The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2) (19 page)

‘Oh it’s nothing much, I got hit by a golf ball
while out jogging, and besides, this is supposed to be your night off. Anyway,
this sleeve is tight, I’d have to take this dress right off.’

There was a silence. They were facing each other
now. His face was a glimmer in the dark and his eyes and hair were black as the
sea.

‘I’m treating it myself. I like to do things for
myself. Well, most things, anyway.’

He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her on
the mouth. He tasted of wine and spices, and the salt that stuck to their skins
from the sea spray. Erica wound both arms around his neck and kissed him back.
She felt a shock go through him as her tongue slid into his mouth. They went on
kissing and his hands moved over her and she put her cold hands up under his
shirt and felt his warm skin.

They decided to skip dessert. They almost skipped
paying the bill but remembered just in time to escape criminal records.

They took a taxi back to his place and had brandy
there. Her hair was sticky with salt. She brushed it in his bathroom. His
utilitarian rooms reminded her of student days, being in live-in accommodation,
coming back after some party with a hook-up. She went back into the bedroom.

‘All this wonderful hair,’ he murmured. ‘You know
you said you would eat me if you were hungry enough...’

‘Why d’you think I had no dessert?’ She pulled off
her dress in a single movement, her hair fizzing with static as it emerged. ‘So,
you’re a trained expert on human anatomy?’

Erica was stroking the
long hard bone of his skeleton’s thigh when her mobile buzzed. Jamie had gone
off to work much earlier.

‘Ms Bruce?’ Will at his most pompous.

‘Inspector Bennett! What an unexpected pleasure!’

‘I’d like you to come to the station to assist us
in our enquiries,’ he said stiffly. ‘Are you at home?’

‘No, actually I’m at the hospital.’ She gave him
the finger over the phone.

‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ An audible quickening
of interest. Like he’d care.

‘Erm, I don’t know yet - I’ve been sort of kept in
overnight for observation. Are you going to give me a lift, or will you pay my
taxi bill?’

‘I’ll send someone to pick you up.’

‘I’ll be at the main entrance, if I can find it.’

While she was waiting she rang Tara. She felt sure
this new move by the police was something to do with Tessa. Tara answered,
sounding rather breathless. In the background were sounds of family chaos.

‘They want me at the police station. Do you know
anything about it, and do I need you to find me a solicitor?’

‘Tessa has told them about Kingston’s abuse of her
during their marriage. She has used you as confirmation of her story. All we
need is for you to back her up, that she displayed behaviour or symptoms consistent
with those of an abused spouse, that she told you he broke her arm and
subjected her to prolonged intermittent physical, verbal and psychological
abuse, constantly ran her down and criticised her and terrified her. We haven’t
told them everything he said or did. Tessa can’t bear the humiliation of going
over it all and she’s suffered enough. Oddly enough some of the words and
phrases he used to her are harder for her to admit to than the broken arm. They
can’t hold you unless they arrest you and tell you your rights, but just in
case, here’s a name.’

Erica rang off, and scrabbled among the bits and
pieces on Jamie’s desk to find a scrap of paper to note the details. She wasn’t
going in to Will’s lair without some protection. There was a packet of what
looked like thick wires. Steel, shiny, but with no heads. She went cold, then
shook herself. What more natural than to find pins used in orthopaedic surgery
on the desk of a trainee doctor on an orthopaedic ward, after all. She looked
at them, imagining having them drilled into bone and then slowly unscrewed, as
her patient and Kingston’s victim Laura Gibson had described.

When Paul Lozinski swung
the police car up to the hospital entrance, she climbed in, still wearing the
red dress with her top over it but with her trainers on, her heels back in her
bag. Her bare legs were cold, and the fug of the car was almost welcome. The
officer wasn’t as friendly as he’d been when they met over Kingston’s corpse.
Rather distant, in fact. Obviously the officers were taking their cue from
Will.

Soon she was in what they called an interview
room, which had no view at all, and was greatly in need of some proper interior
design. As she waited she wondered how the timid Tessa had coped with these
surroundings. So good she had strong clever Tara there to bat for her. She
tried not to breathe too deeply, it smelled like people had been smoking in the
room, or maybe just heavy smokers jonesing for a drag and sweating tobacco, and
there was a smell of disinfectant under the strong scent of plastic upholstery.
Not a room to follow a night of pleasure.

