Vanishing Point. Danielle Ramsay

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СКАЧАТЬ thought about the previous night. After a couple of pints in the Fat Ox watching the band, Damaged Goods, he had left. Not knowing where he was heading, only that he didn’t want to go back to an empty five-bedroomed house. Somehow he had ended up down at the Blue Lagoon nightclub.

      And that was what had led him to spend the early hours sitting waiting for her call. Waiting for an explanation of why she was back in the North East. Why she hadn’t told him, hadn’t warned him. After all, the last time he had seen her was over a year ago. But DC Simone Henderson, his ex-junior colleague, was back. The problem was, she had been more than a colleague. He had regrettably spent a drunken night with her which had resulted in the end of his marriage. Ironically both Claudia, his wife, and DC Simone Henderson ended up transferring as far away from him as possible.

      He had spotted her standing at the bar laughing with two men. Her black hair had shone in the dim light.

      Brady had stood there, shocked. Not believing that she was actually there. It didn’t make any sense. She worked for the Met now, so why would she be back in the North East, let alone in the Blue Lagoon of all places?

      He was about to go over. But in one move she flirtatiously tilted her head back and, laughing at whatever had been said to her by one of the men, turned and caught Brady’s eye.

      Her smile froze. Something in her eyes told him to disappear. And fast. She clearly didn’t want him there.

      Then, acting as if she didn’t know him, she turned her attention back to the two men.

      Brady could see that they had money: their sharp black suits and sharply cut hair said as much.

      Resisting the urge to go over, Brady did as she had intimated and quietly slipped out. He had then returned home and took up his vigil by the first-floor bay window, watching the black, unforgiving sea, waiting for her to call. He had played with the idea of ringing her. He still had her number. But he had fought the compulsion; this was her call.

      Seeing her last night had uncomfortably awakened emotions that he had tried to suppress when she had suddenly put in for a transfer. She had literally disappeared from his life, refusing to answer any of his calls or emails. Finally, he got the message. But all he had wanted to do was to apologise for forcing her to leave the Northumbrian force.

      ‘Sir?’ questioned Conrad, interrupting his thoughts.

      ‘I’ll see you shortly,’ Brady replied.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ Conrad answered.

      He’d only told Brady part of it. What was left unsaid had to be told face to face. The station was reeling from the news. But Conrad knew the news would hit Brady the hardest out of the lot of them.

      *

      Not a lot had happened to Jack Brady in the last six months. In fact to be fair, not a lot had happened in Whitley Bay; a small seaside resort in the North East of England. Overall, targets had been met and crime figures appeared to be at an all-time low. But Brady knew it was the calm before the storm. Police budgets were being slashed to the bone by the government. The thought of having to tackle the same inevitable crimes of second and third generations who had known nothing but a life of living on shoestring benefits was not one Brady relished. Especially armed with little more than a pencil sharpener and a box of staples.

      Brady still had the same hard-nosed boss, Detective Chief Inspector Gates, and the same obtuse, career-chasing sidekick, Detective Sergeant Harry Conrad. And he still had the same old job as Detective Inspector. Simply put, he wasn’t the kind to get promoted. Not after everything he’d been through. Shot in the thigh, too close to his balls for comfort during an undercover drugs bust that had gone wrong. And then there was his affair with DC Simone Henderson.

      But he was still a hell of a lot better off than his long-standing friend and now ex-colleague, Detective Inspector Jimmy Matthews. Jimmy’d found himself locked inside Durham Prison, with the very scum he had risked his neck – and at times his career – to put away. Scum who would gut a copper on the inside as soon as look at him, which was why he was in a segregated unit sharing his time with the worst sex offenders imaginable. As far as Brady knew, no one from the job had been to see Matthews; he was a bent copper who had seriously been on the take and in doing so had sold out. Even Brady had not been to see him, despite repeated requests from Matthews. He still didn’t have the stomach to look Matthews in the eye after what he had done.

      Showered and changed, Brady slugged back what was left of his black coffee. He picked up his car keys off the granite worktop as he wondered exactly what had washed up onto the shores of Whitley Bay beach. Or to be more precise, exactly who had floated to the surface of the cold, grey murky waters of the North Sea.

       Chapter Four

      Brady bent under the police cordon and started making his way down the promenade steps looking for what his guts were already telling him was going to be trouble.

      It was clear enough where he was heading; it wasn’t difficult to spot uniform on the sectioned-off beach below him. Not to mention the grim-faced SOCOs dressed in black pants and black polo shirts who were methodically working along the beach and lower promenade. As expected, they had created a wide circle around the crime scene, photographing and documenting everything and anything that might have some relevance to the investigation. Directly below him, a tight inner circle was in force, stringently controlled by SOCOs clad head to foot in white, who were painstakingly moving in and out of a large white forensics tent.

      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. They were the antithesis of one another. Brady was six foot two and lean with muscle, whereas Conrad was a few inches shorter with a heavier, muscular frame. Conrad was invariably clean-shaven, regardless of the hour, with neatly cropped and gelled blond hair. Brady didn’t know how he did it, but he always looked impeccable in his array of suits, shirts and silk ties and tan brogues. Brady was all too aware that his own clothes – t-shirt, battered black jacket and matching skinny trousers and heavy black leather Caterpillar boots – made him stand out against Conrad’s typical CID traditional, conformist image. Not that Brady didn’t look smart, but his look was unconventional for a copper to say the least.

      Brady nodded in response as the young, clean-cut figure of Conrad approached him.

      ‘Sir,’ greeted Conrad.

      ‘Conrad,’ Brady replied. ‘So what exactly do we have?’

      ‘Better you see this for yourself,’ replied Conrad, deciding it would be easier than explaining what they had found. Or more to the point, what they still had to find.

      *

      ‘Bloody hell!’ muttered Brady as he held a gloved hand over his nose.

      The overpowering stench hit him hard as soon as he entered the tent.

      Without even taking into consideration what was left of the body, the smell emanating from it was bad enough to make him want to retch his guts up. The fact that the body had been washed ashore on one of the warmest mornings of the year so far wouldn’t have helped.

      He was doing his best not to react to what was lying in front of him. He clenched his hands in an attempt to stop his guts СКАЧАТЬ