Blood Reckoning: DI Jack Brady 4 (28 page)

The Ford Granada was Brady’s connection to the past – to his brother. The car had been bought as a project for them both to work on. But it was Nick who had turned it around. He had a flair for fixing things, ever since he was a young kid. It had been nothing but a rusty shell when they had bought it, but now it was a work of art. His younger brother had spent months working on it on the odd weekends, slowly and steadily rebuilding it to beyond its former glory.

Brady waited for Conrad to say whether he had damaged it.

‘No, sir,’ Conrad answered.

‘Well, what then? You look like you’re about to tell me that I’ve been bloody sacked or something,’ Brady said, frowning.

‘It can wait,’ Conrad replied.

‘I’ve got five minutes, come on. What is it that you’ve heard? Has Gates said something? Shit! He’s not handing the investigation over to that two-faced, snivelling shit Adamson, is he?’

Before Conrad had a chance to answer, Brady’s phone rang. ‘Give me a minute, yeah?’

Conrad nodded and turned to leave.

Brady waited until he had left the office before answering the call. He couldn’t help noticing that Conrad looked on edge. He made a mental note to have a private word with Conrad later, but he had other more pressing things to worry about now.

‘Detective Inspector Jack Brady,’ he answered.

‘Hi, it’s Jonathan Edwards, Inspector.’

‘Thanks for returning my call so quickly. I appreciate it,’ Brady replied.

‘No problem. What can I do for you?’

Brady mentally prepared himself. There was a good chance his hunch would lead nowhere. But he was prepared to take the risk.

‘I’m interested in a recently paroled offender residing at Ashley House,’ Brady began. ‘It’s an ex-offender by the name of James David Macintosh.’

‘Are you sure?’ Edwards asked.

‘Yes,’ Brady answered. ‘I’m sure. Can you confirm his whereabouts on the evening of Saturday, fifteenth March?’ He could feel his blood pounding in his ears as he waited to hear whether or not he was onto something.

Brady could hear the probation officer breathing out slowly.

‘Is this to do with the murder on Saturday in the Royal Hotel?’

‘Can you answer my question, please?’ Brady replied.

‘Sorry . . . Yes . . . I mean no. No, I can’t confirm his whereabouts. He broke his curfew. He was supposed to sign back in to Ashley House at seven p.m. at the latest. He didn’t return until after midnight.’

‘Did he say where he had been?’

‘No. All he said was that he had been walking around and hadn’t realised the time.’

It was enough for Brady. He needed James David Macintosh brought in for questioning.

Chapter Thirty-One

Tuesday: 12:33 p.m.

There was a knock at the door, followed by Amelia walking in.

Brady looked up, surprised.

‘Why didn’t you call me about this?’ Amelia asked.

For the briefest of moments Brady could see the hurt in her eyes.

‘I had to run it by Gates first, otherwise I would have done,’ he assured her. But it was a lie. He had been too busy to even think about informing Amelia.

Brady hadn’t seen Gates, so he had had no choice but to brief him over the phone about Robert and Sarah Huntingdon-Smythe. Then there was James David Macintosh, who had now been brought in and was waiting to be questioned. The investigation had taken a sudden turn with the entrance of Macintosh, and Gates was holding a press conference to appease the media. One that Brady had not been invited to attend. Gates had given him the same old crap as to why Brady shouldn’t be holding it. That his time was too valuable. That Gates needed him actively working the case, not courting the press. Brady couldn’t care less. The last thing he wanted was to be caught up in PR. Or to be the face that the press could demonise if the investigation went belly-up.

‘I don’t understand. You seriously believe James David Macintosh could be a suspect?’

‘Take a seat and I’ll explain,’ Brady offered, trying his best to be congenial. He realised that he was at fault. He should have contacted Amelia immediately, rather than letting her hear it from Gates.

Amelia sat down opposite Brady.

‘I’m sorry, I should have informed you. Remember you said that the Seventies murderer might have been forced to stop killing? That it wasn’t necessarily voluntary? I spent most of last night going through recently paroled ex-offenders and James David Macintosh jumped out at me.’

Amelia listened intently, without saying a word.

