farmland.
He limped over to Ainsworth’s impatient figure and watched as he pulled a clump of wild branches back to reveal a significant gap in the wooden fence, large enough for even Brady to climb through. Brady knelt down and looked through it. A muddy lane led straight out onto Fairfield Drive, the street where the murder victim had lived.
‘Shit,’ muttered Brady.
‘Footprints found here match the boots that your victim was wearing, confirming that she came in this way. And it seems that she was with someone,’ Ainsworth stated. ‘Whether she met them here or she came with them, I can’t say. But by this point,’ Ainsworth gestured to where they stood, ‘she was definitely not on her own.’
Brady raised his eyebrow questioningly.
‘We got a partial handprint on this side of the fence which matches another handprint we found by the body. And we found what we presume to be male footprints given the size here, identical to prints found at the crime scene,’ Ainsworth explained.
Brady’s phone started to ring. He pulled it out of his jacket and looked at the number.
‘Sorry, I need to take this call,’ Brady apologised as he stood up.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ muttered Ainsworth. ‘Any excuse not to work.’
Brady shot him a grin before turning away to answer his phone.
‘Amelia?’
‘You were right about Paul Simmons,’ stated Jenkins.
‘Yeah?’
‘He knew it was his step-daughter as soon as he saw the tattoo. Not that he admitted it. He made out he recognised her from her clothes and hair.’
‘What was his reaction?’ asked Brady.
‘He seemed genuinely shaken.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Are you questioning my judgement?’ asked Jenkins.
‘No … yes … maybe,’ replied Brady.
‘Look, I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you expected to hear.’
‘On the contrary, it is exactly what I expected,’ stated Brady.
It was a cold, simple fact that the first suspects in any child’s murder were the parents.
Brady looked at Louise Simmons. It may have only been 1.37 pm but he couldn’t blame her for the stiff gin and tonic clutched between white-knuckled, trembling hands. She looked like she needed it. Her face was drawn; haggard lines etched their way from under her glazed, icy blue eyes and around her rigid, thin lips. She had cruelly aged since his first visit.
The silence hung heavily in the room. Brady fought the compulsion to get up and throw open the heavy, sumptuous red and gold leaf curtains. The glow from the large Tiffany lamp sat on the ornate antique sideboard failed to penetrate the gloom of the room. Even the coal fire which hissed and spat in the original Edwardian hearth couldn’t take the chill out of the room.
Brady shifted his feet on the polished wooden floor. In front of him was a wide, old wooden chest that served as a coffee table. A heavy, hardback book on the Impressionists was neatly positioned on the chest, along with a book on contemporary art and another on Art Deco. He carefully placed his coffee on the chest, fearful of disturbing the books on display. Or the large, handmade bowl that was filled with carefully arranged, exotic fruit. Brady now knew that Louise Simmons was an art teacher at a private girls’ school in Jesmond, a sought-after expensive suburb two miles out from the city centre of Newcastle and seven miles inland from Whitley Bay. It explained the books and the eclectic pieces of art work he had noticed covering the walls in the hallway and also in the spacious living room where he was now sat.
Paul Simmons was an IT manager with Sage business and software services in Newcastle. He looked the part: cold, clinical, uptight, arrogant and egotistical. Brady wondered for a moment what it was that had attracted Louise Simmons to her husband? And more to the point what exactly did they have in common? He imagined that Simmons’ arrogance and attitude might have been attractive to begin with, but wondered whether it was starting to wear thin.
Brady looked up at the oil painting hanging over the fireplace, and resisted the urge to ask Louise Simmons more about it.
He suspected the painting was a stunning copy of King Edward’s Bay, an oil painting by F. W. Reaveley, a Tynemouth-born artist who began painting local sea and landscapes from 1891. Brady knew the painting was owned by a private collector, but was sure that the painting above the fireplace couldn’t be the original which was probably worth a small fortune by now.
Instead of asking more about the painting he turned to look at Paul Simmons who was stood in the large bay window with his hands clenched, jaw rigid, eyes resentfully narrowed as he watched every move Brady made. He did little to hide his disdain at Brady’s return. He wanted Jimmy Matthews here.
‘What hope do we have of you lot finding out who … who’s responsible if you’re sat here?’ Simmons suddenly spat.
‘We’re doing everything we can, Mr Simmons,’ Brady reasoned.
‘Including ransacking her bedroom? Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage?’
‘I’ll personally make sure everything is replaced after we’ve finished.’
‘You’re damned right you will!’ Simmons replied.
He shook his head as more footsteps could be heard descending the spiralling wooden stairs. He looked through the gap in the curtains only to see officers carrying out two bagged and sealed computers.
‘What the hell are you doing with my computer? I … I need that for work! There are confidential work files on there. The last thing I want is you idiots destroying them! And when exactly do I get them back, eh?’ Simmons asked agitatedly as he ran his fingers through his short hair. ‘Christ! You’re a bunch of bloody idiots, all you’re doing is wasting time! There’s nothing on her computer or mine that’s connected to … to …’ Simmons faltered, unable to finish the sentence.
Brady didn’t reply. There was nothing he could say that would ease Simmons’ anger. Now wasn’t the time to explain that paedophiles used the internet to get close to children. Most parents were completely unaware of the dangers. Brady knew the statistics and they weren’t good. One out of every five children using chatrooms had been approached by a sexual predator unbeknown to their parents. Brady couldn’t take a chance. The victim’s computer had to be analysed. And as for Simmons’ computer, it was simply protocol. He was after all the step-father and by default the first suspect in his step-daughter’s murder. Regardless of whether or not he had appeared shaken when he identified her body.
‘If you lot had done your job when I first reported her missing then she might still be alive,’ Simmons stated through gritted teeth. His face was flushed, even his temples glowed a furious scarlet. He looked like a man who was about to have a heart attack.
‘And don’t take me for an idiot, Detective Inspector. I know you knew something when you first called round.’
Brady kept quiet. Simmons was looking for a fight and he wasn’t up for accepting the challenge. He knew better than anyone the reason why the standard police procedure was to wait twenty-four hours before seriously acting on a missing persons report. If Sophie Washington had been under ten years old then the police would have acted immediately. However a missing child of Sophie’s age was treated with a dose of cynical pragmatism.
Sophie Washington wasn’t the first teenager to be reported missing and certainly wouldn’t be the last. Typically, kids Sophie’s age would disappear for a night, or at worst a few days. Arguments at home were the common cause for them absconding. However, sometimes parents weren’t so fortunate, sometimes their children never returned home. Brady had dealt with missing kids as young as eleven running off to Manchester or London, only to be swallowed up by the rapidly growing child prostitution market.
Considering all the possible outcomes, Brady had had to ask some awkward questions, unwelcome questions; ones that Paul Simmons didn’t accept too readily. But what troubled Brady was the picture the Simmons were painting of their daughter. He was having difficulty swallowing it. She was perfect, too perfect. Yet they had waited
