Smoke and Mirrors

by Denver Murphy

  With a smile at that last insult she put the phone down. Now that the unpleasant phone call was out of the way, it was time to get the latest information from her team before she went and briefed the DSI.

  Chapter Twelve

  Killing that woman the night before he left for Nottingham did serve to allow Jack to concentrate on settling into his new surroundings and courses. The first week was a blur where, unlike that evening, he was unable to avoid being dragged into consuming far more alcohol than he felt comfortable with. But Jack was young and able to sleep off his hangovers and start drinking again afresh, meeting lots of people along the way and forming the beginnings of some friendships.

  It wasn’t as though things completely settled down when his lectures and seminars began, so he spent far less time reading the texts he had been assigned than was probably wise, especially since he had little background in the sorts of topics he was studying. But in his first week he had received a portion of advice from a final year student that he was seeking to hold on to. His first year wouldn’t count in terms of his overall degree classification and he was told it was about being able to strike a balance between doing enough to pass the year and getting enough partying out of the way that when it was time to knuckle down he wouldn’t feel as though he’d missed out.

  On this particular Sunday morning he had awoken early, despite not returning to his room until the early hours. In truth, it had been a bit of a tame night with many of his fellow Freshers using the weekend to either go home or visit old friends. Jack had no reason to leave Nottingham and he had no plans for the day, other than to make a start on a rather lengthy tome on the history of the Cold War. Despite his inability to sleep in, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to concentrate, much less be bothered to make notes, unless he did something to liven himself up.

  He had only been to the centre of Nottingham a couple of times since his arrival, and it had been in a taxi late at night in order to frequent one of its various clubs. Jack wasn’t into dance music but the sheer size and popularity of Gatecrasher had impressed him. That evening he had not only snogged a fellow student but, towards the end of the night, when things had really started to get messy, he had tried to chat up a woman who was clearly a few years older than him. In his drunken state, he had been attracted to her bottle blonde hair, fake tan and ample cleavage but when he had grabbed her bum whilst dancing, she had told him that she was a police officer and what he had done constituted assault. Jack assumed she had been joking but took that as his cue to beat a steady retreat and reunite with his university acquaintances.

  However, rather than dwell on that occasion as he walked towards town, Jack found himself thinking about his trip to Nottingham in the summer. The weather may have been considerably different, with him now having to wear a jacket to combat the dull and overcast effects of a typical October morning, but walking along unfamiliar streets conjured the same images. It had not been his intention when he set out, but he found himself calling up the web browser on his phone so he could check on the whereabouts of the one destination he had failed to take in that day. As he suspected, it would need only a very slight detour to find the alleyway that Brandt had used for his first murder.

  Almost instantly Jack could feel his pace quicken and all thoughts of hangovers and boring reference books were cast from his mind. Throughout the remainder of the journey he considered how exciting it would be to just arrive, wait for the next person to come along and kill them there and then. But the nearest Jack had to a bladed weapon was a butter knife as part of the, as yet untouched, small cutlery set that his mother had bought him along with some basic pans and other utensils. Even if he had thought to bring it with him, he wouldn’t feel confident trying to impale someone with such a blunt implement.

  If he were to do anything that morning, it would have to be with his bare hands and, despite the temptation to give in to the urge, he could see two clear reasons why it was a risk not worth taking. His efforts in Canterbury could not be seen as conclusive in terms of him having the necessary strength to overpower his victim, because the woman he’d killed couldn’t even stand, let alone effectively defend herself. The other matter was that he didn’t know what evidence he had left on her body. He wasn’t sure whether one could really leave fingerprints on another person’s skin, but he did remember watching the film Red Dragon a few years ago where the FBI agent found the killer’s fingerprints on one of the victim’s eyelids. It may have only been fiction, but it was enough to warn Jack that the impulsivity driving his murders so far was liable to see him caught if he didn’t curtail it. He might have been confident that there was no record of his DNA or fingerprints on a database somewhere but offering a link between the murders in different cities was best left to professionals like Brandt.

  Nevertheless, as he wandered down the alleyway, stopping at where the body was found, thanks to it being marked by more dead flowers, Jack did not feel any regret at being able to do no more than observe. The absence of any other walkers in the entire time he spent there indicated that it was too early to expect to find a suitable victim, but also allowed him more time to drink in the scene. He found a mark on the ground he hoped was the remnants of the blood stain. It may have been sufficiently faint that he was unable to get anything on his fingers despite using his nails to scrape the ground. But that didn’t stop him putting them to his lips in the hope that he may be able to detect the slightest coppery tang.

  He wondered what sort of a thrill Brandt had got from seeing the young mother lying there. Jack felt better able to empathise now that he had killed a second time. Had Brandt waited, as Jack had in Canterbury, to make sure the woman was dead before continuing on his way or had he, as he must have done outside the station, completed it all in one fluid motion, hoping this time he had done enough? More than anything, Jack wanted to get to the stage where he could perform his tasks in the same cool and calculated way he imagined his hero had done.

