The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2)

by Valerie Laws

  Erica visualised the scene. Blood. A hideous wound. Thank god she didn’t walk in on this one. But some poor soul must have.

  ‘Gary, you’re the one that’s gross.’

  ‘Can’t help it Erica, I’m high as a kite, had no sleep all night, I’ve got more coffee in me than Costa, and anyway, Chambers was probably dead or deeply unconscious and dying before the cold steel did its work. Probably never knew what hit him. Reunited with his dead wife, eh? Quite heartwarming, that angle. Hmm...’

  ‘You’ll have people queuing up to be murdered, you silver-tongued bastard. Do the police think it’s the same killer?’

  ‘Looks like it! I’ve been able to get some background on the victim from Dunne - our esteemed editor’s come up trumps. Chambers belonged to his Golf Club, the city one.’

  Her mind was racing. Why did golf of all things keep cropping up? Or was it just that consultants and golf go together? And what would this mean for Tessa? She must get information from Gary while he was high on adrenaline and ego.

  ‘So how come the murder was discovered in the early hours, if this guy lived alone?’

  ‘Young clubber, lives with his posh parents over the road from Chambers, came home after a night out, saw lights on, unusual apparently, then noticed the door was open, went in, saw the body, raised the place, lost all his designer lager in the hall. Not a pretty sight. Must have happened last night when everybody was watching the match on TV. Anyway, I thought I’d ring you, old colleagues blah blah, and I did owe you one. And I’ll give you one any time you like! Boom boom! Can’t hang around, I’ve got the nationals to talk to, but maybe we could get together for a drink soonest -’

  Gary thought a glass of wine bought him full sexual favours. Not for a whole vineyard, with him.

  Erica finished drying her hair and made tea. While she had been in bed with Jamie, some poor lonely bloke was being murdered. Sex and death, twin pillars of existence, not to mention the media. And a murdered vasectomy surgeon was a dream combo.

  At least this time Erica had an alibi; Inspector Bennett and his gang couldn’t try to frighten her off with their suspicions. Jamie had been with her all evening and all night, bless his little cotton socks. And she had been with him all evening and all night... Yes! Gary-like, she punched the air, sploshing Lapsang Souchong over herself as the significance sank in, more slowly than the tea.

  If Jamie was her alibi, she was his. Although she had not seriously suspected him, she had been unable to forget that he did have a motive, or at least hated Kingston. The demands of her rampant libido had drowned out the small voice of caution. But it was a relief to know that he was innocent. At least of this second killing, her mathematician’s mind tried to butt in, this one might be a copy cat, but she suppressed it firmly. Maybe it was too soon to speak of a serial killer. But it looked as if the killer of both of them was someone who was down on doctors, to paraphrase the Ripper, rather than someone who had a personal motive against Robert Kingston.

  All the research she’d done into Kingston’s life and relationships, all the muck that had floated to the top of his whitewashed existence. Tessa, his abused wife. Jamie Lau and many others, bullied at work. Laura Gibson, embittered patient who had endured his sadism helplessly. Again, many others, each believing themselves alone. Relatives of patients put through unnecessary suffering to boost his career. Plenty of room for resentment there. The hoodies. All that, and then it might turn out to be some random nutter who hated doctors.

  Kingston was news again. Without him, no serial killer, no Operator.

  Another result, Tessa would be free of suspicion now. What motive would she have for killing Chambers? She could move on, find a new life, perhaps rewarding work, or maybe just another husband who wasn’t a sadist. Surely after the police had released Tessa, being unable to hold her any longer without charge, they would have been watching her. Will had believed she had a boyfriend somewhere. If they’d been watching her that night, the police would be her alibi. A nice thought. Though it was ironic that Tessa had been cleared not by Erica’s well meant efforts, but by those of a deranged killer.

  Erica could get back to her homeopathy practice, and her writing, and keeping fit. If only her intern would take a break from her arduous duties, Erica could relax and enjoy her flourishing sex life.

