her best friend.
She looked up at him, surprising Brady with the dark malice in her eyes.
‘Jack? Come on, she’s had enough,’ Kate said, intervening.
Brady resisted the urge to shake her by her spoilt, selfish shoulders and wake her up to the cold, grim, brutal reality of what had happened to her alleged best friend.
‘Evie? You must know something? For Chrissakes! You were her best friend!’
‘Mum, make him stop! Please, make him stop!’ cried Evie as she melodramatically dropped her phone and pressed her hands over her ears.
Brady watched powerless as she successfully played her mother off against him.
‘Get out! Get out of my house now!’ shouted Kate as she stood up. ‘I mean it, Jack! Fucking get out!’
Brady immediately felt guilty as he looked at Evie as she now sat sobbing uncontrollably. This was Jimmy Matthews’ daughter after all. Not only that, she was just a kid who had found out that her best friend had been brutally murdered. Why the hell was he giving her such a hard time?
Brady cradled his head in his hands as he waited in Kate’s kitchen. It was fair to say it had gone worse than expected. Evie had fallen apart when she heard the news. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. But he had perilously pushed and pushed until she broke down.
He sighed heavily as he went over what he had managed to painfully extract; which wasn’t much. Needless to say he’d have to come back and take another statement once she’d gotten over the shock. That was, if Kate would allow him back.
At least he knew that the victim was with Evie until around ten. Then she left and walked back to West Monkseaton. Somewhere along that route Matthews must have stopped and given her a lift. After that, it was anyone’s guess.
Brady lit a cigarette.
Matthews had dumped him in deep shit. There was no way he could tell anyone that Matthews had picked up Sophie. For starters, Brady didn’t know the full story and secondly, Matthews going to ground made him look too damned suspicious; even in Brady’s books.
‘You bugger, Jimmy,’ Brady said under his breath.
He looked up as Kate walked back into the kitchen.
Brady had never seen her look so worried.
‘How is she?’ he asked in a hoarse voice.
‘She’s much calmer. No thanks to you,’ Kate replied abruptly.
He nodded, ashamed of how he had behaved.
‘I’m sorry.’
Kate didn’t reply.
Brady couldn’t help but notice that she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
‘Look, if I could have done it any other way I would have done. But you know the job, I had to ask her those questions …’ Brady attempted, before giving up.
It was pointless, Kate wasn’t listening.
He drew the cigarette up to his lips and inhaled deeply as he mulled over what little he knew about the hours leading up to the victim’s death.
Evie had been evasive about how she and Sophie had spent the night. She was certainly clear on what time Sophie had left, but that was about it. When Brady had pushed Evie about where she and Sophie would go out to at night, she had reluctantly mentioned Whitley Bay Park. When asked if that’s where they’d gone last night, she had clammed up, refusing to answer any more questions.
‘Are you sure that Evie should be going down to Whitley Bay Park at night?’ Brady asked, breaking the silence. It had been plaguing him from the moment Evie had first let it slip. He knew the scum who hung around down there and Evie definitely didn’t fit in.
Whitley Bay Park was part of Mayor Macmillan’s regeneration programme for the rundown, shabby seaside resort. Built on one of the few green areas in Whitley Bay, it sat next to the local, sixties library and opposite The Avenue; a nineteenth-century dilapidated, boarded-up pub now left to rot. The park was sold to the council taxpayers at a staggering price of ?350,000.
What the council failed to acknowledge was the nightmare it would cause for the police and the residents living opposite. During the day it fulfilled its function but at night it was a magnet for lowlifes who would travel from miles around. Word spread fast and kids aged from eight up to seventeen gathered there in the dark, shouting profanities, smoking, drinking cheap booze and getting high on whatever cocktail of drugs was available. The finale was either fighting or shagging whoever was off their face enough to be up for it.
Kate slowly turned to face him. ‘Kids go to parks, Jack, where else are they meant to go? Maybe if you’d had some of your own you would have found that out!’
It was a cheap shot and she knew it. They both knew it was one of the reasons his relationship with Claudia had broken down. The other was down to him briefly forgetting he was still married.
Brady didn’t reply.
He would check the park out for himself later. There was always the chance that some of the kids hanging around there could tell him something about last night; something that Evie couldn’t bring herself to share. Not with her mother sat listening to every word.
‘I’m sorry, Kate. I should go,’ Brady said.
She nodded. He wanted her to say something. He didn’t know what, but anything was better than ending it this way.
As he stood up he suddenly remembered the photo he had of Sophie.
‘What do you make of this?’ Brady asked, handing her the photograph that he had taken from Sophie’s bedroom.
She couldn’t disguise her surprise at the image of Sophie with her hand seductively pulling the twenty- something male’s face towards her own. But Brady noted that she composed herself quickly.
‘Look, Jack, I don’t know what you expect me to say.’
Brady shrugged his shoulders.
‘You tell me?’ he replied.
‘This … this is just …’ Kate stopped and looked up at Brady shaking her head. ‘They’re still just silly girls, Jack. What don’t you get?’
‘That’s precisely it. I don’t get it,’ answered Brady.
‘I honestly don’t know what you’re trying to make out here. Someone killed her! She didn’t go looking for it, so all those goddamn questions you asked Evie were inappropriate!’
Brady kept quiet.
The last person he was judging was the victim. All he was trying to understand was her background and what she did outside school. It was simple criminology to know the victim’s history and then you can start to put together a profile of her murderer. There was something about Sophie Washington, something that made someone want to kill her with more fury and hatred than Brady had ever seen in his entire life as a copper.
‘Just look at the photo,’ Brady persisted.
‘Christ, Jack, why the hell are you so cynical all the time?’
‘Do you know who the bloke is?’ Brady asked, ignoring Kate’s jibe.
‘He’s their form tutor,’ Kate replied shaking her head at Brady’s expression. ‘Like I said, it’s innocent.’
‘He looks too bloody young to be a teacher,’ Brady replied. ‘Are you sure?’
Kate gave him a withering look.
‘I’m certain. This was probably taken on the school trip to the Black Forest a couple of months back. He was one of the teachers who organised the trip. Evie couldn’t make it because she was ill at the time. She was absolutely gutted. Like most of the girls in her class she had a huge crush on Mr Ellison.’
Brady gave her a quizzical look.
‘I’m her mother, Jack. You know these things. It’s not rocket science; teenage hormones coupled with a young, handsome teacher like Mr Ellison, what do you think?’
Kate looked back at the photograph.
‘When Sophie went without her she was beside herself. She hated me for not letting her go. Wouldn’t talk to
