Vanishing Point Page 6

  ‘Was there anything about them that stood out? Something they said, maybe? Or even a distinguishing mark?’

  ‘There was something that struck me as odd …’

  Brady nodded for her to elaborate.

  ‘One of them had a large platinum signet ring on the third finger of his right hand.’

  ‘Why did that strike you as odd?’ quizzed Brady.

  ‘Because when they turned to leave I realised that they were both wearing them. One of them had his hand in his pocket you see. Then his phone rang. And when he took it out I saw that he was wearing an identical ring. And on the same finger.’

  ‘What did the rings look like?’

  ‘It was the letter “N”. But it was all fancy, inset with diamonds. And the backdrop to the letter had what looked like Latin writing on it. They looked expensive, you know?’

  ‘You’ve got a good eye,’ Brady said. ‘Ever thought about becoming a copper?’

  She laughed. ‘Divorced and single,’ she explained. ‘Force of habit, checking out whether a man’s married or not. First thing I look for now is a wedding ring, or the tell-tale sign that it’s been temporarily removed. Been stung in the past you see.’

  Brady shoved his hand in his pocket and gripped the silver wedding ring he kept on him at all times. He couldn’t manage to let go of it, despite the undeniable fact that Claudia had taken up with another man. DCI James M. Davidson was a muscle-bound, ex-military Ross Kemp look-alike, who had swaggered into the Armed Response Unit on the back of his hands-on combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  Not that Brady would take that away from him. It took balls to risk your life in a war reminiscent of Vietnam. In other words, a war against fundamentalist insurgents who used dirty, guerrilla warfare against the enemy. But, regardless of his heroism, Davidson was still an arrogant, tall, good-looking, dangerously charming player, who had war stories that mere mortal men would kill for.

  And that was Brady’s problem. He didn’t want Claudia to be played. But he wasn’t in a position to say anything, given his own history with her.

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ Brady said.

  He stopped and turned back.

  ‘What did you say to them when they asked to see her?’

  ‘I said only immediate family could visit,’ she answered. ‘But what was odd was their reaction. They didn’t say a word. Just walked straight back out.’

  Brady nodded. He expected as much. They had got all the information they had needed. Whether or not Simone Henderson was still alive.

  ‘Where’s the security camera?’ asked Brady.

  The receptionist pointed at the camera discreetly placed on the ceiling behind the reception area. Perfectly positioned to capture whoever came in and out the hospital main entrance.

  Brady would need the footage from earlier that morning to see whether the two men who had come in were the same ones he’d seen with Simone hours before she was brutally attacked.

  Somehow he would have to get Amelia to request it. Nobody would question her authority. After all, she was working on the investigation as a forensic psychologist. Her job was to come up with a profile of the attacker.

  He knew that he couldn’t get any of his team to do it. Inevitably word would get back to Adamson and then Gates. Brady knew that that letter ‘N’ wasn’t just coincidence. What it meant he didn’t know but he sure as hell was going to find out why it had been burnt into Simone Henderson’s breast.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said to the receptionist before turning and heading down the maze-like corridor.

  The only thing on his mind now was Simone.

  Regardless of what Conrad had said in the car, he needed to see her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Brady pressed the intercom button for the security doors leading into the Intensive Care Unit.

  ‘Detective Inspector Brady to see Simone Henderson,’ Brady said into the intercom, trying to keep his voice level.

  The door buzzed open and Brady walked through into the sterile, white hall and headed for the nurses’ desk at the end.

  ‘Simone Henderson? DI Brady,’ he added as he flashed his ID at the young Filipino nurse.

  She nodded distractedly as an alarm from one of the patients’ machines went off.

  ‘Down there, Room 2. On your left,’ she instructed before hurriedly walking off in the direction of the alarm.

  Brady turned and walked past the ward of male and female patients. Most of an age, attached to bleeping machines that monitored their every breath and heartbeat. Brady looked straight ahead, not wanting to witness the loss of humility that came with old age. Craggy, parched mouths hanging open, with skin peeling off from their tongues due to lack of hydration and eyes either tightly shut against their situation or open, staring ahead with a watery, glazed look.

