‘You’ve lost me.’
‘I guarantee that Louise Simmons will not recognise the body. She will reluctantly acknowledge that the clothes and hair are similar but she will deny that it is her daughter because her daughter does not have her belly button pierced, let alone a jade dragon tattoo tucked discreetly below her navel. No one wants to accept that their child is dead. No one more so than Louise Simmons.’
‘What do you mean? What makes Louise Simmons so different from any other bereaved mother?’
‘Because she feels guilty, that’s why. She knew something was going on in her daughter’s life, something profoundly damaging. But she never did anything about it. Instead she ignored the doubts, choosing to believe that her daughter’s destructive behaviour was more to do with her ex-husband’s, Sophie’s father’s suicide over a year ago.’
‘All very insightful, Jack. I’m impressed. Tell me, is this another hunch of yours?’
‘No,’ answered Brady. ‘I just did some research on the victim’s father. Alex Washington jumped off the Tyne Bridge last year. It seems he suffered from clinical depression, coupled with stress from work and whatever crap was going on in his personal life. I guarantee that Louise Simmons believed that Sophie wasn’t handling her father’s death that well and that was why she was so uncommunicative; staying out late and doing God knows what shit teenagers do nowadays. Including getting a tattoo.’
Jenkins smiled at him.
‘You sound old.’
‘I am old,’ replied Brady.
Jenkins held his gaze long enough for him to briefly forget that Conrad was still in the room.
Embarrassed he cleared his throat and turned to look at the whiteboard.
‘Paul Simmons will definitely know by the tattoo that the body lying in that morgue is his step-daughter,’ Brady asserted.
Jenkins frowned at Brady.
‘That’s an odd statement. You know what you’re suggesting?’
‘Trust me, luring people into a false sense of security while you’re actually analysing their every move is what you’re good at,’ he answered as he turned to face her.
She smiled at him slowly.
‘Is that what you think I did to you?’ she asked as she swept her hair back off her high cheekbones.
Brady smiled faintly as he shook his head, noticing for the first time her striking scarlet-coloured lips. For a moment the intense colour reminded him of Claudia’s obsession with Chanel lipstick.
‘I don’t want to waste time talking about me while we have a murder victim turning very cold in the morgue.’
‘A typical “Jack Brady” response,’ Jenkins coolly answered.
Brady shrugged.
She turned and collected her things then headed for the door. She paused and looked back at Brady.
‘At least I get a straight answer from DS Adamson.’
‘But straight answers don’t interest you, do they?’ Jenkins stared at Brady, her expression saying it all, before turning and leaving.
‘Always got to have the last word, sir,’ stated Conrad. ‘What gives you that idea?’ asked Brady.
Brady had asked Conrad to drive him back to the crime scene. It was after one in the afternoon and time was running out for them. But he needed to have another look around; this time in daylight.
There was something about the murder that was niggling him. He had to wait for the post-mortem report from Wolfe, but from what he had seen at the crime scene the victim hadn’t appeared to have sustained sexual injuries. Instead, her murder hinted at something darker and more sinister; that she had known her killer.
His phone started to ring. For a brief moment he thought it might be Matthews.
Realising who it was, he cleared his throat before answering.
‘Yes sir?’
‘Any developments?’ questioned Gates.
‘No sir,’ answered Brady.
‘Damn. What about the post-mortem? Do we know if the murder victim was raped?’
‘No sir, Wolfe hasn’t verified that yet. As soon as I hear from him I’ll let you know.’
Brady inhaled deeply on what was left of his cigarette. Without thinking he stubbed it out in the spotless ashtray.
Conrad didn’t say a word, but Brady could hear his jaw grinding.
‘So, are you going to tell me how you figured out the identity of the victim?’
He foolishly hadn’t been expecting that question.
‘I just wanted to cover every possibility, sir,’ Brady lied. ‘Which was why I decided to widen the search by lowering the age range.’
He realised that he was getting himself in deeper and deeper. Only a fool would believe that Matthews hadn’t recognised her. Not with the way he had reacted when he saw her body. And definitely not once it became public knowledge that the victim had allegedly spent the hours leading up to her murder with Jimmy Matthews’ daughter, Evie. At least that was what the Simmons believed. They were adamant Sophie had gone to Evie Matthews’ home on the night she was murdered. Brady didn’t even want to think about the possibility of someone having seen Matthews driving the victim home.
The last thing he wanted was Gates realising he was hiding something.
‘And what about DI Matthews? Have you heard from him?’
‘No sir. Why? Is there a problem?’ Brady asked as casually as he could.
‘You tell me.’
Brady didn’t reply.
‘As soon as you hear anything I want to know. Understand?’
‘Yes sir,’ answered Brady as he looked out at the approaching crime scene.
He put his phone away as Conrad pulled in as best he could. Cars and vans blocked the road and even the pavements. Brady looked towards the gate that led down to the crime scene and watched journalists scurrying like rats over one another to get the best shot of the farmland and the crumbling farmhouse.
To them the murder of a fifteen-year-old girl was newsworthy, meaning it earned them money. And this story was too newsworthy for Brady’s liking. More so when you threw into the mix that within a twenty-five-mile radius they had fourteen hundred registered sex offenders; nineteen of whom had gone to ground. Whether their disappearance was connected to the murder was anyone’s guess. They had God knows how many officers assigned to track the buggers down. But finding them was another matter.
Brady got out of the car and slammed the door. He looked up at the thundering blades overhead. A news helicopter was flying low, too low over the crime scene. Brady looked across at Conrad and gestured up at the helicopter.
Conrad nodded.
‘I’ll sort it, sir,’ he said.
Brady’s headache still hadn’t gone and it now felt as if the rotating blades above were slicing through his skull.
‘And can you check that they’ve actually started carrying out those DNA swabs? The last thing we want is a repeat of the Carter case!’
‘Yes sir,’ answered Conrad as he took out his mobile.
Northumbria Police had screwed up big time on the Megan Carter investigation. They may have come good eventually, but that was down to sheer dumb luck. It had nothing to do with the investigative team; their reaction had been too slow at the time and they’d paid for it. By the time they had got the resources together to take DNA swabs from male residents within a four-mile radius of where the victim’s raped and strangled body had been found, the murderer had already left the area.
Gates still hadn’t lived that investigation down; no one had, despite the murderer serendipitously being caught three years later. He had been arrested for drinking and driving in another part of the country and a routine