‘Have you had a look at his background?’

Amelia nodded. ‘Just now.’

‘Well, surely you can see why I’ve called him for questioning? He broke his curfew on the same night the victim was murdered. He did not return to Ashley House until after midnight and no one can account for his whereabouts.’

‘Yes, I can see that might make you suspicious. But what else do you have?’

‘Macintosh has been locked up for thirty-seven years. I don’t believe that it’s a mere coincidence. At the end of the summer of 1977, a serial killer suddenly stopped in the midst of a killing spree. You yourself said that the sudden departure from killing would not be the suspect’s choice. It would have been taken away from him. In other words, he must have found himself locked up. But locked up for an unrelated crime. Otherwise the original investigative team would have made the connection,’ Brady explained.

‘But the operative word here, Jack, is “unrelated”,’ Amelia replied.

Brady nodded. He understood why she was finding it difficult to see Macintosh as a suspect. ‘I know. But let’s start with his childhood. Raised in Jesmond to a father who was in the army. From all accounts he was a patriarchal bully who regularly beat his wife and child. He was a heavy drinker, which fuelled his insufferable rages. From a very early age James started exhibiting signs of social deviance. He was repeatedly reprimanded at school for misbehaving. One account is recorded of him urinating into a milk bottle and drinking it in front of his shocked classmates and teacher.’

‘I still don’t see the connection,’ Amelia cut in.

‘I was building up to it. Pointing out how his background ties in with your profile. That he tortured animals as a child. Progressively got worse the older he got. Threw both his pet guinea pigs onto a bonfire he had built – alive. His father died of a sudden heart attack when he was fourteen years old and that was when his violence and depravity escalated. He replaced his father and began terrorising his mother.’

‘But he was at Cambridge University when the Seventies murders occurred. He was living there, not in the North East.’

Brady nodded in agreement. ‘But he spent most of 1973 in St Nicholas psychiatric hospital in Gosforth where one doctor diagnosed him as a psychopath. He missed the first year of his degree and had to start a year later. His psychiatrist at the time had said that he was an exceptionally intelligent young man with the propensity to become a killer.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Amelia replied, still not convinced.

‘And when you say he left the area, that’s not quite true. At the beginning of the summer of 1977 when he was coming to the end of his third year, Macintosh voluntarily admitted himself back into St Nicholas, stating that: “He felt peculiar and could not trust himself around the other students. The male students.” He was diagnosed by his new psychiatrist as battling with homosexual urges. Distressed by his attraction to the same sex, he was one of twenty-nine patients studied in the UK who underwent homosexual aversion therapy. In other words, he willingly received electric shock treatment.’ Brady paused for a moment as he shook his head. ‘The conclusion of these studies were damning. The fact that they defined same sex attraction as an illness, one that could be treated by electric shock therapy to get rid of homosexual desires, understandably had a negative long-term impact on the individuals who took part. Including Macintosh.’ Brady stopped talking.

The whole idea of what Macintosh and other patients suffered at the hands of these so-called doctors made him feel physically sick.

‘The most common treatment from the early 1960s to late 1970s was behavioural aversion therapy with electric shocks. In electric shock aversion therapy, shocks were administered while the patient watched photographs of men and women in varying stages of undress. The aim was to encourage avoidance of the shock by moving to photographs of the opposite sex. It was hoped that arousal to same sex photographs would reduce, while relief arising from shock avoidance would increase interest in the opposite sex. Each treatment lasted about thirty minutes. We know from Macintosh’s medical records that he also regularly received ECT which was more commonly used for treatment of severe mental illnesses, including, as in the case of Macintosh, homosexuality.’ Brady paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. The idea of an electric current being passed through someone’s brain to produce an epileptic fit – hence the name, electroconvulsive – because they had homosexual desires was anathema to him. ‘It has been known to leave patients with short-term and in some cases long-term memory loss. Some patients also claimed that their personalities had changed for the worse and the outcome of the treatment was disturbing.’

Amelia waited, curious to see where Brady was going with his theory.

‘Finally, he was also subject to discussions of the evils of homosexuality. Quite a lot for a twenty-two year old to experience.’

