‘Go on,’ said Summers.
‘Firstly,’ Ben continued, ‘I am not The Phantom. I know you think it's me, but it's not.’
‘Ok,’ said Summers.
‘But, I am not innocent,’ said Ben. ‘I've got some problems in my head and sometimes I do crazy things.’
‘That's ok, Mr Green. We all do crazy things sometimes, it’s normal,’ said Summers, ‘we can get you help for that, Ben. I can call you Ben? Is that ok?’
Ben chuckled lightly.
‘It doesn't matter what you call me. But I'm beyond help, that's for sure,’ he said. ‘I have a letter for you, which is a confession to my sins, my crimes, and I believe I am in a position to get a confession from The Phantom, too.’
‘What crimes, Ben? What have you done?’ she asked.
‘Oh, well, I suppose I can tell you now,’ said Ben. ‘I killed a couple of kids under the bridge the other day. And I'm about to commit my third murder.’
'Call for back-up,' mimed Summers to Kite, who quietly stepped out of the vehicle and called into the station.
‘Don't do anything silly, Ben,’ pleaded Summers.
‘It’s too late for that, detective,’ he said. ‘There are things that you wouldn't understand.’
‘Try me,’ she replied.
Ben laughed again down the phone.
‘Just listen, please,’ continued Ben, not giving up on leading the conversation. ‘Do you have a pen, I'm gonna give you an address. At this address you'll find what you've been looking for.’
Kite slipped back into the driver's seat and held four fingers up to Summers. They'd be waiting four minutes before any back-up would arrive.
‘Yes, I have a pen.’
‘The address is twenty-five George Street, on the Northchurch estate,’ he said.
‘Ok, I know the area,’ she said, very honestly, as she sat pretty much outside the house they were talking about. This amused Kite, who even at this late stage in the game retained his sense of humour.
‘So here is the deal, I give you a signed confession to three murders, and right now, I'll get a confession from the one you really want, The Phantom,’ stated Ben.
‘And what do you want from me, Ben?’ she asked.
‘There is another letter,’ he replied. ‘All I ask is that you deliver it personally, to the addressee. She deserves an explanation.’
‘That seems fair, Ben,’ said Summers.
‘It’s the least I could do,’ said Ben, trying hard to remain strong in his darkest hour. ‘Now just stay on the phone, listen, and I'll see what I can do for you.’
‘Just don't do anything stupid, Ben,’ again Summers pleaded. ‘There's already been too much blood shed.’
But Ben wasn't listening anymore. He had the phone by his side as he made his way back down the stairs.
48
Ben was nervous as he stepped back into the kitchen. He didn't even notice that for the first time since his mother and his girlfriend had met, they were actually having a fairly civilised conversation, no matter how much it was staged by the two of them.
Not that it would matter for much longer.
Ben paced nervously up and down the kitchen, wondering how to approach the subject that weighed down on his mind so relentlessly, asking himself if he had the courage to do what needed to be done for this whole sorry mess to be dealt with, then he looked out of the window and saw the cat, lifeless under the bush.
He turned to his mother.
‘The cat's dead, mum,’ he said, dry toned.
Mrs Green turned to her son and grinned.
‘I knew you'd like that,’ she said.
‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘You see, I don't enjoy killing things, mum. Not like you.’
Mrs Green, although feeling the effects of the alcohol that she was constantly pouring into her system, and the lack of decent sleep, didn't miss the sour tone in her son's voice.
‘What is it, Ben?’ she asked. ‘Come and sit down.’
With his back to the women, Ben pulled out a large and dirty knife from the kitchen sink, and slipped it up his sleeve before stepping back to the table and placing the phone near his mother.
Natalie noticed the sweat starting to form on her fiancées forehead. What on earth is going on? She thought to herself, wanting to go home and plan her future with the money she was soon to be stealing from the tortured soul that stood in front of her.
‘You know, mum,’ he said, ‘the police found some evidence on one of the dead bodies, some red hair apparently.’
