Vanishing Point Page 2

  Showered and changed, Brady slugged back what was left of his black coffee. He picked up his car keys off the granite worktop as he wondered exactly what had washed up onto the shores of Whitley Bay beach. Or to be more precise, exactly who had floated to the surface of the cold, grey murky waters of the North Sea.

  Chapter Four

  Brady bent under the police cordon and started making his way down the promenade steps looking for what his guts were already telling him was going to be trouble.

  It was clear enough where he was heading; it wasn’t difficult to spot uniform on the sectioned-off beach below him. Not to mention the grim-faced SOCOs dressed in black pants and black polo shirts who were methodically working along the beach and lower promenade. As expected, they had created a wide circle around the crime scene, photographing and documenting everything and anything that might have some relevance to the investigation. Directly below him, a tight inner circle was in force, stringently controlled by SOCOs clad head to foot in white, who were painstakingly moving in and out of a large white forensics tent.

  Brady caught sight of Conrad.

  His deputy’s erect, stiff figure stood out from the crowd; for all the right reasons. Unlike Brady, he had the makings of a Chief Superintendent and soon enough it would be Conrad kicking Brady around. They were the antithesis of one another. Brady was six foot two and lean with muscle, whereas Conrad was a few inches shorter with a heavier, muscular frame. Conrad was invariably clean-shaven, regardless of the hour, with neatly cropped and gelled blond hair. Brady didn’t know how he did it, but he always looked impeccable in his array of suits, shirts and silk ties and tan brogues. Brady was all too aware that his own clothes – t-shirt, battered black jacket and matching skinny trousers and heavy black leather Caterpillar boots – made him stand out against Conrad’s typical CID traditional, conformist image. Not that Brady didn’t look smart, but his look was unconventional for a copper to say the least.

  Brady nodded in response as the young, clean-cut figure of Conrad approached him.

  ‘Sir,’ greeted Conrad.

  ‘Conrad,’ Brady replied. ‘So what exactly do we have?’

  ‘Better you see this for yourself,’ replied Conrad, deciding it would be easier than explaining what they had found. Or more to the point, what they still had to find.

  *

  ‘Bloody hell!’ muttered Brady as he held a gloved hand over his nose.

  The overpowering stench hit him hard as soon as he entered the tent.

  Without even taking into consideration what was left of the body, the smell emanating from it was bad enough to make him want to retch his guts up. The fact that the body had been washed ashore on one of the warmest mornings of the year so far wouldn’t have helped.

  He was doing his best not to react to what was lying in front of him. He clenched his hands in an attempt to stop his guts curdling as he grimly stared down at the victim.

  Conrad swallowed hard, trying not to breathe as he watched Brady crouch down.

  Brady let out a low moan as his leg twinged again. It had been nearly a year since he had been shot in the thigh but the pain remained as a constant reminder of that night. They still hadn’t got the person or persons responsible, though Brady had a fairly good idea who was behind it. Which was one of the reasons that Gates now had him on a tight leash. The DCI didn’t want Brady causing trouble, particularly where Mayor Macmillan was concerned. Brady had been watching Macmillan for some time now. A man whose morals, principals and politics stood about four hundred yards to the right of Genghis Khan. And this was a man who had made powerful friends as a Conservative councillor and now Mayor of North Tyneside.

  On the surface Mayor Macmillan was everything his brother, Ronnie Macmillan, wasn’t and that was exactly how Mayor Macmillan wanted it. He wanted no one making the connection. Brady had often moaned to Rubenfeld, a hardened, heavy drinking local hack, about the injustice of Macmillan’s dark past not making it onto the front pages of the local papers – to say nothing of his drug-selling gangster brother and prostitute of a sister.

  ‘Money, Jack!’ Rubenfeld said scornfully before knocking back yet another whiskey chaser paid for as usual by Brady. ‘Bloody money is what it’s all about! It can buy you anything! Including friends in high places.’

