– I know.
Even that in itself was ambiguous. Was it that she had known all along that the murders weren’t his doing, or was it only after the forensics had come back about Sarah’s murder? Moreover, what was the subtext to her answer? He didn’t dare hope that it was meant as some form of reassurance and yet why else bother to reply? She would know by now that there was little point trying to trace his IP address so why not just ignore him unless she wanted to strike up a conversation.
Brandt knew he had to be cautious with this. He would not allow the fact he had managed to outwit Johnson in the past to lull him into a false sense of security. She had shown her resourcefulness in tracking him down in Benidorm and the stakes were much higher now that he had seemingly found true happiness with Kath.
He started buttering the toast, having resolved that the best thing to do was nothing at this stage. He had opened the line of communication, which Johnson had accepted. If there was going to be anything more than that, now she needed to take the initiative. Brandt had something very specific he wanted to offer her, but he had to wait until she realised she needed it first.
Satisfied that things were going as well as could be expected under the circumstances, he decided that marmalade on toast constituted a pretty meagre breakfast in bed and started to whisk up some scrambled eggs.
Chapter Thirty-one
‘Right, settle down everyone and let’s get started.’ Johnson was used to her team following her instructions, but it often took a while to get everyone seated for the Monday morning briefing. Under normal circumstances, people were busy swapping stories about what they had got up to at the weekend or, as had been the case over the one just finished, what they had missed as a result of having to work. Yet today, Johnson’s words were more out of habit because everyone was already silent and looking at her expectantly.
She allowed herself a slight smile. She hadn’t expected to feel quite as nervous as she had driving in to work, and had tried to reassure herself that her few months’ absence was small in the context of the many years she had spent in CID. She need not have worried; she could tell from the majority of the expressions that they were pleased to see her back.
Not that she expected it to be entirely plain sailing. There were those on the team who were close to Fisher, even before her absence. Fisher might have been many things, but he knew how to build up a sphere of influence and he was bound to have treated them favourably whilst he was in charge. Johnson was determined not to worry about it until she was back up to speed and would take her time in deciding whether to take a soft approach with them or to squash them quickly. Their behaviour and general demeanour would help her choose what it was to be.
She had long felt certain that her career in the police was something now in the past, but as regarded the people in front of her, many of whom she had selected and nurtured in the few years she had been DCI, she knew that this was where she was meant to be. It would have been better if her return had been under happier circumstances and she knew that this honeymoon period wouldn’t last if the results didn’t materialise. DSI Potter was under a lot of pressure; the strain of which had been enough to prompt him into taking bolder steps than fitted in with his usual traits. Whilst that had been to Johnson’s benefit, she also knew that he would be expecting her to mastermind the turnaround in the department’s fortunes the top brass demanded.
‘I’ll keep this brief as we all have much to do and I want to catch up with each of you individually over the course of the morning to find out where we are with every element of the investigation. You will all have heard the news from forensics that the person we are hunting is not Jeffrey Brandt. I don’t know for how many of you this news came as a surprise but let me tell you one thing, there is a clear distinction between following a gut instinct and leading yourself blindly down an alley.’ She paused to let these words sink in, staring directly at each of Fisher’s cronies. That most of them chose to drop their gaze before she moved on to the next person gave a clear indication of how likely they were to toe the line without her specific intervention, and also the validity of her assessment of how things were being run.
‘What I also need you to understand is the important thing here, the only thing, is to catch this killer. We are professionals in a hierarchy who are trained to follow orders, but everyone’s opinion is valid. If, in the course of your investigation, you come up with a theory, I want to hear about it. I may not agree with it and I may not choose to run with it, but I need to know it. From what I understand, we have no credible leads at this stage and what that means is that all options are still on the table.’
‘By the end of today I want each of them identified and explored so we can start to take an evidence-based approach to elimination. For whilst we don’t want to go down these narrow alleyways again, at the same time we won’t get anywhere if things remain too open. And to illustrate that point, I still want us to focus on Brandt. He may well not have committed the act but, until we can establish that there is no direct link between him and the attacker, I want that explored. We already know he was a bit of a loner, so finding out whether there was anyone else he was close to, who is either being directed by him or has independently chosen to act in his name, should be relatively straightforward.’
‘This leads me onto the second thing I need establishing today. Even if there isn’t a direct link between Brandt and the killer, I want to know whether there is evidence of any inside knowledge. By that I mean, is there anything about the three murders that suggests specific knowledge that wasn’t in the public domain? This person is trying to either recreate what Brandt did or to achieve what he thinks Brandt failed to. In the former instances, I want to know how closely they were recreated. For example, I know that a swipe of blood deliberately placed on the victim’s arm was something of a calling card for Brandt.’ She hesitated, wondering whether she should say the next bit, or would that be pushing them too far? No, they had to know that their mistake wasn’t just in blindly following Fisher, which many of them would still put down to respect for one’s superiors, but in failing to spot something as obvious as this. ‘This is how I knew it wasn’t Brandt after the first killing.’ Another pause to look carefully around the room. They needed to know that she was the expert here and, more than anything, her own personal experience with Brandt and the losses she suffered were not going to get in the way of her doing the job of which she was capable.
