Vanishing Point ijb-2

by Danielle Ramsay

  Ainsworth and his team were already forensically examining the Jag and the abandoned Mercedes van. Brady was certain that there would be forensic evidence linking the van to Macmillan and the Dabkunas brothers. And then there was the Ambassador’s daughter’s testimony. Not that Brady had been there to take her statement. DCI Gates had dealt with that, along with Chief Superintendent O’Donnell in some disclosed location. After all, this was the Lithuanian Ambassador who had diplomatic immunity. Right now, Brady was certain that his daughter, accompanied by the Ambassador and his armed security, would be flying home in a private jet.

  They also had Melissa Ryecroft’s statement detailing how she had been kidnapped by the Dabkunas brothers for the Nietzschean Brotherhood’s nefarious purposes.

  Brady swallowed hard. He didn’t want to think about Edita’s decapitated body washed up on the beach. Had the Lithuanian girl been sold to the highest bidder in the Nietzschean Brotherhood? Brady didn’t know and had to accept the chances of ever finding out were slim. He knew that Claudia’s team would be working all hours to find the Dabkunas brothers and the other members of the Nietzschean Brotherhood. But whether they would was another matter entirely.

  Brady was certain others were involved. There was a covert brotherhood out there, but he knew that he wouldn’t find out. Not yet, anyway. With some time and investigation he might just add some names.

  Nick’s name of course was never mentioned. He hadn’t officially been on the Ambassador’s payroll. In fact, he officially didn’t exist. Job over with, and he had disappeared. The Ambassador would have had money paid in hard, untraceable cash.

  Brady didn’t want to think about the Dabkunas brothers. They were still at large. And he knew they would have a price on Nick’s head.

  He picked up the brown envelope that Nick had given him.

  An unlabelled DVD was inside.

  He opened his laptop and put the DVD in.

  He watched as it started to play.

  A masked man could be seen holding a pistol to a girl’s head. Brady recognised her as Edita, the decapitated Lithuanian girl.

  Brady watched, feeling sick as the masked man, ignoring Edita’s pleas, pulled the trigger, firing the captive bolt into her brain. He turned away, unable to watch as her brutalised, heavily bleeding body began to spasm and convulse.

  He had seen enough. He had seen what Nick had wanted him to see.

  The masked man had no identifiable traits apart from on his right hand. The hand that put the pistol to the victim’s head. He was wearing a gold signet ring with the emblem ‘N’. And his pinky finger had been mutilated, cut off at the joint. Exactly like the man Melissa Ryecroft had described.

  Brady picked up his phone and called the number logged from the text Nick had sent him.

  The phone had been disconnected. What more did he expect?

  He picked up the brown envelope and shook it, hoping to find a note. But there was nothing.

  No number. No contact email address. Nothing.

  Brady sighed and placed his head in his hands wondering when he’d next see his brother. If ever.

  He put the DVD back in the envelope, opened his drawer and filed it. He would get Jed, Northumbria’s computer forensic officer, to analyse it later. Not that he expected to get much back. But he would have to officially hand it over, claiming it had been handed to him anonymously.

  First, there was something he needed to do.

  He pulled out the bottle of Scotch that he kept for moments like this one. Not that he ever thought this day would come. He slowly unscrewed the lid and poured himself a liberal measure into his Che Guevara mug.

  He then placed the open bottle on his desk.

  ‘To you, Nick,’ sighed Brady.

  He then knocked it back. In one swift move. His throat rasped as the whisky, a Talisker bought by Madley, burnt its way down.

  He could feel his eyes stinging. They weren’t smarting from the twelve-year-old single malt. Nor was it because of the note on his desk.

  It was the note from Charlie Turner that he had read first, before opening up the package from Nick.

  Turner had taken a call from Kate Matthews, Jimmy Matthews’ estranged wife, on Brady’s behalf. The call had come into the station thirty minutes ago at 8:33am.

