(Jonathan Roper Investigates Boxset Page 26

  Turning back to Cleverly she indicated she had seen enough and allowed in the ambulance crew, who started to gently cut away the tape to release the body. After a few minutes, they had freed his arms and body, one of the men supporting the body, trying to maintain some dignity for the corpse.

  She turned away. There was detective work to do. So far, the first murder had been left to the locals but now they would need to travel to Yorkshire to see the murder scene and sign off a transfer of the remains to London.

  This was the sort of thing that she would normally have left for Hooley, but in the circumstances, she decided it would be fairer on Cleverly to leave him to supervise the operation here and travel North herself. But first there was one more duty.

  “I think the birth mark makes it clear we have the identity of the victim. You and I need to go and see his wife. Let’s see if she has any idea about who might have done this to her husband.”

  Chapter 7

  Lisa Bennett was a small woman and her grief was acting like a sponge; sucking the life out of her and making her draw in on herself. She was sitting on a huge striped settee in the front room of her Clapham Common home. She’d pulled her legs under her and wrapped her arms tightly around her knees.

  Talking to her was difficult. She was wracked with sobs, her eyes red and her skin blotchy. Offering comfort in such circumstances was not one of her strong points and Julie Mayweather was privately grateful there was a young woman officer there who had received the appropriate training. She would discover later that it was Cleverly’s initiative to have the WPC present.

  It wasn’t that she found the emotion uncomfortable: she was driven by an urge to get as much information as quickly as possible. While part of her was deeply empathetic another part was restless and impatient, worried that they were moving too slowly in finding vital clues. She needed to know if this grieving widow could throw any light on why her husband had been singled out for such gruesome treatment. The first time she asked had set off a heart-rending outburst.

  Now she and the DI were sitting quietly while the WPC, Jenny Green, went off to make a cup of tea. For some odd reason Mayweather experienced a compulsion to say something and had to force herself to be quiet. She decided to go and find the WPC, walking out of the room and along a corridor to a huge kitchen with bi-fold doors that opened onto an immaculately landscaped garden. The poignancy was clear: this was a home designed for a happy family. This one had just been destroyed.

  The woman officer was standing to one side staring at a kettle.

  “A watched pot never boils, at least that’s what my mum always told me,” said Mayweather.

  The officer, who couldn’t have been much older than twenty and had her dyed blonde hair tied back in a bun, smiled gratefully at this attempt to lighten the mood.

  “This kitchen is so big it took me ages to find the tea and now this kettle seems to be working at a snail’s pace.” As she spoke it rocked briefly as steam came out of the spout and then shut itself off. She grabbed it and poured water into the jug, accidentally tipping some on to the marble work-top.

  “Damn,” she muttered and then snatched at some kitchen roll and started trying to wipe up the water.

  Mayweather moved closer. “You concentrate on the tea; I’ll tidy up afterwards. You’re doing a good job with her, you know. Stick to your training, and that is really all you can do.”

  A few minutes later the widow was sitting holding the tea in trembling hands. Although she hadn’t touched a drop the simple act seemed to bring her some solace and she was doing her best to answer questions.

  “Tom is a good man.” She was unable to truly absorb his death. “He looks after his staff and he isn’t a ruthless businessman getting into fights with his rivals. In fact, he got on well with them, too well according to Fred: he teases him about it.”

  “Who is Fred?”

  “Sorry. Fred Wilson. He’s the Chief Financial Officer. He and Tom are great friends and he was often here to talk about the company and how well things were going.” This thought clearly upset her as it triggered another bout of sobbing.

  Mayweather felt hopeless and was beginning to wonder about being here at all. This was taking too much time; one of the sergeants was more than capable of coaxing information from the broken woman. She decided to focus on this Fred Wilson. If he and Bennett were close then perhaps he could provide some answers.

  She waited while the sobbing subsided and then spoke. “Mrs. Bennett, you’ve got enough to cope with so we will leave you alone. But Jenny will be staying with you for now. I will also have a couple of officers placed outside to keep you safe.”

  At this statement Mrs. Bennett looked alarmed. “Do you think we are in danger? My mum came to collect the boys this morning but they are asking to come back home.”

  Mayweather put on her most reassuring manner.

  “This is just routine. Having a couple of uniformed officers outside is intended to give you some security and keep any unwelcome attention away - from the press and the like.”

  The idea that she might be newsworthy seemed to worry her all the more.

  “I couldn’t stand it if reporters turned up here. Tom being murdered is terrible enough as it is.”

  Mayweather stood up. “That’s why I want a couple of officers outside and Jenny here in the house. If there is anything you want, just ask her. Or if you think of something, anything, that you believe might help us, just tell Jenny and she can get in touch with me.”

  Moments later she and Cleverly were getting into the back of the police Range Rover that had managed to park right outside the house.

  “Do you think she might be in danger?” asked Cleverly.

  “I honestly don’t know. In the circumstances, I want a couple of armed officers outside. I don’t want to take any chances.”

  At the mention of armed officers, the DI had looked surprised and was about to question the need but Mayweather was pressing on.

