Alternatively, could it be possible that she had seen Kath’s message and decided not to act on it? Maybe she felt somewhat indebted to him for his assistance in tracking down the new killer in Nottingham. He shook his head, knowing how unlikely that sounded. But then there was another option, and one that meant he was not in immediate danger. Admittedly she had only provoked rather than intended their first meeting, but since then Johnson’s actions towards Brandt had been entirely outside the realm of law. So, whilst there may only be a small chance that she no longer wanted him caught, there was every chance she would want to do so herself.
‘Informed decisions,’ he muttered.
‘What’s that?’ Kath asked, her voice barely a whisper.
‘Oh, nothing,’ he replied dismissively. When Brandt had been in the force, he had always told his teams that the worst decision was indecision, but he would then follow it up by saying that the best decision was an informed one. Right now, he felt he was at the most crucial crossroads in his life and each direction could fundamentally change the course of the rest of it. As such, he would be foolish to select one without knowing more about the danger he faced.
He dressed in silence before turning to Kath once more. ‘I need to go out now. I hope it’s just for a short while and, if so, I promise that I will explain everything when I get back. If, for some reason, I can’t return to you as quickly as I intend, I want you to know that none of this was your fault and, as hard as you may find it to believe, my love for you has been genuine.’
With that he turned and left, hoping against hope that he would be reunited with her in a matter of hours.
Chapter Fifty-two
As Brandt waited in the layby, he kept his eyes trained on the road ahead. Each approaching vehicle was announced by the sweep of its lights as it rounded the bend and, rather than feel relief when every single one continued without slowing to turn onto the narrow lane that led up to the house, he cursed the agony of his fate remaining undisclosed.
Now away from immediate danger, he was able to better comprehend his situation and understood there was no hope for him and Kath. If no one arrived that night, it wasn’t as though he could simply go back to the house, make up an effective story for what had happened, and things could return to normal. The spectre of their life about to be shattered at any moment would always remain above them and it was better now to know what he was dealing with.
With the situation apropos Kath now tragically resolved, the question for Brandt regarded Johnson. If she came alone, he would be able to escape once more. As desolate as it felt to have to start afresh, and now without the woman he loved, he would try and take from this experience, as he indeed hoped Kath may be able to once she got over the pain of the revelation of whom she had welcomed into her bed, that happiness still remained out there if he was prepared to find it. As unappealing as it now seemed, many options would remain open to him as he sought to find a way of establishing another new identity in another location. His circumstances may be far more dire than when he had arrived in North Wales, but the difference this time was that he had the evidence of his experience with Kath to convince him that it wasn’t a situation from which he couldn’t recover.
And so, as the specifics of each vehicle slowly revealed itself through the gloom of night, Brandt continued to will that he would finally see the red Audi he had first spied emerging from Nottingham police station all those months before. He laughed as he considered the irony of the pain he felt at losing Kath. It wasn’t just the copycat killer in Nottingham that had brought him and Johnson together once more, they were both experiencing the same sense of loss. Inadvertently, they had each denied the other the person they loved. Perhaps then, it wasn’t too much to hope that she might finally seek to abandon her personal vendetta towards him and start to move on with her life. The arrival of her car would therefore not signal the end for either of them but the beginning of their new lives, where they could independently try and put all they’ve been through behind them. And failing that, of course, he could always seek to blackmail her into submission with the threat to expose her highly illegal sharing of confidential information, not to mention her myriad of other misdemeanours since he had first met her.
Brandt was so caught up in his thoughts of what might be, that he did not pay any attention to the unmarked Ford Transit speeding towards him, having already dismissed it as soon as it came around the corner for its lights being set too high for it to be a low-slung sports car. His mind didn’t register the red glow emanating from its rear as it slowed to make the turn. It was only as he heard the crunch of its tyres on the unmade road that he was brought to his senses.
Johnson hadn’t come.
The cold, calculating part of his mind was telling him that he needed to start the car and move off before the police helicopter would arrive. It would currently be hovering just a few miles away, and would soon be cleared to move in. He would also need to figure out how far he could travel before being required to ditch the car. He didn’t believe there were any ANPR cameras around Betws-y-Coed but as he headed north, towards the A55 that runs horizontally across the coast, linking England to the port to Ireland of Holyhead, he would start to encounter them. The might of the British police, and all the resources available to it, would soon be on his tail.
But it wasn’t the weight of this bearing down on him that had caused him to hesitate in switching on the engine. He knew the futility of trying to escape this time without the assistance of Franklin or under the cover of his faked suicide. It was the sense of betrayal that was threatening to clog his mind. He could understand Johnson using the advantage Kath had gifted her to come and finish him off, but to take something that had become so personal between the two of them and open it out to the wider world, felt like cheating. Clearly there were no rules as such to their game, but their experiences had set certain parameters that Johnson had breached.
