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.
‘Finished with the police, all ok. Am staying at Mum’s as she has had another turn. Sweet dreams, you two x.’
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.
Ben gulped, closed his eyes and prepared to say the words he didn’t want to cross his lips.
‘You know I like you, Eve. It’s been about a day that I’ve known you and I think I may even love you,’ he said.
She smiled.
‘But, I met you at the wrong time in my life,’ he continued. ‘I wish we’d met a couple of months ago, even just a week ago.’
‘Ben, we discussed this,’ she said. ‘We can get through your problems, and my problems, we’ll take on the world together.’
‘I’m going to help you get your life on track,’ he said. ‘I want you to go back to university, or at least find the thing that you are most passionate about, and don’t let go of it.’
‘That’s you,’ she said. ‘It’s you I’ve been waiting for.’
Ben stood and walked to the door, he held the handle.
‘You won’t see me again,’ he said, sadly. ‘I can’t explain why right now, but I wish you all the luck in the world, my darling.’
‘What?’ she yelled.
Eve marched over to Ben and they stood face to face.
‘You’re really gonna give this up? After one day?’ she screamed. ‘You can’t see how special this is? How special you are to me? How good I could be for you?’
Tears welled up in Ben’s eyes.
‘Then fuck you!’ said Eve, as she swung her knee forward and caught Ben in his groin area, sending him crouching down in agony.
‘You hurt me,’ he wailed.
‘You met me in anger management, Ben,’ she said sharply, just millimetres from his ear, before opening the door and shoving him out.
Eve slammed the door shut and threw herself onto the bed, tears flowing freely, as Ben staggered onto the street outside, the pain in his groin slowly subsiding.
He was a long walk from his mother’s house, but they needed to talk, so he began the journey.
37
Neighbours had gathered around the cordoned off driveway, bright police lights had attracted them like moths to a candle.
Summers examined the body whilst Kite was inside the house, along with a female officer, trying to calm down the distraught Tanya.
There were two explanations that rattled around Summers’ head.
Firstly, The Phantom had killed David Reynolds, using his typical methods and disappearing into nothingness, as he always did, and as per usual, leaving no trace of his ever being there, except the mutilated body leaking blood everywhere. The problem with this theory, was that the frequency of The Phantoms killing had shot up from around two a year to two a day. Certainly not an improvement to the situation, although, the more murders committed at a higher pace could, in theory, lead to a mistake being made on The Phantoms part. That was the only silver lining she could think of.
Secondly, there was more than one killer. Was there a copycat? Or maybe The Phantom was in cahoots with someone else? Maybe it was The Phantoms they should be looking for.
The corpse that lay in front of her certainly looked like a victim to The Phantom to the untrained eye. It wasn’t a robbery, as David still wore an expensive watch that he must’ve forgotten to take off before his run. It was also unlikely to be an argument, as none of the neighbours so eager to be involved by attending the crime scene had heard or seen a commotion of any sort, not this evening or any evening involving David or Tanya in the time they had lived there.
But, his throat was sliced, this was new. And although The Phantom did sometimes stray from his preferred methods of killing, using a screwdriver instead of a knife for example, this didn’t sit right with the detective. But then, if it was an accomplice and not a copycat, this wouldn’t have happened either.
So could it be a copycat? What were the chances?
The murders had been on the television and in the newspapers, on and off, for years now. Obviously the last couple of days this had turned into full blown coverage again, and it was hard to not know all about The Phantom and his unfortunate victims. If somebody felt the urge to murder, would using the techniques that they had likely read or heard about in the last couple of days be the preferred method? It had worked wonders for The Phantom, after all.
Summers concluded that if it was a copycat killer, there was a good chance that the forensic team would find evidence of some sort, as not everybody could be as careful as The Phantom, not in the heat of battle, when the blood is pumping or the mind is racing and a major crime is being carried out.
Kite walked out of the house and informed his boss that neither he nor the female officer could get much out of Mrs Reynolds for the time being. They had agreed that Tanya be escorted to a cousin’s house on the edge of the city then collected in the morning and brought to the station for a formal interview.
Kite added that the heavily pregnant and hysterically upset Tanya, in his opinion, could not and would not have been responsible for the death of her husband. Summers took his word for it, for now, although she would make her own mind up tomorrow at the station.
Finally forensics arrived.
The first thing they did was erect a large, white tent and try to stop the area being contaminated any further than it already had been, also so they could get on peacefully with their work without being hounded by the public or the press who were bound to arrive shortly.