The Puppet Maker: DI Jack Brady 5

by Danielle Ramsay

  There was no reply.

  He turned and looked at Conrad. ‘Did you?’ he demanded.

  Conrad nodded.

  ‘Fuck you!’

  ‘You don’t understand. I had no choice. ’

  Brady turned his back to Conrad. He didn’t want to hear. Didn’t need the excuses. He had divulged his personal life to Gates. He had told him that he had driven his wife to the brink of suicide.

  ‘Sir?’

  Brady could hear the defeatism in his deputy’s voice. It made no difference. He refused to turn and look at him.

  ‘Sir?’

  Brady ignored him.

  ‘Sir.’

  Conrad’s voice sounded desperate but Brady didn’t respond. He had been here before with him.

  ‘Gates called me in for a meeting early this morning. He had seen the news. Had the newspapers in front of him with you on the front pages.’

  Brady listened. His hand gripped the bottle of scotch, sorely tempted to add what was left to his mug. But he didn’t move.

  ‘He suggested that I distance myself from you for the sake of my career. That with all the media fallout there was a strong possibility that there would be an internal investigation into your decision to release Macintosh. I refused. I said that I would be sticking with you regardless of what the press, or anyone else for that matter, said about you. And then I told him you were having a hard enough time without Gates expecting me to distance myself from you. He asked why. And I had said it was personal. He then realised it had to be about Claudia. So he asked and . . . I told him. I now wish I hadn’t. But I did. I told him you’re blaming yourself for what has happened to her. And that you feel personally responsible for Macintosh and what he did. And that . . . that you’re one of the best DI’s this place has ever had. Regardless of what the press are saying. And . . . well . . . you don’t deserve this, sir. Any of this.’

  Silence.

  Brady knew that Conrad wanted him to say something. Anything to clear the air. But he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

  A few moments later he heard the office door close. He was relieved that Conrad had left him alone. He needed some time to absorb what had happened in Gates’ office. And then, Conrad’s admission. Time to just reassess everything. He let go of the bottle of scotch and looked at the mug in his hand. Swirled the golden liquid around before savouring the smell. The anticipation was always better than the actual experience itself. He swallowed the contents back in one. It felt like smooth velvet as it slipped down the back of his throat. Followed by a welcoming burning sensation.

  He looked at what was left in the bottle. He wanted to finish it. But he needed to be able to drive. Somewhere. Anywhere. As long as it was as far away from Whitley Bay as possible. He knew Gates was right. He had to keep his head together and stay out of trouble. Then he thought of Claudia. How easy it was to crash. To become dependent upon alcohol after a traumatic event. It numbed the mind. Took the edge off the pain and finally, if you drank enough, blurred all the thoughts that kept coming at you.

  Claudia . . . Where are you?

  It seemed to suddenly hit him. The fact that she was gone. He was still struggling to cope with the fact that Conrad had known that she had left him before he did. That Conrad had asked her parents – not him – to help her. To book her into a private psychiatric hospital without Brady’s knowledge or consent. Not that they needed his permission. But he had been the one who had looked after her for five months. It was him who had forced her to vomit up the prescription medication she overdosed on. It was Brady who had sat in a freezing cold shower with her to sober her up – not them. And yet . . .

  He shook his head. So much had happened in the last four days.

  He put his empty mug down on the filing cabinet. Then grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. He took one final look around his office. The beat-up old leather sofa under the large Victorian sash window. The wooden blinds and the grey light filtering through. He turned back to his desk. It was as cluttered as ever, files and paper strewn all over it. He shifted the files around looking for his car keys. Finally found them. Clutching them, he stepped back from his desk, accidentally knocking over his overflowing wastepaper bin. He stared down at the scrunched up newspapers and other rubbish now on the floor. It was a mess. Just like his personal life. And now there was the threat of an investigation into his decisions about Macintosh.

