He quickly read through the barmaid’s statement. She had served him in The Beacon pub, accompanied by the victim. She had then passed him on her way home to Seatonville Road climbing over the gate into Potter’s Farm. He paused on the last page.
‘Says here that a taxi was called from The Beacon for Sophie Washington?’
‘That’s what she said,’ replied Harvey.
‘Which explains why Ellison was later seen on his own by the barmaid going into Potter’s Farm.’
Harvey nodded.
‘Find out which taxi company they use and then find the driver. I need to talk to him. We need to know where Sophie was going and why.’
Ben Ellison looked like crap.
Hung over and sleep deprived, he looked worse than Brady had imagined. His confident, relaxed veneer had long gone, replaced by raw, animal fear.
Ellison dragged a shaking hand through his messy hair.
‘Look … I’ve already told you. I didn’t have anything to do with her murder.’
‘But you were having a sexual relationship with her.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I think you do,’ Brady answered.
Ellison’s red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes darted between Conrad and Brady, trying to figure out what was going on.
‘I have a reliable witness,’ Brady informed him.
‘How do I know that you’re not making this up?’ Ellison demanded edgily.
He looked and smelled like he needed a hot shower and a change of clothes. The windowless interview room was heavy with a dank, acrid smell. Brady had smelled it before;it was the stench of guilt. It sweated its way out of the suspect’s pores, regardless.
‘Our witness saw you in The Beacon having a drink with your fifteen-year-old pupil, Sophie Washington. She then said that as she was making her way home past Monkseaton Metro towards Seatonville Road she passed you as you climbed over the gate into Potter’s Farm.’
‘So?’ Ellison questioned.
‘Do you know what time Sophie was murdered?’ Brady asked.
Ellison didn’t answer.
‘Between 12.30 and 2 am. And,’ Brady paused, giving Ellison enough time to absorb this information, ‘as she looked back you were seen by our witness walking down the farm’s dirt track towards the crime scene at 12.15 am. I wouldn’t describe that as circumstantial, sir.’
‘For fuck’s sake! I didn’t do it! What kind of guy do you take me for?’
‘One who gets off on buggering and fucking his fifteen-year-old pupils,’ quietly answered Brady.
Ellison shot Brady a ‘fuck you’ look.
‘The autopsy report,’ Brady flatly explained.
‘You’ve still got nothing on me,’ Ellison stated with false confidence.
Brady folded his arms as he stared at Ellison. He knew they had him; the stench of sweat was overpowering.
‘I have rights! You can’t do this to me!’
‘Actually, where you’re sat you’ve got no rights,’ Brady evenly replied.
He shrugged apologetically as Ellison looked at him in bewilderment.
‘We can keep you without legal representation for the next twenty-four hours. So I’d get used to it if I were you.’
Ellison’s face paled as he stared at Brady. His healthy, rugged complexion had waned to a jaundiced colour.
Brady wanted Ellison to sweat. And a few more hours in the cell might loosen his tongue.
‘Interview terminated at 2.37 pm.’
Brady turned to the officer stood by the door.
‘Take him back to his cell.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong! I want a solicitor! This is a police set-up! Do you hear me? It’s a set-up! I want a solicitor,’ he shouted desperately.
Brady slowly shook his head.
‘You’ve been watching too many films, sir,’ he stated as he stood up.
Brady limped out of the oppressive, dank interview room, ignoring Ellison’s increasingly desperate yelling.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The station was buzzing. Less than two hours after the interview with Ellison and the lab reports had come back, as had the computer forensic findings. Brady had been waiting for enough evidence against Ellison to charge him and now they had it, and more. The anal and vaginal fluid that Wolfe had sent for forensic analysis had found traces of Ellison’s DNA; in both samples. Ellison was screwed; literally, Brady darkly mused.
And that was before they even considered Jed’s findings. He had uncovered emails that the victim had deleted. Sexually explicit emails. And Jed being Jed had managed to source them back to Ellison’s laptop. Ellison had done a good job of opening an email account with false registration details, but it wasn’t good enough to get past Jed’s computing forensics skill. They now had incriminating evidence tying Ellison to the victim. Evidence that also included an email suggesting a drink in The Beacon the night she was murdered.
The evidence was so damning that Brady had granted Ellison legal representation. He had word that the lawyer had already arrived and was currently briefing his client. Not that there was a lot a lawyer could do with the evidencethe police had against Ellison. It was damning, so damning he’d be banged up for years.
Gates already had a press conference arranged. It was all about PR and being seen to be making the right noises; especially in front of the media. It was a coup for Northumbria Police. But things had been shaken up since then and now they were about to make a very public arrest.
It had taken less than thirty-six hours from the discovery of the murder to arresting the suspect. Gates had every right to brag, Brady mused. Such a tight timeframe was unprecedented, apart from cases of spousal homicide. But those kinds of murders rarely made the news, despite the staggering homicide rates. Brady had been involved with enough investigations where the woman had been killed by her current or previous partner, not to be surprised at the Home Office statistic that every three days a woman in the UK was murdered. However, the public interest didn’t stretch to domestic homicides; it was too close to home. The media had it sussed; they knew that the public gleaned vicarious pleasure from their insatiable appetite for lurid sleaze and horrific murders, just as long as it wasn’t on their doorstep.
