have taken Simone Henderson to any of those locations and mutilated her. Then again, Brady had to trust the fact that Claudia and her team and Kenny and Daniels had found nothing suspicious at any of Macmillan’s premises.
And, given the gravity of Simone’s attack, Brady couldn’t imagine that she had been taken far. Otherwise, Ronnie Macmillan and the Dabkunas brothers ran the risk of her dying in transit. And from the game that Macmillan was playing with Madley, he wanted the police to raid Madley’s club on a tip-off that a copper was lying with near fatal injuries in the gents’. Brady didn’t want to think of Nick. He didn’t want to think that his own brother could have had a hand in anything so heinous.
‘Why didn’t you contact the police when you saw her being abducted?’ asked Brady.
Carl looked at Brady.
‘I do what Madley tells me to do. I reported exactly what I saw to him. It’s then up to Madley what he does with that information.’
Brady simply nodded. ‘Thanks, Carl.’
‘This goes nowhere. Understand?’ demanded Carl.
‘Trust me.’
‘You’re a copper, what’s there to trust?’ replied Carl.
Brady nodded. He understood Carl’s point.
‘Right now being a copper is the furthest thing from my mind,’ he replied quietly. ‘And right now, I reckon I’m the only person Madley can trust. And with Ronnie Macmillan prepared to do anything to get him out, I’d say he needs me. Wouldn’t you?’ His voice was heavy with concern.
Carl didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to: they both knew that Brady was right.
No surprise then that Madley was shitting himself, thought Brady as he watched Carl start to get the bar ready for the crowd that would be in soon enough. He had every right to be. Mayor Macmillan was clever. A new threat had come to the North East: Eastern European gangsters. And Macmillan had made sure that he was aligned with them. After all, they were a breed apart from the likes of Madley and Johnny Slaughter and even his own brother, Ronnie. At least they had some kind of morality code, thought Brady. Whereas these Eastern European gangsters had no morals. And that’s precisely what made them so dangerous; that and the fact that they were ex-military.
He’d gone out for a tab first, before going up to see Madley. He needed an excuse to get out and make a call. One that had to be made in private without Carl overhearing.
He sucked hard on his cigarette to keep it alight as he stared up at the sky. It had been a dark, dismal grey day but now that evening had come there was a change in the air. The sky was lightening as the mute, overcast blanket that had covered it started to lift.
Brady could just make out a blood red sun, burning on the horizon. An omen if ever there was one.
‘Conrad?’
‘Yes, sir?’ answered Conrad.
‘What have you got?’
‘Not much, sir. I did get some background on Nykantas Vydunas, the Lithuanian Ambassador, and he’s on his third marriage to some French ex-model. He has one child, a nineteen-year-old daughter from his first marriage, currently studying at Oxford. From all accounts a bit of party girl. Spends more of her time in London clubbing it than she does at university.’
‘Did you get anything connecting him and Macmillan?’ Brady asked.
‘No, sir. Whatever business deal is going on between the Ambassador and Mayor Macmillan appears to be kosher. Vydunas is a multi-millionaire, old money. His business is shipping. Runs a highly successful cargo shipping company. And that’s the only connection I can make with Mayor Macmillan. He wants to use Vydunas’ cargo company to ship over Polish provisions to the North East. It’s all to do with some multi-cultural push between the North East of England and Eastern Europe, in particular Poland.’
‘Anything else?’ asked Brady.
‘That’s it, sir. Apart from …’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, it seems that there’s a lot of activity around him just now. He’s called in extra security. Whether he’s expecting trouble in the North East, I can’t say but he has got an unusual amount of armed personnel surrounding him. He’s also booked in at the Hotel du Vin, close to Newcastle quayside. Ideal location given it’s off the beaten track. He’s booked the whole hotel for a week. The staff there have intimated that he seems obsessed about privacy and security. Especially when he’s holding business meetings or has clients visit.’
‘Like who?’ asked Brady.
‘I don’t know, sir. I couldn’t find that out.’
‘When you say clients do you mean women?’ asked Brady.
‘I honestly can’t say. The staff said that he’s extremely cautious and demands absolute privacy for his visiting guests.’
Brady knew the Hotel du Vin. He had taken Claudia there once for dinner to sample the delights of its noted wine cellar. It had commanding views of the River Tyne and the quayside. It had formerly been a shipping headquarters and had been renovated, as had most of the old buildings down that part of the quayside.
‘Conrad, you wouldn’t know if a black Mercedes panel van has been making visits to the Ambassador’s hotel, would you?’ Brady thought back to his conversation with Carl, Madley’s bartender, and Nicoletta’s description of the black Mercedes van used to transport the Dabkunas’ girls around.
‘No, sir,’ answered Conrad sounding confused. ‘But I can make enquiries.’
‘Can you also go over the CCTV footage of the Promenade in Whitley Bay from last night? A black Mercedes- Benz panel van pulled out from Brook Street and headed down the Promenade turning up Marine Avenue. The Mercedes was tailing the black Jaguar that we saw Macmillan and his boys in earlier. I want to know where they go. See if you can trace their movements at all. I have a gut feeling that they were heading for Macmillan’s club or maybe one of the disused properties that he’s bought up.’
‘Sir?’ questioned Conrad, realising the job he was being asked to do.
‘Contact me when you have something,’ answered Brady.
‘If this is to do with Simone Henderson’s attack, shouldn’t we take this information to Adamson and Gates, sir?’
‘What do you think, Conrad?’
‘Sir?’ repeated Conrad, unsure.
‘I wouldn’t piss on Adamson if he was on fire. Does that answer your question?’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied Conrad.
‘The murder of the Lithuanian girl, Melissa Ryecroft’s abduction and Simone’s attack are all connected, Conrad. Trust me on this. Which makes it our investigation now. We’ve just got to prove it and I’ll be dammed if I hand anything over to that bastard and then watch him take the glory.’
‘How do you know, sir? How can you be so certain?’
‘I just know, Conrad.’
Brady hung up.
He drew heavily on his cigarette as he listened to the pulsating music coming from further down East Parade, in the direction of South Parade. The back of the Blue Lagoon nightclub. It was a miserable sight. Bricked walls on either side, beer crates and overflowing bins blocked Brady in. In front of him were two cars. The gleaming, new Bentley was Madley’s and the three-year-old silver BMW was Gibbs’.
Brady drew again on his cigarette. The air was suffocating. Filled with intoxicating smells. The Pizza Cottage, the Indian restaurants and the two Italian restaurants along East Parade were in full battle when it came to the heady aromas spewing from their kitchen extractor fans. Brady’s stomach growled. He realised he hadn’t eaten anything since the bacon stottie he’d had for breakfast that morning. But all he had to do was think of the shit that Nick was caught up in to quell his appetite.
He took one last drag on his cigarette before throwing the smouldering stub away. He had to call Claudia. He
