Vanishing Point

by Danielle Ramsay

  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.

  Claudia followed Brady’s eyes as he turned to the images of Melissa Ryecroft’s decapitated head and body.

  ‘How and why Melissa Ryecroft ended up in this condition is what we’re here to find out, people,’ Brady said as he looked back around the table. ‘As of yet, nothing’s come back from the lab. Wolfe said that he didn’t find traces of sperm in the victim’s vagina and rectum as condoms were used. And industrial bleach was used after the victim’s death in an attempt to destroy any DNA evidence. I’m not holding out much hope, and neither is Wolfe, but we’ll see what comes back from the lab.’

  Brady turned his eyes on Daniels and Kenny.

  ‘I need you two to check Newcastle Airport security cameras for Thursday. Both inside the airport and any footage by the pick-up point outside. Also, look at the Metro surveillance footage. If she did go to the airport I imagine she would have taken the Metro there.’

  Kenny and Daniels nodded.

  ‘Right, any questions?’ Brady asked, keen to get moving.

  No one said anything.

  ‘Alright, you know what you’ve got to do,’ Brady said.

  He watched as they pushed their chairs back and stood up.

  Brady looked at Claudia who had remained seated. ‘My office?’ he said.

  ‘Alright, but I haven’t got long,’ she said. ‘There are some details on Melissa Ryecroft that I want to cross-reference and to do that, I need to be at Pilgrim Street to access it.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me exactly what you’re cross-referencing?’ Brady asked.

  Claudia looked at Brady. ‘Perhaps we should continue this in your office.’

  Chapter Thirty

  Brady sat down at his desk and watched as Claudia closed the office door and then took a seat opposite him.

  He was worried that Claudia had found out about Nick somehow. That she and her team had been watching him. That they had made the connection that he had come up from London with the two Lithuanian brothers and was working for them. But even worse than that was the thought that she had somehow figured out that he was Brady’s brother.

  ‘Jack? I need to tell you something about Simone …’ Claudia delicately began as she met his eyes.

  ‘What about Simone?’ Brady interrupted, surprised.

  ‘She was one of the detectives involved in investigating the murder of the Russian girl, Katya. The one that took place a few weeks back in the London hotel.’

  ‘Go on,’ ordered Brady, aware of the adrenalin beginning to course through his body.

  ‘She was the one who got the information out of the Russian victim before she died …’ Claudia paused, as she tried to gauge his reaction.

  Something in her voice made him uneasy. Then it hit him.

  ‘Simone’s father thought it was me …’ Brady began, shaking his head in disbelief.

  ‘Jack? Look …’ Claudia attempted to explain.

  ‘No. Let me think!’ snapped Brady. ‘Frank Henderson said that Simone had come back up to the North East to talk to me. She had told her flatmate that she had a meeting up here with someone who worked in the Northumbrian force, named Brady.’

  Claudia didn’t say anything.

  ‘It was you … wasn’t it? You’re the Brady she was meeting. Of course, Claudia Brady. You’re the head of a major sex trafficking unit. The biggest in the country. So who else would she share the information she had with, if it wasn’t you?’ demanded Brady, raising his voice.

  Claudia remained silent.

  ‘Did you meet with her?’ he shouted, angry at her refusal to answer him.

  He stared at her. His dark brown eyes cold.

  ‘Of course you did, otherwise you wouldn’t know what you know,’ he muttered quietly. He frowned. ‘Don’t you think it’s crossing a line? The woman you caught me in bed with contacting you?’

  Distressed by the suggestion, Claudia looked away.

  ‘So … what happened?’ demanded Brady. He wasn’t going to let her off that easy. ‘Did you send her into Madley’s, is that it? Did you know they were going to be in there that night and so you sent her in as bait? Is that it? See if they bite and take her to wherever they’re holding the other trafficked girls? Was that it?’

  ‘Jack! Please … you’ve got it all wrong,’ Claudia desperately insisted.

  ‘Have I? Have I really?’ questioned Brady harshly, unable to disguise the contempt he felt. ‘If it had all worked out, imagine where you’d be now. Not sat in my office with a mutilated copper fighting for her life.’

  She shook her head, her eyes now looking at him. They were filled with tears.

  He stared back at her. It was a cold, hard look. One that Claudia didn’t recognise.

  She shook her head. A spark of anger firing within.

  ‘I didn’t send her to Madley’s nightclub. Alright? She did this off her own back.’

  Brady narrowed his eyes at her, clearly not believing her.

  ‘Don’t you dare turn this on me, Jack! This was a malleable – gullible even – rookie who was desperate to impress you. And what did you do? You took her to bed!’

  Brady clenched his fists trying not to react.