  Brady hated hospitals. Hated the smell, the noise and the fact that death morbidly clung to every patient, silently waiting.

  Brady didn’t need to be told which room. The uniform outside was obvious enough. Brady approached the door of the private room, noting that the blinds on the window looking into the room were closed. Immediately, he knew it was a bad sign.

  ‘Sir?’ PC Smith asked uncomfortably.

  Brady could see in his eyes that Smith, along with everyone else, knew that he was the reason Simone Henderson had transferred out of Whitley Bay.

  Brady looked at him. He was twenty-three, if that.

  ‘I’m here to see Simone Henderson.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I’ve been instructed not to allow you in,’ the PC answered nervously.

  ‘Who by?’ demanded Brady as he edged towards PC Smith, forcing him to strategically place his six-foot-four, rugby-playing bulk between Brady and the door.

  ‘DI Adamson, sir,’ explained PC Smith, his cheeks reddening.

  Brady noted that Smith was another Conrad in the making. Smart appearance, short, cropped blond hair, bright, boyish blue eyes and clean-shaven. But more importantly, Smith had that look of integrity about him.

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘That’s not the point, sir.’

  ‘I only want a minute, Smith. That’s all. I just need to see that she’s OK.’

  PC Smith uncomfortably stared straight ahead past Brady, refusing to make eye contact.

  ‘I can’t do that, sir. I have my orders.’

  ‘Fuck your orders!’

  Smith fixed his stare on the wall ahead of him, clearly desperate for someone to intervene.

  ‘One minute is all I’m asking for, nothing more,’ attempted Brady, too aware that getting angry with Smith wouldn’t get him anywhere.

  ‘I wish I could, sir, but her father’s here. And he’ll be back shortly. He’s only gone to fetch a coffee from the cafeteria.’

  ‘One minute. You can leave the door open and warn me when he returns.’

  PC Smith frowned, torn between doing his job and loyalty to Brady. He’d worked on an investigation headed by Brady nine months back and had seen what a dedicated copper Brady was at heart.

  After a beat, Smith shook his head resignedly.

  ‘One minute, sir,’ he said. ‘But if anyone finds out …’

  ‘No one will,’ assured Brady. ‘Thanks, Smith.’

  PC Smith turned and opened the door to allow Brady in.

  Nothing could have prepared Brady for what greeted him.

  DC Simone Henderson lay unconscious. From what he could tell she had been heavily sedated. Various other wires were attached below her paper-thin hospital gown, recording her heartbeat with irritable regularity. Intravenous tubes wormed their way into her lifeless arms.

  Brady stood, unable to move towards her. Her face was unrecognisable from that of the woman he had seen the night before. Brady clenched his fists as he played the ‘what if’ game. What if he had gone over to her? Maybe she wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed fighting for her life.

  Brady didn’t need a doctor to tell him that she was in a bad way. The
ghostly, sickly greyish pallor that clung resiliently to her skin scared the hell out of him. He didn’t know whether to go over to her and try his damnedest to shake her out of the shadowy underworld she now inhabited. He wanted to shout her name out loud enough to bring her back. To remind her that she didn’t belong where she was, that she needed to return to the living. He needed her to regain consciousness so he could find out who had done this to her. So he could hunt them down and make them suffer the way she had been made to suffer.

  He struggled to hold her name at the back of his throat, knowing that if he uttered it out loud it would only be heard as a painful, primeval, anguished sob.

  He forced himself to walk towards the bed. Each step feeling as if he was walking barefoot on broken glass.

  He reached her side and waited. Willing her to feel his presence.

  She didn’t move.

  He bent over her waxen, taut face, gently brushing her long, damp hair away from her cold, translucent skin.

  ‘I’ll get them, Simone … whoever did this to you … I’ll get them … .’