Brandt let out a bitter laugh as he finally twisted the key. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t in the least bit surprised at all; in fact, he found it rather fitting. Sure, Johnson had gone outside the powers granted to her by the police, but that had only been to try and change the game in her favour. She had done it with the newspaper articles and she had flown solo in order to track him down to Benidorm. She had even gone rogue to catch the copycat killer in Nottingham by accepting Brandt’s offer of help. But that didn’t mean she had a predisposition to behave as a maverick – it was her pragmatism enabling her to choose whatever path presented itself to be the best. Given that Brandt had managed to outwit her on each previous occasion, her electing to follow protocol on this one was merely her switching up the game once more.
This time it had been effective because it hadn’t been anticipated. Much like an idiotic zoo keeper who seeks to hand-feed a tiger through the bars of its cage, only to then be shocked to find he gets his arm bitten off, Brandt should have realised that Johnson couldn’t be tamed. Rather than show that she wanted to do this on her own, she had merely demonstrated that she was prepared to do whatever it took to get him.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
And it wasn’t as though there was anything he could do with all the shit he could divulge about her. That ship, and all the other opportunities he’d had to stop her, had now sailed and was never coming back. Within the quiet confines of Kath’s Kia Sportage, Brandt’s laughter reverberated. It seemed such a delicious irony that the reason why he, the notorious serial killer, had been unable to win out against the celebrated police detective is that he lacked the utter ruthlessness she did. If their roles had been reversed, would she have loosened his bonds, so he could escape the blaze that was about to engulf his house? Not a chance!
Chapter Fifty-three
As Brandt made his way in the only direction available to him, Johnson was feeling anything but triumphant. On what should have been a day for celebration with the catching of the person currently terrorising the streets of Nottin
gham, she now only felt the bitter pang of defeat. Her conversation with Kath Hardcastle, the woman who had emailed her earlier that day, had only compounded the sense of helplessness. It seemed she had known nothing of Brandt’s true identity, much less have any idea where he was now. By the sounds if it, the only time when she had felt even the slightest bit in danger, was when the SFO team had burst through her front door.
Due to its apparent futility, the journey ahead now seemed much longer. It would be quicker to return to Nottingham than to continue ploughing forward to the place where Johnson had pinned all her hopes of finally catching Brandt.
‘What’s wrong, ma’am?’ Hardy asked as they suddenly slowed.
‘I need to pull over a minute,’ she replied, flicking on the indicator as she approached the layby.
‘Do you want me to drive?’ he asked helpfully.
Under the circumstances, she couldn’t find the will to offer her usual sarcastic response to such a suggestion. ‘No, I just need to check something.’
As soon as the car came to a halt, she fished her phone out from her bag. She used the internet browser to access the email account she had set up for communicating with Brandt. Whilst she couldn’t bear the thought of it, she had suddenly developed the need to see his final, jubilant message. She could imagine the glee on his face as he typed the mocking words that would confirm he had outsmarted her once again.
But there was no message.
It wasn’t to say there wouldn’t be one, but Johnson took solace in the fact that he must have been so thrown by the unexpected turn of events that he hadn’t been able to afford himself the time to fully reassert his dominance. More than the scant comfort it gave, it also provided Johnson with the will to continue. Conversation with his woman aside, in his haste there might be some clue as to his next destination. And this time she had the advantage of having the police with her. She knew from experience that Brandt would use his unique insight into their workings to ensure he wouldn’t slip up in that regard, but that he would have to consider such limitations would present him with many challenges.
Feeling reinvigorated, Johnson eased back onto the road with a quizzical look from Hardy she chose not to react to. If Brandt had escaped, then she would have to find a way of dealing with it, but until it had been established that the trail had gone cold, she would not allow herself to give up hope.
Johnson wanted to see the house for herself, no matter how uncomfortable it would have been to view the life he had managed to build up whilst hers had remained in tatters, but Kath Hardcastle had been taken to the local police station for questioning. Johnson rarely enjoyed entering someone else’s patch, probably something to do with the way she often viewed visitors as intruders, but she found the constabulary there to be welcoming; a situation no doubt helped by Hardy’s disarmingly good manners. It didn’t take them long to be granted access to the detainee.
The interview room they found her in was plain like countless others up and down Britain, except for the few signs that were on display being written in both English and Welsh.
Johnson couldn’t help but be intrigued by the sight before her. Whilst she hadn’t expected Kath to resemble any of Brandt’s female victims, and especially not the young ones, she was surprised by the contrast between her and his ex-wife, Susan. Admittedly somewhat older, this woman had done little to conceal her age and, to all intents and purposes, looked like a perfectly decent person who was accepting of her transition into the latter phase of her life.
‘Thank you for volunteering to come to the station to answer some questions. We spoke on the radio earlier. I’m DCI Johnson and this is my colleague DC Hardy.’ She waited to see if there was a flicker of recognition. ‘I wonder, perhaps, if you might know who I am,’ she prompted when there was none. Johnson felt uncomfortable with the public profile she had developed, but in this case, she thought it might prove useful.
Moments later she could see Kath’s eyes widen, but the look of horror that accompanied it implied that it was more than mere identification of a face that had been on the news. ‘No, it can’t be,’ she whispered slowly.
