Broken Silence
Who killed Sophie?A body lies by the seafront, mutilated beyond recognition. A teenage girl has secrets to keep. And a detective is watching helplessly as his life falls apart at the seams…Early one morning, Sophie Washington is found dead in the seaside resort of Whitley Bay. There’s a mysterious dragon tattoo on her hip, but her face is no longer there. As DI Jack Brady is forced to investigate, he begins to uncover a web of secrets, not least among his closest colleagues.Who was with Sophie on the night she died? Why did DI Brady’s marriage really break up? And could it be that this whole investigation goes much deeper than anyone in a quiet seaside town could ever have guessed?BROKEN SILENCE is a chilling thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end.
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DANIELLE RAMSAY
Broken Silence
Published by Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2010
This edition published 2016
Copyright © Danielle Ramsay 2010
Danielle Ramsay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9781847562296
Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008185275 Version: 2016-04-21
For Elizabeth Ramsay and John Ramsay – you are my inspiration.
Contents
She felt sick, really sick.
She moaned as the ground started to swirl in front of her.
‘Oh fuck!’ she slurred as she drunkenly collapsed onto her hands and knees.
Trembling, she waited for the nausea to pass.
Finally certain that she wasn’t going to puke she pulled her long blonde hair back from her face and looked around, but it was too dark to make sense of the rubble and half fallen walls of the abandoned farmhouse. She suddenly realised that she was alone.
‘You fucking shit!’ she yelled out, angry that he had just left her there in the middle of nowhere.
She waited, but there was no response. The surrounding trees and bushes conspired against her, rustling and creaking, fooling her into believing that someone else was there.
‘Fuck you and your fucking attitude! I hate you! You hear me? I fucking hate you!’ she screamed defiantly. ‘You’re the one with the problem, not me!’
She slumped back onto her knees and stared up at the black starless sky. Everything seemed so pointless. She hated him. She hated him for using her and then just throwing her to one side. She would have to be stupid not to notice that he wasn’t into her any more. She had heard the rumours. Who hadn’t? She knew there were other girls, but she’d hoped that she had meant something to him. She had foolishly believed that he could take her away from her crap life; that he could somehow save her. But now that he had got what he had wanted, he wasn’t interested any more.
She felt a cold wetness on her face and realised she was crying. She wiped her damp cheeks aggressively, angry with herself for feeling like this. Angry that she had let him get to her.
‘I don’t fucking care what you say. I’ll tell whoever I want to about what you’ve done to me. Then you’ll be sorry! You hear me? You’ll be the fucking sorry one, you bastard!’ she threatened, ignoring the tears as they continued to fall.
Exhausted, she attempted to get to her feet. Certain that she could stand she pulled out her mobile phone from the front pocket of her short black denim skirt. She tried to make out whether she had any new messages or calls.
‘Bastard!’ she muttered when she realised she didn’t.
She started to scroll through her phone book looking for his number.
Suddenly she heard footsteps coming up behind her. She smiled, relieved that he’d come back.
She froze as the smile faded from her lips.
‘I … I … didn’t mean the things I said … yeah? I was just really mad with you, that’s all …’ she stuttered as she shook her head.
