Cocaine

By Donald Phillips

Set in the decade of the nineties, this novel follows ten years in the life of Jack Ropell. Ropell was actually born in Yorkshire, but his parents moved to Canada when he was eleven. At twenty two he loses his younger sister to drugs while he is away from Quebec, Canada, at university in England. Driven by this and the continuing strife between his French mother and his Spanish/English father,Jack decides to stay in England when he graduates and join the British Customs and Excise.

After two years in the job Jack gets to join the anti-drug squad and begins to find out what the real world is all about. The story follows his part in trying to prevent the ingress of drugs, in particular cocaine/crack, into Britain.

During this decade cocaine production in Colombia was becoming professional and several Colombian drug barons were making more money than many countries or big corporations. National Police forces were struggling to contain the flood of cheaper and cheaper drugs into America and Continental Europe.

This story is a fiction, but only in the characters involved. The actual story, the pain the suffering and the casual, but extreme violence used by the drug cartels against anyone who opposed them, is probably understated. One thing is for certain. it doesn't matter if you are a supplier, distributor, user or a lawman, sooner or later when cocaine is involved, it will ultimately become a matter of life or death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donald Phillips
• Release date: Apr 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476307183

Donald Phillips

In the late sixties I was a member of a rock band and we were moderately successful. At twenty three I tired of being out every night for five years, married my long time girlfriend Rosemary and and left rock and roll behind, the money I had made furnishing our first house. I then worked in engineering for many years, firstly in the tool room and eventually as Personnel and Training Manager. Next for some six years I ran the South Avon County Youth Opportunities Scheme for difficult trainees (they were referred by Social Service, Probation or the Police usually), based in Weston-super-Mare, England. We managed to get eighty five percent into permanent work. I spent my last two years in England running a 300 place training scheme for unemployed adults in Bristol. During our life we had visited twenty seven countries at various times and our families are spread from Trondheim in Norway throughout Europe and on to Adelaide in Australia. Twenty six years ago we ourselves moved to rural Spain and found our own niche. We both speak Spanish now and are quite happy here. Since then I have switched to Cabinet making and had over 190 articles published worldwide in the English language woodworking magazines and I produce one off pieces of furniture to order to make my pocket money. Not being a great television fan I spend my evenings writing articles and novels or reading my Kindle. I am a happy and content person.

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Cocaine

Copyright  Don Phillips 2005

Published by Don Phillips at Smashwords

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Foreword

During this novel I have taken several liberties regarding the way the Customs & Excise and the Guardia Civil are organised and operate. I apologise for this, but stress that this is a work of fiction, just as much as any other thriller or film. I take this opportunity to express my support and admiration for all the men and women who stand and work on the side of law and order in all such commendable organisations. They are not allowed to break the rules in the manner my characters have, but must do things the hard way. Yet they are truly our only protection against the evil that is out there. The violence and the attitude of the people on the other side I do not believe I have exaggerated at all.

This novel is set throughout the nineteen nineties when the general public were far more innocent about the way drugs were made and distributed. Many still are. Hopefully this book will destroy the illusion that taking any form of so-called recreational narcotic is justified in any way. There really are no such things as truly recreational drugs. It doesn’t matter if you are a user, distributor or a policeman, wherever Cocaine is involved it will ultimately become a matter of life or death.

Prologue

Quebec, Canada, February 1991

He watched the big man in the uniform topcoat trying to tip a spade full of earth into the open grave. Even though the rain was running down his face from his bare head you could see from his expression, and the way that the shovel trembled in his hands, that he was weeping. The earth was sodden and reluctant to leave the spade. Just as well it was, thought Ropell or from the way the man's hands trembled it would have been empty before he got it over the grave.

How could someone who wore the uniform of a Captain of Police let things come to this, he thought for the thousandth time in the last three days? How could someone, who had a bit of a reputation amongst his colleagues and his men for being a hard bastard, be so bloody weak and pathetic in his home life? How could a six feet two inch professional detective allow himself to be dominated and given the run around by two women who barely came up to his shoulder? One woman now he reminded himself, as the earth fell into the grave. How could it happen? The grief and anger surged within him.

