Danielle Ramsay - Broken Silence

‘I see,’ Brady stiffly replied. ‘Thanks for letting me know, Charlie.’

He sighed heavily as he disconnected the call.

‘Bad news?’ Conrad asked as he set the alarm on his car.

‘I don’t know,’ reflected Brady.

He decided to worry about it later. If it had been that important she would have rung him rather than going through the station.

First he had to see exactly what had happened to Shane McGuire.

Chapter Forty-Three

Someone had done a good job, Brady had to concede.

Shane McGuire was an ugly sight. His face was so swollen and disfigured it was difficult to know whether it was really him.

Tubes protruded from his scrawny arms while multiple wires fed back to various bleeping machines.

Brady wasn’t surprised. He had read McGuire’s medical report and even though he wasn’t a doctor, he recognised enough to know it didn’t look good.

McGuire had four broken ribs, one of which had punctured his right lung. His nose, left arm and right leg were broken, as was his back in two places. His spleen had also been ruptured and he had suffered significant internal bleeding.

McGuire moaned as he tried to open his swollen eyes.

‘Shane pet, Jack Brady’s here. I want you to tell him who did this to you,’ Trina gently asked.

‘Tell him to fuck off. I told you there’s nothing to tell,’ whispered McGuire hoarsely.

‘For fuck’s sake, Shane! Whoever did this tried to kill you!’

‘I told ye, Mam, I didn’t see ‘em,’ moaned McGuire.

‘This is your fault!’ accused Trina McGuire as she spun round on her four-inch stilettos.

‘Look … I’m really sorry about Shane but I don’t see how—’

Trina McGuire cut Brady off.

‘Of course you don’t cos you lot think you can throw your weight around wherever you want, regardless of the consequences for people like me and my Shane!’

‘I’m really sorry that this has happened, but I don’t see the connection,’ Brady replied firmly.

‘Then maybe you should think twice about dragging him off in front of his mates to the police station for questioning, eh? Makes him look like a fuckin’ grass or someit! No surprise he then gets given a beating if they think he’s been talking to you lot!’

‘Look, Mrs McGuire—’

‘Fuck me! Listen to you! Detective Inspector Jack Brady! You wouldn’t think he’d grown up with the likes of me? Would you?’ she asked sarcastically as she turned to Conrad.

Conrad stepped back.

Brady couldn’t blame him. She may have only been five feet four and six stone if that, but she was dangerous.

Trina McGuire threw back her long, glossy blonde hair as she turned her attention back to Brady.

He was unfortunate enough to have known her from a previous life. She had caught his eye, just as she had caught many men’s roving eyes at the time. Growing up she had blossomed into a remarkable beauty, somehow avoiding absorbing the ugly harshness of the Ridges. But now, years later, she epitomised it. She still had a ‘heroin chic’ beauty about her, but even with the liberal make-up, it was fading fast. A poverty-stricken, desperate junkie, who didn’t havea hope in hell of getting out. The best thing she had ever done in her life was lying in a hospital bed with the shit kicked out of him.

‘You’re bloody lucky your brother’s not still around. He’d soon sort you out.’

Brady kept quiet. He knew they had once been an item and that she blamed Brady for him leaving the North East and ultimately her, behind. But that was years ago. He had gone to London to get away from the fact that Brady was a copper. Not that Brady could blame him. He was secretly relieved that his brother had made that decision, otherwise it would have been Brady who would have had to put some distance between them.

‘Shane?’ Brady said, deciding it was time to leave.

The last thing he wanted was Trina McGuire bringing up the past: his past. Not in front of Conrad.

‘Listen, if you decide you want to talk, just let me know. Here’s my number, yeah?’

‘Fuck off will ye? And take yer fuckin’ number with ye?’ said McGuire, thickly.

Brady ignored him and left his business card on the kid’s bedside table.

‘Take care,’ Brady said, looking at Trina McGuire.

‘Save it, Jack. We both know you don’t mean it,’ she replied. ‘And you tell that little shit Adamson that his days are numbered. No one treats me like a piece of fuckin’ shit. Especially not a copper!’

Chapter Forty-Four

‘Who’s the lucky woman then?’ asked Conrad as he pulled out of the hospital car park.

‘No one you know,’ Brady replied quietly.

He looked down at the wilting bunch. The hospital gift shop wasn’t exactly Interflora, but it was the best he could do considering the circumstances.

‘Do you mind driving to Whitley Bay Cemetery first? There’s something I need to do,’ Brady asked softly as he avoided looking at Conrad.

‘Sure,’ answered Conrad, suddenly feeling like an idiot.

They drove along in concentrated silence.

Conrad felt too uncomfortable to make small talk. Not that it mattered. Brady was too preoccupied to even realise.

Brady looked out at the bleak, depressing coastline. The brooding, dirty-grey sea looked as unwelcoming as ever. He watched as dog walkers braved the constant drizzle and the North East winds whipping in from the Arctic.

Conrad pulled in behind the row of solemn cars parked outside the cemetery gates.

‘I’ll wait here, shall I?’ suggested Conrad.

‘Yeah, I won’t be long,’ answered Brady.

‘Take as long as you like, sir,’ replied Conrad.

‘Thanks,’ Brady said appreciatively before closing the car door.

He pulled his beat-up leather jacket tight around his body in a miserable attempt to ward off the sub-zero freezing wind and rain. He looked across towards St Mary’s lighthouse. The tall, white Victorian structure bleakly held out against the blackening sky while the sea raged at the battered rock on which it stood.

He let his gaze drift over to Feather’s caravan site which sat on the remote edge of Whitley Bay with unblemished views of the lighthouse and the sea on one side and wild fields and open countryside on the other. Who in their right mind would come to blustery, miserable Whitley Bay? questioned Brady. But the caravan site was popular. Who with, Brady had no idea, but it was the last standing testimony that Whitley Bay had once been a lively family holiday resort and not the binge drinking paradise and gang fighting haven it had now become.

The caravan park and the miniature golf course were all that was left, everything else had gone. The bucket and spade shops with lettered rock and candy floss had long since been boarded up. As had the amusement arcades and finally, the Spanish City fairground. A primary school had ironically replaced the ‘Corkscrew’ roller coaster, along with the ghost train and waltzers that had lurched and twisted as kids, himself included, had shrieked in stomach-churning delight.

Brady turned the collar of his jacket up against the stabbing rain and headed through the black wrought-iron gates of the cemetery. He nodded dolefully at the undertaker sat grim and irritable behind the wheel of his loaded hearse. Ahead of him a funeral had overrun. Like life, even in deathnothing was ever straightforward, Brady mused as he walked past, head down.

He turned off, avoiding the straggling mourners coming out of the chapel, and limped along the familiar row of headstones and cherubs. Brady counted his steps as he had done as a child. He reached twenty and stopped dead. Someone had got there before him.

An extravagant bouquet of white orchid lilies stood out amidst the sea of grey stone. Brady sucked in. He knew who had beaten him to it and had at the same time unwittingly outdone him. Embarrassed, Brady looked down at the cheerless hospital flowers in his hand. He thought the better of chucking them and instead, painfully knelt down and placed them on the ground in front of the headstone.