Danielle Ramsay - Vanishing Point

Brady attempted to push back. But Adamson had him good.

‘Shame about Conrad. You want to fucking hope for his sake that the bullet he took in the shoulder hasn’t permanently disabled his right arm. Because if it has, he’s worse than useless on the job. Fucking career over with.’

Adamson might as well have punched Brady for the effect his words had. Brady stopped struggling.

Adamson heard someone coming out the revolving doors and automatically let Brady go.

‘Watch your back. One day I’ll get you for fucking me over on this.’

Brady shot him a ‘fuck you’ look.

‘That’s a promise!’ Adamson growled. ‘And keep the fuck away from Simone Henderson before I finish off what her father started!’ he warned. ‘I’m not the only one around here who thinks you’re to blame for what happened to her. Fucking bastard.’ He shoved Brady hard against the wall for effect.

Brady didn’t retaliate. The words had hit as hard as punches.

He watched as Adamson straightened his tie and walked towards the hospital’s main entrance.

There was nothing that Adamson had said that Brady could disagree with: ultimately he felt responsible for what had happened to Simone Henderson, just as much as he felt responsible for Nicoletta.

Brady went back to his car. He unlocked the Granada and climbed in. Five hours had now passed since the Dabkunas brothers had disappeared. Five, long, arduous hours of nothing. It was now 3:47am. Time was running out. That was, if she was still alive.

Before he had left the hospital he had checked with DCI Gates to see whether there were any developments only to find that they had hit a brick wall. It was as if Nicoletta had just disappeared. And it seemed that Claudia wasn’t the only one who believed that the Dabkunas brothers had taken her with them.

But it didn’t rest easy with Brady. If they had taken Nicoletta, then why not Melissa Ryecroft as well? It didn’t make sense.

Brady had already tried to get Ronnie Macmillan to talk. Unsurprisingly, Macmillan was keeping his mouth firmly shut. Once he had been released from Rake Lane for the injuries he had sustained while resisting arrest, he had been put in the hands of Harvey, who was now waiting for Kodovesky to join him before he started interviewing Macmillan. Whether they would have more luck than Brady, he doubted.

He breathed out slowly as he started to roll a cigarette. He needed something, anything to calm him down. Sleep-deprived wasn’t the word for it. It was now Monday morning and he hadn’t slept properly since Thursday night. He was absolutely exhausted but he couldn’t wind down. Couldn’t switch off until he knew the whereabouts of Nicoletta.

He had tried calling Trina McGuire while waiting for Conrad to come through surgery. She hadn’t answered. He had left repeated messages, anxious for her safety. He had then sent uniform round, worried that the Dabkunas brothers or Ronnie Macmillan had punished her for talking. And their kind of punishment meant she would never talk again. Thankfully, she was at home. Brady understood why she had ignored his urgent demands to call him. After all, it was him forcing Trina and Nicoletta to talk that had endangered Nicoletta’s life and caused her to disappear without trace.

He had also called Nick’s mobile number. Again, it had cut to voicemail, forcing him to leave a frantic message asking about the whereabouts of Nicoletta.

Again, nothing.

He lit his cigarette and sat staring at Rake Lane Hospital, thinking about the information Melissa Ryecroft had given him. She was certain that Nicoletta had remained in the Dabkunas’ van when they had taken the Lithuanian Ambassador’s daughter out. The Dabkunas brothers had then drugged both girls. The next thing Melissa had been aware of was coming round, alone. She had no idea when Nicoletta had been taken from the van or by whom.

Brady tried to remain calm. Panicking wouldn’t get him anywhere. He had to think logically about that night’s events. He knew the answer was there somewhere. He just couldn’t see it.

He started with where he had seen the black Mercedes van: St Mary’s Lighthouse. He wondered if Ronnie Macmillan had met the Dabkunas brothers there and if Monika had been removed from the van and dumped into the boot of his Jag at the same spot, ready for the ransom exchange with the Lithuanian Ambassador. That left Nicoletta and Melissa drugged and presumably unconscious in the van.

Brady replayed in his head when he turned up at the lighthouse. As soon as the Dabkunas brothers had seen him, they had taken off. Shortly after that, their van had been apprehended by Harvey and Kodovesky and another police car in Wallsend. The only victim inside was Melissa Ryecroft. At some point, mused Brady, they had dumped Nicoletta. But when? And crucially where?

They wouldn’t have had the chance once they had fled from the car park. That much was clear from the fact that they had left Melissa in the back of the van after the police car chase and made a run for it.

The only obvious place was St Mary’s Lighthouse.

But Brady had already revisited the lighthouse car park looking for Nick and found nobody.

He closed his eyes.

He thought back to the lighthouse … to Nick … to when they were kids …

What was it about the lighthouse that Nick was trying to tell him by leaving Edita Aginatas’ severed head in his car there? And what was the meeting Brady had witnessed hours earlier with the Ambassador and Mayor Macmillan about? Additionally there was the CCTV footage that Conrad had found of the Dabkunas’ black Mercedes van following Ronnie Macmillan’s Jag heading towards the lighthouse after they had drugged, then abducted Simone Henderson.

Brady thought back to Nick as he had once been – a four year old playing on the small, sandy beach positioned directly below the twenty foot, sloping cliff where the second car park was positioned. The rocky beach lay hidden from view. The perfect location.

But the perfect location for what?

Then Brady remembered what he had explained to Conrad. That he believed Edita Aginatas’ body was taken by a small boat and dumped at sea. The perfect access to the boat would be via the sandy beach and causeway, hidden from prying eyes, that led to the lighthouse. A causeway ruled by the tides. When the tide was in, the lighthouse was inaccessible, as was the sandy beach. The beach was a dangerous place to be if you didn’t know the tides. Within minutes it could disappear when the tide changed. And there was no way back.

‘ Jacky, watch our Nick will you? The tide’s coming in quick and if the two of you aren’t careful you’ll vanish. Taken out to sea!’

Brady jolted forward at the memory of his mother’s voice warning him against the furious incoming tide. He suddenly knew why Nick was so attached to the lighthouse – it was the only time their mother had taken them there as boys. In fact, it was the only outing they had had before she died. Money had been short and a trip out to the lighthouse from the Ridges was a big deal in those days.

Brady could remember grabbing Nick’s hand and scrambling with him up the rocks to safety as the tide rapidly moved in, devouring every inch of the beach. When he had looked back, the causeway had already gone. Access to the lighthouse disappearing with every inch of fast-moving water. And then, within seconds the small, rocky beach had gone, devoured by the ravishing tide.

Brady then thought of Nicoletta. Thought of the sloping drop that led to the rocks directly below the car park where the Dabkunas brothers and Macmillan had waited for the Ambassador to turn up. In that moment he realised what they had done with her.

They had thrown her over the cliff, to the rocks below and the tide that would inevitably take her body. Over five hours had gone by since he had seen the Dabkunas brothers at the Lighthouse. And in those long five hours the tide could easily have taken her body out to sea, never to be found.