Broken Silence (22 page)

He still couldn’t get hold of Matthews. But that wasn’t his only concern.

He steeled himself before getting out of the car.

‘Where are you going, sir?’ Conrad called out, confused.

‘To see what those little bastards know about the murder,’ Brady replied before slamming the car door shut.

He wasn’t in the mood for trouble. But the frenzied screaming and high-spirited jeers told him he’d come to the wrong place. He headed through the trees, away from the safety of the street lights towards the pitch-black area that was Whitley Bay Park. It was after 8 pm and no resident or dog walker in their right mind would go near the park at night. The raucous shouting and swearing started to get louder as Brady closed in.

‘What the fuck do you want, mister? Looking for a fucking shag? Is that it?’ shouted one lad before he cockily dragged on his cigarette.

He instinctively yanked his hood forward as Brady turned to look at him.

‘It’ll fucking cost you though. My lass ain’t cheap!’

Brady couldn’t help but smile. The scrawny little bugger looked no older than fourteen and here he was giving him lip.

Brady stood his ground, undeterred by the jeers and catcalls coming from the twenty or so teenagers who had now gathered around him. He realised that most of the kids were high; whether it was alcohol or drugs it didn’t matter. The air was thick with the smell of cannabis while cans of cheap lager and bottles of wine clinked as they did the rounds. The outcome was still the same; kids too high to realise the consequences of being off their faces.

Adrenalin surged through Brady as he checked out Conrad’s whereabouts.

He was relieved to see Conrad watching from a safe distance. It was reassuring to know that back-up could be called if things suddenly got out of hand.

‘So, what’s it to be, mister, eh? Twenty quid say?’ leered the lad with the tab.

Brady could smell the cheap beer on the kid’s breath.

‘I just want to ask a couple of questions,’ Brady answered firmly.

‘Nah, mister. Don’t work like that,’ the lad replied with a cold glint in his eye.

He dragged on his tab before handing it to a giggling lass stood nearby.

‘You give me forty quid and maybe I’ll let you go,’ he added menacingly as he pulled a knife out of his sleeve.

‘You don’t want to do that,’ warned Brady.

‘Don’t I?’

‘Fucking shaft the perv!’ excitedly cried the lass as the lad suddenly jumped at Brady, knife outstretched.

Brady deftly grabbed the kid, twisting him into a deadlock before he had a chance to realise what had happened.

‘Ow … you’re fucking psycho you are! Let me go or I’ll fucking kill you!’ rasped the lad as Brady restrained him under his right arm.

‘Drop the knife or I’ll fucking choke it out of you!’ Brady threatened.

The kid limply dropped the blade to the ground. Brady stepped on it, aware that there were twenty more teenagers waiting to finish the job.

‘Fucking let him go, mister!’

‘That’s fucking assault that is! And he’s a fucking kid he is! I’m going to call the fucking police on you!’

‘I am the fucking police! And if you don’t want me nicking the lot of you, you’ll bugger off!’ Brady ordered as he gestured towards Conrad’s waiting figure.

He watched as the kids belligerently dispersed, mouthing off as they went.

‘Ahhh … you bastard! You’re fucking choking me!’ the lad hissed, as he struggled in vain to get free.

‘What do you know about Sophie Washington?’ Brady demanded.

‘I don’t fucking know nowt!’

‘Try harder,’ Brady suggested as he tightened his grip.

The kid started spluttering and kicking.

‘Let him go, will you?’ cried out the lass still holding his tab.

Brady ignored her.

‘She used to come down here with her mate, all right?’ he spluttered.

Brady already knew who the mate was without asking.

‘Was she here last night?’

‘Nah, haven’t seen her around for a while.’

‘Did she have any boyfriends that you know of?’

‘Who knows? She was a right fucking slapper she was! Half of Whitley have shagged her!’

Brady relaxed his grip on the kid. He fell to the ground.

‘You fucking need your head seeing you do!’ screeched his lass.

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

Brady turned to the kid as he started to get to his feet.

‘You’re coming with me,’ Brady ordered.

‘I’m going nowhere, you fucking pig!’

Brady suddenly felt something hard and jagged hit his forehead.

‘You little shit!’ Brady swore as he realised that the kid had got him good.

Before the kid had a chance to leg it, Brady grabbed him.

