Maybe he was fixating on Roper - hold that thought - he was fixating on him. Perhaps the best thing was to just finish him off. He leaned in closer and listened to his shallow breathing. It would be the easiest thing in the world to place a pillow over his face and suffocate him.
No sooner had that thought surfaced than it was chased by another. The problem with killing him was that he would lose the only adversary he had ever felt was truly worthy of his attention. Surely it would be better to let him live, with both of them knowing that the better man had won?
Chapter 50
Cotter stood over Roper, the pillow he was holding just inches from his face. He’d decided to give him one more minute and then that would be it. He was counting the seconds off in his head; now he was in the final countdown.
Five…four…three…two…one… he pressed down on the apparently unconscious form. At first there was no response then Roper began to struggle. Cotter hadn’t thought he would fight back. In his mind, it was all going to be over quickly and quietly. Instead the victim was struggling more violently. Showing surprising strength Roper managed to force the pillow off his face.
He took in an enormous breath of air as he pushed hard against the pillow, making Cotter stumble backwards. Roper’s eyes were wide open. He’d gone from being out cold to looking very alert.
“I was right. It was you.” said Roper. Unlike earlier he was obviously awake and alert. “You were the one person who had all the access needed. I checked with our security people and they said you had the clearance to work on undercover operations. That’s how you were able to get your hands on the top-secret surveillance equipment. With your training, I bet it was easy to get people to tell you far more than they intended.”
He lay back on the bed, the simple statement leaving him exhausted. “What did you give me? I know it was some sort of hallucinogen.”
Cotter had got over his shock at Roper suddenly waking up. He realised he was quite pleased - it meant they could talk, which would mean that Roper would be forced to acknowledge he had lost out to the better man.
“It was LSD I’ve given you. Now, tell me, you’re such a smarty pants, have you worked it all out?”
“Most of it; I even know why you have got gaps in your memory.”
Cotter felt that comment like a blow to the stomach. “What do you mean? What gaps in my memory? That’s absurd.”
As he was talking he was going red in the face and starting to jerk around like a puppet on a string. Roper’s comments had triggered a bout of uncontrollable rage and he started raining blows down on the helpless man. His fists pummeled Roper’s face and body. In his already weakened condition he lapsed back into unconsciousness. As quickly as it had come the rage left and Cotter looked down at his bloodied victim.
For the second time he experienced anger, but this was against himself. He started hitting his head, beating so hard he could see stars. He fell to his knees besides the bed and started shaking the unconscious Roper.
“Wake up, damn you, wake up. You need to tell me what you meant.”
He was in torment. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. He should have been goading Roper over his failures. Instead, the man had woken from a drug induced coma and immediately turned the tables by coming out with the one thing that was absolutely terrifying him.
How could he possibly know about his memory problems? Surely that was impossible? Yes, he had his famous Rainbow Spectrum, but that was it. He knew how that worked. Surely, he couldn’t have found out anything through that?
Another thought hit him. What if Roper had shared this information with other people, especially that annoying plod Hooley? He liked to call the DCI a plod but had quickly worked out the man was not to be underestimated. He might not have a string of qualifications to his name but he was as sharp as they came. It was a good job he had a plan for disappearing.
That made him rush off to check his documents. He was going to need his fake passport. He’d intended to bring it with him when he’d come up from Cheltenham but recently he kept forgetting everything. Just leaving his home to go to work was a nightmare as he nearly always left something vital behind, like his security pass. He got on well with the Military Police guards, but not that well, and was constantly having to go home to pick it up so he could get into the building.
To his intense relief he had managed to remember it. He put it down, then thought better and picked it up and stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans. At least he knew he had it with him. He also had a French identity card as a back-up and this he also put into his back pocket.
Sorting out the documents made him feel calmer and he had an idea. He filled up a glass with cold water and made his way back to the bedroom. He could tell from the already prominent swelling that Roper was going to have a pretty good black eye and he was bleeding from cuts to his mouth and ear. Cotter stood over him and poured half the contents of the glass over his face.
It worked and Roper spluttered back to life. This time he looked a little warily at Cotter and said nothing. Silently, the psychologist held the glass angled to his mouth so that he could get a drink of water and the rest of the glass was quickly drained. Roper sat back, panting heavily.
“Why did you attack me? There is nothing I can do to you, especially when you’ve got me tied to the bed. I doubt I would be a match for you at any time, least of all now.”
Cotter was still feeling rattled but determined to put on a front. He produced an unpleasant sneer, which was meant to be a chilling smile, at least in his own head. He said. “You’re never going to be a match for me at anything and its best you remember that. You forgot yourself a moment ago and that’s why I had to teach you a lesson.”
His eyes were darting around and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. It was quite a change. Cotter had always seemed so laid back and relaxed. He was one of those people who made sure to give Roper some space. A lot of people didn’t understand that even standing a few feet away could make him feel uncomfortable.
