The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2)

by Valerie Laws

  ‘So why the phonebox?’

  ‘Me mobile was chargin...’

  ‘The anonymous tip-off? Let me guess, it was in the hope the police would show up and chase the lads off before there was any chance of me finding out about the tablets they had. Sadly, the police already knew about it and so do I. Not impressed, Stacey.’

  ‘Aw haway, man Erica, Aa’ll get we a takeaway the neet. Me Jobseeker’s just come in. My treat. Look, Aa’m sorry, OK? I didn’t think them pills were worth owt. Aa mean, ye sell them way dearer than Aa did! Haway, we’re a team, ye and me.’

  Omigod. Really? Erica’s turn to switch off her ears as Stacey launched into a tirade of denial, promises, rash claims, and guilt tripping.

  But if she took Stacey back, she’d be saving little Noosh from her ministrations, just as she’d saved Stacey from giving birth to her in a filthy alley. And Stacey had shown admirable self-control, not mentioning Chambers’ murder and her own relentless quest to be where the media might suddenly be at any moment. Erica had no illusions about why her company was so attractive to Stacey but she felt a responsibility to Noosh, the beautiful baby who’d fought her way out of Stacey’s belly.

  ‘So, chips or rice? Indian or Chinese? Aa bet ye’ve had enough Chinese lately ye dirty bugger.’

  Erica recognised this as an endearment. She was already calculating whether she’d done enough exercise to ‘earn’ a takeaway, even a carefully calorie-conscious vegetable-heavy option. God it was wearing to have this inner voice, like carrying a school bully in your head. But the alternative – no, let’s not go there. Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, in the immortal words of Kate Moss. Stacey’s voice cut into her thoughts.

  ‘Ye bring the booze. Aa’ll get we some chips, fried rice, giant battered onion rings and curry sauce.’

  In the Indian takeaway, the TV news was all about the killing, and Erica saw Paul Chambers for the first time, smiling soberly in the photo taken before someone bashed his head in and slashed his genitals like a bag of boil in the bag rice. Thick grey hair, grey eyes creased narrow as if he spent a lot of time concentrating; pale skin, firm mouth. He had a fleshy nose with a suggestion of a cleft in the tip, echoed in the dimple in his chin. An indoor face of central heating and windowless corridors; he looked as if he’d spent more time in hospitals or seeing patients at home than on the golf course.

  The men waiting for meals looked away from the screen, shuffling uncomfortably on their plastic benches as if to shift their beloved balls away from any stray scalpels.

  Erica and Stacey lugged their fragrant bag of food back to Erica’s, nibbling poppadoms. So they were a team now. Oh well. Erica told Stacey what Gary Thomas had told her about the murder.

  ‘It’s aal ower the meedja. Everybody’s talking about it.’ Stacey was wistful. ‘Ah mean, just think what the Operator might do to a gynaecologist, or a brain surgeon... or an eye surgeon…’ She ladled bright crimson chunks of chicken tikka masala onto the alp of colourful rice and rather flaccid chips on her plate. Erica had shelled out for the non-fat and non-carbs food groups.

  Erica forked the more interesting bits from her sag paneer onto a spoonful of rice. ‘I’m going to see Craig Anderson. A fundamentalist homeopath.’

  ‘He been pinching your patients? Aa’ll get him for ye.’ She tore a naan bread asunder as if it were Anderson’s liver.

  ‘No thanks, but he might be putting off a few prospective ones. He’s asking for trouble.’

  ‘Aye. Aa can see your Gary and the like crucifying him in the meedja. He’ll kill somebody and their family’ll take him to the cleaner’s.’

  ‘My Gary? Eeewww. He’s ecstatic about this new murder, no doubt already heading to London for a career in one of the national tabloids.’

  ‘Yeah? What’s Gary look like? He shaggable?’ The magic word ‘tabloids’ had its usual effect on Stacey.

  ‘Only if you hate yourself.’ Erica wondered if she could get any more information from him about Paul Chambers before he went. ‘Anyway. This Anderson is just as arrogant as Kingston.’

  Stacey licked the serving spoon clean. ‘Hey, mebbe he doesn’t just go for proper real doctors and that. Mebbe he goes for weirdy types like this Craig thingy and aal. Or ye! Eeh, ye’d better be careful.’