‘Taken to beating up kids now have we, sir?’ Conrad asked as Brady dragged the reluctant youth over to the car.

‘Other way round. Little shit got me a good one,’ Brady said as he pressed his shirt sleeve to his bleeding forehead.

‘You want to get that seen to,’ Conrad suggested as he took a look at the cut.

‘It’s nothing,’ Brady muttered.

He had more to worry about than a wound.

‘You sure about this, sir?’ Conrad asked as he sceptically looked at the kid.

‘Yeah, he knows something all right!’

‘How can you be certain?’ asked Conrad.

‘Because that’s bloody Shane McGuire.’

‘Bloody hell, Jack! What happened to you?’ asked Turner as Brady limped into the station.

Brady shrugged.

‘See if you can get hold of a social worker for me, will you?’

‘Why would you—’ Turner stopped short when Conrad came through the double doors with the lad.

‘What the bloody hell have you done this time, McGuire?’ Turner demanded as he raised his bushy, white eyebrows at the kid.

‘Pissed me off,’ muttered Brady.

‘Aye, I can see that, bonny lad,’ answered Turner as he shook his head at the nasty cut above Brady’s left eye.

‘Why the fuck should I talk to you? You fucking wanker,’ growled Shane McGuire.

Brady casually leaned back against his chair.

‘You wait till my fucking dad hears about this, then you’ll fucking see!’ McGuire threatened.

‘Where is your old man again? That’s right, he’s banged
up. So tell me, what’s he going to do to me from behind bars?’

The social worker that Turner had called in gave Brady a withering look.

Brady returned it with a lame smile. He’d worked with Linda Johnson on numerous occasions. She knew what hardened little buggers they were as much as Brady did. She was under no illusions; unlike some of the newly qualified bloody do-gooders.

‘Can we cut straight to the point, DI Brady?’ Linda asked as she raised a narrow pencilled eyebrow at him. ‘It is a Friday night after all.’

‘Sure, but I reckon you should be telling McGuire here that,’ Brady replied.

McGuire responded by spitting a glob of phlegm at Brady.

It missed and hit the table in front of him.

‘So, let’s go over last night again, shall we?’ Brady repeated.

‘Like I said, I was at home with my nan,’ McGuire cockily replied. ‘So you’ve got nowt on me!’

‘Apart from your girlfriend’s murder.’

McGuire sucked in air.

‘She wasn’t my fucking girlfriend …’ he nervously replied.

‘What was she then? Just some shag?’

‘You fucking know nowt!’ McGuire replied edgily.

Brady raised a sceptical eyebrow.

‘What about these then?’ Brady asked as he laid out photographs.

‘Where the fuck did you get those?’ McGuire spat as he snatched the photos.

Brady shrugged.

McGuire quickly flicked through the digital images of him and Sophie.

‘So fucking what? It wasn’t as if we were serious or nowt. We both just hung out sometimes. There was nowt in it!’

‘But now’s she dead,’ Brady stated.

‘Look, I haven’t seen Sophie for a while now. All right?’

‘What happened? Another schoolgirl catch your eye?’ Brady asked laconically.

‘It’s none of your business. Anyhows, she and her mate always had booze on them, and weed. So don’t fucking make out she was innocent. Cos she was far from fucking innocent!’

‘That’s what you say, McGuire. But who’s going to believe a seventeen-year-old lad on remand caught out having sex with an underage girl?’

‘Wasn’t fucking like that! And anyhows, do you think I was the only lad that fucked her? Nah, fucking off her head most of the time. She was well mental,’ McGuire retaliated.

‘What do you mean?’

‘She was mental like. You know? Always fucking extreme she was. That’s why she stopped hanging out at the park cos it wasn’t fucking good enough for her any more. Crazy fucking cow,’ said McGuire resentfully.

‘Where did she go then?’

‘Soon as she realised she could get into the pubs in Whitley she was off,’ muttered McGuire.

He slouched forward and held his head in his hands as he stared down at the table.

‘Fucking knew she’d end up like this. It was only a matter of time. The stupid bitch!’ McGuire’s voice cracked and gave way.

‘Why?’ Brady asked, surprised that Sophie Washington had managed to get under Shane McGuire’s thick skin. It was clear that he felt more for the victim than he was letting on.

