The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2) (30 page)

‘I - have headaches. Bad headaches.’

‘I see.’

She didn’t see at all. Hadn’t he claimed to be in
perfect balance and therefore in perfect health? Hadn’t he spoken with scorn of
her as just playing at homeopathy? And he had turned up here, at a time when
there would be no-one much around. Perhaps he wanted her to pull the article.

He seemed to bulge out of the chair, packed with
muscle, tight all over with repressed energy. She didn’t like this situation at
all. But she mustn’t show it. And she mustn’t confront him with the apparent
contradiction of his earlier statements. No point in antagonising him until she
knew more of what was going on.

Besides, she was a health practitioner, and maybe
he did need help. She could well believe he had headaches with all that
tension.

An acrid scent was coming from him. The room
seemed very small yet the door seemed very far away. As her fingers moved
slowly over the keyboard, making mistakes and trying not to shake, trying to
spend as long as possible in contact with her pc, opening a Word file, typing
his basic details at his prompting, name, address, DOB, phone, email, her mind
was racing.

What if Craig Anderson was the Operator? What if
he attacked her, gave her a permanent headache with whatever was in his pocket?
If he killed her, it would be easy for him to erase his details from the
computer. Before or after bashing some nails through her hands? And what other
mutilations would he consider she deserved? Now she realised that all her
questions during the interview, challenging his anti-doctor stance, might have
sounded like support for what he clearly saw as the enemy. His parting words
rang in her ears. ‘Those who are not with us are against us.’

If he attacked her, she wouldn’t stand a chance.
All her exercise would be useless; she might as well have spent her life lying
on a sofa eating chocolate and chip butties.

She was tempted to secretly speed-dial a number on
her mobile to let someone hear what went on. Will, preferably. But Anderson
might be a bona fide patient, entitled to absolute confidentiality. Why oh why
had she insisted that Stacey stopped eavesdropping on her sessions with
patients. Right next door she was probably asleep on the massage table.

Erica made three decisions. 1. If it came to it,
she’d go down fighting and try to hurt him for the sake of her honour which
suddenly seemed a very real thing, as solid as the desk. The thought of being
murdered or violently attacked, and not having done anything about it and never
being avenged in any way seemed unbearable. 2. She resolved to mark or scratch
his face, get his skin cells under her fingernails or get some kind of forensic
evidence so at least he’d go down for her murder even if she wasn’t around to
see it.

3. Make sure he couldn’t erase his visit from
evidence. While busy at the pc, she contrived to move her phone onto her lap
and start the voice record. She could only hope it would pick up what he said
and to some extent, did. She then hastily called up her minimised facebook
window, clicked on messages and brought up the thread of messages exchanged
with Stacey, copied and pasted Anderson’s details, after ‘listen in! Might need
u’ and hit return, all while asking Anderson more questions about how to spell
his address and so on. At least there’d be some record of him being here at
this time, private but on the pc in Rina’s room even if Stacey didn’t hear the ‘ping’
sound of a message alert. She knew Stacey kept facebook open at all times.

While doing this, fidgeting with her hair and
generally gesticulating to create a diversion, she managed to keep talking. She
asked finicky questions from the Homeopath’s Materia Medica. Usually she’d be
getting a new patient talking about everything to do with their lives as she
assessed their physical and emotional type, their body language, their
characteristics to get the full remedy picture. This was different. She just
had to spin this part out before she had to face whatever he really had in
mind. He’d come for something, and she doubted it was for his headaches.

The message was sent, her window hastily closed
before any reply from Stacey would start her pc pinging. So that was all right.
There would only be the tiny formality of being murdered to cope with.

‘OK Mr Anderson. Now about these headaches.’ Her
voice sounded almost normal.

‘I get headaches.’ His voice was dull. His eyes
fell. His hands lay on his massive thighs, rubbing the material of his jeans up
and down. ‘Bad headaches.’

‘Could you describe them? Is it like a tight band
round your head, or is it in one temple, does it feel like a nail being driven
into your he-?’

Appalled to hear herself asking this standard
question in these circumstances, she stopped short, feeling a flush of heat
whoosh up her body as if she was doing high impact aerobics. Sweat broke out
all over her and nausea made her weak.

