‘The miracle of life unfolds before your very eyes,’ said his father.
Ben knew he and Natalie were good-looking, intelligent people. He pictured their child to be a mix of the best parts of their personalities; his work ethic, her looks, his physical strength, her emotional stability.
He looked again at his watch and hurriedly left the apartment.
7
Alexia sat on the bonnet of the black BMW, her arms and legs wrapped around Ricky, a young man who had recently been suspended from his local comprehensive school. He saw this as a week’s holiday.
Alexia was supposed to be on her way to the private school her parents were paying three thousand pounds per term for her to attend. Years of expensive education couldn’t stop the attractive schoolgirl from falling for the very crude charms of Ricky from the first moment they had met, at an under-eighteen’s disco two weeks earlier.
Ricky, who was big for his age of sixteen, just short of six foot tall with stocky build, looked even bigger in his puffer jacket and was known locally as a bully. He was seen as the main man at school, with a big mouth and a big attitude to match. In reality, he was a big fish in a small pond.
The testosterone that fuelled his growth and aggressive behavior was also driving him in the chase for Alexia’s virginity. She was two years younger than him, underage, but he didn’t care. He took a small bottle of vodka from his pocket, took a swig and offered it to Alexia.
‘Oh yeah, really, like, I’m going to drink alcohol before I go to school,’ she said. ‘I’d stink of it’
‘You can’t smell vodka,’ he said. ‘Besides, you should spend the day with me. We’ll go back down the bridge, like the other night. It’s dead quiet during the day.’
‘You’re not pressuring me, are you?’ she asked rhetorically as she grabbed the bottle and took a large gulp. Her face scrunched up at the taste and feel of the liquid as it tumbled down her throat. Ricky smiled, knowing that today would be the day.
‘Go on, have another swig.’
She complied.
Ben came out from the apartment block and saw the young couple along the road. From his angle, he couldn’t make out if it was his BMW they were leaning up against, he hoped it wasn’t, confrontation had never been his thing. As he drew closer, he shook his head as he realized the young girl was sat on his car bonnet.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, as he arrived at the car, pressing the button on the central-locking remote. The car beeped as the doors unlocked.
‘You’re excused,’ said Ricky.
Ben stood by the driver’s door as Ricky half-forced a French kiss from Alexia, who stopped and turned to Ben.
‘What? Don’t look at me,’ she said.
‘Yeah, fuck off, pervert,’ added Ricky.
‘Just get off the car, please,’ said Ben.
He opened the door, climbed in then slammed it shut, put the key in the ignition and started the engine, startling Alexia into jumping off the bonnet and into Ricky’s arms.
‘Let’s go,’ she said as she led Ricky away. ‘He’s must be a paedo or something, standing there watching 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?’
‘Well,’ Summers took a deep breath and sighed as she closed the Freddy Clark file, ‘we know that our guy lives in or around the city, has done for a long time and knows how to get to and from places without being seen by anyone or any cameras.’
‘Ok.’
‘And he is right-handed,’ she added.
‘I know why you wanted this case, it’s understandable…’ said Kite, staring into his coffee, ‘but where the hell do we start with this thing?’
Summers took out her hip-flask, added some to her coffee and stirred. Kite rolled his eyes.
‘Well, that’s not gonna help,’ he said.
Summers stood and dropped the Freddy Clark file in front of Kite. She then sorted through the other sixteen files, dropping eleven more in front of Kite and leaving five to the side.
‘So what does this mean?’ he asked.
Summers sat back down, finished her drink in one go and threw the polystyrene cup in the bin.
‘The twelve files in front of you happened within three square miles of each other. Autopsy reports show the use of a weapon, usually a knife but twice a screwdriver. These killings are all carried out by a right-hander.’
She pointed to the five cases she had out-sorted. ‘And these… I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘The bodies had been moved, or they were strangled or beaten as well as stabbed. One had been robbed as well,’ she stated.
‘So you’re saying,’ said Kite, ‘that these five cases are not down to The Phantom?’
‘I’m saying,’ Summers replied, ‘that in the twelve cases in front of you we can determine at least a slight pattern, in method and location. The other five just don’t fit.
‘Other than the lack of evidence,’ Kite pointed out.
10
Ben closed the front door behind him, slipped off his jacket and hung it on the coat-stand.
‘Nat?’ he called. No reply.
He felt the stubble on his chin and made his way to the bathroom. As he reached out to open the bathroom door, he heard a noise come from the bedroom.
‘Don’t tell me you’re back…’ he said as he opened the bedroom door ‘... in bed.’
He couldn’t breathe. It felt like he had been punched in the stomach and his heart ripped from his chest, but he couldn’t stop staring.
