Free Vanishing Point by Danielle Ramsay Page A

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.

Chapter Twelve
     
    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 baseball bat had swung towards him. He’d felt it connect with his skull before everything went black.
    When he had come round, it wasn’t to concerned medics. He had found himself lying on grime-encrusted bare floorboards, in a pool of his own blood. He had awoken to the terrified eyes of his younger brother Nick, four years old, huddled in a foetal position on the piss-stained mattress dumped on the floor in the corner of the room they slept in.
    The room was empty of furniture, apart from the old, torn, flea-infested mattress. There was no wardrobe or drawers in the bedroom; there was no need. The only clothes Brady and his brother owned were the ones on their backs. Everything went on his father buying his next pint and pack of tabs. Resulting in them living in squalor with little or no comforts, despite his mother’s best intentions.
    Their father being imprisoned was the best thing that had ever happened to Brady and Nick. Being dumped around the North East in countless foster homes was luxury compared to their brutal start to life.
    Brady stared at his reflection, fingers touching the gnarled scar at the back of his head as he remembered the price he had had to pay to get away from his father.
    The same night that his father had taken a baseball bat to him, breaking not only three ribs and his right arm, but also splitting open his skull, he had then turned on his mother.
    Brady was acutely aware that if she hadn’t intervened when she had, he would have been the one that was later found