Danielle Ramsay - Broken Silence

He swallowed hard. Where had it all gone wrong for her? he thought, as he questioned the enormity of what he had just done.

He had been playing the ‘what if’ game from the moment Conrad had gone to bring her in. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut and let Matthews go down for it? Worse still, should he have let Ellison take the blame? As Matthews had pointedly said, Ellison deserved a hell of a lot morethan the courts would mete out; a sexual relationship with his fifteen-year-old student didn’t warrant much punishment. Not in today’s world. So maybe he should have let him take the bullet? These were questions that he couldn’t get out of his head. If he had had his way, he would have let Simmons go down for it. Brady had seen the sick material he had filmed of his step-daughter, disturbing evidence that would have turned most people’s stomachs. But Brady was a realist. he knew the judicial system well enough to know that Simmons would go down for a good few years, given the horrific nature of his sexual abuse.

But it was all a moot point now. Whether he had made the right choice, he couldn’t say. All he knew was that he had done his job.

Ashamed, Brady turned away as Conrad and Claudia accompanied Evie, now crying uncontrollably, up the ramp. Distraught, Kate followed behind.

‘I … I … didn’t mean it to happen …’ sobbed Evie as she stopped in front of Brady.

Her pale face was filled with regret; genuine, raw regret.

‘I know,’ he quietly acknowledged, wishing there was more he could say.

‘I … I … don’t know why I did it … I honestly didn’t want to hurt her … not Sophie …’ she faltered as tears choked her words. ‘But… but she just got to me. Made me so mad that I … I just saw red and then … I didn’t realise what I’d done until it was too late.’

‘I know you didn’t,’ gently replied Brady.

She looked up at him with surprise as tears streamed down her face, realising that he believed her.

‘We were both drunk and we started arguing and then … she said some horrible things about… about me… and about her and Mr Ellison and and then my dad and her so I … I …’ she faltered as her words were replaced by choking sobs.

Brady watched as Conrad took Evie firmly by her convulsing shoulders and walked her through the double, wooden doors of the station.

Brady looked at Claudia.

‘Thanks for doing this.’

‘I’m not doing this for you, Jack. I’m doing this for Evie,’ Claudia replied.

‘I know …’ muttered Brady looking away.

‘Jack?’

He looked at her.

They were both hurting. They had known Evie from when she had been a little girl. Neither one could believe life had turned out like this for her, or for them come to that.

He suddenly took hold of her hands.

‘Claudia …’ he gently said. He didn’t know what more to say to keep her there.

She looked up at him, not resisting his hold over her.

‘Maybe I should take that job offer?’ she said.

He searched her face, surprised.

He didn’t need to ask what had changed her mind. He knew that what had happened with Evie Matthews had somehow forced them back together. Whether it meant that she would consider being a part of his life again didn’t matter, not yet. What counted was that she was going to be back in the North East. It was a start.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘Later, OK?’

Brady nodded and let her hands go. He watched, impotent, as she disappeared.

A few seconds later he realised that Kate was stood beside him.

‘What’s going to happen to her?’ she asked.

Brady numbly shook his head, unable to look her in the eye. It was a closed case. The evidence was conclusive; more so after Matthews’ statement.

‘I can’t say. At least Claudia is representing Evie … she’s really good. She’ll … she’ll figure something out. She knows people,’ Brady replied unconvincingly.

Brady forced himself to look at Kate. He apologetically shrugged. He was at a loss himself.

Dazed, she mutely accepted this and walked on.

‘Kate?’ he called out after her.

Whether she heard him or not, he would never know.

Brady closed his eyes and shakily leaned back against the station’s red brick wall and shallowly breathed out as the wooden doors slammed shut behind her.

‘I can’t do this … Conrad will have to take my place.’

‘You have no choice in the matter. This is your investigation. You finish it.’

Brady turned to face Gates.

Gates waited, forcing his hand.

‘All right. Just give me a minute to clear my head.’

‘As soon as you can, Jack. This is your shit, you clear it up.’

‘I know it is. But it doesn’t end here. I owe it to Matthews to do what I can to substantiate his allegations.’

‘What? Against Madley?’

Brady looked Gates straight in the eye. He knew Madley too well. Enough to know he wouldn’t dirty his hands with anything to do with sex trafficking. Drugs, maybe. But sex trafficking was a different league.

‘Macmillan, sir. Mayor Macmillan. And if that means upsetting a few people, then that’s what I’ll have to do. After all, isn’t that what I’m good at? ‘

Part One

Read on for an exclusive extract from Danielle Ramsay’s next novel Broken Bodies, coming in 2011.

Chapter One

Saturday: 3am

‘Nachui! Nachui!‘

‘Kales vaikas!’ Irritably replied another man.

‘Oh God … no …’ she desperately panted, too scared to look behind her.

Exhausted, she started running again. She didn’t hear the foghorn forlornly bleating in the distance, or feel the wet sea fret as it wrapped itself around her painfully thin body. All she heard was the threatening footsteps of her pursuers.

Somewhere down by the promenade muffled, drunken shouts were followed by the roar of a car’s engine. Seconds later a hazy orange glow appeared at the bottom of the dark street as a car turned up from the promenade. Shallowly panting, she ran as fast as she could towards the glare of the oncoming car, grazing her bare feet against the jagged, uneven pavements. Her long, dark hair clung to her waxen, ghostly face as she ran out into the middle of the road.

‘Stop! Stop!’ She shouted frantically waving her bare white arms at the approaching headlights.

The car suddenly slammed its brakes on barely avoiding hitting her.

‘Help me, please … help …’ She gasped in short breaths.

She hunched over, gulping in air as the driver aggressively punched his horn to make her move out of the way.

She straightened up, wildly shaking her head.

‘No! You’ve got to help me!’ She implored as the driver banged his fist on the horn again.

Desperate, she ran round to the driver’s door and frantically tried to open it.

The doors were locked. She hysterically started pounding at the window.

The driver, a dark-haired man in his late twenties looked at her with contempt.

‘Please …’ she stuttered, panicking. ‘You’ve got to help me … please …’ She begged. ‘These men … they’re trying to take me … they want to …’

‘Piss off you drunken cow!’ He spat in disgust as he scowled at her dishevelled appearance.

Her face was covered in a sheen of cold sweat as smudged, black eye-liner and mascara trailed down her cheeks. Her short, strapless black dress was ripped halfway down the side, immodestly showing her naked body underneath.

‘No, you can’t leave me here! You don’t understand! They’ll kill me!’ She screamed, banging furiously on the window.

‘Fucking right I can, you slapper!’ He answered before revving the engine and then screeching off up the street.