He was looking directly at her. She forced herself
to look back at him without making actual eye contact, a valuable bit of body
language when dealing with confrontational or aggressive people. She looked at
his third eye, between and just above his eyes. Not so confrontational and
challenging as direct eye contact, but not submissive as looking away might be.

‘Do you know what it feels like? Do you want to
know what it feels like?’

Was this a threat? ‘Why don’t you tell me what it
feels like?’ She hoped her voice wasn’t as strangled as she might soon be.

‘It’s like being in hell.’ He leaned forward,
putting his huge hands on the edge of her desk, his knuckles white. ‘Do you
know why I came?’

Oh god. He didn’t give her a chance to answer, but
took a deep breath, his great chest expanding. She was wondering how to cope
with the onslaught when a rush of words poured out of him.

‘I hate doctors. And you seemed to be defending
them, even though you’re supposed to be one of us. I want you to know how much
I hate them, and why. I had a wife and son. Now I have neither. All because of
the saintly medical profession. Pretty good reason for hatred, don’t you think?’

As the sweat cooled on her skin she shivered
slightly. She kept quiet and let him talk. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from
his, but she had a feeling something was moving on the periphery of her vision,
behind Anderson and to the side, by the door. She didn’t dare take her focus
away from him as he spoke.

‘We both had good but demanding careers in finance.
We had a son, Matthew. He was our world. We decided to stop at one child. One
child seemed to be all we could deal with and both work as well. Everything was
perfect.

‘Then he became ill. Feverish, very feverish, it
was terrifying. We were worried that it might be meningitis - it was far, far
worse than any of the usual viruses that little children get. He couldn’t bear
the light... he screamed... I can still hear it. We took him into A & E.

‘Just a virus, they said. They sent us home. They
sneered at us. They made it clear we were just neurotic parents, as if we didn’t
know our own child enough to know he was seriously ill.

‘It was meningitis of course. He died three days
later. He was four years old.’

No tears in his pale eyes now, just cold anger and
hate.

‘Do you know what they said when he was rushed in
again? It was too late - treatment should have started right away. As if it
wasn’t their fault!

‘My wife couldn’t cope with it. Not just the grief
but the guilt. She felt she should have somehow forced them to treat him that
first time. We couldn’t help each other through it. We were sealed off each in
our own private grief. A year later she took an overdose. I found her dead when
I got home from work.

‘So yes, I do feel as if someone has hammered a nail
into my head, and I don’t think you or anyone else can do anything about it. My
guilt keeps me alive to suffer their loss. I didn’t come here for treatment; I
meant it when I said I treat myself. Your practice is corrupt. You’ve lost your
true faith, if you ever had it.

‘If I’d known about homeopathy then, I could have
prevented Matthew’s illness from developing. I’m sure of it. I don’t expect a
cure for any suffering of mine. I don’t even want one. I came here as a patient
because I wanted to tell you about Matthew confidentially. I couldn’t trust you
as a journalist, but I thought I could trust you as a therapist. Even if you
had no ethics, you’d soon go out of business if people felt they couldn’t trust
you. You’re the first person I’ve told about it since I moved up here. So now
you know.’

What do you say to someone who has lost a wife and
child like that? She didn’t have to say anything; he got up, turned and walked
out, the heavy object in his jacket clunking against the door frame as he went.
Erica vaguely noticed the door had come partly open. Presumably that was what
had moved, he mustn’t have shut it properly.

Bang! The door crashed open again, making her jump
as she poured herself a glass of water, spilling it all over her desk.

‘Oh, ye’re OK.’ Stacey sounded almost
disappointed. ‘Worra fk’n nutjob! Jeez! Aa thowt he was gonna morder ye.’

‘So did I!’ She sipped water while with the other
hand dabbing at the spills and shaking her keyboard upside down. ‘So you got
the facebook message!’

‘Aye. Divven’t worry, Aa was on the case.’ She
waved her phone triumphantly. ‘Aa was ready to act in a split second man.’

‘Thanks Stacey. Though by the time you called the
police, I’d have been dead meat.’

