The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2)

by Valerie Laws

  Erica felt sick herself. She impulsively put her hand on Laura’s arm. Laura politely but definitely slid her arm out from under. She didn’t like help or pity.

  ‘So I said no, no chance, I said you’ve failed to put this right, I’m not giving you another chance to mess it up. He looked furious, nobody was supposed to question him let alone criticise. ‘I never offered you a guarantee’ was all he’d say. So anyway, so far so ghastly. Then he took the wires out. And he hurt me as much as he could, doing it. I couldn’t stop him or leave could I? The frame and wires had to come out. I asked for pain relief, he said it wasn’t needed. The nurse looked upset herself but daren’t say anything. So I had to lie there while he got them out, as roughly as he could, it was like a kind of violation. Because it was more than indifference, or coldness. It was more even than suppressed anger, that I’d criticised him, regardless of my natural emotional state. The worst thing - the worst thing, was that I could tell he was enjoying it. Hurting me, I mean. He was loving it. I told myself I was being paranoid, I was mistaken. But after it was done, I had a pounding headache as well as the pain in my leg, stress of course, and I was wheeled out by the nurse, but as we left the room, she caught my file in the door and opened it again, and I saw Kingston in an unguarded moment, looking at my x-ray on the screen and holding the wires he’d taken out of my bones and flesh in his hand against his - groin, and he was - aroused. His face - it was as if he was looking at porn. He switched off the look and the posture as soon as he realised the door was open, back to his haughty indifference, but I’d seen it. He wouldn’t think he’d failed, because he could claim credit for trying to save a leg others had given up on. But he was enjoying my reaction, my pain, my damage. My marred life.’

  Laura was flushed red with shame. Her weakness and victimhood were as painful to her as the injury.

  ‘I’d already been through so much, injury, years of pain, months of treatment, coping with work, my life disrupted, and yet this was somehow harder to bear. He relished my suffering. It was obscene. I didn’t tell anyone. It was a disgusting secret I had to share with that man. A foul kind of intimacy. But what could I say? That nurse wouldn’t have backed me against him. He was like god in there. They would have just said I was a fussy patient. Hysterical. One of his favourite words for female patients. ‘There’s no need to get hysterical.’ I’ve felt so ashamed as if I’d been complicit. I know that’s irrational but I can’t help it. This is the first time I’ve told anyone. I mean, all of it. And I’m glad I’ve told you and now I think I need chocolate.’

  Hm, bit like asking for condoms in a convent, but Erica went off to beg for some from Miles who fortunately had a few foil-wrapped chocolate biscuits and donated one. ‘The C word? And there was more rejoicing over one that was saved...’ he mocked.

  ‘It’s not for me, it’s for a...’

  ‘Friend, yes I know, I believe you.’

  Erica inhaled deeply and furtively, the chocolate, rich and sweet, dark and clinging, acting on her brain like cannabis, as Laura ate with another coffee at her side.

  ‘Chocolate boosts seratonin levels. You need pampering a bit. I’ll give you some contacts for an aromatherapy massage. Have you had reiki? It’s a way of releasing old harmful emotions. There’s a whole theory behind it, which the practitioner can explain, but if you don’t buy that, which you probably won’t, you can regard it as a ritual which can focus your mind and enable you to say goodbye to those feelings of hate and humiliation, like a kind of funeral for bad feelings. It might work for you.’

  ‘I’ll give it some thought.’ Laura was closing down now she’d opened up so far. Trusting another person wasn’t easy for her. She’d exposed her weakness as she saw it, and Erica wouldn’t be surprised if she never saw Laura again. The way friends dump you for listening to them drone on about their lover’s faults, once they’re blissfully together again.

  ‘It’s entirely up to you.’ Erica was speaking Laura’s language. She gave her a high potency dose of Ignatia and arranged for her to come back to see if they could do something more about the leg, make it hurt less. Her resistance to pain was being lowered by her emotional state. The humiliation of the torturer’s victim...forced to participate in an obscene intimacy, taking on the guilt and shame which rightly belonged to the abuser.

  Before she left, she said, ‘You know, Erica, I feel better having talked about it. Hearing he was dead, murdered, I was glad, but then I felt revolted. How could I let him make me into someone like him? But all the same, I hope they don’t catch whoever did it. Who knows what he did to them? Anyway, no doubt the police are hearing nothing but how wonderful he was. Nobody’s going to hand them a motive on a plate. But if you have any doubts about my guilt or innocence, bear in mind I needn’t have told you any of this.’

