Danielle Ramsay - Vanishing Point

‘You know what, Jimmy? Right now I’ve got better things to be doing than listen to you threaten me,’ stated Brady.

He was running out of time.

It was 4:45pm and he had two appointments that he needed to keep.

The first was with Madley. Not that Madley knew they had an appointment.

The second place he had to be was at the Grand Hotel. He wanted to be parked up, watching the guests arrive for the dinner that Claudia and her professional partner and boyfriend were attending, along with half the dignitaries from across the North East. But it was the Lithuanian Ambassador that Brady was interested in. And the Dabkunas brothers.

Brady knew he had no choice but to go alone. Nick was a good enough incentive not to involve anyone – including Conrad.

Matthews’ snarling voice brought him back to the present. ‘Yeah? Well, what if I say that Ronnie Macmillan’s been trying to dig up some shit on you and Madley. Interested now?’

Brady held his breath.

‘Got time to talk to me now, have you?’ asked Matthews.

‘Go on,’ said Brady.

‘I want out, Jack,’ Matthews said.

‘That’s impossible,’ replied Brady.

‘Look, either I talk to you or I talk to Adamson. I don’t give a shit any more. My loyalty is to myself now.’

‘Wasn’t that why you ended up inside?’ pointed out Brady.

‘You’re a bastard, Jack!’

‘Takes one to know one,’ answered Brady.

He was too tired for all this shit. His head ached as much as his leg hurt. He needed some painkillers to ease the dull throb in his ribs and swollen face that reminded him that he had spent the past two days chasing ghosts.

‘What exactly do you think I can do?’ asked Brady.

‘Claudia,’ answered Matthews simply. ‘She’s a fuck-off lawyer and she now works for the Home Office. Get her to represent me for free. Get her to strike a deal with the Home Office to release me early in exchange for crucial information concerning Macmillan and the copper who got knifed.’

‘Come on, Jimmy,’ Brady said. ‘You’re asking the impossible.’

‘Then I hang up and I talk to Adamson and I throw in the part about you getting Madley to set your old man up for murder.’

Brady felt as if Matthews had just punched him in the guts. He thought for a moment he was going to throw up.

He breathed out slowly, trying to steady himself.

He couldn’t think straight. None of it made sense. Admittedly he had asked Madley to make his dad disappear. He had no choice at the time. But he knew Madley wouldn’t have murdered another man in the process. Not that Brady hadn’t silently questioned whether Madley had had a hand in it. But as soon as he thought it he discounted it. Madley had done some dark shit, but he wouldn’t take another man’s life for no reason.

‘Yeah? Truth hurts, doesn’t it?’ Matthews snapped when Brady didn’t respond.

Brady was trying to figure out exactly how Matthews had managed to talk to his old man. Then again, he accepted, Matthews was banged up in a secure wing with the old bastard.

‘You forget, Jack. We’re the same, you and I,’ he added.

‘Fuck you!’ replied Brady.

‘What? Is that a guilty conscience that I hear?’ goaded Matthews.

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Sure you do. But I’ll remind you anyway. I’m talking about the homeless man, the sixty-three year old who was found dead by the library in North Shields. The man who had petrol doused over him and then was set alight. He burnt to death. All for a bottle of cheap Scotch. At least that’s the evidence that was planted on your old man when he was asleep between two garbage bins in the back lane of Nile Street.’

‘He did it,’ answered Brady, his expression darkening.

Matthews didn’t need to see Brady’s face to know that he had crossed the line. He could hear it in Brady’s voice.

‘The CCTV footage in Shields clearly shows him arguing with the homeless man over a bottle of liquor,’ stated Brady. ‘He clears off after being landed with a couple of punches and comes back a couple of hours later with petrol that he’s siphoned off a car. Footage shows him pouring it over the other man’s head and body as he lay sleeping and then setting fire to him.’

‘Yeah? But it was all a set-up. Your old man, with the help of Ronnie Macmillan, is going to prove that the man who goes back and cold-bloodedly murders the tramp wasn’t him. That he got plied with drink. Bought by two of Madley’s men. And when he fell asleep drunk, his clothes were removed. Then one of Madley’s men puts his clothes on and, impersonating him, sets the tramp alight. They then put the clothes which are covered in petrol splashes back on your old man and leave the bottle of Scotch clutched in his hands and the matches and petrol container beside him.’

‘Is that the best you’ve got?’ questioned Brady, trying to sound calm despite the fact his heart was racing so fast he thought it would explode.

Maybe it was the guilt he was feeling for asking Madley to sort the old bastard out once and for all. Maybe that was why he was sweating? His old man had spent twenty years inside for the brutal rape and murder of his mother. It should have been a minimum of thirty, but then some parole board decided to release him on good behaviour. Times had changed though. Nowadays a life sentence was seven years. Brady realised he should have been thankful that his old man had spent so long inside. But in his mind, the old bastard should have spent the rest of his life banged up.

‘Who the fuck in their right mind would torch someone alive and leave the evidence on them?’ questioned Matthews.

‘He’s a fucking drunk, Jimmy. I don’t give a shit who he tells that story to because no one would believe him. Have you forgotten that he’s already served time for murder?’

Brady steadied himself. He knew that his old man was capable of cold-blooded murder. Had already proved that once before. So why not this time? And anyway, he reasoned, his father had been tried and convicted by a jury. If there was a shadow of a doubt, surely his defence lawyer would have exploited it.

Matthews had nothing on him or Madley.

Matthews spoke again. ‘I know you got Madley to arrange it.’

‘Do you?’ asked Brady, a hard edge to his voice.

‘I’ve got better things to do with my time, Jimmy, than listen to your crap!’

‘Wait!’ shouted Matthews with an edge of desperation.

‘Give me one good reason why,’ demanded Brady.

‘Because I’ve heard something that might interest you.’

‘Like what?’ Brady asked, feeling nothing but disgust for Matthews.

‘Alright, your old man wants to settle a score with you and Madley. Convinced himself you set him up. But he’s not the only one. Two of Macmillan’s henchmen showed up about a week ago. Visa and bloody Delta they’re called. Reckon their names are something to do with them being Macmillan’s debt collectors,’ Matthews stated.

‘His men, Visa and Delta, where are they from?’ asked Brady.

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Just tell me, Jimmy!’

‘From their accents I’d say London. Why?’

Brady ignored his question and moved on.

‘And they wanted to talk to you?’ Brady was starting to get a real bad feeling about what Matthews was going to say next.

‘Who the fuck do you think? Nelson fucking Mandela? Of course me!’

‘Why?’ questioned Brady.

‘They heard that I was a copper who also worked for Madley. They wanted some dirt on Madley to stitch him up.’

‘What’s Macmillan’s problem with Madley?’ asked Brady.

This was news to him.

‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed but Ronnie Macmillan is buying up everything he can in North Tyneside. He bought that lap dancing club down by Wallsend docks off Benton Way.’