‘Kind of ironic for a veggie. Oh, aye, spose Aa
could’ve called the bizzies.’

‘Well what were you going to do? Rush to my
rescue?’ She was really quite moved.

‘Nah! Share this on Youtube of course! Aa’d have
had a thoosand hits by the time he got oot the building! Aa got it aal on here!’
She waved the phone again. ‘Take him on? Aye, right, the guy’s got arms like
legs! He’s fkn massive, man! Thick as mince, though. He never saw iz open the
door and start filmin. Aa’m a fkn genius man!’

Erica stopped in mid-fumble for the Rescue Remedy.
‘You haven’t, please tell me you haven’t, put that on Youtube? Oh fuck... it’s
supposed to be confidential! I only sent the facebook message so there’d be
proof he’d been here, if he did go apeshit.’

‘Calm doon, pet, Aa didn’t. Aa was waiting for the
morder. But it didn’t happen.’

‘Sorry about that.’

‘Never mind, Erica. Aa’ve got this aal safe if he
torns oot to be the Operator.’

‘Will you send that to me now, and then delete it?’

‘Course Aa will.’ Stacey shared it to Erica’s
email address. Would she fuck delete it. He might yet turn out to be the serial
killer. She’d made contact with Gary Thomas who’d suggested she keep him in the
loop if Erica found out anything.

‘I tried to record him on my phone but...’ Erica
tried it out and could barely hear anything. ‘It’s pretty rubbish. I had to
keep the phone out of sight so’s not to provoke him.’

‘He doesn’t think much of ye, does he?’

‘No. Poor guy. I wish I could do something for
him. Perhaps it helped him in some way just to talk about it.’

‘Aye. He’s had a crap time of it. If my Noosh had
that meningitis Aa’d take a fkn gun into A and E if they’d not help iz.’

‘He didn’t give away anything about the murders
though.’

‘He could deffo be the Operator. He’ll more likely
go to your house. He was waiting for ye for ages and folks saw him here today.’

‘Comforting! He had something in his pocket,
something hard and heavy.’

‘Just pleased to see you mebbe!’

‘It might’ve been a stone. Or just a jar of jam he’d
bought.’

All in all, it was a relief to arrive at her warm
flat and curl up with Lord Peter Wimsey, a glass of wine and a quorn steak.

When her article on
Anderson was printed, Will rang.

‘Great, always nice to hear from a reader.’ This
time, Erica, try not to let him antagonise you...

‘I wouldn’t normally read it,’ he went on, with
his usual charm. ‘But he seems to have an obsessive hatred for the medical
profession. Do you know any more about him? Did he tell you anything else that
might be of value to us?’

‘Well he’s now my patient, so technically anything
else he told me is confidential.’

She heard Will’s angry intake of breath.

‘For f- god’s sake, Erica, that sounds very much
like obstruction to me. I thought you wanted to help! I thought you wanted
Tessa Kingston off the hook!’

‘Yes, and YOU told me to keep out! Make up your
mind! This is just typical, one minute you want rid of me, the next you’re
asking for information! I have my ethics you know. Professional ethics.’

‘Really, from where I’m standing you don’t have
either a profession or ethics. Or morals, come to that.’

‘Well sit down then, take the weight off your
prejudices. Look Will, OK it’s a matter of public record that he hates doctors.
And has extreme views on medicine. And I can tell you he has his reasons. You’ll
be able to find those out yourself as they will all be on records you can
access if you look him up. There, that’s helpful of me isn’t it? But I can also
tell you something negative. I don’t know of any link to either of the dead
surgeons. If he hates doctors, he could have gone for specific ones elsewhere,
and you will be able to check on that more easily than I could. I hope that’s
enough to satisfy you for now? I know how hard you are... to satisfy I mean.’

The police computers would have all the info about
his medical and employment history, the death of his son and his wife’s suicide.
Even someone with no imagination could deduce what his feelings were likely to
be.

‘Welll I hope you’re not withholding anything
vital. Think how you’d feel, with your bleeding heart always ready to take on
lame dogs and lost causes, if somebody died because of your ‘ethics.’ And I
think it would be wise if you keep away from him from now on.’