“OK. I can see now where you’re coming from. Let me ask you in a different way - and I am going to come across a bit George Smiley here.” Seeing Roper arch an eyebrow he stopped and thought for a moment. “You know I sometimes like to call you Sherlock? Well, George Smiley is the equivalent in the world of fictional spymasters.
“Anyway, the point is, I do have a question. What if there is a double bluff going on and this is all official and they can use diplomatic cover? Doesn’t that put it back to MI5?”
Roper barely paused. “We can cover that easily. If we tell Bill Nuffield we are looking at this as criminal activity, then he and his team can focus on the intelligence side. That should make for a very efficient use of resources.”
Hooley liked the response. “Good answer, and I think your idea sounds a very good approach all round. I would add one thing: we make sure that Nuffield provides us with daily updates on what his team are doing. That way you can be on top of their investigation and make sure we’re not both missing something important that neither of us is dealing with.”
A thought struck him.
“Talking of dealing with things, I’ve got some more news on my idea about forming an Odd Bods group. After talking to you I put some feelers out to a couple of my more sensible mates and asked them if they had anyone who might fit the profile.
“It turns out there is someone in the training section who is running the computer system, but my mate reckons she’s being wasted there. He does know an expert when he sees one and he reckons she’s great.
“She has a real flair for digging out details and doesn’t need any motivating. You just point her at a task and she gets on with it. Her problem up to now is that she hardly ever says a word.
“People find that a bit unnerving. It’s not they don’t like her, it’s just that no one can ever have a conversation with her. Even asking her if she’d like a cup of tea just gets a grunt. She only communicates by email, or even, and this is bizarre, prints out messages which she leaves on people’s desks.
“They’ve tried to find a proper role for her because it’s obvious she is clever, but they just don’t know what to make of her. My mate says we would be doing her and ourselves a favour if we could take her on board.”
Roper had listened closely.
“I get like that when I don’t know people very well. It’s like my brain empties out. The big change for me was working with you because you don’t mind people being quiet. Julie says it’s because you are a ‘miserable old git’ but I think she was joking. At least she said she was.”
He didn’t know it but Hooley was pursing his lips.
“She said that, did she?”
“Yes, a couple of days ago. She was looking for you and said to me ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for the miserable old git.’”
Hooley narrowed his eyes. Sometimes it was hard to tell if Roper was trying to wind him up. “It’s nice to know when your superiors are singing your praises. Look, what do you think? Shall I fix up for us to meet her? There’s no rush, but if we can start lining people up then why not?”
“I think that would be good. And could you do something else? I need to know if you have any informants who know the big players in the smuggling business.”
39
Roper had launched into a bizarre monologue the moment he met Hooley’s contact.
“Blimey, me old china plate. I know we’ve been talking on the dog and bone but it’s good to meet, even if it is a bit Mork and Mindy out here. Let’s go and spend a bit of bees and honey because I’m Hank Marvin at the moment.”
Hooley stared at him open-mouthed.
“What did you just say?”
“Cockney rhyming slang, ‘innit?”
The other man started laughing. From the neck up, he looked like a vicar from casting central, with a wide, innocent expression and protruding front teeth. From the neck down, his powerful shoulders and barrel chest said Boston Strangler.
He said. “I’m not sure many people would call it that. You don’t really need to use the whole phrase, so you’d just say ‘china’ not ‘china plate.’”
Before Roper could respond, Hooley chipped in again.
“I think I’m right in translating what you just said as - ‘Hello, mate. We’ve been talking on the phone but it’s good to meet, even if it is a bit windy out here. Let’s go and spend some money because I’m starving at the moment’?”
He rolled his eyes before carrying on. “First of all, you only have to use the first word in the phrase. It barely makes sense.”
Roper looked crestfallen.
“When you said he’d done some bird lime, sorry jail time, I thought it would make him feel at ease. I wanted to show that I was on the same level.”
This last made Hooley’s contact burst out laughing.
“You’re the most comical Cockney I’ve ever met,” he said, holding out his hand. “The name’s Pete and it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He was quite a bit shorter than Roper and had to look up to meet his eyes.
“Given that you’re about six inches taller than me, I think sitting down is the only way we will be on the same level. There’s a nice cafe around the corner - I know the bloke who runs it - so we can talk in there. And, if you are starving, he does one of the best bacon sandwiches in London.”
The meeting was taking place in Penge, a busy suburb of South London. Hooley had insisted they travel by train, claiming it would be much faster than coming by car. Roper had some slight association with the area, having briefly attended a private school in the nearby and considerably posher Dulwich, but he had never had the time to venture out of the immediate area of the school, so he was absorbing the surroundings.
It struck him that the DCI had been right about heavy traffic; the high street seemed to be gridlocked with buses, builder’s vans and cars, plus the odd brave cyclist weaving in out of the vehicles. Pedestrians were everywhere.
