The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2)

by Valerie Laws

  ‘Well I’ve certainly heard a lot of balls today. You really must go, Ms Bruce. Or I’ll have to consider calling the police. I must say, I wish I hadn’t agreed to let you in here in the first place. Some of the members didn’t like it at the time.’

  She got riled then. ‘Nice to know you’re willing to admit murderers, as long as they aren’t female or Asian of course!’ She stormed out of the club, but the thought of having to unlock her bike and pedal off in a rage watched by Blackett was cringe-making. She sat down on the boundary fence, in sight of Kingston’s house, to cool off. She was uncomfortably aware that she had her own prejudices against organisations like the Golf Club and its rules. She mustn’t let that cloud her thinking.

  Did she have to tell Will? It did sound daft, and the police were well satisfied that the medical connection was the valid one. She might be maligning a harmless man looking forward to playing golf in his retirement. On the other hand, if she did nothing and someone else died horribly, the blood would be on her hands, at least in a sense. Her thoughts lurched aside for a moment. It was possible to feel that one had blood on one’s hands through doing nothing, as well as something. Might that apply to Craig Anderson? Punishing a sin of omission, instead of commission? Could he have been guilty of the Gupta murder, if her theory was correct? Gupta was accused of a similar act of negligence, albeit wrongly, to that of the medics Anderson blamed for the death of his wife and child.

  She phoned Will as the wind chilled her rage-hot cheeks and numbed her phone hand unheeded.

  ‘Erica!’ his all too familiar sardonic tones stung her ear like lemon juice in a cut finger. ‘What can we do for you?’

  ‘I’ve a theory about the Operator murders. Seriously, I think I might know who it is.’

  There was a silence. ‘Some of my colleagues think the same, actually. We’re getting close to making an arrest.’

  ‘If you mean Craig Anderson, I don’t think he committed the murders. At least not two of them. Gupta perhaps. I think the medical connection is just a blind.’ She explained about Harold Archer. ‘Surely it’s worth looking into.’

  ‘Do you expect me to take this seriously? Or are you wasting police time? One minute you’re hounding me in defence of Tessa Kingston, now it’s Craig Anderson. It’s a very ingenious idea but it defies common sense.’

  ‘I was right about Tessa.’

  ‘Erm... I have no statement to make at this time.’

  ‘Oh come on Will! Have you established any connection between Tessa and the other victims? No, I thought not. OK my theory sounds a bit out there, but since when did murderers use common sense? A loss of proportion is typical. Plenty of killings are for motives that seem senseless to sane people. I’m sure there’s something in this, Will. Think how you’ll feel if someone else dies while Craig Anderson is still in hospital. Think how I’ll feel. Do you honestly think I’d ring you up for fun, after the way you’ve been treating me just because of - the past? Do you think I enjoy being patronised and my ideas rubbished? I can get that from my editor!’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Erica, why can’t you learn to keep out of police business! Apart from anything else, you could be putting yourself in danger.’

  ‘Ah, so you admit the Operator might not be Anderson! Or how could I be in danger, since he’s bedbound? Did you research his background?’

  ‘Of course. We know about his son, and his wife.’

  ‘Yes, and he hates doctors because of all that, so surely if he’s the Operator he’d go south and kill the doctor who made the decision to send his son home from A&E?’

  ‘This may astonish you Erica, but I checked up on that. He wouldn’t have killed that doctor, because he’s already dead. Died earlier this year. He was killed in a car accident, he’d taken to drink sadly. Possibly conscience over Anderson’s child, possibly stress over Anderson’s accusations.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And there’s no evidence it wasn’t an accident, but I’m going to get them to reopen the case to double check it wasn’t murder. Anderson may have started with him, and carried on, or he might have killed the other doctors after he’d been thwarted of his revenge on the one he blamed.’

  ‘Well fine, but look, since Anderson’s on ice for now, it can’t hurt to keep investigating other avenues.’

  Will gritted his teeth. ‘Of course we’re still following up leads, jeez I’m the one being patronised here. Nothing is certain. There are inconsistencies.... the Gupta murder doesn’t fit the pattern in some ways. And yes, we’ve checked up on the Morrisons, the couple who blamed him for their daughter’s death. They had alibis, though admittedly only other family members, but we’ve got nothing on them anyway.’

