Vanishing Point (17 page)

Michelle Ryecroft’s face clearly told her daughter to keep quiet.

‘Who’s Marijuis?’ asked Brady, throwing a sideways glance at Conrad, who looked as surprised and as intrigued as Brady.

The statement that Brady and Conrad had both independently read had stated quite clearly that Melissa Ryecroft did not have a boyfriend. Boyfriends were always the first in line for questioning in a murder investigation. As were the parents. But only a fool would think that either her mother or, more likely according to the statistics, her father, were involved in their daughter’s disappearance. And horrific murder. If it was indeed her body that had washed up on Whitley Bay beach.

Both parents were clearly beside themselves with grief and anguish at what might have happened to their daughter. And at this point, Brady could honestly say that Brian Ryecroft didn’t seem capable of harming his daughter, let alone carrying out the heinous crimes committed on the decapitated murder victim lying in the hospital morgue.

‘We don’t know, alright?’ snapped Brian Ryecroft suddenly, taking Brady by surprise.

Brady looked at him.

‘I’m sorry, all I’m trying to do is establish some facts that could help us find your daughter,’ apologised Brady.

It was clear that Melissa
had
had a boyfriend. Ryecroft’s reaction was too telling. And the anger in his voice told Brady that this boyfriend had hurt his little girl.

‘That’s if you haven’t already found her,’ replied Brian Ryecroft as his eyes started to water.

‘Well … the reason for this line of questioning is to establish whether the girl we have at Rake Lane Hospital is in fact Melissa. Rather than take you straight there for identification purposes.’

Brian Ryecroft bent his head forward, resting it in his large, trembling hands.

‘I know … I’m sorry … I … just want my baby back … I just want Melissa …’ he choked.

‘Dad?’ questioned Lucy, scared.

Brady had no choice but to continue. It wouldn’t matter if he stopped the interview. Questions would still have to be answered. Whether it was now or later.

‘Who was Marijuis?’ he asked, ignoring Brian Ryecroft’s breakdown.

‘He … he was Melissa’s boyfriend,’ whispered Lucy as she nervously looked at her father. ‘Mum and Dad didn’t know until … until it was too late …’

‘Do you have any contact details for him?’ asked Brady, looking directly at Lucy’s mother.

Michelle Ryecroft shook her head as her pale, long-fingered hand fluttered nervously around her throat.

‘We believe Melissa met him in Budapest when she went on holiday for her sixteenth birthday with a group of girls last November.’

‘What, for the breast augmentation operation?’ asked Brady.

‘No … that … that came after. She came home with this crazy idea that she wanted larger breasts. And she had checked everything out. The clinic in Budapest, the cost … everything.’

‘Who gave her the idea?’ asked Brady.

Michelle Ryecroft looked over at her husband. His head still hung down in defeat, but his large hands were now resting on the edge of the desk clenched so hard his knuckles were white.

‘It … it was that Marijuis … the man she met on holiday.’

‘Man?’ questioned Brady as Brian Ryecroft’s knuckles clenched even tighter.

‘When Melissa eventually told us he was twenty-eight that’s when we … we tried to stop her contacting him.’

‘Bastard!’ cursed Ryecroft.

‘Brian!’ hissed his wife.

‘Well … what other word would you use to describe him? Apart from paedo!’

Michelle Ryecroft didn’t answer him. Nor did she disagree.

‘How were they communicating?’ asked Brady.

‘Texting … or phone calls,’ answered Michelle Ryecroft.

‘On her BlackBerry?’ asked Brady, realising he would have to get Harvey to chase up her call details dating back from last November.

Michelle Ryecroft nodded.

‘So why let her go back for the breast augmentation surgery?’

Michelle Ryecroft thought about it.

‘Because she talked about nothing else. She wanted it as a Christmas present. Had this idea that she wanted to be a model. And to be one, she needed to have larger breasts … you know what it’s like …’ she explained apologetically.

Brian Ryecroft shook his head.

‘We … we made her promise that if we paid for the operation she would never see Marijuis again. And … and she agreed.’

Lucy shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

‘Oh Lucy … no … Tell me you didn’t know that Melissa was still seeing him?’

Lucy nodded, too scared to speak.

