Danielle Ramsay - Vanishing Point

‘If you’ve been in her room, I’ll kill you! You hear?’ shouted Frank Henderson as Conrad pinned his arms behind his back.

‘I wanted to but Smith there wouldn’t let me in,’ hoarsely panted Brady, still winded from the blows he’d taken.

‘You stay away from her!’

‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry …’

‘You think I believe that? It was you, you bastard, that made her transfer to the Met. Left me and her mother because of you. Her mother was dying of cancer, did you know that? Did you? That’s what you did to us. Forced our only child to run as far away as possible from the North East,’ yelled Henderson as he continued to struggle like a man possessed against Smith and Conrad.

Conrad’s face was now burning red with the exertion of holding him back. Even Smith was clearly struggling to restrain him.

Still clutching his right side, Brady turned to leave before Henderson’s sheer hatred of him overpowered both men holding him back.

‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Brady. ‘You’ll never know how much.’

‘And so you should be. If it hadn’t been for you she wouldn’t have come back here. I want to know what happened. I want to know how you could let her get hurt.’

Brady stopped. He turned round, confused.

‘I don’t understand. I haven’t seen Simone since she transferred from Northumbria a year ago.’

Henderson stared hard at Brady. It was evident that he didn’t believe him.

‘Then why did she tell her flatmate that she had to talk to you? That she had some unfinished business?’

Brady looked at Conrad who looked equally puzzled.

‘She never contacted me,’ Brady replied, shaking his head.

‘So you tell me why her flatmate said that she was coming up here on leave to see you.’

Brady stared at Henderson, not understanding what he was saying.

‘Maybe you got it wrong,’ suggested Brady carefully.

‘I got it wrong, did I? I didn’t find out that she was in the North East until your lot showed up on my door. You tell me why she didn’t want me to know she was here?’

Brady couldn’t answer him.

‘I’ll tell you, shall I? Because she knew how I felt about you. If I’d known she was coming up to see you I would have done everything in my power to stop her!’

‘She didn’t arrange to meet me,’ Brady answered quietly but firmly.

It was the wrong answer. Henderson lunged forward, fighting Conrad and Smith with renewed vigour.

Conrad, breathless and scarlet-faced, shot Brady a look which told him to disappear, and fast, before he lost control of Henderson.

Dejectedly Brady turned and limped out of the ICU, feeling as if he had just had the worst kicking of his life. And the worst part was, he knew he deserved it.

Chapter Twelve

Brady held onto the washbasin.

He was still shaking from the attack.

But it wasn’t the blows that had got to him.

He turned the cold tap on and splashed himself with water. Face drenched, he looked up at his reflection in the mirror.

He looked like shit.

Wincing, he straightened up and lifted his t-shirt. His light olive-coloured skin was starting to discolour into mottled purple patches spreading across the side of his right ribcage. He gently ran his fingers over the bruising which led down to his abdomen.

He let go of his t-shirt. Bending over the washbasin again, he drenched his face, groaning with the exertion.

But no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get rid of the image of what they had done to Simone.

He was very aware that word would get back to Gates. Brady could deny having seen Simone. He knew that Smith wouldn’t say a word. But there was no way he could deny the run-in with the victim’s father. Nor could he explain why Frank Henderson believed his daughter had returned to the North East because of Brady. It didn’t make sense. He hadn’t talked to her in over a year. Nothing. And then suddenly, she’s back up here lying critically wounded in the ICU.

He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the damage. Nothing was broken. His left cheek was split open. Frank Henderson had also landed a lucky blow above his left eyebrow, resulting in another open gash. Blood trickled down into his eye.

He bent down and doused himself in more cold water in a bid to get rid of the blood. He didn’t have time to go and get the cuts stitched. Not that he would have done. He’d had a lot worse than this and had lived to tell the tale.

He raised his head up and slowly breathed out. His head was throbbing. He ran his hand over his scalp for any tell-tale damage. Nothing. Apart from the raised four-inch scar at the back of his head where his father had taken a baseball bat to him when he was eight years old. All he remembered was hearing the swoosh of air as the baseball bat had swung towards him. He’d felt it connect with his skull before everything went black.

When he had come round, it wasn’t to concerned medics. He had found himself lying on grime-encrusted bare floorboards, in a pool of his own blood. He had awoken to the terrified eyes of his younger brother Nick, four years old, huddled in a foetal position on the piss-stained mattress dumped on the floor in the corner of the room they slept in.

The room was empty of furniture, apart from the old, torn, flea-infested mattress. There was no wardrobe or drawers in the bedroom; there was no need. The only clothes Brady and his brother owned were the ones on their backs. Everything went on his father buying his next pint and pack of tabs. Resulting in them living in squalor with little or no comforts, despite his mother’s best intentions.

Their father being imprisoned was the best thing that had ever happened to Brady and Nick. Being dumped around the North East in countless foster homes was luxury compared to their brutal start to life.

Brady stared at his reflection, fingers touching the gnarled scar at the back of his head as he remembered the price he had had to pay to get away from his father.

The same night that his father had taken a baseball bat to him, breaking not only three ribs and his right arm, but also splitting open his skull, he had then turned on his mother.

Brady was acutely aware that if she hadn’t intervened when she had, he would have been the one that was later found dead.

That was why, when he came to, the first thing he saw was Nick’s wide, petrified eyes watching, huddled in the corner like a wild animal. The second thing he registered was his mother’s screams as his father ‘taught her some respect’.

Brady blinked back. His eyes stinging with fresh, salty pain.

He reminded himself that it might have taken years, but his father had finally been made to pay.

Yet, it still didn’t ease the pain of witnessing your own mother being beaten and raped in front of you.

When his father had momentarily stopped, leaving the room, his mother had whispered to him to get up and run.

‘Take Nick, Jacky, and run. Don’t stop. Understand? No matter what, don’t you stop, Jacky. Now go! GO! ’ she had urged, knowing that her husband was coming back to finish what he had started.

Brady did exactly what he was told. He knew, as she did, what would happen if he didn’t.

He never saw his mother again. Well, he never saw her alive again.

Brady had pulled out the court case records and autopsy report a few years back, thinking it would give him some kind of resolution. It hadn’t. The crime scene photographs brought to life his worst nightmares.

When he had taken his mother at her word and run, his father had returned to stab her over twenty times. Her face was so mutilated from the frenzied knife attack that the only way she could be identified was through her dental records.