  “I want to get over to Bennett’s workplace. I think I’m right in saying his company is based down near Leatherhead in Surrey, so we can just head off down the A3. Can you get someone to track down this Fred Wilson, I want to talk to him?”

  ◆◆◆

  Fred Wilson turned out to be the most unlikely looking accountant. He was huge, with rolls of fat like a sumo wrestler. But his size did nothing to protect him from the shock of the murder. His eyes looked raw from crying.

  “I can’t believe anyone would kill him, he was the gentlest of men. He couldn’t even bring himself to shout at people. All the staff here loved him, you can ask anyone.”

  They were sitting in a small office in a large building, close to the M25 and nearby Leatherhead.

  “Could you talk me through what it is this company actually does?” asked the DI.

  Wilson nodded. “Bennett Communications is one of the companies at the forefront of the next generation of telecoms: we are working on projects that will allow instant communication to take place anywhere in the world. That’s down to our proprietary equipment, which Tom was the brains behind, and the new generation of satellites currently being launched by companies like Google.

  “The big difference was that Tom was combining aspects of our communication technology with aspects of artificial intelligence. I don’t know all the details, but I do know it meant that the communications equipment could solve problems without intervention from a human operator. It is designed to make sure that signals don’t suddenly cut out. He was also developing security systems that could operate without people.”

  “Like I say, don’t ask me the ‘how’ word, but the commercial potential was awesome, and we had just received a private equity proposal that would have provided up to £300 million in research and development funding. I wondered about us exploring the value of the company and put together a proposal to launch on the stock market.

  “But Tom was adamant that we should stay private for now, so that’s how things stayed. He sa
id this was only going to get bigger and waiting would make us even more money. He also asked me to draw up a proposal that would ensure the staff shared in the benefits; that’s the kind of man he was.”

  Mayweather interrupted. “Forgive me asking this, but did that lead to any conflict between you? I mean just how much money are we talking about here?”

  “As the man with the biggest stake in the company his share would have been worth at least £50 million. My share could have been as high as £10 million. But there was no issue between us. All he was doing was delaying things to make the pot bigger.”

  “I nearly forgot,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I need to mention the military angle. He was developing this new communication system directly with the MoD. He’d been down to Dorset recently. And before you ask - no idea. That part was strictly classified and I think Tom was the only one here who knew anything about it.”

  “Do you know who his MoD contact was?” asked Mayweather.

  “No, as I say, I had to be kept at one removed from that. But his Personal Assistant might be able to help. She had to be security vetted a while back and emerged with flying colours. He could be quite absent minded and needed her to keep track of his day, who he was meeting and any phone calls.”

  “Is she here now?” asked the DI.

  “Her name is Sandra Hall and normally she’d be in the office right outside, but she called in sick. Quite unlike her, actually. I’ve never known her to be ill in the eight years she’s been here.”

  Mayweather had a question. “Do you know who she spoke to?”

  “It was me,” he said. “I didn’t actually speak to her, she sent an email. It might have been the day before, now I think about it.”

  Chapter 8

  Sandra Hall’s home address was in nearby Ashtead, a commuter town on the inside edge of the M25, or London Orbital. According to the details provided by Wilson she had recently moved to a detached, four-bedroom house, close to the railway station, with its direct services to Waterloo, London Bridge and Victoria. Until the move she had been living in a one bedroom flat above a shop in Dorking high street.

  Her new home was an attractive property, thought Mayweather; solid looking with bay windows either side of a front door topped with a red-brick design. In the Arts and Craft style, it was a classic suburban home for this part of Surrey, one of London’s more affluent counties. But while it may have appeared unthreatening - they had seen no sign of activity inside - she insisted on waiting until they had an armed team in place before entering. “I’m not taking any chances on this.” She offered as an explanation, “I don’t like it that this woman goes off sick just as Bennett is snatched from Clapham Common.”

  Cleverly was in total agreement, half-nodding to himself as he too studied the location. Thirty minutes later and a squad of officers in protective gear had smashed their way through the front door and checked the property before announcing it was clear of any threats. Stepping inside for the first time Mayweather noted that it was immaculately tidy. The DI smiled wistfully as he thought of his own home, dominated by young children and a chocolate-brown Labrador which acted like a slightly deranged child. Not that he would have swapped places.

  As to the owner; there was no sign of her at all and nothing to suggest she had been taken against her will. Instead, her scrubbed and polished home might have been prepared for a photoshoot. The only possible clue was the faintest layer of dust that suggested it must have been a few days since the clean-up had taken place.

  The DI moved around as little as possible as he made a slow visual inspection of the ground floor, before concentrating his attention on a large wooden dining table at one end of the full-length living room. It was manufactured from pine with the legs painted a matt blue. On the table top was a large Apple monitor with four document boxes stacked up on the right. He tapped the keyboard but it wanted a username and password so he looked through the boxes instead. Beyond the obvious bank and utility letters nothing stood out, apart from the quality of her computer gear.

  With a sweep of his hand he gestured at the set-up. “This little lot will have set her back at least £2,000, probably twice that if she’s gone for all the extras. I looked at something very similar myself until my wife caught on to how much it would cost. I was quickly downgraded to a laptop.”