The big man stepped back from the graveside and held the spade out, like a child who had got so far in a given task, but didn't know what to do next. It wavered about in the air while his other hand struggled to enter the wet material of the pocket of his uniform overcoat.

Feeling for his bloody handkerchief again, thought Ropell. Then pity took over and he stepped forward and took the spade from his father's hand, watching as the big man turned and buried his face in the shoulder of the slim, middle-aged woman who stood next to them.

Marie Colette Ropell never moved as her husband sobbed into her already soaking shoulder. No hand lifted from her side to comfort him or touch him in any way, a sign of the contempt in which she held him. She stood five feet seven inches in height, was slim to the point of thinness and dressed in a dark blue suite and gabardine topcoat, as if ready for a business conference in one of Quebec's corporate offices. Her eyes, blue and bright, stared directly down into her daughter's grave from a face that was as expressionless as stone. Only the small muscle moving on the side of her jaw showed that she was under any tension at all. The teeming rain literally bounced from her shoulders and the black silk scarf covering the blonde hair, her only concession to protection from the elements. Only her eyes moved as she watched Jack Ropell throw his spade full of earth onto the coffin.

When he was done he turned and held out the spade to his Mother. She released herself from the grip of her still weeping husband and with a strength surprising in one so slender, she scooped up a full load of the sodden earth and dropped it down onto the coffin of her only daughter. Then she let the spade fall to the earth and studiously avoiding the eyes of both men, walked away to the waiting car in which she had arrived and out of their lives, leaving the rest of them to finish the service without her.

The original fucking ice maiden, thought Ropell. His mind wandered back over his memories of his Mother, trying to find an instance when that steely control had given way to something more natural. He failed. He wondered how his father had managed to make her pregnant twice as he found great difficulty in imagining her in the throes of passion. The only natural emotion he could ever remember her showing was the odd flash of anger at something or other his father had done or forgotten to do. The rest of the time there was just the iron control that she exercised over every aspect of her life.

His father watched her go with the mournful eyes of a puppy that has been beaten. They had not lived together since the day of his daughter’s death. She had been packed and gone when he returned from the morgue. He visibly pulled himself together and spent a few moments exchanging courtesies with the half a dozen other mourners, all of who were colleagues or neighbours, before they all squelched their way back to the waiting limousines. Behind them two workmen cursed the teeming heavens of the approaching Canadian winter as they prepared to fill in the grave.

The journey back from the cemetery was as Ropell had expected. His father wept silently for about ten minutes, then suddenly empty of tears, pulled him self together and brought up the subject Jack had been hoping to avoid.

He turned to his son, the puppy look back in place.

"Jack?

The question mark in the voice told him what was coming. He rubbed at the condensation that had instantly clouded all the windows in the big Lincoln Town Car the moment they had entered in their wet clothes. Peering out of the window at the passing countryside he pretended he had not heard. It did not save him.

Do you really have to do this? Do you really have to go some thousands of miles away to get a job you like?

Jack Ropell did not answer at once. He knew what he had to say would hurt his father and tried to sort out in his mind how to put across his message firmly, but without doing any more damage than necessary. It was not easy. He resisted the sudden urge to put a comforting hand on the other's arm and prepared to say the words that had been burning at him since he had received the phone call that informed him of Marie Louis' death. Was it only twelve hours ago that he had arrived from Heathrow?

Jack?

It was the whine in the other's voice that finally brought the red mist of anger. He turned to the father, who he thought he had known well. The man he had thought of as strong and firm. The man he had admired and looked up to, but whom he suddenly saw was practically a stranger. He waited a few seconds more for the fierce glow of anger that had suddenly arisen within him, to die down and took a deep breath. It was only now that he realised just how much he had been waiting for this moment ever since the plane had landed.

What is there here for me now?

He held up a hand to prevent the other's answer. And carried on in a voice that was both bitter and sarcastic.