‘But the point is this, even if we find out our guy is only going on what he would have been able to find out in the newspapers and on the internet, that in itself gives us plenty to go on. Without the full picture, he would have been filling in the gaps and so, just as I want to know where things exactly match with what Brandt did, I also want to know where they don’t. It is these differences that will allow us to build a profile of who this guy really is, in addition to what we already know about people who develop the sort of fanaticism we are experiencing here. To that end, I want more done to look on forums and social media to see the sort of support Brandt might have out there. I don’t expect you to find the killer on them, but it will at least give us an insight and, you never know, they may have done some early posting before they got to the stage where they decided they would take their support of Brandt to the next level.’
Johnson took a deep breath. This had been a much longer speech than she had planned but there was much to organise and, truth be told, she was rather enjoying herself. ‘Oh, and one other thing before I let you get on with it: we’re likely to be pretty stretched for the time being so don’t be afraid to call on support from uniform if you just need an extra body and don’t require the specialist skills of another detective. If you get in that situation, I suggest that PC Barnes might be worth a try.’ In reality, Johnson had barely given a second thought to Barnes, the young recruit who had accompanied her when she had first returned to work following Brandt’s attack on her and Potter had been trying to do everything to keep her a
way from the proper case. Yet she still felt guilty for leaving the station the following morning, when they were meant to be making a follow up visit to the man shot in St. Ann’s, without at least saying goodbye. At what was a very challenging time for her, she had appreciated his good humour and sensitivity with avoiding asking her the sorts of questions that were on everyone else’s lips. More than that, she could see the foundations of a good copper within him and, in much the same way as she wouldn’t allow her experience with Brandt to warp her judgement, she wasn’t prepared to have what happened to McNeil prevent her from nurturing young talent.
‘Hardy, you’re up first,’ she called as everyone started to file out. She doubted anyone knew of the contact she’d had with him during her absence, but she still appreciated his act of rolling his eyes and muttering, why me? He was complicit in some of the mistakes that had been made but that still didn’t stop her being grateful to him for his help, whether at times grudging or otherwise. Moreover, she wanted an opportunity to gain a bit more of an insight into the office politics before tackling some of the trickier members of her team.
Chapter Thirty-two
Brandt’s answer to a question that’d disturbed him for the last couple of days had suddenly become clear. Not only did it explain why there was no follow up email from Johnson, it was the best possible news in terms of bringing her to the conclusion he needed her to reach.
There it was in black and white. Johnson had returned to work and was heading up the investigation into the recent murders in Nottingham. This was bound to have been a sanctioned leak to the press and Brandt knew exactly why they had chosen to do this. That they were under a lot of public pressure was obvious, and what better way to try and get some positive reporting for once than to make it known that their star detective was back on the case. For Johnson really was headline news; all the more so because of the mystery that surrounded her after her refusal to engage with any of the, no doubt lucrative, offers to sell her story. The irony of this given her own manipulation of the press in the past didn’t escape Brandt, but that was all water under the bridge, and he doubted that the decision to make the press aware of her return was hers. Far more likely it was DSI Potter’s. Brandt knew from his few dealings with Potter in the past that he liked to play with a straight bat but, equally, he could imagine what enormous pressure he would be under at the moment and this would buy him a couple of days’ worth of goodwill from the top brass.
But more significant than any of this was what it revealed about their current investigation. It told Brandt in no uncertain terms that they weren’t close to catching the killer, otherwise they would be simply trying to ride out the current storm in the knowledge that they would soon have some more legitimate good news to share.
The question was how desperate Johnson would need to be to reach out to him. The answer was simple, considering everything Brandt had put her through: very. And even then, would she really seek his help? Really? That was surely far too much to expect. No, he would have to do more to open up the line of communication if there was to be any chance of that happening.
As Brandt typed, with Kath pruning the rose bushes in the back garden, he steeled himself for the inevitable reply. All he was doing at this stage was sowing a seed – one that Johnson would utterly resent and would try and rip up from the ground. But maybe, just maybe, if the police continued to be unsuccessful in their pursuit of the copycat killer, it might germinate and take root.
– Let me help you.