  She knew the police would be up to their helmets with this second murder, and its apparent significance after Kingston’s. But she couldn’t forget Will’s treatment of her and his infuriating way of hinting that she was a possible suspect or even a dealer in fake drugs. It was pretty low, to use his position to strongarm her, just because their relationship hadn’t worked out. He couldn’t pretend to suspect her now, and she was determined to let him know she knew it.

  She rang him, and explained that it was about an alibi for the murder.

  ‘A what? Alibi?’ His voice sounded weary; a stark contrast with the hyped-up euphoria of Gary Thomas. The reporter thrilled with the story, able to pile pressure on the police. The police officer, up all night, expected to come up with the goods, sickened by the horror of the crime.

  He sounded sceptical as well damn him.

  ‘For the murder, yes.’ She was beginning to feel angry again, remembering him questioning her in that horrible interview room, trying to pin the crime on Tessa, angry with her for interfering, for being there, for backing Tessa up. ‘I got the impression you thought I might be involved. So I want you to know I have an alibi.’

  ‘May I ask why you haven’t told me this before?’ he asked, testily.

  ‘It’s only just happened! For God’s sake, I’ve only just heard about it myself!’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t understand. How could you have just found out about your own alibi?’

  ‘Two men are dead. Let’s not play silly buggers. I’ve rung you up voluntarily, to tell you that I have an alibi for the murder of Paul Chambers, last night.’

  He sighed. ‘I see. I assumed you were referring to the murder of Robert Kingston. I couldn’t understand why you hadn’t told us before.’

  ‘I have no alibi for Kingston’s murder, and I shouldn’t have to provide one. But you took it upon yourself to suspect me, and this time I have got an alibi, and I want you to know about it!’

  Really the man was infuriating. Perhaps he was stupid. Perhaps his supreme physical fitness and intense blue gaze had blinded her to his lack of brain.

  ‘Is there any reason why anyone should suspect you of the murder of Mr Chambers?’ he asked. ‘We really are very busy here, you know. We don’t need frivolous calls from the public clogging up the system.’

  Gah!

  ‘Assuming the same person killed both doctors, obviously you’ve got a nutcase with a medical fixation on your hands. Surely this new development must clear several suspects from the first case, for example Tessa Kingston?’

  ‘And why should we assume the same person committed both crimes? Do you have information about them? Been doing some more nocturnal jogging?’

  This sounded like some kind of obscene double entendre. She resisted the temptation to say ‘Ooh, Matron!’ ‘The two killings have features in common, haven’t they? The bash on the head, the pierced hands, the mutilation relating to the victim’s medical specialism...’

  ‘That’s rather more information than has been given out so far,’ he retorted sharply. ‘May I ask where you obtained this information?’

  ‘You may, or you may ask who told me.’ She was sick of his pompous police-speak. Any minute now he’d say ‘whilst’, or ‘commence’. Well backatcha! ‘Ay was hinformed of the crayme by a journalistic colleague, whose name Ay ham not at liberty to reveal. We journalists must protect our sources.’

  ‘I see. I should have known.’ That little scrote from the Evening Guardian! Mouthy git. ‘All I can say is that the police are keeping an open mind.’

  ‘Really? Is this a new policy? I’m sure Tessa will be pleased to hear it.’

  ‘All I can say at this time i
s that we are investigating a possible link between the two killings.’ He spoke as if through gritted teeth. ‘If you can give a checkable alibi for the evening and night, fine. In the event we want you to come in and sign a statement we’ll contact you.’

  Don’t hold your breath, he implied, as if she was foisting herself on the police for her own entertainment. It was as if he had never hinted she might be a suspect.

  ‘Alright then, I spent the afternoon, the evening, and in fact the whole night, with a doctor from the hospital - you know, Kingston’s old stamping ground. Jamie Lau. He will be able to confirm that. And of course, I stand alibi for him.’

  A brief silence. When he spoke it was in a more hostile tone.

  ‘I see. I must say, you ‘journalists’ go to great lengths to chase up information.’

  His tone implied she was some amoral hackette willing to sleep with anybody who would give her a few lines for the paper.

