us.’
Ben sighed heavily and counted to ten, trying to take his mind off the aggressive thoughts that popped up in his head. He caught his angry eyes in the rear-view mirror.
‘Calm down, Ben,’ he said, ‘they’re just kids.’
Ben slowly pulled away and passed the teenagers as they walked toward the end of the road. In his mirror, he could see Ricky calling him a wanker and giving the hand gesture to make his message as clear as possible.
Ben’s reflection grew angrier.
‘Don’t take it Ben,’ said the voice in his head.
‘They’re just kids, leave ‘em alone,’ he said out loud. ‘And leave me alone.’
His reflection shook its head in disappointment.
Ben adjusted the mirror so he could no longer see himself. He wiped the sweat that had gathered on his brow and again counted to ten.
8
The drive to work would normally take Ben just fifteen minutes, twenty-five minutes tops, on a bad day. He hadn’t driven this route for two months so didn’t realise the traffic would be so bad due to road-works. An hour later, increasingly stressed, he pulled into the outside car-park and found a space at the back. He jogged to the office block that housed ‘Cutting Edge Marketing.’
Walking into the office, Ben felt the room buzzing and felt a wave of anxiety. His chest tightened slightly and sweat gathered on his forehead. Hands shaking, he took a paper cup from the plastic sleeve and released the water from the machine next to the entrance. He gulped it down but didn’t lose his dry mouth. He dropped the cup into the bin.
Moving further into the office, he saw that a young man was sat at his desk, in his cubicle, using his telephone.
‘Mr Green,’ called out Charlie Peacock.
Ben looked to his left. His boss was waving him into his office. Charlie stood and they shook hands before seating themselves.
‘So, how are you doin’ old bean?’ asked Charlie, giving Ben the once over as he spoke.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ asked Ben.
‘Lookin’ at you like what?’ Charlie smirked and shook his head. ‘You know me too well, Benjamin.’
‘I told you I was coming back, Charlie. Who’s the guy at my desk?’ asked Ben.
Charlie sighed.
‘He’s your replacement, Ben,’ he said.
‘You fired me? You didn’t even fucking tell me,’ said Ben.
‘Calm down, Ben,’ said Charlie, with slight irritation in his voice. ‘You’re not fired. You worked here autonomously. There’s no P45, no golden handshake, you’re just finished ‘ere, that’s all.’
Ben knew Charlie was right. The company was set up in such a way that it could be very flexible with its ‘staff’. Ben was self-employed, but worked as an agent for Cutting Edge Marketing. The company would sell different products, ranging from off-plan properties to advertising space, depending on what Charlie sourced.
All of the agents, like Ben until this point, had the benefits of Charlie’s contacts, an equipped cubicle with telephone, computer, etcetera, and the occasional ‘hot lead’, dependant on who was Charlie’s favourite at the time. Most of the work was cold-calling, but once you got used to the rejection, it wasn’t so bad.
The downsides to working with CEM was paying rent for your cubicle and giving Charlie up to seventy per cent of the net profit on all deals.
Charlie was raking in the cash. Ben was doing alright up until two months ago.
The problem with Charlie is you are either with him or against him. Ben didn’t share his passion for selling, or making money, and Charlie saw him as less of a man for this. CEM was also a bit of a boy’s club, one was expected to work hard then play hard.
Around six months ago, Ben stopped going to the strip-clubs and playing the five-a-side football matches with Charlie and the others. He felt like he was wasting his time, he had just lost interest. It was the start of that empty feeling inside. Then his father died and Ben didn’t answer or reply to any calls or emails from the office. Eventually Charlie had to phone Natalie who explained, unsympathetically, about Ben’s depression. After that, Charlie considered Ben a weak link and washed his hands of him.
‘So that’s it? After four years?’ asked Ben.
‘Yeah, that’s it’ answered Charlie. ‘Look at yourself, Ben, half hour late, unshaven. And how much weight have you lost?’
‘So you’re gonna start on my appearance now?’
Charlie leaned forward in his chair and looked straight into Ben’s eyes.
‘For all I care,’ he said, ‘you can throw yourself under a bus, just like your old man.’
Ben wasn’t shocked Charlie had said that, he’d known him too long. He was angry and hurt, but not surprised. He rose to his feet, trying hard to stop the adrenaline from shaking his every bone, and left without saying a word more.
He got into the lift, pressed the button for the ground floor, and rested his hands on the rail that ran along the bottom of the large mirror on the back wall of the elevator. He stared at his reflection, knowing full well what was coming.
‘You’re weak, feeble. You did nothing! Show him who we are! Show him what we can do!’ said the all too familiar voice in his head.
‘No,’ Ben screamed at his reflection, as the doors of the elevator opened at the ground floor, an aging businesswoman raising her eyebrows as Ben dropped his head in shame and hurried to the exit.
9
Summers sat in her office, the seventeen unsolved murder cases attributed to The Phantom piled up in front of her. She took the top file, the most recent, from the pile and opened it up on the desk.
Staring up at her was a picture of Frederic Clark. The sight of his bloody and soaked face and clothing sent a chill down her spine. She gave the file the once over. She already knew most of the details by squeezing information from the detective who had just retired and from the endless press articles, but ran through all the information again hoping that something might jump out at her.
The file detailed all the people that were in the pub that day and evening. Every single person had a good alibi and no clear motive, other than maybe being offended by the victim’s crude language. He had no wife, girlfriend, or recent ex. His boss was moderately happy with Freddy’s work. His phone records had nothing out of the ordinary.
Freddy was found around forty-five minutes after he left the pub, by a young couple who had just had a meal there as their first date. Apparently the food wasn’t great and the service was poor. Finding the corpse had likely ended any chance of romance in that relationship.
The rain had started again by that time and washed away any forensic evidence, if any was left in the first place. There was no CCTV in or around the car-park. The closest video footage was from nearly a mile away and was no help at all. As with all the murders attributed to The Phantom, clues were lacking.
Detective Constable Kite entered Summers’ office with two cups of coffee. He placed one in front of his boss.
‘Thanks.’
‘So…’ said Kite, as he took a seat, ‘what have we got?’