  After Laura left, Erica made notes for her article, musing on what she was learning about Kingston. His murder was a hate crime, she was sure of it. The kind of impotent hate which builds up until even just killing isn’t enough. She was building up a picture of a man who enjoyed power, couldn’t tolerate anyone who questioned his authority. He enjoyed using his skill on the helpless victims on the table, revelling in their respect and gratitude, in the status he had in the hospital, the entourage of nurses and students following him around. But anyone who questioned his actions and attitudes saw a different side to him. A violent sadist, a clever one who could control his sadism. He could use it when he was safe from the consequences. Just the kind of person who would invite this kind of murder.

  She couldn’t help sympathising with all those who’d suffered at his hands, literally, but any of them might have killed him. There might be scores of them. Could Laura Gibson have killed him? She certainly hated him enough. But would she have come here and flagged herself up as a suspect? And damn it, Erica liked her!

  ‘You can’t just cross people off the suspect list because you like them. Maybe you like them because they’re victims - because you feel you can help them, that they need you,’ she berated herself aloud. So, that’s Laura Gibson and other patients he hurt, Jamie the cute Chinese doctor he humiliated, and oh, the hoodies behind Kingston’s house. Must go for a nighttime jog along there soon.’

  She was supposed to be investigating Kingston, not the murder. Who was she, Miss Marple? No, more of a V I Warshawski, with Philip Marlowe’s dialogue, given the choice. And Tessa was relying on her.

  She heard Rina’s door open.

  ‘Wey that was canny intrest’n.’ Stacey Reed emerged and walked into Erica’s room, phone in one hand, wineglass held aloft in the other.

  ‘Stacey, you haven’t been listening in! That was a confidential consultation, Jeez! And you’ve no right to be in Rina’s room.’

  ‘Aa’m using it as a tempry office like. As yer intern ye knaa. And that reminds iz, ye need more biscuits in there, but better ones, with chocolate on.’ She looked at Erica’s rice cakes. ‘Jeez, them things are beer mats, not breakfast! Anyway, if that Rina lass keeps a wineglass in er room, boozin at work, disgustin, you’ve only yerself to blame if it gets used agin the wall.’

  ‘Stacey, this is serious. I could lose my job. Both my jobs!’

  ‘Erica man, yer clueless. Aa’ve got ye by the Brazilian, and ye admit it! Well Aa’ll not ask for dosh to keep quiet. Ye’ve got nowt worth mentioning.’

  ‘Wow, thanks.’

  ‘In fact aal I want is to work for nowt as yer intern. Can’t say fairer. Safer for ye and aal. If Aa’m working for ye, Aa cannit tell anybody what Aa hear. Saw that on a Tom Cruise fillum about lawyers so it must be true. Lerriz help ye!’

  ‘But what can you do? Apart from keep us up to date with office biscuit needs.’

  ‘Wey ye said sommat aboot joggin and hoodies. Aa can be yer bodyguard like! Little lass like ye, ye cannit gan roond in the dark by yersel, them lads is rough ye knaa.’

  ‘Bollocks Stacey, I’ve spent my entire adult life not to mention underage drinking life wandering around at all ho
urs in the dark and in hardly any clothes, I’m not as defenceless as you seem to think.’

  ‘Worreva. Ye’ve nee choice. Aa’m comin with ye when ye gan after them lads or Aa dob ye in with what I hord through the waal. Like it or lump it.’

  Erica was weakening. It would be good to have company, even Stacey, and after all... as if reading her mind, Stacey played her trump guilt card.

  ‘Ye owe iz, and ye knaa it man!’

  ‘You mean, because I saved you from giving birth unconscious in a filthy alley?’

  ‘Think of me bairn, little Noosh. A child of disadvantage.’

  ‘Oh well... But don’t fuck up!’

  ‘Langwidge in the workplace, Erica! Eee mind, that Kingston was a right fkn bastard wasn’ee? Had it fkn coming, man. Aa can kinda see why that Laura wifie didn’t clock him one, hor bein in hospital an aal, but that Tessa, wadda fkn wuss! Minit he laid hands on her she should’ve taken him to the fkn cleaners for spousal abuse, assault, the works. After operatin on his bollocks forst like. That’s where she should’ve hammered the spikes in.’