My only sister, we have just buried. Dead from an overdose of the drugs that even her policeman father could not, or did not, prevent her from taking and becoming addicted to. My Mother feels stronger about her politics and her Liberty for Quebec movement than she feels for any of us and has just left you and the whole of her past behind her, so that she can dedicate her life to the cause. That leaves just you and me.

He paused.

I do not want to live with you, Dad. I do not even want to live in Canada. I do not want to become a Mountie just like my father and I never want to see my Mother and her cold political scheming again. Stop bloody crying for God's sake.

The last was almost shouted. He swallowed and lowered his voice and despite his resolution not to do so, reached out and placed his hand on the wet sleeve of his father's coat.

You let us down Dad. You and Mom let both Marie Louis and I down. Her more than me.

Tears began to fall down his father's face again, but he hardened his heart.

You were never there for us, Dad. You were always at work and Mom was always at some political meeting, scheming how to prise Quebec away from the rest of Canada.

He let his anger show.

We are not even Canadians for God's sake. She is only Canadian on her Mother's side while her father is French from Paris and she was brought up there. You are three quarters English and a quarter Spanish and were born in Halifax, so what are we doing in Canada? Why did you let her take us away from Yorkshire, Dad? Why did you let her drag us halfway around the world to a place none of us had even seen before.

He looked down into his lap and his voice dropped a little.

I hate her politics, you know. I hate the blind prejudice that makes her refuse to answer anyone who speaks to her in anything, but french. I hate the indoctrination she put us through when we first came here. Since I landed in Canada at eight years old I have heard nothing, but anti-British propaganda from her. I hate the fact that I lost a lot of friends because their political views were not correct enough for them to be welcome in my home. I hate the sickness that drives her on to try and destroy the country that welcomed her with open arms while she ignores her family, and I hate the continual daily arguments her sort bring about between people who should be fellow countrymen, but are divided by a mistaken political ideal.

He paused to regain control of his feelings and when he continued it was in a calmer voice.

It has stopped me wanting to be Canadian. That's why I applied to go to University in Cambridge. I want to live in the country I was born in and now I have my degree, that is what I am going to do.

The older man moved his arm away from his son's grasp. He looked at the son he was so proud of. This son who at twenty-four years of age thought he knew what life was all about. At just a half inch over six feet in height with black wavy hair and deep blue eyes, he could have had Irish blood. Only the slightly softer planes of his face prevented the onlooker from jumping to the conclusion he was a Celt. That and the slightly darker, Mediterranean hue to the skin that tanned so readily.

The boy wore his clothes with the ease and confidence of an athlete, sure of his own abilities and future and he adored this son they had made, but knew he had lost him. He decided to try and warn him of the pitfalls that awaited that confidence before he walked out of his life. When he spoke the tears had stopped and the voice was steady.

I remember when I was full of ideals like you are, Jack. I remember when I felt that I could achieve anything I wanted.

He shook his head.

You speak a lot of truth about me and your Mother, Jack, but you see, we are like we are because we are people. You will find that out some day. The trouble is that you are usually deeply committed before you find out you have made a mistake.

The voice grew stronger.

As you know I met your Mother when I worked in Paris for Interpol. She spoke little English, but my French was pretty good. We were married within three months and you were born less than a year later. We came back to Britain to live because that was where my work was, but she hated England and especially Yorkshire. A country within a country she said it was, but without the courage to break away. She has never understood how you can be one thing and yet still part of another.

He shook his head again.

"She could not understand the local accent and refused to learn what she referred to as Pidgin English. Then Marie Louis came along and she began to feel trapped. Two children to bring up in a country she hated. We were breaking apart at the seams.

I didn't want to see a divorce that destroyed the family and separated us all. I didn't want to be in the position to only be able to see my kids when I could raise the fare to Paris, so I applied to join the Canadian Royal mounted Police. It seemed like a reasonable compromise at the time. After all, I had been a policeman for fifteen years by then and had made Inspector. The Mountie's accepted me. The Canadian government approved our immigration request and we moved lock, stock and barrel. I thought it would be the answer but it wasn't. He looked up at his son. Was it?"

