am also aware, that you understand the pressure the press will put us under if they believe that yet another killer is out there on the streets. Another killer, that is, that we are not able to put behind bars.’
Watts relaxed back into his seat and continued, ‘I have seen the map with the locations of the previous murders in your office, and it looks good. So tell me, the murders of young Ricky Robinson and…’ he checked the paperwork in front of him on the desk, ‘Alexia White, do you they fall into the ‘hot-spot’? For want of a better phrase.’
Summers sighed.
‘Yes, sir.’ she replied.
‘And the lack of a weapon,’ Watts continued, ‘it is possible that he wasn’t prepared for once. What if he was just out for a walk, or a run? Unfortunately for Mr Robinson, he tried showing off in front of his new girlfriend, and picked on the wrong man?’
Summers was aware of Kite gently nodding, agreeing at least on the surface with Watts, and the ‘social pressure’ led her to nod in agreement with her superior as well.
‘There are a few of the press in the media room, awaiting a statement,’ said Watts.
Summers nodded again and stood, signalled for Kite to stand and they left the room, closing the door on the way out. She spoke rather sharply and told Kite to go and take his lunch, which he did without hesitation.
She looked down the corridor towards the media room but turned and walked the other way, back past Watts’ office and into her own. She got the hip-flask and took two large gulps before putting it back.
For years she had been following the moves of The Phantom, and although Watts’ theory was plausible, it didn’t sit right with her.
She took a deep breath, went to face the press, and gave them a statement that she didn’t believe.
23
Once again, Ben lay naked with Eve on her bed, both hot and sweaty, after more outrageously filthy, unprotected sex.
It had been a while since Ben had needed to use a condom, as he was, or had been, in a serious relationship. And although he knew that it was just as much his responsibility as Eve’s, to make the sex safe for them both, he had an overwhelming feeling that it wasn’t needed. In fact, he almost felt an animal instinct, an impulse that to ejaculate inside her was his duty, this is what she wanted, and he could sense that.
He assumed that she was taking measures against pregnancy, and believed that she would have forced him to wear protection if she knew she carried a disease of a sexual nature. But even if she was carrying something, he thought to himself, chlamydia or whatever, maybe he could shag Natalie again and give it to her, like some sort of parting gift.
Fuck you very much, bitch, he thought, before questioning his himself. Was I really just thinking that? Or was it the man in the mirror, being an evil and twisted monster again?
Eve laid her head on Ben’s chest, and they began a deep conversation that would last over an hour. Ben tried to explain to Eve that she should go back to university and finish her degree. Or even if she hated that subject, to find something else that she liked and start again there. She pleaded with Ben to understand her views on the world, and that playing along with the rules set by ‘the powers that be’, was not the way to make change.
Ben asked if she wanted to be like Che Guevara?
‘A revolutionist?’ she asked.
‘No, a mass murderer, killing in the name of progression,’ he joked.
‘I don’t know, maybe,’ she said, chuckling.
He was a few years older than Eve, his life was an awful mess at that moment, and he wasn’t the most successful man in the world by any stretch of the imagination either, but he sensed that Eve needed some guidance.
He told her it was clear she cared for people, had an interest in them, and that this was obvious from the seminars and talk groups that she frequented. He advised her to maybe find a career path in something related to that, to play the game by building a career, but at the same time, doing something that gave her a sense of achievement, finding happiness and giving herself some self-worth.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘And what about you? What are you going to do about work? And more importantly, what about your girlfriend?’
Ben gently stroked Eve’s arm, as he closed his eyes and for the first time since all that had happened, gave a moment’s thought to the future, as opposed to everything he had just been through or worrying about the things he had done, or even just being lost in the moment with his lovely new friend.
Eve was a young, beautiful and strong-willed woman, but lost in a world that could chew you up and spit you out, without a second’s thought. Even so, he trusted her, more than anyone else in his life right now.
‘So what do you think I should do?’ he asked.
She caressed his chest, lightly scratching his skin as she done so and snuggled herself closer into his body.
She said the job was just a job. He could have guessed she was going to say that, but then she mentioned that his mortgage was paid off, and that this was the greatest expense the majority of people had to worry about, that as long as he had a little saved to get by for the time being, for food and the smaller bills, financially he didn’t really have anything to worry about.
She was right. He knew it. He smiled.
‘And as for your girlfriend…’ she said.
Eve had not once used Natalie’s name, this gave Ben the feeling that Eve liked him the way in which he liked her. Did she see Natalie as the enemy? He thought so. She tried, but didn’t succeed, to remain impartial when talking about Ben’s relationship with ‘the woman who he had just been betrayed by’.
She compared her betrayal to Ben and Eve sleeping with each other since last night; were they in the wrong also? Would this have happened if she hadn’t cheated on Ben? He knew that if he had not caught Natalie and Dave together the day before, he would be back at home, back in his rut of depression, back to asking himself what he was meant to be doing with his life.
He also wouldn’t have murdered two innocent teenagers. Ben drifted off into deep thought again, Eve’s voice falling further from his mind. And if he didn’t kill those two kids yesterday, when would it have happened?
The man in the mirror had been there for a while now, appearing more frequently as the days had passed. His messages were clearer every time he had something to say. There was a bad man inside Ben, and no matter how good he felt when passing the time with his new friend, Eve, no matter how fair and just her advice for him was, he realised that things had gone too far already.
‘…so I think you need to start by talking to her, and being honest. Then just see if you can believe a word she says,’ concluded Eve.
Ben smiled and kissed her on the forehead. She kissed him back and ran her hand up the inside of his thigh, cupping his balls, and massaging them gently.
Ben’s phone began to vibrate, reluctantly, he picked it up and they both saw Natalie’s name appear on the screen; the moment for more sex had passed.
‘You’d better get that,’ said Eve, as she got up from the bed and entered the bathroom, closing the door behind her and turning on the shower.
‘I haven’t got anything to say to you, Nat,’ he said as he held the phone to his ear. ‘I just need a bit of time to get my head around things.’
‘But Ben, I love you. We need to talk, this is important. Please, just come home…’ Natalie pleaded.
He ended the call with Natalie mid-sentence and tossed the phone beside him. Mentally drained, he put his head to the pillow and tried to shut out the noise from all the thoughts in his head.
