Chapter Thirty-six
This time there was no limbo for Johnson. Instead there was the immediate transition from no thought or feeling to consciousness. It was a sloshing sound that had awoken her, but that sense was soon overtaken by the pungent stench of petrol. She swung her head round in panic; her earlier conclusions of the pointlessness of her continued existence replaced by the body’s baser instinct of self-preservation.
She tried to cry out as Brandt walked calmly past her to complete the circle of liquid on the floor. ‘Shh, no more talking,’ he said soothingly, opening the back door to toss the metal container far into the garden. ‘We both knew it would come to this.’
The full reality of the situation came to Johnson even before he picked up a new jerrycan and held it aloft. Instinctively she closed her eyes, awaiting the stinging shock of petrol on her face. It didn’t come, and she eventually opened them to find Brandt maintaining the same position as before. A few moments passed with them both staring at each other before he started tipping the contents over his own head.
His involuntary gasps subsided. ‘You questioned whether I could be intimate with a woman. But what I have learned is that death is a far more intimate experience than sex.’
Despite her terror, Johnson found herself remembering the tenderness of the moment she had shared with McNeil as they held hands whilst the blood drained from him.
‘There are many layers to its intimacy. I used to fantasise about plunging off a cliff and for my body to be dashed on the rocks below, but now I have created death I can see it is a better experience shared. And what could be more intimate than dying together?’
Brandt smiled, a broad warm smile that told Johnson any hatred he had for her had gone. He marched past her. ‘Now where did I leave that lighter?’ he asked with a casualness she found more chilling than anything he had said or done before.
Moments later she heard the loud whoomph of fuel being ignited, followed by screaming. Feeling intense heat behind her, she noticed the air rushing past her to fill the vacuum being created by the oxygen that had already been burned. Then she saw the flames dancing across the liquid either side of her, coming to meet in the middle. With the brightness now in her kitchen blinding her and her lungs already struggling to breathe effectively, she started bucking in her chair. Johnson knew there was every chance her actions would cause her to tip into the fire that surrounded her, but she had little option unless she wanted to wait until the intense heat caused her clothes to catch light.
Suddenly she could feel movement; small but definitely there. She contorted her left hand in an attempt to try and exploit it, whilst expecting the action to cause her bonds to tighten. They didn’t, and she could feel the rope loosen further. A moment later her hand was free. Instantly she started yanking at her right wrist. Her finger picked and pulled indiscriminately until that arm was released too. In the instant euphoria that followed she tried to stand and, instead, plunged forward through the flames and out the other side. She quickly pulled up her legs to take them away from the immediate danger but, with them still bound, it only served to drag the chair into the fire. Johnson’s screams as it caught light stopped as she observed the metal object glinting. It was the small paring knife she had placed in her sock before answering the door. Brandt must have either failed to notice it or had not thought it sufficiently important to remove it.
She reached for it and fought her natural instinct to immediately pull her hand away. Through gritted teeth and eyes unable not to see the skin blistering on the back of her hand, she grabbed the knife, grateful that its metal hilt hadn’t heated up too much yet to hold. Hitching in what little oxygen her lungs could find in the air that remained in the kitchen she slashed at her bonds, hardly noticing the cuts she inflicted on her ankles.
Finally free of the chair, Johnson crawled to the back door, with coughs now wracking her body. Wrenching it open, she threw herself forward against the cool air being sucked past her. She could smell her hair sizzling and proceeded to roll off the patio and onto the grass. Coming to a stop she barely processed the sight of the dark form of a body silhouetted on the kitchen floor before she closed her eyes against the fragments of glass that flew in her direction from the back windows being blown out.
The voice was back again, telling her to just lie there and allow the blissfulness of oblivion to take away her pain. Johnson no longer found that voice deceitful, only caring. The temptation was heightened by the heat that was now intolerable. But she knew what to agree would mean. Whether despite or in spite of Brandt, she wanted to live, and summoning the last of her strength as well as her will, she hauled herself up onto her knees and crawled to the relative safety of the overgrown flowerbed at the back of her garden, where she finally allowed herself to pass out.
She may not have noticed the explosion that followed the contents of her gas boiler being ignited but Brandt did. He had stopped at the junction to find the switch for the Volvo’s heated seats, in the hope that it might help to dry his soaking wet clothes. Looking back up the road at the ball of flame rising to disappear into the night sky, in the same way as he had chosen not to twist the knife in Sarah Donovan, he hoped that he had sufficiently loosened Johnson’s bonds for her to be able to escape. Happy that he was leaving Nottingham under better circumstances than a fortnight earlier, he switched on the radio and began whistling along to the anonymous tune, and turned his thoughts to how he was going to dispose of the lone body that remained in the boot.
Other books in the trilogy
If you haven’t already, why not read the first book in the series?
He spent his life fighting crime. Now he has a taste for it himself. His first attack is a stab in the dark. Next time, he’ll kill.
Knowing how the police work, ex-detective Jeffrey Brandt will stay one step ahead of their investigation. He will even taunt those trying to establish his identity and catch him. One woman, DCI Stella Johnson, is responsible for finding him. Has she got what it takes?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MTJK3LC/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MTJK3LC/
The notorious killer Jeffrey Brandt has slipped through the net. Now he is completely off the radar. But his legacy continues when a copycat killer appears. Will he be flattered or peeved that someone is stealing the limelight?
Coming soon on Kindle.
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Hide and Seek Page 21