The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2)

by Valerie Laws

  ‘Erica! Come in!’

  Erica followed her through the hall, noticing that the murder room door was shut. Tessa led the way into a big living room with an arrangement of seating put together like gigantic pricey Lego with occasional square glass tables. The floor was polished hardwood with carefully scattered rugs to trip over. A wall hung gas ‘fire’ flickered quietly.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling, but I was out on a run, and I was passing.’ If her relationship with Tessa was still therapist/patient, she was technically out of line turning up unasked at her house. She was hoping that they’d progressed beyond that after all the trials of the past few weeks. Tessa hadn’t rung Erica herself. Was that progress to independence, guilt at getting Erica involved, or was she embarrassed at having told Erica about Kingston’s abuse? Tessa might want to back off from her after confiding in her so freely. It was a common enough reaction.

  ‘You look wet. And a bit muddy...’ Tessa glanced at the floor.

  ‘Sorry.’ Erica kicked off her trainers and took them back into the hall, leaving them by the front door.

  Back in the living room she perched on the edge of a seat, aware of her mud-splashed legs and the pale cream of the suite. Luckily it was the inevitable leather. The coffee table was scattered with leaflets and brochures. Colour charts from decorating firms. Swatches of fabric. And details of houses for sale from estate agents in the town.

  ‘Thinking of moving?’ Erica asked, Peter Wimsey to the life.

  ‘I might. Or I might just have it completely redone. When probate’s granted, I’ll have enough money to live on for a good while, so I can take my time deciding. This place needs a makeover anyway even to sell. And so many bad memories here.’

  She gazed into the ersatz fire. A house where she’d been a terrified wife, and where her husband had been murdered by some intruder. Was moving back in, planning the future, a step towards independent adulthood? Or was Tessa just waiting to live on her husband’s money? Erica had launched herself into investigating Kingston in the hope of proving her innocent, or at least not the only suspect. As usual, she had felt too protective of her patient, too involved, hoped to save her, set her free, while it seemed that Tessa preferred to have Farrow and Ball repaint the bars of the cage. But was she just trying to control Tessa, mould her in her own image? But then denial, and surfaces, were what had sustained Tessa for many years, maybe always. No big surprise she’d cling to a strategy so familiar when so much else had changed.

  ‘You’re so fit, Erica. And thin. I’ve been spending more time at the gym myself since all this happened. Gotta keep in shape, haven’t we, us girls? Got to be a bit careful to pick the right exercise though. Men don’t like a girl to have too many muscles.’

  And there it was. Forming yourself according to what men liked. Had this woman learned nothing? Erica stopped herself pointing out that a few more muscles could have helped her fight off Kingston at the beginning and avoid living in terror for years. Her period of self-analysis was over, it seemed. Back to the airhead. Well why shouldn’t she be an airhead, Erica you control freak, she was berating herself, when Tessa topping up her cup paused to pick up a strand of Erica’s hair, feeling it with her fingers like fabric in a dress shop.

  ‘How do you get yours that colour?’

  ‘Choosing the right parents, I suppose. Being outside in the summer. Ow!’

  ‘Oops sorry. My ring...’ Tessa disentangled her ring, which flashed through Erica’s hair. Erica felt trapped and impatient, wanting to pull away but unable to.

  ‘It’s gone all curly and big now with the damp. I hate that.’

  ‘I use these new straighteners, they’re just as good for curling. You can only get them from Harrods. Or Bendel’s in New York City.’ She released herself from the hair. ‘This ring came from Tiffany’s on 5th Avenue! Robert bought it for me to celebrate something, being made Captain of the Golf Club or some big payout from private work or something. It cost a mint. He was good to me sometimes.’

  To Erica, the hoop of diamonds and sapphires criss-crossed with platinum looked like barbed wire. Symbol of ownership and wealth. A sign of his success.

  ‘Erm yes very nice. Tessa, have the police been in touch with you, since the second murder?’