Brian Ryecroft’s head suddenly lifted, spinning round to face his eleven-year-old daughter. The look on his face was pure rage.

‘Lucy?’ gently questioned Brady as he leaned forward.

‘I … used to look at her BlackBerry, like. When she’d leave it lying around. I’d … I’d just play around on it …’

‘Look at her messages maybe?’ asked Brady.

‘Something like that. There were all these messages there … ’cos that’s all she ever did was text. And they were mainly from someone named “Mandy”. It was obvious it was him, you know? And his English was lousy which is how I knew.’

‘You sure it wasn’t just text speak?’

She nervously looked at him and shook her head.

‘I think I know bad English like, from text speak.’

She then dropped her eyes and began fidgeting with the ringpull on the Coke can.

‘Go on,’ Brady encouraged.

She took another tentative sip of Coke as she thought about it.

She then nodded, putting down the drink before apprehensively looking at Brady.

‘She told me that she was going with him to London. That he was the one who had contacted the model scout because he believed in her. He arranged it all. Gave the scout her details and … you know the rest.’

‘Do you know have any idea who it was who put this message on Melissa’s Facebook page about the model agency, Lucy?’

Lucy numbly shook her head.

‘No … I have no idea …’

Brady watched her as she looked away, tears filling her eyes.

‘What did she promise you to make you keep all this a secret?’

Lucy looked back at Brady, weighing up whether she should say.

‘She said that I could have her Superdry jacket and … and her BlackBerry.’

‘You’ve got her phone?’ asked Brady.

‘No, I got the jacket before she left and she promised me her phone when she got back on Friday afternoon … She … she said that Marijuis was buying her an iPhone 4S for agreeing to go to the meeting in London,’ replied Lucy, biting her lip again.

The realisation that her sister hadn’t returned was hitting her hard.

‘Lucy? Why didn’t you say? Why didn’t you tell us any of this?’ questioned Michelle Ryecroft, her face ashen.

‘I … I … promised Melissa …’ mumbled Lucy. ‘I … I just thought she’d got delayed coming back from London … The last thing I was going to do was have her think I was a snitch …’

‘Was the name of the clinic in Budapest Virenyos by any chance?’ Brady turned to Michelle Ryecroft.

He didn’t need her to answer; the reaction on her face was enough.

‘How? How did you know …’ she asked before her face crumpled with realisation.

Brady decided not to ask whether her daughter had had an abortion. They had already gone through enough. If Melissa had, he was certain that she would never have told her parents. The internal scarring on her body was telling enough in itself.

*

‘Sir?’ Brady said, stopping Brian Ryecroft before he left the interview room.

He turned and nodded at Conrad to close the door behind him.

Brady had chosen to wait until his wife and daughter had left before having a word with Ryecroft.

Brian Ryecroft eyed Brady suspiciously.

Brady swallowed. His throat was dry. The words were difficult to speak.

‘I’ve arranged for a family liaison officer to take you to Rake Lane Hospital, sir,’ began Brady, unable to bring himself to say the word ‘morgue’.

Ryecroft shook his head.

‘There’s no need. I have my car outside. I’d rather drive.’

‘I recommend that your wife drives your daughter home and you and the liaison officer go ahead without them,’ Brady suggested.

‘Why?’ asked Ryecroft. ‘What haven’t you told us?’ he demanded as he searched Brady’s face.

‘The body we have… . the woman we need you to ID … is …’

‘Go on.’

‘She’s in a really bad way, sir. I just don’t think it would be wise for your wife to be there.’

‘How bad?’

‘Her head has been removed …’ Brady began.

He knew that this small detail had been withheld from the press. Too gruesome to be released for public consumption, Gates had decided.

‘Sir?’

Ryecroft looked at Brady, his eyes filled with emotion as he tried to fight back the tears.

His face was ashen as he tried to make sense of what Brady had just told him.

‘Do you think … do you think it’s my daughter? Honestly? Do you really think it’s her?’ asked Ryecroft.

Brady looked away. He couldn’t stare at the agony that was etched across Ryecroft’s face.

Suddenly Ryecroft grabbed hold of Brady, forcefully pinning him against the wall.

‘For fuck’s sake! Tell me!’ he spat.

Brady had no choice but to look him in the eyes.