Yet here he was looming over Roper, bending down and getting so close he could feel the man’s breath on his face, smell the lingering aroma of chips combined with beer. If he hadn’t been tied so securely he would have shied away from being in such close proximity. Ever since the night he had almost been arrested at Roper’s flat something had changed in his behaviour. As Cotter backed out of the room, wiping furiously at his eyes, he was convinced he had a good idea what might be causing the problem.
Chapter 51
Brian Hooley’s phone beeped to indicate an email had just arrived. He was back in Roper’s flat now that the forensics team were done. He hoped the message was something important; not just the telephone company offering the chance to buy tickets to an already sold-out event. He was tempted to leave it, but professionalism got the better of him. It might be a message he needed.
His phone was wedged into the inside left pocket of his suit jacket. Getting it out proved harder than he would have liked. He had big hands, with thick fingers to match, and as he reached to grab his mobile he couldn’t get a proper grip on it. Instead he pushed it on to its side, making it stick in the lining. Frustrated, he forced his hand in harder, feeling the fabric tear slightly as he managed to envelop the phone in his oversized hand.
He pulled it sharply. At first it resisted then it suddenly came free, making him yank it out too quickly, losing his grip at the last minute. He cursed as it gently flew through the air, reaching a peak height about a foot above his head and then gravity took over, pulling it back towards the ground. Although it felt like it was happening in slow-motion he could do nothing apart from will it to reach the safety of the soft, black-leather, sofa rather than the unforgiving wooden-floor.
To his relief it did, bouncing once before settling back against the covers. He was puffing a sigh of relief as he walked over, picked it up and checked who the email was from, nearly dropping the phone again when he saw it was from Roper.
The email read, “Brian, I am writing this last night, while you, me and Cleverly worked in Julie’s office. I have set this to go out on a timer, if you do get this then I have made a bad miscalculation. I believe David Cotter is behind everything and he has double-bluffed me. I was so certain that you were the one he was going to kill, but it was me all along.
“I started having doubts about him a few days ago, he just fitted the profile of the person we were looking for. He has a high security clearance because of who he has to deal with and the freedom to come and go to different sites around the country.
“But what really got me interested was looking into his past. He used to work with Prof Roland Penrose at London University. In simple terms, he was the pioneer behind Artificial Intelligence, a man way ahead of his time. Then there was a tragic accident at his lab and he died. But his assistant was David Cotter. His PhD student. By an ‘amazing’ stroke of luck he was away, applying for the post at GCHQ, so escaped.
“Penrose was working on ways of enhancing the human brain. I think Cotter may have stolen that work and used it on himself. I had suspicions that this was causing problems for Cotter and when we discussed the murder cases it fell into place. How could there be one killer but two methods of killing people? Easy if there were two people in the same body. You need to get that chased up.
“I don’t know if I will survive. Cotter is deeply unstable, and may have multiple personalities because of what he has done to himself. Just in case I don’t make it, you need to get someone trawling the Dark Web. They’ll need to look for items made by the companies where the murder victims worked. I believe Cotter’s plan also involves selling secret equipment to the highest bidder. Being at GCHQ allowed him access to two companies making the equipment and that led to the chain of murders, to cover up his theft.
“My only hope is that soon you should be able to get a GPS signal with my location. That is if I have been successful at swallowing one of the new personal tracking devices. It starts working when the coating is dissolved by my stomach acid. It can take longer for some people than others so it needs monitoring. The security team at GCHQ know I have got this so will be able to help you if you call them. I don’t know how long the tracker will work for, but hopefully it does. Best wishes. Jonathan.”
Hooley felt a profound mix of emotions. Some of it relief and some of it intense anxiety. He thought only Roper could put “best wishes” at the bottom of a note like that. He rushed off to find Julie Mayweather, charging down the stairs and out in to the bright morning sunshine. He looked around for her car. He couldn’t see it and realised he was panicking. Then he spotted it.
She saw him walking towards her and clambered out of the rear of the black Jaguar XF. When Hooley reached her he didn’t say anything, just passed her his phone with the message on display. She read it quickly, her eyes widening as she took in who it was from.
She looked up, her face a mix of hope that they could rescue him, astonishment that he had found a way to communicate and frustration at his unorthodox behaviour. “I wish he’d told us, we could have had him surrounded by armed guards.”
Hooley held up his hands in a ‘what can you do’ gesture. “He’ll have had his reasons for keeping it quiet. You and I may not understand them, but that’s Jonathan for you.”
She handed his phone back, her face assuming her ubiquitous ‘business as normal’ expression. She called over to DI Cleverly who was talking quietly to one of the scenes of crime team. Hooley handed him his phone and they waited while he read it. He looked up expectantly.
