The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2)

by Valerie Laws

‘No thanks,’ said PC Paul Lozinski, according to his name badge, in a tight voice. ‘We can’t take drugs on duty. I think we’ll have to have a look in this bag, Ms er.’

  She didn’t bother to object as he twitched the bag from her hands and began pulling out tiny cylinders, reading the labels. Aconite, Arsenicum, Belladonna, Opium. His eyebrows rose at the labels. ‘Poison?’ he asked, eyes narrowing. There was no proper poison warning label on the bottles. What was this woman into?

  ‘It’s OK, Officer. Those are homeopathic remedies. Not only harmless, but beneficial...’

  ‘And totally discredited. By scientists.’ Sally put in.

  Erica ploughed on. ‘And totally legal...’

  ‘Not for much longer, with any luck.’ Sally was clearly counting the days until she could lead a raid on Erica’s premises.

  ‘...and still totally legal. Which is unlikely to be the case with you searching my bag. Why, do you think he might have been poisoned?’

  ‘Oh, this stuff.’ Lozinski was holding the Bach’s Rescue Remedy. ‘My mam has this. Swears by it.’ He opened the bottle and dropped the dark liquid on his tongue from the glass dropper inside the cap.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  Sally Banner gave him a disgusted look. She must feel her colleague had let the side down, first by being sick in front of a witness and now this. He didn’t seem a bit ashamed though. Already the pallor was washing out of his rosy fresh young face, as he introduced himself formally to Erica and began to get on the case, looking at his colleague’s notes.

  ‘Ms Erica Bruce, is it? You found the erm... him?’

  ‘It’s Kingston. Robert Kingston. It’s his house.’

  ‘I see. Why exactly do you come to be here?’ It was a loaded question. Erica knew the person to find the body would automatically be a suspect.

  ‘Maybe we should do this in the car,’ said Sally. She sounded nervous. What if Erica turned out to have done it, did a runner, and made them look stupid? She could run, after all. That was how Erica and the Guv had met, running on the beach. A meet-cute over a dead puffin, according to goss. Erica suddenly swerved and stopped, and he fell over her. Erica wanted its skull. Well of course, she would. The Guv was just another scalp for her collection.

  ‘I think I need the fresh air,’ Erica said, ‘I wouldn’t want to upchuck in your nice clean car.’ She wasn’t going to miss any of the action shut in the car like a troublesome child. And she hated being cooped up.

  The thought of driving a sick-strewn car was enough to give them pause. Erica watched Lozinski look at her, sizing her up, deciding she’d be no match for them in a race or a struggle. Sally looked more sceptical.

  Lucky I came in disguise, Erica thought. The loose, silky jacket, spotted scarf knotted below the neck, mid-calf pleated skirt were a size too big for her, making her look even smaller than she was and hiding the musculature regular, some would say obsessive, sessions at the gym had developed. She’d borrowed the outfit from a librarian friend, thinking it would make her seem demure and a bit dowdy and unconfrontational when interviewing the great Mr Kingston, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon. They certainly made her seem harmless physically to the male officer, who had relaxed slightly as soon as she had seemed to share his moments of weakness by threatening their upholstery with vomit.

  ‘You seem remarkably calm.’ Lozinski still sounded dubious. Had this x-chromosome contaminated person out-toughed him? None of the other begonias seemed to have suffered.

  ‘I took some Rescue Remedy while I waited for you guys.’

  Scribbling furiously, Sally muttered something which might have been ‘Sodding placebo,’ before going to greet the first of the arriving hordes of CSI and related crime scene personnel.

  She had learned well at the feet of her master, Will Bennett, sceptic of this parish, thought Erica.

  ‘Placebo or not, it helps. I’m not denying it’s been rather a shock. I’m guessing that’s your first dead body, Paul?’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ he began assertively then realised this would make his reaction more feeble, not less. ‘I mean, I’ve seen dead alcoholics and such. Nowt like this, mind.’ He tried to take control. ‘So again, how do you come to be here?’

  ‘I’m a journalist.’ He looked at her warily, as if reassessing her harmlessness. ‘I was due to interview Robert Kingston... the dead man.’

