The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2)

by Valerie Laws

  Sally took the cue. ‘Not everybody appreciates that surgeons aren’t magicians. His wife told us. Gupta had enemies.’

  Much of this detail emerged publicly over the next few days. Gupta’s family were too upset to comment and it was left to the hospital trust to parade a spokesman to trot out the usual platitudes. Whether he’d ever actually knowingly met Raj Gupta was doubtful.

  The media were not shy about giving their opinions. The Operator had clearly struck again, and this time, outside. He was ‘devolving’ or ‘escalating’ or whatever vocabulary they’d picked up from TV crime series about serial killers. The police came in for criticism for not making the streets safe; they in turn were appealing for witnesses. The only sighting that had emerged was by another dogwalker, in a nearby street, who had seen a couple of separate joggers relatively near the time Gupta would have been approaching; a broad-shouldered man, wearing jogging clothes and a knitted hat, and a dark-clothed youth in a hoodie, hood up. He had not seen a face clearly, nor any obvious blood on either of their clothes.

  Police wanted to talk to the joggers to eliminate them from their enquiries, or as witnesses. The police further infuriated the media by refusing to confirm that Gupta was a victim of the serial killer known as the Operator. They were keeping open minds; members of his immediate family were not under suspicion, having been at home together with some dinner guests; Mr Gupta had been heading home to join them. When he had not arrived, they assumed some emergency had come up, and that he had not had a chance to contact them, which was unusual, and had stayed the night at the hospital, which was not. But officially police were considering a racial motive for the attack as another possibility. No-one else was.

  Wasn’t he a doctor? A surgeon? Hadn’t he been killed in a way which referred to his specialism, coronary surgery? Weren’t there nails in his hands? Wasn’t his wallet still in his pocket? What more did anybody need to know?

  As any pleasure at being in her own place was spoiled by this new murder, Erica thought she might as well make herself thoroughly annoyed, so she rang Gary Thomas.

  ‘Come to your senses, Erica? Realised only I can give you what you need under the duvet?’

  ‘In your dreams. I just wondered if you had any inside info about this new killing.’

  ‘Ah, the Operator strikes again! I hope... Well, I might have, but I’m much in demand right now, pretty busy, and let’s face it, Erica, what’s in it for me?’

  ‘I thought you might like to show off your inside knowledge now you swim with the sharks from the big nationals, that’s all. You never know, I might be in a position to give you an exclusive one day, if my researches into these killings pay off. And if not, it won’t cost you anything to drop a few words in my ear.’

  ‘Well, I did pick up one or two things. But that’s enough about my evening, ha ha! The police need to be seen to be looking at a possible racial motive here, but no-one I’ve spoken to thinks that likely in this case. The Operator’s an equal opportunity psycho. Gupta had an excellent record, considering them with dodgy tickers are likely to kick it at any moment. Some evidence is contradictory or confusing. The nails in the hands weren’t properly driven in, just a token really - but then he was on the ground, not a table. The killer would be in a hurry, afraid someone would go by and notice something.’ He gave her a brief run-down of the killer’s MO and the figures seen in the area at what might have been the relevant time. ‘Doctors’ organisations are screaming for protection, hospitals are issuing them all with attack alarms and they’re going about in pairs when possible. Even the men! But you’ll know all about lonely doctors needing protection at night, won’t you?’

  ‘I’m not rising, Gary.’

  ‘Well as long as he is, eh?! Fnarr, fnarr. Of course, some are saying the Operator is a doctor or health professional himself. Be easier for him to find out where doctors lived and if they lived alone. Could have a grudge against the medical establishment. Or a failed medical student. There’s some argument about how much medical knowledge is involved in the mutilations.’

  ‘Yeah, right, like Youtube hasn’t got films of every operation you can name in glorious close up.’