  The note simply stated that Matthews had been found at 6:45am by a prison guard in his cell with a ballpoint pen sticking out of his neck. He was now in a critical condition. Whether he would pull through was debatable.

  Brady thought back to his conversation yesterday with Matthews. He had begged Brady to help him get out. Had blackmailed him and then tried to trade the information he had on Ronnie Macmillan. He was desperate. And rightly so, thought Brady. Whether the attack would have happened anyway, given he was a copper banged up with the very prisoners he’d helped put away, or whether word had got out that he’d talked was now a moot point. Either way, he was a dead man. Inside prison or outside. And Matthews had made himself a very dangerous enemy: Madley.

  Brady sighed heavily. He hadn’t slept for days. But he wasn’t ready to go home; not yet. Still too pumped with adrenalin.

  But he knew full well the reasons why.

  It was watching a Lithuanian girl being brutally tortured to death. She had died a horrific, unimaginable death.

  He raised the mug one more time.

  ‘Edita … and to the others still out there,’ Brady whispered.

  His phone suddenly buzzed.

  It was Amelia.

  ‘Hi,’ he quietly answered.

  ‘I just wanted to check how Conrad was doing?’ Amelia replied, her voice filled with concern.

  ‘He’s good. Or should I say as good as can be expected. It could have been a lot worse,’ sighed Brady.

  ‘How are you bearing up?’

  ‘I’m OK,’ Brady replied.

  There was a heavy silence. They both knew he was lying.

  ‘If you want someone to talk to you know where I am,’ offered Amelia breaking the palpable awkwardness.

  Brady didn’t answer.

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go. Let me know if you want to get together for a coffee or maybe a drink, yeah?’ suggested Amelia.

  ‘Yeah … Thanks,’ muttered Brady.

  There was nothing left to say so she hung up.

  Brady sighed heavily. He wasn’t ready yet.

  But he recognised it was time to move on.

  To let go of the past.

  Read on for an extract of Danielle Ramsay’s compulsive

  debut novel, Broken Silence, out now.

  Chapter One

  She felt sick, really sick.

  She moaned as the ground started to swirl in front of her.

  ‘Oh fuck!’ she slurred as she drunkenly collapsed onto her hands and knees.

  Trembling, she waited for the nausea to pass.

  Finally certain that she wasn’t going to puke she pulled her long blonde hair back from her face and looked around, but it was too dark to make sense of the rubble and half-fallen walls of the abandoned farmhouse. She suddenly realised that she was alone.

  ‘You fucking shit!’ she yelled out, angry that he had just left her there in the middle of nowhere.

  She waited, but there was no response. The surrounding trees and bushes conspired against her, rustling and creaking, fooling her into believing that someone else was there.

  ‘Fuck you and your fucking attitude! I hate you! You hear me? I fucking hate you!’ she screamed defiantly. ‘You’re the one with the problem, not me!’

  She slumped back onto her knees and stared up at the black starless sky. Everything seemed so pointless. She hated him. She hated him for using her and then just throwing her to one side. She would have to be stupid not to notice that he wasn’t into her any more. She had heard the rumours. Who hadn’t? She knew there were other girls, but she’d hoped that she had meant something to him. She had foolishly believed that he could take her away from her crap life; that he could somehow sav
e her. But now that he had got what he had wanted, he wasn’t interested any more.

  She felt a cold wetness on her face and realised she was crying. She wiped her damp cheeks aggressively, angry with herself for feeling like this. Angry that she had let him get to her.

  ‘I don’t fucking care what you say. I’ll tell whoever I want to about what you’ve done to me. Then you’ll be sorry! You hear me? You’ll be the fucking sorry one, you bastard!’ she threatened, ignoring the tears as they continued to fall.

  Exhausted, she attempted to get to her feet. Certain that she could stand she pulled out her mobile phone from the front pocket of her short black denim skirt. She tried to make out whether she had any new messages or calls.

  ‘Bastard!’ she muttered when she realised she didn’t.

  She started to scroll through her phone book looking for his number.