  ‘No way. He’d be more likely to go for a high profile therapist.’

  ‘Yeah, like a health writer with her picture in the paper every week?’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. I’m so - harmless.’

  ‘Makes you all the easier to kill. Hey, Aa could be your bodyguard. That’d look great on me CV. Aa could get a job as a club bouncer. Get in free. Get all the lads after iz. And if the Operator tried to take ye out, Aa’d kick his ass for him.’ Stacey went into a happy dream of headlines and TV appearances, invites to be on ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here’ and the like. ‘Only Aa’m not eating worms.’

  ‘What?’ Erica was mystified by this reference to ordeal by invertebrates on reality TV. ‘They might never catch the Operator. I can take reasonable precautions, but they can hardly ask all the health professionals in the land to stay behind bolted doors for ever.’

  ‘Precautions like not jogging along creepy golf courses past murder scenes at night?’

  ‘This nutter attacks people in their homes.’

  ‘Erm, who got hit by a golf ball?’

  ‘Hardly the same as being nailed to a table and having your pride and joy pruned. Are you going to say the golf ball was hurled by the Operator, aiming to fire it down my throat as a deadly mockery of a homeopathic tablet?’

  ‘Omigod! Hells yeah! Erica, ye nearly got Operated!’ Stacey punched the air in excitement. ‘What’s Gary’s number?’ She made a grab at Erica’s phone.

  ‘I wasn’t serious... give me that back! You don’t think? Nah. Get a grip Stacey. Where were we? Oh yes, Craig Anderson. I must admit I hadn’t thought that someone like him could also be a target. I was thinking, could the Operator be someone like Anderson - an alternative therapist who is violently anti-doctor? I was already thinking of interviewing him for the health page. I bet he’ll jump at the chance to publicise his views. And it’ll give me a chance to find out if there’s any chance he might be the Operator.’

  ‘Aye, even better! Investigate now, headlines later. Bigger ones.’

  ‘Besides, the Operator will feel I’m on his side when he reads my piece on Kingston.’

  ‘Yeah, brilliant. Aa’ll open another bottle eh. We can drink to bein celebs! Aa’ll have a Lulu Guiness handbag... Noosh’ll have designer clothes... mebbe Victoria Beckham...’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The next day, Erica googled Craig Anderson and called him. A quiet, confident but restrained voice answered.

  She introduced herself. ‘I’ve heard you have some interesting views on conventional as opposed to alternative medicine... I wondered if you’d be willing to talk to me about your practice and your opinions on the future of homeopathy?’

  ‘That sounds interesting. I welcome every chance to spread the word about the work I do.’ He sounded wary though.

  ‘Might get you some new patients too.’ She was poking him with a stick.

  ‘That would not be my primary purpose.’ She could feel the drop in temperature over the phone. ‘It’s about truth. I would insist on approving everything you write in advance of publication, of course. Would there be a proper contract and an honorarium?’

  A what? Who did he think he was? If she wasn’t on a fishing expedition, she’d have told him to get lost. Here she was, offering him a free advert, and he was making conditions. Swallowing her irritation she explained that no, there wouldn’t be either of those, it was a local paper and she had no budget for that. He still went for the bait of a public platform though and she agreed to meet him at his practice later in the week.

  Will Bennett and Paul Lozinski sat in a scruffy flat carpeted by pizza boxes and filmed with dust. Will felt his usual mix of pity, exasperation, and revul
sion at the total human defeat which was writ large on every surface of the place where Pete Barnes existed, nursing his groin and his grudge. Paul was less concerned about the interior design, the place didn’t look that different to his own bedroom when he wasn’t forced by some lass to tidy it up. Still, he was relieved when the Guv refused mugs of tea for both of them; there’s muck and there’s other folks’ muck and you don’t want it in your mouth.

  They’d driven up the coast to Blyth to interview Barnes, as his name had been on Chambers’ records as a patient and he lived in their area rather than that of the City force. They’d been systematically checking patients of both dead doctors to find grudges or motives, cross-checking any relevant details with complaints to the Hospital Trusts. Sally had the bright idea of looking up complications of vasectomies and orthopaedic operations to see if they came up on any blogs or forums. Barnes’ name had come up after exhaustive searching of key words from the medical records. Bright lass, mused Will. She’d be a Sergeant soon at this rate. And always keen to take advice or learn from him...

