The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2)

by Valerie Laws

  Erica’s amateur research had shown that there were others who had hated Kingston. Where did that leave her? She didn’t want to defend Tessa by putting other individuals in the frame. How could she throw suspicion on Laura Gibson, who had confided in her, who had suffered? On Jamie, whom she’d slept with? And each of them could represent a host of similar colleagues and patients who felt the same way about Kingston. She could keep trying those areas, but more and more suspects might emerge. Without actual evidence, the motive alone would not be enough to get her any further.

  Will was wondering about Erica. She’d been in the hospital overnight? Or was she just yanking his chain? He’d not liked to ask why. And yet sitting there, she had that look, the one he remembered so well, kind of soft-eyed and dishevelled and not quite all there, the look she usually had after a night of hot sex. He remembered what she’d said about having a date.

  ‘Wassup Will, you look narked.’ Hassan came in with some printouts. Will jumped.

  ‘Oh, just frustration - with the case. Any news?’

  ‘Well I was thinking we’d better follow up Kingston’s cousin. His mother’s sister’s son, a - erm’ he looked at his notes, ‘Stephen Blair. He’s Kingston’s executor and he inherits half the proceeds of Kingston’s mother’s house sale. It gives Blair a motive, especially considering he’s in credit card debt up to his eyebrows.’

  ‘Is he indeed. Maybe you and Paul could have a word with Mr Blair. He might turn up at the inquest tomorrow.’

  ‘Bound to be a verdict of murder isn’t it? We’ve got samples and so on from Kingston, and they’ll be releasing the body for cremation.’

  ‘Speaking of samples, no drugs found in him. Whoever clocked him one, he was very much alive and capable of kicking when they did it.’

  ‘Your point being?’

  ‘Pretty risky, for a lass like Tessa, taking on a healthy alert man she was scared of.’

  ‘IF she was scared.’

  ‘No defensive wounds, so there was no struggle. Not easy to creep up on someone you’re terrified of, it happens all the time in films and on TV but the chances are they’d look round and then you’d be in trouble.’

  ‘Maybe she wasn’t that scared. We only have her word for it. Tara and Erica are backing her up but they don’t have any real evidence. And knowing he’d change his Will after a divorce makes her motive even stronger.’

  ‘Actually I’m surprised he didn’t change it when she left him. The thought of her nabbing all his dosh...’

  ‘He seems to have been an arrogant bloke though. And doctors don’t expect to be patients, or corpses. Maybe he just didn’t think he’d die in his prime. Or at all!’

  ‘Perhaps he thought she’d be back.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  At Ivy Lodge, Stacey was being very conscientious about her internship all of a sudden. For a start she was physically there, at an hour when she’d normally either be going home to sleep or sleeping. Occasionally she gave a surface or two a once-over with antiseptic wipes, when someone was looking, and spasmodically manned the entrance like some sort of meeter and greeter in place of the receptionist they couldn’t afford. Her instincts were telling her to be around, in case something went down that might give her something to sell - anything which might bring the notoriety of her dreams. Erica might find something that would make both their names known.

  ‘So how was yer hot date with the baby doc? Yer gonna give him another ride round the block, like?’

  Erica gave her a brief summing up of her night of passion followed by questioning at the copshop. ‘I suppose the police variety of porridge is at least calorie-free. And as for Jamie, he had to rush off to start work, and then I was in chains at the station... He’s a great kisser, and adorable with it. And for a first time he was very promising. I can train him up. But his work is so all-absorbing of his time and attention. And I doubt if I can compete with all those pretty nurses.’

  ‘Hadaway man, Erica, nurses are aal ower shit n’ vomit, sooo not a good look yer knaa. And most of them are fat lasses.’

  Erica forbore to point out that Stacey herself was often in a similar condition of a night time.

  ‘He’s sent me some sexy texts.’

  Stacey made a mental note to read them as soon as Erica left her phone unattended. ‘And Wild Willy Bennett as well. Two fit blokes after ye!’