  ‘They’ve asked me to stay in the area. Tara told me all the details. That must have been some grievance the killer had. She thought it would confirm my innocence but that snide Inspector Bennett as good as hinted that I might have done it, the second one I mean, to cover up my tracks, make it look as if a psycho serial killer did both killings! Tara says it’s just police desperation. She told them, the risk of doing a second murder, when they’ve no hard evidence against me for the first one, well, it would be insane.’

  ‘I did think the police would be watching you after releasing you without charge. They should be able to provide you with an alibi themselves.’

  ‘That’s what Tara said. Most of the officers were called up to the city for the big match. They admitted, when she pressed them, there was one man watching me at the relevant time. He must have been very fed up sitting outside a women’s gym instead of watching the football.’

  Will must be spitting nails; his own man gives Tessa an alibi.

  ‘Did you know Paul Chambers?’

  ‘Really, Erica, you sound like the police sometimes. No, well I’ve probably met him, I don’t remember though. He might have been at some big do or other when we were. It seems Robert knew him when they were younger and through the city Golf Club. But he never talked about him that I can remember.’

  ‘I was only thinking the police would have a job linking you with him if they can’t prove you knew him at all.’

  ‘Well I’m trying to stay positive, like you’ve always said. They’re bound to catch the Operator soon. I’m not sure yet whether a murder happening here will be good or bad for selling this place, if I do. Usually, these houses go for a bomb, you know.’

  ‘Even with the occasional golf ball crashing through the conservatory?’

  ‘Absolutely, Erica. When Robert’s mother died, he had no trouble selling her house at an inflated price. That sad old guy Harry Archer jumped at it. Literally, about an hour after the FOR SALE sign went up, he was round here! Golf’s like a religion, you should hear them all at the club droning on about their scores or whatever they are. Robert used to make me go to the social do’s of course. Thank god, never again!’

  Was there any point in going to the Golf Club do with Mel? It didn’t sound like much fun. Still, they couldn’t all be that bad. Tessa was bound to be biased, associating the sport with Robert Kingston and all his cruelty. Speaking of which...

  ‘Tessa, you know I write for the Evening Guardian. I’ve been researching a piece about your late husband. I’ve turned up a lot of things, like your experiences of him, which are at odds with his public image. Legally, I can write what I like. And there don’t seem to be any close relatives to be upset, apart from you.’

  ‘Oh no, Stephen Blair and Robert weren’t close. Robert didn’t feel he was worth spending time with. Bit of a loser. He’s left him some money, which I was quite surprised about, but I suppose blood’s thicker than water.’

  ‘Good because I’d like to write the piece warts and all.’

  ‘Ooh yes. I’d love all his stuck-up cronies to know what he was really like. I’m sure they all despise me for leaving him, not that any of them have bothered to contact me. It’s time they knew why I left. Well that he was violent and abusive. I don’t want you to quote anything he used to say to me. I couldn’t bear people here to know that intimate stuff. But go on, give the rotten bastard hell!’

  ‘By the way, Tessa, what about a funeral? I can see how difficult it might be for you.’ As the almost-ex, do you turn up in veil and hankie, sobbing? Or dance on the grave? Or not turn up at all? Hallmark should do a card for this tricky social situation.

  ‘Those old bores at his church are going to arrange a memorial service a
nd the Golf Club have offered to do the drinks and nibbles afterwards. They pushed a note through the door here to let me know. As his executor, Stephen will be sorting out the funeral. Some people would expect me to be there, but I don’t want people pointing and staring. And gossiping about whether I killed him! I couldn’t bear it.’

  After a pause, she went on thoughtfully, ‘I expect Stephen’s been hoping I did. He’d have got all the money then. And I hear he’s hard up. I don’t want him staring at me, giving me the evil eye.’

  Erica jogged home along the sea front, the sea darkening to violet, the sand to brown, the wind colder though the fine drizzle had stopped. As she ran, just as when she was swimming lengths, her mind ran on tracks of its own. Two murders. Two doctors, surgeons, consultants, but in different spheres of medicine. What were the possibilities? She listed them mentally, as her breath chilled her throat and her feet pounded the damp ground.