  ‘It was no hardship, believe me, and yes, it was a case of ‘great lengths,’’ she said sweetly, hoping Will hadn’t been laid in months and serve him right.

  ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘there is no reason to suppose Dr Lau was ever a suspect in the Kingston case. Unless you have information to that effect, of course?’

  ‘If you want information about Jamie, you can get it yourself, I’m sure you have your own methods. Not the same as mine, I hope, I don’t want him exhausted. I assumed anyone who knew Kingston was a suspect, that’s all.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘We’ll be in touch, if we need any more assistance,’ Will barked, and slammed the phone down. Like he didn’t have enough to contend with, she had to go rubbing his nose in her filthy slutty goings on... Will muttered and threw innocent papers about until his long suffering colleagues had gathered for a briefing on this new development. The station was buzzing with the news of Chambers’ murder, and the phrase ‘serial killer’ was being passed round like a fat joint, getting the younger officers high as kites.

  ‘Right.’ Will put up photographs of Paul Chambers, alive and dead, next to those of Robert Kingston, and Hassan gave a brief summing up of the crime and how things stood. The close-up of Chambers’ scrotal wound caused a group wince among the male officers and the excitement about serial killers took a rest while they took in the reality of what had happened to a man like themselves.

  ‘Due to the obvious similarity between the crimes, we have to consider they might have been committed by the same person, or persons. There are some confusing factors however. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a feature is a difference or a similarity.’ Hassan pointed to the two photographs of Kingston’s head and Chambers’ groin. ‘Different wounds, yet both seem to be references to the victims’ specialisms, orthopaedics and urology.’ He pointed to the two pictures of the hands with their metal piercings. ‘Both had their hands pinned down with sharp implements. Different implements were used however.’

  ‘Sarge, the implements also refer to their specialisms.’ Paul got in first before Sally could start her arse-kissing routine.

  ‘Quite right lad.’ Hassan was all approval.

  Paul wanted more. ‘So that suggests the Operator did both of them...’

  Will blew up at this. ‘The who? What did you say?’

  ‘Erm, the Operator, the serial killer Guv...’

  ‘I only hope you’ll be as quick to catch this serial killer as you’ve been to adopt the sensationalist name invented by that excuse for a reporter who was getting under our feet last night, and whom I suspect of using police radio frequencies.’

  Paul subsided.

  ‘I’m afraid the media are already riding on that bandwagon,’ Hassan said philosophically. ‘It’s going to be hard to avoid the term.’

  ‘Yeah I know.’ Will pushed up his hair into spikes. It already looked rumpled due to lack of sleep. ‘But I don’t want you all assuming this ‘Operator’ actually exists. As DS Massum has been pointing out, the evidence is ambiguous. Yes, the killer used implements on the hands in a similar way, and used the surgeons’ own tools, which seems like the same MO. BUT the killer or killers used implements already at the scene. Is that another link? Or is it a sign that one of these killings was dressed up to look like the other? If pins taken from Kingston’s room had been used on Chambers we’d have a definite sign of a single killer. We’ve got nothing from forensics yet except it looks like Chambers’ killer used one of the scalpels on his um, privates before pinning his right hand with it.’

  ‘Is Chambers right or left handed?’ Paul was back in the game.

  ‘What, you think he might have done it himself?’ mocked Sally.

  ‘Hardly. But maybe it’s significant you know. Symbolic like. The hand that did the operations, being spiked with the scalpel that he did them with after it had done his operation...’ Paul was getting lost in a chain of connections.

  ‘Fair enough, Paul. You could follow that up. Hassan?’

  ‘Right well as I was saying, at the moment it could be the same killer. But we are not dismissing the possibility of two separate crimes. There are such things as copycat killings. Also, murder for personal gain or other reasons can be disguised as a motiveless killing, and how better than to give the impression of a crazed serial killer on the loose? Even Agatha Christie thought of that one.’

  ‘Maybe we should bring her in on suspicion,’ muttered Kev to Paul.

  ‘So, we need to follow up all the possibilities. Are there any suspects in the Kingston case we can eliminate, if it does turn out to be the Op- the same killer?’