  ‘Please don’t call him Willy...’

  Just then Miles Fredericks, her hypnotist colleague, dashed by her open door and paused to stick his head in.

  ‘Bit late!’ he panted. ‘Some sodding kids made a disturbance outside my house late last night. Kept waking me up. Have you got any of that night-nurses’ remedy available? I could do with some to take home.’

  ‘You mean Cocculus? Just a minute.’

  Erica fetched him some tiny white tablets in a brown paper envelope.

  ‘Usual procedure, as with all my remedies. No coffee, no mint, no food or drink, no touching the tablets. Tip them into your mouth. And I think your next victim is waiting.’

  A man was sitting on a chair outside Miles’ room, twitching with impatience. Something about the wrinkles round the eyes and mouth, and the body language, said ‘repentant smoker.’

  It was a very long shot, but she wondered if the hoodies who used to hang about behind Kingston’s house had moved their drinking den of vice near Miles’ house instead.

  Miles lived on a modern estate of what are called ‘executive homes’. They always have very pastoral sounding names, which are all that’s left of the land they’ve covered up and destroyed. True to form, Miles’ estate had been built on the fields of a vanished farm, and it was bounded by an overgrown disused railway track beloved of walkers and cyclists during the day, which formed the boundary of the far side of the golf course. So it was not so unlikely that the youths had merely crossed the course to a new hangout.

  She managed to buttonhole Miles later on.

  ‘Those youths who woke you. Could you text me next time they turn up? I’d like to talk to them. I’m erm, researching a feature on youth drug and alcohol abuse.’

  ‘Well I had been thinking of ringing the police. But if you really want me to I’ll ring you instead.’

  ‘Last time they annoyed you, did you go outside to chase them off?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Bloody cold it was too.’

  ‘Did you shut the door behind you when you ran out?’

  ‘Come to think of it I don’t think I did, I just ran out and when they’d gone, having given me a tour of the Anglo-Saxon history of the English language, I went back in.’

  ‘And you ran out of sight of the door?’

  ‘Yeah, round the corner of the house.’

  ‘I bet you’ve got alarms all over your house, but then you go running out leaving the door open. Someone could have got in while you were chasing the others away.’

  Miles was inclined to scoff at the idea. Besides, his partner was inside to fight off any invaders. But his actions in leaving the door open had illustrated how easy it would be for the killer to have got into Kingston’s house without breaking in, or being someone he knew. Or, slipped into his back garden, waited for him to come back through and bashed him over the head as he passed by, before dragging him through the house for the rest of his punishment. Bit handy for the killer, them being there, but then they had been making trouble for some time, it was common knowledge.

  Erica was feeling the lack of sleep and the lack of time to shower properly. Once home, she would collapse in a heap. She changed back into her sports top and bundled her now icky dress into her bag with the strappy sandals. She got a suitably erotic text from Jamie. Maybe it was going to be more than a one-night stand. She rather hoped so; but not tonight, please not tonight.

  Staggering in to her flat, she stripped, piled everything but her shoes into the washer and set it going. Desperate times, desperate measures, she thought recklessly as she microwaved some frozen mature (lo-fat) cheddar before sl
apping it on wholemeal toast and bunging it under the grill. She collapsed on her bed and ate the golden molten cheese, salty and oily, gulping a mug of hot juice. Must organise some salads.... she made do with a handful of red seedless grapes. Damn things have more calories than blueberries but the ones in the fridge had gone squishy and white-ended and disgusting. As usual, she tried to burst the grapes one by one against her palate with her strenuous tongue, but they were too firm. Grapes must have changed since Keats’ time. Still it was good exercise for her oral technique which might be getting a lot of use in the near future. The washer rumbled and swished, carrying her away on a wave of soapy sound. She crawled under the duvet.

  She woke next day, still filthy, and had a hot bath. It was almost better than sex. The bruise on her arm was a pale mauve already, fading outwards to yellow.

  Golf balls, Jamie, texts... her thoughts swirled like water down the plug. She belatedly texted him back.