Mother and son looked at each other. He knew. She knew.
‘It's you, isn't it?’ he said.
Mrs Green grinned.
‘You got me,’ said Mrs Green, not taking it as seriously as Ben would have liked, not a shred of remorse was shown.
‘You killed Charlie, and then you tried to convince me that I did it. That I'd done it and gone mad and not known what I'd been doing, like a right lunatic?’
Natalie was just catching on to what the two were talking about. She shifted slightly in her seat, not believing what she was hearing.
‘He was a fucker, that Charlie,’ protested Mrs Green, ‘and you needed a push. It's you and me now, Ben, mother and son, seeing out our destiny together.’
‘Destiny? Killing people?’ he yelled at her. ‘We're fucking ill, mum. Look at us. And dad? You were lying to me, why would you talk that nonsense about him? He was a good man.’
‘You would never have joined me,’ she replied, ‘unless you thought it was your father that gave you these damaged genes, this poisoned blood. Then I knew you’d accept it. You always loved him more than me, Ben. You always wanted to be like him.’
‘Fucking surprised are you? You're nuts, mum, fucking mad,’ he screamed, struggling to control his emotions, understandably in the present situation.
Natalie was stunned, completely shocked. She still couldn't believe her ears, which was unfortunate, as staying in a room with two people who were talking about murder and getting increasingly aggravated wasn't a good idea. She needed to believe the words she’d heard. It would have been best.
‘And when he died,’ continued Ben, ‘what happened? Did he jump in front of that bus?’
Mrs Green sighed and took a large gulp of the wine that sat in front of her. It was time to tell her son the truth, the whole truth, if she really wanted him to join her on the 'dark side'.
‘He'd caught me off guard. Shouting at me for drinking wine in the morning again, threatening to leave. Then he saw what I was doing, went bonkers he did.’
‘Saw what you were doing? What? What were you doing?’ demanded Ben.
Mrs Green shrugged her shoulders.
‘Cleaning my knife,’ she said. ‘I'd forgotten to do it the night before. He caught me washing the blood off at the sink.’
‘And so you told him, you told him that you'd murdered someone?’ he asked.
‘I didn't really have to, Benjamin. He'd found the pictures and news stories I'd collected on The Phantom over the years. He knew I'd go out at strange hours, and then with the knife, I guess it finally clicked. He shouted for a bit then stormed out of the house. I guess it was all too much. He was a weak man.’
‘Weak?’ Ben yelled.
Natalie knocked her chair as she tried to ease her way out of her seat, finally realising that this was not the place for her to be.
‘You stay there!’ screamed Ben, pointing for her to stay seated. It was the first time Natalie had ever been scared of Ben, maybe the first time she had felt genuine fear in her life.
Tears began streaming down Ben's face.
‘Now, now, Benjamin,’ said Mrs Green, holding out her hand toward her son. ‘We're all together now, me, you, the baby, and Natalie. We can live the life we were meant to. No more secrets, being what we were born to be. It's in our blood, you know that.’
‘Yeah, I know, mum, you'd like that wouldn't you?’ he said. ‘You, me and Ben Junior, going out after dark
, like a pack of wolves. Stabbing anyone that gets in our way.’
Ben turned to Natalie, scared stiff and frozen to her seat. Then he turned back to his mum, who was so occupied in her own world that she hadn't the faintest idea that her son was lost to her forever.
‘We're a family, mum, but a family of animals. Of fucking mutants,’ said Ben. ‘We share a gene that plays with our mind and makes us think about killing others for fun, like it's a game. But it’s gonna stop. Right now, I gotta stop the blood line.’
Ben stepped towards Natalie, grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back.
‘Sorry, Nat,’ he whispered, his tears falling onto her cheeks, ‘but the baby's gotta go.’
Ben let the knife slip from his sleeve and tightened his grip around the handle. He stuck the blade full-force into the stomach of the woman he once dreamed of spending the rest of his life with, and then yanked it upwards until it wedged in at the join of her ribcage. The pain was clear on Natalie’s face, in her voice as she screamed.
