‘What do you think he’ll say?’
‘You’re the shrink. You tell me,’ Brady answered as he looked at her.
Her brown eyes were filled with genuine concern. ‘I wish I had the answer. But I don’t.’
He dropped her gaze and turned back to his pint.
‘Jack?’ she asked as she touched his arm.
It was gentle and reassuring.
‘Jack?’ she repeated, wanting him to look at her.
Reluctantly he turned.
‘Look, you’re not really in the mood for this are you? This whole end of investigation celebration thing?’
Brady looked at her, waiting for her to say it. From the look in her eye he had an idea of what was coming.
She faltered. Not sure whether she should.
But there was something in Brady’s face that told her he already knew what she was about to say – and that he was receptive.
‘Why don’t you come back to mine? I’ll open a bottle of wine and cook us some supper,’ she said.
‘You sure?’ Brady asked. ‘I don’t want to be some sad charity case.’
Amelia smiled at him. ‘Believe me, you’ll never be that.’
‘OK. If you’re sure,’ he answered, returning her smile.
Brady knew it was time to move his life on. So much had happened to him in the past eighteen months and now . . . He had no idea what the outcome of tomorrow would be. Let alone tonight. But he was willing to take a chance.
‘Great. Give me two minutes while I go to the—’ she gestured towards the toilets.
Amelia seemed nervous. As if she didn’t quite trust her luck.
‘Go on. I’ll still be here,’ Brady said, picking up his pint.
‘Two minutes?’
Brady nodded. His dark brown eyes filled with amusement.
He watched as she turned on her heels and walked over the uneven flagstones to the Ladies. He couldn’t quite believe his luck. That after all this time she was still interested.
Amelia was thinking exactly the same thing as she went to the bathroom to compose herself. She spent a few minutes reapplying her lipstick, checking her eye make-up and her hair. Then she readjusted her black woollen dress. She wished she had gone home and changed into something more seductive instead of coming straight from work.
She stared at herself in the mirror as she went through a mental check-list.
Was the apartment tidy? Shit! What about the bedroom? It looked like a bomb had gone off. Were the sheets clean? Shit!
Amelia bit her lip as she tried to steady her nerves. The last thing she wanted was for Brady to see her in this state – like some nervous teenager on her first date.
By the time she had composed herself and come back out into the pub, Brady had gone.
Amelia walked over to the bar, ignoring the sickening, ominous feeling she had.
He’s gone to the Gents. No big deal.
The empty pint convinced her that was the case.
She took a sip of white wine as she waited anxiously for him to return.
When Gaye saw her she came straight over.
Amelia smiled, trying her best to look relaxed.
‘I’m sorry, pet, Jack asked me to pass on his apologies. Some call came in. Said it was an emergency.’ She gave Amelia a sympathetic smile before walking off.
It took a couple of seconds for Amelia to absorb the information.
She looked at the glass in her hand, resisting the urge to drink it in one go. She didn’t hear any of the cheering and clapping coming from the bottom of the pub. All she could think about was whether Jack Brady often brought women in here. And how often he had humiliated them.
Amelia put the glass down firmly on the bar and walked out.
Chapter Forty-Five
When he returned home he found Claudia in the kitchen with a large glass of Sancerre in her hand. She had conveniently let herself in and helped herself to the contents of the fridge. It had never crossed his mind to change the locks when she left.
‘You weren’t saving that, were you?’ she asked, pointing at the wine bottle.
Brady looked at the open bottle on the worktop. It was nearly empty.
She already had a glass poured for him. Brady picked it up.
‘Thanks,’ he said, raising the glass at her.
She wouldn’t look at him. And he knew why. She’d been crying. He knew Claudia – had known her . . .
‘I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t have rung you. I shouldn’t have come back here of all places. I . . . I . . . God! . . . don’t know any more!’ Claudia said as tears escaped down her face. She had been trying to rein it in; hold herself together.
Brady remained silent. He was resisting the urge to take her in his arms; to hold her wild, unruly curly red head of hair against his chest and just . . . Just what?
Claudia no longer existed in his life.
So why the fuck was she here? But crucially, why was he?
She’d rung him while Amelia had been in the toilets. She’d been desperate. Claudia was never desperate. He knew then that something serious was wrong. She only had to say one word. One name and he left. Without hesitation.
Claudia took a large mouthful of wine. Anything to stop her crying.
It took her a few moments before she could actually look at him.
‘Shit, Jack! What happened to your face?’ she asked, momentarily forgetting her own troubles.
‘It’s nothing,’ Brady answered as he shook his head.
This wasn’t about him. It was about her. And the reason why she was standing barefoot in his kitchen, drinking his wine.
Claudia’s emerald green eyes were filled with sadness. Usually they were filled with intense irritation when she looked at Brady.
‘Claudia?’
She shrugged, still unable to get the words out.
Brady took a drink. He needed one.
He had a feeling it was going to be a long night.
He couldn’t stop himself looking at her. He hated himself for thinking it. But she was perfect to him in every way. As he stood there, mesmerised by Claudia’s presence, Amelia and his promise to go back to hers melted into the background.