  ‘Stacey, I’m trying to prove Tessa’s innocence here, get with the programme. And don’t say anything like that in front of Will Bennett or he’ll have you under the hot lights before you can say ‘Bacardi Breezer.’’

  ‘Fuck him. Oh yer did didn’t yer!’ Stacey was already making sure Erica’s sim card had her number on it, grabbing her phone from the desk. ‘Aa’ll caal ye. Gotta go see aboot summat.’

  She dropped the phone on the desk, and walked off, absent-mindedly putting the wineglass in her handbag. She was thinking, she’d have some calls to make elsewhere before seeing the lads with Erica in tow. There was stuff she didn’t want coming out. Having a bliddy job was more bother than it was worth.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Will Bennett was thinking it over again. The murderer’s chosen method. He called the team together to thrash it out. The more he thought about it, the more circular the logic seemed.

  ‘Right. This is what we’ve got. Stone, nails, mutilation. Let’s not get bogged down in symbolic meanings just for now. What else does the murder method tell us?’

  ‘Hatred Guv.’ Sally at a nod from Will wrote it down on the whiteboard. ‘Real hatred. Not just wanting him dead. Sadistic, even.’

  ‘OK, that makes sense. But what’s wrong with that scenario? What does a sadist do? What’s their whole erm, driving force?’

  ‘Making folks suffer,’ suggested Paul.

  ‘Exactly. So what about this crime doesn’t fit?’

  ‘He was knocked unconscious first, rather than tied up or something.’ Hassan added a note, taking the pen from Sally.

  ‘You see? That much hatred, that much mutilation, yet they whacked him on the head first. What does that suggest to you?’

  ‘That he was too big, strong and fit to overpower?’ Sally said.

  ‘Yes. You see, we’ve been thinking could this be a woman’s crime, is it possible, and in fact the very nature of it suggests it could be. A woman might be able, if she took him by surprise, to hit him with a rock. She’d have a hard job overpowering him and tying him up if he was conscious.’

  ‘Unless it was a sex game,’ put in Paul. Then blushed. ‘I’ve er read things...’

  Will ignored this. ‘So that suggests the ex-wife Tessa, doesn’t it? All that about going to the house in the afternoon, to explain any forensic traces... though Sally did check, and a neighbour did see Tessa in a car with a woman, possibly Tara, outside Kingston’s about mid afternoon, and the car was gone by the time she walked past there on the way to pick up her kids from primary school. Nobody saw the car at night.’

  ‘Tessa doesn’t seem bright enough for that sort of clever plotting.’ Sally objected.

  ‘Maybe not, but her sister is. Maybe they’re in it together. Alibi’ing each other. Soliciting for each other. Erm well you know what I mean.’

  ‘Right Paul.’ Hassan made a note. ‘We better consider the neighbours too, though they don’t seem murderous, but you never know.’

  ‘He might’ve forgot to return somebody’s lawn mower or summat.’ Paul tried to lighten the moment, and failed.

  Hassan kept writing. ‘And add to that, that there was no break in. She could have gone back later. OK, nobody saw the car but that doesn’t rule it out.’

  ‘Tessa claims to have no key, since Kingston changed the locks though Sarge.’ Kev tried to show he was awake.

  Hassan batted this aside. ‘It could’ve been him who left the front door unlocked. Or she could’ve nicked a spare key when she and Tara were at the house. Or he’d have opened the door to her, surely, if she claimed to have come back begging for another chance.’

  Will carried on. ‘So, who would be likely to hate Kingston enough to kill him, and to kill him like that? Apart from the obvious ex.’

  ‘Dissatisfied patients, got duff treatment or thought they had.’

  ‘Right, Sally.’ Will began to collect a list of suspects, or suspect categories.

  ‘Guv, that might fit with the head injury as well. Someone he’d treated might be erm, disabled or physically disadvantaged in some way. Unable to take him on without knocking him down first.’ Sally’s elfin face was alight, she loved this stuff thought Paul, bloody teacher’s pet.