  He knew what he had to do. He had to get his head together. To silence the tormented thoughts he was having about Claudia. He needed to go. Anywhere, as long as it put some distance between him and his life. He pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet and took out an unopened bottle of Talisker. A thirty-year-old malt that he had been saving for the right occasion.

  Well, this is it . . .

  Brady walked down the corridor. Jacket and car keys in one hand. An unopened bottle of Talisker in the other. He didn’t care who saw him.

  He ignored the awkward glances as colleagues moved out of his way. He couldn’t give a shit what they thought. It couldn’t be any worse than thinking he was responsible for three brutal, savage murders. Or the abduction of a three-year-old girl. After all, that was what the papers were saying.

  And if he kills her, what will they think then?

  Brady made his way to the ground floor, heading for the double doors out onto the street. He passed the reception desk on his way out. The desk sergeant on duty was Charlie Turner. The last of the old guard. He had been stationed at Whitley Bay for years. He was due for retirement soon and he was one of the few colleagues that Brady would genuinely be sad to see go.

  ‘Bloody hell, Jack! Where are you going?’ asked Turner, his spidery white eyebrows raised in alarm.

  ‘Nowhere.’

  ‘Bloody hell, lad! That’s exactly where you’ll end up if you think the answer’s in that bottle of scotch.’

  Brady already had his hand on the double wooden doors. He turned back and gave Turner a tired, weary look. ‘I just need to clear my head.’

  ‘Well you won’t be clearing it with scotch. I can tell you that for a fact,’ Turner said shaking his head.

  ‘Thanks, Charlie,’ Brady said, suddenly walking back towards him. He knew the desk sergeant was right. He was better than this. He had a job to do – regardless of whether his personal life had disintegrated in front of him.

  ‘What for?’ Turner questioned, frowning at Brady.

  ‘For telling me when I’m being a jackass. That’s what! Here. You have it. It’s a bloody good bottle of scotch, so don’t waste it,’ Brady said as he put the bottle on Turner’s desk.

  Turner inspected the bottle of scotch. ‘Nah, lad. I can’t take this. Save it for another time.’ He looked up as Brady was heading out the doors.

  ‘I’m too bloody old for this malarkey, Jack Brady!’ Turner shouted after him.

  But Brady was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  Saturday: 1:03 p.m.

  The BBC twenty-four news was on the television. It was about him. He expected no less. He listened with interest, then disdain, as the newsreader interviewed a criminal psychologist. Middle-class, middle-aged and getting off on being on TV and making his name, making his career, out of Macintosh. His proffered opinions trite and nonsensical. He picked up the remote and was about to turn it off, then stopped. He smiled on hearing DI Brady’s name. Pleasure rippled through him. They were still discussing the fact that he had been released without charge. Set free to kill – again. He watched as Annabel Edwards’ name was mentioned and a recent photograph put up on the screen. Questions asked, answers given on what was happening – would happen – to the three-year-old girl.

  Only he knew what was going to happen to her. He was the one in control. Not fucking DI Brady. It had pleased him to know that Brady was being torn apart by the media. His actions or inactions being questioned and speculated over. He doubted DI Brady would have a career left by the time he had finished with him.

  That thou
ght made him feel good. He wondered how it felt right now for DI Brady. How he was coping under the media spotlight. It had gone better than even he could have imagined. He wanted Brady’s name tarnished. His professional judgement questioned. Simply because Brady was the one who posed a threat to him. It was DI Brady who, if he had the chance, could foil everything he had planned. And if he did. Then— He stopped himself. It is not necessary. Not yet . . . For now it seemed that the police had taken his bait. Followed his lead to London. And that was what he had planned. He wanted their focus to be anywhere other than here.

  He turned his attention back to the news. To the missing girl.

  They could speculate and speculate but it would make no difference to her outcome. He remembered the first time Jonathan Edwards had shown him a photograph of his daughter. She was so much younger then. But still, she had looked so much like her . . .

