The Long Reach
by
Michael Leese
Copyright © Michael Leese 2018
The right of Michael Leese to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in or transmitted into any retrieval system, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Prologue
London.
The sound was barely above a whisper. The music swelled and the haunting opening of Nessun Dorma filled his senses. The picture came into focus as the camera pulled back to reveal what had been hidden.
The combination of the music with the brutal reality being played out on the huge TV screen captivated the watcher. His heart was racing and his mouth was dry. He reached for a glass of water, his eyes never leaving the screen.
There was a last twist. As the tenor powered towards the conclusion, his voice soaring above the orchestra, the shot pulled back again. Now the viewer could see not just the man tied to a table but the smaller figure of a woman standing alongside him.
The victim was lying on his back with a mask over his face. He was struggling hopelessly against the restraints. The woman beside him raised a hand over her head, paused, then plunged it back down in a slashing arc. The picture went black.
For the briefest moment there was silence, and then the lights came back on, throwing a warm glow on the scene. The lens remorselessly tracked to reveal the face of a young woman, a contented smile on her face as she held up a knife with blood glistening on its razor-sharp tip.
The Courier breathed out. It was mesmerizing; even better than he had imagined it might be. It was going to make doing business so much easier.
1
City Airport, London.
His client, Maxine Dubois, was focusing on her iPad. Her expression, normally impossible to read, was rapt. She’d run the ten-minute clip twice, leaning forward each time she reached a favourite part, the tip of her tongue emerging between her lips as if tasting the air. Dubois went in for the third time. The Courier relaxed a little as he allowed his mind to wander back to the moment he’d first met the pair who had put together this special performance.
He needed something different, and when he discovered their work he found a way to be introduced. At their initial meeting, a year ago, the Courier had known they would be right. Like him, they would only do something if they could do it perfectly.
They were a contrasting pair. The knife specialist was short and pixie-like, with a mischievous smile that lit up her face. The Courier noticed it didn’t reach her eyes. The camera user was tall and thin with a faintly quizzical air, as if she had missed a turn and found herself in the wrong place. Many were the victims who had died puzzling over how they had misread the pair so badly.
He’d met them for drinks at a pub in Blackfriars, the pixie soon making him splutter into his beer. Size really matters, she told him: the bigger the better. Laughing at his reaction, she had tapped her forehead. It was the size of what was between the ears that was important. In her opinion this was an area where a lot of men were poorly equipped.
Evidently, he had passed some sort of test; at least on the mental side. As for anything else, even if he had been offered he would have declined. Business could be a pleasure, but you never mixed the two.
Elegant and frosty, the French woman had a mind like a trap and not a trace of sentimentality. Those attributes had helped her create a global business from the failing family concern she had inherited at just 22 years old. Within a decade Dubois had created a conglomerate that spanned shipping and digital media to luxury hotels and high fashion. Not only did she have an unerring ability to pick out a company with potential - she had a gift for identifying talented executives to run the businesses for her. It was a wonderfully successful formula, and she had elevated her role to the point where there was little for her to do, apart from removing the odd senior manager to “encourager les autres”.
But Dubois was bored, and heard through a friend of a contact that the Courier was a man who could provide “entertainment”. At their first meeting she had immediately thrown down a challenge, affecting boredom and indicating she might leave at any moment. The Courier had seen through that act, understanding that this client was hiding a keen sense of anticipation. Through patient questioning he had learned that, while Dubois had her own ideas, she expected him to provide her with alternatives. As the discussions became more detailed, Dubois had specified that she did not want to have any sort of connection to the victims. That had surprised him since her earlier behaviour led him to think she was driven by a desire for revenge, maybe against a business rival or a former lover.
The revelation led the Courier to what she truly wanted - to take someone who had led an ordinary life, one who would be intensely missed by her circle of loved ones. He was impressed. Not many people thought in such a simple and direct manner.
He had found the victim quicker than he had expected. Anne Hudson was a young woman who volunteered at her local church to help raise money for impoverished families in the UK and abroad. The Courier found her picture on a charity website. She was standing at one end of a five-woman line-up with a shy smile that suggested she hated attention. She had the sort of prettiness that is particular to healthy young women, especially ones that are blooming from pregnancy, without being truly beautiful. It took his team a day to find her.
The picture was taken outside a church in Worcester Park, south London, so that was where they started. A talkative cleaner provided her name and one phone call provided her address. Then it was just a case of doorstepping her home and waiting for her to come out. Which she did, although this time with a baby in a pushchair; the website picture had been months old. They had taken their own pictures and even shot a short clip of video, which had been edited into the package that his client was going through now.