  After she’d got rid of Gary, she thought about Jack the Ripper. Old Jack had operated in dark alleys, near places where people were going by. He had been in a hurry. In one case he had killed twice in a night, the first time doing little damage to the body, apparently interrupted. So, his perverted needs still driving him, he had killed again and done his ripping. But the worst mutilations had been reserved for the only victim to be attacked inside a room. The added time and privacy had enabled him to go to town on his victim. Intestines draped over picture rails and so on. But the Operator had done it in reverse, going from indoor attacks to outdoor. Maybe it was getting harder to get surgeons to let him in as they were getting very wary.

  Gary’s point about whether the Operator could be a doctor himself was another parallel with Jack the Ripper. Some had believed that the mutilations were proof that a medical man, or one trained in medicine to some extent, had been guilty of the killings. But surely the crude nature of the present killings belied that. The murder of Gupta had been rather a botched job. The killer had made a mess of getting at the heart, being unable to prise the ribs apart. She knew from descriptions of roadside emergency operations that the ribs had to be cranked apart with retractors before the heart could be reached for massage by hand, or in this case, presumably, removal.

  On the other hand, the ancient Aztecs were adept at removing living hearts from sacrificial victims armed with only an obsidian knife. But then, they got plenty of practice.

  Such gruesome speculations were cut short when emails and texts started piling up. Jamie wanted to see her. It turned out he hadn’t been away after all, but had had to stay on duty over Christmas to cover for sick staff. Funny he hadn’t let her know but then she’d been away herself and they’d been sexting over Christmas rather than exchanging news. Her patients, suffering from holiday excesses, expected her to put them right with a pill. Some wanted hangover cures in advance for the New Year parties where they intended getting paralytic. Sometimes she could see Anderson’s viewpoint.

  She organised some appointments, texted Jamie to arrange a meeting, and decided to get outside before cabin fever set in. A run along the beach would put things in perspective as always.

  It was a bleak afternoon, with tiny dry wisps of gritty snow whirling suddenly out of a sullen sky, like a heavy lead lid over the earth, with the sun sending some dull yellow rays under it. A large golden retriever bounded up, its coat matted with sand and water.

  ‘Go away, pooch,’ she said, but the thing shook itself all over her. As she was brushing wet sand from her clothes, the dog’s owner also bounded up.

  ‘Hi,’ he said enthusiastically, with the same simple expectation of welcome as his dog. ‘Lovely to see you! Alone, are you?’

  She was about to repeat herself when she recognised him. Mel’s golfing partner, whom she had met at the Golf Club dance, and had danced with. Howard, that was it. With the networking wife. There was no sign of her today, which probably explained the enthusiastic welcome.

  ‘Had a good Christmas Erica?’

  ‘Very quiet.’ She gave the conventional answer everyone gave, even if they’d spent the festive season in a haunted castle with a rock star lover of each sex and a few minor royals.

  ‘Saw old Mel the other day,’ he remarked. ‘Boxing Day, in fact. In the street, near his house. Thought he was going skiing - oh, god have I spoken out of turn? I assumed he’d be skiing with you. You haven’t broken up have you?’

  ‘Mel and I have nothing serious going, Howard. He was going skiing with Miles. They enjoy going on the hunt together, you know - each other’s wingmen - some very attractive women there, all that apres ski social scene...’ She was burbling, awkwardly trying to keep up the pretence of the Odd Couple which Miles and Mel seemed to maintain at the Golf Club.

  ‘Ah,
right.’ Howard brightened. Omigod, he was pleased she was fancy free again. ‘Maybe he came back early. Only saw him from the back, maybe it wasn’t him. ‘

  The conversation was brought to an end by a boxer dog which was taking an unhealthy interest in Howard’s retriever. Erica ran off while he was attempting to disentangle them and avoid a black eye from the boxer’s bulky and aggressive owner.

  The further she ran from the car park the emptier the beach was. She revelled in the open space and the boiling wintry sea. She thought about Jamie. She felt about Jamie. Her few days away had intensified her desire for him; as she ran, the little shocks of her feet hitting sand seemed to climb up her legs and collect as an ache, a pool of heat in her groin. She was awash with lust, and couldn’t wait to see him, touch him and taste him. She remembered their pre-Christmas dates and how he always seemed so quiet and nice, in the old fashioned sense, and how it contrasted with his total lack of inhibitions when they were alone. Sod Mel, Howard, dogs and all murderers. Except that Jamie had been around for the third murder… and possibly Mel too, from what Howard just said.