  Brady accepted, as had Rubenfeld, that Macmillan was very good at what he did: lying. He was a politician after all. He had removed himself so far from his past life that no one would believe that he was the same Macmillan who had been raised in Blyth with a criminal for a brother who now lived in the deeply entrenched crime world of Wallsend.

  ‘You alright, sir?’ asked Conrad.

  ‘Yeah,’ muttered Brady, putting Macmillan to the back of his mind.

  He held a gloved hand over his nose and mouth as he moved in closer to what was left of the victim’s neck. Flies had already started to gorge on the brutally hacked wound where bone and flesh ended in a jagged formation.

  ‘Some kind of serrated weapon was used to …’ he faltered, unable to state the obvious.

  He turned and looked up at Conrad.

  ‘So where’s the head?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. This was all that was washed up. The beach has been thoroughly searched, but nothing’s turned up.’

  ‘Here’s hoping for our sakes it does. Without a head it makes it damned difficult to identify her.’

  ‘They’re going through missing persons reports back at the station, sir,’ answered Conrad.

  Brady raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Damned hard to know whether we do or don’t have a match considering all that’s left of her, don’t you think?’

  Brady knew that without a victimology, figuring out the modus operandi would be virtually impossible. To understand why she had been murdered, they needed her identity. Her family. Her friends. Her life story.

  ‘No identity, no murderer,’ Brady resignedly muttered.

  He looked at Conrad.

  ‘You know what doesn’t rest easy with me?’

  Conrad shook his head.

  ‘Whoever did this wanted her found. They wanted her to wash up on Whitley Bay beach. If she’d been dumped far enough out at sea then she wouldn’t have floated to the surface. Add in the fact that it’s easy enough to weigh a body down so it permanently disappears.’

  Brady was worried. Something about this didn’t feel right.

  ‘Why did they want her found?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ shrugged Conrad.

  Brady turned back to the body. ‘See the bruising on both her arms? Someone’s held her down. There’s finger marks on the upper part of her arms but also around her wrists …’ Brady paused as he stared at what was left of the victim’s hands.

  ‘We’ve searched, but again, nothing,’ informed Conrad.

  Brady carefully picked up the victim’s left hand and closely inspected the stubs of flesh and bone where her fingers should have been.

  ‘They’ve been cleanly cut off. Different to the neck. Probably garden pruners.’

  It was becoming more apparent that whoever had murdered her knew exactly what they were doing; without the victim’s fingers or head it was impossible to positively identify her. Unless, Brady mused, she had some other identifiable traits on her body; that and a missing person’s report to match. Otherwise, Gates had tossed a dead case his way. Brady’s gut feeling told him that Gates knew this case was sunk as soon as the headless body had floated to the surface.

  ‘No clothes, no jewellery, no plastic. No formal identification. Her fingers and head hacked off …’

  He suddenly realised something was wrong. Her breasts looked unnatural. The skin looked too stretched, too taut. He carefully lifted one of her large breasts and looked at the skin underneath.

  ‘Sir?’ Conrad, asked, curious.

  ‘Fake, Conrad. See the scar tissue underneath where she was opened up to insert the breast implants?’

  He was well aware of the statistics when it came
to young women and anorexia and wondered if the victim was another casualty of society’s body fascism.

  Brady let his eyes drift slowly down to her flat navel and then further to her perfectly smooth, waxed groin. Yet another testament to the ubiquitous influence of the porn industry; that and the fake breasts, he mused.

  ‘We don’t deliver on this one, Conrad, Gates will make damned sure that by the end of the year I’ll be begging for my P45.’

  Brady shook his head. There was no way he would be able to cope stuck behind a desk for another six months. He’d go stir crazy; even the threat of being demoted to uniform and walking the drug-ridden streets of Blyth was better than pushing pens for the rest of his days.

  He sighed heavily as he questioned his chances of solving this murder. His guts kicked off, telling him it didn’t look promising.

  ‘Let’s take a look at her back and see if there’s any identifiable marks,’ suggested Brady.

  ‘Are you sure, sir?’

