‘What is the connection?’ McNeil asked, still not hopeful.
‘Look, it makes sense. Right, so alcoholics and druggies need a bigger hit each time to have the same feeling as before. So how does a serial murderer with a fixation on young women get a bigger hit?’
‘Erm, I guess he takes more time with the killing and perhaps he…’ McNeil felt uncomfortable verbalising the end of his thought.
‘Exactly!’ Johnson said, unconcerned. ‘He rapes his victim either pre- or post-mortem.’
‘But that didn’t happen in St. Albans.’
‘No, something must have gone wrong.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know.’ Anger flashed across her face. ‘Something; anything! Who knows what is going through this sick bastard’s mind? Perhaps he couldn’t get it up. Perhaps the phone rang; it doesn’t matter!’
‘Doesn’t it?’
‘No, because it all makes perfect sense. There was no calling card in St. Albans because the killer didn’t want us to know it was him. He wasn’t successful. He messed up.’
‘Well he did kill her…’
‘No!’ Her anger was now replaced with frustration that McNeil wasn’t following quickly enough. ‘He could have done that anywhere. We know she had a short walk from the station, where I guess he first found her. This was meant to be much more than before. And we can see that at the crime scene: there’s evidence of a struggle and her clothes were ripped. She even had a busted ankle, presumably from trying to escape.’
McNeil nodded slowly. As he processed everything Johnson had said, what she was arguing seemed to make sense. However, there were still some unanswered questions.
‘And think about it,’ she continued. ‘The method fits too. What better way to up the ante from stabbing than to killing with his bare hands? Like an alcoholic moving from beer to neat spirits or a junkie from smoking crack to injecting heroine!’
‘Okay, so he doesn’t want us to make the link because he doesn’t want us to see his imperfections. I get that. So what, he just quits?’
‘No, that doesn’t feel right,’ Johnson said, calming down. ‘I think if he were to end it, it would have to be on a high. Perhaps, he realised that he needs more thorough planning…’
‘What now, do we take this to the DSI?’
‘And do what?’ Johnson replied, not unkindly. ‘Like he said to me, we can hardly hold a press conference based on this theory. We’d look stupid.’
‘What then?’
‘We just wait,’ Johnson said, solemnly. ‘We have to wait until he strikes next.’
Chapter Forty-one
If Brandt could have overheard the conversation in the coffee shop, his emotions would have been mixed. First there would be the fear that DCI Johnson had made the link he had been so desperate to avoid. There might even have followed a brief moment of admiration for how she had managed to get into his head in the same way he had managed with so many killers before. Then would come the anger. The brief suggestion that he may have been unable to complete the physical element of his mission would have enraged him. He already hated Johnson because of the way she looked at him with those cold, calculating eyes in the press conference; and for her to then, like his wife, suggest he might need a little blue pill to do what any self-respecting man should be able to manage unaided, would tip him over the edge. Nevertheless, what would follow would be the reassurance that he was still one step ahead of them. For all her insight and understanding that he was to strike again, what she was expecting would prove wrong. Very wrong.
Brandt did not feel the thrill of anticipation as he followed the signs for Milton Keynes. Today was just a job, one of those necessary tasks that would put him back on track with his work and provide him with a chance to push on from there. Done correctly, it would serve the dual purposes of bypassing what happened in St Albans by making the link back to Canterbury, and also allow him a closer insight into the workings of the investigation.
Brandt hated Milton Keynes, even more so as he hit the grid system of roads with its characterless, countless, and ostensibly identical roundabouts. Fortunately, he knew most of the area quite well; his wife had insisted that she be taken there a few times each year for a shopping spree. Brandt wouldn’t have minded, anything to keep her happy and stop her moaning, if it didn’t always require a return trip a week later so she could get a refund on all the clothes she’d bought and no longer wanted.