  Had Craig Anderson also been around over the Christmas holiday? He could be described as broad-shouldered like the figure spotted near the scene, in fact it would be an understatement. He did hate doctors after all.

  She dismissed the thought from her mind, until the papers reported more on the Gupta killing. Confirming Gary’s words, he seemed to have been a respected surgeon with an excellent record. However, being a cardiac surgeon, he often operated on people who were near death, and unavoidably, some of them died in spite of his efforts. Almost a year ago, a complaint had been made against him. A young girl had died on the operating table, and her parents had accused him of negligence. He had come out of the investigation well and been cleared, but they had been bitter and unhappy with the verdict. The girl’s father had threatened Gupta: ‘It’s not over yet!’ That was said in front of other staff.

  The media tried to chase up this couple for a quote but they had gone quiet. Presumably they would be questioned by the police. Erica hoped they had an alibi.

  The similarity of the situation with that of Craig Anderson, whose son had died of meningitis which had not been spotted by hospital staff, and who certainly felt bitter about it, made Erica wonder. Could he have heard about the case and taken action like some muscular avenging angel on behalf of the parents? In which case, was this killing inspired by the other two murders, or was he involved in all three of them? She couldn’t see why he would kill Kingston; most of the hatred Kingston inspired would not have been known to Anderson. As far as you know, Erica reminded herself.

  Similarly, Craig Anderson had nothing she knew about against Paul Chambers. Though there was something in the bible, something ludicrous, which she’d used in arguments whenever someone quoted Leviticus to support persecution of gays. ‘He that is wounded in the stones, or has his privy member cut off’ is an abomination or ought to be killed. Or something like that, among a whole lot of bizarre rules about mixing fabrics and suchlike, all with OTT punishments, texts conveniently ignored by those who cherry-pick holy writ to back up their own prejudices. But maybe to a zealot like Anderson, a vasectomy specialist like Chambers could be seen as performing an operation which effectively excommunicated his patients, cutting them off from heaven and perhaps making them unfit to live. That would give him a motive, if his religious mania was extreme enough and combined with his hatred of doctors.

  Perhaps Anderson had such a fund of hatred building up inside him he had turned to murder to assuage it, bypassing his residual conscience by seeing himself as an avenger for the weak. Finding each time it didn’t heal the pain of the loss of his wife and son. And it was significant that those killed by the Operator had been powerful figures, high status men. Maybe he regarded them as fair game, and in some twisted way felt he was protecting the helpless from them.

  Anderson worked out seriously and would have no trouble overpowering and killing another man, especially white collar workers like surgeons, especially as they had all been taken by surprise - the first wound in each case was on the back of the head.

  She remembered how Anderson had come to Ivy Lodge and how scared she’d been. His tension, his suppressed violence. But perhaps some kind of chivalrous impulse made him leave women alone, especially small ones like Erica; it might not fit with his macho image to attack a woman. On the other hand, if he seemed in danger of getting caught for the other murders, self-preservation might kick in and chivalry would be kicked out double quick. For the sake of his personal Crusade. Fundamentalists could always find justification for their actions.

  It would be dangerous to antagonise a loose cannon like Anderson. Erica pictured him like Patrick O’Brian’s character Awkward Davies, rushing into battle waving a butcher’s cleaver and foaming at the mouth; or perhaps he would be more like Stephen Maturin, surgeon and secret agent, who could kill when need be, coldly and efficiently with a steel blade. Either way, she had to know more. Poke the bear.

  ‘Mr Anderson? Erica Bruce here. I was wondering if you still wanted to be considered as my patient. You did give me your personal details. I have them on file. I’m just sorting through my records for the new year, and in view of the opinions you expressed when I interviewed you...’ She let him pick up the cue.

  ‘Oh - right. Well I think I made it clear that I don’t need any professional help except my own. I just signed on as your patient to secure confidentiality. So by all means delete the file. I won’t be making any other appointments with you. You just put bandaids on bloated bodies which are already damaged beyond your skill to repair.’

