Son of a Serial Killer (13 page)

40

Tanya Reynolds sat in an interview room with Summers.

Summers would have preferred her own of
fice, as Tanya wasn't a suspect and the grim looking interview room wasn't the proper environment to help make a heavily pregnant woman who had just lost her husband to a brutal murder feel comfortable, but the walls were covered in photographs and diagrams of dead bodies, crimes scenes and possible murder weapons, which were arguably a lot less comforting than where they sat now.

Tanya had calmed down a lot from the night before, although w
as understandably not on form. She had grown withdrawn and looked pale, a million miles away from the blossoming expectant mother that she was at the same hour, the day before.

Summers gently tried to prise information from Tanya, but either Tanya was hiding something, or she really did think that David was an angel.

She claimed that David had no enemies, was too charming to offend anyone and his honesty and loyalty meant she found it completely beyond reason that someone would choose to hurt him over anything else. In her eyes David was a saint, this must have been a random attack, and her unlucky husband was the latest unfortunate victim of The Phantom, or some other lunatic that was stalking the streets.

Summers listened to the way Tanya spoke of her late husband and knew what she was witnessing was love, in its purest form.

Was love blind?

On the surface, Summers accepted what Tanya was telling her, there was absolutely nothing to gain by pushing Tanya as what she was saying was the truth, in her head anyway, and in her heart.

Summers, on the other hand, wasn't in love with David, had never even met him, alive anyway, and knew that no man was as saintly as the man portrayed by Mrs Reynolds.

Was love blind? In this case, yes, it was.

Summers mentioned the link between David and his old boss, Charles Peacock, they were both dead within hours and they used to work together. Did Tanya think there could be a link?

‘
No. No, I don't think so,’ said Tanya, confused.

Summers leant forward and softly took Tanya's hand in hers.

‘Mrs Reynolds,’ she said, ‘there is a chance, that David was involved in something that you and I don’t know about. These next few days, weeks, are going to be difficult for you. But I want you to know, that we are going to find the person that did this, and lock him up for a long time.’

Summers said they'll need to go through his phone records and emails to help with the investigation.
Tanya’s eyes began to well up again, Summers offered a tissue which she took and dabbed away the tears.

‘
To be honest,’ replied Tanya, ‘I don't like prisons. I don't think people should be locked up like animals, it's not right. There must be another way to teach people right from wrong.’

Summers squeezed Tanya's hand lightly and looked deep into her eyes. T
anya was possibly the most warm-hearted person that Summers had ever met, someone so kind and gentle, yet clearly misguided in her views of law and order. She concluded the meeting and escorted Tanya towards the exit.

‘
I'm sorry, is there a bathroom that I could use?’ she asked.

‘
Of course,’ replied Summers. ‘Follow me.’

Summers took Tanya's handbag
and placed it by her feet as she waited outside the bathroom door and answered her phone that rang in her pocket.

‘
Hello,’ she said when answering the call.

‘
Detective Summers, I've got some news regarding the evidence we collected from the crime scene of Mr Charles Peacock,’ said the voice from the other end of the phone without introducing himself, Summers concluded it was the head of forensics.

Tanya exited the bathroom, saw Summers on the phone and gently tapped her on the arm, signalling that she was going to leave.

‘One moment, please,’ she said to her colleague on the phone. ‘The exit is just through that door there. Thanks again for your time, Mrs Reynolds.’

She watched as Tanya awkwardly manoeuvred her and the baby in her tummy through the doors and out of the building.

‘So what have you got?’ asked Summers, her attention back to the phone in her hand.

‘
Sadly, all the blood we’ve tested seems to be from the victim, Mr Peacock,’ he said.

Summers had the awful feeling in her stomach that this phone call was more of the same bad news that had plagued this case from day one.

‘But,’ continued the forensic scientist, ‘the hair, I knew finding the hair was a stroke of luck, it certainly didn't look like it should have been there, and we could say a good hunch on my part if we wanted...’

‘
Yes, brilliant work,’ cut in Summers, ‘but what are you saying? You have DNA from the hair?’

‘
Yes, we do have DNA from the hair root, but no match on the database...’ he said.

No match wasn't good news, but still, for future use at trial if they ever found their guy would be very helpful indeed.

‘Also,’ he continued, ‘the hair was long, dyed red and has an XX chromosome.’

‘
A woman?’ she said, not really asking.