This time he wasn’t heading for the shopping centre with all its CCTV cameras. On one of the trips with his wife, a particular occasion close to Christmas, he had become so frustrated with all the cars queuing to make their way back to the main roads that he had insisted on finding an alternative route. He had tried to sound knowledgeable, pompously explaining to his wife that the A5, which ran all the way from London to North Wales, was also known as Watling Street, being based on an ancient Roman road. Over recent years planners had, in places, deviated the A5 from Watling Street to allow for the creation of dual carriage ways to alleviate congestion. Brandt had contended that they simply needed to pick up the old Watling Street somewhere on the western side of Milton Keynes and follow it south until it reunited with the A5 again.
Somewhat inevitably he had become completely lost and ended up in Bletchley, one of Milton Keynes’ constituent towns, looking for directions back to the main road. They had stopped by the parade of shops with the relative depravation of the area highlighted by the absence of major chain stores and the prevalence of charity shops and bookmakers. Having been provided with some vague instructions which, perhaps more through luck than judgement, enabled them to get back to the A5, Brandt had been sure he would never consciously visit Bletchley again.
As usual, Brandt had spent some time on Google Maps learning more about his surroundings. He had decided to park at the edge of somewhere called the Lake’s Estate, which some simple research had suggested was sufficiently rough that, if his escape on foot was noticed, his direction of travel would be in keeping with people’s expectations as to where the likely culprit might reside.
As he turned into the side street, Brandt mused that, at first glance, the area seemed perfectly decent. If it wasn’t for the couple, who could be no more than fifteen years old, walking past in matching tracksuits pushing a pram, Brandt would have double checked on his phone that he had come to the right place. All doubt was removed when another youth on a scooter designed for primary school children, nearly took him out as he shut his door before shouting behind him: ‘Watch out, you old twat!’
‘Hope you’re off to the shops,’ Brandt muttered to himself, putting his hand in his pocket to feel the familiar warmth of a wooden knife hilt. Despite being identical in every way to the one he had used before, having come from the same set bought as a wedding present that his wife hadn’t deemed sufficiently valuable to take with her, it didn’t quite feel the same. However, he suspected it would within the next hour or so.
He exited the side street and crossed the road, passing a small Co-op on his left and an independent off-licence on his right. The couple he had seen earlier were stopped outside the latter seeing how much change they could pool together. Brandt would bet his mortgage they were looking to buy either cigarettes or alcohol, despite being too young to legally purchase either.
It was surprisingly busy with cars; exacerbated by the road furniture, designed to calm the traffic, but only serving to cause them to aggressively accelerate once they had cleared the obstacle. It was much more peaceful when Brandt turned off in the direction of the main shops, a tranquillity matched by an appreciable improvement in the quality of the housing. Although far from large, the tidiness of the gardens and the condition of the front doors suggested residents who took some pride in their property.
Arriving at the crossroads at the top, Brandt observed that both left and right routes ran behind the shops, as indicated by the large metal doors leading into the buildings and the industrial sized rubbish bins next t
o them. Just to double check he was in the correct area, he carried on forwards and within a hundred yards arrived about a third of the way along the parade. Brandt was surprised by the number of shoppers, given the lack of what he saw as anywhere worth visiting. He couldn’t help but sneer at the Polish supermarket opposite, flanked by an electronic cigarette shop and a barbers advertising gentlemen’s haircuts for £6.
A look up at one of the lampposts confirmed that there was CCTV along the front of the stores, so he turned right along the shorter section. Apparently stopping to browse a charity shop’s window display of tired children’s board games, Brandt was actually looking down the alleyway that ran from front to back. This is what he had been looking for. Every second shop had it, to enable access to the flats above on either side.