‘What can’t, Kath? What have you been told?’ She hated it when details were revealed to suspects in an untimely fashion.
‘Well, nothing really, except, of course, what you said to me earlier.’ In some respects, the woman seemed remarkably composed, but Johnson knew that it could sometimes be the result of shock numbing their emotions.
‘But?’
‘I could hear a name being mentioned.’
‘What name?’ Hardy asked gently.
‘I… I don’t want to say it,’ she said, bowing her head as tears started to fall.
‘I’m sorry, Kath, for the record I’m going to need...’
‘Not now,’ Johnson intervened, silencing DC Hardy. She wasn’t sure why she felt sympathy for this woman but perhaps it was because, in their own unique ways, they had both suffered at the hands of the same man. ‘Tell me about the person you have been with.’
‘He… he is kind… he is intelligent,’ she began slowly. ‘He… he just has this zest for life and…’
Johnson wasn’t prepared for hearing how wonderful Brandt was. Hardy must have sensed her discomfort because he intervened, despite her having only just shut him down. ‘No, we mean who did he claim to be?’
‘He is…’ Kath managed before shaking her head as though trying to remind herself of the present situation. ‘He was Gregori.’
‘Gregory?’ Hardy asked.
‘No, Gregori,’ she corrected, emphasising the o. ‘The surname was one of those long Eastern European ones. He is… was from Georgia.’
‘Georgia?’ Johnson was grateful not to detect even the slightest hint of amusement in Hardy’s voice.
‘So he said,’ she replied with bitterness creeping into her tone. ‘He said he didn’t like to talk about his past and, to be honest, that was fine by me. I used to be married, years ago, but Mike died and then…’
‘Have you got any idea where he might be now?’ Johnson interjected.
Kath paused for thought and it was clear she wanted to help. If it was because she hoped that this was all some kind of mistake and Gregori might be returned to her, Johnson couldn’t tell. ‘I can’t think of anywhere.’
‘Where did he live when you two met?’
As soon as she gave them the address of the caravan park, Johnson nodded to Hardy that he was to go and pass the information on. However, she knew it wouldn’t come to anything. Brandt was too smart to make a simple mistake like that.
‘Tell me about places you two liked to go?’ she asked kindly, as soon as they were left alone.
‘He… he liked everywhere really. We were often out and about.’ The way her voice lifted at the mere mention again of their life together was almost heart breaking.
‘Give me an example. Somewhere specific that sticks out.’
‘Well, er, I suppose there was Llandudno. We had a lovely day out there. It was the day we became… close.’
Johnson allowed Kath to prattle on about how they walked along the promenade and ate fish and chips together watching the cable cars beyond the pier take people up the cliffs. Waiting for Hardy to return so they could wrap this up, she allowed her a few moments more to relive the fantasy that Brandt had woven for her, before the full reality of the situation she found herself in came crashing down. If she thought things had been bad so far, it was nothing compared to what it was going to be like becoming the most talked about woman in Britain. Johnson had experienced a taste of it and could imagine the horrors that awaited her.
As they exited the police station and got back in the car, Johnson wondered whether the sympathy she felt for this woman was the same as with any of Brandt’s victims. She was certain that Kath was entirely innocent, just another person duped by the promise of love, but there was a difference and not just because she was physically unharmed. When Johnson cut away the pain of hearing about their time to
gether, it was obvious that what they had shared was more than Brandt manipulating the woman to serve his own purpose. Much as Johnson hated to admit it, there was a tenderness there. Perhaps his comment in the email about going out for the evening and enjoying himself hadn’t just been a smug dig.
If nothing else, he had not sought to enact any form of retribution on Kath for her blunder with contacting Johnson. But regardless whether he had formed the same emotional connection with her that she had clearly formed with him, it still didn’t bring Johnson any closer to finding him.
Unless she could figure out some way of exploiting it, that was. She might better understand now why he had not chosen to revel in his ability to escape Johnson once more, with his sense of his own personal loss a greater factor than any time constraints. However, that would make Brandt a wounded animal and she knew from experience how dangerous that made him.
Chapter Fifty-four
It had taken Brandt a long time to get there. He had gone as far north in Kath’s Kia as he dared, before parking it discreetly down a quiet road in some anonymous hamlet with a name he couldn’t even begin to pronounce. Satisfied that it would be at least the next day before it was discovered, he continued on foot. It was hardly a surprise that people weren’t too keen to pick up a lone, male hitchhiker at this time of night, but he hadn’t been too concerned; he still had ample time to get to his destination and his afternoon nap had endowed him with plenty of energy for the long walk ahead.
The outskirts of Llandudno were as plain, if not downright ugly, as any decent sized town in Britain. Brandt tried not to focus on any of it and risk spoiling his memory of the place, instead concentrating on keeping one foot in front of another.
Finally, he made it into the centre and he carried on until he recognised some of the shops from when he and Kath had spent the day there. Although where he was headed was further up, he couldn’t resist detouring to the promenade as soon as it was available to him. Immediately upon exiting the side road and with the sea shimmering in the moonlight in front of him, he knew that he had come to the right place.
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