Danielle Ramsay - Broken Silence

Brady turned to Conrad.

‘I need you to check out any CCTV footage we have between Earsdon and West Monkseaton. Anything, and I mean anything that looks suspicious you let me know.’

Conrad looked mildly surprised at the request but accepted the order without question.

It was simple. Brady trusted Conrad. He knew that if Conrad found something on CCTV footage that implicated Matthews, he would bring it to him first. Not that he knew what he’d do about it, but at least he’d have time to figure something out. Whereas someone like Adamson would go over his head and take it straight to Gates.

Brady couldn’t help but notice Adamson who was stood watching him against the wall to his right.

‘After interviewing the victim’s classmates we have one name to go on: Shane McGuire,’ stated Brady.

A few hushed voices around the room proved he was well-known to police stations across North Tyneside.

‘Seems he was an ex-boyfriend of the victim’s. I want him found. He’s not at his home address in North Shields and he’s not at his nan’s either. Adamson, I want you to pay a visit to The Sunken Ship and hassle his mother to see if she knows where he could be,’ Brady instructed as his eyes rested on Adamson.

Adamson scowled at the prospect of Wallsend on a Friday night. Worse than that, The Sunken Ship on a Friday night.

Not that it bothered Brady. He was only too glad to give him something to keep him out of the way.

‘I know it’s a shit job, but someone’s got to do it. And make sure you take someone with you for back-up.’

Brady knew the flak he would get; the place would be heaving with drunken thugs, ready to have a go at the police just for the hell of it. Whitley Bay had its problems all right, but Wallsend was the land that civilisation forgot. More so, where The Sunken Ship was concerned, known locally as the Hole. McGuire’s mother worked there most nights. She had a habit to feed, never mind her son, and with a henchman for a husband serving time for some particularly nasty crimes, she had no choice but to offer all shehad left; her body. It was the crassest of places where women with needle-riddled, fake-tan-smeared bodies danced in cages suspended from the ceiling.

The last time Brady was in the Hole, it wasn’t money the men threw at the lap dancers, it was cigarette butts and whatever dregs of beer they had left. And spit wasn’t the only body fluid the women found themselves being covered in. No, the Hole wasn’t known for its refinement, it was what it sounded like; a hell hole.

‘Can I take Dr Jenkins with me? From what I’ve heard of McGuire’s mother it might be useful to have a woman of Dr Jenkins’ skill on side to help question her,’ Adamson asked as he looked across at Jenkins.

Brady knew from the look on Adamson’s face that he was trying to wind Brady up. The problem was it was working.

Brady was about to say no, but Jenkins beat him to it.

‘I’ve got no problem with it, unless you have?’ Jenkins questioned as she looked at Brady.

He was thrown. He hadn’t expected her to want to be within a mile of The Sunken Ship on a Friday night. He refrained from telling her that if she walked in there, the punters wouldn’t let her walk out, that was a certainty.

‘You haven’t got a problem with that, have you, Jack?’ asked Jenkins.

‘I’m just not sure it’s the sort of place you should be going,’ Brady replied.

‘And why is that?’ quizzed Jenkins as she locked eyes with him.

‘The punters there aren’t exactly the kind of people you’re used to dealing with,’ replied Brady, aware that the whole room was watching. Including Adamson who was clearly enjoying the awkward situation he’d placed Brady in.

The last thing Brady wanted to be accused of was sexism. But even he wouldn’t willingly go in there and that was saying something given his background.

‘If I’m part of this investigation, then it means I get given the same crap meted out to everyone else. It might surprise you, but I can cope with a lot worse than a few drunken men in a strip bar,’ coolly answered Jenkins.

Brady could tell from her expression that she wasn’t going to back down.

‘Fine, accompany DS Adamson,’ he conceded. ‘But just watch yourself.’

There was a reason this place was hidden down by Wallsend docks. And if Jenkins wanted to find out why, then who was he to stop her?

Brady turned and looked at the whiteboard behind him. He pointed at the photograph taken of the victim’s tattoo.

‘We need to know which tattoo parlour is responsible for this,’ Brady said. ‘Two reasons,’ Brady added. ‘The tattoo’s fairly recent, so there’s a chance she went with this older boyfriend. Also, we want to know which stupid buggers would tattoo a fifteen-year-old without checking for ID.’

‘Whoever did it obviously didn’t realise how young she was,’ stated Jenkins.

Brady couldn’t disagree. He had seen the body at the crime scene and had, as they all had, mistaken her for a young woman in her late teens to early twenties.

‘Yeah, but I still think they should be shaken up a bit. There’s a reason that you’re meant to be over eighteen.’

Brady rested his eye on DSs Daniels and Kenny.

‘Tomorrow you two check out all the tattoo shops in thearea. But right now your job is to find our missing lad, McGuire. Check out the local haunts in Whitley Bay and also do a round of the pubs down North Parade.’

Brady could see Daniels and Kenny both wincing at the thought of checking out the pubs in North Parade. Most of the drinkers in North Parade had travelled there for the weekend looking for trouble. And two plain-clothes coppers asking questions were easy targets.

‘Can I say a few words, Jack?’ asked Jenkins as she stood up.

Brady nodded and sat down. He knew what she wanted to say, having already briefed him earlier.

Jenkins moved over to the whiteboard.

‘I know that we’re looking for someone known to the victim,’ Jenkins began as she turned from the board and faced the room.

‘The modus operandi tells us that Sophie Washington knew her attacker. There was no struggle, at least not until she was being choked which suggests that she knew whoever did this to her and she trusted them.’

Jenkins paused as she looked back at the whiteboard.

‘She either met her attacker at the crime scene or went willingly to the location with them. Forensics found no marks on the ground to indicate that she had been dragged or dumped there.’

She turned and briefly caught Brady’s eye.

‘The reason I’m going over what DI Brady has already effectively said is that the gravity of the attack to her face concerns me. And I think we can be blinded into thinking this is just overkill, which you’ll all be familiar with, is any effort that goes beyond what is necessary to kill the victim. I’m presuming most of you will be surmising that it wasthis unidentified boyfriend of hers who killed her and then mutilated her face afterwards?’ Jenkins asked.

The consenting grumbles around the room confirmed her suspicions.

‘What I’m asking of you is to think out of the box for a moment. Think about why her murderer chose to specifically attack her face.’

The silence was heavy and awkward. Brady could see that no one was quite understanding Jenkins’ point.

‘Maybe he was the jealous sort? For all we know she could have been playing around and he’d found out?’ suggested Adamson.

‘Maybe. But why not mutilate her breasts and private parts? Why specifically her face and to such a degree of destruction?’

Adamson shrugged.

‘You tell me, Doctor?’ he said, smiling.

‘That’s the point, I can’t. The attack to her face is definitely overkill, but not the kind I’d expect from a boyfriend. This is different. This hints of repressed anger and jealousy towards the victim. As we can see she was a very pretty young woman,’ Jenkins pointed out as she looked at the photograph of Sophie Washington on the whiteboard.