facilitated by the media. Once Sophie’s pitiful, squalid life had been picked over, fingers would sure enough start pointing at the mother. Brady had seen it before on other child murder cases, where they would find reasons to blame the parents, ignoring the murderer’s part in all of it. But this was different, Paul Simmons had played a big part in Sophie’s demise, as had Louise Simmons. A step-father, who from the moment he had entered her life at the age of eleven had started sexually abusing her, and a mother who had chosen to look the other way. It was easier to knock back a gin and tonic than accept your husband was sexually abusing your eleven-year-old daughter. But it was worse than that, he was sharing his abuse with the world. Years of photographs and films of his sexual exploits had been posted on endless encrypted paedophilic websites, egotistical evidence that had led to his downfall.
Footsteps approached from behind him. Brady didn’t turn round, there was no need; he knew who would be there.
He slowly breathed out. Now all he had to do was wait.
Conrad’s silver Saab slowly turned into the street. Brady threw away his cigarette and resisted the urge to walk back inside.
Instead he watched as Conrad opened the passenger door and gently helped Evie out. She looked a mess; hair uncombed, clothes dishevelled. But it was her face that got to Brady. It was a child’s face. Gone were the smudged telltale signs of make-up and the petulant, defiant hardness of the teenager he’d interviewed, replaced by red, swollen, vulnerable eyes and unnaturally pale cheeks. Brady held his breath; she could have been that skinny kid again with long, dangling pig tails and bleeding, scuffed knees. She was crying, hot, salty tears of remorse. They flowed down her pale face as, trembling, she looked up at the police station. He resisted the urge to go to her and put his arm around her petrified body and tell her it was all going to be all right. But he couldn’t, because he knew it wouldn’t be the truth.
He swallowed hard. Where had it all gone wrong for her? he thought, as he questioned the enormity of what he had just done.
He had been playing the ‘what if’ game from the moment Conrad had gone to bring her in. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut and let Matthews go down for it? Worse still, should he have let Ellison take the blame? As Matthews had pointedly said, Ellison deserved a hell of a lot morethan the courts would mete out; a sexual relationship with his fifteen-year-old student didn’t warrant much punishment. Not in today’s world. So maybe he should have let him take the bullet? These were questions that he couldn’t get out of his head. If he had had his way, he would have let Simmons go down for it. Brady had seen the sick material he had filmed of his step- daughter, disturbing evidence that would have turned most people’s stomachs. But Brady was a realist. he knew the judicial system well enough to know that Simmons would go down for a good few years, given the horrific nature of his sexual abuse.
But it was all a moot point now. Whether he had made the right choice, he couldn’t say. All he knew was that he had done his job.
Ashamed, Brady turned away as Conrad and Claudia accompanied Evie, now crying uncontrollably, up the ramp. Distraught, Kate followed behind.
‘I … I … didn’t mean it to happen …’ sobbed Evie as she stopped in front of Brady.
Her pale face was filled with regret; genuine, raw regret.
‘I know,’ he quietly acknowledged, wishing there was more he could say.
‘I … I … don’t know why I did it … I honestly didn’t want to hurt her … not Sophie …’ she faltered as tears choked her words. ‘But… but she just got to me. Made me so mad that I … I just saw red and then … I didn’t realise what I’d done until it was too late.’
‘I know you didn’t,’ gently replied Brady.
She looked up at him with surprise as tears streamed down her face, realising that he believed her.
‘We were both drunk and we started arguing and then … she said some horrible things about… about me… and about her and Mr Ellison and and then my dad and her so I … I …’ she faltered as her words were replaced by choking sobs.
Brady watched as Conrad took Evie firmly by her convulsing shoulders and walked her through the double, wooden doors of the station.
Brady looked at Claudia.
‘Thanks for doing this.’
‘I’m not doing this for you, Jack. I’m doing this for Evie,’ Claudia replied.
‘I know …’ muttered Brady looking away.
‘Jack?’
He looked at her.
They were both hurting. They had known Evie from when she had been a little girl. Neither one could believe life had turned out like this for her, or for them come to that.
He suddenly took hold of her hands.
‘Claudia …’ he gently said. He didn’t know what more to say to keep her there.
She looked up at him, not resisting his hold over her.
‘Maybe I should take that job offer?’ she said.
He searched her face, surprised.
He didn’t need to ask what had changed her mind. He knew that what had happened with Evie Matthews had somehow forced them back together. Whether it meant that she would consider being a part of his life again didn’t matter, not yet. What counted was that she was going to be back in the North East. It was a start.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘Later, OK?’
Brady nodded and let her hands go. He watched, impotent, as she disappeared.
A few seconds later he realised that Kate was stood beside him.
‘What’s going to happen to her?’ she asked.
Brady numbly shook his head, unable to look her in the eye. It was a closed case. The evidence was conclusive; more so after Matthews’ statement.
‘I can’t say. At least Claudia is representing Evie … she’s really good. She’ll … she’ll figure something out. She knows people,’ Brady replied unconvincingly.
Brady forced himself to look at Kate. He apologetically shrugged. He was at a loss himself.
Dazed, she mutely accepted this and walked on.
‘Kate?’ he called out after her.
Whether she heard him or not, he would never know.
Brady closed his eyes and shakily leaned back against the station’s red brick wall and shallowly breathed out as the wooden doors slammed shut behind her.
‘I can’t do this … Conrad will have to take my place.’
‘You have no choice in the matter. This is your investigation. You finish it.’
Brady turned to face Gates.
Gates waited, forcing his hand.
‘All right. Just give me a minute to clear my head.’
‘As soon as you can, Jack. This is your shit, you clear it up.’
‘I know it is. But it doesn’t end here. I owe it to Matthews to do what I can to substantiate his allegations.’
‘What? Against Madley?’
Brady looked Gates straight in the eye. He knew Madley too well. Enough to know he wouldn’t dirty his hands with anything to do with sex trafficking. Drugs, maybe. But sex trafficking was a different league.
‘Macmillan, sir. Mayor Macmillan. And if that means upsetting a few people, then that’s what I’ll have to do. After all, isn’t that what I’m good at? ‘
Read on for an exclusive extract from Danielle Ramsay’s next novel Broken Bodies, coming in 2011.