  Must friend him on facebook. But she’d asked him out. Next move should be his. As she towelled herself, the black cotton against her pale skin reminded her of his dark silky hair against her belly. A woman cannot live by work and exercise alone. Or even cheese on toast.

  The inquest came and went with no surprises or revelations. Your basic ‘murder by persons unknown’. Robert Kingston’s cousin and executor Stephen Blair, a skinnier, younger version of Robert but with a rather down-at-heel look, had been questioned by the police but not held. Erica presumed he had some sort of alibi.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The health page all done and delivered ahead of deadline, Erica was reading the latest Ann Cleeves on her kindle, curtains drawn, glass of claret at hand, perfect Cox’s Pippin chill against her leg as she curled on the sofa, limbs relaxed and mind at ease after a good gym session. A delightful work-out with Jamie had enlivened the previous night, and they had woken together to renew their efforts. Then he’d bogged off to work and she was now blissfully alone in her home, realising that she needed both parts of the equation with him or any man, the being with and the bogging off which had to be in balance. More equations, it was all about the Maths. Her mobile vibrated against her thigh. It was Miles.

  ‘Erica? Those lads are round the side of the house again. I don’t know if you want to come round now. Personally I think you’re barking.’

  ‘Oh god. I don’t feel like it... bugger the lads.’

  ‘No thanks!’

  ‘I’ve just got cosied in for the night,’ she grumbled unfairly. Do I still need to follow up this lead? With the police still suspecting Tessa...

  ‘Mel thinks we should just ignore them. So if you want to forget the whole thing... ‘

  ‘No, I’ll be there. Give me a while. I’ll be on my bike. I didn’t realise Mel was back. Sorry to disturb.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Come in and have a drink when you’ve finished being beaten up.’

  He rang off. Miles’ lover Mel did something fairly well paid and financial and was often away in Europe and the US. Another keen golfer, which was probably why they lived by a golf course. Duh.

  Erica’s tyre needed pumping up, of course, and she couldn’t find her bike lights at first. She put on warm clothes, feeling insecure and tired. Needn’t worry she might inflame adolescent passions, to them she’d probably seem ancient. She texted Stacey to say where she was going and why, on the very slim chance she wanted to come along. It was unlikely she’d be available at such short notice and she certainly wouldn’t have transport to hand but in fact her presence could be useful with the hoodies. She probably knew some of their older brothers and sisters from the Wydsand coastal clubbing scene. Also some native caution made Erica feel somebody should know where she was going and why.

  It was cold when she set off, with a brisk wind blowing the stars about and playfully gusting against her as she pedalled. Why don’t I do something well paid and financial and get sent abroad all the time? A question which occasionally popped up.

  She pedalled up the winding paths set between grass verges which the designers of the ‘executive estate’ had laid out so that happy pram-pushing yummy mummies could stroll about traffic-free between culs de sacs. As it turned out, those who moved into these little ghettos tended to have several cars per family, so the drives and streets were littered with glowering 4x4s and the separate footpaths became sad and leaf-strewn.

  Miles’ house was on the end of a row, its side parallel with the footpath. It was easy to pick out because of his kit car parked outside, looking very eccentric in this setting. She wondered how the neighbours felt about having a hypnotist in their midst. She also wondered why all the cars were parked outside when nearly all the houses had huge double garages. How much of a modern house was redundant? The requisite separate dining room, never used due to the equally requisite ‘dining country kitchen, the heart of the house’. The garage that held no cars. The study where nobody studied.

  A light went on at the side of Miles’s house. She glimpsed movement. Then it went off again. A security light fixed high on the wall. The wind brought a snatch of noise, garbled by the weather and unrecognisable. But someone was definitely there. She went back the way she’d come until she reached the previous street, turned down it and cycled along Miles’ street as far as his house. She parked her bike between his car and Mel’s, which was something shiny and curved like a crouching beast. She didn’t think she’d gain cool points being seen arriving on a bike. Only losers use buses, went the youthful creed thereabouts, god knows what they thought of two wheels propelled by your own legs once you were past eleven years old.

