The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2)

by Valerie Laws

  She didn’t know it, but the situation was soon to become even more complex.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Stacey had insisted on a pizza before they set off.

  Erica objected. ‘It’s a strain on the heart to run straight after eating.’

  ‘It’s a strain on the fkn belly not to eat man. Aa’m not dragging meself doon a damp muddy track heaving with morderers and rapists, and even dog crap, without some decent scran inside iz. A nice big four cheese pizza will set iz up nicely. And Aa’m entitled to me expenses. Yer gettin off light man.’

  Stacey now dripped molten cheese into her scarlet mouth from a height with something like ecstasy. ‘And Aa’m not runnin.’

  ‘Maybe you have a point. Captain Jack always insists the men have their dinner before going into action. In O’Brian’s novels. Napoleonic wars. Salt pork and plum duff. Maggoty biscuits.’ Erica nibbled some of her extra thin pizza crust, and picked off the roasted veg and goat’s cheese from the top.

  ‘Eewww! Bet they’d have fought better on four cheese pizzas.’

  It was properly dark by the time they set off for the affluent street along the golf course, joining Erica’s regular jogging route just at the start of the path past the crematorium where the graveyard ran alongside the golf course. It seemed odd to be using a taxi to go jogging, and Stacey’s help was proving expensive, but they were both very merry, considering Erica had had nothing stronger than sparkling water and Stacey only a treble vodka and Red Bull. ‘Fitness drink, innit?’

  Erica had her mobile, some emergency remedies, an attack alarm, and a perfume spray. Someone had given it to her for Christmas, someone who didn’t know her very well. She’d never found a perfume yet which didn’t smell like artificial chemicals and alcohol, and not in a good way. The smells which make life pleasurable are the sea, creosote fences, gorse flowers, hot bread, fresh ground coffee, new paper, books, vanilla, cloves, and of course the way people smell, all different and all interesting, if not always pleasant. But sprayed in an assailant’s eyes the scent might be of some use. They both had torches too, in an attempt to avoid standing on anything left by the neighbourhood dogs.

  There was a thin yellow smile of moon and a haze of smoky mist in the air. The few stars that showed were turned down to minimum, with the muted glitter of lead.

  They set off along the golf course boundary track with the high fences of Kingston’s neighbours on their left, the dark hedges fringing the green sweeps of the course on their right. They were ‘jogging’ very slowly, Stacey complaining all the way, and Erica fizzing with impatience.

  Enough light spilled out of the houses’ upstairs windows to help them see their way though they couldn’t see their feet. As they got nearer to the drinking den and Kingston’s house, they could see a ghostly glow ahead. The track finished there and turned sharply down the snicket alongside his house and onto the street. The source of the glow was an old lamp-post with a battered, archaic look. A bit like Narnia.

  They were almost in its pool of light, Erica jogging ahead, Stacey walking behind as the trodden part of the track there was rather narrow, and brambles and hawthorns kept catching at them, trying to trip them up. Their torch beams swayed in front, illuminating strolling slugs, damp fallen leaves, unidentifiable dark patches. Erica, unable to resist looking at wildlife, spotted something moving on the ground, to the side of the track, and bent to have a look. Just as she registered the bright pin-small eyes and questing nose of a small hedgehog, there was a loud thock! and something smacked into her left arm. She staggered, then stood, disorientated. For a few seconds, she was only aware of the impact, then a deep burning pain seemed to drill into her bicep.

  ‘Fuck, fuck it, what the fuck.’

  ‘Erica?’ Stacey caught up. ‘What the buggery was that?’

  She shone her torch around and it picked out something fluorescent yellow. A golf ball. She picked it up.

  ‘Look at this! Some posh bastard on the fkn golf course...at this time of neet! It could’ve hit yer head! Hey, it could’ve hit me!’

  Stacey shouted into the grassy blackness over the fence, where the serene greens and fairways lay quiet. ‘Wanker! Aa’ll fkn morder ye, ye bastard, come on, man, bring it! Haway, if ye’ve got the balls!’

  Nobody was willing to ‘bring it’. ‘Here’s yer fkn ball back then, ye twat!’ Stacey hurled the golf ball as far as she could into the dark.

