himself into an early retirement. Brady turned round and gave the girl a last cursory once over. He was grateful for her sake; she’d be in good hands with Wolfe, even if it was too late.
Chapter Six
It was cold, still dark and had just started drizzling. Typical, thought Brady as he slammed the passenger door of Conrad’s metallic silver Saab. In the distance he could hear the bleated moan of a foghorn. The air was thick with a salty dampness. Brady dragged heavily on the fading glow of his cigarette butt before throwing it into the gutter. Sixth one of the day, he thought; so much for giving up. He turned up his jacket collar as he looked up and down the hazily lit street. Cars were tightly jammed into any available space. It looked as if Gates had called in every officer, regardless of holidays or shifts. Brady limped slowly towards the heavily worn stone steps that led up to the station, kicking an empty beer can out of his path. What a dive, he thought as he watched the can crash into a smashed vodka bottle. The telltale leftovers of a Thursday night in Whitley Bay. Behind him the Saab skulked off as Conrad left in search of a parking space.
He limped over to the steps that led up to the closed wooden doors and decided to take the easy route and walk up the ramp that had recently been built as a PC suck-up to accessibility. The only time he had ever known it to be used was when a drunk in a wheelchair had been arrestedfor lewd and threatening behaviour. The crap that arrest had earned Gates with the press was still a standing joke at the station. Gates still hadn’t found out that Brady was the one who had leaked the arrest to the press as part of a bet with a couple of other coppers from CID. Gates was ever vigilant when it came to adhering to political correctness so to be accused of being the most un-PC PC in the North East by the local press was a hard blow. If Gates had known Brady was responsible his career would have been over long ago.
He steeled himself before pushing open the heavy wooden doors that led into the station’s Victorian tiled entrance. He looked at the public notice board on the wall. It was filled with the usual crap. The station was as gloomy and depressing as ever, just like the job. Brady breathed in the same acrid damp that had greeted him for too many years.
The station was housed in a dank Victorian building located in a side street leading off from Whitley Bay’s small town centre. These days the town was known for one thing: binge drinking. Once famous as a seaside resort it had sunk to an all-time low. A nirvana of pubs and guesthouses lined up together, catering for every stag and hen party’s wildest and crassest desires; from topless bar staff to lewd threesome live acts. Anything went now that the credit crunch had kicked in. Disposable cash was at an all-time low, so pubs and clubs were doing whatever it took to pull hard-pushed clientele in.
Brady shivered in disgust. He hated Whitley Bay; it was a shabby rundown ghost town during the day where empty, dilapidated Victorian buildings bleakly lined the sea front. But at night it became prey to the lowest of scum. Bouncers in dinner jackets and bow ties tried to maintain order asthey threatened drunken punters with their small eyes and overweight, thuggish bodies. Bank holiday weekends were the worst. Scum travelled in from miles around in order to drink themselves into oblivion before ending the night by trying to get into someone’s knickers. He had seen it for himself; the gorging, the vomiting and the senseless shags in the back lanes as they drunkenly waited for a taxi to take them home to their other halves. In the morning the promenade would be strewn with half-eaten kebabs and chips covered in curry sauce fought over by scavenging seagulls. Occasionally the odd, shrivelled condom would be left discarded down a side street or on the beach, as readily forgotten as the drunken, fumbling act itself.
Brady pushed