Hide and Seek

by Denver Murphy

  ‘With that newspaper article?’

  ‘Exactly. Without that, I think he would have kept on killing people here. I take it you are aware of what he’s done in Spain?’ Johnson allowed Susan’s nod to be enough. ‘He will keep on doing it if we don’t stop him.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yes,’ Johnson replied flatly. ‘I need you to talk to a reporter.’

  What followed was twenty minutes of bitter confrontation; a confrontation Johnson would have lost had it occurred when she first entered the house. Through the tears they both shed, at times from frustration and at others through misery, she knew that Susan couldn’t deny their earlier conversation. Even if she didn’t feel her irrational guilt for what Brandt had done, she, like Johnson, couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t take an opportunity to try and save some lives. And yet it had taken a huge amount of persuasion, even to the point that Johnson had to describe not only what he had done to that woman in Benidorm, but what he had also done to her.

  She had delivered the knock-out blow by going through exactly what had happened in her house in Nottingham in much more detail than she had told the police. She left nothing out and she could see her wince as she spoke about him sat on top of her, his penis poking through his unzipped flies, and biting her nipple. It was obvious Susan wanted to tell her, to beg her, to stop but she was too transfixed by discovering the full extent of the monster her beloved husband had become.

  Three hours later Johnson left the house, exhausted. Some of her own humanity had been lost through that exchange, but it had not only served to get Susan to agree to Gail Trevelly coming around for an interview, she also allowed herself to be briefed on what to say. Johnson drove back to her flat, barely aware of the traffic around her, reminding herself that it didn’t matter how much of what was said was true, all that mattered was the effect it had on Brandt. She had no idea where he now was or what he was up to; but in a matter of hours his world would come crashing down.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Brandt became aware something was wrong when he went to the local supermarket. He was there when it opened – whilst most of Benidorm remained asleep – so as to encounter as few people as possible. After 24 hours, he could see no signs of an increased police presence, but he still wanted to keep as low a profile as possible until he finally decided what he was going to do. And yet he had welcomed the fact his limited supplies necessitated a trip out, for the flat now seemed much worse than the dingy run-down shit hole he first believed it to be. Now it resembled little more than a prison cell and even just a few minutes in the early morning air felt a blessed relief.

  He wouldn’t have taken much notice of the hushed conversation he could barely overhear, were it not for the fact that the two people conducting it were huddled over the newspaper stand. Despite it only being two days since having sent Johnson the email, he knew it was just paranoia that made him think there was a chance that what these people were reading had anything to do with him. Unable to work out any more of what they were saying without getting close enough to disturb them, he left the supermarket and headed for a different shop in order to look at the newspapers himself.

  What greeted him caused vomit to rise in his throat. It took enormous will for him to swallow it back down again and stagger to the counter to purchase the offending item. There on the front page was a photograph of Susan. Next to her was the headline: Ex-wife of notorious serial murderer exclusively reveals what drove him to kill.

  He didn’t want to read what was inside but knew he had no choice. Retaining just enough rationality to accept that he could not do so whilst out in public, he headed straight back to his apartment; tears streaming down his face.

  ‘How… how could you?’ he croaked in a small voice, having read the article for the third time. He simply couldn’t believe it; what was being reported was far worse than he could ever have imagined. When Brandt started his new career, he had known there was a chance something like this would happen. His hope had been that he would have got sufficiently far with his plan that Susan would have understood that he’d achieved more to help society in the last few months than he had in his whole lifetime in the force. Johnson may have cut short that possibility, but he had taken Susan’s steadfast refusal to do any interviews as a sign that she at least didn’t condemn what he had done. For her to, not only agree to an in-depth interview, but then tell blatant lies was far worse than any of the crimes he had committed. He had only acted for the good of the people whereas she had deliberately set out to hurt him.

  Well, perhaps she hadn’t set out to. This had Johnson’s stink all over it and not because she had been responsible for that other, as it turned out, far milder article. Even if it wasn’t for the fact that Gail Trevelly was the author, with her smarmy professionally taken portrait sat proudly in the top corner, no one else could have put his wife up to it. His blood boiled at the thought of her at Susan’s house; the same fucking house he had to pay for as part of the divorce settlement, feeding her those lies. But Susan wasn’t blameless in all of this. No matter what Johnson had said to her, no matter how elaborate her own lies were, she should have refused. She had betrayed him, and her betrayal could not go unanswered.

  A certain tranquillity came over Brandt that reminded him of reports he had read about how some terminally ill patients felt when they received bad news. To have your very worst fears confirmed, can have the effect of silencing all those anxious voices. Concern had become cold, hard reality. Rather than worrying about what might happen, now that it had, he could focus on how to deal with it.

  As he moved around his small bed-sit, collecting up his few possessions, he wondered whether it was always meant to come to this. Despite his best efforts, he was destined to confront the person responsible. Perhaps that had been why he had failed to settle in Benidorm; why fate had sent him that slut to show him he would never be able to move on and be happy. That’s why he hadn’t left and gone somewhere else: there was nowhere else to go except back to England.

