‘Tell Conrad that I’ll see him at the briefing.’
‘Sure,’ replied Harvey. ‘The Incident Room is being set up in the first-floor conference room, so you’ve got no excuses for being late. Remember, 8.30 am sharp. That gives you fifteen minutes, even you should make it in time!’
Brady managed a faint smile despite the irritating throbbing in his leg. They both knew his time keeping was poor.
‘Just so you know, we really tried to get those bastards who did that to you,’ Harvey said as he glanced at Brady’s leg. ‘Especially Conrad. There were times during the past six months when he worked two straight shifts.’
‘Yeah, he’s a good bloke,’ Brady acknowledged as he looked over at his deputy.
‘You look like shit!’ Brady said to Matthews as he entered his office.
He had expected to find Matthews waiting for him. It’s exactly what he would have done in his situation. But he couldn’t help being thrown. Matthews’ face was sickly pale and his eyes, which watched Brady’s every move, shone with a feverish madness.
Brady limped over to his desk and sat down. He could see that Matthews had already helped himself to a generous measure of the Glenfiddich he kept in his drawer for when things got too much.
‘You want another?’ Brady asked as he jerked his head in the direction of the malt.
Matthews nodded dejectedly.
Brady obliged him with a liberal refill. He picked up another mug off his desk and thought about pouring himself a small measure. Something about Matthews’ silence told him he was going to need it. He then thought the better of it and put the malt back. The last thing he wanted to do was rile Gates more than usual and drinking on the job on his first day back wasn’t a good tactic.
Brady watched as Matthews gratefully downed the malt before letting out a low, wounded sigh. He shook his head in disbelief before lifting his eyes to meet Brady’s. They had the despairing look of a rabid dog condemned to die.
‘I’m in deep shit, Jack,’ Matthews started, his voice quivering.
Brady waited tensely.
‘I … I don’t know where to start …’
Brady felt his stomach objecting to the greasy breakfast.
‘I … I knew her … I fucking knew her …’ muttered Matthews shaking his head.
‘Who?’ asked Brady, not wanting the answer.
‘The girl … the one who was …’ Matthews’ voice trailed off.
‘You can’t have done.’
Brady cleared his throat as he waited for Matthews to agree with him.
‘Jimmy? Come on, man.’
‘Don’t you think I’d fucking know?’
‘Come on, Jimmy. You can’t have known her. There was nothing left of her face to recognise.’
Matthews didn’t answer.
Brady swore to himself.
‘For fuck’s sake, Jimmy! Do you know what you’re saying?’
‘What kind of question is that? Do you think I’m crazy or something?’
‘Do you want the honest answer?’
Brady tried to get his head around what Matthews was saying. But it didn’t make sense. None of it was making sense.
Matthews stared hard at Brady, trying to anticipate his response.
‘I … I took her home in my car last night and—’
‘You what?’ Brady asked, incredulous.
He realised then that Matthews must have been screwing her, or at least attempting to. He tried to control the panic he could feel rising through his body.
‘When I got to the crime scene … you can’t imagine what it was like,’ Matthews said through trembling lips. ‘When I saw her lying there … what had been done to her … I … Oh Christ!’
He paused and looked at Brady with the hollow eyes of a man who had death shadowing him.
‘I panicked, Jack! I fucking panicked …’
Brady was speechless.
‘That’s why I covered her with my coat. Don’t you think I realised that my DNA might be on her? I mean I… fucking hell! I drove her home in my car … and then she turns up hours later … dead …’
Brady could feel the knot in his stomach tightening. It explained why Ainsworth, the senior SOCO, was so pissed off when he and Conrad had arrived. He had had enough of CID literally messing up his crime scene.
‘At first I thought … I thought it was Evie … it was her jacket … She was wearing Evie’s jacket …’
Brady sat upright, his head buzzing.
‘I … I don’t follow?’
‘The long blonde hair … the clothes. Fuck, Jack! When I first saw her I thought it was Evie! I thought it was my little girl lying there!’
It was at that moment that Brady realised that Matthews was in shock. He didn’t know what he was saying. He couldn’t, because it didn’t add up.
‘The last time I saw Evie she was still a skinny kid with pink braces. There’s no way that the victim was her age,’ he stated, relieved.
Matthews just stared at him as the madness slowly returned to his eyes.
‘Come on, Jimmy, she looked as old as the girl I took home last night!’
Suddenly the atmosphere in the room chilled. Matthews’ green eyes had dangerously narrowed to glinting slits.
‘You bastard! You sick bastard!’ Matthews hissed between gritted teeth.
‘Whoa!’ Brady said, holding his hands up as he tried his best to defuse the situation. Matthews wasn’t the kind of guy that you wanted to piss off. ‘She was just a kid … a dumb kid!’
‘Come on, Jimmy! She looked at least twenty. She was no doubt out drinking and shagging last night before this happened to her,’ Brady perilously insisted.
Matthews stood up, ready to lunge at him.
‘What? Bloody hell, Jimmy, she had … you know … it was all there! She had tits and everything!’
‘For fuck’s sake, you sick bastard! She was only fifteen!’
‘I can’t do this, Jimmy.’
‘The hell you can!’
Brady slowly shook his head.
‘I can’t keep quiet. If you’re right then this is somebody’s kid we’re talking about. Somebody’s fifteen-year-old kid with their face gone, for fuck’s sake!’
Yet Brady knew he owed him. Owed him big time. But what Matthews was asking was the impossible. He was expecting Brady to risk going to prison for him. He picked up the bottle of Scotch and thought the better of it. Damn Matthews; all he’d wanted was to return to work quietly.
Suddenly a sharp rap at the door added to the tense atmosphere.
Matthews signalled for Brady to get rid of whoever it was.
Brady got up from his seat wincing.
A more persistent rap followed.
‘I’m coming!’ Brady shouted as he limped towards the door.
He yanked the door open, but not wide enough to allow a view into his office.
Conrad stood in front of him.
‘Oh shit. Don’t tell me it’s already started?’