Will Bennett entered. A heavy scruffy man with
woolly bear caterpillar brows and a pursed mouth followed, Superintendent ‘Golden
Boy’ George himself. He looked as if he lived on the kind of meat pies they
sell at football matches. Had he come in with Will to protect his underling
from the wicked woman he’d dated? Or was it Will he didn’t entirely trust not
to go easy on her? As if!

‘Carry on, Will,’ he said, after acknowledging her
existence with a preoccupied nod.

Will tried not to look at her legs. Erica didn’t
much look like someone who’d spent the night in hospital, and she could see he
wanted to ask, but was trying not to do that either. Shame he was so repressed.

‘I haven’t got long. I’ve got patients to see. At
my homeopathy practice,’ she added for the Super’s benefit. ‘You haven’t
arrested me, so I can go at any time, am I right? ‘

‘Absolutely,’ said Will. ‘We only want to clarify
a few matters. As you may know, we have been questioning Tessa Kingston, purely
routine. Mrs Kingston has informed us that her late husband was violent towards
her. She says that you know of this and that you can confirm it.’

‘I can confirm that she told me of it, and also
that her behaviour while I’ve known her was consistent with that of someone
afraid of her husband,’ Erica said carefully. Don’t mess with a mathematician,
Will.

‘Tell us more.’

‘She told me of specific instances, like, he broke
her arm, and psychologically abused her and that he gave her drugs and made her
pass out for his own sick power games. She made it clear to me that she was
scared of him and didn’t want him to know she was seeing me.’

‘I see. And you have records to back this up?’

‘I have detailed notes yes. Confidential. ‘

‘I think we can insist on seeing them.’

She sighed. She’d had no breakfast, and a long
night. How best to help Tessa? Or Beccy, as her records were labelled. Will was
probably right. She’d better make a virtue of necessity.

‘OK. Look, my records will show she was afraid of
him. But I should tell you she saw me under a false name. Also that she is not
a violent type of personality. She’s a Pulsatilla. It’s a homeopathic remedy
type.’

For once united, Will and the Super exchanged
superior smirks at this. ‘False name? Didn’t she feel she could trust your
discretion?’

Erica glowered at Will.

‘Look, it was her husband she didn’t trust. He
would have taken it as a gross affront for her, wife of a surgeon, to see an
alternative practitioner; the ultimate rejection of all he stood for. She was
terrified he’d find out.’

GB joined in. ‘Then why would she take such a risk
at all? If he was that much of an ogre.’ Faint emphasis on the ‘if’.

The Super’s little fat mouth was pulling itself in
and out like a sea anemone. She wrenched her attention from it with an effort.

‘She didn’t trust doctors, because of him, and
because he knew most of the doctors in the area, and she probably thought they
might tell him over a friendly game of golf. And maybe it was her rebellion, a
secret of her own to show that there was a part of her he didn’t own and
control. It might be worth a risk to have that knowledge. Look at the risks
taken by civilians in occupied countries, French Resistance helping Allied
airmen for example...’

‘You seem very protective of Mrs Kingston, Ms
Bruce,’ remarked the Super. ‘Her innocence would mean a lot to you - if you’re
emotionally involved.’

There was something significant in his tone.
Almost as if he was implying something between Erica and Tessa, more than a
therapist and patient relationship, more than friends? A definite creepy vibe.
She noticed Will shift in his chair, uncomfortable at his Super’s tactic.

‘Emotion - the number one crime for any medical
practitioner, and the one every woman is born guilty of!’ she snapped. ‘Her
innocence does mean a lot to me, she had just begun to get her life back when
all this happened. I like to think I was able to help her. And still can.’

‘We will have to see those records to confirm not
only that she told you about the abuse, but that she did indeed see you under a
false name. I hope for your sake she did.’

‘Why?’ Erica felt sticky with sex and kept feeling
little trills of aftershock that made her shift in her seat. It was hard to
concentrate.

Will made as if to speak but Golden Boy stopped
him with a look. Things were getting more like an interrogation and less like
confirmation of Tessa’s story, and he knew Will and Erica had been an item.