  1. A serial killer was on the loose, aka ‘The Operator’, a nutjob who had it in for doctors in general. It was unlikely that a patient had personal grudges against an orthopaedic surgeon and a vasectomy specialist. This being the case, there could be others to come. The speculation about Kingston’s death had alarmed the medical profession. Now normally complacent consultants would now be going around in pairs, feeling the fear that women so often felt, though this time there’d be no helpful police messages for surgeons to ‘stay indoors’ as there were when women were attacked. Would the Operator stick with male surgeons, or include female ones? An interesting thought... anyway, if this was the case, Erica didn’t have the resources and computer software to collate all the factors in common between the two victims. Both were men, and not young. But then most consultants were. Both were involved in private practice as well as the NHS. But then again, so were many hospital doctors. Both played golf; so did lots of doctors and white collar workers, and they weren’t even in the same club. They lived in the same area, but not the same place.

  Even if the police had DNA, unless they had the profile on record already, how would they find the killer - they could hardly test everyone in the area.

  2. Kingston had been murdered by someone with a personal motive, hatred and resentment, a desire for revenge. Someone Erica might have spoken to already, or not. A patient, a colleague, the possibilities were potentially endless for all practical purposes. Then, after that, someone else had done a copycat crime, killing Chambers for some reason of their own, either personal or professional grudge, hoping to pass it off as the work of the first killer and disguise it as a serial killing. Would she be able to find out about Paul Chambers as she had about Robert Kingston? Maybe the editor would let her do an article on Chambers as well. Good excuse for making enquiries. Erica’s thoughts leaped over the little obstacle of Dunne reading her exposé of Kingston as her trainers did over puddles.

  3. Kingston had been murdered by someone with a personal motive, someone so concerned about being caught that they killed Chambers to make it look as if a serial killer was on the loose. Very risky. But possible, given someone so twisted by hatred that they could hammer nails into a human head with a rock.

  The two killings were similar, but not the same. The killer had echoed the first killing by pinning Chambers’ hands down after bashing him over the head. Had the second killing been done by someone else or the same person varying the mutilations to match the speciality of the victim? It seemed to be open to question, perhaps deliberately so. Where to go now, apart from the shower, and to work.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Erica’s pregnant patient was preparing to give birth by taking Caullophyllum, and was now asking for Staphysagria to take with her for pain after childbirth. She’d had a rough time in a Dickensian hospital with her first baby, a combination of modern technology and medieval morality having ruined the experience for her. This time she wanted to get it right. She had of course already been drinking raspberry leaf tea, an ancient herbal strategy for an easy labour. Erica had converted her to homeopathy by curing her horrendous morning sickness.

  As they came to the end of the consultation, her patient remarked, ‘You know, I’m really grateful to have you to talk to, and to have the remedies. It makes me feel more in control. I’m glad you’re willing to prescribe these remedies, but you don’t lay down the law. Some alternative practitioners are very extreme. A friend of mine was having bad morning sickness, and when I told her how you helped me, she went to a homeopath up in the city, where she lives.

  ‘He refused to help her unless she turned over all her health care to him, and insisted she didn’t see her GP any more or even go to antenatal appointments at the hospital. So she left him and bought herself some tablets like mine, and it didn’t work. So now she’s sceptical about alternative medicine.’

  Erica sighed. She wasn’t surprised they hadn’t worked, since they hadn’t been prescribed specifically for her. Some other remedy might have been perfect.

  ‘Who was this guy?’

  ‘He’s called Craig Anderson. He hasn’t been in the area long. He makes a religion out of alternative medicine, it seems. But he does get clients, especially those who have had bad experiences of GPs and hospitals.’

  It might be worth contacting Craig Anderson for the health page. Extreme views were good for stirring up readers’ interest. It would have been good to have done the interview with Kingston with his disdain for alternative medicine, and then one with Anderson with the opposite views. Clearly Anderson was going to end up in the newspapers one day anyhow. Probably being sued by some patient’s family. He was playing with fire keeping people away from all medicine apart from his own. How can people like Kingston and Anderson be so sure they’re right? Erica, devil’s full time advocate, almost envied that certainty.

