Within seconds, Summers and Kite were sat before their superior. He looked at them both gloomily, obviously feeling the pressure which recent events had put upon them all, as happened every time The Phantom made an appearance.
‘So what have you got for me?’ asked Watts.
Summers briefly glanced towards Kite, noticing a cocky glint in Kites eyes, meaning, ‘go ahead boss, you can explain where we are. This is your party.’
She sat upright and prepared to update Watts on proceedings.
‘Well, sir,’ she said, ‘with regards to the double homicide yesterday, under the bridge at Old Town Road, in all honesty, we don’t have much to go on.’
Watts looked suitably unimpressed.
‘Preliminary reports from the morgue indicate no sexual abuse on either of the victims. We are waiting for toxicology reports to confirm if they were high or drunk at the time.’
‘And that will serve what purpose?’ interrupted Watts.
Summers didn’t have an answer.
‘Go on,’ said Watts.
‘The boy, Ricky Robinson, had twenty pounds in his pocket, which would indicate it wasn’t a robbery,’ she continued, ‘and as far as we understand, nobody knew they were there, so we don’t think it was premeditated.’
Watts sat up in his seat.
‘There is a chance that a jealous ex-lover of the girl, perhaps stumbled across them, had a row with Robinson and things turned nasty,’ interjected Kite, ‘but Mrs White, the girl’s mother, was adamant her daughter had never had a boyfriend before.’
Summers frowned at Kite’s extraordinarily useless input. She wondered if his need to speak up in front of superiors was a play for promotion or if he just wanted to remind them both that he was there. That said, credit where credit is due, he took a gamble by agreeing to join her on The Phantom case, no good detective likes an ‘unsolved’ on their cv, and there was certainly a good chance of that becoming a reality.
‘So tell me,’ said Watts, clearly directing the question to Summers, ‘why did you tell me on the phone, that you don’t believe this to be our guy, The Phantom?’
Summers took a deep breath.
‘Well, sir, first of all, there were two victims. Never has The Phantom been suspected of a double murder.’
She paused, waiting for a response, but she didn’t get one, just a blank stare from the boss.
‘Also, The Phantom always came prepared, with a weapon of choice,’ she continued, ‘but here, we are certain the weapon used on Mr Robinson was an old brick, more than likely picked up and used at the scene. These are two good clues that The Phantom was not responsible for these murders.’
Bizarrely, although Summers was convinced that she was right about this, and at least a few of the other murders being attributed to The Phantom being false, when she put her argument across to Watts, she began to have doubts. This was new to her, no doubt down to her special interest in this case, playing on her nerves a little.
‘DI Summers,’ said Watts, ‘I understand you have your reasons to doubt The Phantom is behind this, and I am also aware, that you understand the pressure the press will put us under if they believe that yet another killer is out there on the streets. Another killer, that is, that we are not able to put behind bars.’
Watts relaxed back into his seat and continued, ‘I have seen the map with the locations of the previous murders in your office, and it looks good. So tell me, the murders of young Ricky Robinson and…’ he checked the paperwork in front of him on the desk, ‘Alexia White, do you they fall into the ‘hot-spot’? For want of a better phrase.’
Summers sighed.
‘Yes, sir.’ she replied.
‘And the lack of a weapon,’ Watts continued, ‘it is possible that he wasn’t prepared for once. What if he was just out for a walk, or a run? Unfortunately for Mr Robinson, he tried showing off in front of his new girlfriend, and picked on the wrong man?’
Summers was aware of Kite gently nodding, agreeing at least on the surface with Watts, and the ‘social pressure’ led her to nod in agreement with her superior as well.
‘There are a few of the press in the media room, awaiting a statement,’ said Watts.
Summers nodded again and stood, signalled for Kite to stand and they left the room, closing the door on the way out. She spoke rather sharply and told Kite to go and take his lunch, which he did without hesitation.
She looked down the corridor towards the media room but turned and walked the other way, back past Watts’ office and into her own. She got the hip-flask and took two large gulps before putting it back.
For years she had been following the moves of The Phantom, and although Watts’ theory was plausible, it didn’t sit right with her.
She took a deep breath, went to face the press, and gave them a statement that she didn’t believe.
23
Once again, Ben lay naked with Eve on her bed, both hot and sweaty, after more outrageously filthy, unprotected sex.
It had been a while since Ben had needed to use a condom, as he was, or had been, in a serious relationship. And although he knew that it was just as much his responsibility as Eve’s, to make the sex safe for them both, he had an overwhelming feeling that it wasn’t needed. In fact, he almost felt an animal instinct, an impulse that to ejaculate inside her was his duty, this is what she wanted, and he could sense that.
He assumed that she was taking measures against pregnancy, and believed that she would have forced him to wear protection if she knew she carried a disease of a sexual nature. But even if she was carrying something, he thought to himself, chlamydia or whatever, maybe he could shag Natalie again and give it to her, like some sort of parting gift.
Fuck you very much, bitch, he thought, before questioning his himself. Was I really just thinking that? Or was it the man in the mirror, being an evil and twisted monster again?
Eve laid her head on Ben’s chest, and they began a deep conversation that would last over an hour. Ben tried to explain to Eve that she should go back to university and finish her degree. Or even if she hated that subject, to find something else that she liked and start again there. She pleaded with Ben to understand her views on the world, and that playing along with the rules set by ‘the powers that be’, was not the way to make change.
Ben asked if she wanted to be like Che Guevara?
‘A revolutionist?’ she asked.
‘No, a mass murderer, killing in the name of progression,’ he joked.
‘I don’t know, maybe,’ she said, chuckling.
He was a few years older than Eve, his life was an awful mess at that moment, and he wasn’t the most successful man in the world by any stretch of the imagination either, but he sensed that Eve needed some guidance.
He told her it was clear she cared for people, had an interest in them, and that this was obvious from the seminars and talk groups that she frequented. He advised her to maybe find a career path in something related to that, to play the game by building a career, but at the same time, doing something that gave her a sense of achievement, finding happiness and giving herself some self-worth.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘And what about you? What are you going to do about work? And more importantly, what about your girlfriend?’
Ben gently stroked Eve’s arm, as he closed his eyes and for the first time since all that had happened, gave a moment’s thought to the future, as opposed to everything he had just been through or worrying about the things he had done, or even just being lost in the moment with his lovely new friend.
Eve was a young, beautiful and strong-willed woman, but lost in a world that could chew you up and spit you out, without a second’s thought. Even so, he trusted her, more than anyone else in his life right now.