‘Because,’ GB barked, ‘if you knew your ‘patient’
was Tessa Kingston all along, whatever name you put on her file, we’d be
wondering very much why you didn’t mention it when you found her
allegedly
abusive husband dead. When we assumed you had no personal connection with
Kingston at all. And suddenly you turn out to be the not so grieving widow’s
avenging angel, and start showing up here with dodgy bits of evidence.’

‘That syringe, there was nothing in it, by the
way,’ Will put in. ‘And no fingerprints apart from yours. Anyone would think
someone was trying to incriminate the hoodies.’

‘Of course, we only have your word for it that it
was outside his house at all. As a matter of fact, there were a few odds and
ends missing from the murder room.’ Gloves, aprons, pins, she was thinking. ‘But
we can’t be sure that was one of them. Does anyone where you work use syringes?’

‘Not to my knowledge, and it occurs to me, from
this threatening line you’re following, that her
guilt
means rather a
lot to
you
. Perhaps you are equally emotionally involved,
Superintendent, Inspector. I’m not trying to fix blame on some probably
blameless teenagers, just trying to show that the obvious line isn’t the only
one. You know, ‘reasonable doubt.’’

‘As you know, Ms Bruce, Mr Kingston let in his
killer, which points to someone he knew.’

Will sighed. GB was astray. Erica wouldn’t buy
that as their only conclusion. They’d already discussed it. She knew fine well
the rock used to club him was from the back of the house. Sure enough she
pounced.

‘Someone visiting at night, carrying a rock? I can
think of an alternative scenario. Kingston hears a disturbance behind his house,
maybe a window broken, runs out the back door in a temper to catch the young
louts, leaving his door open, the killer nips in, and when he goes back in they’re
already lying in wait to attack him. I’m surprised you didn’t think of it
yourself.’

Will’s dark face darkened some more. His
Superintendent was breathing hard, trying not to defend his man and make him
look worse. Of course she knew Will would have thought of it, he wasn’t stupid,
but they’d tried to wrong-foot her and hoped she wouldn’t have thought of it
herself. He must think I’m stupid, she thought. Like every blonde in a short
dress.

 ‘We aren’t sure the rock attack took place
outside. Just that the rock came from there. The room was well cleaned up as
you saw. Surgical equipment was used.’ Will’s voice was brutal as he tried to
cover himself.

‘Could Tessa get a man up onto a table?’

‘There are ways a woman can get a man to lie on a
table, without having to do any heavy lifting.’

‘What a mind you have Inspector!’

She was near to losing her temper; beneath the
anger was fear. Any left-over arousal had evaporated. She was trying to hold
back the claustrophobic feeling of being buried in this grey bunker, away from
daylight, with rooms and corridors patrolled by hostile powers and a series of
doors between her and the free fresh air. She clung to the memory of her
conversation with Tara as a life belt in an icy sea; at least someone knew
where she was, someone who knew her rights and needed her support.

Erica controlled her breathing, using her
meditation techniques to repeat a mantra in her head. She must not show
weakness in front of Will Bennett. Him and his bloody boss.

‘We’re talking about someone who cold-bloodedly
bashed nails into a helpless human being, Erica. They don’t deserve any
protection from anyone.’

He’d used her first name at last. Like it
mattered. Pompous git. ‘That’s why I don’t want them to go free while an
innocent person pays. I don’t think an estranged wife was the only enemy
Kingston had made.’

‘No.’ The Super was back on the offensive. ‘You
didn’t like him yourself, did you? Your editor says you had quite an
acrimonious phone conversation with Kingston; apparently Kingston was not
impressed by your form of ‘medicine’. More or less accused you of being a fraud
and a charlatan.’

Will’s sneer made it clear he still felt the same
way about homeopathy strongly enough to agree with his nemesis the Super. Just
another chasm between him and Erica. Will had claimed to care about rationality
and logic, when really, as Erica well knew, his scepticism of all alternative
medicine was purely based on emotion – protective anger on behalf of his
sister, who had been conned out of much needed money by a fake therapist who
claimed to be able to cure Will’s adored nephew’s learning disability by ‘destroying’
her ‘bad, possessed’ money.