  He had to stop himself. Not now. He turned and looked out the window. It was a panoramic view of the Northumberland countryside, dominated by the Cheviot Hills. He had rented this place two months earlier, paying up front for a six month lease. The owner, who lived in New Zealand, had been more than happy with the arrangement. Money was a very persuasive weapon. After all, this was a holiday let and he was paying a premium weekly rate for the privilege. But it was worth it. The isolation alone was priceless. As was the location. It was close to the only place that interested him.

  He turned away from the window, his gaze falling on the child opposite him. That comatose look on her face. Acting as if she was not really a part of all this. But hers was a significant role. It would not be long now. And then it would finally be over. He blocked out her gabbling. The words she babbled over and over again. She didn’t understand that what she wanted no longer existed. That they were gone. But he could feel her words poisoning him. Making him doubt himself. Doubt everything he had done.

  He had done all of this for her . . . He had planned meticulously. Waited for so long. And now she was ruining it by not wanting to be here. With him. But she was with him now. It was her . . . her who had driven him to do this. HER.

  He looked at her. Anger welled up inside. She was still crying. It made no difference what he did. He had given her the doll.

  The special doll. The one he had searched and searched for until he had found it.

  An identical one to hers. But she continued to blankly stare at nothing in particular. Still crying. Ignoring him. Ignoring what he had done for her. He could feel the memory stirring somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind. He didn’t want to go back there. Not again. The pain too raw. Too intense.

  Her cries . . . He could hear her crying out. Begging. Her words jumbled up. Muddled. Inaudible sounds. NO. Stop it! Stop hurting her . . . STOP IT!

  Chapter Eight

  Saturday: 2:43 p.m.

  Brady was parked up by the wild, overgrown lane that led to Mill Cottage. Hidden off the beaten track, it had taken some finding. The secluded three-bedroomed stone cottage had been left derelict for years, the broken windows boarded-up long ago. He knew that the last occupants were the Macintosh family. They had lived there in the fifties and early sixties when James David Macintosh was a boy. Then they had moved out. To Jesmond; a suburb on the outskirts of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

  He studied the cottage. It was over 200 years old. Externally it was still in reasonable condition. It had been built from stone. Intended to last Northumberland’s wildest winters.

  This was Macintosh’s childhood home. But it was more than that – this was where three-year-old Ellen Jackson had been murdered.

  His phone vibrated, suddenly making him jump. Shit! He looked at who was calling – Conrad. Again. He left it. Whatever Conrad wanted could wait. Brady had more important things on his mind than easing his deputy’s conscience.

  He looked back up at the house. He was certain that Macintosh would come back here. If he hadn’t already. He just knew it. Could not explain how or why. But the gut feeling was there none the less. And it wouldn’t be silenced. Which was why he had driven the twenty-four miles out here to Mill Cottage. It was situated on the outskirts of Hartburn village; six miles west of Morpeth. Further up the A1 and you hit Alnwick, followed by Berwick-upon-Tweed. This area of Northumberland which stretched up to the Scottish borders was known for its rich and savage history. One that included the Border Reivers; lawless clans – both English and Scottish – who ruthlessly and mercilessly raided the entire border country as a means of survival. They had no allegiance to anything or anyone, other than their own kin. No regard for their victims; age, sex, nationality irrelevant. Violence, treachery, rape, arson and murder, merely a way of life.

  Brady got out the car. He shuddered involuntarily as he stared at the derelict cottage. It had seen its share of violence and murder. That had been in 1977. Brady tried to imagine the house then. Surrounded by police. Macintosh had eluded them. He had been arrested hours later heading north, towards the Scottish borders. But it had come too late. Macintosh had left behind a disturbing scene inside the house. The officers had hoped to find the three-year-old girl. But not like that.

  Brady checked the time: 2:45 p.m. He felt restless. Uneasy. As if someone was watching him. He had already announced himself to the two plain-clothed coppers parked up at the bottom of the lane. They had been assigned surveillance duty. Not that they really expected anything to happen. Let alone for him to turn up. There was one access in and out.

  Unless you came through the woods.