‘Cos she was fucking well mental! Ask that mate of hers, she’ll tell you,’ McGuire muttered.

‘That’s exactly what I plan on doing,’ replied Brady evenly as he stood up to leave. ‘Oh yeah, and Shane?’

He looked up at Brady resentfully.

‘Tell your mam I was asking after her.’

‘Fuck you!’ McGuire replied scornfully as he kicked out at the table.

Brady barely recognised his kitchen. Gone were the pizza boxes and Chinese and Indian take-out cartons. Also, the two months’ worth of empty Peroni lager bottles and whisky quarts had disappeared, leaving behind an unrecognisable, clean granite work surface. The Belfast sink had been emptied of all its debris, as had the dishwasher. The place smelled clean for a change.

Brady felt uneasy. It was no longer his home.

He quickly turned as Kate walked into the kitchen.

‘Your girlfriend left her number for you,’ she said coldly before he had a chance to talk.

‘Oh fuck …’ Brady mumbled.

She looked at him, expecting a better answer. She caught sight of the gash above his eye and resisted the temptation to ask if he was all right.

‘Kate … I want to apologise for—’

‘I’d rather you got on with what you came here for,’ she interrupted.

‘Yeah, sure …’ mumbled Brady.

When Claudia had left she had pretty much stripped the house while he had lain in hospital recovering from his gunshot wound. He had made do with a beat-up leather sofa and a scuffed, worn-out armchair and the other bits of crap Claudia had seen as unworthy of taking. Including his eclectic vinyl collection which included original recordings of Bessie Smith and Jelly Roll Morton.

He looked around the living room. It certainly looked different from the chaos he’d left it in this morning. The empty bottles and ashtrays that had littered the place had been removed. The wooden floor had been washed and the fireplace had been cleaned out. Logs of damp wood had been replaced by a lazily burning fire.

Brady had never known Kate to be remotely interested in cleaning and put her nervous energy down to recent events. Like him, she still hadn’t heard from Matthews. But she knew enough to realise that this time Matthews was in over his head. And then there was the unthinkable; the murder of her daughter’s best friend.

He sighed wearily and rubbed his tired face. He hated the way things were between them. He wondered if she would even tell him if Matthews were to contact her?

A lot had changed.

Brady heard footsteps and turned to see Evie standing in the doorway looking apprehensive. Kate stood behind her.

‘I’ll be in the kitchen if you want me,’ Kate stated, not giving Brady a chance to object.

He watched as she disappeared leaving him with Evie.

Brady noticed that she looked worse than she did this morning. Her hair was uncombed and her face hadn’t been washed. Old mascara was smudged and embedded around
her distrustful eyes. When had she started wearing make-up, Brady wondered, let alone drinking and smoking? He didn’t want to think about the sex.

He ran a hand over his stubble as he watched Evie sit down.

‘Look … Evie … I know this is difficult but I really do need to ask you a few more questions about Sophie,’ Brady tentatively began.

She stared down at her iPhone, avoiding his gaze.

‘Why didn’t you tell me she had a boyfriend?’ Brady asked gently.

He waited a few moments.

‘Evie?’

‘I … I … didn’t think,’ she mumbled as she distractedly touched the screen of her phone.

‘What did she tell you about him?’

‘Nothing …’ she muttered.

‘Come on, Evie, she must have told you something about him? His age, what he looked like, even what music he was into? Something?’ Brady lightly prompted, desperate for the slightest clue.

Evie slowly shook her head.

‘He’d made her swear to keep quiet.’

‘But you were her best friend? Surely she would tell you?’

She bit her lip as she concentrated on bringing up some music on her iPhone.

‘Evie, you must know something. I mean, even your classmates knew that Sophie was seeing an older guy?’

‘Yeah? So? Sophie saw a lot of guys,’ she casually stated as she continued to play with her iPhone.

Brady patiently watched her.

‘Evie?’ Brady questioned, trying to get her attention.

She purposely ignored him and continued to mess around with her phone.

‘For fuck’s sake, Evie! This isn’t a game. Someone murdered Sophie for Christ’s sake! And there’s a good chance it was this man she was seeing! So put the bloody phone down will you?’

Brady’s gut instinct had told him this was no Shane McGuire they were dealing with; it was definitely a man. The sexual acts detailed on her blog told him as much.