  ‘Ainsworth’s finished with her, Conrad, so moving her now won’t make any difference.’

  Conrad wasn’t so sure. He knew that Ainsworth, the head SOCO, had a ferocious temper and hated anyone messing with his crime scene. But he kept quiet, accepting that Brady knew what he was doing. He watched as Brady carefully rolled the body onto its stomach.

  The victim’s back and legs were covered in bruises. Brady had expected as much, but there was something else which took him by surprise.

  ‘Look at this,’ he muttered to Conrad as he pointed out the distinctive mark at the bottom of her spine.

  Conrad nodded, puzzled.

  ‘What do you think it is?’ Brady asked as he gently touched the newly puckered, burnt flesh with a white latex gloved finger, lightly tracing the shape of the mark. It was two inches in diameter and seemed to be a scorpion. Below it were the bold letters, ‘MD’.

  ‘I don’t know, sir. It doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before.’

  Brady took out his BlackBerry and photographed the burnt flesh.

  He didn’t like what was coming to mind and knew that Gates would like it even less.

  He stood up and turned to Conrad.

  ‘Let’s see what Wolfe has to say. He is carrying out the autopsy?’

  ‘I believe so, sir.’

  ‘Good, that’s something then.’

  They were going to need all the help they could get with this case. And he trusted Wolfe. He was a cantankerous old bugger who drank too much, but he knew his job. He was the best Home Office pathologist the force had ever had, and they’d had a few. Even Chief Superintendent O’Donnell was aware of Wolfe’s foibles, but since he was the best pathologist around, everyone turned a blind eye.

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. I think we could both do with some fresh air.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘So why didn’t the DCI ring me himself?’ Brady quizzed once they were outside.

  He already knew that something wasn’t right.

  ‘He’s busy,’ Conrad replied uneasily.

  Brady raised his eyebrows.

  ‘He’s dealing with another incident that happened last night,’ answered Conrad.

  ‘What? Involving Madley’s nightclub?’ asked Brady.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  That came as no surprise to Brady. He had noted the police tape sealing off the premises and the two uniforms stationed by the entrance as he had crossed the road heading for the beach that morning, and had assumed it was another early morning drugs raid. The nightclub belonged to Martin Madley, reputed to be the boss of the local mafia. Not that the police could ever finger Madley. It was rumoured that his main business was drugs. But right now Madley was the least of Brady’s concerns. He’d leave that to Gates.

  ‘Sir,’ Conrad said, trying his best to hide the apprehension in his voice. He was acutely aware that Brady still didn’t have any idea about what had happened in Madley’s nightclub. ‘We need to talk … before we go back to the station.’

  ‘Can it wait?’ said Brady distractedly.

  He had only one thing on his mind right now and that was the mark burnt into the victim’s flesh. There was one person he needed to talk to and he needed to do it immediately.

  Conrad didn’t answer him but his expression was enough for Brady to know something was troubling him.

  ‘Meet me back at the station. Then we’ll talk,’ assured Brady. ‘Just let me sort this out first. Alright?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But I need to speak with you as soon as you get back.’

  ‘Yeah, no problem. Just give me five minutes,’ Brady replied absent-mindedly. The last thing he wanted to do was make that call, but he had no choice.

  Conrad nodded, realising that now perhaps wasn’t the best time. Not that there was a right time for what he had to tell Brady.

  He reluctantly turned and walked across the beach back to the steps leading up to the lower promenade. He shoved his hands deep in his trouser pockets as he tried to figure out how to handle the fact that Brady still didn’t have a clue. The problem was, Conrad didn’t know how Brady would handle the news. He didn’t want to be the one to tell him, but perversely, he would rather it came from him than someone back at the station. In particular, someone like DI Adamson, who would take great relish in throwing it in Brady’s face.

  Conrad decided the best thing to do was get back to the station and wait for Brady. He had no choice.

  *

  Brady watched Conrad leave. He had a bad feeling about that look in Conrad’s eyes. It couldn’t be good news.

