‘Take care,’ Brady said, looking at Trina McGuire.
‘Save it, Jack. We both know you don’t mean it,’ she replied. ‘And you tell that little shit Adamson that his days are numbered. No one treats me like a piece of fuckin’ shit. Especially not a copper!’
‘Who’s the lucky woman then?’ asked Conrad as he pulled out of the hospital car park.
‘No one you know,’ Brady replied quietly.
He looked down at the wilting bunch. The hospital gift shop wasn’t exactly Interflora, but it was the best he could do considering the circumstances.
‘Do you mind driving to Whitley Bay Cemetery first? There’s something I need to do,’ Brady asked softly as he avoided looking at Conrad.
‘Sure,’ answered Conrad, suddenly feeling like an idiot.
They drove along in concentrated silence.
Conrad felt too uncomfortable to make small talk. Not that it mattered. Brady was too preoccupied to even realise.
Brady looked out at the bleak, depressing coastline. The brooding, dirty-grey sea looked as unwelcoming as ever. He watched as dog walkers braved the constant drizzle and the North East winds whipping in from the Arctic.
Conrad pulled in behind the row of solemn cars parked outside the cemetery gates.
‘I’ll wait here, shall I?’ suggested Conrad.
‘Yeah, I won’t be long,’ answered Brady.
‘Take as long as you like, sir,’ replied Conrad.
‘Thanks,’ Brady said appreciatively before closing the car door.
He pulled his beat-up leather jacket tight around his body in a miserable attempt to ward off the sub-zero freezing wind and rain. He looked across towards St Mary’s lighthouse. The tall, white Victorian structure bleakly held out against the blackening sky while the sea raged at the battered rock on which it stood.
He let his gaze drift over to Feather’s caravan site which sat on the remote edge of Whitley Bay with unblemished views of the lighthouse and the sea on one side and wild fields and open countryside on the other. Who in their right mind would come to blustery, miserable Whitley Bay? questioned Brady. But the caravan site was popular. Who with, Brady had no idea, but it was the last standing testimony that Whitley Bay had once been a lively family holiday resort and not the binge drinking paradise and gang fighting haven it had now become.
The caravan park and the miniature golf course were all that was left, everything else had gone. The bucket and spade shops with lettered rock and candy floss had long since been boarded up. As had the amusement arcades and finally, the Spanish City fairground. A primary school had ironically replaced the ‘Corkscrew’ roller coaster, along with the ghost train and waltzers that had lurched and twisted as kids, himself included, had shrieked in stomach-churning delight.
Brady turned the collar of his jacket up against the stabbing rain and headed through the black wrought-iron gates of the cemetery. He nodded dolefully at the undertaker sat grim and irritable behind the wheel of his loaded hearse. Ahead of him a funeral had overrun. Like life, even in deathnothing was ever straightforward, Brady mused as he walked past, head down.
He turned off, avoiding the straggling mourners coming out of the chapel, and limped along the familiar row of headstones and cherubs. Brady counted his steps as he had done as a child. He reached twenty and stopped dead. Someone had got there before him.
An extravagant bouquet of white orchid lilies stood out amidst the sea of grey stone. Brady sucked in. He knew who had beaten him to it and had at the same time unwittingly outdone him. Embarrassed, Brady looked down at the cheerless hospital flowers in his hand. He thought the better of chucking them and instead, painfully knelt down and placed them on the ground in front of the headstone.
He clenched his jaw as he tried to hold back the overwhelming emotion he felt.
Brady closed his eyes as he tried to block out the noise from his past.
‘Expected to find you here,’ mumbled a hoarse, thick Geordie voice.
Brady quickly stood up, inwardly wincing as his leg kicked off at the strain. He turned round shakily.
‘What the fuck do you want?’ he muttered in a low, strained voice.
‘That’s no way to talk,’ replied the shabbily dressed old man sarcastically.
Brady stepped back in repulsion as he took in the pathetic drunk in front of him. The same drunk who had accosted him the previous night outside the station. In daylight he looked worse. What was left of his sandy- coloured, curly hair hung in matted, grey wispy clumps. His yellowing, sagging skin was covered in angry patches of burst blood vessels and crusted sores. His stocky body had become swollen with whatever spirits and cheap beer he could lay his gnarled, liver-spotted hands on.
Brady looked with disgust at his bloated, drunken face.
‘What? Don’t recognise me then?’ he asked gruffly before taking a swig from the bottle clutched in his blackened hand, his venomous eyes never leaving Brady.
Brady stared at him, unable to answer.
The drunk staggered backwards as he took another swig from the half-full bottle of vodka.
‘What are you after?’ Brady asked menacingly as he narrowed his dark brown eyes.
‘Come on, Jackie lad, there’s no need to be unpleasant,’ the man slurred.
‘Get to the point.’
‘I’m a bit strapped for cash right now,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders.
‘I’ve already given you enough.’
He smiled at Brady crookedly as he drunkenly shook his head.
‘Well obviously it wasn’t, was it? Or I wouldn’t be back.’
‘I told you the last time, that was it.’
‘Come on, Jackie? I came to offer you a deal,’ the old drunk pleaded. He smiled repulsively baring the few blackened teeth he had left.
Brady turned and walked away.
‘I’ll give you till Monday then?’ he called out after him. ‘Monday, yeah?’
Brady stuffed his clenched fists into his jacket and lowered his head, ignoring the looks he was getting from the group of people waiting to go into the chapel. His face was stinging from the salty rain blowing in from the North Sea. All he cared about was getting back to the car before he lost it.
‘Sir?’ asked Conrad, startled as Brady’s ashen-faced figure climbed into the car.
Brady didn’t react. Instead he closed his eyes and rested his head back against the seat.
‘Are you all right?’ Conrad asked, concerned.
‘I’m fine.’
He realised he was still trembling. The cold, damp North East air had seeped through his clothes. But he knew that wasn’t the reason he couldn’t stop shaking.
‘Conrad?’ said Brady. ‘Drive, will you? Just get me the hell out of this place.’
He pulled himself together. There was only one person now who could help him. He took out his mobile and started punching the number.
‘Yeah, it’s me,’ Brady said as he massaged his aching forehead.
‘I need to talk.’
Brady limped into Antonelli’s restaurant and deeply breathed in the heady aroma of freshly ground Italian coffee. He’d left Conrad parked up watching what was left of the North East’s fishing trawlers as they docked into North Shields quayside.
‘Better be good, Jack,’ warned Madley as Brady approached his table.
‘You know me better than that,’ said Brady.
He grimly nodded at the thirty-something, smart-looking, dark-haired man sat next to Madley.
The dark-haired man smiled laconically at Brady.
‘What is it with you coppers? Always turning up just before the deal’s on the table,’ laughed Paulie