Satisfied he could do no more, and with the rest now relying solely on Johnson, he collected his coat, put on his shoes and joined Kath in the garden. One of the many things he admired about her, and was no doubt a result of living her whole adult life in Wales, was that she never let the weather dent her enthusiasm. And Brandt had to admit whilst stood on the patio, in those few moments before she would notice his arrival, the steady rain and strong breeze was invigorating rather than depressing.
Chapter Thirty-three
The positive start to the week soon faded into frustration. On the face of it, they were making progress and, with the whole of the team following Johnson’s instructions from Monday’s briefing, the things that she wanted established had been achieved. The problem was that none of it was leading them to anything specific.
Whilst she wasn’t prepared to rule it out entirely, there appeared to be no direct link between Brandt and the killer. And that was before Johnson received the email from him that was, frankly, baffling. She didn’t know the motivation behind offering to help her and she was too busy to spend her time thinking about it. In any case, it was better than having to worry that, however unlikely, he might be contemplating trying to find her for a third time with the intention of finally finishing her off. There had been a moment when she had considered that his offer had been because he knew the identity of the killer and, in a similar way to how he had manipulated Franklin, was looking to use it to push some kind of agenda. But the evidence didn’t fit the notion and she reminded herself that she wouldn’t allow her personal feelings towards Brandt cloud her judgement.
Johnson didn’t do what she should have done and report it. It wasn’t like before, where she was intent on keeping things to herself because she was on some kind of vigilante crusade to snare him herself. Rather, she didn’t want anything to distract the team from their current focus. Clearly Potter would have to act on it but, deep down, he wouldn’t thank her for the information. Johnson didn’t know what she was going to do with Brandt once this was all over, but he would just have to wait, despite how callous she knew this made her considering that it was only a few short months ago he had murdered McNeil.
Having found out there was nothing about the killings not already in the public domain, except for the location of Sarah – one of the team showed how it wouldn’t take too long to figure that out from Josh’s Instagram account – they began trying to build up a profile from what was distinct about his method of killing. The trouble was that to everyone, Johnson included, it didn’t really narrow down the field of potential suspects. Things were made worse by the fact that the elements he had copied from the person who had inspired him had been deliberately designed by Brandt in the first place to be so general, like the use of a ubiquitous steak knife, as to give the police little to go on.
As the week wore on, Johnson found herself working more closely with DC Hardy. Her association with him was no longer through a need to find a relatively friendly face, but the more time she spent in his company the more she realised how far he had grown as a detective from the timid but intelligent person she had first appointed a year or so ago. She tried to block out any thoughts about the similarities between him and McNeil, not just because there was no attraction there on either part, but to do so would be too painful.
Hardy possessed the fortunate blend of being both thorough and insightful. He didn’t allow his methodical approach and his eye for detail to prevent his mind taking a leap of faith in trying to establish some form of link that wasn’t entirely obvious. That proved crucial in a time like this because, when working the evidence didn’t lead anywhere, Johnson had to sometimes rely on coming up with a theory which they would then test by seeing whether the evidence could be made to fit.
But try as they might, the evidence either was simply not there or too general to discount enough of these theories to enable them to focus on something in particular.
* * *
‘If you think there’s someone who could do any better…’ Johnson responded with more than a little petulance during her Thursday morning briefing with DSI Potter.
‘Look, I’m not saying that, but I had just… hoped that we would be a little further down the line than this.’
‘I know, guv, and, believe me, I feel exactly the same way too.’ She sighed. ‘Look, we’ll keep examining and re-examining everything, but I think that, at the same time, we need to start looking ahead to the weekend.’
‘You mean, in ca
se there is another attack?’
‘Yes. It’s not as though there is the same pattern to the timings as we had with Brandt but…’
‘Where do you think he is?’ Potter interrupted.
‘Guv?’
‘Brandt, I mean. I know this is a bit off on a tangent, but you must have wondered where he might be.’
Johnson forced herself to think for a moment rather than blurt out an immediate response. She was considering whether the question was quite as innocent as it had been presented. Potter had never been one to play games, preferring instead to take a more direct approach, and there was no way he would know about the emails. But sometimes Johnson herself had stumbled upon something vital whilst asking an innocent question and finding her suspicions raised by receiving an unexpected response. She had to be careful not to make her effort to cover up what little she did know about Brandt fall into the unintended trap of seeing her say something he deemed out of character.
‘Yes, I have, and I think he’s abroad,’ she lied.
‘Oh. And why is that?’
‘He would have thought that his only chance of escaping back into Europe would have been in the immediate aftermath of the fire.’
‘Go on…’
‘Not that I like bringing this up again, but he would have expected the body in the house to have been formally identified by dental records. Therefore, it would have made sense for him to flee the country before he expected that to happen. Furthermore, given the couple wouldn’t have been reported as missing yet he could have crossed back into France using the same method as he had entered England with.’
Smoke and Mirrors Page 15