‘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.