  ‘We don’t have many named and identified so far. But there’s Tessa Kingston. Kev, you were watching her last night I think?’

  ‘Yes Guv. She was at the gym, till late. For nearly three hours, as per usual.’

  Sally added, ‘She does a long session each time, longer since Kingston died. Working off her grief perhaps? Or guilt. She does classes, machines, has a swim, sauna, steam room, you name it she does it there. I checked all that with the desk a while back.’

  ‘Kev. Could she have slipped out the back, assuming you were alert enough to spot her leaving by the front doors?’

  ‘I suppose it’s technically possible, but she’d have to get back in, in order to come out the front doors at the end of her session, and the back doors, fire doors, only open from inside. And yes Guv, I was watching. I’m sure she didn’t slip by me.’

  ‘Why would she murder Chambers anyway? Doesn’t mean she didn’t kill Kingston.’ asked Sally. ‘And if Kev was following Tessa, nobody was watching Tara.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ Paul scoffed. ‘Why would she go after Chambers?’

  ‘To get Tessa off the hook, of course. She’s emotionally involved, wracked with guilt for letting Tessa stay in an abusive marriage for so long... I mean if that story’s true...’ She tailed off.

  Hassan resumed. ‘Connections between the victims. Both surgeons. They both played golf, at different clubs, though Kingston was once a member of the city club too so presumably knew him. They trained at the same university, though Chambers is older - he’d done some travelling before he signed up to be a medical student. But they only trained together until they began to follow different specialisms. So far we’ve not found that they were close friends or saw a lot of each other. Lots of doctors in this region know each other.’

  ‘Could be some nut who hates all doctors. Could be some wannabe doctor who didn’t make the grades!’

  ‘Good point Sally. Maybe you could check out that angle?’

  ‘Is it still our case though Guv? Chambers lived in town. Won’t the city lads and lasses take over?’

  ‘No, we’ve agreed on an approach. Bearing in mind they might be two separate killings, the second disguised to look like the first, City are looking into Chambers’ case and we are still looking into Kingston’s. Any connections either of us find, we share.’ Will flattened his hair down. It had been standing up for record time. ‘But just to say all we’ve found out
so far about Paul Chambers is he was a quiet, hardworking, rather sad lonely man, at least since his wife died. Not at all like Kingston. And you don’t tend to get so many failures with vasectomies. Serious complications are rare.’

  ‘You’d not get me under the knife,’ said Paul.

  ‘Not after seeing those crime scene pix.’ Kev shuddered dramatically.

  Sally snorted. ‘Huh. Try childbirth!’

  Erica was sure this new murder, tragic though it was, would at least let Tessa off the hook, though Will had been evasive. Not to mention downright nasty when he heard about her and Jamie. Like he had any right to an opinion of her morals! A couple of days later she was just thinking she hadn’t heard from the blonde sisters lately, when she had a call from Tara to say Tessa had moved back into Kingston’s house.

  ‘Not the most pleasant associations, but she’s determined to stay there. She says it’s her home now and she wants to start standing on her own two feet. I think the new murder has made her feel less under suspicion though personally I think they still have her in mind. I know she would love to see you. You’ve been such a help and support to both of us.’

  Erica decided to call round. She hadn’t been back to Kingston’s house since the night she’d jogged past it and the golf ball had hit her arm, narrowly missing her head. The first time she went there, she’d found Kingston’s body. Not her favourite venue. As her therapist, Erica wondered how Tessa was coping. She decided not to ring first but to ‘drop in’ when ‘passing’, to get more idea of Tessa’s state of mind.

  She rang the doorbell, feeling a new chill as she relived standing there waiting to interview Kingston, bracing herself to put up with his patronising manner, his aggressive arrogance, unaware that he had been rendered harmless for good by someone who had objected to him much more drastically than she had.

  Tessa answered the door and broke into a warm smile. Her loose blonde waves were styled into natural-looking order, and she wore black cropped leggings, gold gladiator sandals, and a furry white sweater with little pearl beads sewn on in swirls.