will want her.’
Jenkins paused as she looked around the room. She realised that most of them were on the same page as Adamson.
‘The key difference with Sophie Washington is that she was already dead. The disfigurement to her face was never about punishment. It was about relieving the resentment and fury on the murderer’s part,’ Jenkins said, realising that she was talking to herself.
‘I know I’m stating the obvious here, but we really want to be taking everything that’s being left on the victim’s wall on Facebook seriously. For all we know, the murderer has left a message. It’s similar to the murderer feeling the compulsion to attend his victim’s funeral, or even in some cases trying to get involved in the murder investigation. Same applies with the cyberworld,’ Jenkins concluded.
The victim’s blog and Facebook posts had thrown Brady, as much as they had thrown the rest of the team. There were some details that even he found unpalatable. Her entries had confirmed what they had already suspected. However, no photos were posted of her ‘cyber boyfriend’ and no name was given. Instead, his unsavoury sexual antics with her were graphically and immodestly blogged. At times it was too easy to forget that victim was only fifteen.
Jenkins looked at Brady as she stepped back and sat down.
‘Thanks, Dr Jenkins,’ Brady said as he stood up and tookover. ‘All right people, we have our work cut out for us. So let’s get started.’
The room grumbled in response as people started to get ready to leave.
; ‘And Adamson,’ Brady said, as he turned to the DS. ‘You may have forgotten, but I haven’t. I’m still waiting for Sophie Washington’s medical records. I don’t care who you wake up to get them but I want them before the night’s out!’ Brady ordered, fuming over the stunt he had pulled requesting that he be partnered with Jenkins. Brady wasn’t sure whether Adamson thought he had a chance with Jenkins. But from what Brady knew of her, he didn’t think she’d give him the time of day.
Adamson shot him a sour look.
‘I don’t give a fuck if you don’t like it. I’m sure Sophie Washington didn’t like the fact that someone was sexually abusing her from the age of eleven and then at fifteen she ends up dead with her face smashed beyond human recognition! It’s our job to find out exactly what the hell was going on in that kid’s life which led to someone fucking her and then murdering her. Someone, can I add, who that kid knew. This was personal. Someone hated that kid so much that even when she had stopped breathing they couldn’t let go of the loathing they felt towards her. Were they connected to the sexual abuse that started when the victim was ten or eleven, who knows? Had she threatened to betray them and so they tried to silence her, again who knows? But it’s our job to bloody find out. And if that means searching her medical records for some kind of clue as to what was happening to her then that’s what we do.’
Brady suddenly caught Gates’ eyes and wondered exactly how long he had been standing there.
‘Can I have a word, Jack?’
Heads turned and looked at Gates.
Brady shot Conrad a questioning look. But Conrad seemed as unsure about Gates’ sudden interruption as Brady.
‘Now!’ Gates ordered as he walked out, slamming the door shut.
Brady couldn’t help but notice DS Adamson’s self-satisfied smile. He clenched his fists in an attempt to resist the urge to wipe it off his face.
‘What do you know about this?’ Gates irritably demanded as he thrust a sheet of paper at Brady.
Brady quickly realised that it was the murder victim’s toxicological report.
‘I haven’t had the opportunity to see it yet, sir,’ Brady answered.
Broken Silence Page 16