Dubois was still enjoying the video clip, allowing him to study her closely. He was confident she was buying into his plan. What he needed now was for her to agree to the final price. If she wanted what he could provide then she was going to have to pay up.
2
Tower Bridge, London.
Detective Chief Inspector Brian Hooley was wearing his “divorce” outfit: a pair of dark blue jeans, blue cotton shirt and light grey jacket that he had bought the day after his marriage had officially ended. If pushed, he might have admitted to being influenced by the sartorial style of a middle-aged TV presenter who fronted a motoring programme.
His clothes suited his burly six-foot frame, but his tenuous hold on a large bunch of flowers and box of chocolates was doing less for his image. He looked as though he might drop them at any moment as he tried to maintain his hold while looking at his watch. He was 15 minutes early and in a dilemma. Could he turn up before the agreed time?
He decided to wait a little longer but his need for the bathroom was becoming urgent. He thought about sneaking into a nearby restaurant but was put off because it appeared to be f
ull of serving staff waiting to pounce on the first customers of the day. There was no way he could sneak in unobserved.
Although it was a warm day, the wind blowing off the river Thames felt cold, making him shiver. He combined a sigh with a shrug as he reached a decision - he was going to be early. He had been repeatedly warned about being late, even by a few seconds. An attempted joke about sudden death as a cause of lateness had earned him a hard stare.
He hustled over to his destination: an upscale apartment block on the south side of the river. It boasted fabulous views over London’s financial district to the east and the London Eye to the west. He caught the eye of the security guard, who grinned in recognition.
Buzzing him inside, he indicated the visitors’ book with a nod of his head and watched as the Met detective filled out his name and time of arrival. Writing as slowly as he could had shaved a few more seconds off, so now he was just eight minutes early.
“That’s all good, Chief Inspector. Do you want me to buzz up and let him know you’re here?”
Hooley returned the smile. “No thanks, Dave; let’s make it a surprise.”
Since the terrible events of 12 months ago, when a guard had been murdered by a man who had come to kill Jonathan Roper, the area where he sat was now protected by security glass and conversations were through a two-way microphone.
Roper had personally paid for the improvements and also made a substantial payment to the widow, ensuring she could buy a small property near her mother and leaving a little over as well. Although no one blamed him, he insisted and with the money he had inherited from his parents he could afford it.
Hooley pressed the elevator call button. The car was waiting, and the door opened straight away. He stepped inside and went up to the top floor - the third - where Roper owned the three-bedroom penthouse. He glanced at his watch: just five minutes early. Still just managing to hold on to his gifts he pressed the door-bell.
He thought he could hear shouting, but then the door opened, and Roper was there, a strange smile - almost a grimace - on his face. The Detective Chief Inspector was thinking his colleague’s thick black hair looked more unruly than usual before he was dragged sideways. In his place appeared a smaller, female version of Roper, who, at five feet two inches in her bare feet, was a foot shorter than the man she had replaced.
This had to be Samantha, or Sam, he assumed. Like Roper she was very pale, her colouring contrasting with her jet-black hair and dark eyes. She had her hands on her hips and was glaring at him with such a fierce expression he took an involuntary step backwards.
“Why are you here now?” she demanded. Her voice was amazingly deep for someone who shared Roper’s extremely slim physique, and there was a huskiness to it he would normally associate with a smoker, but he doubted that was true as Roper couldn’t abide the smell of cigarettes.
“I’m Brian Hooley. Jonathan invited…”
She cut him off. “I know exactly who you are. I asked you why you are here now.”
This doorstep interrogation was scrambling his brain. He froze, his mouth half-open. Time slowed and then Roper reappeared, looked apologetic and slammed the door shut. The DCI pressed his ear against the door. He could make out a fierce argument, and it was Sam’s voice that was dominating.
The apartment went silent and he pulled his head back just in time as the door swung open. Roper was back. “Could you knock again in exactly five minutes?”
The door started to swing shut but Hooley managed to jam his shoe in the door. He handed over his gifts and said, “When you finally let me in I will need to go to the loo.”
The presents were snatched away. Some people might have taken exception to such a bizarre greeting. Hooley took a steadying breath and set the timer on his phone for four minutes and fifty seconds. At least this was happening away from prying eyes.
Not for the first time, he wondered at how life with Roper could quite suddenly take on a surreal quality with activities measured in precise amounts of time that left no margin for human error. He tried to remember the last time arriving somewhere had caused such a furore. A long-buried memory surfaced of the day he had accidentally arrived an hour early at a girlfriend’s home, only to bump into the boy leaving. He’d quite forgotten about that and wondered what the girl was doing now. Probably dreaming about the days when boys were throwing themselves at her feet.