  That’s what he was now after all; all the qualifications, publications, press photos, big earnings, all came down to those two words; dead man, like the thud of the first two spadefuls of earth on a coffin.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘You can definitely identify the, er, deceased as Kingston? You knew him?’ Sally said sharply, veering back over to them as crime scene tape began to flutter with unsuitable frivolity.

  ‘Never met him. But I’ve seen photos on his online profile and in the paper’s archives.’ It seemed wrong, and corny, to say ‘morgue’. ‘It - the body - looks like him. Aren’t you being a bit previous? ‘Deceased’ I mean?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Lozinski frowned.

  ‘Police doctor hasn’t said he’s really truly dead yet.’ The officers exchanged looks and Erica realised her flippancy, a defence against her own physical symptoms overwhelming her, was both out of place and suspicious.

  ‘Big fan of CSI, all those shows,’ she said weakly, trying too late to undo her remark.

  The truth was she was more nervous about seeing Will Bennett again, very much alive and probably kicking, than seeing the body carried out. Sally Banner had already radio’d in that they had a witness on the scene, waiting to be interviewed. Female, five foot three, late twenties, blonde, slight build, by the name of Erica Bruce.

  Another car appeared. Erica’s dismay was visible on her face, nearly hidden as it was by her windblown hair.

  ‘What’s the matter, Miss? Known to the police, are we?’ The green tinge returned to Lozinski’s face as he recalled, and regretted, taking a substance from a bottle in this lass’s bag.

  ‘You could say that.’ He’d know soon enough. Sally would catch him up. ‘I’m a reporter,’ she said again, as if this explained it, or indeed, anything and everything. The magic of the media opened doors, and shielded its servants. In theory.

  Sally snorted, looking even more sceptical than she had at Erica’s homeopathy. She went over to greet and escort the new arrival, who turned out to be the police pathologist. A spare and dry-looking man, he hurried past them into the house.

  ‘Got yourself a big story now then, haven’t you?’ said Lozinski. He closed in a little as if expecting Erica to race off to file her scoop with the national press. She was in at the death, on the scene of a gory story most reporters even in a big bad city would die for, and not only would the police be unable to politely but firmly shove her out of the action, but they would have to make strenuous efforts to keep her on the scene as an important witness.

  Erica felt a complete fool. It had never crossed her mind until that moment that she had a big story. Must be the shock.

  ‘I’m not that kind of journalist - I mean, I write features for newspapers and magazines. Health, alternative therapies, of general public interest. Controversial treatments, con artists exploiting desperate people, new findings, drugs and remedies.’

  Editing, and writing most of, the weekly ‘You and Your Health’ page on the Wydsand Evening Guardian, or contributing regularly to ‘Well Being, Body and Soul’ online was hardly ‘hold the front page’ stuff.

  Erica paused and held down the alien voluminous skirt which threatened to blow up unsuitably saucily in the brisk breeze off the nearby sea front. She wasn’t going to mention the rows she had with the Evening Guardian’s editor over her habit of introducing controversy into what was meant to be ‘a cosy women’s chat over the fence,’ as he put it.

  ‘However,’ she added, ‘of course since I’m on the spot, I will be expected to give my editor a scoop for the Evening.’

  She reached into her bag for he
r digital voice recorder. Sally and Paul Lozinski were disposed to object - it was a case of ‘we will ask the questions’. Who was in charge of this interview anyway?

  Things were getting tricky, so it was almost welcome to hear another siren approaching, wasting its sweetness on the desert air of suburban indifference. PC and DC alike leapt up as senior officers arrived amid the CSI personnel with much crackling of radios and equipment for dealing with violent death.

  Two figures were unfolding themselves from the police car. One tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed and to be avoided at all costs, none other than Detective Inspector Will Bennett, ex-lover of a certain homeopath. The other, Detective Sergeant Hassan Massum, Asian, a little older, a family man calmly and competently providing the ballast of more experience and less career ambition.

  ‘What a pair of prats! Bring it on, boys.’ Despite her brave words to herself, Erica felt the need to busy herself and her hands and find a counter-irritant to what was coming so she called the Evening’s editor, Ian Dunne. He was thrilled to hear the hot news as Erica gave the basic details and her role at the scene. It was beginning to resemble some nuclear disaster as an ambulance arrived and the babygro’d and booteed CSIs began to mill about like big babies.

