Still cordoned off, the crime scene was a lot quieter than the day before.
Summers had returned with a couple of uniformed officers, hoping to come across something that they had maybe missed yesterday. One of the uniforms, a new recruit, young and eager to impress, approached Summers with a used condom in a plastic evidence bag.
Summers shook her head, trying not to dishearten the newbie, and softly said there was absolutely no evidence of any sexual activity involving the two victims from the day before. This was the conclusion from the post-mortem examination; Ricky would have died a frustrated young man. The officer’s face reddened a little, realising the amateur mistake she had made and turned to walk away.
‘Wait,’ called Summers. ‘Tag it anyway. Maybe it could be useful to rule someone out at a later stage.’
Summers didn’t know if she was trying to soften the blow for the youngster or if she was just clutching at straws with regards to the case. Any evidence was better than none, which is what they had at this point.
She ducked down under the police tape and took a few steps along the path of the canal. The way in which the canal curved really did make under the bridge quite a secluded location, which is probably what attracted the young lovers to the spot in the first place. Somewhere out of sight, as they were both meant to be elsewhere, somewhere to make out without prying eyes, maybe somewhere to drink and get high if that’s what they were into. She thought this may be the case with Ricky, but wasn’t so sure about the girl.
Was Alexia another ‘good girl gone bad’ in the wrong company? It had certainly happened before, and would likely again.
Summers glanced up to the top of the bridge and caught a glimpse of a man peering over the side, down onto the crime scene. This could have been a reporter, or even a member of the public being nosey, but the way in which he jumped backed, almost frightened, when Summers and he caught each other’s eyes gave her the impression that there was more to this guy.
She ducked back under the police tape and hurried up the steps, under the next tape line and onto the path that ran alongside the road that crosses the bridge.
The man was gone.
Was that him? she thought. Had Summers just set her eyes on the brutal murderer of two teenagers? Was this the same man who had been randomly taking lives for the last eight years?
She took out her phone and called Kite.
‘Yes, boss,’ he answered.
Kite was at the video surveillance centre, going through the digital surveillance data from around the time of yesterday’s crime.
‘I need to know what is on the camera that covers the bridge,’ she said, impatiently.
‘We’re just going through it now,’ he replied.
‘No, Kite, I mean now. There was a guy on the bridge just one minute ago and I need to know if we got him on tape,’ she said.
Kite passed on the request to the technician he was working with, only for the man to shrug his shoulders, shake his head and give the bad news. Apparently, the problem when using the system for playback is that they were interrupting the recording schedule, therefore, no longer recording.
Summers heard the explanation over the phone and hung up.
‘Shit.’
She looked up and down the road, hoping, but there was nothing to look at, not even many cars at this time of day.
Had she just let slip a cold-blooded killer?
By now, Ben was a good half-mile away, breathing heavily after his impromptu run. He cursed himself for being stupid enough to go back to the crime scene, and promised that would be the last time he acted so ridiculously dumb.
Startling him, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Thankfully, it was Eve saying her seminar had been cancelled due to a lack of turnout; she was home and invited him back to her place. She wanted his company.
‘Back to the safe-haven?’ he asked himself.
He could think of no place better to go.
22
Summers had just sat down behind her desk when her phone rang. Kite walked into the office carrying two coffees, as per usual, when she answered the call from her boss, wanting them both in his office straight away for an update.
Within seconds, Summers and Kite were sat before their superior. He looked at them both gloomily, obviously feeling the pressure which recent events had put upon them all, as happened every time The Phantom made an appearance.
‘So what have you got for me?’ asked Watts.
Summers briefly glanced towards Kite, noticing a cocky glint in Kites eyes, meaning, ‘go ahead boss, you can explain where we are. This is your party.’
She sat upright and prepared to update Watts on proceedings.
‘Well, sir,’ she said, ‘with regards to the double homicide yesterday, under the bridge at Old Town Road, in all honesty, we don’t have much to go on.’
Watts looked suitably unimpressed.
‘Preliminary reports from the morgue indicate no sexual abuse on either of the victims. We are waiting for toxicology reports to confirm if they were high or drunk at the time.’
‘And that will serve what purpose?’ interrupted Watts.
Summers didn’t have an answer.
‘Go on,’ said Watts.
‘The boy, Ricky Robinson, had twenty pounds in his pocket, which would indicate it wasn’t a robbery,’ she continued, ‘and as far as we understand, nobody knew they were there, so we don’t think it was premeditated.’
Watts sat up in his seat.
‘There is a chance that a jealous ex-lover of the girl, perhaps stumbled across them, had a row with Robinson and things turned nasty,’ interjected Kite, ‘but Mrs White, the girl’s mother, was adamant her daughter had never had a boyfriend before.’
Summers frowned at Kite’s extraordinarily useless input. She wondered if his need to speak up in front of superiors was a play for promotion or if he just wanted to remind them both that he was there. That said, credit where credit is due, he took a gamble by agreeing to join her on The Phantom case, no good detective likes an ‘unsolved’ on their cv, and there was certainly a good chance of that becoming a reality.
‘So tell me,’ said Watts, clearly directing the question to Summers, ‘why did you tell me on the phone, that you don’t believe this to be our guy, The Phantom?’
Summers took a deep breath.
‘Well, sir, first of all, there were two victims. Never has The Phantom been suspected of a double murder.’
She paused, waiting for a response, but she didn’t get one, just a blank stare from the boss.
‘Also, The Phantom always came prepared, with a weapon of choice,’ she continued, ‘but here, we are certain the weapon used on Mr Robinson was an old brick, more than likely picked up and used at the scene. These are two good clues that The Phantom was not responsible for these murders.’
Bizarrely, although Summers was convinced that she was right about this, and at least a few of the other murders being attributed to The Phantom being false, when she put her argument across to Watts, she began to have doubts. This was new to her, no doubt down to her special interest in this case, playing on her nerves a little.
‘DI Summers,’ said Watts, ‘I understand you have your reasons to doubt The Phantom is behind this, and I