  ‘Oh shit, Stacey. That was evidence. We’ll never find it now. There’ll be golf balls all over the place. Can you shine the torch on my backpack, while I get the Arnica out?’

  Erica put two tablets of Arnica under her tongue to dissolve, after shaking out two tiny tablets into the lid to avoid touching them with her hands. Not just hygiene, but remedies aren’t supposed to be touched by fingers. A few doses would reduce the bruising a lot, but there wouldn’t be any miraculous cure from a blow like that. Just helping the body to help itself.

  ‘I need to get some witch hazel on this...’ she rubbed the place where the muscle burned. ‘At least it wasn’t my head.’

  ‘Coulda been. If ye hadn’t bent doon just then... Aa’ve a good mind to go up to that Golf Club and play war....’

  The mental picture of Stacey invading those hallowed portals did a lot to get Erica over her initial shock. ‘I don’t suppose they’d let you in... you’re not wearing a tie, or a penis.’ Erica was flashing her torch about at roughly shoulder and head height.

  ‘What ye looking for? Aa need a drink.’ Stacey lit a Lambert, bored. Her fag end glowed like a firefly.

  ‘This hurts like hell, but it could have been a lot worse. I’m wondering if the ball ricocheted off something before it hit me. If it came directly from the course, it would have hit me on the right arm....and it wouldn’t have made that loud noise. It could’ve hit the fence and then my left arm... unless it came from further over this side, like one of the back gardens or the bushes behind them...’

  ‘Who cares, neebody’s dead.’ Ever the philosopher.

  Erica found a dent in one of the planks in the garden fence which looked fresh, a few gleams of newly exposed wood showing in the torch beam. She tried to photograph it with her phone, doubting it would come out.

  ‘Anyway, golf baals’ll be hitting the fence aal day lang,’ Stacey pointed out. ‘Nee way yer can prove that was the one what got ye.’

  ‘Very good point, intern mine, it might’ve been easier if you’d not got rid of our evidence.’

  ‘Soz.’ For once Stacey was contrite. ‘Aa could’ve been on TV if Aa’d kept it. Even Crimewatch is better than nowt.’

  They moved on into the light pool. Erica showed Stacey the pile of stones where the murderer had got the weapon to bash Kingston. It seemed like a long time ago, and already the depression looked less marked, growth had started as nature erased the rock’s absence. Blades of grass were starting to stand up and turn green.

  They shone their torches along a bit, where the drinking den had been. Now the trodden area was decorated again by the traditional loitering youths detritus – empty fag packet, crushed beer cans, and a couple of miniatures of voddie.

  Looking at these, Stacey was moved to a sigh of nostalgia. ‘Eee, worrit’s like to be young!’

  Erica bent and stirred the little heap of refuse, her left arm hanging useless. It felt numb, but fizzyy electric shocks were running up and down it.

  ‘This crap’s been dumped here recently. What’s this?’ A glint under the debris.

  She moved the miniature bottles and uncovered a syringe. ‘Looks like vodka’s not exciting enough for someone.’

  ‘Eeewww! Don’t touch it man Erica! It’ll be heavin with Hep C and shit.’

  ‘Do you think it could have come from Kingston’s house? Nicked while he was being offed?’

  ‘Fk knows. Aa think we should tell the bizzies about it. And yer arm and all.’ The police often leaked stuff to the tabloids...

  ‘I might take the syringe in, just in case, but
I doubt it’s important. What happened to me was an accident, I hope. If not, it’s hard to prove otherwise. ‘

  She could just see Will’s sardonic features when she told him she’d been whacked by a golf ball. Yeah, right. Like she was going to act the helpless female. He’d like that way too much.

  ‘Wanna go to A and E?’ They had to raise their profiles somehow or they’d get sidelined out of it. Sod Erica and her weird hang-ups about Willy Bennett!

  ‘No thanks. I’ll treat it myself. I don’t think anything’s broken. I just hope the bruising and stiffness won’t be too bad. What if I can’t swim, or do my gym class?’ A feeling of panic rose at the thought.

  They turned back, Erica sucking Arnica tablets.