  ‘Isn’t there any forensic evidence?’

  ‘Nothing conclusive. It’s not that straightforward. Believe it or not, we have checked for connections between everyone we know to be involved.’

  ‘Did you know Chambers was on the waiting list for Kingston’s Golf Club?’

  ‘Well no. So thank you for that vital piece of information Erica.’

  God he’d find out who’d missed that and throttle them even though it was a beyond insane idea. He’d said ‘find ANY connection’ and the team should have caught it. ‘I’ll add it to our database... yes we’ve even created one of those. Sally Banner’s brilliant with computers.’

  ‘Yeah, she’d like to defrag your hard drive for a start.’

  ‘Everybody doesn’t have a sex-crazed mind like yours you know.’

  ‘Poor you! Good luck finding another like me. Anything in there on Archer and forensics?’

  A pause while Will raked through Sally’s database. ‘Erm... yes, Harold Archer, known to both the first two victims. He’d been to see Kingston about some aches and pains, and to drinks at his house, and of course he’d bought his mother’s house, though that was all done through solicitors and estate agents. He’d been to Chambers’ house too, through their mutual Golf Club connections in the city. So even if we did find the odd hair or fingerprint it wouldn’t necessarily solve anything. Please, leave it to us!’

  ‘Peter Wimsey would’ve listened to me. He’s got imagination.’

  ‘No, he’s imaginary. Get a grip Erica. You really think Harold Archer is so eaten up with envy and rage over not getting into a Golf Club...’

  ‘Yes! Can’t you just imagine Kingston, selling him the house at an inflated price, enjoying the fact that it took a lifetime of effort for Archer to afford it, letting him think his dream is about to come true, lying to him about getting into the club, then making sure he has to languish on a list? Do you think guys often leave that club, apart from feet first? Can you imagine how that feels? Kingston next door, gloating! Sneering at him every day. Conning a man out of his hard-earned savings, just for the sadistic pleasure of it.’

  ‘OK. So I can see how Archer might feel like bashing Kingston on the head, maybe when they’re both outside trying to chase those lads away from the path... but Chambers, just because he’s on the list?’

  ‘Not just because, partly to hide the true motivation, keep you thinking it’s all about doctors. Gupta may have been a copycat, maybe that was Anderson, or maybe it was Archer, because there’s no link! The media had run with ‘the Operator’, what better way to draw suspicion away from himself, confirm it’s a medical motive and a serial killer!’

  ‘Erica this is an oldish kind of geezer, he’s in his mid fifties, a serial killer with slippers and a pocketful of Werther’s Originals...’

  ‘Will! That’s the most egregious ageism! I can’t believe I’m hearing this... what appalling stereotyping! My god...’

  ‘OK, OK, I was being flippant, your theory is so insane! There was something I was trying to say... god you do my head in. Ah yes, so he might have crept up on the three surgeons with a rock, stretching credibility to breaking point, so how about the membership secretary, and you? How many serial killers have two distinct MOs?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s yo
ur job.’

  ‘He’d have to be unfeasibly accurate with a golf ball to aim straight at somebody’s head! I know he missed yours, but he got pretty near. Remember what the hoodies said, they have to lie to the lasses about hitting rabbits. What? Hang on Erica... What is it Hassan?’

  Will’s end of the conversation went mute leaving Erica on hold. Hanging on to memories and words... what had those lads said? It wasn’t quite the way Will remembered it. She was used to listening to people and remembering, noticing what they said and how they said it. Something about a cat... It wasn’t Archer with the cat, it was the woman next door, Ziggy or Siggy. And something they’d said about the rabbits had surprised her. In fact, she’d been recording them at the time. She’d not bothered listening to it, as all sorts of events, Stacey’s call, Will’s arrival, Stacey selling remedies to the lads, had intervened and anyway she’d only been doing it to impress them.

  She dug it out of her bag and found the file for that night. She played it, fast forwarding.

  Here it was. ‘...used to find golf baals lying aboot and try and get rabbits and that with them. A couple of windows did kind of get broke...’

  ‘Did you ever get any rabbits?’ Her voice, sceptical.