  She walked round the side of the house where a few dark figures lurked close against the wall where a whimsical wrought-iron arch heavily decked with clematis montana and the like formed a kind of shelter. The wind still buffeted them, belting straight down the path. They were more or less out of range of the security light, occasionally making it go on out of defiance or carelessness as they jostled each other. She stood under it and it went on, illuminating her in all her unthreatening smallness and spilling enough light on them for her to see what sort of nest of iniquity she was dealing with.

  A small bunch of lads in the inevitable low-hanging jeans with crotch stretched between knees, waistband and more of their keks showing, knitted beanie hats and baggy t-shirts, thin and inadequate for the weather and season. Little points of orange light glowed from their cigarettes, and glanced off the straight sides of beer cans and a bottle of something clear, vodka or tequila probably. Wary, arrogant, defensive, and ball-shrivellingly cold. As true Geordie males, torture would not have made them admit this last however.

  ‘Want something, pet?’ Asked with the obligatory adolescent sneer.

  ‘Aa wouldn’t mind giving her somethin!’ another said in a voice heavy with innuendo.

  They laughed. Men, the lords of creation, reminding Erica of her place in the world. Infuriatingly, they could indeed be a threat to her physically. She hoped she wouldn’t have to use the pepper spray she’d bought online and now had in her pocket.

  ‘Want a fag, darlin?’ The sneerer was holding out a packet, the light cruelly illuminating his acne like the craters of the moon.

  ‘Not right now thanks. I just want to talk to you. OK?’

  ‘We’ve got a right to be here,’ said the innuendo chief. ‘Neebody can tell we to piss off.’

  ‘Or we’ll fkn tell them to piss off.’ Another was keen to show off his bantering skills.

  ‘I’m a journalist, I write for the Evening Guardian.’

  She passed round the card which repeated the fact in print. It was too dark to read it but they didn’t bother trying very hard.

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  She showed them a page of the paper with her name and photo on, glad she’d had the nous to bring it. They were probably not regular readers of the local paper. Doomed to remain ignorant about the WI’s latest speaker on ‘Dutch Tulip Fields’ and that hardy perennial topic, public ire re dog mess.
/>   ‘Ye should get yer tits oot, that’d get folks readin,’ opined one.

  ‘Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll mention it to my editor. My page promotes healthy living.’

  Laughter.

  ‘Fuck that,’ the first one said. ‘Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse, man pet, that’s us.’

  ‘Well, you might manage two out of three.’ Before they could work that one out, ‘I’m doing an article about young people and attitudes to drinking, drugs, smoking and so on. What do you think? Anonymous of course.’

  ‘How much do we get paid?’ demanded one.

  ‘It’s the local fkn rag, not a proper tabloid, man!’ scoffed the apparent leader.

  They clustered round, treating her to a barrage of boasting about their alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking and drug taking, all of it sensational and much of it probably wishful thinking.

  ‘E’s, Ket, weed... owt we can get... hey, why aren’t you taking notes, or recording iz?’ one of them asked suspiciously.

  ‘I’ve a good memory.’ But she took out her small digital recorder and began to record their pathetic boasts. She felt sorry for these lads. To have nothing better to do than hang about outside in the damp windy cold, drinking, smoking and self-medicating, seemed a terrible waste of youth. It seemed a long time since Erica’s own earlier days of foolish excess. Now even her excesses were carefully planned, earned, and atoned for. God help the girls for whom these boys were the available boyfriend pool.

  ‘I’d heard you lot hung about in the lane over the other side of the golf course, behind Robert Kingston’s house. ‘

  They knew his name alright, it had had enough publicity.

  ‘Aye, well, the fkn bizzies’ve been aal ower the place since,’ said the would-be Jimmy Dean.

  ‘Somebody was saying a lot of windows got broken,’ she kept her tone neutral. ‘Fences damaged, greenhouses vandalised.’