(Jonathan Roper Investigates Boxset Page 12

An hour later and the Major arrived. Hooley had only had limited dealings with Special Forces so was intrigued to find out what the man was like. The Major was about his height, maybe a little taller, and dressed casually in jeans, a plain t-shirt and trainers. Judging his age was impossible. Anything from mid-20s to 40. He was clearly in top shape; very lean, with crystal-clear blue eyes, a shaved head and a firm handshake, which the DCI suspected could be a lot firmer if the man wanted to make a point.

  Roper seemed especially fascinated and had leapt up to shake hands, something quite unusual as he normally shied away from physical contact. The Major took the seat in front of Hooley’s desk and declined an offer of coffee with a rueful grin.

  “I love coffee but I try to limit it to two cups a day. I’m already on my fifth so, with regret, I’ll have to turn your offer down.”

  Hooley found himself warming to the man. When he glanced at Roper he was amused to see he was gazing at the Major with a look of hero worship.

  The SAS officer suddenly looked serious. “Best get down to business. We have identified one of the people in the photos and we think we may have a line on the other one as well.”

  He took a breath as Hooley looked on expectantly. “The man who killed the policeman is called Dan Sykes and he is one of ours, or, I should say, used to be one of ours. He disappeared back in 2006. He was about to be arrested for major-league crimes. He was up to his neck in selling millions of pounds of looted artefacts from Iraq. After he vanished we discovered he had been building a mini-empire that dealt in everything from human trafficking, to gun running, drugs and extortion. And that’s just the short list.

  “We’ve been trying to track him down ever since but he always manages to stay one jump ahead. We think he has access to enough money to buy himself an intelligence network. I know the images you sent us aren’t the greatest, but I would recognise that bastard anywhere. The only surprise is that he has surfaced in London. We were under the impression he was somewhere in South America.

  “One of my men also thinks he recognised the other one. He is trying to recall the man’s name; they only met briefly, but thinks he is French. His first name is Pat, but he is also known as “French Pat” for obvious reasons. I have taken the liberty of sending the footage to our contacts in the French military and hopefully we will learn something soon.”

  He stopped talking and reached into his pocket to pull out a flash drive.

  “This is what we have on Sykes, including pictures. But as you will see they were taken 10 years ago. I recognised him as much from the way he moves as anything else. He was almost obsessive about how he controlled his body so he didn’t waste energy. Some Special Forces guys can be like that, but Sykes really stood out.”

  Chapter 35

  Julie Mayweather’s expression darkened as her deputy outlined the briefing they had received from the SAS Major.

  “We asked him about the attack on Roper and he was very concerned,” said the DCI. “He said that type of beating is notoriously difficult to do without really hurting people. You either need to be very lucky or very good at what you are doing.”

  He could see she was mulling over what she’d been told. After a few moments she asked the question which was on everybody’s mind.

  “So, if we accept that the attack on Jonathan was a warning, why suddenly escalate to killing a police officer?”

  Hooley leaned forward in his chair. “The Major said we needed to look at it in more than one way. First the killing of one of our own automatically becomes a priority issue which swallows up investigative resources. Our enemy would know perfectly well that we will throw everything at solving the murder.”

  “He also said the escalation in violence means that they may well have adjusted the time frame they are operating to. When they attacked Roper they probably thought time was on their side, but now, for whatever reason, they need to speed things up.”

  Mayweather rubbed at her temples; she could feel the faint trace of a headache building. She said. “It sounds like it was more important to get a military perspective than we had thought. At the same time, hearing all this does paint an alarming picture about who we are dealing with and the methods they might use to cover their tracks. I’d hate to see them escalate from here.” The concern she felt was clear from her tight expression as she added, “Was there anything else from Major Phillips?”

  Now it was the DCI’s turn to look concerned.

  “He feels that one of us may be in danger.”

  “By one of us I take it you mean yourself and Jonathan?”

  She glanced at Roper to see how he was responding, but couldn’t read the expression on his face. Hooley was looking resigned.

  “But not just us, you as well. It’s all about ‘chopping off the head’ apparently. The Major is convinced that the details of the attack on Jonathan prove our men have good intelligence on us so we must prepare for the worst. He’s offered to provide protection.”

  Not much startled Julie Mayweather but this really hit home.

  She looked directly at Hooley. “What do you think? Are we really in that much danger?”

  “I hate to say it, but I think we may be.”

  She turned to Roper.

  “Jonathan, what’s your view?”

  His animation surprised her.

  “Actually, I think the Major made perfect sense. If they are suddenly stepping up the time frame then they would want to disrupt our leadership team. Attacking you and Brian would create confusion and slow down our investigation. My view is that we accept the Major’s offer of help. If the other side is Special Forces trained we need to match that. And it will make them think hard about attacking us again.”

  Hooley was nodding along. Mayweather asked him. “What about your wife Brian? I think we have to assume that she may well be at risk until this is brought under control.”

