(Jonathan Roper Investigates Boxset

by Michael Leese

  Hooley rubbed his hands together. “Is it OK with you if we eat early? It feels like it’s been a long day already. By the way, how are we getting into town? I was driven down here so my car’s up in London. You were talking about taking your driving test when you left to join GCHQ. How did you get on with that?”

  Roper managed to look both sad and cross. “I keep getting sacked by the driving schools.”

  It took a moment for this to make sense.

  “What do you mean, ‘sacked?’”

  “You probably won’t understand, but nowadays you have to take a big theory test as part of your driving examination.”

  This casual insult made Hooley flush. “Of course, I know about that,” he said forcibly. “My kids had to do it for their tests. My boy failed it a couple of times.”

  Roper shrugged. “Most people do. I passed it straight away and scored one hundred per cent; I didn’t make a single mistake.”

  “Are you saying that after doing so well in your theory test, the driving schools refused to give you any more lessons?”

  “That’s right.”

  The DCI could tell there was more to come and he started to get a shrewd idea of what it was.

  “Did you end up having arguments with them?”

  Roper became quite animated. “Well they did accuse me of arguing with them, but all I was doing was giving them the benefit of my advice.”

  “Could you give me a little more detail?”

  “I realised that I was even better at the theory than the driving instructors so when they made mistakes I told them where they had gone wrong. But the instructor at the first school got very nasty and it was no better at the second school. They both said they never wanted to see me again so I’ve given up for now.”

  Hooley was doing a manful job of not laughing. He said. “Well I do have luggage to bring with me, so perhaps we should organise a taxi.”

  “I’d already fixed that,” said Roper. “The cab will be here at 4.45pm. It’s about the same distance as between your place in Pimlico and central Victoria. If it’s not raining I usually walk home.”

  A couple of hours later and they were in Roper’s new place. Hooley looked around. There was nothing to indicate that anyone lived there. He’d forgotten how the younger man rarely left a trace of himself where he lived or worked.

  Unpacking finished, Hooley went in search of Roper.

  Chapter 10

  Roper turned down the offer of a menu. “I know what I want: a lamb rogan josh, a double portion of pilau rice, one sag bhaji, one onion bhaji and a Peshwari naan.”

  The waiter scribbled the order down and then looked at him. “The kitchen does pretty generous portions. It’s up to you but I don’t think you will need two portions of rice. Why not order one and if you still want more, well no problem, just ask.”

  Roper looked doubtful. “I think I’ll stick to the double portion. I’ve got a very high metabolism so I need to eat a lot.”

  The waiter shrugged; he’d been taking in Roper’s beanpole physique. “No problem, mate. You certainly don’t look like someone who ate all the pies.”

  Hooley jumped in before this last comment could somehow turn into an argument about Roper not eating any pies.

  “Can I have the masala chicken, one portion of rice and a plain naan bread? And can I have a pint of lager?”

  Although it was only just 6pm, Cheltenham was clearly a place where people liked to eat early and there were more diners present than he had expected. Despite that they were seated at the back with their nearest neighbours a few tables away. It meant they could talk openly, if they were cautious.

  As Hooley watched the waiter heading towards the kitchen, Roper leaned forward.

  “I’m surprised at you remembering what you ordered the last time we had an Indian meal. I thought your memory started going once you get older?”

  Hooley, who had lately found himself forgetting where he’d left things like the car keys, refused to dignify this remark with a reply, settling instead for an enigmatic shrug. Like Roper he’d gone for a tried and trusted order. He saw another waiter approaching with his beer, the glass pleasingly frosted, and waited until the drink had been delivered before saying anything.

  “I don’t want to push you at all, but has this triggered any connections for you?”

  Roper shook his head. “Smell is a powerful stimulus for memory. Perhaps when they bring the food that will make a difference. I really hope something does come back to me because I really can’t see how those three things go together.”

  Hooley took a sip of his pint. “Let’s try to be as patient as we can. The one thing I do know is that there is no point in allowing you to become stressed about what is going on. You work much better when you have time and space to think about things.”

  Hooley finished off his pint and managed to get a second ordered and delivered just as two waiters arrived with their food. Roper looked on approvingly as he was surrounded by steaming platefuls. Hooley was pleased that his own meal seemed quite small in comparison. He watched Roper carefully. It was fanciful to think this could be the breakthrough moment, but it would be good if it was. “Anything?” he asked hopefully. Roper shook his head again. After that they ate in silence, Roper finishing first as well as winning the admiration of the waiter for eating all his rice.

  Hooley mopped up a puddle of sauce with a portion of bread and then pushed his plate away with a satisfied sigh. “Every bit as nice as Pimlico.” He washed the food down with a mouthful of lager and declined the offer of a third pint.

  “I want to get home, watch a bit of telly, and then off to bed. Let's hope a good night’s sleep will start to make things look a bit clearer in the morning.”