Mayweather issued instructions. “Norman, you need to co-ordinate the search for Cotter, making sure you cover Cheltenham, his flat up there, and talk to anyone and everyone who knows him and might be able to throw some light on where he’s got Roper.” This was standard police work that hardly needed spelling out, but her words were influenced by her concern. Cleverly understood this and didn’t bridle at being told how to do his job.
Mayweather added. “I’ll deal with the MI5 end and make sure they know to talk to you.”
Hooley chipped in. “Cotter’s boss is called Helen Sharples. I know her a little bit so why don’t I talk to her and see if she can throw any light on this?”
Cleverly gave a thumbs-up as he started backing away to get his part of the hunt underway, making for a command vehicle that had found a space on the embankment walkway. Morning joggers were looking disgruntled as they discovered their normal route closed off.
Hooley leaned against the boot of the Jaguar and started scrolling through his contacts list. He was sure he had made a note of Sharples’ direct line number. He knew he could have sent an email but this was urgent and he wanted to hear her voice rather than sending messages into the ether.
To his relief the number was there and seconds later she was answering, sounding bright and breezy. Hooley took his time. What he had to say was both fantastic and complicated and he needed to get her to understand as quickly as possible. Which she did. Minutes later he had details of Cotter’s parents, former girlfriends and a previous address in London. It was a flat close to the Elephant and Castle, not far from where he was standing.
She ended the call promising to light a fire under everyone she could think of at GCHQ and saying she would also speak to the security people. “I’m not supposed to know this, and you didn’t hear this from me, but they do carry out sweeps on people.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but your Jonathan Roper may well have been a target after you were brought in. It’s not that they would have thought he was guilty of anything, but they are trained to pick up on behaviour change”
“I can believe that,” said Hooley. “there is something else which is very urgent that I want to ask you, if you don’t mind?” He heard her murmur yes and carried on. “This is all a bit Sci-Fi to me, but Roper says he has swallowed a tracking device that will switch on when his stomach acid dissolves some sort of coating on it.
“He says he got it from security and I need to know how to track this device straight away. I don’t know how he managed to get his hands on it, although somebody must have broken the rules, so there may be some reluctance to admit anything. But we need to get over that, I just need the info about how the device works. Would you be willing to go and talk to them directly?”
“Of course. I’ll go now and call you once I have what you need.” He could tell from the tone of her voice that she would not allow herself to be deterred. Hooley ended the call. He would have smiled if he could have seen Sharples’s determined expression as she raced off to the security team. She liked Roper and hated the thought that something might happen to him.
Ten minutes later and she was on the phone to the DCI, sounding slightly breathless. “They can monitor the device from here. It hasn’t come on yet but they are keeping a constant watch, the moment they have anything they will contact your team and transmit the data.”
She stopped and he could hear her catching her breath. “As you suspected, he persuaded one of the younger guys here to give him one of the devices so he could inspect it. He told him it was just for an experiment to do with his Rainbow Protocol.
“It was quite clever of him actually. He made it sound like there was concern over safety protocols and that he had been asked to check it out. He even managed to produce an email from me saying that I was part of a larger group involved in the check-up and had given my consent to him having it. My security rating is high enough to authorise something like that.”
There was a pause. “I know it’s not a priority, but when you get him back, I wouldn’t mind finding out how he accessed my email.”
Chapter 52
The man who walked into the room looked like David Cotter - but he wasn’t. There was something very different about him and Roper realised his recent suspicions were correct. But it was also dawning on him that he had placed himself in enormous danger. The attack by Cotter could prove to be the least of it.
While
he was hopeless at reading body language, he understood some people were dangerous, and there was something about this man that was very disturbing. At boarding school, he had run into problems with two types of bullies. There were those who were frightened of being bullied themselves, so were glad to have someone else to pick on; they seemed to think that if they had a go at Roper then they might escape their own issues.
It was the second type that scared him. Those were the boys who were bigger, stronger and nastier than the others. They liked to hurt people and being able to pick on the ‘weirdo’ like Roper was just an added bonus, because it provided entertainment for their fellow pupils.
Fortunately, there weren’t as many of the latter type. He had also learned that if you took your beating without making a fuss then there was a chance you would be left alone for a bit. These were the boys who didn’t care about ‘fairness’, they just hurt you. Roper knew he was looking at someone like that.
This person was standing quietly in the doorway. His eyes were hooded and there was a faint smile on his face, as if he was listening to some private joke. His hands hung down by his sides. Where the David Cotter personality had been clenching and unclenching his fists, this one kept his hands quite still.
He had been looking at Roper for almost a minute. He stepped further into the room until he was close enough to reach out and touch Roper’s face. He reached behind him and produced a knife that he must have had tucked into his belt.
He stood there for a while longer. The knife was in his right hand, the blade unwavering. That strange smile was in place but, if Roper had been able to read such things, it never reached his eyes. They remained cold and calculating, the pupils unnaturally dilated to make it look as though he had black holes in the centre of his eyes.
(Jonathan Roper Investigates Boxset Page 42