Gasping for air, Natalie managed a few last words.
‘But, Ben, I'm not really pregnant,’ she said.
She fell silent, and Ben realised he had just killed Natalie for the wrong reason, but the adrenaline was pumping, and the man in the mirror had enjoyed it, even if it saddened Ben a little.
‘What have you done?’ yelled his mother, ‘We don't kill our own!’
‘Is that right, mum?’ he asked. ‘Don't worry, I won’t be killing you.’
He took a step closer to his mother and towered above her.
‘Because of you, my dad is dead,’ he said. ‘You'd been killing him for as long as I can remember. And as for being The Phantom, you're gonna pay for your crimes.’
And with that, Ben punched his mother square in the face, knocking her onto the floor, not fully-conscious. He picked her up under the shoulders and dragged her out of the kitchen and into the red room. He dumped her on the carpet and took one last look at the woman it turned out he had never truly known.
‘They'll be someone here for you soon enough, mum. Good luck,’ he said.
Ben left the room and locked the door behind him, before making his way up the stairs.
49
Summers and Kite had edged closer to the house, careful to stay out of sight. They listened in as Mrs Green admitted, although not conclusively, that she was The Phantom. This was recorded, and also the single biggest break-through any officer’s had made in the case.
When they heard the scream of Natalie, they had a split second to make a decision, wait for the back-up that was due any moment, or go in and maybe save the life of an apparently innocent party. Kite called for back-up again and made sure an ambulance would arrive as well, reiterating the need for speed from all parties.
They tried forcing the front door first but to no avail, then made their way around the side of the property, finally entering the garden to find the kitchen door wide open.
They weren’t normally armed, but Kite had a truncheon in the boot of his car and had done the gentlemanly thing and offered it to Summers, unsure as to what they were to come across inside the property. She took the weapon without hesitation.
Kite made his way into the kitchen, and saw that there was nobody in the room but a young, attractive woman, who had been stabbed in the body with a large kitchen knife that still stuck out from her chest.
Summers approached Natalie and checked for a pulse, although seeing the amount of blood covering her body and clothing and even the floor, she knew it would be fruitless. She shook her head silently at Kite to give him the news he had already assumed. There was no pulse. She was gone.
Kite moved towards the back of the kitchen to the only door into the rest of the house, Summers followed, feeling uneasy in the deafening silence, the smell of death invading her nostrils. They made their way along the corridor. Kite stepped into the front room, and checked behind the sofas, nobody there. Summers tried opening the door to the red room but found it locked.
‘Open the door, Ben, we know you’re in there,’ she called out, whilst knocking her fist on the door.
She looked to Kite and gestured for him to open the door. He obliged by kicking it once, twice, and then on the third time the door flew open and crashed into the wall behind. Summers and Kite slowly edged inside, only a desk and a couple of chairs were in sight. Before they got to search the ugly red room properly, before noticing the pictures and stories of death covering the walls, they heard a movement upstairs.
‘Let’s go,’ said Kite.
They left the room and Kite walked briskly up the stairs, Summers followed but turned to see an older woman running into the kitchen, Mrs Green had been hiding behind the desk, and thought she could make her escape whilst the police were looking for Ben upstairs.
‘Kite,’ Summers yelled up the stairs, but he was gone and she heard him shout ‘don’t do it,’ to someone, but Summers had to leave him to it, she wasn’t willing to let this woman escape. If she was The Phantom, she wasn’t going anywhere.
She ran to the end of the corridor and peered into the kitchen, the truncheon raised head-height and ready to be used if necessary. She tip-toed in and passed the corpse. Something had changed. What had changed? The knife had gone!
Behind her she heard a scuffle of feet on the floor and turned to see Mrs Green lunging at her with the bloodied-knife aiming right for her throat.
