Brandt was going to head back to the villa to get himself some lunch. It wasn’t complacency because he could use the time to think about possible destinations before cracking on that afternoon with the real research. Just before logging off, he had a quick check of his emails. He wasn’t going to because of the hassle of rerouting the IP address but he was interested to see whether the Belgian police had sent any form of reply. He wasn’t surprised when the main page announced he had an unread email because, if not from them, it was likely to be yet another welcome message for his new account advertising some feature or other he had no interest in.
– I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
Just the subject line; no text in the main body and from an email address that was just a random selection of letters and numbers.
Brandt’s blood ran cold. He was unable to stop himself glancing around the room to see if he was being watched at that very moment. He needed to get out of there, not for lunch, but for fear that the very person who had written this could somehow now see him through his computer.
He not so much as walked out of the internet café, more staggered, and unconsciously made his way down to the beach before collapsing in a sun lounger. There must have been something about the way he looked because the attendant, who initially approached to charge him for the rental, suddenly backed away again.
So many questions were flooding Brandt’s mind. Who? How? Why? He lay there wondering whether the tightening he could feel in his chest was the result of an impending heart attack. What an inauspicious way to go that would be. But slowly and steadily he could feel his pulse lessen and his mind gain some clarity of thought. For sure this was an unexpected and unwelcome development but, in the context of things, what did it truly matter? As soon as Trish’s body was discovered they would know that he must have left the country with Franklin and therefore the events at the lake in Ghent would also have something to do with him. As a consequence, it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to assume that he had orchestrated the discovery of the body too. But whilst Brandt could accept that his actions yesterday – albeit having been forced into them by the devious old slapper – would lead to this, it disturbed him to think that someone was already steps ahead of him. It reminded him of Franklin’s revelation that the police already had an image of him near the crime scenes but, this time, far worse.
He forced himself to go to a nearby bar and order some food. He hadn’t eaten since early yesterday and would need the energy if he was going to make his escape this afternoon. Whilst ordering his all-day breakfast, he also selected a beer, reasoning it might help to settle his nerves and, if not, a hair of the dog may combat his still-present hangover. One lager turned into three and he had to fight the impulse to bury his concerns in the sweet oblivion promised by inebriation. The mild buzz he was getting from the relatively small amount of alcohol in his system allowed him to evaluate the email with more rationality than before. Somehow someone had realised it was he who had sent the email informing the Belgian police of Franklin’s whereabouts. That was it. Brandt was relieved that he had made sure that its origin would remain hidden. Naturally, his mysterious pen friend might be hiding further information they had uncovered but if the purpose of the message, as would seem apparent, was to unsettle him, why hold back? There was a certain arrogance to the claim they knew who he was, and it surely suggested that, if they knew more, they would choose to reveal that too and increase the pressure. It was highly unlikely that this was the work of the police because it would be counter-intuitive for them to try and spook him. They liked to lull their quarry into a false sense of security so that when they finally did pounce, it was unexpected.
The number of people with the motive to send such a thing was unfathomable. The purpose of Brandt’s actions had been to awaken society from their slumber of indifference and there would be plenty of nut jobs out there who would love to track him down. Yet the number of those with the means to even be aware of the email he had sent the Belgian police, let alone find out the address he had used, was small. But there was no point dwelling on this for now; his limited time would be far better spent planning his escape along with setting up the false trail. For the moment, he would just have to take the risk and work on the assumption that this person wasn’t aware of his current location, rather than rush his preparations.
His afternoon spent back at the internet café proved to be useful. There had been no further emails and nor had there been any news of Trish’s murder. Still unsure as to the best place to head, he focused instead on the false trail. Unsure whether a passport would be required to get to one of the Balearic Islands, he finally settled on Torremolinos. It was the first of the Costa del Sol tourist resorts and, by all accounts, still a popular holiday destination for the British. It made sense to Brandt that someone who chose Benidorm would then select this place as the next best option. That it was a long way down the coast would assist in making it not seem too obvious, but the only thing that troubled Brandt was that there were no direct bus or coach routes. Clearly, he couldn’t buy a plane ticket without a passport, and the train would be similarly pointless because it wouldn’t take long to use the network’s CCTV cameras to establish that he had never used his ticket. Instead he would buy a bus pass to Malaga and use his laptop back at the villa to give the impression he was using that as his first stop on the way to Torremolinos. That there would be no further evidence of his travelling there didn’t concern him too much. It made sense for someone fleeing in a hurry to take the chance of purchasing a ticket at the bus station, only to work more covertly by hitchhiking or taking a more indirect route once they were clear of the immediate danger.