  He leaned back in his seat and grimaced. “I know, I’d been thinking about that. We haven’t spoken for six months, at least not without shouting, so I fear she’ll go mad when I ring her up to say there’s a protection team on the way.”

  Mayweather nodded sympathetically. “Do you think it might help if I ring to break the news? It keeps the blame off you and then you can speak once she has had a chance to absorb everything.”

  She turned back to Roper.

  “So, what do you want to do while all this is being set up?”

  “I think it’s time I tried out my new Rainbow Spectrum.”

  Chapter 36

  Mayweather couldn’t resist a quick glance at her deputy and was pleased to note that he clearly had no idea what Roper was talking about, so at least she wasn’t going to be the odd one out. Even as this thought settled Roper said. “Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain.” He beamed at her then added. “Red, Orange, Yellow, Green Blue, Indigo and Violet - those are the main colours of the rainbow and that’s the mnemonic to remember them by. Well actually there is a bit of an argument about that and it’s why it has taken me a couple of days to get through it.”

  He was warming to his theme, his eyes sparkling. He was also blinking rapidly, a sure sign that he was thinking fast and furiously as he ran through the details. His audience had no idea what he was talking about but were hoping that, if they allowed him to plough ahead, it would start to make sense. When dealing with Roper it was always handy to reverse engineer the answer from the point where he finished talking.

  Roper was now in full flow. “The light we can see is on a spectrum,” he said, drawing an imaginary horizontal line in the air. “There are said to be 100 different colours, maybe more, although most people can’t make out anything like that many. And that’s not counting things like infra-red which nobody can see.

  “Then there’s the linguistic argument; does everyone actually see the same colours? So, is the blue I see the same as your blue? - Or do we describe colours in the same sort of way since they may mean different things to different people? Some people can even see sounds
as colours.”

  He leaned forward to emphasise his point, his hands seemingly taking on a life of their own as they traced patterns in the air. “To make the discussion more manageable people generally talk about the “primary colours of the rainbow.” There are seven overall, although there is quite an argument about whether Indigo is really a primary. Of course, you get other factors that come into play. Even the primary colours can be variable if you get something like ‘spectral smearing’…”

  As he drew breath to carry on Hooley jumped in. “Jonathan.” He spoke quite loudly. Roper stopped talking and looked startled. The DCI pressed his advantage. “I think we might find it easier to understand if you tell us what you have in mind first, then you can go into the theory later; much later preferably.”

  Roper frowned. “Yes, I suppose I could do that but it really is fascinating when you get into it. There are all the myths about rainbows like the idea that you can find a pot of gold…”

  “Jonathan…” Hooley was giving him a very direct look.

  Roper ran his hand through his hair and then gave a deep sigh. “The point is that I think that my new Rainbow Spectrum will allow me to process information better. You see I started thinking that if I placed information in different coloured boxes I could then put the same information in more than one box if I thought there might be links.”

  Hooley slowly placed his hand in the air, consciously mimicking trying to attract teacher’s attention in school.

  “Yes.” Roper looked impatient.

  “I take it these coloured boxes are in your head, they’re imaginary. Or have you got a set of boxes somewhere?”

  “Of course, they are imaginary,” said Roper. “Why would I want real boxes?”

  “I just wanted to be sure. I sometimes get left behind when things get complicated.” He purposefully ignored Mayweather who was trying not to laugh. “Anyway, go on. I interrupted you.”

  Roper shook his head. It showed he was collecting his thoughts.

  “It’s quite hard to explain really. To be honest I don’t fully understand it, I just know that it works. That’s why I have taken so long to tell you about it.” He was looking at his shoes, a habit he had got into when trying to explain how his mind worked. It meant he could avoid making eye contact.

  “This is something I have been thinking about since my suspension. While I was at home and had a lot of time to think I began to realise that I could assign a colour to a piece of information, or even more than one colour. Then as I get more colour coded information I can see which of the colours are close together on the spectrum, like blue and indigo, can hold the same piece of information, but at the same time link to other bits of information in that colour box. It means the same item can have more than one meaning or connection to something else.”

  He carried on, oblivious that the two officers had the slightly panic-stricken look of people who had accidentally wandered into a lecture about quantum mechanics when they’d been expecting a slide show about common garden plants.

  Roper said. “At first, I was using the full 100 colour variations, or at least the ones we know about, but that became too confusing because I had so many boxes I couldn’t hold all the links in my mind. That’s when I started thinking about rainbows. You see, even with all the spectrum colours you can bring it down to primary colours then it starts to make sense.” He looked up expectantly.

  Hooley was nodding. Not so much because he could understand what Roper was talking about but more in the hope that being positive would help. “So,” he said slowly. “In your mind you have created seven different coloured boxes, the primary colours of the rainbow.”

  Roper nodded back.

  “And you can store information in one or more of those boxes. And that helps how?”

  “Well, if my theory is right, it will let me see how everything fits together. I believe this will unveil the patterns to show me what is really happening, or about to happen.”

