Broken Silence (12 page)

‘Why was DI Matthews suspended? Is it connected to the murder investigation?’ Jacobs shouted after him. ‘Did you hear what I asked you, DI Brady? Why was DI Matthews taken off this investigation?’ she added in a last-ditch attempt at getting a reaction.

Brady had heard her all right. The question had cut straight through the crowd. The fact that someone had talked to the press didn’t surprise him. What did surprise Brady were the questions; they were about Matthews, not the murder. It didn’t make sense. Matthews was the type of guy who was liked by everyone, even Gates. But, from the question he was just asked, it was obvious that someone on the force had it in for Matthews. The question was, who? One name kept coming up. DS Adamson.

Brady just couldn’t shake off his suspicions about DS Adamson. Adamson had already proven that he had no loyalty to the investigative team, let alone Brady. As Conrad had said, he was out for himself. And with Matthews conveniently out of the picture, Adamson might have a real shot at promotion. Especially given how much Gates wanted Adamson to transfer to Whitley Bay.

Brady tried to ignore the doubts he was having about Adamson. He had other things on his mind, in particular finding Jimmy Matthews before Gates became suspicious. That is, if he wasn’t already.

‘I’d have thought you’d be too bloody busy to be making social calls,’ Ainsworth, the senior SOCO, greeted when he spotted him.

‘Wanted to get a second look,’ Brady answered as he took in the ruined farmhouse.

‘Different feel to it in the daylight,’ Ainsworth commented following his gaze.

Brady noted that he was right. It did feel different. When he was called out early this morning it felt as if they were miles away from suburban West Monkseaton. The overgrown hedges and looming trees had added to the blanket of blackness, blinding Brady to the row of houses that backed onto either side of the farmland.

He ignored the urge to have a cigarette. Ainsworth was a good enough reason not to; this was Ainsworth’s office now and even Brady wouldn’t cross the line with him.

‘I take it you’re not here for a bloody chat. Presume you want to see where your victim was attacked?’ Ainsworth asked.

Brady nodded.

‘All right, but follow my exact footsteps. It’s bloody difficult enough to figure out what’s what down here with all
the bloody onlookers we’ve had …’ Ainsworth grumbled. ‘If it’s not your lot making my job impossible then it’s the bloody public. Bloody useless, the lot of them!’

‘Why do you work with people if you’re such a miserable old sod then?’ Brady laughed.

‘I don’t,’ Ainsworth answered flatly. ‘They’re already dead so they’re no bother. It just so happens that the living keep bloody interfering with what I’m trying to do.’

Brady followed Ainsworth. Someone, no doubt kids, had built a large bonfire, using some of the broken rafters and other debris left lying around. It was still smouldering. Brady wondered whether any of the kids who used the place last night could have witnessed what had happened; or even, been responsible?

Ainsworth noticed Brady taking in the piles of discarded broken bottles and used needles that littered the ground. Evidence that the place was popular with the local kids.

‘Bet their parents don’t know what the little bastards get up to down here.’

Brady liked Ainsworth for the same reason that everyone else couldn’t stand the cantankerous old sod; he hated civilisation, or what had become of it. It didn’t matter where you were; an impoverished council estate or so-called respectable suburbia; kids were kids and would find a way to get pissed and shag around. It was human nature, but without the clothes on.

Brady looked over at the area where the murder victim had been found. He then looked up at the sky overhead. It was partially obscured by trees, so at night it would be dark, too dark to see anything.

He suddenly thought of the witness who had stumbled with her torch upon what was left of Sophie Washington’s
face. Before he left the station he had briefly read the statement that had been taken from the witness. She was a divorcee in her early fifties, who lived alone with her dog. Every morning at four she walked her black Labrador down the track of the abandoned farmland before leaving for work at the local Sainsbury’s. This was the first morning in years she had never made it to work. The state she was in when the police arrived after her 999 call was enough to convince even the most hardened cynic that she had innocently walked into a horrific crime scene. Unfortunately for the police she hadn’t seen or heard anyone else before her dog found the murder victim.

‘Trying to ascertain whether someone could have witnessed something?’ Ainsworth asked, following Brady’s gaze.

‘Yeah, but given the conditions when we came out early this morning, I seriously doubt it.’

‘That’s not to say someone wouldn’t have heard something,’ Ainsworth replied.