  ‘Great!’ drawled Dunne. ‘Good girl!’

  Erica ground her teeth. What was she, a dog that’d just brought his slippers?

  ‘Just stay there,’ as if she had any choice, ‘and I’ll send one of the lads out. You’ll be a bit out of your depth, I expect.’ There was a pause which she knew meant another cigarette had joined its immolated mates in the blue Gitanes ashtray which was the only stylish object in his office.

  Erica now became perversely convinced that she was a news hound of the toughest kind.

  ‘Send a -? Look, I can handle it,’ she snarled. ‘I’m on it....’

  ‘He’ll be there in ten,’ choked the voice through a fit of coughing, and he hung up. Erica felt like ringing all the national papers and giving them the story just to show him and his local bloody rag that was only fit for wrapping chips.... but that opportunity was lost. Will Bennett, she’d seen via crafty glances, had gone into the house, while Hassan exchanged words with uniformed colleagues. She saw him glance her way with a look both of recognition and confusion about the correct protocol in the circumstances, before giving a sort of nod and heading into the house as Will emerged.

  Detective Inspector Will Bennett came and stood over her, his annoyingly too-blue eyes cold, his thin, dark clever face tense about the mouth. Couldn’t blame him. Big murder case, something serious going down, and to top it all, herself.

  ‘Ms Erica Bruce?’

  ‘Oh, please. You know damn fine it is. And stop looming, I’m not impressed. Perhaps you should investigate how name-blindness is running rampant through your lot. Your henchwoman Sally Banner gave me the same treatment just before.’

  He went down on his hunkers beside her, his thighs bulging, muscular as ever. Bloody gym addict... Erica couldn’t resist looking, hating herself for it. ‘I see you still eschew the traditional doughnuts.’

  ‘You found the body, I believe,’ he informed rather than asked her, his voice full of cold authority. ‘It must have been a severe shock.’ He gave a pointed glance at the newly decorated begonias.

  ‘That wasn’t me, and I resent your assumption that it was.’

  ‘Ah, resenting assumptions. Almost a habit, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘We all have habits, Inspector. Most of mine are rather more commonplace as you may recall. And one of yours is taking control. I see you’re still doing it.’

  ‘I’m the senior officer here Eri – Ms Bruce. We’ll have to take a statement from you, of course, if you can come with us now? I’ll get someone to get you a cup of tea when we get to the station. And we can arrange for counselling for you too.’

  Damn him, that was a deliberate insult. He knew how she’d feel about that.

  Doctors make terrible patients, it is said. Similarly, this therapist hated to be offered therapy. ‘Tea! Ooh, I’m so there! Let me guess, Rich Tea biscuits. An abomination in biscuit form and a perverse waste of calories.’

  Ignoring her rant, Bennett asked for her shoes which would have to be checked for forensic evidence since she had been in the murder room. He put out a hand as if to remove them for her, then seemed to become aware that he was kneeling at her feet. Too menial, or too intimate? Erica felt a wave of heat, as if he was radioactive, and to hide it she blurted out, ‘While you’re down there, Inspector...’

  Will flushed, recoiled so that he almost fell over backwards, shot to his feet and called Sally over to harvest the shoes. He strode off to examine the scene, as Sally moved in front of Erica as if to screen her from the view of the stretcher and its contents being wheeled out. Territorial, rather than kind. Before being driven to the police station, Erica had the satisfaction of seeing her editor’s ace reporter Gary Thomas arrive, to be kept firmly on the wrong side of the tape by the officers. Hassan, passing Will, saw his face flushed with anger, but just as he passed out of sight, saw his mouth twitch, as if with suppressed laughter.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘Why interview Mr Kingston?’ asked DS Massum. ‘I mean, as opposed to all the other doctors?’

  Erica was in the airless utilitarian grimness of an interview room with Will and Hassan, who had greeted her somewhat formally, unlike the laid-back warmth she remembered. With WDC Sally Banner treating her with Antarctic frostiness, clearly Erica’s name was still mud at the cop shop.