  Hooley rubbed his temple. He sincerely hoped there was going to be gold at the end of this rainbow.

  “So, what are your boxes telling you now?”

  The look he received showed that Roper thought he hadn’t been keeping up. “Nothing of course. How could there be? As I thought I just explained to you, I am only now at the stage where I can bring it into play.”

  After Roper had gone for coffee Hooley turned to his boss.

  “I suppose there’s one benefit of having your own SAS man on standby. If all else fails I can ask him to shoot me.”

  Chapter 37

  Hooley couldn’t shake off a sense of mounting danger. He had never known anything like it. Over the years he had been on the receiving end of many a threat, but most were delivered in the heat of the moment and then disappeared as tempers cooled. This was different, as though someone had changed the rules of the game.

  The DCI felt he was being dragged out of a world he understood and into something quite different and unsettling. It wasn’t helping that Roper had come up with his Rainbow Spectrum. If he was being honest he hadn’t understood what he was talking about. Information with multiple meanings sounded a bit esoteric to him. He was glad he wasn’t going to have to explain it to anyone else and had urged Roper to keep the details to himself for the time being.

  But then if he’d wanted an easy life he would never have backed Roper in the first place. He had gone out on a limb to get him back and was still convinced it would be worth it. He also took considerable comfort from the fact that Roper was making such an effort to explain himself. It was a process that seemed to have followed his suspension. Hooley didn’t underestimate how difficult this must have been for him. Over the years he had learned how Roper had been ridiculed at school, and later at work, when he had tried to explain the way his mind worked. It had resulted in him being dismissed as an ‘oddball’ - the kindest nickname - who was best ignored. To overcome years of keeping quiet must have been very hard.

  With the benefit of hindsight, the DCI could now see that the paedophile investigation was probably the point at which Roper had started to improve the way he had communicated. He had come up with a surprisingly detailed analysis which had allowed them to pinpoint who the key people were. Until his intervention they had been looking in all the wrong places so that the focus was on the minor players; men who needed locking up but not the puppet master who kept the whole thing going.

  His concern now was that this previous flash of insight had been swiftly followed by the crisis that came close to bringing things crashing down. He had to trust Roper was now in a stronger place emotionally. Hooley was honest enough to realise that part of the reason he looked out for Roper was because he couldn’t help thinking of him as a surrogate son. It allowed him a degree of payback for the guilt he felt over not being around enough for his own children. They had turned out fine but he had regrets, especially over the key events missed.

  He puffed out his cheeks. He couldn’t afford to spend too much time on introspection. While he did need to keep a careful watch on Roper, he also had a complex investigation to run and couldn’t take his eye off the ball about the day-to-day operation of the police team.

  He was startled by his phone ringing, loudly intruding on his thoughts. The Pathologist Kirsty Goodchild was on the line. “Just to let you know we have confirmed that the dog blood found was some sort of mastiff, which could be anything from a lovely little Staffordshire bull terrier to a great big pit bull. But at least your film and my blood match up.” She rang off after telling him it was long past the time he bought her a drink. “If you want to settle up just send me a crate of a nice un-oaked Chardonnay for Christmas.” He could imagine her grinning as she put the phone down.

  Chapter 38

  “If they’re using a sniper there may not be much we can do for you, apart from hose everything down afterwards.”

  They were learning that Special Forces soldiers seemed to have their own brand of humour. The comment was delivered with an i
ncongruously cheerful smile by Spike, the second of the two SAS minders who had been sent to keep a watch on Roper and Hooley. The other man was Dave. To Hooley’s eye they were close to identical. Tough looking men with short cropped hair and a calm demeanour, very similar to their boss. Spike was the more talkative of the two and had been explaining the practical limits of what they could do. “I can do this,” he said, demonstrating an ability to raise his leg straight up so that his foot went over his head, then adding. “But I can’t see round corners. So, if the bad guys are lurking we need to be really, really careful.” Throughout this he had kept his balance on one foot but now he brought his raised leg back down.

  He went on. “We’re taking the view that while you’re at work you are going to be as safe as you can be. No security is ever foolproof, not even for American Presidents. The US Secret Service boys are still having the piss taken after they allowed Ronald Reagan to be shot. They get a bit touchy about it, but whatever they say, it was a balls-up. That’s something we like to remind them about as often as possible.”

  “But I digress with thoughts about our American cousins. The point is that while you two are at work you are surrounded by people, many of whom may have weapons, or at least access to weapons, so if it was me I would rule out attacking you at your office.”

  Spike’s manner was jaunty, without being cocky; something that the DCI assumed was down to a combination of attitude and training. The SAS man winked at Roper as he went on.

  “We’re going to concentrate on keeping an eye out while you are at your home or at the restaurants you mentioned you might visit. Sometimes people hate having security around, and it’s not our normal bag, but we know the ropes and the boss says that since it is one of ours that is causing your problem, fair enough. Hopefully no one is going to be roughing you up in the street again if we’re around. Our ugly mugs are usually enough to keep anyone at bay.”