‘Maybe,’ muttered Brady.

Brady looked up towards the dirt track. He could just make out the road and the traffic lights. The depressing Modernist building that was West Monkseaton Metro station loomed on the other side of the road.

‘Give me a bloody minute will you?’ Ainsworth suddenly barked at a SOCO standing nearby. ‘Christ! They’ll expect me to wipe their arses next.’

‘So what have you got for me?’ Brady asked, ignoring Ainsworth’s outburst.

‘Hah!'Ainsworth spluttered. ‘Would have been a lot easier if your lot hadn’t muddied the bloody water. What with Matthews pissing us around by trampling over whatever prints were there and then the idiot goes and finishes the
job by covering her body with his coat. What the bloody hell is that all about then?’

Brady shrugged.

‘I’ll bloody strangle the useless bugger when I get my hands on him!’

Join the queue, thought Brady.

‘But we did find enough blood and flesh to confirm that the murder victim’s face was definitely bludgeoned in situ,’ Ainsworth stated.

Brady turned to him. His gut feeling had told him that Sophie Washington’s body hadn’t been dumped; that this was a murder scene.

‘No weapon yet. But, if it’s been dumped here, we’ll find it,’ Ainsworth promised. ‘From the mess we saw under the UV light, I reckon you could be right about the murderer using any one of the pieces of rubble lying around.’

‘No sign of her mobile?’ Brady asked, knowing the answer.

Ainsworth shook his head.

‘No, but you’ll be the first to know if we find it. However Fielding here has found something that just might interest you,’ he said as he gestured towards the waiting SOCO.

Brady suddenly felt a kick of excitement; it had been a long time since he’d felt this way.

‘Go on then, Fielding, what are you waiting for? A bloody round of applause or what?’ barked Ainsworth.

Brady turned to ask Ainsworth something else but he was already bollocking some other poor sod.

Instead he limped after the SOCO who had started heading off towards the dirt track.

‘So, how do you cope working with a miserable, old bugger like Ainsworth then?’ Brady asked once he’d caught up. He threw in a smile, ignoring his throbbing leg.

‘Oh, he’s not so bad. You eventually get used to it,’ the SOCO replied, pulling off her face mask.

‘Can’t breathe in these things,’ she explained, smiling.

She then pulled back the suit’s white hood and shook free her short, ruffled black hair.

She playfully ran her fingers through her hair as she smiled at him.

He couldn’t help but stare into her bright, green eyes. They sparkled with mischief.

‘So, what is it that you’re supposed to be showing me?’ Brady asked.

‘That depends on you,’ she said suggestively.

‘Jack! Jack!’ Ainsworth panted out from behind them.

‘Damn,’ she said, hearing Ainsworth’s voice. ‘What if you take me out for a drink and then I’ll show you?’ she suggested flirtatiously.

Brady felt awkward. For once he didn’t know what to say. His conversation with Claudia earlier had thrown him, and he could still feel the physical pain of her rejection.

‘When?’ she asked with a coy smile.

‘When?’ Brady repeated, feeling like an idiot.

He ran his slender, long hand through his dark hair as he smiled at her, embarrassed.

She seductively returned the smile, slowly taking in his prominent cheekbones and strong, rugged chin. She then looked up at his deep, penetrating, dark brown eyes.

‘When are you going to take me out for a drink?’ she urged as Ainsworth’s stocky figure closed in on them. ‘I know now isn’t exactly the best time to ask but in this job there never is a good time,’ she added, lightly smiling.

‘I’m a little stretched right now,’ he replied apologetically.

The last thing he wanted to say was that he wasn’t over his wife yet.

‘Fielding, what the bloody hell are you playing at?’ barked Ainsworth. ‘Haven’t you shown him yet?’

‘No sir,’ she answered.

‘Bloody typical. Can’t get any of you lot to do what I ask! If I want something done I have to do it myself,’ Ainsworth complained. ‘Go do something useful for a bloody change.’

‘Yes sir,’ Fielding replied. ‘See you later,’ she added, as she smiled at Brady before leaving.

‘Don’t bother, Jack!’ Ainsworth threatened. ‘She works for me, remember. I want her mind on the job, not you. So forget it.’

‘What do you take me for?’ Brady questioned as he shot Ainsworth a look.

