Free The Operator (Bruce and Bennett Crime Thriller 2) by Valerie Laws

page. Hence the jogging, you
see.’
    ‘Hm. I see. But I shall be checking!’ He pushed
back a thin strand of grey hair which had come adrift in the breeze.
    Erica was quick to take advantage of his mollified
tone. ‘What you said before. About the police. ‘At least they can be bothered
to turn out for a murder.’ Implying they don’t normally turn out here? I’m
surprised they’d ever be needed. Such a salubrious area. Nice houses, nice
class of person.’ She dredged up more encouraging language she remembered from
various older patients and relatives. ‘What you’d call really decent types. Law
abiding.’ She ostentatiously put her phone on ‘voice record’ and held it
towards him in a business-like manner.
    ‘Oh yes, absolutely! I mean, you do expect the odd
golf ball against the windows, or through the greenhouse, living here; we don’t
mind that too much, most of us play the game. That’s why we live here, to be
near the club. It’s just a short stroll to the clubhouse - handy for dodging
the breathalyser! But we get youths hanging about... we can’t seem to get shot
of the little bastards. Bloody neck-ends! We’ve tried all sorts. I’ve tried. Kingston
himself was out here chasing them off numerous times. Even with his connections
he couldn’t seem to get anything done. Few times the police did send a bloke,
they made off across the course. Back the next night! Kingston thought they put
off his patients, though you can’t see anything from the front of the house.
But you could hear them all right. Shocking language. I told the police, that’s
where you should be looking for your suspect. Look, that’s where the stone came
from that the buggers used to kill Kingston. Right next to the den!’
    He waved a long arm toward the bushes further
along. A pile of hefty sandstone chunks lay there, dumped by some gardener
tired of his or her rockery. They were filmed with green, and weeds and garden
escapees like honesty’s pale sad satin windows had sprouted among them. One
stone was plainly missing. Its place was marked by an impression in the ground,
lined with bleached, flattened grass.
    ‘Yes, that’s where the murder weapon came from
alright! Some scruffy young constable was round here checking to see if it fit.
He didn’t look much different to the yobbos, if you ask me. ‘
    Erica wondered just how much time the old boy
spent at his upstairs window. ‘I’m surprised they didn’t take these cans and fag
ends and stuff. To test for DNA.’
    ‘They did. These have just appeared! Tonight!’
    ‘Bit early isn’t it?’
    ‘Police have been patrolling every so often,
looking out for anyone who might have seen anything. Bloody hoodies waited til
coast clear, dumped an empty bottle and fag ends and scarpered!’
    ‘You mean sort of reclaiming their bit of
territory? Quite sad really when you think about it.’
    ‘Sad! Yes it’s sad, you scrimp and save, you work
hard, you make something of yourself, you buy a house by the golf course, and
those little vandals…! They want stringing up. Thumbing their filthy
cocaine-stuffed noses at authority. Every damned night... little buggers...
they could do with some army discipline.’
    ‘I’m not sure training them to kill would help.’
    He went crimson in the face and started to swell
up for another explosion so Erica hurried on, before she got hypothermia
standing about in a lycra vest.
     ‘So I expect the police asked you if you saw
anything.’ She rubbed her arms which were rough with goose pimples. ‘Did you?’
    ‘Not a thing. They asked me about the early
morning and the late night before. Well I went to bed early, and I normally sit
in my breakfast room at the front of the house in the mornings to catch the
sun, when there is any. So I wouldn’t have seen anything. I didn’t need to! All
they’ve got to do is put a man on watch up one of these trees, they’d soon
catch the young sods.’
    The thought of long-limbed Will Bennett