Danielle Ramsay - Vanishing Point

‘What do you want from me?’ whispered Brady, desperation in his voice.

But he knew Nick too well. He wasn’t playing a game with him; he was trying to help him.

Brady lifted his head up and slowly breathed out as he allowed relief to flood through him.

Nick may have been embroiled in some covert, sick sex trafficking operation but he wasn’t a willing part of it. He was trying his damnedest to lead Brady towards the central players.

He reread the note, forcing himself to focus.

‘Trademark … TM …’ he muttered, shaking his head.

Then it hit him. The only old friend Nick had in the North East was Trina McGuire.

His gut feeling had been right when he had rung Trina earlier that day. But what he hadn’t realised was that she had information on ‘N’, which he assumed could be the Nietzschean Brotherhood that Claudia had talked about. He thought back to the ‘N’ burnt into Simone’s breast and the ‘N’ on the gold signet rings worn by the two men who had been captured on the hospital surveillance footage asking about the condition of the mutilated DC.

He took out his phone and rang Trina McGuire.

He had no choice. He had to make her talk.

He listened as the phone rang for a couple of seconds and then cut off.

It was clear that Trina had no intention of talking to him.

Deciding that there was nothing else for it, he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and stood up. He’d have to pay her a visit.

He shoved the handwritten note in his pocket for safe-keeping.

Suddenly there was a knock at his door.

‘Christ!’ muttered Brady, startled.

He had to get his head together otherwise he would be no use to anyone – especially Nick.

Before he had a chance to call out the door opened and Conrad walked in.

‘Thought you might need something to eat, sir? The rest of the team ordered in Chinese so I thought I’d salvage some for you before it disappeared,’ explained Conrad.

It took the younger man a second to realise Brady was going somewhere. He shot him a questioning look.

‘Thanks, Conrad. Just put it down on my desk. I’ll get it later. There’s something I need to do first, and I need your help,’ answered Brady.

‘Sir?’

‘Get your car keys, Conrad. We’re going for a drive.’

Chapter Thirty-Two

Brady waited by the station’s heavy wooden double doors. He drew heavily on the cigarette he’d rolled as he uneasily looked up and down the dark street. Even though it was deserted he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched.

Conrad pulled round the corner in his dark silver Saab.

Relieved, Brady threw his cigarette away and walked over and climbed in.

‘Where to, sir?’

‘Gainers Terrace, Wallsend,’ answered Brady.

‘Sir?’ questioned Conrad, worried.

‘Know it?’ asked Brady.

‘Not personally, sir. But I have heard enough about it to know that we won’t be welcome.’

Brady didn’t answer him. Instead, he distractedly glanced in the passenger wing mirror as Conrad reluctantly pulled out left past the Northern Rock bank hitting the traffic lights in the centre of Whitley Bay.

Brady looked over at the Town House pub where two scrawny men with tattooed bare arms and Toon shirts were stood outside tabbing. He watched them uneasily, realising that right now he didn’t trust anyone.

He turned his head away and looked across at St Paul’s Anglican Church, on the corner of the traffic lights opposite the Fat Ox. It was a beautiful church built out of slabs of sandstone, surrounded by old trees. Headstones dating back a couple of hundred years still stood, despite the decades of lashing rain coupled with the hard, biting northerly wind that would sweep in from the North Sea.

It passed Brady in a shadowy, ghostly blur as Conrad put his foot down and headed up the small incline towards the roundabout which led out of Whitley Bay.

‘Wait here, will you, Conrad?’ instructed Brady as he made a move to get out the car.

Conrad cast a glance over at the Ship Inn and the ruins and the ominous, unlit flat lands surrounding them.

‘Are you sure about this, sir?’ asked Conrad.

Brady could understand Conrad’s reticence. He felt exactly the same way.

The Ship Inn – or the Hole, as it was known locally, for obvious reasons – stood alone against a backdrop of a shipping industry that had long gone. The house lights of the Hole cast the only bit of warmth in this black, bleak, evacuated landscape.

The place was deserted. A no-man’s land. The River Tyne and docklands, once crammed with ships and twisting sky-high cranes, were empty. All that was left behind were the shadowy, iron-crusted bones of what looked to be part of a helicopter landing platform and the weather-beaten base of an oil rig.

The Hole, a solitary, run-down, whitewashed Victorian building had been left to rack and ruin now that the shipyard workers had evaporated to become part of the North East’s ever-increasing dole figures. But it still ran a business. One that involved strippers and sex. And, despite the dubious surroundings, the punters still came. Guaranteed anonymity given the Hole’s unique location. No housing estate overlooked it, no grassland for dog walkers, only the bleak river and empty warehouses and flattened wasteland that spoke of an industrial era that had been sold down the Tyne.

Brady turned and looked behind them at the dark embankment that led down to this pit of despair. Again, deserted.

He thought about Conrad’s question. Was he sure about what he was doing?

He shook his head as he turned and looked at Conrad.

‘No,’ Brady replied. ‘But I’ve got no choice.’

‘Tell me this is connected to our investigation into Melissa Ryecroft’s murder, sir,’ said Conrad, needing the reassurance that whatever Brady was about to do wasn’t going to bring him more trouble than he was already in.

Brady knew he needed his deputy on side. And crucially, needed him to watch his back.

‘I have information that someone in there knows about this Brotherhood that Claudia discussed,’ he explained as he uneasily looked over at the Hole.

‘Surely you want me in there with you, then?’ asked Conrad.

‘No,’ firmly answered Brady. He turned and looked at Conrad. ‘Firstly, two coppers going in there will get us nothing but trouble. Secondly, I need you out here watching who comes and goes.’

Conrad reluctantly nodded. He knew that arguing with Brady was pointless.

‘Look, Conrad … I know the person in there that I need to talk to, alright? And I know for a fact that she wouldn’t come near me if you were there. She hates coppers. I’m not sure she’ll even give me a chance …’ Brady stopped and sighed.

He was tired. Too tired for all this. He wanted to go home and take a long hot shower, followed by a couple of glasses of the full-bodied bottle of Rioja he had in his wine rack, accompanied by some blues music playing in the background. He knew he couldn’t eat though: he had lost his appetite when he had found the victim’s head in his car, along with a note that he was now certain was from his brother.

All he wanted to do was forget this day had ever happened. Instead, his guts told him it was just getting started.

‘Keep your eyes open, Conrad,’ Brady warned before getting out the car. ‘You see anything, you radio it in. Understand?’

Brady was more worried about leaving Conrad out here in the middle of nowhere in darkness with no assistance than he was about facing whatever lay ahead of him in the Hole.

He had noted, as had Conrad, the three other cars parked up. One was a flash white Range Rover Sport, another, a beaten-up blue Volvo estate, and the third, a silver 1.9 Vauxhall Vectra.