He reluctantly nodded.

‘I wish I could say I wasn’t sure. But … there are a lot of similarities between your missing daughter and the body.’

‘What the hell do you mean, similarities? You’ve got a photograph of her surely? You must be able to tell?’

‘That’s the problem, sir, the damage to her face is so extensive that it’s difficult to say. But the hair and body type match, as do the brown eyes … and …’ Brady looked Ryecroft in the eye.

He had already had word back from Wolfe before the interview that the head matched the body. No question.

‘But … the autopsy shows that the victim had had an abortion about a month ago …’

Brady watched as the realisation hit Ryecroft.

In that moment Brady knew that Ryecroft was certain it was his daughter lying in the morgue.

Ryecroft stared at Brady as he absorbed this final, damning fact. He shook his head. ‘Whatever you do don’t tell my wife. She didn’t know that … that Melissa was pregnant. She needed money to go private. So she came to me and asked. I wouldn’t give her the money until she told me why. But she promised me it had nothing to do with that bastard Marijuis… . she promised me… . she promised … All she wanted was to be a model … that’s all she wanted …’ he mumbled.

‘Did you personally take her to a private clinic?’ asked Brady.

Ryecroft looked at Brady, surprised by the question.

‘No … I … she said she would take care of it if I gave her the money. That she was too embarrassed as it was … She told her mother she was staying at her friend’s for the weekend a month back and I presumed that’s when …’ he shook his head. ‘I asked when she came back on the Monday and she just said she didn’t want to talk about it.’

Brady wasn’t sure what Melissa had spent her father’s money on, but it definitely wasn’t a private clinic.

‘So, you didn’t know where she went for the abortion?’

Ryecroft shook his head, ashamed at his answer.

Brady caught Ryecroft as his body suddenly collapsed forward sobbing with anguish at what he had just been told. Until then he had been holding out that it was just coincidence. That she’d turn up unharmed and life would automatically go back to normal.

Brady held him and waited for the man to compose himself.

Conrad opened the door and looked at Brady.

Brady shook his head, signalling to Conrad to give them a few more minutes.

Conrad understood and discreetly closed the door.

Brady continued to hold Ryecroft as his bulky frame convulsed with agonising sobs.

Brady had had a gut feeling that Ryecroft hadn’t been as forthcoming as he could have been during the interview. There were a few moments when Ryecroft had over-reacted, or had got angry. Too angry. And he had seemed too adamant that his daughter didn’t have a boyfriend. And that she had never had one.

Even a fool wouldn’t believe that of a girl who holidays abroad for her sixteenth birthday with her girlfriends independently of her parents. Throw into the mix the breast augmentation job. This girl was clearly way ahead of her sixteen years.

Brady could imagine that Ryecroft and his eldest daughter were close enough for her to have managed to borrow money from him to get an abortion done privately. She wouldn’t have gone to her mother; that much was clear. She was a daddy’s girl. And she knew how to work it. And Ryecroft obviously adored her. He was no different from most parents today. When it came to their children, it was easier to pay their way out of trouble. And the trouble here was this Eastern European man named Marijuis.

And whether that was his real name was debatable.

Ryecroft suddenly straightened up. ‘I’m sorry …’ he mumbled, embarrassed.

He went over to the table and picked up a fistful of tissues from the box that had been put there intentionally.

‘It’s perfectly understandable, sir,’ replied Brady quietly as Ryecroft roughly dried his face.

Brian Ryecroft had to go out looking strong. He needed to have his head together. For the sake of his wife and his youngest daughter. They were all he had now. And he would be damned if he’d let anything happen to them. What had happened to Melissa was his fault. He knew that. And he would live with that knowledge until the day he died.

He was relieved that they hadn’t witnessed his breakdown. He breathed in deeply as he composed himself, making a promise to himself that it wouldn’t happen again. No matter what.

‘Thank you, DI Brady. I would like to be taken to Rake Lane now if you don’t mind. Get this over with,’ Ryecroft stated.

Brady nodded.

‘Of course, sir. Our family liaison officer is already waiting for you.’

Brady knew it wasn’t worth asking Ryecroft why he’d withheld information. He was suffering enough as it was without Brady adding to it.

And anyway, the worst was yet to come, thought Brady.