Danielle Ramsay - Broken Silence

‘Then I see Sophie stagger into the club on some sick bastard’s arm,’ continued Matthews. ‘I did what any father would have done and prised her away from him and tried to persuade her to let me take her home,’ Matthews explained.

‘But when she wouldn’t leave I was stupid enough to think of it as the perfect opportunity to see Madley’s setup for myself. I’d seen the businessmen coming and going upstairs for the sex trade he had going on. So I pretended I wanted to use one of Madley’s private rooms I’d heard about on the third and fourth floor for sex with her. I … I used her. I used Sophie as a cover …’

He shook his head as he looked at Brady.

‘But Madley didn’t trust me. He’d cleared my debts. All of them, and more,’ Matthews mused bitterly.

‘He obviously realised that I had a lot to gain if I could get something over him. And I was still a copper at the end of the day … one who would be indebted to him for years unless …’ Matthews faltered. ‘And then, there I am in his office, begging him for a private room upstairs so I could have something over him for a change. And he knew it. He knew he had me just where he wanted. I realised in that moment that I couldn’t do it any more. I hated myself for what I’d become and I knew then that I had to get out from under Madley. I had already noticed that the safe had been left open. So when someone came to the office door saying there was a problem downstairs I took my chance at getting my life back. I waited until he’d gone and stuffed as much money as I could down my shirt. I then fastened my suit jacket and put on my overcoat. I went back down into the nightclub and grabbed Sophie and disappeared before Madley realised what I’d done.’

‘You’ve lost me again,’ Brady said.

Matthews looked at him.

‘How were you indebted to Madley?’ Brady asked, confused.

‘Shit, Jack! You must have known. You saw the way I played poker. Didn’t you notice my losing streak?’

Brady nodded.

‘Yeah, but it wasn’t my business to ask where you were getting the money from to continue playing. You’re a grown man, Jimmy,’ Brady defensively answered.

Brady had seen enough men lose everything they owned in the name of poker; himself included. He wasn’t a fool. He’d noticed Matthews’ losing streak; even a blind man would have noticed. But Brady had chosen to ignore the fact that no matter how badly Matthews lost, he always had money for the next game.

‘Yeah? Well, Madley was more compassionate than you. He loaned me money to cover my debts. More than I could ever pay back,’ said Matthews.

‘How much?’

‘Six hundred thousand,’ answered Matthews as he looked Brady in the eye.

‘How the fuck were you going to pay that back?’ asked Brady, stunned.

‘Exactly. Madley had me by the balls!’

‘Oh fuck, Jimmy! Why didn’t you come to me?’

‘And what would you have done?’ asked Matthews bitterly. ‘That’s why I stole that money from him. I wanted to start a new life abroad. I already had my plane ticket bought. I was going to start a new life. As far away from Madley as possible.’

‘Exactly how much did you take?’ Brady asked, not sure if he wanted the answer.

‘Nearly a million. Would you believe it was just sat there in his safe?’ replied Matthews coolly. ‘And there was more. A lot more. I just didn’t want to be greedy.’

He laughed at Brady’s reaction.

‘Now do you believe me about the sex trafficking? Drugs money is nothing compared to what people will pay for illicit sex.’

Brady swallowed hard. He still couldn’t get his head around what Matthews was telling him.

‘Where were you going to go?’ Brady finally asked.

‘Where else? Spain,’ answered Matthews. ‘Tania was going to come with me. She knew exactly what was going on with Madley and she’d suggested that I should steal enough money to get us out of the country, so we could start a new life together.’

‘Did she hide you?’ Brady asked.

Matthews nodded.

‘She has a caravan up by Rothbury. She held on to the money. She exchanged as much as she could into Euros and traveller’s cheques and sorted out the plane tickets while I lay low. We were going to take the rest of the cash and buy a place over in Spain and start again. But the one thing she couldn’t get me was my passport which was in my house.’

Brady looked at him.

‘Initially I panicked. Sophie’s murder threw me. So, I had to do what I could to protect Evie first. Then, when things had calmed down I was going to return to get my passport and get rid of the evidence in my car.’

‘Why didn’t you get rid of the evidence and take it with you when Tania picked you up? I presume she picked you up because you knew at some point we’d be looking for your car?’

‘I just didn’t think straight. I honestly believed I’d be ableto get back in the house. I didn’t realise Madley’s men would be watching it. And I definitely didn’t think I’d find you there.’

Brady sat back and absorbed what Matthews had just told him. He couldn’t figure out how he could just up and leave his family for a new start.

‘What about Kate?’

‘What about her?’ Matthews asked. ‘It’s over with, has been for a long time. But then, you already knew that, didn’t you?’

Brady didn’t answer.

‘If I had only taken Sophie straight home when she had first come into the nightclub, then maybe none of this would have happened.’

Matthews looked at Brady.

‘Oh God, Jack. What have I done?’ he muttered as he held his head in his hands.

Chapter Sixty-Two

Brady stood in the damp drizzling early evening air, too numb to feel the cold. He put a cigarette to his lips as he thought about his next move. Soon, very soon the scavenging rats would be crawling all over the place, wanting photographs, interviews, sordid details. The Press Office at headquarters had already been alerted and damage control was rapidly being set up. Whether it would be enough, Brady wasn’t sure; there was a lot he wasn’t sure about any more.

Brady knew that the press would crucify Louise Simmons. Britain was a blame culture, one very much facilitated by the media. Once Sophie’s pitiful, squalid life had been picked over, fingers would sure enough start pointing at the mother. Brady had seen it before on other child murder cases, where they would find reasons to blame the parents, ignoring the murderer’s part in all of it. But this was different, Paul Simmons had played a big part in Sophie’s demise, as had Louise Simmons. A step-father, who from the moment he had entered her life at the age of eleven had started sexually abusing her, and a mother who had chosen to look the other way. It was easier to knock back a gin and tonic than accept your husband was sexually abusing your eleven-year-old daughter. But it was worse than that, he was sharing his abuse with the world. Years of photographs and films of his sexual exploits had been posted on endless encrypted paedophilic websites, egotistical evidence that had led to his downfall.

Footsteps approached from behind him. Brady didn’t turn round, there was no need; he knew who would be there.

He slowly breathed out. Now all he had to do was wait.

Conrad’s silver Saab slowly turned into the street. Brady threw away his cigarette and resisted the urge to walk back inside.

Instead he watched as Conrad opened the passenger door and gently helped Evie out. She looked a mess; hair uncombed, clothes dishevelled. But it was her face that got to Brady. It was a child’s face. Gone were the smudged telltale signs of make-up and the petulant, defiant hardness of the teenager he’d interviewed, replaced by red, swollen, vulnerable eyes and unnaturally pale cheeks. Brady held his breath; she could have been that skinny kid again with long, dangling pig tails and bleeding, scuffed knees. She was crying, hot, salty tears of remorse. They flowed down her pale face as, trembling, she looked up at the police station. He resisted the urge to go to her and put his arm around her petrified body and tell her it was all going to be all right. But he couldn’t, because he knew it wouldn’t be the truth.