Summers threw herself to the side but caught the blade in the shoulder, forcing her to drop the truncheon and squeal in pain. She held tightly onto the arm of Mrs Green as she fell back onto the floor, the old lady falling on top of her.
Summers couldn’t believe how strong this older woman was, and cursed at herself for drinking too much instead of training at the gym more often.
Mrs Green twisted the knife, carving up the muscle in Summers’ shoulder, then yanked it out and stabbed it straight back in.
Summers couldn’t feel her arm, let alone move it. She lashed out with her other elbow, lightly catching her attacker in the face but The Phantom, who Summers now had no doubt was the woman on top of her, just shrugged off the blow and smiled down at her victim.
The detective was scared. She grabbed both of The Phantom’s hands, those strong hands that were wrapped around the knife that stuck into her upper chest, and clung on for dear life, thinking that as long as the knife stayed inside her shoulder, it couldn’t be forced into her again to create another wound elsewhere. But she couldn’t hold on, the strength of The Phantom seemingly increased with every second that passed, Summers the contrary.
The Phantom yanked the knife upward and out of Summers reach, raising it above her head, screaming as she did so, saliva dripping from her open mouth and into Summers’ face, then she brought down the knife, aiming for the heart. Summers kicked out against the floor and pushed herself along a few inches, forcing her would-be-killer to miss her target.
The knife sank into Summers’ stomach.
Summer cried in pain and out of fear. This was the end, it was clear now. After years of working as a police officer, to finally get to the position where she could hunt down the killer of her father, she had found The Phantom, but lost the fight.
Mrs Green raised the knife above her head once more, staring down at the defenceless Summers, feebly trying to shield her body with the one arm that still functioned properly.
‘You killed my father,’ she stated, having given up hope and staring into the eyes of her enemy; a half-hearted beg for compassion.
‘And now you,’ replied The Phantom. ‘Die!’ she yelled, as she used all her energy to bring the knife down and into her latest victim.
But the knife didn’t move.
Kite had grabbed the handle of the knife and wrestled it out of the killer’s hands. Mrs Green looked shocked as she turned to see the truncheon swinging through the air towards her head.
CRACK
The truncheon rendered her unconscious instantly.
Kite
pulled her off of his boss’ body and handcuffed her hands together behind her back, then used Summers’ handcuffs to attach her to the table. He wasn’t taking any chances with this mean bitch.
Finally some good fortune arrived, as the back-up made its belated entrance into the kitchen via the back door.
‘Is the ambulance here yet?’ Kite asked his colleague.
‘Yes, sir,’ came the reply from the uniformed officer, before calling an out of sight colleague to get the medics.
The officer and Kite applied pressure to the wounds of Summers until the ambulance crew were inside and ready to take over. She was losing blood fast, but holding on.
Her pulse was weak, but steady.
50
TWO WEEKS LATER
Summers sat upright on the hospital bed as the nurse applied the finishing touches to the sling that would keep her arm restrained, limiting any movement that could dislodge the stitches that were still in place, holding together the area in her shoulder that had been torn to shreds by her attacker.
Normally, stitches over main joints could be removed around the fourteen day mark, but the extent of the damage inflicted meant the doctor preferred to leave them in for another three or four days.
The wound in Summers’ stomach was even more serious.
Kite had held her hand as she lay unconscious in the back of the ambulance, fighting for her life as the paramedic did his best to stem the bleeding until she was into the emergency surgery room and handed over to the team of surgeons who took over and did the necessary.
She was in and out of consciousness for days, mainly due to the medication that was being dripped into her system to ease the pain.
After a week she was stable and fully compos mentis, and had received visits from colleagues and friends, who all praised her strength for pulling through such an horrific attack, and also her amazing work as a police officer, tracking down and putting into custody the most elusive serial killer the current generation were likely to see or hear of in their lifetime.
Privately, Summers felt all the praise was too much. She had only spoken to Kite about this. Ever since he saved her life she felt an overwhelming bond with him. One would imagine this is normal. He told her that everything she had said and thought about this case was correct.
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