He shrugged.

So you see, Jack, the message is judge not unless you yourself be judged.

Ropell knew he could have brought up the fact that his parents had ignored the warning signs of their daughter's addiction. That any professional policeman should have spotted them, that both of them were too wrapped up in their own world to notice what was happening to their children, but he was suddenly tired of it all. His anger had burned Itself out and he knew that the man next to him would castigate himself more severely over the next few years than he could ever do.

The car had stopped and peering through the mist of condensation on the windows Ropell realised that they were at his hotel. He opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement. He leaned back into the car.

Goodbye Father.

He would never see him alive again.

Chapter 1

London, England, February 1992

Like all offices that deal with the real world, the offices of Her Majesties Customs and Excise at Heathrow airport showed it. The composite panels that formed the room had taken on a grubby tinge near the floor, where countless brooms and mops had discoloured the original grey paint work, while the panels in the suspended ceiling show evidence that at least some of the staff were smokers. There were eight people sat in the room all in the service's uniform, five men and three women. They sat in two rows of four chairs facing to the front and appeared to be waiting.

The door opened and two more officers walked in, their regalia showing that their rank was a bit higher than that of the current occupants. The original eight officers immediately sat as near to attention as you could get in the seated position and gave the men at the front of their briefing room their full attention. The first man they knew well as he was their immediate superior, Jim Hancock. It was the second man they were really interested in and at first look, they were disappointed.

Commander Peter Romsey was a legend in the service. He was head of the anti drug squad and us such was responsible for preventing the stuff from entering the country. He had a unit of about twenty specially chosen and trained staff who operated from a headquarters in Southampton. The competition for places within this unit was fierce and because it was outside of the mainstream service it operated Its own rules. It officers frequently went armed and co-operated with a variety of other services, including the armed forces and the police. They were in fact a service within a service and as such rumour about them abounded. Some even likening them to the SAS and SBS arms of the military. For Romsey to be a Heathrow there had to be something big going down.

Hence the disappointment, for Romsey stood at only five feet eight inches and with his silver hair and open, pleasant face he looked like somebody's favourite uncle. He nodded to the assembled men and women and walked over to stand in front of them, benign looks apart, when he spoke it was with real authority.

Good afternoon. You must be wondering why on one of the busiest days of the week I have you all waiting here instead of letting you get on with your jobs.

He gazed at them and seemed satisfied with the attention he was receiving.

We have received information that this afternoon that thirty kilos of Heroin will be brought into the UK through this airport. He ignored their sudden stirring. We do not know the exact location from where it is coming from except that it is believed the plane will be coming from Africa. There are six long haul flights coming in from various African countries between now and six o’clock tomorrow morning. All are Jumbos and all are fully booked. That gives us two thousand five hundred suspects on those six flights alone. As I said we believe Its coming from Africa if the information is right, but the flight may be from somewhere else so you do not need me to tell you that everyone is a suspect.

He looked them in the eyes.

The source has been reliable in the past on several occasions so we have to believe it will be reliable this time. Therefore, it is up to us to stop them. Any questions?

Ropell stuck his hand up and received a nod of acceptance. He was wondering why with this amount at stake the Drug Squad was not in evidence.

"Are any of your unit going to be with us, sir?

Romsey shook his head.

We have a major operation going on up in Scotland at the moment. There is no way I can get anyone back here in time to be effective even if I send a helicopter.

He shrugged.

In what matters tonight, the reading body language and the assessing likely suspects you are all as well trained as my people. Besides, you are all there is.

He waved a hand at their supervisor who was standing near the door with a nervous frown on his face.

Anyway, Jim Hancock here is confident enough in your abilities and he is a man who's opinion I have always respected.