  ‘Aye, buttloads of rabbits, man,’ then a tussle sound and an oof! of pain from the speaker before their leader Scotty’s voice came on.

  ‘Shurrup! Did we fuck! We’d find dead ones and tell other lads we’d killed them. That’s aal.’

  That’s what had surprised her. That Scotty would deny hitting the rabbits instead of lying that he had. She searched a bit further on, glad that Will was keeping her on hold.

  ‘We hated the bastard. Stupid fucker...’ meaning Kingston.

  ‘That other owld gadgie was worse...aalways on wor case, I fuckin hate him, and that cat - ‘Another sound of violence and the voice was cut off. Again, Scotty took over.

  ‘It was the owld wifie with the cat, man, always coming oot moaning at we.’

  Twice Scotty had stopped a lad from speaking and glossed over what he’d been trying to say. What did it matter who had the cat, and whether they’d killed rabbits with golf balls?

  Thinking hard, she didn’t notice Harold Archer watching her from his upstairs window. She was watching Blackett through the Golf Club bar window, speaking on the phone and glowering at her. Snobby git. His words came back to her, ‘our club, take murderers? some must advertise, but we don’t...’

  ‘Murder Must Advertise!’ she said aloud. Dorothy L Sayers’ novel in which Lord Peter Wimsey solves a crime involving a pebble, no, a scarab, propelled by a catapult. A cat - ! What if those lads had made or bought online a catapult which could fire golf balls, and they’d used it to break windows, damage plants, and take pot-shots at rabbits? Oldest naughty boy meme in the world. ‘Just William’ and Scotty, twins across the decades. Quite clever too. Golf balls lying about the course, ammunition that couldn’t be traced back to them. Golf ball injuries could be blamed on someone practicing on the course at night. Scotty hadn’t wanted her to know about it. Did this mean it was the lads who’d fired at the Membership Secretary, taking him out of action with head injuries, and at herself? With murderous intent, or poor impulse control?

  ‘I hate him, and that cat’ the lad began, speaking of Archer. Had he been about to say, ‘that catapult was ours’? ‘that catapult took ages to make’, ‘cost a packet on ebay’? Had Archer copied, or taken, or found, their catapult, and used it against the Membership Secretary, and herself? Did that make it more or less likely he’d killed Kingston? Her mind was whirling. She had to think it out. If only Will would listen to her. She ended the on-hold call with Will, then called him straight back. It went to voice mail.

  ‘Will, it’s Erica. It was a catapult. Archer’s got one, or the lads have, anyway that’s what was used against the membership guy, and me, and possibly something to do with Kingston’s murder... listen.’ As she relayed the recorded dialogue she was retrieving her bike and beginning to push it. ‘I’m going for a run to think things out and work off my adrenaline. Meet me on the pier if you’re free or call back.’

  She finished the call, got on her bike and pedalled off as if she’d been fired from a catapult herself. She barely noticed the biting cold even though she’d been still for some time.

  Bloody Will Bennett! To think, that arrogant bastard had once held her in his arms when all her defences were down, given her orgasms, all the while holding what she did in contempt. All the time, smugly convinced he’d saved her life back at Stonehead, and that she needed his protection. She just couldn’t forgive him for that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  ‘Bloody Erica Bruce!’ Will stormed to Hassan, sitting next to him in the car. ‘S’alright, she’s on hold. She can’t hear. She doesn’t bloody listen, more to the point!’

  Hassan had taken a call from the station to say a Mr Selwyn Blackett, of Wydsand Golf Club, had rung to complain about a Miss Erica Bruce who had been making allegations about members or would-be members which could damage the club, especially as she might publish some of this ‘dangerous twaddle’ in the local paper... and Blackett had ranted on in this manner when Hassan rang him back to find out what was going on, interested at first simply by the proximity of the club to Kingston’s house. He’d put Will on the phone, cue a re-run of the same rant, before he could break in and try to pour oil on troubled vinegar.

  ‘She suggested that Mr Archer might be murdering his way up the waiting list?’ Hassan was hearing this for the first time without any of Erica’s reasons and couldn’t help grinning. Will grinned back at him as he tried to soothe Blackett.

  ‘Do I hear amusement, Officer? It’s not funny I assure you. This club has spent decades building up a certain reputation...’