  Leaving the scene, Jack didn’t bother to continue into town as per his original plan. Visiting there had given him lots to think about and being in a deserted shopping centre a good couple of hours before anything was due to open would just be a waste of his valuable time. There was much for him to decide. Now that he was in Nottingham, it was important he plan carefully, and first he needed to decide on an appropriate course of action.

  In effect Jack considered himself at a fork in the road. Going back was not an option and both routes forward would allow him different ways in which to honour Brandt. One of them see him forge his own path where he would, as with his killing in Whitstable, merely take inspiration from Brandt. The other would see him pay a far closer homage and seek to recreate the very murders that Jack felt had defined him.

  As Jack closed his bedroom door, grateful that it was still too early for those students who had remained on campus over the weekend to be up, he stripped off his clothes so that he could climb into his bed and plan in comfort; he reached a decision. He intended spending at least the next three years in Nottingham and, as much as he was supposed to be a student of Politics and International Relations, he also considered himself a pupil of the greatest serial killer in British history. Maybe not the most prolific, but the greatest nonetheless. He would allow himself to continue to learn and use the methods and destinations carefully selected by Brandt to guide him and keep him safe, as he had done in Canterbury, until he was ready to branch out on his own like the true disciple he aimed to be.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Morning, boss, is everything okay?’ Brandt winced at his perfect English but judging by Mr Jones’ unchanged expression, he hadn’t detected anything remiss. It was always the same following a day off; with no one to talk to, Brandt struggled to get back into the character of Gregori straight away.

  ‘Yes, everything’s fine,’ Mr Jones replied, but in a manner that was far from convincing. Brandt knew when people were lying, and he knew when they were hiding something, but what he also h
ad learned early on in his career in the police was that the best way of getting people to confess wasn’t always to challenge them. It would often lead to them pulling the shutters down and, partly out of a sense of pride, make them even less likely to admit the thing they had been trying to conceal.

  ‘Sure thing, boss,’ Brandt said cheerily, walking out from the counter to check that everything was arranged correctly for when they opened.

  ‘No, hold on a second Gregori, there is something I have been meaning to speak to you about.’ If that wasn’t enough to concern Brandt, his next statement was. ‘Let me grab us a coffee and a slice of cake and we can have a nice chat. You take it black, don’t you?’

  ‘Er, yes,’ Brandt responded, trying to think what on earth he was soon to be told. Mr Jones had been kind enough to give him a job picking fruit and then to move him into the tearoom permanently, but he never made a show of being generous. Brandt suspected it was not so much out of meanness and more through fear of being accused of favouritism and, in all the weeks he had worked there, he had never once seen him offer anyone a free anything.

  The couple of minutes it took for Mr Jones to fiddle with the unfamiliar controls of the barista machine felt like an eternity to Brandt and, by the time they eventually sat down, he didn’t have much of an appetite for the Victoria sponge placed before him.

  As it transpired, Mr Jones wasn’t one for bottling things up very long because he decided the best course of action was now to simply come out with it.

  ‘I had been hoping to last until after Halloween and maybe then the interest before Christmas might be enough to justify keeping you on longer,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid the tail off since summer has been sharper than I expected.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Brandt. Much as he had tried to convince himself otherwise, he had found things particularly quiet over the last couple of weeks.

  The look of relief that spread over Mr Jones’ face was nauseating and, although Brandt knew part of it was a case of sour grapes, he saw him as nothing but cowardly in that moment.

  ‘Really?’ he responded. ‘Oh, that’s very good of you Gregori and I have always said that you are a decent man. Very decent in fact. Believe me it’s not about capability and certainly not about popularity amongst the customers but, you see, it’s only right and proper for it to be a case of first in, last out. Do you understand what I mean?’

  ‘I understand,’ Brandt answered, unable to keep the anger out of his voice entirely.

  ‘Of course, I’ll let you work out the rest of the week to give you a little bit of time to try and find a new job somewhere.’

  Brandt just wanted him to shut up now rather than offer him any more of his bullshit. They both knew no one in North Wales would be looking to hire staff at this time of year, especially someone who claimed to have only recently arrived in the country. The old Brandt, the one who wasn’t pretending to be the thoughtful and subservient Gregori, would have enjoyed taking his cake fork and jamming it in Mr Jones’ eyeball. That would surely give him a different take on what was right and proper. But, if for no other reason, Brandt couldn’t afford the prospect of missing out on another week’s worth of wages. The caravan owner may well have agreed to a longer term let in exchange for a massively reduced rental charge, but every penny would count if he were somehow going to survive the winter. Now more than ever, Brandt wished he had used the opportunity presented by being around at Susan’s house to relieve her of all the jewellery she had insisted he should buy her over the years. He could have made quite a tidy sum pawning it off, enough to tell Mr Jones where to stick his entirely ungenerous offer of working the remainder of the week.