  But it would have to wait. Right now he had bigger problems to worry about.

  He needed to make that call. And then he’d have to face the rest of the team back at the station. All hell would have broken loose there. It wasn’t every day that a girl’s body washed up on the shores of Whitley Bay. Never mind a headless one.

  He hoped to God that somewhere, someone would be missing the victim. The problem he had was finding that someone. The odds at this moment were stacked high against her.

  Brady sighed heavily he searched his jacket for his pouch of Golden Virginia tobacco. He then took a sheet of Rizla paper and placed some tobacco in the paper with a filter before delicately rolling it tight. He lit it with trembling fingers as he closed his eyes and allowed the smoke to clear the decaying, sickening air from his lungs. He inhaled deeply a couple more times until it was enough to quell the desire to retch. He had tried to give up smoking and had failed, swapping chemical-filled cigarettes for roll-ups. It was an easy cop out. Too easy.

  He cast his eyes up at the sky. The day was already changing. The angry, crimson ball of sun was nowhere to be seen, blanketed instead by the heavy, mournful, gunmetal-grey clouds rolling in off the horizon.

  It was an all too familiar sky. The North East of England was well known for its continuous grey drizzle, regardless of the seasons. The only difference was the temperature. Brady found he was either freezing his bollocks off during the winter months when the Arctic winds whipped in from the North Sea, bringing snow and treacherous plummeting sub-zero temperatures, or sweating during the humid summer months. But hot or freezing cold, there always seemed to be grey drizzle. Regardless, Brady loved the place. It was in his blood. He knew that no matter what, he’d never leave the North East.

  Brady took his BlackBerry out. He needed to make a call. One that he didn’t want to make.

  He scrolled through the names listed until he came to the one he wanted. Reluctantly he pressed call and then waited. And waited. And waited until she eventually picked up.

  ‘For God’s sake! It’s not even seven o’clock on a Saturday morning! This better be good!’ finally answered a familiar voice.

  Brady could hear a man’s deep voice in the background asking who was on the phone. A man’s voice that Brady recognised.

  ‘Who do you think would call at this time?’ came the muffled answer as she covered the mouthpiece.

  ‘Claudia?’ interru
pted Brady, trying to control his voice.

  He had heard the rumours but hadn’t wanted to believe them. Now he had no choice.

  ‘This is work,’ he stated. ‘Nothing else.’

  He heard her sigh heavily. ‘Go on …’

  ‘A girl’s headless body has washed up onto Whitley Bay beach.’

  ‘Alright … but what’s that got to do with me? You know my job profile. I deal with sex trafficking victims, Jack. Remember?’

  ‘I know,’ answered Brady, taken aback by the coldness in her voice. ‘But this isn’t just any murder victim. She has some odd markings at the base of her spine.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well … there’s a scorpion and below that two initials: MD. But these aren’t tattoos, the marks look as if they’ve been burnt on to her skin. As if …’ Brady faltered as Claudia quickly cut in.

  ‘She’s been branded,’ interrupted Claudia.

  Brady waited.

  ‘Can you send me the photos of the markings?’ she finally asked.

  ‘Sure, I’ll send it to your mobile after this call,’ answered Brady, relieved that she was interested.

  But he was no fool. This was work, and this was exactly the kind of thing that Claudia was involved in.

  Branding was about registering ownership in the dark world of sex trafficking and sex slavery. And given that Claudia was involved with one of the first projects in the UK where the police and the Home Office worked in conjunction to free imprisoned women and occasionally children – mainly illegal immigrants – from brothels and houses where they were held hostage as sex slaves, he needed to know whether she recognised the brand left on the body.

  Once the women were freed by the specialist police team, Claudia then worked hand in hand with the Poppy Project who offered the victims support and accommodation, providing specialist legal back-up to secure the illegally trafficked women rights to stay in the country. Claudia had told Brady enough tragic accounts of young women freed from sex slavery only to be forcibly sent back to their country of origin, straight back into the hands of the organised criminals who enslaved them in the first place.