  He placed his elbows on the edge of the table and rested his chin on his hands. “I keep meaning to ask you. Why aren’t you wearing your suit and tie? I thought you said you needed to wear the same thing every day to help keep you in balance.”

  Roper fidgeted in his chair. “I did wear it when I first came down here but a lot of people dress very casually, I thought maybe I should change.”

  “I think it’s entirely up to you. Some people like to wear t-shirts, others like to wear a suit and tie. I reckon you are definitely a suit and tie guy. Did you ever discuss this with Cotter?”

  Roper shook his head. “Are you thinking that changing my routine might have had an impact on the way I work?” Hooley’s natural caution kicked in. He didn’t think it was likely that a change of clothes was going to be the answer. But maybe it was going to be part of the solution.

  He said: “Whatever is causing you to struggle at the moment will be down to more than one thing. So something like wearing, or not wearing, your suit and tie is up to you. I have always known you dressed that way so I certainly can’t see it doing any harm. I expect you are going to have to try all sorts of things to try and get back to where you were.”

  Hooley laughed as a thought struck him. “Perhaps we need to come down here tomorrow with you in your suit and see if that makes any difference.”

  Even before he’d finished speaking Roper was out of his chair and had walked over to the bar. He came back looking pleased with himself.

  “I’ve booked us in for the same time tomorrow.”

  The following morning Hooley’s alarm dragged him out of a dreamless sleep. As he came to he suffered that momentary sense of panic that can follow waking up in a different place. His heart raced and he took a moment to calm down before heading for the shower. A short while later it was coming up to 6.30am and he was ready to face the world.

  His bedroom was at the back of the flat and he had to walk through the living room to get to the kitchen. The first thing he saw was Roper, sitting at the dining table. He was wearing his black suit, white shirt and black tie. With his unruly hair beaten down by a severe brushing, he looked as though he might have got dressed and then pressed himself to ensure he had perfect creases. His heavy black brogues were so h
ighly polished they virtually sparkled.

  “You look like you’re raring to go.”

  “I’ve been up since 4am. I can’t wait to get to work and see if this makes a difference.”

  Hooley quickly produced the hand. “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had a decent cup of tea.”

  Chapter 11

  Roper had insisted on walking to work, setting a brisk pace. The DCI was happy to oblige, it was a nice cool morning and, more importantly, he was going to need the exercise to offset eating a lot of curry. It was entirely possible they could be in for several visits to the restaurant because the younger man would insist on exhausting any possibility that a visit might restore his memory.

  They arrived at GCHQ with Roper in a positive mood but an hour later he was looking less enthused. Most worrying of all his hair was starting to spring up and look disheveled. Hooley wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with this. He was anxious about Roper becoming withdrawn but couldn’t find the right thing to say to him. He was relieved when David Cotter walked in. The psychologist immediately noted the more formal clothes and nodded his approval at both men. He said: “I think it is sensible to try different things.”

  Roper was not to be comforted. “I really thought wearing the tie would make the difference, but it hasn’t. I still can’t make out anything that might link those three events. I can’t see what it was that made me so interested in them.

  “I’ve thought about your idea, Brian, and you could make it fit. We are talking about the far right and the jihadists, but I can’t quite make the mental connections I want.”

  There was a plaintive tone in his voice. Cotter glanced at Hooley and from his slight frown the policeman wondered if he shared his concerns that Roper would become introspective.

  He said. “I don’t want to be telling you what to think Jonathan, but you mustn't lose sight of a couple of important issues.” He leaned against a wall and crossed his arms. “You’d been here for three months before you made your first breakthrough. But even then, you couldn’t say what it was that interested you.

  “In fact, if you remember, it took us a while, about a week from memory, to realise that you were talking about potential links. But you couldn’t say what they were; just that you were putting all three pieces of information into your Rainbow Spectrum.

  “That was it for a while, then you said you thought that more links were forming - but still you couldn’t really explain what it was that you were looking at.”

  Hooley was watching Roper and could see that he was paying very close attention to Cotter’s words. The psychologist paused for a moment to give Roper a little more space to take things in. The DCI silently applauded Cotter for backing off. Roper hated being told what he was supposed to be thinking. He had a naturally challenging perspective at the best of times.

  After what felt like a couple of minutes of silence, but was probably a few seconds, Roper leaned back in his chair. He said. “You’re telling me to take my time. I can see that is the only way to deal with this.”

  The watching Hooley surprised himself by letting out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. Now all he needed to do was find a way of seizing the initiative that Cotter’s intervention had won. A thought hit him and he grinned at Roper.

  “I’ve got an idea. At the moment, you’re trying really hard to recreate the environment you were in when you first spotted the links. But why don’t we go right back to the beginning when you were first working here?

  “I think we should start looking at each case in an individual way, but first can you recall what it was that drew you to them in the first place.”

