she was carrying his child.
She finished her food and put her plate in the sink, then went and fetched the letter, the letter that told Ben he was to receive a life-changing amount of money in the very near future.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as she handed over the envelope, ‘I opened it by mistake earlier on.’
She sat down beside Ben, who hadn’t moved from the front room since he’d been told of the baby. He opened the envelope and read the letter. Natalie noticed the lack of excitement, or shock, or anything whilst he read the letter. She put her arm around him.
‘Look, I know the baby is out of the blue, and the last month or two have been difficult for us, but this is a chance for a new beginning. Your dad left you this money and he wanted you to enjoy it. So enjoy it,’ she said, as she moved in to cuddle him, until a loud knock at the front door interrupted her advances.
Ben answered the door and his heart stopped beating.
Summers, Kite and two uniformed officers stood before Ben, and invited him to the station to answer some questions. He wasn’t under arrest, but it would be useful if he would accompany them and help with their enquiries, as his boss had just been murdered, and he was seen at the office just yesterday.
Summers looked at Ben as a thousand thoughts whizzed around his head.
‘What was he thinking?’ she thought. ‘Was the shock on his face due to the news of Charles Peacock’s death? Or the fact the police had already found their man?’
She was sure she had seen his face before, as Ben reluctantly agreed to go to the station. He told Natalie not to wait up, it was clearly routine procedure and there was nothing to worry about.
Natalie looked out of the kitchen window as they descended the steps and Ben was ushered into the back of a police car, noticing the worried look on his face as it happened. She watched as the two non-uniformed police talked briefly before getting into a different car and following their colleagues down the road and into the distance.
Ben couldn’t be responsible for the death of Charlie, she thought, even if he did lose his job rather unfairly. Ben was no killer. He was too soft to do something like that.
Natalie’s phone rang, it was David. She’d already ignored two of his calls earlier that day.
‘What do you want?’ she asked, abruptly as she answered the call.
‘You’d better watch your tone, you conniving little cunt,’ replied David. ‘Tanya said that you think you’re pregnant. No fucking way. I don’t know what you’re up to, but I want a piece. You’re going to meet me tonight, you’re going to suck my cock, and then we’re going discuss why you are involving my wife in one of your schemes!’
‘Fuck you, David,’ Natalie shouted down the phone.
‘If not, Natalie, Ben will know everything about you and your business. We’ll find out just how much he loves his little Natalie once he knows you’ve fucked half the city,’ he said.
Natalie hung up the phone.
So far, she had convinced Ben that she had made a mistake, but if David followed through with his threat, all would be lost. She couldn’t risk that, and within moments dialled David’s phone.
‘Ok,’ she said, ‘I’ll come and meet you. Give me thirty minutes.’
34
Upon arriving at the station, after viewing the crime scene of Charles Peacock, Kite was annoyed not to have the information he had requested from the Office of National Statistics. He had instead an email promising the info first thing in the morning.
But, he had also received an email from the secretary of CEM, which contained a detailed report on the times and length of calls for all the staff in the office that day.
Charlie had a good team, or he did when he was alive, all the workers had been hard at it. They were all driven salesmen who wanted to earn money, not leaving their phones hung up for more than a few minutes at a time, which was hardly enough time to make a coffee, and certainly not long enough to follow their boss down to the car park and stab him to death.
What interested Kite more was in the main text of the email, the secretary had mentioned that a certain Ben Green, who had not worked for around two months at CEM, had been into the office the day before, and she had heard the exchange between him and Charlie.
‘Ben left the office without saying a word to anyone, he was clearly upset,’ she stated.
After showing the email to Summers and discovering that Ben lived almost ‘dead’ centre in the crime hot- spot, they made the decision to pay him a visit.
At the time, Summers felt that this could be him, that this could be the guy who murdered her father. That feeling didn’t change when standing at his door, watching the panic run over him when asked to come to the station.
Ben sat in the interview room on his own, sweat poured down his face as he talked to himself. He could clearly hear the voice of his alter ego, calmly telling him that there was nothing to worry about, for once being the voice of reason.
Ben was certain he hadn’t killed Charlie, he knew he was going mad but that isn’t something you could just choose to forget. Somebody else had done it, it was just a coincidence.
However, he did know that just the day before he had committed a double murder, and although he’d had a couple of ideas about how to resolve this problem, being in a police station and getting grilled by detectives until he could potentially break down and confess his sins wasn’t one of them. He’d preferred to think about fleeing the country before he was found out, or even ending it all, certainly a lifetime in prison wasn’t an acceptable option.
He’d declined the offer of a DNA test, ‘to help rule him out of their enquiries,’ as was his right.
Summers and Kite looked at Ben through a one-way mirror. This is our guy, they thought, watching the man gently sob before them.
They entered the room, sat opposite Ben and formally introduced themselves. A uniformed officer stood by the door and remained silent. Kite slid a box of tissues over the table to Ben, who took one out and dabbed dry his face.
‘Leave this to me,’ said the voice in his head. ‘Trust in me, Ben’.
Kite did the talking, Summers was happy to observe and learn as much from Ben from his mannerisms, his body language and thoughtful eyes before answering any of their questions.
Ben had let himself go into an almost trance-like state, moving all consciousness aside and letting his evil- self take centre stage, effortlessly fending off any accusations or insinuations that came from Kite.
Ben felt as if he was regaining control when he sensed the frustration in Kite’s voice. He admitted he didn’t like Charlie, that Charlie had been rude and sacked him with no diplomacy, had even mocked Ben about the death of his father. None of this mattered, even if it was all true; just as it was true, in Ben’s mind, that he hadn’t killed Charlie.
There was no need to panic, Ben realised this now.
But was he wrong? Kite made a pretty good case as to why Ben could be the killer.
‘You’ve had some mental problems we believe, since the death of your father, are you still taking your medication?’ he asked.
‘No,’ replied Ben, as a matter of fact.
‘And you know, without an alibi, and with a motive, such as Charlie’s behaviour towards you; letting you go from CEM, and the crude talk about your father, some would say that you are in an awkward position,’ said Kite.
‘It wasn’t me,’ stated Ben.
‘Some might even say that you had the right to be angry at Charles, or Charlie, as you call him. He’d let you down, hadn’t he?’
Ben leaned in and put his elbows on the table, shaking his head, more relaxed than ever knowing that the detective was chasing shadows.