  ‘Why him? In all the hip joints in all the world? Well, Kingston had been in the papers recently. He’s always been well known locally, he often goes for record breaking or headline grabbing surgery – the oldest, the youngest, the most, knee or hip replacements. In the last decade or so he’s been concentrating on lower leg injuries, which can be the hardest to fix. He’s been saving, or trying to save, legs which would often be amputated even nowadays. Motorcycle accidents, compound fractures, bits of leg bone missing, the works. He’s on record as saying every leg deserves every effort to save it, however long it takes. A young motorcycle racer recently finished treatment with Kingston. Harry the Hawk he calls himself, he’s broken just about every bone he has at some time or other. He gives Kingston credit for saving his leg and giving it back to him at full length after, I think it was nearly three years of treatment. Muscle and bone grafts, external fixators, all that. He was on TV, Harry that is, kick-starting his return to competitive riding, and brought Kingston on with him. My editor wanted me to interview Kingston, get some of what he calls ‘proper doctoring instead of mumbo jumbo’ into the paper, as he’s a ‘local hero.’’

  Erica’s quote marks were clearly audible, though she’d managed, she thought, to keep her voice reasonably neutral when talking about Kingston. All the sitting around was really getting to her now. She’d missed not only her usual mile swim but also her normal step class that morning, and was starting to get twitchy as a smoker for a fag.

  Will Bennett also moved restlessly in his chair opposite her, similarly feeling caged when not in action. ‘Sounds like a bit of a saint.’

  ‘Yeah, if saints earned big bucks and massive kudos when they were still alive. Besides, I don’t know if Harry can walk round the block, just that he can ride a motorbike.’

  ‘Just the type of medical practitioner you admire, right?’

  Young Paul Lozinski, sitting in, looked puzzled at this and Hassan Massum rolled his eyes to heaven. Here we go, Erica and Will, seconds out, yadda yadda, as his kids would say.

  Erica swirled the dregs of her machine-made tea around and drained them in the hope of dislodging the Rich Tea sludge from her teeth. Clearly she must be suffering from shock, or she would not have let herself take in such joyless, gratuitous calories. She would have to do extra exercise to expunge them and she hadn’t even enjoyed them. She wasn’t going to have the alternative versus conventional medicine argument with Will again, not here, not now. B
ut she couldn’t resist making a point.

  ‘Technology or not, he still depends- depended on the human body to heal itself when you get down to it. Some of these doctors do think they’re Jesus Christ. Specially surgeons.’

  An image flashed into her head, of Kingston’s hands, his skilful surgeon’s hands, curled around the spikes that nailed them down. ‘Are you thinking of the way he ended up, crucified? Think there might be a religious connection? ‘

  ‘Impossible to say at this stage, we will be making our own connections on the basis of the evidence at the scene. We are speaking to you purely as a witness,’ Will intoned carefully, a spark of anger flaring in those eyes. She’d overstepped her role, but while he put her in her place, he’d do well to remember her current reporter status, humble as it was. The police needed the media’s help with cases like this and local press was often more helpful than national.

  ‘Got something personal against him?’ he added.

  ‘I never met him, alive I mean,’ she stated calmly, looking him in the eye. ‘I believe there’s a wife somewhere, have you found her yet? Tessa, I think...I think they are divorced...’

  ‘Leave all that to us, we will trace next of kin and so on. We know what we’re doing. And,’ he went onto the attack, ‘I must say you don’t seem very upset, finding a body – I mean, in that state.’

  ‘Oh, you prefer women to scream and faint, I forgot. I don’t happen to find dead people that upsetting, as you may recall. It’s suffering that upsets me, and I assume most of Kingston’s injuries took place either after death or while he was unconscious.’

  ‘Oh really? And why would you assume that?’ Hassan jumped in, glad to interrupt the tension between Will and Erica.

  ‘Is there an alternative forensic pathology course running at your Fuzzy Logic Outreach Centre?’ asked Will.

  ‘Ivy Lodge Alternative Health Centre, as you well know. I didn’t see any ropes or marks of them on his wrists. Nobody would lie there and let someone do that to them without restraint, unless they were dead or unconscious. Not even at gunpoint, unless there were two assailants of course, one with a gun, one to get close and personal with the nails. That logic fuzzy enough for you? Also there wasn’t much blood from the wounds...’