The eight looked at their chief with a new respect in their eyes. They didn't know that he and Romsey had met for the first time twenty minutes ago. To Hancock's credit he never blinked. Romsey waited a few seconds more and then as there were obviously no more questions, wished them luck and left after shaking Hancock by the hand. A buzz of conversation arose that was cut short by Jim Hancock's voice.

OK. This is our chance to do more than stop an extra bottle of gin or a bit of Wacky Baccy entering the country. Don't let me down.

Gussie Brown approached Ropell as they were leaving the briefing room. She shook her head at him.

You must be a lucky sod, Jack. You have only been here for two months and you get into this. It has taken me six years to be on duty on a big one like this.

Ropell smiled at her. He liked Gussie a lot as she was friendly and prepared to give him the benefit of her experience when she knew it would be hard for him to ask some of his male colleagues for advice. They were still a bit wary of this man with the American accent who was a bit too good looking for comfort. He also knew that she fancied him and carefully trod the narrow path between keeping her friendship and not leading her on, despite her being the owner of a figure that would have made page three in the tabloid press. Gussie had fiery red hair and as he had been told gleefully by the others, two ex-husbands. That was enough for him. He was just not interested in an affair with a woman some eight years his senior who had already left the starting gate twice. He smiled at her.

Probably be picked up before he reaches me, Gussie. Because I am the new boy I will probably only get to play backstop again.

The red and green channels at Heathrow's terminal three are in the same area of the building and separated only by a few screens. If you go elect to go through the red channel there are usually two or three people on duty at the tables there, the rest of the staff just stand around at various places where they can observe the passengers as they pass through. They are looking for those little signs that mean a person is under stress, the sort of stress that comes with trying to buck the system under the very noses of the watchdogs.

At the sides of the channels are another officer or two. Their job is to observe the crowd while their colleagues at the tables are busy going through various pieces of luggage. The last officers are the backstops. They wait quite a distance past the Customs bay and look for a different body language. The one of relief as people think they are through and clear. Wherever they are positioned all the officers can usually observe the vast majority of the area. Tonight, as he had predicted, Jack Ropell was playing backstop, looking for signs of premature relief. With him on the other side of the corridor from the Customs area was Gussie Brown.

They had been on duty for several hours and the clock was fast approaching the time when several of the long haul flights from the African continent would be landing in quick succession. They were feeling refreshed having just returned from a half hour meal break, taken while things were quiet, when a crowd of black faces and brightly coloured clothes announced the arrival of the first passengers.

The next hour passed busily and quickly with only a bottle of whiskey in the plus column. Then last Trans African aircraft had landed and Its passengers were beginning to arrive from baggage reclaim. Ropell raised his eyebrows at Gussie and prepared to study body language when his attention was caught by the commotion at the other end of the channel. One of the biggest women Ropell had ever seen had been pushing a trolley that had almost disappeared under the mountain of luggage on it. She was white and seemed to resent the crowd of black faces who were surging all around her laughing and talking. She was waving them out of her way and trying to push the trolley along at the same time when the whole load collapsed.

There was sudden chaos as the cases took several other pedestrians and a young girl with them leaving bodies all over the floor. Several other people tried to recover the woman's possessions and ensure the child was all right. She, as children sometimes do when they find herself the centre of attention, began wailing and rubbing her leg where the suitcase had caught her and this was not helped by her Mother shouting at the fat white woman in Swahili. In the meantime two young black men, poorly dressed and each carrying a large battered suitcase moved swiftly through the green channel.

Ropell caught Gussie Brown's eye and she indicated she had seen them. They were not needed however as two other officers moved to intercept. One of the suitcase carriers turned about and ran back the way he had come, closely pursued by two of Heathrow's armed security police. The other tried to fight it out where he stood and went down under a heap of uniformed bodies. Ropell and Gussie Brown were not needed.

Ropell thought like the rest of them that that was that. They had got the mules. He turned to give Gussie a small thumbs up, but in between them and blocking his line of sight was the woman whose mini avalanche of luggage had started the whole melee. As he smiled and started to shake his head in amazement at the vast amount of luggage once more balanced precariously on the trolley, his senses came alert. On the woman's face, which was nowhere as fat as her body would suggest, was a look of pure relief. His senses went into overdrive.

