‘It wasn’t me,’ he said.
‘Mr Green,’ said Summers, the first words she had spoken to the man she now suspected was her father’s murderer, ‘can you tell me where you were yesterday morning?’
Ben’s face went pale.
‘I’m… I’m sorry,’ stumbling on his words, ‘I thought we were here to talk about Charlie.’
‘Are you the killer known as The Phantom?’ she asked.
‘No, I am not,’ he replied, sharply, as he leaned back in his seat, head down and clasping his sweaty hands together.
Summers and Kite glanced towards each other. They had noticed an obvious reaction to her questions, but this gave them more questions than answers.
‘Snap out of it!’ screamed the voice in Ben’s head.
The door to the interview room opened and a uniformed officer called Summers outside for a word. Kite examined Ben as he sat there in silence, until Summers poked her head around the door and called Kite out to join her.
Ben rubbed his temples and talked over the situation with his inner self.
‘They have no evidence, or we’d have been arrested. The real killer did this, we just got too close. So The Phantom wasn’t my father? Or was it us? Did we kill Charlie? Have we gone so far, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore?’
Ben jumped as the door reopened and the female detective walked back into the room.
‘You’re free to go,’ said Summers, as she dropped her contact card onto the table in front of Ben. ‘But don’t go too far. I think we’ll need to talk again at some point.’
Ben pocketed the card and left the room, then left the station and took in a deep breath of fresh air as soon as he got outside. That was too close. No matter what his mother had tried to convince him, this was not the life for Ben Green.
Summers and Kite had grabbed their jackets and were heading back to the car. There had been another murder, bearing all the hallmarks of The Phantom.
35
David had walked out of his house and into the darkness, wearing his jogging gear and carrying a black bin- liner full of household rubbish. He had told Tanya he was going for a run, to clear his head after seeing on the news about his friend Charlie being murdered. In fact, he was only jogging to the end of the road, where he would meet Natalie for blackmailed sex, then force her to explain what she was up to, or he’d threaten again to ruin her chances of keeping Ben.
That was his plan anyway. He should have known better.
David had known that Natalie was a tough cookie, willing to stop at nothing to get what she wanted. She had no shame and no morals. This made her dangerous, and he underestimated how dangerous.
David opened the lid of the garbage bin at the end of the driveway, dropped in the bag of rubbish then let the lid drop back down. He then turned and faced the direction where Natalie said she would be waiting, but suddenly heard a noise from behind the bin.
Before he had the chance to react, an arm had smothered his face from behind, and a knife dug into his neck, and then dragged along until his Adam’s apple had been split in two and blood flowed effortlessly from the slit.
Air squeezed through the hole in his neck as he tried to scream, tried to yell for help, ‘Tanya,’ but only a gasping and gurgling could be heard. He collapsed to his knees then was pushed to the ground and fell with a twist. He was facing up, and made a feeble attempt of covering his open wound with his already limp hands.
Natalie had read and heard enough about The Phantom killer to know that the number of stab wounds could range from ten anywhere up to fifty. Being a keen student of detail, she went to work on her victim.
David, for the last few moments of his life, stared into the eyes an angry prostitute, the woman he lusted over for so long, as she stabbed away at his chest and face, piercing his heart numerous times.
Back at home, Natalie had put her clothes in a metal bin and set them alight in the garden, before showering and scrubbing herself from head to toe, with such ferocity she almost lost blood herself.
She had never thought of killing a person in her life. She wasn’t raised like that.
Natalie was an only child, who had always been given what she wanted when growing up. But her parents had her when they were getting old, and by the time she’d left school, her father had retired due to illness, and her mother stayed at home to look after him. The money had dried up, and she didn’t do well enough at school to get a good job, not good enough to afford her the luxuries that she believed she deserved, so she took matters into her own hands.
Nothing stood in her way, she made enough to buy her what she wanted when she wanted, although she never thought long term and bought property or invested anything, and up until this day she still had the same attitude that she developed as a late teenager.
‘Nobody will stop me getting what I want. I will do whatever it takes to overcome the obstacles in my path.’
David had made himself an obstacle.
At this point, Natalie had a clear plan of action, and if she were to succeed, she wouldn’t have to worry about money for a long time.
Marry Ben. It was that simple.
After that, the money, which would to an extent be half hers, or would at least be accessible to her, would allow her to have the clothes, the shoes, the bags and jewellery as and when she pleased. So superficial, yet exactly what she lived for.
Then there was the sex. She wouldn’t need to sell her body anymore, maybe just choose a random guy or girl whenever it took her fancy for a one night stand.
It would be like all her dreams had come true.
Her phone beeped and she checked the text message. It was from Ben.
Natalie used the time alone to relax and calm herself down after the incident. She poured a glass of white wine from an already opened bottle in the fridge, gulped it down, sat on the sofa and masturbated.
36
Eve hadn’t answered Ben’s calls so he had gone to her apartment. He rang her door bell to no avail, and found himself calling up to her window. The light was on, so he suspected she was in, maybe asleep. Finally, there was some movement of the curtain covering the front window.
A sleepy Eve opened the window and stuck her head out to see what the fuss was about and a huge smile appeared on her face when she saw her new lover, stood below and lit up by the street light.
‘Are you coming up?’ she called down.
Ben sighed.
‘Just for a minute,’ he replied.
Eve buzzed him into the building and opened the door to her apartment, then sat back down on the bed, turning off the television which had been idly showing the menu screen of the film she had watched.
Ben entered the apartment and closed the door behind him. Eve sensed seriousness in Ben, and it instantly made her feel uncomfortable. He edged his way towards her and sat down beside her on the bed. She leant in to kiss him, but he held up his hand to stop her advance.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, fearing the worst.