She was the perfect height for him. Her figure was shapely – sexy. She was the antithesis of the fashion fascists’ prepubescent ideal. She was what the average bloke found desirable; rounded hips, full breasts and a narrow waist that accentuated her voluptuousness. She even had perfectly symmetrical features. High cheek bones complimented by delicate, pale naked lips. The wild, curly red hair and vibrant green eyes just added to everything else. Then there was her searing intellect, which at times had caught Brady out. Even hurt him. She was everything he was not: middle-class background, University educated and ultimately privileged.
‘Nicoletta . . .’ Claudia began. She dragged her fearful eyes up to meet Brady’s.
He nodded. This was the reason she was here. Why he’d agreed to meet her. He had too readily dismissed Claudia’s initial call about Nicoletta being denied residency. Too preoccupied with Lee Harris to even think about the consequences.
‘Let’s take another bottle through to the living room,’ Brady suggested. He had a feeling she would need it.
Claudia nodded. Despite the amount of wine she had already drunk she still felt sober. She wanted to get drunk. Anything not to think about what might have happened.
Brady went over to the large black fridge and pulled out another bottle from the chilled wine rack. He had his back to her but he knew she was scared. Terrified. It was Brady’s job to find out why.
‘Shit! I don’t know what to say,’ Brady stated.
He got up from the couch and walked over to the bay window. It was black outside. He could hear the North Sea churning away relentlessly against the cliffs below. He stood there staring out but all that was thrown back to him was his own troubled reflection against a bleak backdrop.
‘Jack?’
Brady turned and looked back at
Claudia. She was on the couch with her legs curled under her. She had nearly finished her third glass of wine.
‘I . . .’ she faltered, the expression in his dark eyes stopping her.
‘Why me?’
She shook her head, not quite understanding what he meant.
‘Why bring this to my door? You’ve got someone. Shit! He even works for your team. He’s part of Newcastle’s armed response unit. So why not share this with him?’
Claudia looked at him. He was angry. He had every right to be.
‘I did. He didn’t think there was anything in it,’ Claudia answered.
Brady nodded. He appreciated her honesty, even if he didn’t like the answer.
He turned back to the window. He couldn’t bear to look at her right now. He was second best. She had just said as much.
‘Jack – don’t do this.’
‘Do what?’ Brady asked as he stared out into the blackness. There was one thought racing through his mind.
Had they returned? And if so, did they have Nicoletta?
‘Please, Jack? Don’t shut me out. Not tonight . . . I . . . I don’t want to go back . . .’
Brady turned round.
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m scared. I’m scared that they’ve abducted Nicoletta and that they . . . the Dabkunas brothers are back.’
Brady watched as thick tears ebbed down her cheeks.
‘I don’t want to be on my own. Not tonight.’
‘What about James? Where’s he?’ Brady asked, trying to keep the cynicism out of his voice.
This wasn’t his problem. She wasn’t his problem any more. She had left him. Or had she forgotten that part?
Claudia looked at him and shook her head. ‘He left. We had a big argument about Nicoletta’s disappearance and he left.’
Claudia took another drink.
As she did so she caught Brady’s eye.
‘I kicked him out. All right? And . . . and he went. Took his bags and went,’ Claudia said, not quite believing that it had actually happened. That James had gone.
‘So let me get this straight. He leaves you alone knowing that there’s a possibility that those bastards have returned to the North-East?’ Brady demanded. ‘What the fuck is he thinking?’
‘That’s my point. He’s not. He thinks that I’m over-reacting. That because the Home Office turned down her application for residency Nicoletta decided to take her chances and disappear. But she wouldn’t do that without telling me first,’ Claudia said, shaking her head. She looked at him, wanting some kind of assurance. ‘I mean I . . . I’ve worked with her for six months now. I set her up in a flat, organised money for her. She wouldn’t just leave without letting me know where she was going.’ Claudia faltered, the reality too jarring to continue.
Brady looked at her. He realised being mad at her was not helping the situation. He walked back over to the couch and sat down next to her.
Without thinking, he automatically put his hand on her knee. ‘Come on . . . Maybe James was right? Maybe she’s just cut ties and disappeared. Better that than being deported back to her own country and falling back into their hands again.’
Brady knew the odds as well as Claudia. When trafficked women and children were deported back to their home country their chances of falling back into sex slavery were extremely high.
Claudia looked at him, her green eyes burning with the belief that something terrible had happened to Nicoletta.
‘I know that they’ve taken her. She’s been gone since last Thursday. There’s been no sightings of her and no one’s heard from her. That’s nearly a week . . .’ She paused as she searched his face for something. Anything.
Brady said nothing. He couldn’t give her reassurance when there was none to give.
‘Why didn’t she take anything with her? No money, no clothes. Not even her mobile phone,’ Claudia asked, her eyes desperate for him to come up with an answer.
‘Claudia . . . I can’t—’
But before he said it she stopped him. She took his hand from her knee and placed it on her cheek. She leaned against it, momentarily closing her eyes. She just wanted him to touch her. Make her feel safe again.