  ‘You shared with her your paranoid, delusional suspicions about Mayor Macmillan and his drug-dealing brother, Ronnie Macmillan, who you claimed procured prostitutes for his politician brother. Young girls, like the ones we try to help off the streets in the West End and down by the quayside in Newcastle. Girls as young as eleven being worked by pimps. But the problem is, Jack, it was all hearsay. Nothing has ever been substantiated against Mayor Macmillan. He has no connection with his brother. Nothing. You should be more careful when it comes to listening to idle gossip. Politics is filled with lies and rumours, all aimed at bringing a man down for the sake of the opposition. Mayor Macmillan has made it very clear that he’s not responsible for his background or the family associated with it. He’s a man who has made good for himself, regardless of the odds stacked against him—’

  Brady interrupted her furiously. ‘What the hell has this got to do with Simone being attacked? You’ve already suggested that you think she was targeted by this Nietzschean Brotherhood you were talking about,’ he pointed out accusingly, his eyes dark and threatening.

  ‘I know exactly what I implied. And I still stand by that – it’s why she’s been branded with the “N”. However, it was a combination of what you had told her about Ronnie Macmillan and the new information she had that he was branching out from drugs into the sex trade.’

  ‘What new information?’ demanded Brady.

  ‘I got word from some of the women I deal with about what Ronnie Macmillan was up to. He’s a nasty piece of work and gets a gre
at deal of pleasure out of humiliating and beating up his girls. Likes them to “respect” him, allegedly. Anyway, he’s creating quite a cartel for himself. He has other pimps and drug dealers working hand in hand with him. And he’s buying up a lot of local businesses and unused land—’

  ‘What for?’ interrupted Brady.

  He had no idea that Ronnie Macmillan was capable of running such an empire. Then again, thought Brady, was it really Ronnie Macmillan or was he just the front man? The target if it all went wrong. His brother, Mayor Macmillan, had the brains and the looks in the family, whereas Ronnie had always been the ugly one with a lot of muscle. Too much muscle by the sounds of it.

  ‘I don’t know,’ answered Claudia uneasily.

  She shook her head as she thought about it.

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense to me … but it’s all kosher. We can’t get him for anything. And believe me, we’ve tried. Which is what I told Simone. But …’ Claudia faltered.

  ‘What?’ questioned Brady.

  ‘Well … when Simone contacted me and told me about the Russian girl’s murder and how she had heard talk that two of the men involved with the Brotherhood had moved up North, she wanted to know if I had heard anything.’

  ‘And had you?’

  Claudia nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Macmillan … Ronnie Macmillan has seemingly got involved with some Eastern European gangsters who deal in sex trafficking.’

  ‘Since when?’ Brady asked, his mind reeling from the news.

  ‘Fairly recently. From the intelligence I have, maybe the past two months, even three.’

  ‘And Simone knew this?’

  Claudia nodded.

  ‘The problem was, Simone was too keen. Too eager. Had something to prove. Whether it was to her old colleagues here at Whitley Bay station or even you, I don’t know. But she started doing some undercover work without my knowledge. She’d been up here on annual leave for three weeks before … before this happened to her. She made connections … connections that she didn’t share with me which led to her arranging to meet with the two men that Carl, the Blue Lagoon bartender, described.’

  Brady had been intending to catch up with One-Eyed Carl and find out what he’d seen. He now saw it as a priority.

  ‘What did he say?’

  Claudia shrugged.

  ‘Not much. Just that she was stood at the bar with two guys. Well dressed, in suits, throwing their money around. He said that she looked like she was enjoying the attention.’

  Brady thought back to last night when he’d seen her in the Blue Lagoon with the two men. And Carl was right, she didn’t look as if she was out of her depth.

  ‘I can only imagine that Simone was trying to sell herself as a high-class hooker who had come back home from the South and needed to re-establish her career in the North East, with the help of Ronnie Macmillan and his associates.’

  Brady nodded. He hated to admit it, but it made sense. The problem was, where did they go with it?

  ‘Have you told Gates all this?’

  Claudia looked at him and shook her head.

  ‘What do you take me for? A fool?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought you and he were tight? More so since your new role.’

  Claudia frowned at Brady.

  ‘I’m careful, Jack. Always have been. If Gates believes I’m in his camp then fine by me. But the person I have loyalty to now … is myself.’

  Brady knew that was intended for him. And it was intended to hurt.

  ‘What does he know then?’

  ‘That Simone came up here on some lead connected with the Russian girl’s murder. That’s it.’

  Brady frowned.

  ‘So, he doesn’t know that she arranged to meet you?’

  Claudia shook her head, causing some curls to fall over her face.

  ‘No …’ she replied.

  ‘Why not?’ questioned Brady.

  ‘I’ve got too much to lose. If they think that I somehow set her up to infiltrate Ronnie Macmillan’s goings-on then what do you think would happen? I’d be suspended while an internal investigation took place. If there’s any suspicion that I sent her in without any backup, let alone authorisation, what do you think would happen? Christ, Jack! Ronnie Macmillan’s a dangerous man. I may be career orientated but I would never sacrifice someone for my own gain. Especially another woman.’

  Brady looked at her.