  The certainty and extreme viewpoint of the Operator. How powerful the killer or killers must have felt standing over a man with his hands nailed down, rendered unresisting by a skull fracture. If this is a serial killer who hates doctors in general, there’s no way he’d give up a buzz like that. The ultimate thrill. The kind of thrill Kingston, ironically, might have enjoyed if his tendencies had been allowed to get out of control.

  Now there were two murders, #theOperator was well and truly trending on Twitter. Erica watched with fascination and sometimes disgust. On Twitter, or in comments on online newspaper columns, on facebook or messageboard discussions, surprisingly large numbers of people had their own tales of woe at the hands of doctors and surgeons. Sometimes incompetence or negligence, but most often lack of empathy, a callous uncaring attitude which left scars. Sadly unsurprising was how many others were making a sick joke of it (‘Paul Chambers is asking, can he have his ball back?’). Others were outraged on behalf of such eminent victims and were blaming the government for NHS cuts, the police for incompetence, and a list of other regular blame-ees for assorted sins. There were troll-like provocative statements (‘smug middle-class bastards had it coming!’) and speculation about The Operator’s psychology, blaming his/her mother, father, (‘he must have suffered appalling childhood abuse!’) the government (‘NHS cuts inspiring hate crimes’), even the victims (‘they must have done something to provoke such violence’).

  Another more local effect of creating the monster that was The Operator was that Stacey came in from the cold. She rang to face whatever music would greet her unmasking as the homeopathic drug dealer of Wydsand nightlife, unable to resist the possibility of being near the epicentre of a publicity earthquake. Erica’s investigations were her only way of getting in on it. Erica greeted her with anticipation. How would Stacey handle this?

  ‘Hi Erica. Just thought Aa’d call to say, you’re welcome!’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Why am I apologising, Erica asked herself.

  ‘You’re welcome. Ye knaa. Me ringin the bizzies to tell them ye were in danger.’

  ‘Oh I see. What made you think I was in danger Stacey?’

  ‘Whey, them lads is bad news man. That Scotty... Aa knaa
his bro. Hard bastard, and not in a good way.’

  ‘So you thought I’d need rescuing by Will Bennett? Gosh thanks.’

  As ever, sarcasm was wasted on Stacey. Not that she wasn’t bright but she couldn’t be arsed to listen carefully enough to pick up a tone of voice.

  ‘Nee probs, pet.’

  ‘I thought you’d resigned from your ‘internship’. Not hearing from you.’

  ‘Yeah well. Bored out me tree at home. Me mam expects iz to help look after our Noosh. Aa mean, Aa love the bairn to bits ye knaa, but kids are so bliddy full-on! And Aa didn’t want to upset her routine like. Aa mean, it gives me mam sommat to dee, looking after our Noosh. Gives meaning to her life poor owld soul. Aa wouldn’t want to come between them. So, can Aa, ye knaa, come back like? Aa’ve felt bad about letting yer doon.’

  ‘Oh, you mean by stealing my remedies and selling them as E’s?’

  Silence. Stacey’s mind raced as she tried to work out whether denial or confession would be least effort and most effective at getting her back into Ivy Lodge.

  ‘Aa nevvor. Whee sez? Aa’ll sue!’ she tried.

  ‘Will Bennett says. He found the tabs and analysed them. They are homeopathic pills. And one of the lads asked me if I got them from ‘her’ presumably meaning you.’

  ‘Fuck. Busted.’ Erica heard her mutter. Aloud, ‘Whey ye cannit prove it was me, nor your tablets. There’s loads of homeos aboot. And neebody’d die of them tablets would they? It’s not like there’s owt in them but sugar.’

  ‘Remind me to remind you what I do here Stacey.’ She launched into a lecture on stealing, trust issues, illegality, risking her business and reputation, feeling it had to be said. ‘And I can’t have you nicking my stuff!’

  ‘Aa won’t! Aa promise. Not that Aa did, mind. Please man Erica, lerriz come back. Aa rang the polis to help ye. Honest.’