Brady swallowed hard. He didn’t want this. Not this way.
He knew that she had a tumult of emotions misdirecting. Not to mention a bottle of wine.
‘No . . .’ Brady began. But he didn’t get a chance to finish.
Claudia leaned into him and brushed her lips against his face. It was an inquisitive, hesitant touch that rekindled everything he had been trying his damnedest to forget.
Whatever objections he had quickly evaporated when her soft, lingering lips found his own.
Chapter Forty-Six
When Brady awoke the next morning he knew that she had gone before he even opened his eyes. He lay perfectly still for a moment breathing in her scent just to convince himself that last night had been real. That he had not imagined her there.
He missed her so much it ached. The memory of her soft, supple skin beneath him was unbearable. The way she touched him . . . kissed him.
He buried his head in his pillow. The torture of having had her one more time was too much to take. He wished it had never happened. Better that than being thrown back into the torment of the past eighteen months.
Why, Claudia? Why the fuck would you do this to me?
He wondered whether it was payback for the hurt he had caused her when she’d found him in bed with his junior colleague, Simone Henderson. If it was, then she had succeeded. The agony he felt ripping through him was so intense he wanted to punch something, anything to stop the pain.
Claudia had already told him that it wouldn’t happen again. That it had been a one-off. Otherwise she would be here with him now.
He wondered whether she’d left a note. But he knew that would not be the case. That wasn’t Claudia’s style.
He suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be in Gates’s office at 8:30 sharp. He turned and looked at the bedside clock. It was already 8:13 a.m.
So? Who gives a fuck?
He rolled back over and buried his face in the pillow that Claudia had used.
Not that they had slept much.
He lay there for what felt like an interminable amount of time just breathing in her smell and remembering.
He ignored the phone when it rang. First his mobile. Then the landline. Someone left a garbled message. He didn’t listen. What was the point? It wasn’t her voice.
He ignored the phones when they rang again and again. He lay there refusing to move. Refusing to acknowledge that she had actually gone.
Then he heard it. The belligerent sound of someone banging on his front door. After a couple of minutes of listening to it he resigned himself to getting up. He looked around the floor for his clothes, not sure where they had ended up amidst the frenzied desperation of last night. He found his jeans by the bedroom door and his T-shirt in the hallway. Hurriedly pulling them on he made his way down the flight of stairs ready to punch whatever bastard was intent on putting a fist through his door.
It was Conrad.
‘I’m busy,’ Brady answered, his face filled with menace.
‘Sir? Gates needs to see you,’ Conrad said in an attempt to stop Brady slamming the door in his face.
‘Yeah? Go tell it to someone who gives a damn!’
Conrad had no idea what had happened to Brady last night. He had seen him talking to Amelia at the bar and then they had both disappeared. He assumed something had happened between them. But whatever it was, Amelia had turned up at the station and had, without a word, started clearing her desk out. Her stony-faced silence was enough to tell Conrad that things had not quite gone to plan between her and Brady.
It was only the news of the car crash that had stopped her in her tracks. Or to be more precise the news of who owned the car that had been rammed over the cliffs in Tynemouth. No survivors. It had been reported at 6:39 a.m. The station
was reeling. And there was only one person who still didn’t know – Brady.
‘Sir? Please? You have to come with me,’ Conrad insisted.
Brady wasn’t listening. He was already swinging the door shut.
Conrad threw his body against it, jamming his foot inside.
‘For fuck’s sake, Conrad. What’s wrong with you? I’m not going in to work today! So you can tell Gates from me that he can go fuck himself!’
‘Sir, I’m afraid that—’
‘Now get your foot off my property before I break your fucking leg!’ exploded Brady.
‘It’s Claudia,’ Conrad said in a last-ditch attempt to get Brady to listen.
‘What?’
‘Claudia, sir. Something’s happened . . .’
It didn’t take Brady long to get into the station. He didn’t care that he looked like shit. He hadn’t showered or shaved. He was still wearing the same clothes as last night. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered any more. The shock of what he had been told made everything else seem insignificant. He wanted nothing.
No, that was a lie. He wanted Claudia.
He walked through the station like a leper. No one would look at him. Let alone talk to him. Even Charlie Turner was lost for words. The only person talking to him was Conrad. And that was only because he’d been under strict orders to deliver him to Gates ASAP.
Conrad knocked on Gates’s office door.
‘Come in,’ Gates ordered.
Conrad opened the door and walked in. He turned and looked expectantly at Brady, who refused to move.
Gates stood up from behind his desk and walked over to Brady.
‘Jack? I’m really sorry. Believe me.’
Brady had nothing in him to say. Nothing. It felt too unreal.
Gates walked Brady over to one of two seats in front of his desk.
He waited until Brady sat down and then gestured for Conrad to leave them alone.
Which he did.
Gates sat back behind his desk and looked at Brady.
He was a wreck. No two ways about it. He steeled himself for a moment. He was about to have a very different conversation with Jack Brady than the one he had anticipated yesterday evening.
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