Danielle Ramsay - Vanishing Point

Then a glitch appeared in the tape as it seemed to jump. Brady didn’t understand why. Then he realised. It was the CCTV footage from the hospital grounds.

He waited, curious as to what it was that had caught Amelia’s attention. Then he saw it. A black Mercedes dropping the two men he was after off at reception. The car idled for a second and then pulled away.

Brady tried to get a closer look at the driver’s face, but it was obscured by an ambulance.

He fast-forwarded again, watching as the men entered the hospital and then reappeared. They then walked over to the car park. The black Mercedes with tinted windows was parked close to the main reception.

Brady continued to fast-forward the tape until he recognised Conrad’s car pulling up outside the emergency entrance. He watched himself jump out, slam the door and walk inside. At the same time, he saw the driver of the Mercedes get out and casually lean against the car. There was no mistaking it: he was watching Brady. Then his attention turned to Conrad’s Saab.

Brady’s stomach knotted. He was being watched. That was what Amelia had seen. Without needing to watch the rest of the CCTV footage, he knew what was coming next. He fast-forwarded once more, feeling sick.

Just as he thought. When Conrad had driven out the hospital grounds they were being followed. It wasn’t obvious. They were two cars behind. But they were being tailed all the same.

He rewound, realising he had missed something: the driver. The driver who had been leaning against the car watching both him walking into the hospital and then Conrad parked up in the Saab.

He found what he wanted and then froze the DVD.

The driver of the Mercedes was tall, 6´3? with cropped hair and a G-Star Raw military-style jacket.

There was no mistaking it. The driver was the same guy captured on surveillance camera in Madley’s nightclub.

It was Nick.

Brady rewound the DVD until he could get a freeze-frame of the partial image of the Mercedes’ licence plate. He could barely make out the letters ‘LT’ in the blue square on the left-hand side of the plate and the first two letters of the plate which were ‘AV’. But that was it.

He quickly opened up a browser on his laptop and Googled ‘LT’ to find the nationality of the car and its occupants.

It took seconds before it uploaded. ‘LT’ stood for Lithuania: the car’s country of origin.

He felt as if he had been side-punched. He had been hoping against the odds that Madley had been wrong about Nick.

But the evidence was damning.

Brady thought back to Johnny Slaughter, who had said his brother was now working for the ‘Lithuaks’. He couldn’t shake the memory of Johnny’s words:

‘Nick stopped working for me a month back. Got involved with those Eastern European bastards who are coming over here and taking all our bloody money!’

Brady took out his BlackBerry.

He looked at his hands and realised they were shaking.

He needed a drink. There wasn’t a time in his life when he needed one more than at this precise moment.

Hands still trembling, he reached down and opened the drawer of his desk.

He kept a bottle of single malt Scotch for emergencies. And in his books, this wasn’t just an emergency; it was a fucking write-off.

How was he going to explain this to Gates?

He picked up his red and white Che Guevara mug. Still trembling, he poured himself a liberal measure. He cupped the mug in two hands, not trusting himself to hold it steady, and took a much needed, burning gulp. He then leaned back and sighed, staring darkly at the grey stabbing light squeezing through his dusty Venetian blinds.

He needed a minute to clear his head and figure out what he was going to do.

The only thing he was certain of was that he needed to keep some distance between himself and Gates until he knew exactly how he was going to play it.

First, he needed to call Jed.

He picked up his BlackBerry again. Hands slightly steadier: it seemed his emergency Scotch was already working.

He pressed call and waited.

‘Yeah, Jed here,’ came the reply.

‘Hi Jed, it’s Jack,’ answered Brady.

‘Hey, Jack. Good to hear from you. What’s up?’ Jed asked.

My back against the wall, that’s what, thought Brady. But he kept it inside his head.

‘Not much. Just the usual crap, you know?’ he replied, trying to make his voice sound as relaxed as possible.

‘Tell me about it, Jack. I’m wading knee-deep in shit here! But do they give me a bigger budget so I can employ more people? Do they hell. Resources have been slashed again and they now expect me to do the job of ten people in half the time,’ complained Jed.

Brady breathed in.

In all the time he had known Jed, there was never a good time to ask him to do some work. Never mind asking him to do the impossible for nothing more than ‘I owe you one’.

Brady’s silence said it all to Jed.

‘Alright, spit it out. What exactly do you need me to do?’

Brady massaged his forehead, trying to ease the pressure that had been building all day.

‘How’d you guess?’

‘Like, the silence. I know you too well!’

‘Alright, here’s the score. I’ve got a couple of blurred surveillance tape images that I need digitally enhancing so I can try and get an ID on a couple of suspects. Two men, dressed in suits at reception at roughly 8:10am. I need close-ups of their faces and a close-up of what I think is a white platinum ring that both are wearing on their right hands, third finger. Same suspects leave and wait in the car park. They have a black Mercedes with what I believe is a Lithuanian licence plate. I need you to digitally enhance the licence plate to be certain I’m right. I also need a close-up of the driver who gets out the car at one point.’

‘Is it connected to what happened to that young DC?’

‘Could be,’ Brady said simply.

‘Alright. Email it to me and I’ll see what I can do.’ He paused then asked suddenly, ‘Is this the same footage at the hospital that Adamson sent over?’

‘Adamson’s already sent it?’ questioned Brady feeling sick.

He’d clearly underestimated Adamson.

‘Yeah, he sent me this material over ten minutes ago.’

‘You haven’t given him anything yet, have you?’ Brady asked

‘No … haven’t worked on it yet.’

‘Stall him for me, will you? I just need some time.’

‘If it wasn’t you, Jack, you know what the answer would be …’

‘I know, Jed. But if this wasn’t so important I wouldn’t be asking you.’

‘Alright. But I can’t hold Adamson off for long. You know that.’

‘I know. Thanks, mate.’

Brady listened to the dull tone of silence.

He breathed out. It had been harder than he had imagined asking Jed to cross the line.

Brady had to be certain that Nick was the driver.

Until he had indisputable evidence in front of his eyes, he was still clinging onto a sliver of hope that it was all some horrendous coincidence.

Chapter Twenty-Two

He opened the file left by Harvey on his desk.

It was already 3:47pm. The briefing was now supposed to be going ahead at 4:00pm. But due to recent circumstances it had been postponed. Again, mused Brady with frustration. But this had to be done. Given the fact that the Ryecrofts had suddenly turned up at the station wanting answers, he had to familiarise himself with the report on the missing girl.

Despite a desperate search, the serial numbers for their daughter’s breast implants couldn’t be found. Neither could the paperwork and receipts for the operation. The Ryecrofts weren’t sure whether their daughter had taken them with her or placed them for safe-keeping somewhere. Or even if they had been thrown out by accident. All they knew was that the police wanted the serial implant numbers for a reason. And that a murder victim had washed up on the shores of Whitley Bay. Consequently, Brady couldn’t blame the Ryecrofts for refusing to sit around waiting at home for further news about their missing daughter. Brady reckoned he would have done the same if he had been in their situation.