  For that was where Brandt was heading now as he exited the place that had become his prison cell over the last couple of days. Free from worrying about what might happen and what he should do, he had a purpose once again. There would be no planning of his route home or his method of transport. If this was truly what he was meant to do, then that same fate which had conspired to snatch his chance at happiness away from him, should also ensure he made it back safely. For whatever his future held, whether that be death or glory, it certainly didn’t mean being arrested by the Spanish or French police.

  Brandt walked down the street with his head held high. No one was going to spot him; no one was going to see the man concealed behind the dark glasses, straggly beard and deep tan. He had been wrong; it wasn’t about the people. This was simply about himself, Susan and DCI Johnson. Everyone else was just there to provide context for the true stars of this feature and, aside from those who had given up their lives, they would be the uncredited extras that were barely noticed, much less remembered afterwards.

  An hour later, sat in the cab of a lorry whose driver’s grasp of English was as good as Brandt’s was of Spanish, and enjoying the silence that resulted, he switched on his phone. He didn’t care that, if tracked, it would show he had been moving in a northerly direction. He wanted Johnson to know he was coming for her. He wanted her to feel that fear and apprehension that had plagued him so many times. But she wouldn’t be granted the calmness he felt now. When she realised that her anxieties had come true, all she would then feel is nothing as she entered the oblivion that surely followed life. For Brandt was certain there was no God; no almighty creator who had put man on this Earth and was watching over him. No sense of religion could survive if people could see the horrors and callous acts of brutality he’d witnessed.

  Six words to start the process that would see DCI Johnson become a mere footnote in the history Brandt was creating. No need for profanity in an attempt to emphasise his intentio
ns.

  – I warned you what would happen.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Johnson had woken early to collect a copy of the paper from the local newsagents. She was anxious to see exactly what had been written because Gail Trevelly had still been playing the hard-arse and had refused to send her a draft. Johnson had not bothered to push the matter because she had sat in during the whole interview. She hadn’t even needed to ask; Susan had insisted that she be there. The notion that she was there to support her did sit somewhat uncomfortably on Johnson’s shoulders given she had manipulated Brandt’s ex-wife into agreeing to tell her story. At least the story that Johnson had fed her.

  However, any unease she had felt evaporated in the immediate aftermath. She could see that Susan felt better for doing something. Johnson may have sought to uncover and amplify her guilt, but it had definitely been there in the first place, and doing something to help the situation, as well as sharing some of the burden, had been cathartic.

  In fact, the interview had gone so smoothly that Johnson had sought reassurance from Susan that she would revert to her previous position of refusing to speak to the press. It wouldn’t matter that Gail had got an exclusive; journalists were like sharks and if they could sense even a drop of blood in the water they would arrive to see if there was anything left to feed on.

  It wasn’t just concern the media circus would return to her front door that caused Johnson to suggest Susan go and stay with friends for a while. However, she had been sufficiently emboldened by the occasion to declare that she would not be running and hiding from anyone. Johnson did little to try and convince her otherwise; if the article did provoke Brandt into returning to England, she knew who the focus of his attention would be.

  Having collected the items she had gathered whilst waiting for the article to be published, Johnson had driven back to her house. For it would be here that Brandt would come first. She wondered whether he would expect to find her there and knew that would depend on how he had interpreted her actions. She was in no doubt that he would know she was behind his ex-wife speaking out. Even if it wasn’t for his email revealing that he was concerned by what Johnson could ensure entered the public domain, the fact it was written by Gail, whom she had posed as when trying to bring him out into the open in Benidorm, would make the connection blindingly obvious.

  The real question was what he believed her motivation to be. If he thought it was a petulant attempt to cause him pain, as some sort of revenge for him tricking her in Benidorm, then he wouldn’t expect her to have moved back into her house. He would know that, whilst he remained at large, the police would have insisted she stay somewhere safe. Nevertheless, he would need to start there in order to track down her new location.

  This would be the ideal situation for Johnson because she would have the element of surprise. She could just wait for him to turn up and pounce as he hunted around looking for clues as to her whereabouts.

  But what she really believed was that he knew this was far more than petty point scoring. ‘You know what I am capable of.’ These were the last words he had sent her. A clear reference to his actions following the last newspaper article she had prompted. Brandt had warned her that any attempt to do the same would be met by similar retribution. Whilst he may have questioned her intelligence for believing she could trick him so easily, she knew that he didn’t think her stupid. If nothing else, he couldn’t have failed to be impressed by the apparent ease with which she had managed to track him down. It must have come as a surprise that she had seen through his elaborate plan to make it look like Franklin had fled the country alone before confessing to be the orchestrator of Brandt’s actions. He would believe that she had gone to speak to his ex-wife, not only fully aware of the consequences of her actions, but perhaps even, as was the actual case, seeking to incite them.