  Mayweather was looking thoughtful. “It doesn’t look as though she has spared any expense. The house has been decorated and furnished very recently. That kitchen is full of expensive appliances, and the fridge wouldn’t look out of place in a professional kitchen, the sort of thing that is supposed to keep everything at a perfect temperature no matter how many times you open the door. I know they cost thousands. And did you notice the ‘climate-controlled’ wine cellar?”

  Cleverly laughed. “I did notice that. I’m not much of a one for kitchens, but wine drinking? Now that, I could take seriously, especially a cheeky little Chardonnay served at the perfect temperature.”

  His boss walked through to the living room turned and looked at the sleek black television mounted on the wall. “That’s one of the latest 4K TVs; they cost quite a bit as well. So, as well as finding her, we need to dig into where she got all the money from. Wilson reckons she lived alone so she must have paid for it herself.”

  She stepped out of the front door to remove her protective gloves and overshoes, Cleverly in her wake. For a moment, she couldn’t help but think of Roper. She hadn’t seen him for six months but this was his territory. A potential crime scene with no obvious clues, it was entirely possible that he would have spotted something useful. But he wasn’t here and she was just going to have to get on with it.

  She watched as more members of the scenes of crime team turned up, noticing they were attracting the attention of neighbours, a couple of whom were standing outside to get a clear look. One woman appeared to be filming the scene on her phone. She shrugged, this was not the sort of area where they would be used to seeing scenes of crime officers in full protective gear.

  “I want to find out everything we can about this Sandra Hall and until we know otherwise I think we should consider that she may well have been taken by the same person, or persons, who grabbed her boss. Or maybe she’s part of it.”

  She left Cleverly to sort out talking to the neighbours. She wanted to get back to London and start speaking to her contacts. If this case was going to take her into the top-secret world, she wanted to get as much inside information as she could.

  Chapter 9

  “Lamb bhuna.”

  Roper looked at him but said nothing. Hooley tried again, unconsciously trying to give his voice the sort of natural authority possessed by actors and TV newsreaders.

  “Lamb bhuna, your favourite.”

  A deep frown appeared in the middle of Roper’s forehead. “But I like lamb rogan josh - it’s what I always order.”

  The DCI thumped his desk in irritation. Getting that wrong was a schoolboy error.

  “My apologies, but I remember you once said that eating curry was something you associated with work, I messed up by getting the wrong dish.”

  Roper hadn’t quite lost the frown but at least it had faded a little.

  “You’re trying to see if you can jolt my mind into remembering what I saw in the intelligence data. David Cotter tried something similar and it didn’t work. But you know different things about me and maybe that will do it. Actually, you might have come up with a very good idea.”

  Hooley thought it was just as well he was sitting down. Roper congratulating him was a unique, and slightly disturbing, experience. He decided he quite liked this new sensation, although he doubted it would last.

  Roper quickly proved him right to be cautious when he said. “It would be best if you stuck to one thing at a time. It isn’t just about having good ideas you know, you need to do things properly.”

  Before Hooley could think of something to say to that, Roper went on. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s go and have a curry thi
s evening and I’ll see if ordering a lamb rogan josh makes things any clearer. I haven’t actually been out to an Indian restaurant since I stayed with you.”

  Hooley whistled in surprise. “That must be six months. I could never last that long without a curry and a pint.”

  “It’s 149 days, to be exact.”

  “You know what I mean. It’s a long time.”

  “Actually, you need to define what you mean by a long time. I don’t think 149 days is a long time at all.”

  Hooley held up his hand. It was a combination gesture that said he both surrendered and wanted to move the conversation along. It was something they had agreed upon last year. Roper was quick off the draw when it came to having an argument and this tended to bog him down in a determination to prove he was right, regardless of whether it was an important issue or not. Hooley had discovered, by accident, that the physical act of holding his hand up, palm outwards, gave Roper a powerful visual cue to stop what he was doing. Roper simply went back to looking at his screen and a short while later the DCI decided it should be safe to start a conversation again.

  He said. “So, it’s curry tonight - that sounds like a great plan. Do you actually know where to go if you haven’t been since moving up here?”

  “Oh yes. There’s the Cheltenham Tandoori, not far from my flat so it should be fine. I have heard people talking about it very positively.”

  “Sounds good,” said Hooley. “Perhaps we should book it now. Talking about your flat, that reminds me, I have no idea where I am going to stay tonight and my clothes haven’t turned up yet.”

  Roper beamed at him. “Don’t worry about that. Your stuff arrived at reception an hour ago and I told them to keep it there since we will be leaving together. I get the chance to repay you for when I stayed at your place.

  “I’ve been given a very nice flat in town. It’s got three bedrooms and you will have your own bathroom. You can stay in a hotel if you prefer but I thought it would be good to repeat what we did in the last case. I’m hoping it might even help me to remember what it was I detected.” Hooley didn’t have to give it a moment’s thought. In many ways Roper was the perfect flatmate. He could be fascinating to spend time with, yet never took the slightest offence if you went off on your own.