Free Vanishing Point by Danielle Ramsay Page B

dead.
    That was why, when he came to, the first thing he saw was Nick’s wide, petrified eyes watching, huddled in the corner like a wild animal. The second thing he registered was his mother’s screams as his father ‘taught her some respect’.
    Brady blinked back. His eyes stinging with fresh, salty pain.
    He reminded himself that it might have taken years, but his father had finally been made to pay.
    Yet, it still didn’t ease the pain of witnessing your own mother being beaten and raped in front of you.
    When his father had momentarily stopped, leaving the room, his mother had whispered to him to get up and run.
    ‘Take Nick, Jacky, and run. Don’t stop. Understand? No matter what, don’t you stop, Jacky. Now go! GO! ’ she had urged, knowing that her husband was coming back to finish what he had started.
    Brady did exactly what he was told. He knew, as she did, what would happen if he didn’t.
    He never saw his mother again. Well, he never saw her alive again.
    Brady had pulled out the court case records and autopsy report a few years back, thinking it would give him some kind of resolution. It hadn’t. The crime scene photographs brought to life his worst nightmares.
    When he had taken his mother at her word and run, his father had returned to stab her over twenty times. Her face was so mutilated from the frenzied knife attack that the only way she could be identified was through her dental records.
    Brady let go of the old wound and gripped the sides of the washbasin, steadying himself as he forced himself to come back to the present.
    To Simone.
    Brady desperately needed to talk to Madley. Whatever was going on had to have something to do with him.
    A gutted and mutilated copper being dumped in Madley’s toilets wasn’t an everyday occurrence. This was a warning to Madley. The question was why?
    He leaned over the sink and splashed his face one more time. He needed to clean himself up. He looked bad enough with the purple and black bruising and cuts, without the blood.
    His phone suddenly vibrated in his pocket.
    He took it out: Conrad. A sudden reminder that he had a case of his own to work on.
    But he couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow the two cases were connected.

Chapter Thirteen
     
    Brady shivered involuntarily.
    Unlike Wolfe, he didn’t have the stomach for this. He was grateful that he’d left the bacon stottie that Conrad had brought him earlier, certain he wouldn’t be able to keep it down.
    Brady glanced at Conrad who was stood next to him, grim-faced, lips tightly sealed in nothing less than a grimace.
    Not that Brady could blame him. It wasn’t just being witness to the autopsy that was clearly disturbing Conrad. That in itself was bad enough. It was having to be in the same room as Wolfe. For some reason he and Wolfe didn’t quite see eye to eye. And Brady knew for a fact that Wolfe didn’t appreciate Conrad watching him work.
    Brady had suggested that Conrad wait in the cafeteria, which unbeknown to the public was located right next to the morgue. But Conrad had refused. He didn’t have to say it, but Brady knew he didn’t trust leaving him on his own while Simone Henderson’s father was still on the premises. Rake Lane might have been a huge, sprawling maze of a hospital but Conrad clearly believed that it wasn’t large enough to keep Brady away from trouble.
    Brady looked down at the dissected body, wishing he was anywhere rather than in front of a mortuary slab looking at a body that resembled a Damien Hirst piece of art. His face hurt like hell and his ribs burnt every time he breathed. But he didn’t have time to feel sorry for himself.
    ‘You don’t look so grand. You want Harold to fetch you the bucket, laddie?’ Wolfe said mockingly, as he looked across at Brady.
    Despite having lived in the North East for the past thirty years, Wolfe’s Edinburgh roots had never left him. His soft, well-educated Scottish lilt was a constant reminder that he was originally