  Suddenly she heard footsteps coming up behind her. She smiled, relieved that he’d come back.

  She froze as the smile faded from her lips.

  ‘I … I … didn’t mean the things I said … yeah? I was just really mad with you, that’s all …’ she stuttered as she shook her head.

  It took her a second to register what was about to happen. Shocked, she dropped her phone as she numbly staggered backwards as she tried to get away.

  In her panic she tripped over and fell to the ground. She grabbed her scarf which was lying beside her and rolled over onto her knees as she attempted to get up. But a hard kick to her back winded her, forcing her down again.

  Suddenly the scarf was pulled from her hand.

  ‘Ahh!’ she cried out as her head was yanked back by her hair.

  She felt something being slipped around her throat. She couldn’t understand what was happening. And by the time she did, it was too late. The scarf was already securely knotted around her neck. She screamed as she clawed at the material. But the harder she fought, the tighter the scarf was twisted, silencing her.

  She frantically tore at the scarf, desperate to breathe but she couldn’t loosen its hold over her. Panicking, she scratched at her neck ferociously as the burning pain in her lungs intensified. Finally, she collapsed forward, unconscious of what was about to follow.

  Chapter Two

  Friday

  The phone was ringing. It had to be bad. He could feel his heart pounding. He turned over and buried his head into the pillow but the ringing continued. He tried to ignore it but it was pointless. He opened his eyes and lay there for a moment drenched in sweat.

  It was dark, still night. He looked down at the cluttered floor gingerly and squinted at the alarm clock, his head exploding with the effort. It took a few seconds before he could make out it was only 4.30 am. And another couple of seconds before he realised the phone was still ringing. He stretched out his trembling hand and groped around on the floor.

  ‘Yeah?’ he mumbled hoarsely.

  ‘Detective Inspector Brady?’

  Without answering, he disconnected the call and dropped the phone to the floor. His head was thumping. He had the mother of all hangovers, which wasn’t surprising considering he’d been on a suicidal bender for the past couple of weeks. He had been downing a toxic mixture of whisky and beer to forget his wrecked life and block out the recurring nightmare he had had for as long as he could remember. But lately nothing seemed to work. Even when he sank into a drunken sleep he always woke up sweating, heart racing.

  He tried to recall the previous night. All he could remember was drinking too much and then …

  He felt sick at the thought. He winced as the knot in his stomach tightened. He turned his pounding head tentatively. A young woman lay asleep on her stomach beside him, naked from the waist up, the duvet discreetly covering the rest of her body. Her thick, dark, shoulder-length hair was spread out over the pillow. He watched as she gently breathed in and out. He couldn’t even recall her name let alone what she did for a living.

  He swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the sour taste in his mouth. Never before had he plummeted to such a nadir. There hadn’t been anyone since Claudia, his wife, had left. And now here he was with some young woman who he didn’t even recognise lying naked beside him.

  The drinking was supposed to distract him from who he was, not make him feel even worse about himself. He thought about getting some painkillers and decided that he couldn’t be bothered to get up and rummage around in the dark. The last thing he wanted to do was wake up Sleeping Beauty.

  The phone started to ring again. He froze as she started in her sleep.

  ‘Fuck!’ he muttered.

  He stretched his right hand out and blindly searched amongst the months of debris scattered on the floor.

  ‘What?’ he answered in a thick Geordie voice, silencing the shrill ring.

  He watched as she stirred briefly before slipping back into a restless slumber.

  ‘Brady?’ questioned a low, deep voice.

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘DCI Gates.’

  ‘Sir?’ questioned Brady, thrown.

  ‘You’re a hard man to get hold of, Jack,’ continued the dispassionate voice.

  ‘With all due respect, sir, I’m not expected back until Monday.’

  He regretted the words as soon as he had spoken them. Gates wasn’t the kind of man that you wanted as an enemy.

  ‘You have half an hour to get it together.’

  ‘But …’ he objected.