  He couldn’t help but notice how young and fragile she looked. And yet, there was something about her which suggested she was too old for this world. She had seen too much and was done with this life.

  Brady breathed in and tried to get his head together.

  He didn’t have time to reflect. He had work to do.

  Hand trembling, knowing that what he was doing was breaking every rule in the book, he pulled back the tape holding the gauze padding covering her left breast. He knew he shouldn’t be interfering with the dressing but he needed to see for himself the four-inch letter ‘N’ burnt into her flesh.

  He forced himself to look. He willed himself not to react as he took in the gnarled, weeping, open wound. He took out his phone, the reason he was there, and photographed the letter ‘N’.

  Satisfied with the image, he carefully replaced the dressing and turned away, feeling disgusted with himself. He fought back the overwhelming tumult of emotions coursing through his body.

  He pulled himself together. Now wasn’t the time to get emotional. He owed Simone more than that. It was simple: he had a job to do and that had to be his main focus. Breathing slowly he gave her one last look before turning and walking out.

  ‘Sir,’ greeted PC Smith, relieved when Brady joined him in the hall.

  ‘Thanks, I owe you one,’ Brady said.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to look at him. He didn’t want the junior copper to see the pain etched across his face. Or the shame he felt at what he had just done.

  He turned and walked away, head bent down as he sent Claudia the photograph accompanied by an explanatory text.

  He watched as the signal ebbed and then surged, until the photo finally disappeared, along with the message.

  ‘DI Brady? Jack Brady? You bastard!’

  Brady turned and before he had a chance to react he felt a hard blow to his face knocking him against the wall. Another landed and before he knew it he was down on the floor.

  ‘I’ll kill you!’ threatened the assailant.

  Brady scrambled to his feet while trying to get away from the punches and kicks that his attacker was relentlessly delivering.

  The last thing Brady could do was retaliate, despite the blows and kicks being delivered in his direction.

  After all, this was Simone Henderson’s father.

  And at five foot eight with a stocky, pit-bull build and thick, brutish arms that kept coming, he was a serious contender. His bald, shaven head glistened with sweat as he did everything he could to kill Brady.

  Suddenly PC Smith was there trying to pull Frank Henderson back.

  ‘You son of a bitch! How dare you show your face here!’ panted the fifty-something man as he flailed around against PC Smith, trying to land as many blows and kicks as possible on Brady. ‘Do you know what those bastards have done to her? To my little girl? Do you? It’s all your fault!’

  Brady backed away from him, trying to avoid the frenzied punches.

  Suddenly the security doors buzzed.

  Conrad walked through. It took him a moment to take stock of the situation. He’d expected to find Brady here. Which was why he had come to the ICU first before going as instructed to the morgue. But what he hadn’t expected was to find Brady on the floor with Simone Henderson’s father’s boots violently kicking his face and body while PC Smith did his best to hold him back.

  Without a second’s hesitation Conrad ran over and forcibly restrained Simone’s father. Between them, PC Smith and Conrad somehow managed to hold him long enough for Brady to get some distance and get to his feet.

  Brady looked at Conrad’s face, which was flushed as he fought to control Simone Henderson’s father. He was relieved that his deputy hadn’t followed his orders and was too aware that this wasn’t the first time he had stepped in and saved Brady’s neck.

  Bent over, gasping for breath as he held his ribs, Brady backed away from his struggling assailant who was still intent on finishing the job. Catching his breath in deep shallow gasps he raised his head to meet Henderson’s hate-filled eyes. From that one look of absolute fury and disgust Brady realised that this man held him responsible for the fact that his only child was lying in intensive care, heavily sedated after too many hours on an operating table, not knowing whether she would even pull through.

  ‘If you’ve been in her room, I’ll kill you! You hear?’ shouted Frank Henderson as Conrad pinned his arms behind his back.

  ‘I wanted to but Smith there wouldn’t let me in,’ hoarsely panted Brady, still winded from the blows he’d taken.

