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  “But this was a three-year investigation with dozens of officers and support staff. In fact, he had only started working with us in the previous 12 months, so there was no way he should have thought it was all down to him - but he did.”

  Cotter had been listening with rapt intention. “So, what did you do about it?”

  Hooley looked abashed. “While he was off on his silly suspension I had a chance to do a bit of thinking. I took the view that so long as he wasn’t left to his own devices he would be fine. I don’t mean babysit him, just keep an eye open.

  “I put him in a desk right next to me. That way I could see him all the time.”

  He leaned back in his chair and grinned.

  “No one can argue against what I did because that’s when he came up with his Rainbow Spectrum and smashed that gang of mercenaries trafficking women into London for use in medical research.”

  “I don’t think I am giving away any secrets when I say that many people understand that it was you who played such a key role,” said Cotter. “Great credit to Julie Mayweather for backing you, but you put your neck on the line. The point is that once we established that you were the missing link - I mean that in a very good way - steps were taken to get you down here.

  “I discussed it with Jonathan and he seemed enthusiastic, and after that the powers that be got involved to clear it for you. Your boss has just been told and, as you know, we have given you access to the system here. So welcome to the team.”

  Hooley smiled his acknowledgement. “It never hurts to try something new, even for old dinosaurs like me.” Before Cotter could say anything, he added. “Your position here sounds like you have more authority than just being part of the support team.”

  Cotter tipped his head to one side to acknowledge a point well made. “I have very high clearance, and need it, because of the people I work with. All the members of the team here do. I need to know what all the people I work with are doing so I can make proper assessments, so yes, we do things differently here.

  “Talking of doing things differently reminds me, we have someone outside your flat and if you give us permission they can go inside and get anything you want to see you through the next few days. If you need any medication we have our own doctors here so they can prescribe what you need.”

  Hooley gave him a knowing look. “Won’t your man require a key to get in?” He got the answer he expected when Cotter almost squirmed with embarrassment.

  They stood up. “I guess you have everything covered. Tell me though, why did you need me to come down here first? Why not just come and see me at Victoria?”

  “I wanted to be certain that I was right and that meant seeing how you and Jonathan interacted.”

  “But he barely looked up when I saw him; how did that help you?”

  “It was his hair. After he had been here for a while I realised you can tell when he’s relaxed or not by looking at his hair. If it’s standing up you know he’s feeling tense. When he saw you it was…”

  “Looking nice and flat,” Hooley interrupted. “Of course, how could I have missed that? Roper has always been the man who put the ‘bad’ in ‘having a bad hair day.’”

  Chapter 5

  He’d forgotten what a prodigious amount of information Roper could work through. By contrast, and after several hours of intense effort, he had barely scratched the surface. Some of the material he was reading was recorded as highly classified. Taking notes was forbidden; memory only. He sat up and eased his neck. Doing this sort of intensive screen work nearly always made his back ache. He was sure he would pay a price later, if not today then tomorrow.

  What he needed was a break - yet another short walk would do it - but Roper had disappeared while he was absorbed in his task. Rather than sit there waiting for his return he decided he could at least head to the canteen - the GCHQ trot, as he thought of it.

  He returned to find Roper in situ. This time the younger man did more than give him a brief nod of recognition. He was looking positively expectant.

  “Did you pick anything up from that material I gave you?”

  Hooley took his time, walking round to sit down at his desk and taking a sip of coffee before placing it next to his keyboard.

  “If the answer to your question is: did I read a lot of frankly terrifying material about the links between different terrorist groups? Then the answer is a firm yes.

  “If the answer is: did I spot any of the links you would like me to see? Then sorry, the answer is no.”

  Roper’s face fell. While he had been working at Scotland Yard this inability to hide his emotions had been the cause of intense debate. The more cynical argued no one could be that open. For Hooley, the real point was that, had Roper been looking at himself, he would have struggled to interpret his own expression.

  The younger man said: “I was really hoping you might be able to help me find my way back.”

  Hooley knew he needed to make sure Roper stayed on an even keel. A lot of people were worried about what he might have discovered, or been on the brink of discovering, so that would create pressure. The trouble is that he didn’t do simple. It was likely whatever he had pieced together would have come from multiple strands of information. That was the thing about Roper, he read everything and saw what others missed.

  Fortunately, the DCI felt fresh and ready for the battle. He was determined to be positive.

  “Let’s try coming at this another way? Maybe that will help you get back on track.” Roper’s expression was neutral, he wanted to hear what Hooley had in mind. The DCI closed his eyes for a moment as he paused to gather his thoughts. “From what you’ve shown me you clearly think this is terror related.”

  Roper looked impatient.

  “Of course it’s terror related. That’s one of the big things we do down here. Try and catch terrorists by intercepting their secret messaging.”