‘
Yes, a woman.’ he replied. ‘The preliminary results are ready and will be sent to your office shortly.’

‘
Thank you,’ she said, before hanging up the phone.

‘
A woman?’ she repeated to herself.

Surely
The Phantom wasn’t a woman! Could it be? Or if the hair did belong to the killer, who was female, could she be responsible just for the related killings of Charles Peacock and David Reynolds? This seemed more likely.

She began to head back to her office and nearly tripped on Tanya's handbag at her feet.

‘Shit,’ she said, as she picked it up and ran toward the exit.

She opened the door to see Tanya at the bottom of the steps, talking to a man, his arms wrapped around her
, comforting her. It was Ben Green.

41

Ben had bumped into Tanya as she was leaving the station and he was on his way back to his car, before picking up Natalie in town.

He
hadn’t even known Tanya was pregnant, and when asking what she was doing at the police station, he was completely shocked to discover that David had been murdered.

What the hell is going on? H
e thought.

Tanya had broken
down into tears again, and Ben gave her a much needed hug, doing his best to help an old friend through the emotional anguish she was going through. He wondered if she knew about the episode between David and Natalie, he knew that if she did, and if she mentioned it to the police, then it wouldn’t be long before they paid him another visit.

Or was this the reason he was let out last night? Did he get lucky, so to speak, w
hen somebody murdered David, drawing the suspicion away from him?

His i
nner self smiled and laughed, ‘you got what you deserved, Dave.’

Ben noticed Summers at the top of the steps that lead to the reception area of the police station. He stood back from Tanya and watched, as the detective who last night all but accused him of murder, descended the steps towards them.

‘You forgot your bag, Mrs Reynolds,’ said Summers. ‘Good morning, Mr Green, how nice to see you again.’

Tanya took her bag and smiled at Summers, then turned to Ben.

‘They’ve been asking for your help too?’ she asked, innocently.

Ben glanced at Summers before answering.

‘Yeah, they had some questions about Charlie, someone killed him as well,’ he said.

Sum
mers eyed Ben up and down, not sure exactly how this man was linked to her investigation, but sure that they’d meet again. She began to leave then stopped in her tracks. Sometimes you just needed to throw something out there, and so she asked them both a question.

‘
Do either of you know a woman with long, red hair?’ she said.

Tanya and Ben looked at each other and shook their heads.

‘No,’ they said, in unison.

Summers gave a swift smile then headed back into the station and out of sight.

Ben offered Tanya a lift home, or if she needed some company, she could spend some time with him and Natalie. But she declined, she wanted to get some fresh air, take a short walk and spend some time alone with her baby.

Ben watched as she rubbed her tummy, turned and walked away. Tanya was a wonderful woman, not the brightest as everybody who knew her knew, but she was kind, loving, honest, everything that the world needed to be, in order to be a better place.

Then Ben looked at his hands, the hands of a killer, and the hands of a man who had become a monster. Then it hit him, ‘red hair?’ his inner voice screamed at himself, ‘The fucking witch!’

Ben was back in his car and
had driven to the pre-arranged meeting point with Natalie. He could see her sitting across the road, drinking an orange juice and checking her watch. He could see the bags of shopping she had accumulated, and asked himself how he’d ended up with a superficial, lying slut such as the woman he was supposedly going to marry and raise a child with.

He realised that Natalie would have suited David better than he, and maybe
even Tanya would have been the shining light to keep Ben out of the darkness he now found himself in. But that wasn’t how things had turned out, far from it.

Ben, at this point, had realised that he hadn’t killed Charlie. It was his mother. The one who for reasons beyond comprehension was convincing Ben that being a murderer was something to be proud of, that
it was what he was born to do.

He thought about his father, too, now seeing clearly that he was an innocent man, guilty at most of not putting this mad woman into a special home when she started to lose her mind, guilty of sticking to his marriage vows.

And maybe his mother was right, maybe Ben was a killer, a monster, he certainly felt that way when he looked in the mirror and saw his reflection pulling faces that he had no control over, and when he heard voices talking, shouting, screaming, and even crying in his head. If this was true, and this was the way in which life would be from now on, things couldn’t go on.

If h
is mother was a killer, and if it wasn’t his father after all, then he still had the mad gene inside of him, this was what he was built from. He would have to end it, take his own life to protect those potentially innocent victims in the future.