By the time Brandt had first gone home to complete his fake research, and then to the bus station to purchase an open ticket to Malaga – needing to do it in that order to ensure the chronology of his actions was consistent – he was wired and thought a visit to a bar before retiring for the night would be wise. His lunchtime pints had given him a taste for beer that had remained with him throughout the afternoon and he reasoned that this may be the last time he could afford to be in such a public place for a while. After a swift return to the internet café to check that the body was still undiscovered, he settled on one of the various show bars in the new town. Selecting a discreet table in the corner to avoid the sort of attention that had landed him in so much trouble yesterday, he steadily worked his way through a few drinks and found the entertainment to be far better than the free entry suggested it might. Top billing was a drag act and, although Brandt was a traditionalist and tended to shy away from anything he considered deviant, he found himself laughing at the bawdy humour and clapping along to her various musical numbers.
Pottering home afterwards, and resisting the urge to simply move on to one of the other all-night bars, Brandt felt a tremendous sadness to think that this was probably his last night in Benidorm. His early impressions of its crassness remained true, but he had found a certain synergy with the place and regretted that there would be no more evenings like this. Even his villa had started to feel like home and, as he shut his front door, he sought to embrace his melancholy as a sign that he was not done with life yet. Absolutely, he had suffered yet another setback but whilst he retained such feelings he would find the strength to carry on through the adversity. In an effort to avoid allowing whichever pernicious little shit had emailed him spoil his mood, he bypassed his laptop and, instead, poured himself a generous nightcap with the final dregs of last night’s whisky bottle, which he enjoyed on his balcony before settling into bed with a serenity he hadn’t experienced in years.
Chapter Twenty-four
The airport had an eerie feeling with so few flights allowed out between 11pm and 6am due to noise regulations. But Johnson had wasted no time in getting there and settled down in one of the uncomfortable seats close to the check-in desk, waiting for it to reopen in advance of the first flights to Alicante in the morning.
As soon as Brandt’s w
ife had confirmed that, in the time she’d known him, he hadn’t been able to speak a word of a foreign language, she began her search. Knowing that he would be looking for a longer-term home she put typical British holiday destinations to one side and focused on the key European areas for ex-pats. Gibraltar was her favoured location because, as an actual British territory, it was where she would have selected if she was looking for a home away from home. However, her attention switched to Benidorm, another of her targets, when she found out about the murder of an English woman who moved there a few years ago. It wasn’t enough to act on because she was much older than his typical victim, and the method of killing was different to before, but this was the first murder in any of the places she had selected in the time since he had escaped to the continent that could possibly be attributed to him. Without him responding to her taunt about knowing it was he who had sent the email to the Belgian police, it had taken all her patience to remain in her impersonal flat, checking the various news feeds from the regions.
Then, finally, another one came up in Benidorm. Same method of killing, same sort of victim; far too much of a coincidence in Johnson’s eyes. She hastily packed a bag and made her way down to retrieve her car. Eschewing the nearby East Midlands Airport, she favoured the long drive to Gatwick, not only because of the number of the flights to Alicante but the fact that they started as soon as the night time layoff ended. Although she was grateful for finding a spare seat on the first flight to depart for Spain, the exorbitant fee the woman from the so-called low-cost airline sheepishly quoted her almost caused her to balk. As she waited at the boarding gate, trying to drown out the noise from her fellow passengers, she swore to herself that this had better be worth it. She did manage to cheer herself up with an email she sent just before switching her phone onto airplane mode, as they taxied towards the runway.
With the flight only taking a couple of hours, it was still early as Johnson switched back on her data as she landed in Alicante. Although concerned that his lack of a response to her first message meant he wasn’t checking the account he had set up specifically for informing the Belgian police, by the same token, she didn’t want him answering her new one without her being in the position to reply immediately and engage him in a conversation.
As she waited throughout the long taxi journey into Benidorm, she reflected on what she would do if he continued to fail to make contact. It was now mid-morning and she had just checked into her hotel in the centre of the New Town, a modest but pleasant enough three-star affair, when the mail symbol on her phone indicated that she had received a message.
He had replied.
– Who are you?
It may have been in the subject bar like both the emails she had sent him, but he had favoured avoiding the aggressive tone implied by her sole use of capitals. She would reciprocate in kind, having finally engaged him with her claim that she now knew where he was.
– I want to help you.
– How?
The response was almost immediate, which was a sign to Johnson that she had him rattled.
– I believe you.
– How can you help me?
