Jams Roses - Son of a Serial Killer

Ben sat in the interview room on his own, sweat poured down his face as he talked to himself. He could clearly hear the voice of his alter ego, calmly telling him that there was nothing to worry about, for once being the voice of reason.

Ben was certain he hadn’t killed Charlie, he knew he was going mad but that isn’t something you could just choose to forget. Somebody else had done it, it was just a coincidence.

However, he did know that just the day before he had committed a double murder, and although he’d had a couple of ideas about how to resolve this problem, being in a police station and getting grilled by detectives until he could potentially break down and confess his sins wasn’t one of them. He’d preferred to think about fleeing the country before he was found out, or even ending it all, certainly a lifetime in prison wasn’t an acceptable option.

He’d declined the offer of a DNA test, ‘to help rule him out of their enquiries,’ as was his right.

Summers and Kite looked at Ben through a one-way mirror. This is our guy, they thought, watching the man gently sob before them.

They entered the room, sat opposite Ben and formally introduced themselves. A uniformed officer stood by the door and remained silent. Kite slid a box of tissues over the table to Ben, who took one out and dabbed dry his face.

‘Leave this to me,’ said the voice in his head. ‘Trust in me, Ben’.

Kite did the talking, Summers was happy to observe and learn as much from Ben from his mannerisms, his body language and thoughtful eyes before answering any of their questions.

Ben had let himself go into an almost trance-like state, moving all consciousness aside and letting his evil-self take centre stage, effortlessly fending off any accusations or insinuations that came from Kite.

Ben felt as if he was regaining control when he sensed the frustration in Kite’s voice. He admitted he didn’t like Charlie, that Charlie had been rude and sacked him with no diplomacy, had even mocked Ben about the death of his father. None of this mattered, even if it was all true; just as it was true, in Ben’s mind, that he hadn’t killed Charlie.

There was no need to panic, Ben realised this now.

But was he wrong? Kite made a pretty good case as to why Ben could be the killer.

‘You’ve had some mental problems we believe, since the death of your father, are you still taking your medication?’ he asked.

‘No,’ replied Ben, as a matter of fact.

‘And you know, without an alibi, and with a motive, such as Charlie’s behaviour towards you; letting you go from CEM, and the crude talk about your father, some would say that you are in an awkward position,’ said Kite.

‘It wasn’t me,’ stated Ben.

‘Some might even say that you had the right to be angry at Charles, or Charlie, as you call him. He’d let you down, hadn’t he?’

Ben leaned in and put his elbows on the table, shaking his head, more relaxed than ever knowing that the detective was chasing shadows.

‘It wasn’t me,’ he said.

‘Mr Green,’ said Summers, the first words she had spoken to the man she now suspected was her father’s murderer, ‘can you tell me where you were yesterday morning?’

Ben’s face went pale.

‘I’m… I’m sorry,’ stumbling on his words, ‘I thought we were here to talk about Charlie.’

‘Are you the killer known as The Phantom?’ she asked.

‘No, I am not,’ he replied, sharply, as he leaned back in his seat, head down and clasping his sweaty hands together.

Summers and Kite glanced towards each other. They had noticed an obvious reaction to her questions, but this gave them more questions than answers.

‘Snap out of it!’ screamed the voice in Ben’s head.

The door to the interview room opened and a uniformed officer called Summers outside for a word. Kite examined Ben as he sat there in silence, until Summers poked her head around the door and called Kite out to join her.

Ben rubbed his temples and talked over the situation with his inner self.

‘They have no evidence, or we’d have been arrested. The real killer did this, we just got too close. So The Phantom wasn’t my father? Or was it us? Did we kill Charlie? Have we gone so far, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore?’

Ben jumped as the door reopened and the female detective walked back into the room.

‘You’re free to go,’ said Summers, as she dropped her contact card onto the table in front of Ben. ‘But don’t go too far. I think we’ll need to talk again at some point.’

Ben pocketed the card and left the room, then left the station and took in a deep breath of fresh air as soon as he got outside. That was too close. No matter what his mother had tried to convince him, this was not the life for Ben Green.

Summers and Kite had grabbed their jackets and were heading back to the car. There had been another murder, bearing all the hallmarks of The Phantom.

David had walked out of his house and into the darkness, wearing his jogging gear and carrying a black bin-liner full of household rubbish. He had told Tanya he was going for a run, to clear his head after seeing on the news about his friend Charlie being murdered. In fact, he was only jogging to the end of the road, where he would meet Natalie for blackmailed sex, then force her to explain what she was up to, or he’d threaten again to ruin her chances of keeping Ben.

That was his plan anyway. He should have known better.

David had known that Natalie was a tough cookie, willing to stop at nothing to get what she wanted. She had no shame and no morals. This made her dangerous, and he underestimated how dangerous.

David opened the lid of the garbage bin at the end of the driveway, dropped in the bag of rubbish then let the lid drop back down. He then turned and faced the direction where Natalie said she would be waiting, but suddenly heard a noise from behind the bin.

Before he had the chance to react, an arm had smothered his face from behind, and a knife dug into his neck, and then dragged along until his Adam’s apple had been split in two and blood flowed effortlessly from the slit.

Air squeezed through the hole in his neck as he tried to scream, tried to yell for help, ‘Tanya,’ but only a gasping and gurgling could be heard. He collapsed to his knees then was pushed to the ground and fell with a twist. He was facing up, and made a feeble attempt of covering his open wound with his already limp hands.

Natalie had read and heard enough about The Phantom killer to know that the number of stab wounds could range from ten anywhere up to fifty. Being a keen student of detail, she went to work on her victim.

David, for the last few moments of his life, stared into the eyes an angry prostitute, the woman he lusted over for so long, as she stabbed away at his chest and face, piercing his heart numerous times.

Back at home, Natalie had put her clothes in a metal bin and set them alight in the garden, before showering and scrubbing herself from head to toe, with such ferocity she almost lost blood herself.

She had never thought of killing a person in her life. She wasn’t raised like that.

Natalie was an only child, who had always been given what she wanted when growing up. But her parents had her when they were getting old, and by the time she’d left school, her father had retired due to illness, and her mother stayed at home to look after him. The money had dried up, and she didn’t do well enough at school to get a good job, not good enough to afford her the luxuries that she believed she deserved, so she took matters into her own hands.

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.