  A door in the high wooden fence opened suddenly and a woman looked out at them. She was wearing a thick fleece, more sensibly dowdy than sporty, over a flowered dress and slippers. The house was about two or so away from Kingston’s; as far as Erica could tell, next door to where the man in the golf jumper had spoken to her last time.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ The neighbour came further out, seeing that they were women. She held a black and white cat in her arms. ‘I came out to the garden to call Siggy, and heard a bang, like something hitting the fence. I listened for a bit, and all I could hear was women’s voices, so I thought it might be safe to look out.’

  ‘My arm got hit by a golf ball. Some idiot forgot to shout ‘fore’, and couldn’t even keep the ball on the course. What kind of person practices his shots in the dark?’

  ‘Nobody plays golf at night, dear. It would be those young thugs,’ said the woman positively. ‘We’ve had plants broken, greenhouses damaged, streetlamps vandalised at night.’

  ‘Mr Kingston as well?’

  ‘Oh yes, specially him, and Mr Archer. Because we’re at the end of the track where they hang out. In fact it’s a lot worse now than it’s ever been. It used to be more day times, the odd golfer off their game, but those damned hoodies! They do it on purpose. They find the balls golfers have lost on the course and let fly. Bloody vandals, pardon my French.’

  ‘Surely they won’t still hang about here straight after the murder, with the police about.’ Erica’s arm was throbbing but she wanted to continue the contact. Stacey had sloped off into the darkness to smoke. No point talking to some posh wifey.

  ‘Well it’s a more exciting place now, isn’t it? Way cool, as they’d call it! And as for the police! It took a murder to get them here, all the times we’ve called about the vandalism, did they take a blind bit of notice? And anyway the police aren’t patrolling here any more. We believe they’re on drugs. ‘

  Presumably she meant the youths rather than the police.

  ‘Horrible squalid litter they leave behind. Underage drinking! Smoking. Something should be done about it.’

  They left the neighbour to her indignation and Siggy’s supper and got a taxi back to Erica’s. Stacey watched as Erica put cotton wool soaked in witch hazel on the big red mark made by the golf ball.

  ‘I’ll keep topping this up.’

  ‘Ice, man woman, ice!’

  ‘Yeah yeah. You go home, I’ll be alright.’

  Erica had trouble sleeping that night. Her arm throbbed, and her mind raced. She was reluctant to believe that someone would deliberately aim a golf ball at her. Surely it must have been a random throw or hit which just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She couldn’t help thinking, though, if she had not stooped to look at the hedgehog, it might have been her head that took the full force. The loud ‘thok’ as the ball hit some part of a fence or tree trunk could have been the sound of her skull splintering.

  But would a few youths do such a thing? They were more likely to go in for some low-level intimidation, threatening remarks and body language, or just keep out of sight and enjoy their contraband booze. Was it likely they’d had anything to do with Kingston’s murder? But he was a doctor. And doctors with private practices might have drugs at their houses. If it was a burglary gone wrong, Kingston having a go in true alpha male style, a hoodie or hoodies high on ket and e’s might respond with such bizarre savagery. But would they return to the scene of the crime, and leave more evidence behind, if so? Surely the police would test the previous lot of rubbish for DNA

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The next day, her arm was stiff and painful, and there was a dense dark bruise despite her efforts with arnica, ice and witch hazel. She had a long hot shower before Weetabix, soya milk and hot grape juice. What to do about the syringe? She’d picked it up in a plastic bag she found under the hedge and it still lay, wrapped up, in her bag. Tonight was her dinner date with Jamie, the cute young doctor. Maybe she should show him her bruise.

  She decided to take the syringe into the police station at lunch time. It might be evidence of a kind. She tried not to admit to herself she felt a strong urge to keep poking the bear, a certain blue-eyed bear, with a stick. Before work, she needed to swim, all the more so as she was desperate to know if she still could, and how much her injury would cramp her style. And as for her style tonight...

