LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Four

      Conrad pulled the car over, joining the ominous line of police cars and vans parked along the edge of the road.

      Brady inwardly steeled himself as he looked out at the twenty or so uniformed and plain-clothes officers. It felt as if he had been gone for a lifetime, not six months.

      And given that it was only six-ten on a bitter November Friday morning, he had every reason to resist getting out of the car.

      ‘Are you sure you’re up to this, sir?’ Conrad asked as he turned to look at him.

      ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

      ‘No reason, sir,’ answered Conrad uneasily.

      ‘Do you really think Gates would have called me in if I wasn’t?’ Brady asked him darkly.

      Without waiting for an answer he got out of the car and slammed the door. He left Conrad to find somewhere to park and headed towards the blue and white police tape flapping miserably in the biting northern wind. The tape was sealing off a cumbersome iron gate. Brady presumed that the abandoned farmland beyond it was where the victim had been discovered.

      He turned back and looked at the main road. It was deserted, blocked off by the police. A dismal, magnolia-painted Modernist building stood bleakly opposite. West Monkseaton Metro station; Brady knew it well enough. He could smell the stale piss drunkenly sprayed by passers-by against the badly-lit damp corners. He could hear the clinking of leftover bottles of cheap alcohol from the teenage kids who would travel from Shiremoor or North Shields and stand in huddled groups, shivering and laughing against the bitter night. Soon it would be swamped by early morning bleary eyed business-suited commuters clutching their latte or espresso from the local deli. They would dodge their way past the rolling, broken bottles and the pools of stinking piss trying not to breathe in the stench.

      Brady shivered as he turned back to the farmland. He tried his best to walk without a limp, aiming for the two brutish officers guarding the entrance to the farmland.

      ‘Sir,’ PC Hamilton nodded. He quickly dropped his eyes and fixed them on his feet as he moved out of Brady’s way.

      ‘Inspector Brady?’ queried the other younger officer.

      Brady looked at him. He knew that his black jeans, black polo shirt and black leather jacket didn’t adhere to the Superintendent’s dress code which was how he presumed the rookie had guessed right about him being the DI. Brady’s lack of suits was legendary at the station. It wasn’t to say that he didn’t look professional, but casual professional was how he liked to term it.

      ‘Sir, the DCI was expecting you—’ the young officer faltered, flustered.

      ‘And?’ prompted Brady irritably, aware that he was late.

      ‘The problem is you’ve missed him. He left a few minutes ago,’ the constable mumbled uneasily.

      ‘Shit!’

       The last thing he wanted to do was piss Gates off. Not on his first day back. If Conrad had put his foot down like Brady had said then they would have gotten here over five minutes ago.

      ‘Do either of you have any mints?’

      ‘Sorry, sir?’ questioned the young officer, confused.

      ‘Bloody mints! Do you have any?’ replied Brady losing his patience. The knowledge that Gates had already gone had left him in a foul mood.

      PC Hamilton hurriedly pulled out a packet of mints from his jacket pocket and handed them to Brady.

      He would need them when he came face to face with Gates. The last thing Gates would tolerate was the smell of booze. A reformed alcoholic, Gates had led a Puritanical crusade against the vice, intolerant of any officer who came in to work oozing the telltale lingering perfume of a heavy night’s drinking.

      Brady pocketed the mints and bent down under the tape and walked through the open gate.

      Below in the distance he could see the cold glow of lights set up over the crime scene. The constant hum of the generator to power the spotlights muffled the low talk of the officers behind him.

      He walked down the dirt track that had been ravaged by weeds and long, wild grass.

      ‘Never knew this existed,’ said Conrad catching him up.

      Brady nodded as he looked around. It was a dark, lonely spot; an ideal location to murder someone or dump a body. All around him thick clumps of bushes loomed threateningly, wild and overgrown, hiding a multitude of sins.

      ‘Who do you think comes down here?’ asked Conrad.

      ‘Kids,’ answered Brady. He had already noticed a couple of empty, plastic cider bottles dumped in the overgrown bushes.

      ‘It’s the ideal place to come and get pissed or high. No one is going to bother you,’ continued Brady as he turned his head and looked back at the unlit track leading up to the main road.

      He stopped abruptly and sighed.

      ‘Shine your torch down here, will you, Conrad?’

      ‘Crap!’ Brady cursed as he looked at the dog faeces stuck to the sole of his boot. ‘There’s your answer, Conrad.’

      ‘Sir?’

      ‘Kids and bloody dog walkers. That’s who come down here,’ he muttered as he tried his best to clean his boots.

      ‘What the bloody hell is this? Didn’t I make myself clear when I said that I don’t want any more bloody footprints messing up my crime scene? You lot have already buggered up enough! Now clear off!’ thundered an irate white-clad figure as he emerged fuming from the crumbling walls that would have once been a farmhouse. Behind the ruined walls spotlights coldly illuminated the crime scene.

      Conrad stiffened his shoulders, his jaw rigid as he readied himself for battle with Ainsworth, the Scene of Crime Unit’s senior officer; infamous for his ill-temper and obstinacy.

      ‘Good to hear that you’re still the same sour-faced old bugger!’

      ‘Jack Brady?’ spluttered Ainsworth.

      ‘They couldn’t get rid of me that easily,’ answered Brady as he approached the senior SOCO. He was a short, portly man with a receding head of curly silver hair and a large, ravaged face that

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