  ‘I’ll have a car waiting for you. Make sure you’re ready,’ Gates ordered, leaving him no choice.

  By the time he had thought of a response the line was dead.

  He stared blankly at the phone trying to figure out what was going on.

  Moments later he was roused from his musings by a dull, heavy pain in the pit of his stomach. He needed to piss. He pulled the duvet back and swung his legs onto the floor.

  A searing pain shot through his left inner thigh. He instinctively pressed down hard with both hands onto the knotted wound and held them there as he waited for the pain to subside.

  He didn’t know who he hated more; the bastard who had tried to blow his balls away or Claudia for leaving him while he lay fighting for his life. Admittedly he had given her a good enough reason, but even he hadn’t expected to come round from surgery to the unwelcome news that she’d had enough. Not only had she left him, she had left the area. It didn’t take him long to find out that she had gone to London and had no intention of coming back to the North East.

  He hated his life, hated what he’d become without her. Not a single day had gone by since she’d left him when he hadn’t considered finishing what the bastard who had shot him had intended. But that was over six months ago, and here he was, still drunk, still bitterly alive.

  He could feel a clammy sweat building up on his forehead and wasn’t sure whether it was because of the pain in his leg or alcohol poisoning.

  He looked at the clock. 4.54 am, he thought, sighing heavily. He stood up shakily and waited a few moments, unsure of whether he was too drunk to stand. Finally certain that he could stay on his feet he slowly limped over to the bedroom door.

  ‘Where … where are you going?’ murmured a sleepy voice.

  He paused.

  What could he say? Sorry, I don’t even remember fucking you last night, let alone your name?

  He shook his head.

  ‘Go back to sleep,’ he muttered.

  He watched her mumble her consent and turn over. He stood for a moment wishing that his life were that simple.

  * * *

  Bleary-eyed he blinked back at his reflection and ran his fingers through his long dark hair pulling it back from his face. He’d been meaning to get it cut but hadn’t got around to doing it. He stared at his heavy hooded, dark brown bloodshot eyes.

  He was six feet two and slender with some muscle. He was attractive; at least that’s what his soon to be ex-wife had told him. Not that he could see it. But he knew there was something about him that women liked. S
leeping Beauty lying in his bed was testimony to that.

  But throughout the five years he had been married he had never fooled around. Not once, not until that fateful night. And even then it was over before it had even started. But it was enough for Claudia to bail. He knew it was a convenient out for her. After months of Claudia working long hours in a blatant attempt to avoid him, Brady drunkenly and pitifully fell into the arms of a seductive new colleague – Detective Constable Simone Henderson. Claudia had walked in on them without Brady knowing. It wasn’t until the following night when his balls were nearly blown away on an undercover drugs bust that he realised that Claudia knew about his indiscretion. She had rushed to the hospital as soon as she heard he had been shot, wanting the reassurance he was still breathing so she could have the satisfaction of handing him divorce papers.

  Brady lifted a wet hand and tried to wipe clean the smeared blur that was his reflection. He looked rough, too rough to crawl into work. He ran his right hand over the dark stubble that covered his chin and crept up over his cheeks. In a last ditch attempt to straighten himself out he splashed icy cold water over his face. It made no difference; he still looked half-cut. There was only one thing that would sober him up and that was a hot shower followed by black, bitter coffee. He needed to at least appear sober if he was facing Gates. He knew that whatever had happened must have been serious enough for Gates to be calling.

  Chapter Three

  Brady heard the doorbell ring and looked at his watch: it was 5.25 am, bang on time. He dragged heavily on the cigarette in his hand before crushing it out. Already the third one of the day, he noted, acknowledging that he had failed to kick the habit before returning to work.

  But at least he was starting to sober up. Add to that a shave and a change of clothes and he looked halfway decent.

  Brady poured himself some hot black coffee and looked around at the chaos that had crept into the house after his wife had left. Row after row of empty Peroni bottles, half-eaten Chinese take-away cartons and empty pizza boxes pretty much summed up his life now. It stank.