David, who once used to work with Ben at CEM, over a year ago, looked up from Natalie’s groin and jumped to his feet. If Natalie felt any guilt, she didn’t show it.
‘I’m so sorry, Ben,’ said David.
‘You’re meant to be my mate, Dave,’ said Ben as his stomach got the better of him.
Ben vomited on his own bedroom floor. He stared at the vomit, at Natalie, at David, and then he turned and ran out of the flat, grabbing his jacket on the way and slamming the door shut behind him.
‘Shit,’ said David.
‘You’re still paying me, David,’ said Natalie, lying on the bed, wearing only a bra, ‘so get back here and finish what you started.’
‘You really are a heartless cow,’ said David, before climbing back on the bed and sucking gently on her clitoris.
11
Ben had run for more than a mile. Ran along the streets, ran blindly across roads, nearly ending his life just like his father not so long ago, ran towards the fields and finally stopped when he reached the canal.
He thought about jumping into the water. Could you force yourself to drown? Maybe he’d get lucky and get pulled down by the current, if they existed in canals, or get his legs tangled up in the reeds under the surface and couldn’t escape even if he lost his nerve.
He thought about jumping from one of the bridges along the canal, but none were very high, and with his luck recently, he would probably just end up disabled, with only his mother to look after him, who he was sure, was getting madder by the day.
He looked down at his shoes, now caked in mud, and sighed, then bent down and picked up a few pebbles that he caught his eye on the pathway. All three were smooth and flat with round edges, perfect for skimming, just like his father had taught him to do many years ago.
He threw the first stone and it sank without bouncing even once, the same with the second. He eyed the last pebble in his hand. The third throw was better, bouncing five times before disappearing below the surface, where it would rest until the end of days. He managed a brief smile before it turned into a frown.
‘I miss you, dad,’ he said.
He began a slow walk along the canal, towards the city centre. Recent events ran through his mind. He missed his father so much, and was so lost in his own depression that he hadn’t stopped to think about his mother and how she was coping.
She lived close, Mrs Green, but rarely left the house that Ben grew up in. Ben didn’t want to go there as seeing all his father’s possessions would sadden him further. But he knew, as an only child, he had a responsibility towards his mother, an only child herself.
He vowed to go and see her later that day, even though he dreaded seeing how senile she had become. She had always been strange, angry for no reason at one moment and then happy the next. Since becoming a widower, she was free-falling into that dark and lonely hole called madness.
Tears began falling again as his thoughts switched back to Natalie. He knew they didn’t have the perfect relationship, but her cheating had come as a shock. And with David as well! Why someone he knew? Why does that always hurt more?
Ben wasn’t surprised at David’s behaviour, they used to drink together after work and it was clear to everyone that he wasn’t the faithful type. This was made worse by the fact that his wife of seven years absolutely adored him. They were lovers at university and wed soon after graduating.
David was like Charlie, in that wh
en Ben gave less of his spare time to the boy’s club, to getting drunk, to bragging about money, he’d lost all respect for him. That’s the thing with salesmen, always a shallow smile to your face, but the bottom line is the bottom line. You can never trust a salesman.
David had left CEM to start his own firm but stayed friends with Charlie thanks to their mutual love of boozy nights at strip clubs and casinos. Rumour had it that they’d even shared a prostitute once.
Ben wiped his eyes, red from crying, and blew his nose into a tissue as he entered under a bridge over the canal. He couldn’t believe how bad his day was getting when he noticed the teenage couple from earlier sat on a bench and smoking a joint. Ben kept his head down and walked past them.
Alexia noticed it was the man from earlier and nudged the stoned Ricky, who looked up and laughed.
‘Are you crying?’ he asked, shamelessly. Ignored, he tried again, ‘Oi, paedo, you been crying?
Ben was a few yards away as Ricky bent down and grabbed a stone from the ground.
‘I’m talking to you,’ he called out, and then threw the stone at Ben, which struck him hard on the back of the head.
Ben’s knees wobbled and he buckled over. He steadied himself with his hands at the side of the canal, just about preventing himself from falling in. On all fours, he gazed at his reflection in the water, and started mumbling to himself.
‘And now he’s talking to ‘imself,’ laughed Ricky. ‘You’re mad, mate. You fucking paedo.’
‘Ok,’ said Ben, to the man in the water. ‘Ok.’
Whilst lifting himself to his feet, Ben grabbed a half-brick that lay on the ground beside him, then turned and quickly marched in Ricky’s direction, determination and anger written all over his face.
‘Oh yeah, and what are you gonna do?’ said Ricky, sticking out his chest and dropping his shoulders as he stepped forward, looking brave in front of his girlfriend.
He should have run away.
Ben didn’t say a word. He just swung his straight arm around and crashed the corner of the brick into the side of Ricky’s skull.
Son of a Serial Killer Page 2