  The DCI wasn’t in the least perturbed by this abrupt treatment. From anyone else he would have found it rude, but with Roper he knew it was just the man being honest, a bit close to the bone maybe, but that’s how he rolled. He held up both hands in mock surrender.

  “Of course, Jonathan, no one is trying to tell you how to do your job; I’m just trying to do things the old-fashioned way and build up some sort of overview of how you got to the point where things suddenly got confusing.” He pressed on. “Looking at the timestamps on the intelligence reports, your concerns were triggered by news that Somali pirates got their hands on a new and more powerful boat. Am I right in thinking they have been using it to carry out new attacks on shipping that comes near their stretch of coast? Are we saying that this new vessel gives them new opportunities for piracy?”

  Roper had been sitting quite still but now he stood up.

  “No, no, no. You can’t assume that’s the point at all. The only thing we know is that they got it 18 months ago and since then we have heard nothing. It could be they are holding it back, or there’s something I haven’t thought of yet.”

  When he sat down Hooley noted that Roper’s hair was standing up. This issue with the pirates was clearly important. He made a mental note and moved on.

  “The next thing you’ve flagged up is a report by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation some thirteen months ago. I’ve had limited dealings with them but am I right in saying they are like our MI5?” There was no dissent from Roper so he pressed on. “The report is about an upsurge of super-strength cocaine being trafficked in from Bali, although the people behind this are said to be Australian criminals. Nothing to do with Somali pirates who are - and I looked this up on Google - some six thousand miles away across the Indian Ocean.”

  He stopped to see if Roper noticed his little bit of research but there was no response. He shrugged: he might have impressed himself with his use of Google but clearly the master thought this was elementary stuff.

  “Moving on: the next piece of data concerns a meeting eight months ago that was monitored by a jo
int FBI/Homeland Security task-force trying to infiltrate some sort of pow-wow between three of the biggest white supremacist groups in America.”

  A thought struck him and he searched for the right piece of paper before realising the report he was looking for was on screen. He found it and quickly scanned it.

  “Is this right? It says here that they met up in New York. I thought those sorts of people stayed down in the Deep South?”

  Roper raised an eyebrow as he said. “Not everyone spots that straight off, well done.” Once again Hooley kept his smile to himself, there was no point in complaining that he had just been patronised.

  Roper carried on. “It turns out they may have known they were under observation. They were due to meet in New Mexico but suddenly changed plans and that’s how they ended up in New York. By the time anyone found out they’d been and gone. The FBI and CIA are still blaming each other.”

  The silence went on long enough for Hooley to realise Roper wasn’t going to add anything.

  “OK. Let me start with the obvious. Are you thinking that this lot are working together, which seems a bit of a stretch, if you don’t mind me saying?

  “The only thing I can imagine these groups doing is fighting each other. Nothing seems to link them, certainly not geography, and there is no suggestion that any of these groups has worked together before. I’ll admit it, I cannot see any circumstance which would make these people act together. The thought of them making common cause is terrifying.”

  He checked Roper to make sure he wasn’t about to speak then added. “The only thing I can give you, and that grudgingly, is they are all criminals. But who believes there is honour among thieves? This lot hate each other’s guts.”

  Now Roper was up and pacing. “If you look at it that way you’re right. I’m trying to recall the way I was looking at it, but it’s like things have gone all misty. I must have seen something, or made a connection with the Rainbow Spectrum, but I can’t remember the detail.

  “I can’t be sure, but I think I was looking at links between one group and another. Not all three together, but I may just be mixing it up with other information.

  “Being here at GCHQ is like nowhere else. The amount of information is just amazing and it keeps piling in. My job is to look at what interests me and see if I can pick out major shifts in what is going on. When I started here that seemed to work well.

  “But now that is working against me and that’s really worrying me. I have this sense that something terrible is going to happen and I may be the only one who can stop it, if I could just remember what it was.”

  Hooley was fascinated by this. “Are you saying that the Rainbow Spectrum is letting you down in some way?”

  The question produced a huge sigh from Roper. “It’s sort of complicated and easy. I know I’ve been calling it the Rainbow Spectrum, but in some ways, you could call it the Roper Spectrum. It’s about the way that I work and think.

  “It was helpful to give the process a name because it felt quite separate from me. I still think it will work properly again but now it is causing a problem, a bit like I can’t feed in the right information.

  “To answer your question, something is going wrong with the Rainbow Spectrum, but I don’t know how. I am sure the concept still works, so, maybe I am looking at the information I feed into it the wrong way. That’s why I need your help going through it.”

  As intrigued as he was by this, Hooley felt out of his depth. He moved to safer ground with some light self-mockery. “Now that I’m here you’ve got someone who can share the blame. Trust me, I’ve taken plenty of blame over the years.” He fixed Roper with a direct look. “I tell you what though, my ex-wife’s mother had a thing about threes. ‘Bad things always come in threes,’ she said.”