But all this over a few minutes? Roper had told him it was important he arrived on time. Now he knew that meant don’t be early as well as don’t be late. He couldn’t help smiling; the lunch they had planned was going to be interesting, especially if Roper’s girlfriend was going to remain upset with him.
The alarm made him jump, but he counted to three and pressed the bell. Roper opened the door instantly. The DCI suspected he had been waiting there the whole time. He was beyond being polite. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said, shoving past and heading for the guest bathroom. He’d been to the flat many times, but never when Roper had a girlfriend.
He emerged to find Roper and Sam waiting in the living room. Before he could say hello again she nudged Roper sharply in the ribs and nodded.
“Sorry,” said Roper, rubbing at his side - it had been a hard dig - “Sam’s flight has been altered and she’s leaving earlier than she thought. She’s only got fifteen minutes before she has to go so we thought coffee here and then she can head for Heathrow and you and I can go on for lunch.”
“Don’t you want to go with her and see her off? You should have rung me and cancelled. I’d have totally understood.”
Sam spoke. “We’ve done all that here. Much more comfortable, if you know what I mean.” She gave Hooley a surprisingly frank expression and he felt his face warm slightly.
“Er, yes. I think I do.” He supposed that anyone who went out with Roper was bound to be a little out there. The man himself was a one-off. Loyal, passionate and capable of making breathtakingly brusque personal comments, totally oblivious to the impact they might have.
Only last week, in the course of work, they had needed to talk to a new forensic scientist. At the end of the interview Roper had said to the woman: “You look a lot older than the picture you’ve put online.”
Shock, rage and embarrassment flashed over her face, to be replaced by misery as she looked as though she was about to burst into tears. Hooley had frog-marched Roper away before he could do any more damage.
Outside in the corridor he had hissed, “How many times do I need to tell you that people get distressed if you criticise their appearance, especially if you have never met them before? That very nice lady you just upset probably likes that photograph and imagines she still looks like that. It’s just a small vanity thing and certainly doesn’t need you wading in with your size-tens.”
“It’s size-elevens, actually.” Roper had that mulish expression on his face which meant he thought everyone else was being ridiculous and there was no way he was going to climb down. The DCI, worried that the woman would appear at any moment, had grabbed the younger man by the arm and pulled him towards the stairs. “Come on, let’s go and get a cup of coffee.” The episode exemplified Roper. It wasn’t that his observations were wrong, but the way he pointed them out left a lot to be desired.
He came back to the present as he realised Roper was holding up a tempting looking bottle of lager. A drink was a very good idea, and he gave the younger man a quick thumbs up. As he took a swig he risked a quick glance at Samantha. She was still looking at him through narrowed eyes, but he thought she looked less angry.
Holding his hands up in an apologetic gesture he said. “My bad. I realise I should have arrived at the right time. I expect I threw all your preparations out, which must have been very annoying.”
In truth he regarded the idea of a few minutes either way as inconsequential, but with Roper he knew that details that could cause the most intense issue. A couple of weeks ago he hadn’t been paying attention when it was his turn to get the coffee.
Instead of a latte he’d given his colleague a cappuccino. Roper had reacted as if he was being handed a cup of poison, refusing to accept it. It had taken the rest of the day before they were back on speaking terms.
So he was relieved as Sam broke out a wicked grin.
“There’s no need to pretend you really understand. From what Jonathan has told me, you are more relaxed than most neurotypicals. A lot of people would have complained that I was overreacting and not given me the chance to calm down. What they can never get their heads around is that someone like me experiences a physical sensation when someone is late or early. It’s not as bad as a nettle sting but a bit more than an itch.”
“Sounds like me when someone is slow getting their round in down at the pub.” He was pleased with that but noticed from her stony response that she wasn’t.
“You’ve been working in America, Jonathan tells me,” he added quickly.
“I have, or in fact I am. I’ve been working with the NSA for the last six months and it’s gone well, so they’ve offered me a two-year contract based in Washington - and you know what I love most about it, apart from the work itself?”
She didn’t wait for him to respond. “You should see the food trucks that arrive for lunch; from every type of burger you can imagine to ceviche, creole and vegan. I love the food trucks. You can eat food from a different part of the world every day.”
“I can imagine that Jonathan might like that, especially trying to find his favourite dish. But you two haven’t had much time together; how are you coping with that?”
She shrugged. “It’s not as hard as people say. We both have busy working lives and then you can always talk on Skype, or whatever. I don’t suppose someone like yourself has ever tried anything other than talking, but you would be surprised by all the things you can do on a video call.”
The Long Reach: British Detective (Jonathan Roper Investigates Book 3) Page 1
