pocket and found the knife that he had taken from his mother’s house. He remembered that now. Then he remembered waiting in the car park, then approaching Charlie but Charlie turning around telling him to go. Then he remembered the feelings of weakness, and hopelessness, and walking away then running out of the car park.
Was that how it happened?
He threw up again and wiped his mouth. When he looked at his hands, he noticed the trembling had calmed down. The adrenaline was fading, his heart returning to a normal beat. It took a moment to regain his composure, and then he walked across the street and looked at his reflection in a shop window.
He looked ok, and the man in the mirror didn’t make an appearance. Ben didn’t know what that meant exactly, but thought it was significant.
He began walking, and ditched the knife at the first bin he came across, glad to get rid of it. He crossed a bridge, and looked below at the canal, the same canal that further upstream he had taken two innocent lives. He got to the steps that led down to the canal pathway and didn’t know why but decided to walk in the direction of his home. As if by coincidence, his phone rang and it was Natalie. He thought for a moment that maybe the unconscious decision to walk in that direction was a sign, and that now was the time to sort out that particular situation.
He answered the phone and regretted it almost instantly. Natalie didn’t waste any time in giving him some unexpected news.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.
31
Eve sat at the kitchen table and finished her salad. She hadn’t got dressed since Ben had stripped her naked hours ago, and she felt great, and happy, so decided to treat herself and make the most of the situation. She planned to do some reading, maybe watch a movie, and just relax until Ben came back.
She had tried to call him before she began eating, but his phone went to answerphone. This didn’t concern her, although she had seen that he had ignored calls from his mother and his girlfriend, but she firmly believed he wouldn’t do the same to her. He can’t have heard the phone, or he was driving, or talking to his mother or was maybe even seeing his old boss trying to get his job back. She didn’t let herself think about him being with Natalie, she wasn’t so much jealous, as a little insecure. But she did well to convince herself that he wasn’t there, at the home they shared, patching up their differences.
Eve rose from the table, went to the bathroom and stood naked before the mirror, under the bright light. No make -up, no clothes, this was Eve. And today, Eve loved her life. She knew that this happiness was down to this wonderful guy she had met just hours ago. A man who had said he was not perfect, a man who has admitted that he had problems, many problems to deal with, yet a man who’d felt the same comfort in Eve’s company, as she had in his.
She walked back into the front room and opened a drawer, pulled out her diary and a pen, then laid down on her bed. She propped herself up with an elbow, leant over the book and opened it up to the next blank page. Eve began to write about Ben, about the hopes and feelings he had provoked in her, about the dirty sex they’d had, about the soft, sensual sex they’d had too. She wrote about the tears he’d shed when talking about his problems, he had asked for her opinions but not for her help, he was strong and she was sure of it.
She wrote of the advice he had given her, comparing him to her parents who no longer spoke to her due to her straying off the path, her parents who sent just enough money to keep her off the streets every week, but not strong enough or caring enough to drag her back on the right path or even knock sense into her. Ben had spoken to her straight, honestly and openly, and she hung from every word as if this special guy knew secrets that no other person knew.
Eve laughed to herself. Was she getting carried away? She knew that she probably was, but she enjoyed it, she loved it, she may even love Ben, already! What was she thinking? She laughed some more.
Eve checked her mobile phone, on the off-chance that she may have missed a call or message from her new lover. She hadn’t. She closed her diary and put it on the bedside table, grabbed the television and DVD remotes, and took her mind off things by watching one of her favourite films, a story about true and forever lasting love.
32
The car park had a strong police presence trying to keep an agitated mob of workers calm whilst trying to get any useful information from them. Workers, who had just finished a ten or twelve hour shift, were being told that they couldn’t get to their vehicle due to a serious crime that had taken place.
There was not one useful statement given by any of the group.
The deceased had been dead for well over an hour before he was finally found. Almost half of the cars in the car park at the time of the murder had been driven away by their owners, without so much as a glance at Charlie’s vehicle of death.
The woman who found him, a financial controller for a different company in the same building, only saw him as she was climbing into her car, parked next to his, and noticed the splatters of blood on her passenger side window. She went to inspect the mess and found more than she’d bargained for. Screaming, she’d run back up to the reception desk and that’s when the police were called.
Summers stood a few feet from the car, as forensics, inch by inch, looked for fingerprints, fibres, hair, different types of blood and DNA, anything that could help pinpoint the killer.
‘Boss,’ called Kite.
Summers turned to see him approaching, a glum look on his face.
‘Give me some good news, Kite,’ said Summers.
‘No can do, boss,’ he replied. ‘Some disagreement between the firms who work here, and the management company, means that the CCTV was neither repaired nor upgraded after a problem with the system…’ he checked his notes, ‘last autumn.’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ spat Summers.
That was the first time Kite had heard his boss speak with such venom, he liked it.
‘I’ve got a full list of employees, past and present. Apparently he was a bit of a player, so no girlfriend as such, although there are a couple of bars and strip clubs he frequented,’ said Kite. ‘The secretary is going to email me a report which will show us who was at the victim’s office today, and if they were on the phone or logged onto their terminals around the time of death.’
One of the forensic team approached and told them that they were finished.
‘We’ve got a few samples of blood to test, also a hair that looked out of place. Fingerprints were collected for examination, but the number of people who could have already been in the car, or touched it, really means that the prints are not going to be the key to solving this one,’ he said. ‘We’ll push through the blood and the hair as a priority and take it from there. Get your boys to bring the vehicle to us and we’ll take a deeper look inside if necessary, but I’m not hopeful we’ll find anything more. You can go ahead and get stuck in now.’
And with that, the forensic team made their exit, finally allowing Summers and Kite to get close to the crime scene. Within an instant, The Phantom was the number one suspect for both Summers and her new protege.
Charlie’s corpse had lost a considerable amount of blood, his face and hands were now very pale and his open eyes were lifeless.
Summers took in the sight before her.
It was clear that the murder weapon was a sharp object, likely a knife, used to stab the victim repeatedly until he was dead or very close to dying, certainly there wasn’t much fight left in the victim when his murderer stopped attacking him.
The stab wounds were grouped around the face, neck and body of the victim, as was The Phantom’s typical
