Danielle Ramsay - Vanishing Point

Claudia paused for a moment. ‘From her description the weapon put to her head matches a captive bolt pistol.’

She brought up a photograph.

To Brady’s eye it looked like a black hand pistol, but the end of the barrel was thicker, chunkier.

‘Forensics found DNA evidence on her body and in the room. Hair samples, fingerprints … but they don’t match with anything we have on the database. We’ve cross-referenced the DNA evidence with agencies in Europe and America. Nothing …’ Claudia’s voice trailed off. ‘But the victim did say that the man who pulled out the pistol was right-handed and on his hand he was wearing a platinum signet ring on the third finger.’

This jarred with Brady.

‘What about security camera footage?’ asked Brady, keen to see what these men looked like.

‘The hotel doesn’t have surveillance cameras. Guests don’t like it. Their attitude is they pay too much money to be spied on. And no one remembers the men coming in with the Russian girl. And, all transactions were paid in advance online by a stolen credit card. So no trail. The only eyewitness we had was the guest next door who reported the screams.’

She looked Brady straight in the eye, anticipating his next question. ‘He was found dead the following morning. Two weeks ago to be precise. Gunshot wound to the head. Armed robbery, held up at gunpoint a street away from the hotel, coincidentally before the police got a statement from him. Too coincidental if you ask me.’

Brady absorbed the enormity of what had just been said. They were just an under-funded, under-staffed murder team in a small seaside resort. This wasn’t a major European capital and yet here they were, dealing with what effectively could be an international criminal organisation.

‘Have you shared the details of Melissa Ryecroft’s murder with SOCA?’

Claudia shook her head.

‘Not yet.’

Brady breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing he wanted was them coming here to take over his investigation. He needed time to figure this out. More so for Nick’s sake.

‘Thanks, you’ve given us some invaluable information there,’ replied Brady.

Claudia looked at him, not quite able to gauge his comment.

Brady looked around the room. The atmosphere serious, the faces grim.

They were all thinking what Brady was thinking.

Had Simone Henderson been targeted by this group? It seemed likely given the mark left on her left breast.

And was Brady their next target?

Brady thought back to Frank Henderson’s words when he attacked him in the ICU. That Simone had come back up to the North East because of Brady. What if they thought that she had talked to Brady before they got to her? And crucially, what exactly did Simone know about the Nietzschean Brotherhood?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

‘Alright,’ said Brady clearing his throat.

He poured himself a glass of water and took a much-needed gulp.

This was the last place he wanted to be right now. He needed to have a word with Claudia; in his office. He needed whatever the other information was that Claudia couldn’t share with the team.

The investigation had changed. It was much bigger than a murdered girl. This was connected to Simone Henderson and …

Brady couldn’t think straight.

He realised he had to wind up the briefing as quickly as possible. There was too much at stake. He didn’t even know if he was still going to be in charge of the Ryecroft investigation given the fact it could now be connected to Adamson’s case. Add to that, it now seemed that Brady was being targeted.

He looked around the room.

‘This is what we know. The victim, Melissa Ryecroft was a sixteen-year-old student who attended King’s School, a private school in Tynemouth. She was in the lower sixth, studying four A Levels …’ Brady’s voice momentarily trailed off.

He realised that what she had been studying was pointless now.

He took a deep breath before continuing. ‘We know that last November she went to Budapest on holiday with her friends for her sixteenth birthday. There, we are led to believe, she met a twenty-eight-year-old man known only as “Marijuis” to us. Her parents asked her to stop communicating with the man but it seems that she continued, without their knowledge. She returned to Budapest to a clinic to have a breast augmentation operation accompanied by her father, Brian Ryecroft, who signed the consent form and paid for the plastic surgery.’

After re-reading the Ryecrofts’ earlier statements he had a clearer understanding of Brian Ryecroft’s guilt. After all, the man had taken her back to Budapest for a breast enhancement operation and, by his own admission, he spent most of the time in the hotel bar, believing that in the days before the scheduled operation his daughter was in her hotel room watching TV and on her laptop. But Brady was sure that she wouldn’t have been alone in her room. He was certain that her boyfriend Marijuis would have been keeping her company.

Brady had read the logged calls and it was clear that on her second visit to Budapest she had been receiving calls from another unregistered mobile also located in Budapest.

‘We’ve got the call log details through from her mobile phone network and she has received calls and made calls to eight unregistered mobile numbers. None of them traceable. There seems to be a pattern. Every month, sometimes less, that mobile number changes. Some are made from Eastern Europe. Mainly Romania and Lithuania and then …’ Brady said.

The word ‘Lithuania’ had jolted Brady when he had first seen it on the list of logged calls. It had immediately made him think of the two Eastern European men caught on the surveillance tape at Rake Lane Hospital. And the black Mercedes with the Lithuanian licence plate. If he hadn’t noticed the small “LT” in the corner of the licence plate he would have never made the connection. But the image he still couldn’t shake from his head was that of his brother Nick, the driver of the black Merc.

‘… the UK. The calls are predominately located in the London region but in the past month they’ve been traced to the North East,’ Brady explained. ‘It seems that this Marijuis character travels backwards and forwards between the UK and Eastern Europe. Maybe they’ve found a new business partner in the North East, which would explain why they’ve branched out up here.’

Brady noticed the interest in Claudia’s face and had already second-guessed what she was thinking: Marijuis was a sex trafficker. Someone who picked up pretty young girls, promising them the world.

The question was, if the gang did have a North East connection, who was it?

Claudia would be wondering exactly what he was wondering: did Marijuis have a brother? And if so, were they working together? And what was the link to the North East?

‘Harvey and Kodovesky, I want you to interview all of Melissa Ryecroft’s friends and classmates to see if she mentioned Marijuis to any of them. What we crucially need is some information on this character. And on the guy who left a message on her Facebook wall offering to take her to London for a meeting with the Models 1 agency. His Facebook account was fake, as we expected, much as the appointment with the model agency was too.’ Brady paused as he took another drink.

The way the day was going he needed more than just lukewarm water to get rid of the bad taste in his mouth.

‘Melissa Ryecroft got handpicked by this Marijuis character in Budapest. He chose her because she was sixteen and stunning looking. Model material … like your Russian girl,’ Brady said. His eyes rested briefly on the bloodsoaked bed where the Russian had lain while she had been sexually assaulted and butchered.