  Swimming was painful. Each time her arm left the water it burned, but she pressed on. She kept thinking, I’ll just do half a mile, then I’ll stop. Then, I might as well press on to forty lengths. That’s two thirds. Ish. Then fifty. Then, it might as well be a mile now. Doing her hair was difficult too. But she felt better ‘in herself’ as the local saying was. The idea of not being able to exercise was scary. Especially today. She wanted to enjoy dining out, and it was hard to do that if she hadn’t earned the calories up front.

  As it turned out, she more than earned any future calories during a very packed day. She arrived at the police station and asked for Inspector Bennett. She was asked to wait.

  If there’s anything that Erica hated, it was being forced to hang about at someone else’s pleasure, wasting precious time in a state of inaction. She went over to a bench seat and sat down on the edge of it, fidgeting, unable to keep still. She hated hierarchies and everything they imply. This place with its uniforms and badges brought back unwanted memories.

  Then Tessa and a woman, presumably Tara, walked through. They’d been called in for another interview with Will and Hassan, and Tara had suggested she and Tessa, who was becoming distressed, have a break to get some coffee and consult. Tessa fell upon Erica with glad cries, and introduced them. Tara was like Tessa pared down and hardened. She wore a dark blue suit and high heeled court shoes, and her blonde hair was severely cut and bobbed into sleek head-hugging place. She had an attractive face with good cheekbones, and small pearl earrings in her lobes. She smelled of Pears Soap. It was a pleasant note in the mix of disinfectant, tobacco smoke drifting in from outside, and cheap coffee that filled the air.

  She invited Erica to join them in the most charming manner. She was clearly keen to get Erica onside, and was pleased to find out that Erica had brought the syringe. As she said, anything which kept the field of suspects as wide as possible could only be good for her client/sister, if only to create reasonable doubt, should things get as far as a trial.

  ‘I know Tessa feels she owes you a lot.’ Tara took a precise sip from her police canteen coffee, and made a face of disgust. ‘We could do with any help you can give us.’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ll back Tessa, and what’s more, I’ve no intention of stopping my own investigations. Despite what happened last night.’

  She showed Tara her golf ball injury, feeling rather foolish, but Tara took photographs, and made copious notes. ‘This may have been a deliberate assault on you, rather than random mischief. It could suggest the real killer is out there, watching the scene, and feels threatened by you. I’d only anticipated your backing up Tessa’s account of Kingston’s physical and psychological abuse, however. It’s not normally the thing for unlicensed people to undertake their own investigations.’

  ‘The thing is Tara, people talk to me. I’m used to it, as a homeopath, our whole job is talking to
people to find out what they’re like. Or more to the point, we listen to them talk. About all sorts of aspects of their lives. Plus, I’m a journalist, or sort of. I’ve got reasons to ask questions. I know people don’t much trust journalists with all the phone hacking scandals and such, but they don’t feel that way about the local paper. Well maybe not so much. I can find out whether Kingston made enemies elsewhere. I can suggest other avenues of enquiry to the police. I want to help!’

  ‘That’s great, Erica. The police are getting more focused on Tessa...’

  Tessa had been holding her machine hot chocolate in both hands, gazing into the sweet depths as if looking for her reflection, but she looked up at this.

  ‘I’m so stressed, Erica, I don’t know what to do! Thank god for Tara, and you.’ She looked terrified, gazing at each of her champions in turn with truly touching faith.

  ‘I’ve been getting Tessa to hold back on Kingston’s abuse of her, as it makes her motive stronger. But now I think we need to introduce it. Just in case.’ Her cool light blue eyes bored into Erica’s and she read the message in them without difficulty. If Tessa was charged, being an abused wife would be her defence, and mitigation if the worst came to the worst.

  ‘At the moment it’s just her word that it ever happened.’

  ‘Nobody’ll believe me!’ Tessa sobbed a little as she spoke but kept herself under more control than usual. Tara seemed to be a good role model. ‘They’ll say I should have done something, said something, sooner. I could kick myself now, I went along with his falling downstairs story. But at the time I was so shocked.’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up, you’ve had enough of that treatment from him.’ Erica patted her arm.

  ‘You had no proof, and they’d not have believed you Tessy. So let’s deal with the situation we’re in now shall we?’ Tara’s tone was both fond and a tad exasperated, as if this was her habitual feeling in dealing with her younger sister.