  There wasn’t much to say after that and they lapsed into silence. After a few minutes Hooley sat up straighter, he had remembered something that might give a new perspective.

  “Much as I hate to admit this, I may have been wrong about something. A couple of months ago there was a restricted briefing note from the Met counter terror unit. I don’t recall all of it, but I think it was suggested that, in certain circumstances right-wing groups might be willing to support jihadi terror gangs.

  “If I’m honest I dismissed the idea as nonsense. It sounded like someone was being too clever by half, but what if there is something to it?”

  At first Roper said nothing but it was clear he was thinking very hard. He finally spoke to say: “That might be very important.”

  Chapter 6

  Julie Mayweather stepped through the gap in the chain-link fence which enclosed the expanse of crumbling tarmac. It was all that was left of a car-park that had served the warehouse. She was heading towards DI Cleverly who was waiting by an open side-door; from this distance it looked like a black hole in the grey metal cladding of the building.

  The DI was a short, stocky man, with a bull neck and heavy features set in a permanent glower, quite at odds with his personality. A fast-track graduate entrant, he had an inquisitive mind coupled with a light touch personality that earned him the respect, even affection, of his colleagues. But as she got closer she could see that today his habitual expression was an accurate barometer of his mood: he was as grim as the early summer weather, which being Britain included threatening clouds, cold wind and rain.

  “Looks like you’d better talk me through what we’re going to find in there,” she said.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” said Cleverly, his unusually formal manner a further reminder of what to expect. “The scenes of crime people have just finished so we can go inside. He’s where local police found him following an anonymous tip-off.

  “Inside it’s basically one huge open-plan space which was used to store furniture. But it gets weird. Someone has gone to the trouble of building a small cabin right in the centre of the building. They’ve even hooked a power supply to it.

  “Inside this cabin is the body. Mr. Bennett has been bound very tightly with masking tape and is sitting in front of a table. As you know his face has been removed. In front of him someone has left his wallet on the table which is where we found his ID.

  “He also has that distinctive strawberry birthmark and someone has helpfully rolled his sleeve up so that we can clearly see it.”

  The DI paused as he looked at the floor and took several deep breaths. He’d been on a couple of basic psychology courses and thought it was entirely possible the killer - he was sure it was one person - was taunting them. He knew it was never good when sadistic murderers sought to send messages to the police; it suggested they thought themselves quite superior.

  Cleverly went on. “Sticking out of each ear are what we think are knitting needles. The doctor will remove them when he gets back to the morgue, but it’s got to be a certainty that he died after the attacker slammed them into his brain.”

  From time to time police officers must see things the rest of us don’t. As far as Julie Mayweather was concerned this was going to be one of those moments. She was surprised by an intense longing to have Brian Hooley at her side: his unflappable manner would have helped her stay calm. Then she looked at Cleverly; his determination to do a professional job was clear. She felt guilty for doubting him, even indirectly.

  “Right then,” she said, mustering a modicum of bravado. “Lead the way.” Knowing what was inside the cabin made her suppress a desire to shiver. There was a horribly theatrical element to this. She almost turned to look as she had the sensation that someone was watching from the shadows. She sensed there would be more victims unless the killer was caught soon.

  Gesturing at the wooden cabin she asked. “Why do you think someone went to all the trouble of building this? Once they’d got him inside this place they had all the privacy they would need.” She stopped and noticed for the first time that the cabin was expertly constructed. The thought was incongruous, conjuring up images of a DIY killer.

  She shook off the idea. “Do we know yet
if this is one person or several people? Have the soccos picked up anything this time?”

  Cleverly shook his head. “No clues so far. The anonymous caller was a male and spoke in a Yorkshire accent, not that I’m paying too much attention to that. Plenty of people can mimic different ways of talking. For what it’s worth, my guess is that this is just one person. I’m hoping the scenes of crime team can confirm that.”

  Mayweather realised she was asking questions to put off having to go inside. She steeled herself. “Right, let’s get this over with.”

  They walked over to the cabin door and she looked inside as the last of the forensic people stepped out.

  “We can move the body when you’re ready, Ma’am.” said a woman, who stood to one side to allow her to go in.

  She looked through the door and what she saw immediately went to the top of a private list of things she would recall for the rest of her life. Where the face should have been was a bloody mask with two blue eyes in the middle; even the eyelids were gone. She prayed the victim had been dead before this mutilation took place. The knitting needles added to the grotesque nature of what she was looking at.

  Although the overall impression was revoltingly gory, there was little blood pooled around the body and she hoped this indicated he had been killed first. The facial wounds looked clean, not all ragged. She wondered at the skill needed to do such a thing. The team would have to find out; maybe they should ask a surgeon. In fact, they should check with facial replacement surgeons generally. She was prepared to bet it was a small field.

  She looked around and saw the cabin appeared to be made out of wood and painted white including the floor and ceiling. As the DI had said, someone had even fitted a light.