Benny

Benny is presented through another man’s account as the driving force behind a kidnapping that escalated into the killing of the Tenor parents. His role joins an apparently calculated plan to an abrupt collapse into violence; the details reach the reader as the stranger’s confession to Hades, not through an independent account of Benny’s thoughts or actions.

Identity and Introduction

The stranger identifies Benny as the person whose idea the operation was. He says Benny had become obsessed with a newspaper story about Tenor, a scientist who had received a large sum for work concerning skin cancer or sunburn. Benny kept bringing the group newspaper clippings and showed them a photograph of Tenor, his wife, and their two children. The account establishes Benny’s fixation on the family’s wealth and makes him the planner, rather than merely one of the people who took part in the raid.

The Kidnapping Plan

The group, six people in all, drove to the Tenor family’s holiday home in Long Jetty after learning that the family would be there alone. As the stranger describes the scheme, they intended to take the children temporarily and arrange an exchange. He claims they did not plan to harm them and says he had even borrowed games for the children. These details frame the operation as a kidnapping conceived as a short, manageable crime, while the decision to target the family rested on Benny’s belief that its wealth made it a lucrative opportunity.

Violence and the Plan’s Collapse

The stranger says the plan changed when Benny thought Tenor was looking at him as if he might do something dangerous. While the stranger was not paying attention, the woman was distressed and the children were struggling; Benny then shot both parents. The stranger characterizes Benny as quick to reach for violence and ready for a fight. His explanation places the killings at the point where the group’s attempt to control the situation gave way to panic and force, though the reader receives this account only from a participant speaking to Hades.

Aftermath and Narrative Role

With the parents dead, the group was on the road with the children in the car boot and, according to the stranger, no one to whom they could sell them. The group began discussing how to get rid of the children, until someone suggested that they knew Hades. Benny’s later whereabouts and fate are not established in this account. Instead, his importance lies in the contrast between the supposedly temporary abduction he organized and the deadly consequences of his actions when the operation went wrong.