Satisfied that everything was as he had expected, Brandt reached the end of the parade and followed the road back round to the junction from earlier. He now carried on behind those shops that he had not walked in front of, briefly glancing down each alleyway until, at the fourth one, he spotted what he wanted. The relative darkness of the narrow path meant he could only observe the silhouette of a figure; a glowing ember lighting up the gloom suggesting it was someone who had popped outside for a smoke. If Brandt was quick enough, the person should still be in the same place by the time he reached them. Of more interest was that the silhouette’s short hair and relative height suggested it was a man. This was ideal, so, quickly glancing at the back of the shops either side to check they didn’t have their own security cameras for deliveries or potential break-ins, Brandt moved towards him.
He had anticipated that, once in the alleyway, the sound of his footsteps echoing off the walls would cause the man to notice him. Now out of the direct sunlight he could see more easily his features. He was Asian, approaching forty years of age, and wearing a uniform for a company he didn’t recognise.
‘Got a light, mate?’ Brandt asked in a friendly manner. As the man patted the top of his trousers to determine where he had placed it, Brandt reached into his pocket as though to pull out his own packet of cigarettes. Holding out the lighter, the man didn’t notice that what Brandt had withdrawn was very different.
‘Sorry about this mate,’ Brandt said, maintaining the tone from earlier, before launching at the man and burying the blade in his stomach. The man grabbed his shoulders, staring into Brandt’s eyes in shock. Brandt pulled out the knife and thrust it forwards a further four times, twisting the handle on each occasion, just to be sure. The man didn’t so much as fall down, as slowly sink to his knees, releasing his grip to put his hands to his belly. They could do nothing to stop the flow and, with blood pouring from between his fingers, the man slumped to the side, only to remain propped up by the wall; his eyes never leaving Brandt’s.
In what he hoped was an obvious enough gesture, Brandt wiped the blade on the man’s upper arm but, just to be sure, tucked into his top pocket a printout of the logo of the car garage where he dumped his last murder weapon.
Transfixed by what was in front of him, Brandt realised that he hadn’t once checked the top of the alleyway to see if any of the shoppers had noticed what had happened. He was relieved to see the entranceway was clear and that the few people who passed in the time he looked were completely oblivious.
Gazing back down at the man again, he was shocked to see him blink, but the next time he closed his eyes, they didn’t reopen. Having seen enough, he turned around and made his way back in the direction he had come, pleased to find that no cars passed until he reached the relative safety of the crossroads once more.
In the fifteen minutes it took Brandt to return to his car, he had failed to hear a single siren. The absence of any physical feeling, and with his pulse rate having long returned to normal, meant that, if it wasn’t for the sticky knife in his pocket, Brandt could almost believe that he had imagined the whole thing.
There would be no celebratory Chinese takeaway tonight. Sure, he may allow himself a drink or two but, despite his recent abstinence, that was hardly out of the ordinary. He doubted he would even bother trying to catch the local news for the area; the stabbing of an Asian man in a rough part of Milton Keynes was not worth getting excited about. No, conscious in the knowledge that it would be Monday before the police would be ready to hold a press conference, he would just get on with enjoying his weekend. He could give his old pal DSI Franklin a call, but he suspected the man was likely to be busy this evening now that the circus had come to one of his towns. The very thought caused a wide grin to spread across his face.
Chapter Forty-two
McNeil was waiting for Johnson at one of the desks in CID. She had been in DSI Potter’s office for a while now. Between the slats of the Venetian blinds he could see her becoming more and more animated. This didn’t look good. Confirmation had come through quickly that the body found in Milton Keynes was connected to their case. They knew it wasn’t a copycat because the name of the premises where the knife had been left in Canterbury had not been released to the public. Not that it would have been a very good copycat, what with the victim being a middle-aged Asian man. The initial euphoria that had followed the news quickly subsided. McNeil had thought it was because Johnson, like him, realised how inappropriate it was to greet the murder with excitement. Perhaps she had, but McNeil felt it was more than that. She had hardly said a thing until Potter arrived in the office. Judging by what seemed to be going on in the office, she had been bottling something up.