  ‘You stay away from her!’

  ‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry …’

  ‘You think I believe that? It was you, you bastard, that made her transfer to the Met. Left me and her mother because of you. Her mother was dying of cancer, did you know that? Did you? That’s what you did to us. Forced our only child to run as far away as possible from the North East,’ yelled Henderson as he continued to struggle like a man possessed against Smith and Conrad.

  Conrad’s face was now burning red with the exertion of holding him back. Even Smith was clearly struggling to restrain him.

  Still clutching his right side, Brady turned to leave before Henderson’s sheer hatred of him overpowered both men holding him back.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Brady. ‘You’ll never know how much.’

  ‘And so you should be. If it hadn’t been for you she wouldn’t have come back here. I want to know what happened. I want to know how you could let her get hurt.’

  Brady stopped. He turned round, confused.

  ‘I don’t understand. I haven’t seen Simone since she transferred from Northumbria a year ago.’

  Henderson stared hard at Brady. It was evident that he didn’t believe him.

  ‘Then why did she tell her flatmate that she had to talk to you? That she had some unfinished business?’

  Brady looked at Conrad who looked equally puzzled.

  ‘She never contacted me,’ Brady replied, shaking his head.

  ‘So you tell me why her flatmate said that she was coming up here on leave to see you.’

  Brady stared at Henderson, not understanding what he was saying.

  ‘Maybe you got it wrong,’ suggested Brady carefully.

  ‘I got it wrong, did I? I didn’t find out that she was in the North East until your lot showed up on my door. You tell me why she didn’t want me to know she was here?’

  Brady couldn’t answer him.

  ‘I’ll tell you, shall I? Because she knew how I felt about you. If I’d known she was coming up to see you I would have done everything in my power to stop her!’

  ‘She didn’t arrange to meet me,’ Brady answered quietly but firmly.

  It was the wrong answer. Henderson lunged forward, fighting Conrad and Smith with renewed vigour.

  Conrad, breathless and scarlet-faced, shot Brady a look which told him to d
isappear, and fast, before he lost control of Henderson.

  Dejectedly Brady turned and limped out of the ICU, feeling as if he had just had the worst kicking of his life. And the worst part was, he knew he deserved it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Brady held onto the washbasin.

  He was still shaking from the attack.

  But it wasn’t the blows that had got to him.

  He turned the cold tap on and splashed himself with water. Face drenched, he looked up at his reflection in the mirror.

  He looked like shit.

  Wincing, he straightened up and lifted his t-shirt. His light olive-coloured skin was starting to discolour into mottled purple patches spreading across the side of his right ribcage. He gently ran his fingers over the bruising which led down to his abdomen.

  He let go of his t-shirt. Bending over the washbasin again, he drenched his face, groaning with the exertion.

  But no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get rid of the image of what they had done to Simone.

  He was very aware that word would get back to Gates. Brady could deny having seen Simone. He knew that Smith wouldn’t say a word. But there was no way he could deny the run-in with the victim’s father. Nor could he explain why Frank Henderson believed his daughter had returned to the North East because of Brady. It didn’t make sense. He hadn’t talked to her in over a year. Nothing. And then suddenly, she’s back up here lying critically wounded in the ICU.

  He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the damage. Nothing was broken. His left cheek was split open. Frank Henderson had also landed a lucky blow above his left eyebrow, resulting in another open gash. Blood trickled down into his eye.

  He bent down and doused himself in more cold water in a bid to get rid of the blood. He didn’t have time to go and get the cuts stitched. Not that he would have done. He’d had a lot worse than this and had lived to tell the tale.

  He raised his head up and slowly breathed out. His head was throbbing. He ran his hand over his scalp for any tell-tale damage. Nothing. Apart from the raised four-inch scar at the back of his head where his father had taken a baseball bat to him when he was eight years old. All he remembered was hearing the swoosh of air as the baseball bat had swung towards him. He’d felt it connect with his skull before everything went black.