Johnson paused, her fingers hovering over the keypad. This was a curious reply. She wasn’t surprised that he was being cautious with his responses because, for all he knew, she was bluffing. In actual fact she didn’t yet know whether she had made the wrong assumption following reading the news stories. But she was in no doubt that this was Brandt she was speaking to and the realisation of this caused a shiver to run down her spine. Not only had he immediately dropped the subterfuge of typing in French, but he hadn’t even asked what she supposedly believed him about.
– I can prove you weren’t responsible.
– WHO ARE YOU???
Johnson took in a deep breath as she typed her reply. Whilst her actions to this point had been questionable, this was definitely crossing the line. However, as she had sat in her flat waiting for the news she required, this was the only way she could think of. She hadn’t heard from Claire since her return from Belgium but, rather than it ease the tremendous pressure and sense of responsibility she felt, it only added to it. The thought that even Claire had given up on her, only made her more determined to do whatever it took to bring McNeil’s killer to justice.
– Gail Trevelly
A long pause this time, and Johnson was starting to fear that she had scared him off altogether. Even if he was in Benidorm, all she had to go on so far was that he was unlikely to be staying in a hotel because she had been asked for her passport on check-in.
– You wrote about me.
A simple, almost innocuous statement, but she could sense the accusation contained therein. Whether she could maintain an effective dialogue depended on his reaction to her next message.
– I was tricked by DCI Johnson into running that story. I believe she has also tricked you.
She could feel herself tingling in anticipation of what mentioning her name to him would provoke.
– Go on…
– I think Nottingham was a set up. She had no evidence on you and conspired with PC McNeil to create a scene of incriminating evidence.
It pained Johnson to type this; to allow Brandt the satisfaction of believing he had duped yet more people. Burying her hurt inside her, she wondered whether this was enough. Should she say more about this supposedly pre-constructed and artificial crime scene? She could claim that McNeil had let it slip to his sister that they had been planning to trap Brandt with the idea that he would supposedly arrive on a whim and catch him in the act. But Brandt had been extremely cautious so far in this conversation and to say more would overplay her hand. If he needed clarification, he would ask for it, and she would just have to see whether he took the bait.
– Why would she do that?
– Fame. When she spoke to me before I asked her why catching you was so important to her. She said she wanted to become famous like Maggie Oliver.
Johnson had put a lot of thought into this on the flight. She knew that if she got this far with Brandt, he was bound to ask why Gail Trevelly thought Johnson would risk her life to get a conviction. She had initially dismissed the idea of comparing herself to the DC from Preston who exposed the Rochdale child sex grooming scandal. Johnson believed her motivation had been entirely honourable, even if it did gain her the sort of exposure that saw her on last year’s Celebrity Big Brother. However, she kept coming back to the idea because she realised that she was viewing the world through her own perspective and not that of the man she was pursuing. She didn’t know what had caused him to become a serial killer, but he had an obvious disrespect towards women and, given how he had reacted to the newspaper article suggesting he may be bisexual, suffered from a large ego. Therefore, for him to judge people by his own low standards, it was perfectly conceivable that he would view Maggie Oliver as some fame-hungry media whore, who put herself above the integrity of the force.
– What now?
– Let me get your side of the story. I can’t promise it will provide the police with the evidence they need to expose the plot against you, but it may help to get the truth out there.
– How do I know this isn’t just a set up?
– Meet me in person. For me to put myself in the hands of a suspected serial killer would show my faith in your innocence.
– Why take the risk?
– Because I believe in truth. Not all of us journalists are crooked, you know!
Johnson thought carefully as to whether this sounded sincere enough and a sufficient motivation. It needed a little more, and the best way she had found to hide a lie was to disguise it with something more plausible.
– Plus, seeing as we’re being honest, this could give me a significant leg up in my career.
– Send me your phone number.
Why? For what purpose? Is this a test? Any of these responses could appear defensive enough to make him suspicious. With a sigh she typed in her number. Whilst he may have the IT
skills to hide IP addresses, she was sure he couldn’t hack the phone companies to trace her number.
Her phone beeped from an incoming text message.
– Where do you propose we meet?
Jesus Christ, he might not be able to trace her number, but she could as long as she passed this on to the police. She didn’t want to though, and reassured herself that even if he believed that it was Gail Trevelly that was contacting him then she could do the same. It wasn’t worth blowing the whole thing in the unlikely belief that he would make what would appear such a monumental cock up by accident. Perhaps this was the real test. He would wait and see if the location of the mobile mast that was used to transmit the message was stormed by the police in the next hour or so, to see if the emails were genuine.
– Up to you.
– I thought you said you knew where I am…
Still cautious, which Johnson took as a good sign that he wasn’t now just playing with her. But where could she suggest? She needed to buy herself time to think.
Hide and Seek Page 15