‘For the dog that you are, Jack.’

Brady didn’t bother arguing. It was clear Ainsworth had heard the rumours about Claudia leaving him because of his loss of judgement when it had come to DC Simone Henderson. Brady accepted that his failed private life was common knowledge in North Tyneside.

‘Right, back to business. This way,’ Ainsworth brusquely added.

He followed Ainsworth feeling disgusted with himself for losing his head when it had come to a colleague; a junior one at that. It had cost him more than he could ever have imagined.

‘This is what I want to show you,’ Ainsworth said turning back to Brady.

He looked up and realised that Ainsworth had crossed over the dirt track and was now on a grassy bank. It was
overgrown with wild bushes that partially obscured the seven-feet-high wooden fence running the length of the farm. Brady noted that the fence separated the row of semi-detached 1930s houses backing onto the farmland.

He limped over to Ainsworth’s impatient figure and watched as he pulled a clump of wild branches back to reveal a significant gap in the wooden fence, large enough for even Brady to climb through. Brady knelt down and looked through it. A muddy lane led straight out onto Fairfield Drive, the street where the murder victim had lived.

‘Shit,’ muttered Brady.

‘Footprints found here match the boots that your victim was wearing, confirming that she came in this way. And it seems that she was with someone,’ Ainsworth stated. ‘Whether she met them here or she came with them, I can’t say. But by this point,’ Ainsworth gestured to where they stood, ‘she was definitely not on her own.’

Brady raised his eyebrow questioningly.

‘We got a partial handprint on this side of the fence which matches another handprint we found by the body. And we found what we presume to be male footprints given the size here, identical to prints found at the crime scene,’ Ainsworth explained.

Brady’s phone started to ring. He pulled it out of his jacket and looked at the number.

‘Sorry, I need to take this call,’ Brady apologised as he stood up.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ muttered Ainsworth. ‘Any excuse not to work.’

Brady shot him a grin before turning away to answer his phone.

‘Amelia?’

‘You were right about Paul Simmons,’ stated Jenkins.

‘Yeah?’

‘He knew it was his step-daughter as soon as he saw the tattoo. Not that he admitted it. He made out he recognised her from her clothes and hair.’

‘What was his reaction?’ asked Brady.

‘He seemed genuinely shaken.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Are you questioning my judgement?’ asked Jenkins.

‘No … yes … maybe,’ replied Brady.

‘Look, I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you expected to hear.’

‘On the contrary, it is exactly what I expected,’ stated Brady.

It was a cold, simple fact that the first suspects in any child’s murder were the parents.

Brady looked at Louise Simmons. It may have only been 1.37 pm but he couldn’t blame her for the stiff gin and tonic clutched between white-knuckled, trembling hands. She looked like she needed it. Her face was drawn; haggard lines etched their way from under her glazed, icy blue eyes and around her rigid, thin lips. She had cruelly aged since his first visit.

The silence hung heavily in the room. Brady fought the compulsion to get up and throw open the heavy, sumptuous red and gold leaf curtains. The glow from the large Tiffany lamp sat on the ornate antique sideboard failed to penetrate the gloom of the room. Even the coal fire which hissed and spat in the original Edwardian hearth couldn’t take the chill out of the room.

Brady shifted his feet on the polished wooden floor. In front of him was a wide, old wooden chest that served as a coffee table. A heavy, hardback book on the Impressionists was neatly positioned on the chest, along with a book on contemporary art and another on Art Deco. He carefully placed his coffee on the chest, fearful of disturbing the
books on display. Or the large, handmade bowl that was filled with carefully arranged, exotic fruit. Brady now knew that Louise Simmons was an art teacher at a private girls’ school in Jesmond, a sought-after expensive suburb two miles out from the city centre of Newcastle and seven miles inland from Whitley Bay. It explained the books and the eclectic pieces of art work he had noticed covering the walls in the hallway and also in the spacious living room where he was now sat.

Paul Simmons was an IT manager with Sage business and software services in Newcastle. He looked the part: cold, clinical, uptight, arrogant and egotistical. Brady wondered for a moment what it was that had attracted Louise Simmons to her husband? And more to the point what exactly did they have in common? He imagined that Simmons’ arrogance and attitude might have been attractive to begin with, but wondered whether it was starting to wear thin.