  “Actually, that bit is quite easy,” said Roper. “It was because all three seemed a bit odd to me and they all happened at about the same time, within a period of a few weeks. I mean, the amount of information that comes through here is amazing; but those three did seem to be worth a closer look.”

  As he was talking Cotter pushed himself away from the wall he had been leaning on. “Good to see things moving smoothly. You know where I am if you need me.”

  They spent the rest of the morning looking at the details of the Australian drug case and stayed with it over their lunch break so they could exchange ideas. Getting their food followed the same pattern. Hooley couldn’t help wondering what would happen if he opted for something other than a smoked salmon sandwich.

  Finishing up he took a moment while he was eating to check the sports headlines on the BBC website and tossed his rubbish in the bin before going to wash his hands to get rid of the smell of fish. Roper had finished much earlier and was impatient to get going again.

  Sitting back at his desk Hooley swiped at a few crumbs, even though Roper was staring at him, anxious to get on. He knew that if he gave way to the younger man’s unspoken demands he would end up rushing about on Roper time, and that was a fate he was determined to avoid.

  Housekeeping over, he looked up. “Shall I go first?”

  Roper nodded.

  He took a sip of coffee and said. “Looking at it from your perspective, the thing which stood out is why this top-quality drug was suddenly being sold on the streets? Looking at the original intel provided by the Australians, the thing that came to mind was their opinion that this wasn’t a mistake, the sort of thing where a powerful version of a drug gets out by accident and kills a load of addicts. How am I doing so far?”

  “You’re on the money,” said Roper. “The pure drug costs five to six times more than normal cocaine. It’s the most concentrated form you can buy. No dealer would sell that at anything other than a premium price. That’s assuming they could get hold of it. It’s the sort of thing that normally only goes to the richest customers and the most discreet dealers.”

  “Are you agreeing with the Australian view?”

  “Not at first. I thought it must have been a mistake. Maybe different grades of cocaine had been bundled together and somehow the best stuff had accidentally been sold at street level. But this went on for a couple of weeks, and over a wide area. If it was a mistake, someone kept making the same one repeatedly. It made me think again.

  “The guys at the top of the business are pretty smart. They make a lot of money out of this and you don’t do that by being careless. If any of them do take drugs then you can be sure that only the very best will be provided for them. So I decided that making a mistake wasn’t the answer.

  “I did think about a rival gang moving in and flooding the market to cause problems. I read a while ago about two gangs in London who really hated each other. One of them deliberately released some super strong heroin which killed a lot of addicts. The idea was to cause chaos and move in on the rivals’ territory. But that didn’t seem to fit either.”

  Hooley got up to stretch his legs. He said. “So what approach did you take next?”

  “I couldn’t make any progress after that and went around in circles for a bit. Then I decided there could be only one explanation, but it still didn’t explain what had happened.

  “I think the gang did it deliberately, but I don’t understand why they would do it. It must have cost them a lot of money.” He smiled at Hooley. “At the time that made me think of something you like to say. ‘If they want to get rid of money that fast they might as well set fire to it.’”

  “Why would they do that? Something must be happening behind the scenes. The only thing I could think of was that they were doing something new, something apart from their normal thing of dealing in drugs. Could it be that they were working with fundamentalists in Bali, where they sourced their drug supply, and trafficking weapons, explosives - even people?

  “That might explain why they apparently took their eye off the ball over their normal operations. Maybe they are being used as a front for a terror group. To be honest, it wouldn’t take much to take over a smaller drug gang. I imagine they would just grab the top people and threaten the rest. By the time I got the first reports this had been going on for 239 days, so
it was well established.”

  Hooley resisted using his fingers as he converted 239 days into the best part of nine months. He would never tire of Roper’s grasp of the smallest details, but he wasn’t convinced by the analysis attached to the figures. He said. “That’s quite a bold jump you are making there. Isn’t it just as likely that the gang’s leadership is struggling; perhaps they’ve been helping themselves to too much of their own product?”

  “I did consider that but we know that, in the past, terrorist groups have controlled criminal activity; well, the newer groupings are starting to do the same thing. It certainly makes sense when I update my Rainbow Spectrum.”

  Roper closed his eyes and stayed very still, clearly deep in thought. More than a minute elapsed before he spoke again. “There is another way of seeing this. If I was coming up with the wrong ideas, could it be the data is at fault, rather than something being wrong with the Rainbow Spectrum?”

  Chapter 12

  Hooley had put off considering the implications of Roper’s latest theory and was instead thinking about the time he had observed millions of pounds going up in smoke. That image was with him now after Roper’s suggestion that the drugs gang might as well set fire to their profits. He knew exactly what a huge pile of flaming cash looked like. He’d once watched as over £20 million in counterfeit, but almost perfect UK bank notes, was reduced to a pile of ash in a special incinerator. The Bank of England had a special facility in Kent which handled the destruction of ‘funny money’ and required witnesses to ensure all was above board.