They followed Pete away from the railway station and walked slightly downhill on the left-hand side of the road, passing fast food restaurants and greengrocers, until they reached a cafe. They walked inside, and Pete led them to a quiet table at the rear.
The owner came over to shake hands and take their order. He was short and thin, wearing a pristine white apron, and sporting a dark beard. His bright eyes seemed to sum them up instantly. His expression never altered as Roper asked for three bacon sandwiches for himself.
“Three?” asked Hooley.
“It’s because of that man sitting by the door.”
“What?” he shared a quizzical look with Pete.
“Didn’t you notice? He had just picked up his bacon sandwich as we came in. It looked brilliant, you could tell the bacon was nice and crispy and it was on proper white bread with butter and tomato sauce.”
“I thought you were a wholemeal-only bloke?”
“Not with bacon sandwiches. My grandmother taught me that you don’t want bread that’s got too strong a flavour. The point is, the sandwiches here are much better than we can get near the office so, since I am hungry, I thought I might as well go for it.”
Hooley had to admit there was a certain logic to this and even Pete, who had only just met Roper, was looking approving.
“I still think three is a lot. You’ve told me off for ordering just one bacon sandwich.”
“That’s because you’re fat.”
For the second time Pete burst out laughing as he patted Hooley on the shoulder. “I’d give up while you still can,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “You told me he was different, but you never mentioned he was going to be such a laugh.”
Fortunately, the food started arriving and they settled into eating. It was as good as Pete had suggested and Roper had surmised from looking at his fellow customers. Despite having three times as much as the other two, the young detective still managed to eat all of his before they had finished.
“Very nice indeed,” said the DCI, wiping his hands on a paper
serviette. “If you’re ready Pete, are you happy to get down to business?”
The man nodded so Hooley talked for the next few minutes, apologising for leaving out most of the key details but stressing how important it was and how short of leads they were.
As he had spoken Pete had become more and more sombre, until his features had gone quite dark. Hooley had never seen him react this way before so was concerned by his response.
“Your face is telling me that you might be having a problem with helping us with this.”
Pete puffed out his cheeks and, if anything, looked even more mournful.
“I don’t know, Brian. I really don’t. I used to dabble in a bit of smuggling myself, years ago. In those days it was mostly beer, spirits and fags. Back then you didn’t see much wine either - that only started in the mid-80s when everyone started going mad for Chablis and champagne.
“We used to sell a lot of it round here, off the back of vans and a few shops that would keep stuff in the back and flog it to punters they knew. Even the local filth, present company not included of course, turned a blind eye in return for a carton of smokes here and there.
“The blokes who brought it in were a tough lot but nothing nasty. They weren’t angels, believe me I’m not one of those who pines for the ‘good old days’, but at least there were no guns.
“Nowadays it’s a totally different story. Most of the smuggling routes have been taken over by total bastards, if you pardon my French. They cut their teeth on people trafficking mostly and you really don’t want to mess with people like that. They’re the sort that will kill you just for looking at them.
“But it can be even worse than that. If they think people are talking about them they come after you. I just don’t think I can take the risk.”
Hooley knew he was speaking from the heart.
“I can tell you are genuinely worried about this. The only thing I can say is that I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t serious, but you must do what is right by you.”
Pete stood up. “All this talk of smuggled fags is making me want one. Hang on here for a few minutes while I go and have a smoke and think if there is anything I can do for you. I’m not promising, mind you, but if I can I will.”
In the end he was gone for almost half an hour and Hooley was just preparing to give up when he reappeared.
“Sorry about that, but it turned into a three-smoke problem. Two to think about it and one more to check through what I was thinking.” He paused to take a breath. “I do have something for you, but I’m going to admit I’m not sure how useful it will be.
“The bloke I am going to tell you about is a bit of a throwback. He has some sort of code that he sticks to, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I wasn’t trying to con you when I said I’ve been out of the game for a while.
“There was a bloke about ten years back who had a reputation for being able to move anything. It was even said he was transporting kids around London by hiding them in suitcases, so you can tell what sort of fella he was.
“I never had a proper name for him and he was known by a sort of made-up name. I think he was called the Butler, or the Concierge, something like that. The idea was to make it sound like he offered a high class personal delivery service, or so I was told.
“But he was obviously tough enough to survive against the psychos who are running the business now - so if you could find him, I bet he would be a great place to start whatever it is you are looking for.”
The DCI knew he had been lucky to get this much. He paid the bill and, after saying goodbye, he and Roper headed back to the railway station where they could catch a direct service back to Victoria.
“What did you make of him, Jonathan?”
“I thought he was telling the truth about how worried he was. There were no indications he was lying. Even I thought he looked scared.”
“I couldn’t agree more. I think we were lucky to get anything. When we get back, we can try chasing down the names he gave us.”
“I Googled those two names while we were still in the cafe and nothing came up.”
“I didn’t notice that, you must have been very quick.”