But murder his mother? H
e didn’t think he could kill her, no matter how much he hated her at that instant. The ability to strike down a stranger at any random moment may be within his twisted skill set, but to plan and execute the death of the woman who brought him into this world was too much for him. He knew that at least.

And Natalie, what would happen to her and the baby after all this?

Then, he decided, something would be done.

42

Summers and Kite sat across from Watts at his desk.

Kite was updating Watts on the door to door enquiries taking place as they spoke by five teams of two uniformed officers. Each team had a list of names and addresses of the men who fit the age range of the psychologist's profile of
The Phantom living in the right area at the right time. There were nearly sixty names on each list.

The officers had been told to get through this exercise as quickly as possible, and flag up anyone who refused the DNA swabs straight away. Realistically, to get through all the names on the list could take days, what with people being at work or just out of the house, maybe even out of the country for the time being.

Watts had been told about the red hair, both by the forensics department and by Summers, and although he knew that this was potentially evidence that The Phantom had been a woman all along, he wanted to hear Summers' thoughts on the subject.

Summers knew that Watts didn't believe that it was a woma
n, if so he wouldn't have given the nod to the use of ten of his uniforms. He was testing her, working out how she was coping with the case, if she still had a direction, making sure she wasn't losing sight of her goal.

She explained that firstly, the hair didn't necessarily belong to the killer; although after
re-examining the car of the deceased, forensics had alerted Summers that another hair was found on the dashboard of the car, again, tainted with blood. Suspicious? Yes. But it hadn't confirmed anything, as of yet.

Also, a woman could have maybe overpowered a man sat down in a car, being positioned better than her victim, but all of the previous killings? Surely one of the men she had killed could have gotten the better of her. Summers didn't mention her father, but she certainly thought of him when she made that statement.

Finally, she talked of the possibility of either a copycat, or 'The Phantom' actually being two people working together.

She also explained about the interview with Ben Green, and that she felt he was the closest
they had come to a real suspect, with his strange behaviour, the fact he knew two of the deceased and that he also refused a DNA test.

Watts in
terjected, saying that the murder they'd brought him in to question him about was likely committed by a woman, and while he was in the interview room, the other murder had taken place.

‘
As I said from the start of my investigations on this case, or these cases,’ replied Summers, ‘there is more than one person out there killing people.’

Kite looked down his list and saw Ben Green's name
. He'd been left off the list given to the officers making the house calls, after his refusal of the DNA test last night, there was no point badgering him again just yet.

‘
I'd like a warrant to search Ben Green's home,’ said Summers.

Watts shook his head.

‘No, I can't give you that,’ replied Watts, ‘He had the right to refuse the DNA test, which proves nothing. He was here during one of the murders, which makes his previous friendships or working relationships with the victims less relevant. And his 'odd' behaviour could just be down to hearing a colleague had just been murdered, or the fact his wife, or girlfriend rather, had broken to him the news of her pregnancy.’

‘
He is definitely involved in this, sir,’ she retorted. ‘That man, at the very least, knows something regarding the last two murders, maybe more if we keep digging.’

‘
Then keep digging,’ said Watts. ‘Give me something solid, and I'll give you a warrant to search his home, his car, and even his bloody underwear if need be. But, bring me something.’

Summers knew that Watts
had reason behind his stance. They had already had Ben into the station for questioning and hadn't learnt anything of any use, certainly nothing that would stand up in court; 'he looked guilty' doesn't cut it these days. If Ben was behind one or more of these murders, and not leaving any evidence behind when he did so, then the best thing to do was catch him red-handed.

Walking to Kite's car, he made his point about it being a long shot, catching
The Phantom with blood on his hands after all these years, but he conceded that Green certainly looked like a guy on edge, hiding something, and any good detective should be able to see that. What he didn't like, again, like most detectives, was Summers plan of action, a stakeout.

They stopped at a garage on the way and Kite stocked up on snacks and
drinks. He had no idea how well Summers would handle the mundane task of sitting in a car and watching nothing happen for long periods of time, but he assumed the worst.

Whilst Kite was spending money on junk food and factory
made sandwiches, Summers wound down her window, took out the hip-flask of whiskey from her inside jacket pocket. She took off the lid then poured out the liquid onto the ground outside. She smiled to herself as she calmly screwed the lid back on and slipped the hip-flask back into her pocket.

It was
the first honest smile she could remember since a long time. She knew she was getting close to solving this case, or at least part of it, and she no longer needed to hide or dilute her emotions with alcohol.