  Will tuned out briefly, looking at his own mobile which was silently ringing, Erica’s name showing. He let it go to voicemail while he offered Hassan’s mobile back to him, and Hassan made a great show of refusing to take it, Blackett’s voice quacking out of it as it hung in the air between them. Will put it back to his ear, to hear Blackett winding up, ‘I hope you’re going to follow this up, young man. She ought to be arrested, or at least silenced, threatened with legal action... members of this club have had a bad enough time, press hanging round, members attacked or murdered... Mr Archer is desperate to get in, I’ve just been telling him, this kind of allegation won’t do his bid for membership any good...’

  ‘You’ve spoken to him?’ Oh shit, Erica was in trouble now. Archer could sue her, the daft bint. ‘Was that wise, sir? If you’re not happy with that sort of erm, rumour, surely spreading it yourself is counter-productive?’

  ‘Yes well I thought Archer ought to know what was being said, and to be frank with you Inspector, he is well, fanatical about joining this club, it’s a lifetime ambition for him, and I just thought... well I told him, I hope you’ve got an alibi for some of these attacks Mr Archer, because we don’t want this sort of mud sticking to the club!’

  A feeling of unease began to form in Will. ‘How did he respond?’

  He pressed mute and hissed at Hassan, ‘Drive! Archer’s house, next to Kingston’s!’ Better safe than sorry.

  Hassan started the car and set off, while Will kept listening to Blackett on Hassan’s phone.

  ‘Archer was furious! Said he’d seen her outside the club, and was going to sort her out. She’d just bicycled off by then but he said he’d catch her up, and then he hung up on me. Rather rudely too. Then I saw his car go haring off. Though how he’d know where to look for her...’

  Will cut Blackett off, ‘rather rudely’ too, and grabbed his own mobile to ring Erica. No reply but he saw the missed call from her. As he listened to her message he snapped, ‘Archer’s after Erica, he’s in a car and she’s on a bike and he’s out of his mind with rage... she’ll be heading to the pier. To ‘think it all out’. She’s got a new theory and new evidence and she won’t know what to do with it.’ Since I’ve shown no inte
rest in her ideas.

  ‘Hang on.’ Hassan slewed the car round. ‘Maybe Archer will lose her? She could cycle anywhere, alleys, footpaths.’

  ‘She said in the paper that’s where she goes to think and to run. He might know where she’s heading. Best head straight there, though we’ll keep an eye out for her.’ He asked the station to put a call out on Archer’s car, and for any officer to look out for Erica on her bike. Hassan was making all the speed he could on the residential streets, towards the sea front and heading for the river mouth.

  ‘Long shot though,’ Hassan said. ‘We don’t know which way they went, there are loads of streets you can cut along. We’ll try the obvious, the sea front road.’

  ‘She had more to say about her theory in the phone message... you’ll never believe this, she thinks he’s the Operator.’

  ‘Archer!’

  ‘She thinks he killed at least the first two, yes I know it’s far-fetched, but actually he may have attacked the Membership Secretary which could be attempted murder. And Erica herself was attacked. Possibly. And she is so very attackable.’

  Will brought Hassan up to speed on the catapult theory. ‘It sounds fairly harmless... but that Golf Club bloke nearly died of his head injuries. As it is, he may have long-term brain damage. Foot down, mate, Erica’s in deep bother and this is when she decides to go running.’ Because I wouldn’t listen to her.

  Running. What else could Erica do now? Go to Archer’s house and accuse him? Fat lot of good that’d do. He might murder her, or more likely, just laugh in her face. She had no proof at all. She had no way of contacting the lads at a moment’s notice. And they’d just deny everything. Will wouldn’t be interested, even if he ever listened to her message. The theory did sound crazy, even to her. She could just imagine his sardonic expression, his blue eyes narrowing. Battling against the wind along the seafront was an outlet for her pent-up rage, as she headed for the river mouth and the northern of the twin piers. Along the promenade, past the grotty bit with the boarded-up souvenir shops and amusement arcades full of young kids wasting their money and their lives, along curving rows of hotels and B&Bs, most proclaiming vacancies or full of weekend stag parties; past the church and the long sands, where as usual some brave souls were belly-boarding or trying to surf.