  As a result, it wouldn’t make sense for her to then hide away because there was no point setting a trap which couldn’t be sprung. Johnson had thought about being a little more elaborate and planting a false trail at her house that would lead him somewhere secluded. However, time had been too tight for her to find a suitable location that she could rig with the sort of traps she had in mind. Instead she thought it better to remain on familiar ground and hope that Brandt had underestimated her desire for revenge and assumed she wouldn’t be there waiting for him.

  The emotions her previous return to the house had provoked came flooding back as Johnson stepped into the hallway. She managed to suppress them in the knowledge that she may not be able to bring McNeil back, but at least she could make his killer pay for what he had done. She knew she had plenty of time to prepare because, if Brandt did take the bait, he would still need to travel back from wherever he was abroad, but she set about her business quickly, anxious not to allow any sense of complacency to set in.

  The risk she was taking was calculated and more than once she thought about telling the police everything that had happened; reasoning with herself that, although it would certainly mean she would be whisked away to some safe-house, they could track him at the ports and there was a fair chance he could be caught as he came back into the country. But a fair chance wasn’t good enough. It didn’t matter to Johnson what her revelations would do to the likelihood of her being able to successfully resume her career; having twice let him slip through her fingers, she wasn’t prepared for it to happen again. Moreover, this was personal, and she had a duty to see this through herself.

  Parking her Audi well away from the property, she’d hefted the supplies gathered back to the house, having purchased enough food for a week because, even though she didn’t expect this to take anywhere near as long, lack of preparation would not be her downfall. She set up camp in the back bedroom, thinking this would be the last place that Brandt would expect her and, of more significance, that he wouldn’t fail to revisit the place where he had tied her up and sought to rape her. She tested out the floor boards on the landing to make sure she could approach him from behind in bare feet, unheard.

  It saddened her to think that she wouldn’t be able to inflict the sort of pain on him that he deserved. The main thing was to not present him with a situation in which he could escape. The long-bladed knife would need to be rammed into his back as soon as she got the opportunity, and she would probably need to stab it in a number of times just to be sure. She would dearly have loved to tie him up in the same way that he had done to her but her chances of physically overpowering him were slim, despite her athletic build. Nevertheless, she would make sure he knew it was her and that she was doing this, not just for all the innocent people he had murdered, but specifically for McNeil.

  Johnson had bought a whole block of kitchen knives and, whilst she had kept the largest for herself to carry, she discreetly placed others round her home, including one under the pillow of her bed, in case something should go wrong. She had also planned for what to do once she had killed Brandt. Whilst she was willing to give up anything in order to act out her revenge, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of causing her more sacrifice than was strictly necessary. She had dismissed the idea of obtaining a firearm, not just because of the difficulty getting hold of one at such short notice, but because even if she could show she had used it in self-defence, she would still be convicted of possessing one illegally. Whether that would lead to serving a prison term, given the circumstances, was debatable but one thing was certain; she would never be able to work for the police again.

  Instead she would make it look like she had moved back home for no worse a reason than she naively thought herself safe with Brandt being abroad. She trusted that Susan wouldn’t reveal her visit and she knew that Gail Trevelly would not want to share the credit for what was bound to be another career-defining story. She would say she was in the kitchen when Brandt entered the house and grabbed the first thing that came to hand; claiming that she had tried to hide but fled upstairs, and it was only her decision to go into the spare room rather than her own bedroom
that saved her. She knew she would have to answer questions like why she didn’t go out the front door when she ran and, although she didn’t expect to convince everybody, the main thing was that she had a plausible story that would be impossible to disprove. All she needed to do once she had killed Brandt was stuff the rest of her supplies in a kitchen cupboard and run around to collect up the remainder of the knives.

  With everything ready and it still being only lunchtime on the first day of the printing of the newspaper article, Johnson got a few hours’ sleep on her spare bed whilst she had the chance. After that, she would rely on her determination, as well as energy drinks, to keep her alert until she came face to face with her nemesis once more.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Brandt drove up the street that held so many memories despite only being there once before. His speed was neither fast nor slow, just what would be considered normal. As far as he could tell, there were no unmarked police cars parked in any of the locations he would have expected. He hadn’t anticipated finding any, but it paid to be careful. Just as he had known Johnson was acting alone when he saw her on the beach, so too was this all her own doing – the police would not have allowed her to be in the line of fire again. As he passed the property, he could see no signs of life but felt sure that if she wasn’t in there, at least she was expecting him to visit to try and find clues as to her whereabouts. Why else would she have sought to provoke him like that? It hadn’t been enough to get Susan to sell her story to the newspaper; she had got her to tell vicious lies about their marriage. It had to have served a purpose. Brandt had no idea what he may find in the house, but if there was a trap then he hadn’t come all this way not to spring it.