Danielle Ramsay - Broken Silence

Brady didn’t know what to say.

They both knew the reality for coppers who found themselves on the wrong side of the bars. He’d tried for the past hour to get Matthews to open up. But he wouldn’t. He had decided on his right to silence until convicted. And with the amount of evidence they had stacked up against him, his conviction looked an absolute certainty. Forensics had pulled out all the stops since Matthews’ arrest. Gates had called the whole team back in, regardless of hangovers and sleep deprivation. There was an eerie disquiet around the station. Everyone found it hard to believe that Matthews could have murdered the girl but the evidence looked indisputable. Ainsworth’s team had found DNA from the victim in Matthews’ car on both the passenger and the driver’s seat. The victim’s hair, tissue and blood had been scraped up, presumably contaminated by Matthews when he had left the murder scene. It was no surprise when the blood on his shirt matched the victim’s.

‘Tell me one thing. Did you know? Had Jimmy confided in you?’ asked Gates.

‘No sir,’ answered Brady.

‘If I find out that you’re lying to me, Jack, you’ll be facing more than just a disciplinary hearing,’ Gates threatened as his cold, detached eyes bored into him.

Brady hazarded a guess that Matthews’ sudden role in the murder had managed to scupper Gates’ newfound chances of promotion.

Brady held Gates’ scrutinising stare.

‘Get out of my sight, Jack. I don’t want to see your face in front of me again until you’ve succeeded in getting Jimmy to talk. Understand?’ Gates demanded.

‘Perfectly, sir,’ Brady replied.

He turned and limped towards the door.

He couldn’t shake his instinct that Matthews was hiding something from him. Worse, he couldn’t shift the nagging doubt that he was innocent. But then, why wasn’t he talking? The only answer that came to mind was that he was protecting someone. And it definitely wasn’t Ellison. Matthews had made it quite clear that he would have been prepared to let Ellison go down for murder; regardless of whether he actually killed her.

The question Brady had to figure out was who? He already had an idea who it might be, but as of yet, he couldn’t bring himself to seriously consider it.

‘And Simmons?’ called out Gates before Brady walked through the door.

‘About to interview him now, sir.’

‘Just make sure you nail the bastard!’ Gates added.

Simmons’ solicitor had kicked off big-time and had threatened to publicly humiliate Northumbria Police over their treatment of his client. Problem for Brady was that Simmons’ solicitor was Claudia.

To add to his problems Gates had been dragged in front of the Chief Constable to explain why Simmons was planning on suing the force for inappropriate handling of his step-daughter’s murder. The fact that he had been treated as a prime suspect hadn’t helped. Brady knew it was his fault that Gates’ integrity had been called into question. It was down to his dealings with Simmons, and it was his dealings alone that would clear Gates’ name with the Chief Constable.

‘The evidence alone will do that, sir,’ Brady quietly replied.

He had repeatedly pushed Jed to continue searching Simmons’ hard drive, refusing to accept defeat. He had had a gut feeling that Simmons was sexually abusing his step-daughter and had been since she was eleven years old. Forty-eight hours later and with the murder investigation coming to a close, he had finally received a call from Jed giving him the ammunition to bring Simmons back in. Brady had been certain that once his hunch about Paul Simmons had been vindicated he would rest easy. But the sickening reality couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

‘You bastard! This better be good or you’ll find yourself out of a job!’ threatened Simmons as Brady walked into the interview room.

‘Do you know what bloody time it is? I was dragged out of my bed at seven on a Sunday morning and forced to sit for nearly three hours in one of your holding cells like a criminal waiting for you to bloody roll into work!’

Brady ignored him and instead turned to Simmons’ solicitor. He was expecting Claudia and was both surprised and equally disappointed to find Michael Travers in her place. He realised this was her way of saying it was over. And what better way of delivering that message than through Travers? She knew he hated the uptight, arrogant bugger. And Claudia knew he had every reason to, especially when Travers was trying his damned best to seduce her.

Brady resisted the urge to wipe the arrogant smile off Travers’ tanned, almost triumphant face.

‘I hope for your sake, DI Brady, that you’ve brought my client in to apologise!’ Travers stated abruptly.

‘For?’ asked Brady.

‘Oh for goodness sake! Don’t play the idiot with me. I’ve already put in an official complaint about your unfoundedallegations against my client and his step-daughter,’ Michael Travers said irritably. ‘So don’t push me.’

Brady couldn’t help but smile.

‘Aren’t you forgetting the claim for damages that you’ve lodged? How much exactly is it that your client’s suing Northumbria Police for?’ asked Brady.

‘I don’t expect to sit here and be insulted. Be warned, DI Brady, if this is some cheap stunt of yours then mark my words, I’ll have you.’

‘Oh we can do better than some cheap stunt, can’t we, DS Conrad?’ said Brady as Conrad sat down beside him.

‘Yes sir,’ replied Conrad as he placed a file on the table.

‘What’s this?’ demanded Travers, his voice losing its self-assured edge.

‘This,’ Brady said gesturing at the file, ‘shows what kind of a man you’re representing.’

‘Get to the point,’ demanded Travers impatiently.

Brady looked at Simmons.

‘I accept that you didn’t murder your step-daughter, sir,’ Brady began. ‘But I’m sure a jury will agree that what you did to her over a period of four years is worse than what she suffered in those last moments before she died.’

‘This is ridiculous! What kind of unfounded allegation is that?’ spluttered Travers.

‘It’s not unfounded as you’ll find out soon enough,’ Brady answered as he turned to Travers.

Brady could see that the solicitor was worried. His voice had lost its slick, arrogant Oxbridge edge.

‘Let me see that,’ ordered Travers as he gestured towards the file.

‘Be my guest,’ offered Brady as he picked up the file.

But instead of handing the file over, Brady opened it andstarted to carefully place the contents in front of Simmons and his solicitor.

‘What exactly is this, DI Brady?’ demanded Travers as he quickly took in the stark photographs.

Taken aback, he turned and looked at his client whose face had turned white.

‘Don’t say a word. Understand?’ Travers quickly instructed.

Simmons stared at the photos incredulously, not believing what was in front of him.

‘But … it was—’

‘Encrypted?’ finished off Brady. ‘Message from our computer forensic officer – if you are going to encrypt something, don’t use anything based on dictionary words.’

Simmons stared at Brady numbly.

‘It took a while but our forensic officer’s password cracker got it in the end,’ added Brady. ‘One thing I can say about Jed is, he doesn’t give up easily.’

Brady smiled as he looked at Simmons.

‘Suddenly you’ve gone very quiet, sir. Maybe you’ve decided that suing us for wrongful arrest isn’t such a lucrative prospect any more?’

‘I … I can’t see what you’re getting at here, DI Brady?’ interrupted Travers uncomfortably.