  The place was surrounded by acres of woodland. Trees and bushes lined the winding lane and surrounded the house. There was a large overgrown garden at the front with a broken, sun-blistered wooden swing still hanging from a large elm tree. Brady wondered why the cottage had never been sold on. Or demolished. The place had a history; an ugly one that had been left to fester.

  But now Macintosh had reopened old wounds. He had started to play his sick, twisted game again.

  What the fuck do you think you’ll find, Jack, that no one else has found?

  It didn’t matter. It was his time to waste. Gates had granted him that. At least he was doing something. What was the alternative? There wasn’t one, other than focus on finding Macintosh in London. But Brady knew he wasn’t there. He might have left evidence to suggest that he had been. But that was a foil. Part of whatever game Macintosh was playing with them.

  Brady walked through the hallway and shone the torch into the living room. Stabs of light penetrated through the partially boarded-up windows. But it wasn’t enough to properly see the room. He swept the light over the faded, deteriorating walls. Pastel floral wallpaper had peeled away, taking with it chunks of flaking plaster. He knew what he was looking for, but it wasn’t there.

  Evidence of what he had done to her.

  He shone the torch over the furniture that still remained. Two shabby-looking Queen Anne chairs sat on either side of the fireplace. A small table with a lamp. Two other antique wooden chairs had been shoved up against a wall next to an empty drinks cabinet. He turned and looked behind him. A large bookcase had been fixed in place along the entire length of the wall. It was stuffed with old, damp-ridden books left to rot, the pages stained dark yellow. They were mainly large hardbacks on war. The choice of fiction was eclectic. There was Proust’s novel, Remembrance of Things Past. Then the complete collection of George Orwell’s work as well as Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. Even a copy of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Despite their damp condition, Brady could see that they had been well-thumbed and not just there for decoration.

  He turned his attention back to the fireplace. It had a large stone hearth and open grate. A coal scuttle and poker remained, covered in cobwebs and dust. The grate itself was filled with debris: bird feathers, skeletons belonging to small rodents and dried, shrivelled-up insects. But there was nothing else here. No evidence of what the police had found in 1977. Yet the room made him feel uneasy. Whether it was the knowledge that the police
had finally tracked Ellen down to this cottage – this room – he couldn’t say. When they did find her, they had been too late.

  But there was something else. Something inexplicable that made him feel ill at ease. It was the smell. An overpowering stench: dank, musty, rotting. Like death.

  He backed out into the hallway. Welcome daylight streamed in from where he had kicked in the front door. He headed down the corridor towards the kitchen. The room was equally cold, damp and dark. He shivered involuntarily as he shone the light over the old double cast-iron range situated under a large chimney breast. A pan still sat on the range. Beside it, a black cast-iron kettle. Brady glanced around. He was surprised by what had been left. A large wooden Welsh dresser stood against the wall opposite the boarded-up kitchen window. A delicate bone china dinner set covered in a thick layer of dust and grime sat on display. Brady walked across the stone flagstones to the dresser. Curious, he opened the drawers. Neatly arranged silver cutlery with ivory handles lay untouched.

  Why had it been left behind?

  Brady turned to the door in the corner of the room. It was a walk-in pantry. He shone the torch around. Rows and rows of tins of produce, jars of homemade pickles, jams and nibbled bags of stale flour and sugar were still there. Decades later.

  Again, why had they left the food? It was as if they had just left overnight . . .

  He felt someone watching him through the slats in the boarded-up kitchen window. He turned quickly around and flashed the torchlight across the window. Fuck! His heart was pounding. He had seen a face. He was certain of it.

  He ran to the back door and tried to pull it open. It was locked. He shook the door knob but it wouldn’t budge.

  He turned and flashed the torch back over the window again – nothing. He ran to the window and leaned over the sink in an attempt to look out between the gaps in the boards covering the window. No one was there. But he was certain he had seen someone. He sighed. Too tired. Too on edge. Maybe he was letting the house get to him. The knowledge of what had happened here.