  ‘Come on, Jack! You know how hard I worked to set this project up; how much I need to do it … Without me, it would …’

  She didn’t need to finish the sentence.

  ‘You know what you’re asking me to do, don’t you?’ asked Brady, taken aback.

  ‘I know … but if I get suspended the cases that I’m working on would be affected,’ she explained, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. ‘Jack, lives are involved here. Young girls’ lives … it’s not just about me.’

  Brady sat perfectly still, thinking.

  If he didn’t speak up, it would be him in front of a firing squad. He’d be the one to be suspended; he could even lose his job.

  But then there was Nick. Whatever was going on there was guaranteed to fuck up Brady’s career anyway.

  Brady thought about the message he’d received from Melissa Ryecroft’s murderers.

  A severed head left in a black bin liner in his car with the chilling words:

  KEEP YOUR HEAD JACK OR YOU COULD BE NEXT – ‘N’

  Brady didn’t exactly understand the meaning of the message. Apart from the obvious – that it was a threat. And he didn’t know why they were targeting him. But it could easily be for the same reason that Frank Henderson had attacked him outside Simone’s room – because they had found out that Simone had returned to the North East on police business connected with Brady. If Henderson had got the wrong Brady, why not them?

  Brady had no proof that the two Eastern European brothers had put the note and severed head in his car. But the fact that they waited for him to leave the hospital and then followed him was evidence enough in his books. That and the fact that the note was signed with the same ‘N’ burnt into Simone’s left breast and on the emblem of the signet ring they were both wearing.

  The last thing Brady wanted was Claudia being targeted, or worse, ending up like Simone Henderson. He knew what he had to do. He had no choice and she knew it.

  ‘Okay,’ Brady conceded.

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Claudia.

  ‘I said so, didn’t I?’ replied Brady irritably.

  He was angry with her. Furious that she had kept all this back from him and yet was now expecting him to take the blame.

  ‘And you won’t take any of this to Gates or Adamson?’ uneasily questioned Claudia, needing to be certain.

  ‘I said I wouldn’t,’ assured Brady, but his voice was hard.

  ‘Thanks, Jack. I can’t say how much I appreciate this …’

  But it wasn’t only Claudia he was protecting; he was also trying to protect his brother, Nick.

  ‘I need you to pull everything you have on Ronnie Macmillan. Understand? I want more information on these Eastern European men he’s gone into business with and I need it in the next hour or so.’

  Claudia looked at him, about to shake her head and say it was an impossible task.

  ‘Don’t even try and tell me you can’t do it. Because I know you can. You’ve got a hell of a lot of information back at your office that I don’t have access to. You have informants and you have sex trafficked women that you’ve freed. Contact them. Interview them. Anything that leads us closer to these men, Claudia. And I mean anything.’

  ‘Jack. Do you know how difficult that’s going to be? It’s a Saturday for God’s sake! I’ve got no chance of getting all that you’re asking together on my own. And, Christ, most of the women have returned to their countries of origin.’

  ‘Ring them then,’ suggested Brady.

  ‘Do you fully understand what you’re asking me to do for
you?’

  ‘Do you understand what you’re asking me to do for you?’ retaliated Brady, his face darkening.

  He was in no mood to be messed with; and especially not by his ex-wife who was asking him to risk his career to bloody well protect her own.

  Brady was under no illusions. Claudia and DCI Davidson, her new boyfriend, co-headed a groundbreaking new Human Trafficking Centre in Newcastle equal to Sheffield’s. It was clear that she would sacrifice Brady to keep her position, both professionally and personally.

  ‘Why?’ questioned Brady.

  ‘Why, what?’

  ‘Why keep my name? Brady. Is it just to piss me off? Or were you banking on there being a time like this one when you could use it to stitch me up?’

  She looked away, refusing to answer him.

  It was something that had been troubling him ever since he had figured out that the Brady Simone had been talking about wasn’t him.

  ‘If you need help you can have Kenny and Daniels,’ he stated, getting back to the real issue.

  ‘Oh, you have to be kidding me. Bloody Laurel and Hardy? I don’t think so!’

  ‘Take it or leave it.’

  ‘What about Anna Kodovesky? I’m sure she’d be more help in one hour than those two knuckleheads would be in a whole week working with me.’

  Brady thought about it.

  ‘Alright,’ he conceded.

  Kodovesky was good at her job and she kept her mouth shut.

  Daniels and Kenny were responsible for most of the sick jokes that did the rounds at the station. Additionally, neither of them knew when to keep quiet. And in a case as delicate as this, Brady needed discretion.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Claudia.

  ‘Yeah,’ muttered Brady suddenly standing up and walking towards the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Claudia asked.

  ‘Gates’s office. He wants to see me,’ he bluntly answered.

  ‘Jack?’ questioned Claudia, worried.

  Brady walked out his office, slamming the door behind him.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Brady breathed in deeply as he looked at himself in the mirror in the gents’.