  What a charmer.

  ‘Erm, OK. Just as you like, Mr Anderson. Did you have a busy Christmas period? Do some of your patients, like so many of mine, expect miracle cures for their own excesses? Or do you have them trained yet?’

  ‘My patients know better than to ask me for magic bullets, Ms Bruce. I deal with more serious imbalances of the vital forces within the body.’

  As always, talking to Anderson made her want to rush out and get legless and overdose on Belgian chocolate. One last try. A long shot.

  ‘I expect they still want you on hand over Christmas though. Did you see there’s been a third murder?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s of no concern to me. I was away visiting relatives down south, and I’m busy right now, catching up on my work, so please delete my file, on the assumption that what I told you remains confidential.’

  If he thought that only she in this area knew his exact motive, that gave him a motive for getting rid of her, if suspicion was gathering round him. Had Will Bennett taken her hint and looked into Anderson’s past records? ‘Down south:’ what of the medics there he blamed for his son’s death, surely he’d have gone after them if anyone?

  Was there any way of checking on whether he really was away at the relevant time? Short of asking his neighbours on some crazy pretext... Besides, even if he had really gone south, he could have travelled back to do the murder and whizzed back all in a day. Maybe hired a car under an assumed name. Taken a train and bought a ticket for cash. That was all Will’s department, checking facts and CCTV cameras.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘Ye must be hornier than a Viking helmet, man.’ During a break at Ivy Lodge, Stacey was slurping a caramel macchiato to go, Erica drinking smoky Lapsang Souchong from her own stash. Stacey was scoffing chocolate hobnobs (‘vital office supplies’) while Erica watched her. ‘That lad of yours works too bliddy hard. Crap job if ye ask me.’

  ‘He’s got an insanely busy time over the next couple of weeks.’ Erica swam, jogged, and did gym classes, but apart from giving her the usual exercise high and filling her with energy, they did not act as any kind of anaphrodisiac, rather the reverse. ‘Good job I’m self-sufficient and able to care for my own needs as a woman should.’

  ‘Aa’ll bet ye get yer AA batteries delivered by truck.’ Stacey nudged Erica painfully in the ribs an
d sloshed coffee over her sleeve. ‘Jeez, yer ribs hurt me fkn elbow!’

  Miles breezed past. ‘Hi girls!’

  ‘Miles! How did the skiing go? Howard said he thought he saw Mel over Christmas. I thought maybe something had gone wrong.’

  ‘Oh it was great, but Mel had to cut and run, some crisis at work, as per usual.’

  So Mel had been around over Christmas. Erica remembered Howard’s conversation at the Christmas dinner dance, how he’d mentioned Mel and Kingston being deep in consultation on the golf course, though Mel claimed to hardly know Kingston. An awkward lie, he’d said. Was it? Also Erica had a nagging feeling that somebody else had lied at the Golf Club. Not a big lie, or she’d have noticed it consciously. An awkward lie where there was no need for one, or so it seemed. Any lie might be significant, if she could only remember it.

  One way of recovering a lost memory was through hypnotherapy. But she could hardly ask Miles to hypnotise her, only to hear her casting suspicion on Mel. She could go to another therapist, but how could she know they were trustworthy or reliable? And Miles would think it so odd...

  Jamie too had cancelled his trip to stay with relatives to be on duty in the hospital in case any amateur Santas fell off the roof. Of all the many suspects she’d collected for Kingston’s murder, only those who had been away and could be shown to have been away at the time of Gupta’s killing could be eliminated from suspicion. Unless of course there was more than one killer... Was she really considering Jamie as a suspect, she thought with shame?

  Combining genuine convictions with cunningly setting up further investigations, for her next health page she dealt with remedies of all kinds for SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, which makes sufferers gloomy and torpid, some to the point of disability. Remedies like daylight simulation light bulbs, for example, and where to get them. Herbal remedies like St John’s Wort for depressive symptoms. Getting as much daylight as possible. So many people must go to work in winter in the dark, come home in the dark, and spend all day in artificial light.