Danielle Ramsay - Broken Silence

‘Shit!’ Brady muttered as he logged onto his laptop. ‘How the hell has she managed to get access to the victim’s sites when we’re meant to have removed them?’

‘I don’t know, Jack. But she did and she’s wanting to publish it.’

He should have expected it. The scavenging rats had grown tired of the scraps thrown to them by the Press Office. Now they were starting to do their own kind of dirty detective work on the victim. Digital door-stepping showed just how low journalists would scrape for a scoop. Refused sordid information from the grieving victim’s family or the police, journalists would take whatever material existed on the Web about the victim, regardless of the impact.

‘It gets worse, Jack. This Jacobs woman is requesting an interview with you. If you don’t then she’s going to publish the girl’s blog entries and some of those photos.’

Brady knew exactly which photos Turner was talking about. He sighed heavily. Harriet Jacobs was the same journalist who had shouted out questions at him about Matthews at the crime scene. She was also responsible for The Evening Chronicle ‘s front-page story suggesting DI Matthews’ suspension somehow implicated him in the murder.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Thanks for letting me know,’ Brady said before putting the phone down.

He looked up to see Conrad walk in.

‘I found nothing on the CCTV footage that’s unusual, sir,’ Conrad informed him.

‘Go on,’ Brady instructed.

‘Well, you can see a young woman walking along the bottom road by Wellfield at roughly the time that the victim left Evie Matthews’ house. From what I can make out it’s her. She’s wearing similar clothes, hairstyle etc. She’s definitely alone and no one seems to be following her. But she does use her phone to call someone.’

‘Thanks, Conrad,’ Brady replied, not knowing whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Brady glanced down at his desk and suddenly remembered what had so riled him before Conrad had walked in.

‘Maybe you can tell me what that bloody woman wants?’ he asked looking up at Conrad.

‘What woman?’ Conrad asked, at a loss.

‘The one who’s intent on losing me my job!’

Conrad still looked puzzled.

Brady had to admit his description didn’t exactly narrow it down; he’d pissed off quite a few people in his time.

‘Some bloody journalist by the name of Harriet Jacobs.’

Conrad shook his head.

‘Never heard of her, sir.’

‘Works for The Evening Chronicle. Wrote that damned front-page story on Matthews being suspended from this murder investigation. What I want to know is who talked to her?’

Conrad looked uncomfortable.

‘Do you know something?’

‘No, just a suspicion,’ Conrad answered.

Brady didn’t have to ask, he already had his own reservations about Adamson.

‘Do me a favour, Conrad, and talk to her will you? Find out exactly what she knows and who’s feeding her this crap?’

‘Yes sir,’ answered Conrad, still at a loss as to why Brady was so uptight.

‘The bugger’s trying to blackmail me into talking to her,’ Brady explained. ‘But I reckon she’ll be more than satisfied when you turn up. Especially after that press conference you did with Gates this afternoon,’ Brady added, with a laconic smile.

Since the press conference, Conrad had been getting ribbed by everyone about his TV performance. But Brady had to admit Conrad had looked the part.

‘I don’t understand. What’s she got over you?’

‘This,’ Brady said as he turned his laptop towards Conrad. ‘She wants to publish everything, including the photos. Unless I talk to her.’

‘I thought Jed had removed her Facebook page and blog?’ Conrad asked, surprised.

‘So did I,’ said Brady.

He watched as Conrad scrolled down Sophie Washington’s blog entries and photos.

Even Conrad seemed as surprised as Brady by the number of tributes posted on the victim’s wall and on her blog. It seemed that bad news travelled fast in the cyberworld. Sophie Washington was now being hailed as a tragic heroine whose short life had been romanticised into something it wasn’t. Brady had gleaned enough unpalatable facts about her life to know the picture these people were painting couldn’t have been further from the truth. But she had nearly a thousand tributes posted on her wall. Brady doubted that most of these people even knew her. But he recognised that Jenkins was right; they’d have to look at every single one of them.

When Conrad had finished reading he looked the way Brady felt.

Brady shook his head.

‘Why is nothing ever straightforward?’ he asked as he stared at a photograph of the victim brazenly downing shots in one of Whitley Bay’s nefarious bars.

The pub was easy to recognise; he’d been in it enough times himself, arresting underage drinkers. But what Brady hadn’t banked on was seeing a photo of Jimmy Matthews’ daughter with the victim, knocking back shots in the same damned bar. Worse than that, Evie Matthews had recently posted it as a tribute to her deceased best friend, Sophie Washington.

Brady had asked Conrad to get the car ready while he made a quick call.

He needed to talk to Jed, their forensic computer analyst. They only had one full-time computer geek. Money was short and Gates was tight which meant that Jed was always up to his knees in work.

Brady listened, unimpressed as Jed tried to bullshit him again with computer jargon.

‘I don’t give a shit about any of that! I want it taken off the net, regardless. I don’t give a damn if the blog’s on American Bloggers! I want it removed!’ Brady insisted. ‘I mean it, Jed, our jobs are on the line here. If any of this stuff gets published it’s not only me who’ll be answering to Gates. You know that don’t you? So tell me why the hell it’s taken so long to remove it?’ he demanded.

‘What do you mean it’s not that easy?’ Brady incredulously asked.

He sighed as Jed started again.

‘Fuck civil liberties and privacy rights and all that crap!’ Brady interrupted, losing his temper. ‘This is a fifteen-year-old girl we’re talking about here. What about her civil liberties and right to privacy now, huh? For fuck’s sake! What about her family’s rights in all of this?’

Brady took a deep breath as Jed kicked off. Brady knew he was one of the best forensic computer analysts around, but he was a pedant when it came to sticking to the rules.

‘Damn it, Jed! Half the shit she posted on her blog is bloody illegal anyway! She was just a kid! And believe me, if those photographs of her getting off her face, never mind the bloody half-naked ones aren’t removed from that site immediately then some bloody unscrupulous paper’s going to have them covering their front page tomorrow. Not to mention Jimmy Matthews’ kid!’

He rubbed his forehead as he listened to Jed’s ever patient voice. Jed often got it in the neck; hazards of the job, Brady presumed. There was a whole cyberworld out there that facilitated the sick and twisted in every imaginable way. It was Jed’s impossible job to nail them with whatever illicit and unsavoury material was stored on their hard drives.

‘What about the victim’s computer and her step-dad’s? Found anything yet?’ Brady asked in vain, hoping for some good news.

‘Yeah, I know you’re backed up,’ he replied, wearily. ‘I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t important. It’s just that I’m waiting to see if anything shows up on Paul Simmons’ computer. I’ve got a feeling about that guy if you get my drift?’

Brady nodded.

‘Yeah, I know it’s a Friday night. And yeah, I do appreciate it.’

He wasn’t angry with Jed. He was angry at the immorality of it all. The fact that depraved journalists could make money out of someone else’s misery was beyond him. Especially when it involved a fifteen-year-old murdered girl.