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had realised what had happened it was too late. He had heard a car further up the street screeching as it tried to get away. The gun was never found. He presumed it was an unregistered piece loaned from any one of the enterprising, hardened scum that could easily be found if you looked long enough. Unsurprisingly no one witnessedthe shooting. He was under no illusions. This was North Shields quayside late at night. The only witnesses that would have been around would have just as readily pulled the trigger on a plain-clothes copper as the shooter himself.
    A huge investigation was ordered by his superiors. After all, one of their detectives had been shot and they had to look as if they gave a damn. His superiors put on a good show of solidarity for the media, but privately they let him know he’d crossed the line once too often and this time they held him responsible for blowing the investigation. The gunshot wound to his leg gave them the ammunition for deriding him as too much of a risk-taker; stating it had only been a matter of time before he or another officer under his command ended up injured, if not dead.
    The story that he had been sprung by local drug dealers became widely accepted. As expected, nothing turned up and inevitably the case went cold. Whether his cover had been blown, Brady couldn’t say. He’d crossed enough people in his life to make him realise that any one of them could have had him shot.
    Brady looked up at Turner’s concerned, ageing face and gave him a half-smile.
    ‘I’m not dead yet, so don’t look so happy!’
    ‘You sure you’re ready to be back?’ asked Turner, unconvinced by Brady’s camaraderie.
    ‘Doctor wouldn’t have passed me if I wasn’t, now would he? You know what a tight-arsed bugger he can be,’ replied Brady.
    ‘Well, I can’t argue with you there,’ agreed Turner, smiling as he shook his head. ‘Bit of advice, bonny lad,’ offered Turner as he bent his head towards Brady’s. ‘Get some fooddown you while you’ve got the chance. It might put a bit of colour back into you.’
    ‘Thanks, Charlie. Come on, Conrad, I don’t know about you but I’m starving,’ Brady said as he edged past Turner towards the wooden doors behind the reception desk.
    Turner shook his head as he watched Brady disappear through the doors, followed by Conrad.
    ‘Watch your back, Jack,’ advised Turner just loud enough for Conrad to turn and catch his gaze for a few brief seconds.

Chapter Seven
     
    ‘Sir?’ prompted Conrad. ‘The briefing will be starting soon.’
    ‘Relax, will you?’ Brady said as he pushed his empty plate away. ‘You’re starting to make me feel bloody edgy.’
    Brady could see that Conrad would rather be anywhere else than sat in the station’s basement canteen. The canteen was a depressing place at the best of times without the flickering overhead fluorescent lights adding to it. But Brady delighted in the greasy smell of fried food and cheap, bitter coffee. He felt most relaxed sat smoking at one of the many outdated sixties red, laminated tables, underneath the cracked basement windows. It always amused him that the basement windows were protected by wrought-iron bars. Who the hell would want to break into a cop shop? he wondered as he stared up at the dismal, bleak attempt at daylight outside.
    Not that he could smoke by the windows any more. The new law had turned the building, as was the case with all public service buildings, into a non-smoking environment. Instead, Brady and the rest of the addicts were driven to standing in smoke-filled conspiratorial huddles outside the emergency exit door at the back of the station.
    ‘Not turning soft on me are you?’ questioned Brady as he turned his attention back to Conrad.
    ‘No, just have no appetite,’ answered Conrad pushing his uneaten fried breakfast away. The truth was he felt as sick as a dog and couldn’t understand how Brady, after seeing the state of the murder victim, could have just