Sophie Washington’s murder had all the right ingredients; an illicit pupil-teacher relationship that had ended in murder. It was sordid and disturbing enough to make it newsworthy. The end of this investigation could be the making of Gates’ career, Brady concluded.
He ignored the triumphant voices behind him as he made his way to tell Ellison the good news.
Brady walked into the interview room but it wasn’t Ellison who caught his attention; it was the lawyer representing him. Brady caught her eye, turned round and walked straight back out.
Conrad followed suit.
‘Sir?’
‘Did you know that she was in there? Did you?’ Brady asked, trying to keep his voice steady.
Conrad shook his head.
‘No sir, no one told me. I just assumed Michael Travers would be representing Ellison,’ Conrad answered uneasily.
‘But you knew she was back?’
Conrad gave a lame shrug.
‘I heard things …’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’ Brady questioned incredulously, unable to disguise his hurt.
‘I presumed she would have told you,’ Conrad answered uncomfortably. ‘Look sir, after everything that’s happened I didn’t want to get involved.’
Brady suddenly remembered that she had tried to contact him. She had left a message with Charlie Turner the desk sergeant asking him to return her call. But he had got so caught up in the investigation that it had slipped his mind. He dragged an unsteady hand through his hair as he tried to get a handle on the situation.
‘Problem, Jack?’ facetiously asked an all too familiar, well-educated voice.
Brady turned as Claudia firmly closed the door of the interview room behind her.
‘Maybe you should check your messages? After all, I did my level best to warn you that I was helping Michael out. He’s tied up with a client at North Shields so I did him a favour by coming here.’ Her provocative green eyes flashed at him in annoyance.
‘Michael?’ asked Brady uneasily. He knew Michael Travers well enough not to trust him. He was a senior partner at the law firm where Claudia worked, or had worked. Even a fool could tell that Michael was desperate about Claudia.
‘Yes, he’s been an absolute rock throughout all of this,’ she replied cuttingly.
‘I bet he has.’
‘I’d expect that pathetic egotistical response from you. That’s where Michael’s different. He’s more than happy to let me stay at his place while I’m back up here, with no strings attached.’
Brady bit his tongue, resisting the urge to warn her not to be so damned naive.
‘I know that’s something you could never understand,’ Claudia replied in response to Brady’s cynical expression.
‘I thought you were in London?’ Brady questioned, changing the subject.
‘I am. I’m just tying up loose ends here. Works both ways, Jack. I’d heard you weren’t due back until Monday. Otherwise if I’d known in advance you were going to be here I wouldn’t have agreed to help Michael out.’
‘Maybe if you’d asked around then you would have found out I started back yesterday.’
‘I might have done if I had been interested. But I’m not,’ she stated acerbically.
‘We need to talk,’ Brady stated, ignoring her jibe.
‘Bit late for that don’t you think?’
‘You know what I mean,’ muttered Brady.
‘Do I?’ challenged Claudia. ‘And what about my client? Surely your personal life can wait? From what I remember you were only ever interested in work?’
It took Brady all his strength not to fall apart. She was as beautiful as he last remembered. Damn it, he thought as he tried to get his head together.
‘I’ll wait for you in the interview room, shall I, sir?’ offered Conrad.
‘Yeah … I won’t be long,’ replied Brady awkwardly, unable to take his eyes off her.
‘My office?’ he suggested as calmly as he could.
‘This better be about work,’ Claudia threatened as she angrily tossed her hair back.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Brady limped over to his desk and sat down. He gestured for Claudia to take the seat opposite.
‘I’d rather stand,’ she answered abruptly.
She then folded her arms and looked him straight in the eye.
‘Look, let’s get something straight, shall we? This isn’t some cosy little chat reminiscing about what we once had, this is about work. So get to the point while I can still stomach being in the same room as you.’
Brady didn’t know what to say or even what to do. He’d gone over this scene a hundred times in his head, but now that it was actually happening he felt numb.
He noticed that she looked taller than her usual five feet four and realised with gut-wrenching clarity that she was wearing heels. Since when did she wear heels to work? His eyes drifted up her pale legs to her well-defined body. Her clothes were as expensive and tasteful as ever. But the dress was also shorter and tighter, emphasising her curvaceous body.
It was enough to make him sweat.
‘I … I didn’t realise you were back …’ Brady muttered. ‘Or I would have kept out of your way.’
‘Really?’ questioned Claudia scornfully. ‘Doesn’t sound like you, Jack.’
‘Maybe I’ve changed,’ he replied quietly.
She contemptuously flashed her green eyes at him.
‘Please Claudia … take a seat? Yeah? Just so we can talk?’ asked Brady, desperate for the atmosphere in the room to change.