“You weren’t supposed to see. I’ve been practising using the keyboard without looking at it and just using my thumb to type out the letters.”
“I’ve seen you do some amazing things, I must admit, but that sounds impossible if you ask me. I can’t even type on those little phone screens when I am looking straight at them in good light. Yet you’re telling me you can do it without even looking. I mean - how?”
“It really isn’t that hard once you get your mind into the right space. Anyone can memorise the keyboard, and then you just have to learn to judge the spacing so that you can spell out your words. I just made it something I really wanted to do and took it from there.”
The DCI raised his eyebrows. “There’s loads of things I tell myself should happen, but it doesn’t seem to work.”
If Roper had taken his comments in, it didn’t show in his response.
“When we get back I can do some proper checking on the intelligence databases and have a look at some of the message boards on the dark web. They’ll probably be encrypted, but the name may be there.
“I’m not that confident though. People know that even the dark web can be searched by the security services, so most of them are using impossible-to-access messaging services. So it is a long shot, but we have to try.
“The one hope is that he appears on something from about ten years ago, before all the new stuff came in. A few people have been caught that way because they didn’t realise that a digital footprint can hang around for a long time.”
40
Back at Victoria, Hooley was ringing round his contacts to see if anyone had heard of a smuggler called the Butler or the Concierge. He was not having the easiest of times.
“You must be joking, right. The Butler? Really? That sounds like something out of a Batman movie. Are you sure you haven’t been inhaling again?”
The man talking worked in the immigration services and he and Hooley had never really got on; there was something about their personalities that made them rub up against each other. The DCI thought his man, James, was enjoying himself too much.
“Listen, mate,” he said, trying to inject a note of passive aggression into the ‘mate’, “I know this does sound a bit daft, but this is a serious issue. Trust me, I wouldn’t be willing to put myself up for having the Michael taken if it wasn’t important.”
He could almost feel the sneer coming down the line.
“I suppose this is all too far above my pay grade for you to tell me what it’s about. Well, if I can think of anything, Detective Chief Inspector, I’ll get back to you, but I wouldn’t hold your breath if I were you.
“And if you don’t mind me saying, and no offence,” Hooley gritted his teeth; anyone who said that was about to say something unpleasant. “Ever since you adopted that mongrel Roper you’ve been coming up with a lot of funny stuff.”
He sat back and made himself breathe slowly. He was experiencing some mixed emotions. On the one hand he could imagine punching James right on his stupid nose. But another part of him was dismayed that someone holding down such a high-powered job could be such a moron.
An hour later and he was still seething when his mobile beeped. Another old colleague, John Swinton, was on the end of the line. Swinton had retired from his customs position a few years back.
While work had brought him to London, he had retired to his beloved county of Yorkshire. He had been known to revel in that region’s reputation for blunt speaking and the DCI feared he might be in for another bout of being called a fool.
To his pleasant surprise that didn’t prove to be the case.
“I’ve been out on my allotment this morning, looking after my rhubarb. There’s not many people I’d stop doing that for but you’re one of them.”
“Still living the Yorkshire dream then. Don�
�t tell me, you’ve just made a cup of tea that’s so strong you can stand the spoon up in it.”
Years ‘down South’ had softened the accent but you could still hear it in the reply. “Aye, lad. There’s one good thing about retiring: at least I got back to making a proper cuppa that you can actually taste.”
Hooley smiled at this. He could recall once being offered a mug of tea that was so strong it had stained his teeth, or at least that’s what he liked to claim.
“Well I’m sorry to interrupt your allotment duties. To be honest I wasn’t sure you would get back to me, so it it’s good to hear your voice.”
“And you, Brian. Anyway, I don’t have a lot for you, but I’ll let you be the judge of whether it’s important or not.
“A few years back, must have been around 2009 - and I can get that checked if it’s important - our investigation team picked up that there was someone around who was making a lot of money out of people trafficking, especially kids. We didn’t have a name, but we spoke to a few faces and nothing came back.
“I think we all assumed it was something of nothing, then about a year later we had one of those odd moments. We picked up a really nasty piece of work with a couple of women hidden in the back of his van.
“They were close to death when we found them and for a while it was touch and go if they would make it or not. He couldn’t have cared less, and I remember wishing we could still ‘accidentally’ drop people down the stairs.
“Anyway, I digress. It eventually dawned on our little Herbert that he was in a bit of bother, especially when we explained we were going for a charge of attempted murder. I’m not sure the lawyers would have gone along with it, but the look on his face was priceless.
“Within minutes he started babbling about how he had information we would be interested in and came out with this story about a bloke who was using vans that he was disguising as some of the well-known delivery companies.
“No one even looks twice at those since they’re everywhere. Our bloke insisted this man was the biggest operator in the market. We pushed him for more details but he didn’t have much, just said the man was very clever, very careful and was making a lot of money.
The Long Reach: British Detective (Jonathan Roper Investigates Book 3) Page 14