‘I’m not disagreeing with you, Jack. But I honestly can’t see where you’re taking this.’

‘All right, he underwent all this treatment because he was gay. Why? Because he didn’t want to be gay. Understandable, given his background, which was discussed in detail in sessions he had during his time at St Nicholas.’ Brady knew that Amelia hadn’t read the transcripts from these sessions, because they had not been included in Macintosh’s medical and criminal records. These transcripts were private conversations between Macintosh and his psychiatrist.

‘I’m aware of his criminal history. And I also knew that he had undergone various aversion therapies. But I haven’t read anything connected to these sessions you’re talking about.’ Amelia faltered, at a loss.

‘But you’re aware that he murdered his psychiatrist?’ Brady asked.

‘Of course. From what I read it was a horrific crime scene.’

Brady nodded. He felt sick as he thought about the notes he had read. Macintosh had used an axe. First his psychiatrist and then . . .

Brady swallowed as the bloody crime scene photos filled his mind.

‘How did you get his medical files expedited so quickly? It is the NHS after all.’ It took him a moment to register what Amelia had said.

‘Yeah, sorry . . . I know someone who works at the hospital. It pays to be nice to people. You never know when you’re going to need them,’ Brady answered.

‘You’re lucky. Ordinarily it could take days to access someone’s records. Police or not.’

Brady leaned forward. ‘So? Interested in his history now?’

‘I was always interested. But I’m still curious to understand why you think he is a suspect. He was locked up in a psychiatric hospital from the beginning of the summer of 1977 to the end. How could he have possibly committed seven murders?’

It was a fair point. ‘Because he was there as a voluntary patient. Meaning he wasn’t kept under lock and key. He paid for a private room so he wasn’t kept on a main ward. Effectively, he was free to come and go. I also checked and he had a car, giving him the means to get to and from the crime scenes.’

‘All right, say for argument’s sake that you’re right, and he
was
able to commit these crimes. The question now is, why?’

‘I was waiting for you to ask me that. Like I said, his father was an extremely violent alcoholic with a sadistic streak in him. Whether it was years in the army, I couldn’t say, but he had an absolute hatred for homosexuals. Something about James incited his father to outbursts of homophobic abuse and violence. Whether he suspected his son was gay from an early age, I don’t know. But he had his own extreme aversion therapies.’ He looked at Amelia. He had her full attention. ‘His father would beat him, calling him obscene names. He would make his son undress in front of him and humiliate him. He would take a cut-throat razor to James’ penis and threaten to cut it off. He said he would have no qualms in cutting his own son’s penis off and choking him on it.’

‘Oh God!’ Amelia muttered as she covered her mouth with her hand; the magnitude of what Brady had uncovered making her momentarily lose her cool.

‘Sir?’ interrupted Conrad.

Brady and Amelia both turned round.

‘Sarah Huntingdon-Smythe is here to talk to you. She says she hasn’t got much time as she has an important appointment later this afternoon.’

‘What time is it?’ Brady asked Conrad. He had lost track, too absorbed in getting as much background information on James David Macintosh as he could. He had dedicated his entire morning to chasing up people for medical records. It had felt like he was getting nowhere until he had ended up getting put through to an ex-girlfriend of his from ten years ago. She had recognised his name and, luckily for him, hadn’t hung up. She had left to travel to New Zealand. As far as he had heard she had ended up emigrating there. Eight years and one divorce later, she found herself back in the North East, with a senior role in management at St Nicholas’s psychiatric hospital. If it hadn’t been for her, he would never have uncovered the crucial psychiatric transcripts on the suspect. She had gone through countless shelved boxes of abandoned medical files to look for them. When Brady had picked them up she had told him that she had regretted ever going to New Zealand. He wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that, but she had given him her number.

‘It’s twelve thirty-nine.’

Brady sighed. He had a hell of a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in. The case was suddenly shooting off in different directions.

‘Sir? She really doesn’t want to be kept waiting,’ Conrad insisted.

‘Fine,’ Brady said, pushing his chair back and standing up. ‘Let’s get this over with. But I don’t see why she’s come into the station.’