Broken Silence (27 page)

Conrad stepped back.

Brady couldn’t blame him. She may have only been five feet four and six stone if that, but she was dangerous.

Trina McGuire threw back her long, glossy blonde hair as she turned her attention back to Brady.

He was unfortunate enough to have known her from a previous life. She had caught his eye, just as she had caught many men’s roving eyes at the time. Growing up she had blossomed into a remarkable beauty, somehow avoiding absorbing the ugly harshness of the Ridges. But now, years later, she epitomised it. She still had a ‘heroin chic’ beauty about her, but even with the liberal make-up, it was fading fast. A poverty-stricken, desperate junkie, who didn’t have
a hope in hell of getting out. The best thing she had ever done in her life was lying in a hospital bed with the shit kicked out of him.

‘You’re bloody lucky your brother’s not still around. He’d soon sort you out.’

Brady kept quiet. He knew they had once been an item and that she blamed Brady for him leaving the North East and ultimately her, behind. But that was years ago. He had gone to London to get away from the fact that Brady was a copper. Not that Brady could blame him. He was secretly relieved that his brother had made that decision, otherwise it would have been Brady who would have had to put some distance between them.

‘Shane?’ Brady said, deciding it was time to leave.

The last thing he wanted was Trina McGuire bringing up the past: his past. Not in front of Conrad.

‘Listen, if you decide you want to talk, just let me know. Here’s my number, yeah?’

‘Fuck off will ye? And take yer fuckin’ number with ye?’ said McGuire, thickly.

Brady ignored him and left his business card on the kid’s bedside table.

‘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 death
nothing 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 Knickerbocker.

Brady attempted to casually return the smile.

It was enough for Paulie to know something was wrong.

Brady and Madley had both known Paulie since St Joseph’s Primary School. As soon as word got out amongst the kids that his parents were Italian and ran the ice-cream vans parked up in all weathers outside St Mary’s lighthouse, Tynemouth Sands and Tynemouth Priory, the nickname ‘Knickerbocker’ came about. And for some reason it had
stuck, regardless of the years and Paulie’s two Italian restaurants known by his family name, Antonelli.

But running two restaurants and the family ice-cream business wasn’t all Paulie was known for; he was also the local fence. The vans and the restaurants acted as the ideal cover for such an operation. Paulie had contacts that Brady could only dream of and was always Brady’s first unofficial line of enquiry if a violent burglary had taken place.

Paulie had a strong sense of moral duty which generously extended beyond family and friends. He had an unerring sense of right and wrong when it came to crime. He was happy to fence stolen goods as long as no unnecessary violence was exacted during the robbery. Brady had often laughed about the irony of being a fence with a conscience, but Paulie didn’t see the incongruity of it. His attitude was you should always act civilised, regardless of what you did for a living. Brady put Paulie’s morality down to being raised a devout Roman Catholic combined with growing up in the Ridges, where the brute reality of surviving the streets meant that at times, Catholic morals had to be temporarily put on hold.

Brady pulled out a chair and wearily sat down directly across from Madley.

‘You look like you need a coffee,’ suggested Paulie as he nodded at the waitress busy arranging the tables for the expected lunchtime rush.

‘Same as Martin would be good,’ accepted Brady as he gestured towards Madley’s espresso.

Brady was still trembling. He couldn’t get rid of the image of the shabby drunk who had threatened to destroy what was left of his life. He dragged a shaky hand through his hair as he caught Madley’s concerned gaze.

‘Paulie? Give us a minute will you?’ Madley suggested.

Paulie respectfully nodded as he looked at Brady’s hunched figure.

‘Good to see you, Jack. Don’t leave it too long,’ he said, patting him on the back before leaving.

‘Yeah, same goes, Paulie.’

Brady watched as Paulie disappeared behind the double doors that led into the busy kitchen.

‘Cheers,’ Brady said as he took his coffee from the attractive, dark-haired waitress.

Brady took a sip of scalding black coffee as he turned his attention to Madley.

‘Thanks for the flowers.’

Madley nodded.

‘She was always good to me.’

Brady looked at him. He was right, his mam had always treated Madley like another son. He sometimes forgot that he wasn’t the only one who had taken her death badly.

‘So, what’s this all about?’ Madley questioned as his glinting brown eyes searched Brady’s pale face.

‘He’s back,’ replied Brady.

‘I thought you’d already taken care of him?’

‘Jimmy had. He’d scared him off. But he must have heard that Jimmy’s in it up to his neck and so the bastard reckons he can try and blackmail me again,’ explained Brady.

Madley waited patiently for Brady to say more, but he didn’t.

‘You should have let me take care of him like I said.’

Brady couldn’t bring himself to disagree. He knew Madley was right.

‘Question is, Jack, what are you expecting from me?’

‘I don’t know.’

He sighed heavily as he stared down at his espresso.

‘Until you do, I can’t help you. You understand that, don’t you?’

Brady nodded.

‘I know …’ he said. ‘All I want is for the old bastard to disappear for good.’

Madley narrowed his menacing eyes as he stared at him.

‘There’s only one way to guarantee that,’ Madley said, lowering his voice. ‘But it has to be your decision, not mine.’

‘I know …’

Brady breathed in the salty, decaying stench of North Shields quayside. It may have gone upmarket with all the fancy Italian restaurants and café bars, not to mention the expensive new apartments that now dominated the harbour backdrop. But one thing hadn’t changed and that was the nauseating smell of rotting fish.

Brady stood and watched the sailing boats as they passed by, heading out to sea. He could see a ferry docked further up the Tyne. He turned and stared across at South Shields and the row of brightly-painted Victorian houses that looked out over the river. Even he had to admit it was a beautiful spot to just stand and watch life moving around you.