  ‘Here you go.’ Pete Barnes came in with three cans of Pepsi and handed them round. He popped his own can and started drinking as Will put his down unopened. All that sugar! Paul wiped the top unselfconsciously and started glugging too. The two younger men belched simultaneously and grinned at each other briefly. Barnes, late thirties, looked years younger for a moment then relapsed into what seemed to be his customary strained look. He was very tense. They could smell it in his sweat. His belly flopped out over the belt of his jeans under a baggy old tee shirt. Will kicked off.

  ‘Mr Barnes, we’re investigating patients of two surgeons recently found dead. You may have...’

  ‘The Operator. Yes I know.’

  ‘I believe you were a patient of Mr Chambers?’

  Barnes nodded. His hand clenched a little round the can. Will noticed the paper-thin metal dimpling.

  ‘You went to him for a vasectomy about three and a half years ago?’

  ‘You know I did. Or you wouldn’t be here.’ He’d become sullen. Well, nobody likes being suspected of serial killing. Don’t read too much into his body language.

  Will glanced at Paul, who took over. ‘Made a bit of a mess of it didn’t he? Horrible thing to happen, mate. You have my sympathy.’

  ‘The hospital trust don’t seem to think I have any right to complain. And most other people seem to think it’s funny.’

  ‘Some of these surgeons, god complex you know, they don’t like admitting they slipped up...’

  ‘Chambers told me it sometimes happens. He couldn’t do anything, he said. Couldn’t, or wouldn’t.’

  ‘So Mr Barnes how do you feel now he’s dead?’ Will cut in from the other side. Formal cop, friendly cop.

  ‘I...well I don’t know. The news, they said he’d probably felt nothing. That makes him better off than me.’

  ‘You’re still alive.’ Will was cold.

  ‘I know I’m alive because it still hurts. Otherwise, what kind of life have I got? Marriage gone, sex life gone...’

  ‘You’ve still got the internet. We found this on the forum you’ve been frequenting.’

  Paul read the extract aloud. ‘Be warned guys, don’t get the snip without checking all the things that can go wrong. I had mine more than three years ago. Everything went fine, until five months after the op. Left testicle swelled up, hurt like buggery. Hospital said I’d got epididimytis. It’s a complication of vasectomy they don’t tell you about, well nobody told me. They gave me painkillers and antibiotics and sent me home. It still aches a lot of the time, and often it flares up into a stabbing pain, like a knife in the balls. My wife ended up leaving me with all the stress on our marriage. We wanted a carefree life without worrying, we thought kids would be a pain, now I can’t have any and I’ve got no marriage. No relationships neither. Oh and my ex-wife? She’s got a kid now and another on the way with her new bloke. Changed her mind. But I don’t blame her. It was me wanted the snip. Didn’t want the bother of condoms. If anybody knows anything that would help, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME.’

  As Paul read, Will watched Barnes tensing up still more, his face set. Poor bastard he thought, unconsciously crossing his long legs.

  ‘Well people should know!’ Barnes burst out. ‘Chambers took my money and I lay down on the table and let him carve up my balls and I can’t do nothing about it!’

  ‘Mr Barnes, where were you on the night of...’

  ‘You can’t think I did it!’

  ‘Well let’s see, ‘stabbing pain like a knife in the balls.’ You wrote that. And ‘I lay down on the table and let him carve up my balls and I can’t do anything about it.’ You just said that! Somebody did that very thing to Chambers!’

  ‘God mate, I wouldn’t blame you, wanting some payback for that.’ Paul Lozinski did the sympathy bit. And in fact he meant it. Well almost.

  ‘So I ask you again, where were you...’

  ‘I was here, watching TV, drinking beer, like every night.’

  ‘So you have no alibi.’

  ‘No. But I didn’t do it! And you’ll not prove I did. You can look at CCTV for days and you’ll not find me anywhere near him. And all his troubles are over, mine aren’t. It’s a rare complication, they said. He didn’t do anything wrong, they said. No negligence. He warned me there could be pain for a time in some cases. He didn’t say permanent pain!’