  ‘Look, I totally understand if you would rather just go now if it would be too painful for you to carry on.’

  Too awkward for you more like, you cowardly little shit. What’s more I bet you’d only be too glad not to have to stump up the pittance of a wage you pay me.

  ‘No, I want to stay,’ Brandt responded, his voice almost a whisper. ‘But if you don’t mind, I think I have lost my appetite.’ Fuck trying to put on a stupid Georgian accent, he thought, pushing his plate away and standing up.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The room was familiar but somehow different. Were it not for the fact that he was lying on the floor, it might have taken a bit longer to realise that the furniture looked the same but the other items around them were not his own.

  Jack sat up with a start; suddenly aware of his nakedness. More shocking was that the bed he had somehow missed, the same narrow single as the one in his own room, was currently occupied. The covers were pulled around her and he didn’t need to observe the jumble of clothes at the bottom of the bed, a mixture of his and hers, to remember that he had sex for the second time in his life the night before.

  With his body stiff from his uncomfortable sleeping position, he got up to stretch, but as quietly as possible so as to not risk waking her. Delicately easing himself into one of the room’s two chairs, the supposed lounge chair to match the stiff-backed wooden item that went with the small desk, he felt very satisfied with his work. That he had ended up having a far better physical experience with this girl than the one at Henry’s house nearly 18 months previously, had been a fortunate outcome of the evening.

  Mandy was on his course and he had got talking to her one day as they waited for their seminar room to be unlocked. Her contributions the previous week had suggested that she was not only well read, but also had a keen interest in the subject. Jack had calculated she was someone worth knowing because she may be able to help him compensate for his lack of preparation and general apathy towards politics. She was also reasonably attractive, with her short blonde hair a match for her oval face and with eyes like chips of emerald ice.

  After his decision to ease into Brandt’s shoes slowly, Jack wanted to recreate the attacks as faithfully as possible. In order to do that, he needed a blade and not just the blunt butter knife his mother had bought him. To be truly authentic, it had to be a steak knife and Jack assumed that Brandt’s decision to use one of his as the weapon of choice was because of its ubiquity. It would have given the police little to go on and, for all Jack knew, Brandt had a set of them lying around at home.

  But Jack’s parents hadn’t. His mother may have owned every kitchen contraption and utensil under the sun but, for some reason, that hadn’t extended to steak knives. Similarly, as an 18-year-old student, it wasn’t something he would be expected to have and the university wouldn’t stock them in their various cafeterias and canteens. He had settled on the idea to simply purchase some but had felt uncomfortable at the prospect of doing so. The sale of knives was restricted and, although he was old enough to buy them, he knew that his doing so would seem unusual for someone his age. If it wasn’t bad enough that the people of Nottingham were well aware of the implement used in the murders that shocked their city, when another would suddenly happen a few days later there was a chance, however slim, that the shop assistant might remember him and provide the police with his description.

  Playing the role of Brandt wasn’t just about replicating his murders but also learning from the care and preparation they must have involved. Jack was a very different person; as were his circumstances. Appreciation of the disparities was key to ensuring that he didn’t allow complacency to force him into a mistake. The knives were a case in point, where Brandt’s ease of obtaining them didn’t match his own. Jack had come to the conclusion that stealing one was a far better idea, and that was where Mandy became involved.

  Mandy had willingly helped him fill in the blanks of his knowledge prior to their tutor arriving. The seminar had gone well, and Jack had made a number of contributions, not least so that he could build up some credit should he find himself back to barely keeping up with what was being discussed in subsequent sessions. Afterwards, he had made a point of catching Mandy before she disappeared, to thank her for the help. He had known that asking if he could show his gratitude with
buying her dinner that evening was uncharacteristically forward, but he surmised that if she declined, as long as she wasn’t entirely horrified with the idea, at least she might choose to help him out again in the future.

  Jack need not have worried because Mandy accepted. She had laughed and called him old fashioned, but had claimed it a refreshing change to just being asked for a drink. His initial delight was suddenly met with fear that she might be a vegetarian. To Jack it had suddenly all added up. The short hair and the interest in politics that seemed to stem from a left-wing position meant that she was bound to be a vegetarian; most likely a vegan too. With a sense of dread, he had asked whether there was any type of food he should avoid when settling on their destination for that evening. Nervously waiting her consideration of the question, he had been unable to stifle his own laugh when she finally said that she was getting a bit bored of going to Nando’s but, other than that, she was happy to give anything a go.

  Delighted, Jack had gone back to his room to complete some research and book a table. He knew plenty of chain restaurants with steak on the menu and therefore likely to provide the appropriate cutlery. There were some issues though. Even if Jack could convince himself that the likelihood of not being provided with the correct knife for his selection from the menu was slim, he worried that its absence would be noticed when their table was being cleared. To minimise the chance of that happening was to go somewhere that saw the majority of the customers ordering steak, perhaps even Mandy herself. That way there would be lots of the knives knocking about and taking one away with him would be easy.