message.
‘DI Brady? Jack Brady? You bastard!’
Brady turned and before he had a chance to react he felt a hard blow to his face knocking him against the wall. Another landed and before he knew it he was down on the floor.
‘I’ll kill you!’ threatened the assailant.
Brady scrambled to his feet while trying to get away from the punches and kicks that his attacker was relentlessly delivering.
The last thing Brady could do was retaliate, despite the blows and kicks being delivered in his direction.
After all, this was Simone Henderson’s father.
And at five foot eight with a stocky, pit-bull build and thick, brutish arms that kept coming, he was a serious contender. His bald, shaven head glistened with sweat as he did everything he could to kill Brady.
Suddenly PC Smith was there trying to pull Frank Henderson back.
‘You son of a bitch! How dare you show your face here!’ panted the fifty-something man as he flailed around against PC Smith, trying to land as many blows and kicks as possible on Brady. ‘Do you know what those bastards have done to her? To my little girl? Do you? It’s all your fault!’
Brady backed away from him, trying to avoid the frenzied punches.
Suddenly the security doors buzzed.
Conrad walked through. It took him a moment to take stock of the situation. He’d expected to find Brady here. Which was why he had come to the ICU first before going as instructed to the morgue. But what he hadn’t expected was to find Brady on the floor with Simone Henderson’s father’s boots violently kicking his face and body while PC Smith did his best to hold him back.
Without a second’s hesitation Conrad ran over and forcibly restrained Simone’s father. Between them, PC Smith and Conrad somehow managed to hold him long enough for Brady to get some distance and get to his feet.
Brady looked at Conrad’s face, which was flushed as he fought to control Simone Henderson’s father. He was relieved that his deputy hadn’t followed his orders and was too aware that this wasn’t the first time he had stepped in and saved Brady’s neck.
Bent over, gasping for breath as he held his ribs, Brady backed away from his struggling assailant who was still intent on finishing the job. Catching his breath in deep shallow gasps he raised his head to meet Henderson’s hate-filled eyes. From that one look of absolute fury and disgust Brady realised that this man held him responsible for the fact that his only child was lying in intensive care, heavily sedated after too many hours on an operating table, not knowing whether she would even pull through.
‘If you’ve been in her room, I’ll kill you! You hear?’ shouted Frank Henderson as Conrad pinned his arms behind his back.
‘I wanted to but Smith there wouldn’t let me in,’ hoarsely panted Brady, still winded from the blows he’d taken.
‘You stay away from her!’
‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry …’
‘You think I believe that? It was you, you bastard, that made her transfer to the Met. Left me and her mother because of you. Her mother was dying of cancer, did you know that? Did you? That’s what you did to us. Forced our only child to run as far away as possible from the North East,’ yelled Henderson as he continued to struggle like a man possessed against Smith and Conrad.
Conrad’s face was now burning red with the exertion of holding him back. Even Smith was clearly struggling to restrain him.
Still clutching his right side, Brady turned to leave before Henderson’s sheer hatred of him overpowered both men holding him back.
‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Brady. ‘You’ll never know how much.’
‘And so you should be. If it hadn’t been for you she wouldn’t have come back here. I want to know what happened. I want to know how you could let her get hurt.’
Brady stopped. He turned round, confused.
‘I don’t understand. I haven’t seen Simone since she transferred from Northumbria a year ago.’
Henderson stared hard at Brady. It was evident that he didn’t believe him.
‘Then why did she tell her flatmate that she had to talk to you? That she had some unfinished business?’
Brady looked at Conrad who looked equally puzzled.
‘She never contacted me,’ Brady replied, shaking his head.
‘So you tell me why her flatmate said that she was coming up here on leave to see you.’
Brady stared at Henderson, not understanding what he was saying.
‘Maybe you got it wrong,’ suggested Brady carefully.
‘I got it wrong, did I? I didn’t find out that she was in the North East until your lot showed up on my door. You tell me why she didn’t want me to know she was here?’
Brady couldn’t answer him.
‘I’ll tell you, shall I? Because she knew how I felt about you. If I’d known she was coming up to see you I would have done everything in my power to stop her!’
‘She didn’t arrange to meet me,’ Brady answered quietly but firmly.
It was the wrong answer. Henderson lunged forward, fighting Conrad and Smith with renewed vigour.
Conrad, breathless and scarlet-faced, shot Brady a look which told him to disappear, and fast, before he lost control of Henderson.
Dejectedly Brady turned and limped out of the ICU, feeling as if he had just had the worst kicking of his life. And the worst part was, he knew he deserved it.
Brady held onto the washbasin.
He was still shaking from the attack.
But it wasn’t the blows that had got to him.
He turned the cold tap on and splashed himself with water. Face drenched, he looked up at his reflection in the mirror.
He looked like shit.
Wincing, he straightened up and lifted his t-shirt. His light olive-coloured skin was starting to discolour into mottled purple patches spreading across the side of his right ribcage. He gently ran his fingers over the bruising which led down to his abdomen.
He let go of his t-shirt. Bending over the washbasin again, he drenched his face, groaning with the exertion.
But no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get rid of the image of what they had done to Simone.
He was very aware that word would get back to Gates. Brady could deny having seen Simone. He knew that Smith wouldn’t say a word. But there was no way he could deny the run-in with the victim’s father. Nor could he explain why Frank Henderson believed his daughter had returned to the North East because of Brady. It didn’t make sense. He hadn’t talked to her in over a year. Nothing. And then suddenly, she’s back up here lying critically wounded in the ICU.
He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the damage. Nothing was broken. His left cheek was split open. Frank Henderson had also landed a lucky blow above his left eyebrow, resulting in another open gash. Blood trickled down into his eye.
He bent down and doused himself in more cold water in a bid to get rid of the blood. He didn’t have time to go and get the cuts stitched. Not that he would have done. He’d had a lot worse than this and had lived to tell the tale.
He raised his head up and slowly breathed out. His head was throbbing. He ran his hand over his scalp for any tell-tale damage. Nothing. Apart from the raised four-inch scar at the back of his head where his father had taken a baseball bat to him when he was eight years old. All he remembered was hearing the swoosh of air as the