  ‘Thank you Mr Barnes, for your help. And we’re sorry to have troubled you. We’ll be in touch if there’s anything further.’

  On the way back into Wydsand, the two officers were silent for most of the way, thinking dark masculine thoughts. Just as they drove past Sainsbury’s, Paul said, ‘They’ve got a bogof on Mates condoms this week. I’m stocking up. Poor bugger. Gives a whole new meaning to ‘a bag for life’.’

  Meanwhile back at the station, Masum and Sally were discussing their visit to a fairly well-to-do couple, the Milligans, who lived in Wydsand. She was younger than him. The second wife. They’d talked to them separately, Sally following her into the kitchen while Hassan did the blokey bit with husband.

  ‘He seems OK with it all. Shocked about the murder. His then wife insisted on him having a vasectomy after their second child. She had a bad time with them both and didn’t trust contraception. Chambers counselled them to wait until they were older, more sure, but they went ahead. No problems, until the marriage broke up and he marries wife number two. So he goes for a reversal. But it doesn’t work. Rotten luck but he’s an educated guy. He knew it was a long shot. Doesn’t seem to blame Chambers for that. Says him and his wife were together that night at home. I can’t help wondering if it’s worth chasing up all the reversals that didn’t work from Chambers’ records, unless the blokes made a fuss or threatened him. Most people know the score.’

  ‘Hm. Alright for him to be rational and fair. He’s got two kids. He sees them weekends and holidays. She’s got no kids of her own and never will. She’s got to share him with his kids. She’s got to watch him with his kids playing footie and what not. She said more or less what he said, but I could tell she minded. D’you know Sarge, when they got married they asked for money instead of presents, to fund his reversal? So their friends and family could help create their new baby. Like, I don’t know, like it was some kind of magic, the more people involved wishing and praying and hoping, the more likely the miracle would happen. But it didn’t. And she says they were together at home that night as well. But they both have motive, irrational yes but wanting kids isn’t rational is it, and they are alibis for each other.’

  ‘Poor buggers. But yes, their alibis aren’t much use.’

  Will and Hassan compared notes. ‘So’, Hassan closed another file on the computer, ‘that’s most of the known disgruntled patients of either Chambers or Kingston who live on our patch. I’ll email this lot off to the city lads and lasses and then we’ll see if they’ve got anybody in their neck of the woods who fits either crime.’

>   ‘Right. Too much to hope we’d find somebody who’d had the snip from Chambers and a leg or arm pinned by Kingston and wasn’t happy with either... Most of them don’t seem to bear any grudge. They accept things go wrong sometimes. Like that patient of Kingston’s, Lozinski and I called on her last thing. Seems philosophical about the result of her treatment. Didn’t express any ill feeling it didn’t work. Have you got her file there, it’s a Laura Gibson.’

  Over the next few days, in between seeing patients, Erica worked on her article on Kingston, typing and rewriting between appointments and late at night after the gym, trying hard to achieve some sort of distance, trying to be fair to both sides of his character. She described his undoubted skill as a surgeon, cited the positive opinions of some patients, how he’d changed their lives for the better, freeing them from crippling pain and stiffness with successful, if nowadays routine, joint replacements. How he enjoyed the status of consultant; how he tried to push forward the boundaries of his specialism, sometimes perhaps beyond what was of benefit to the individual patient, without mentioning names of course. She mentioned his position in the hospital, how exacting he was of students and staff under him, and how sometimes this could be overbearing, especially towards those who questioned him. Any information which had come from Jamie Lau, Laura Gibson, Gill Webster and Tilly O’Rourke she described as ‘anonymous sources.’

  Then, she told of how he had a somewhat cavalier attitude to pain relief. Even writing about it, she felt tainted by the obscene pleasure of the sadist. She wrote of him as a keen golfer, popular among professional men. Lastly, she described him as a devoted son who had bought his mother a large detached house next to his own. With Tessa’s permission, backed up by Tara, she wrote about the apparently devoted husband, who had abused his wife if she crossed him to the point of violence and injury. Asking, why should we assume someone in a caring profession is perfect in every aspect of their lives? And that he did not deserve the horrible death which had found him at the hands of the killer now known as the Operator. He should have lived to face up to his treatment of his wife, as she had found the courage to assert herself and leave him.