  ‘Yes that’s true. Not that we’ve been able to find anyone who’d complained against him. Though there might be plenty who’d like to but haven’t for some reason.’ Frustrated rather than pleased by the multiplying list of suspects, Will raised a hand to his hair but remembered just in time.

  ‘Somebody at work he’d cheesed off somehow?’ Hassan said. ‘Not that we’ve been able to get any dirt on him from other docs or hospital staff. They’re all singing his praises from the same hymn sheet.’

  ‘Yes definitely a possibility,’ said Will. ‘But have you noticed, there’s been no real warmth, no real sorrow for him as a man, as a friend. Just shock at the horror of it, and respect, and praise for him as a surgeon. The usual closing of ranks. Like if one of us got taken out, someone unpopular, you can imagine the same thing...’

  Everyone but Will had the same thought - is the DI thinking wistfully of Golden Boy George speared with a pitchfork or suffocated in fertiliser?

  ‘The lads who’ve been hanging around behind the houses causing a nuisance. Scotty and mates. Residents have been chasing them off for weeks. Mebbe they got sick of it and struck back,’ Paul suggested.

  ‘We have to put ‘the lads’ on the list.’ Will did so. ‘But they’d have to be high on drugs to go that far. If they were high, and drunk, and aggressive, and provoked, they might give him a kicking, even kill him, but all that careful mutilation? That doesn’t sound like a chaotic mob.’

  ‘They’re just kids,’ said Hassan. His wife worked with lads like these. ‘Even though they are a right pain and commit crimes like theft and possession and so on, and yes OK, if they suddenly got a mob mentality taking them over they might go off on one. But let’s not forget the crime scene. The use of those nitrile gloves, plastic aprons, such care not to leave traces. Not exactly what you’d expect of a drug-crazed mob.’

  ‘No you’re right. However, they’re not all that daft. You never know, one of them might be a clever sadist in the making.’

  ‘Guv, some crims torture folks to get their PIN numbers from them,’ suggested Paul.

  ‘Actually that’s a good point,’ mused Will. ‘He’d be unconscious, brain damaged, but perhaps he came to, briefly? Brain injuries can be hard to predict. They might’ve thought it worth a try, not realising how bad his injuries were.’

  Paul looked triumphantly at Sally. ‘I read about this bloke, he shot himself in the head with a shotgun and then walked away, left most of his brains all over the inside of a bus shelter, didn’t collapse until he was back home.’

  ‘A clever sadist among the lads might be worth following up. Also this case is getting nationwide publicity, somebody might be enjoying their fifteen minutes
of fame.’

  Both Will and Hassan were thinking of their interview with Scotty and his mum, uneducated, ignorant even, but not stupid.

  ‘Guv,’ Sally had been thinking. ‘There may be a family member after Kingston’s dosh. Or a girlfriend. He might’ve been boffing the nurses.’

  ‘Be a waste not to,’ muttered Paul, dodging Sally’s kick.

  ‘Anyway we’ve got this list and we’ll just have to keep asking questions, at the hospital, in the street, and hope people will talk to us about Kingston.’

  Hassan sounded madly optimistic even to himself.

  At home, Erica poured herself a glass of Chateau Neuf du Pape and listed her suspects in a new Word document.

  Tessa/Beccy, abused wife. Laura G’s story backs up Tessa’s about K’s abuse. Independent testimony that K got his jollies dishing out pain & getting away with it/ being rewarded for it. Gives Tessa v strong motive, but OTOH too scared to take him on?

  Jamie Lau, humiliated trainee doc + all other students K probs treated the same.

  Laura Gibson? + others with similar stories, not come forward. Wd she tell abt her motive if guilty? Risky. Disabled so poss probs handling him dead or alive. Accomplice?

  Hoodies in drinking den. Robbery gone wrong? Drug fuelled attack after he caught them vandalising?

  And who else? Could she really find anything out when the police had all the expertise and personnel? On the other hand, who would confide in the police if it made them a murder suspect? No-one with any sense. Picturing herself running along the edge of the golf course, Erica remembered she hadn’t yet followed up the Wydsand Golf Club, or the church, in delving into Kingston’s life. But would Kingston have ill-treated the kind of influential people he liked to impress, who brought business his way or cemented his status?

  All in all, with suspects and sources multiplying madly on every side, she was running out of time and avenues she could legitimately explore before she had to submit her article on Kingston.