When Johnson left, she didn’t even glance in McNeil’s direction, much less tell him where she was going. He had a pretty good idea though, which proved to be correct as he smelt the cigarette smoke as he pushed through the back door into the secure car park.
‘What is it, ma’am?’
‘He’s just so blinkered… so… frustrating!’ She was pacing up and down.
‘Who is?’ he asked, already knowing the answer.
‘Potter!’ she replied. ‘Look, I get it and if I was in his position, I guess I would be similar but if he just listened… truly listened, he would know I am right.’
‘Right about what?’ McNeil felt he might be getting somewhere.
‘Have you ever believed that if something is too good to be true then it probably is?’
‘Er, yes...’
‘Well this is it.’
He gave a nervous laugh. ‘Look, Johnson, if you want me to understand what you are going on about, you’re going to have to be a little less cryptic here.’
‘Okay,’ she said, taking another long drag from her cigarette and stopping to compose herself. ‘It’s too obvious.’
‘You’re saying this wasn’t him?’
‘No, no, no,’ she cried, but her frustration seemed more with herself than McNeil. ‘It’s as though he was desperate for us to make the connection. We would have done that with just the swipe on the shoulder. Although it only contained the victim’s blood, it is far too obvious a reference to the second attack to be anything else.’
‘So why put the garage logo in the man’s pocket?’
‘Exactly!’ Johnson beamed. ‘It’s too much, too… desperate.’
McNeil paused for a few moments, thinking. ‘Perhaps, what with it being a bloke and the gap since the last one he felt the need to emphasise the link?’
‘Well possibly,’ Johnson conceded but an almost imperceptible shake of the head suggested she felt otherwise. ‘That’s what Potter said. But that’s what also troubles me. Why a man this time?’
‘Why also Milton Keynes? It seems to me that he is just trying to mess us about. You know, now switching the gender to go with switching the locations. Toying with us.’
‘I know… I know it looks that way and maybe he is but there’s more to it than that. I just don’t know how to explain it to you.’
‘You don’t have to,’ McNeil said, grabbing her shoulders to stop her pacing and so that he could get her to look at him. ‘I’m not the DSI, you don’t need to convince me of an
ything. Stop worrying about trying to put forward as strong an argument as possible and just tell it to me as you see it. For what it’s worth, I can then tell you what I think.’
‘Okay, let’s sit down though.’ Johnson looked around before shrugging and sat down on the tarmac with her back resting on the police station wall. McNeil did the same and waited patiently whilst she lit another cigarette.
‘The murder in Milton Keynes seems simplistic. Certainly, it should have taken no more planning than the ones here and in Canterbury.’
It did not escape McNeil that Johnson hadn’t just said no more planning than the others, instead referring to Nottingham and Canterbury as though they didn’t represent all the previous murders.
‘So that doesn’t explain the gap in time. Also, the method of killing was the same, using a similar knife, but why did he get rid of the old one in Canterbury? Before you say it, there were plenty of other ways he could have shown it was him in Canterbury, not least his tell-tale swipe on the shoulder.’
Johnson looked across at McNeil to see whether he had a comment on her last statement. ‘Okay, go on,’ he simply replied.
‘And then there is the reason for switching genders. I could understand if he had done that here, in order to change it up a bit, but he achieved that by moving location. Which he does again with this one.’ She paused. ‘I have considered whether it was just coincidence that the first four were women, especially because, aside from being young and attractive, they are not exactly similar looking.’
‘No, even I don’t buy that, ma’am. Just look at Sarah Donovan. She’s at the station surrounded by mostly male football supporters. He deliberately picked her out, whether in advance or there and then.’
‘He has a thing for attractive women, yes?’
‘Don’t we all though?’ McNeil replied. Correcting himself he added: ‘I mean what’s unusual about that, given he is a bloke and all?’
ONE STEP AHEAD: detectives hunt a serial killer who knows all their moves (The DCI Jeffrey Brandt Murders Trilogy Book 1) Page 16