‘You expect me to talk to you! For fuck’s sake, Jack! Remember, you were the bastard in all of this! If I hadn’t walked in on you screwing that young, dark-haired slut in our bed then none of this would have happened,’ she angrily pointed out.
She was still furious, enough to want to hurt him badly. And she had succeeded. Brady felt the punch straight to his gut. It was just a desperate, drunken shag. A pointless, senseless, empty, pathetic act that had cost him everything. Even his reputation at the station was destroyed because of it. Admittedly, before he got together with Claudia he had been known for playing around. But there was something so unique and unattainable about Claudia that when they had got together he had never imagined cheating on her. Yet he did with DC Simone Henderson. It was no more than a drunken, egotistical shag, but it had led to the end of his marriage. He couldn’t even remember much about it. Fuelled by a lethal cocktail of alcohol and self-pity it resulted in him destroying the best thing that had ever happened to him.
‘I didn’t know that you’d walked in …’ Brady said uncomfortably, hating himself.
‘Believe me, I could tell!’ she replied sharply.
Disgusted with himself, Brady looked away.
‘Let’s just say that little acrobatic stunt with your juniorcolleague finally did it for me. I always promised myself the day you brought your work home would be the day I walked out!’ Claudia scornfully replied.
Brady kept his mouth shut. There was nothing he could say in his defence.
To know that he had hurt her was more painful than even her most cutting words. She was the only person he had ever felt comfortable with, and yet when she had needed his unfailing support he had bailed. He had supported her as she built her career as a respected lawyer, but it wasn’t enough for her. She wanted more despite the detrimental effect on their relationship. When he argued with her that the only time he ever saw her was when she was acting Duty Solicitor at the station, she promised to cut back on the hours. But if anything she became more resolute about focusing all her energy on her career, resulting in him looking for comfort elsewhere.
But he knew the obsession with her career was her way of coping with the fact that they couldn’t have children. Or more specifically, she couldn’t. They had tried for a year before being referred to fertility specialists. His results had come back normal, whereas Claudia’s showed that it was highly unlikely she would ever conceive naturally.
Then they went down the IVF route. But after the second and third attempt had resulted in early miscarriages, Brady refused to try again. He couldn’t live with the devastating effect that the fertility treatment was having on their relationship, or more to the point, on Claudia. She couldn’t understand his decision and had made it clear she could never forgive him. His punishment was to be excluded from her life as she dedicated every hour she could to her work.
He looked at her and wondered what would have happened if he had let her continue torturing herself with the IVF. How many attempts would it have taken for her to realise it just wasn’t going to happen? Not only had they found out that Claudia could not conceive naturally, but an investigation into the two miscarriages had shown that her body’s immune system was attacking the embryos. Yet, despite being one of the cleverest people he knew, she had convinced herself that if they just kept trying she would eventually have their baby. He didn’t know what was worse, her leaving him or the alternative which was to watch as Claudia slowly drove herself insane fighting for something that just wasn’t possible.
Claudia shot him a scornful look.
‘What? Got nothing to say after all this time? I’m surprised that you still haven’t thought of some lame excuse by now for sleeping with a junior colleague in our bed!’
Ashamed, Brady lowered his eyes.
‘When you got shot the following night I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that you had got what you deserved.’
&n
bsp; ‘Bet you did,’ Brady stated quietly as he met her disdainful eyes.
‘Oh come on, Jack! When the hell are you going to take some responsibility for your own actions? You fucked up! You, not me. On both accounts. With that girl you screwed and with the drugs case you were working on,’ she pointed out as her eyes sparkled with emblazoned fury.
Brady slowly swallowed. He looked at her as she stood with her hands defiantly on her hips waiting for him to respond. But he couldn’t. All he could think about was how much his body ached to take hold of her and remind her of why she had been so attracted to him in the first place. But more than that, he ached to touch her again. To breathe in the delicate scent of her soft skin and bury his face in her unruly red hair. He wanted her now more than he had ever wanted any woman.
Before he had a chance to act, a knock at the door broke the spell.
Brady cleared his throat.
‘Come in,’ he ordered.
The door opened and Jenkins walked in.
She stopped when she saw Claudia, stood with her arms folded, clearly annoyed at the interruption.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you were busy. Conrad told me I could find you here,’ Jenkins apologised.
Brady couldn’t help but feel embarrassed by Jenkins’ intrusion. He didn’t know what she was playing at. The last time he talked to her she had said she was no longer part of the investigation.
‘It’s all right, Dr Jenkins, we’re done here, aren’t we?’ Brady said awkwardly as he looked at Claudia.
‘Are we?’ asked Claudia caustically.
Self-conscious, Brady stood up.
Claudia turned round to face Jenkins and then turned back to Brady, making a play of sweeping her red hair back off her face.
‘Well, aren’t you going to introduce us?’
She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she turned round and walked slowly and seductively towards the door.
‘I must apologise for Jack. He can be so rude at times,’ she said as she held her hand out. ‘Claudia.’
‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Claudia. It’s good to finally meet you,’ Jenkins answered, smiling. ‘Amelia Jenkins.’
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