Excuse me, Madam.

The woman kept on going. Gussie, who was nearer, stepped forward to block her way as Ropell came up behind her. The woman shoved the trolley straight into Gussie knocking her sideways and abandoning everything, ran for the exit at a surprising turn of speed. Ropell gave chase and finally brought her down with a flying tackle after about one hundred and fifty yards. They slid along the polished plastic floor for a considerable distance until a solid brick wall stopped their progress. When they hit the wall Ropell was on the wrong side and had the wind crushed from him, but retained the presence of mind to hang on to the others dress. Unable to struggle free the woman seized him by the hair and smashed his head against the floor. She was lifting it to smash it back down for the third time in an effort to release his grip when she suddenly let go of his hair and collapsed next to him with a thin shriek of agony.

Ropell looked groggily up at several of his colleagues who were looking back down at him with anxious faces. Gussie's face was the nearest and came slowly back into focus. He smiled to show he was alright and indicated with his head the large woman who was clutching her groin and making small mewling noises in her throat.

Thanks. What happened to her?

Gussie smiled.

I couldn't let her break that pretty face of yours, Jack, so I kicked her in the balls.

He shook his head.

Pardon?

Gussie bent and removed the blonde wig from the woman's head. She was a man. She was also nothing like as fat as she seemed.

Jim Hancock was doing his best not to look smug and failing miserably. A search of the mountain of luggage had revealed thirty-five kilos of pure Heroin. He watched the duty sister treating Ropell's damaged head while Gussie fussed around the fringes like a Mother hen, waiting to drive him home despite his protests that he was fine. He was telling them for the third time how Peter Romsey had personally congratulated him on their haul when the sister tied of the last of the four stitches he had needed in the cut on the back of his head and declared Ropell fit to leave. He was starting the story for a fourth time when Gussie diplomatically shut him off by insisting Jack needed to get home to bed and taking Ropell's hand dragged him out of the surgery.

They were sitting in her car before the question struck him.

Hey, Gussie. What were those two African guys trying to bring in.

She grinned at him.

Rhino horn. They had four each in those suitcases.

He wasn't sure if she was kidding him or not. You never knew with Gussie. He decided to let it go.

We were bloody lucky you know, that fat lady trick very nearly worked. You would not expect anyone in their right mind to deliberately draw attention to themselves like that. Thanks for getting him off me before he gave me concussion and thanks for the lift home, although I would have been all right you know. I shall have to get a taxi in to work in the morning.

The car had stopped and he looked out of the window.

This isn't my flat.

She grinned again.

I know because this is my flat. Come on. Show how grateful you really are and I will take you to work in the morning.

Ropell glanced across at the well-filled uniform blouse and decided to hell with his decision not to have an affair with an older woman.

It was around nine o'clock and the morning had decided that February or not, it was going to be sunny. Jack Ropell lay on his back in the big soft bed with Gussie snuggled firmly into his right shoulder, their legs entwined, watching the shafts of sunlight coming through the curtains of the bedroom in Gussie's tiny attic flat. In truth he was wondering if he had made a mistake spending the night here. Gussie was a wonderfully built and incredibly energetic woman of thirty-five and he had enjoyed himself enormously in the last few hours. He had also learnt a lot, but he felt he might have made a mistake. Never on your own doorstep his father had always told him. He was working out ways of disentangling himself from the situation and feeling a heel for doing so less than half an hour since he had been making love to her, when Gussie spoke directly into his ear.

What are you doing here, Jack?

He was puzzled.

Ye Gods, Gussie, you practically kidnapped me."

Gussie giggled. A low sexy sound that made him forget his thoughts of a few moments before.

No, you Pratt. Not here in this bed, in the service. Why did you join the service? You a foreigner and a graduate?

She kissed his earlobe to let him know the foreigner bit was a joke. She knew he had been born in Yorkshire. Ropell tried to evade the question.

Oh! Well its a long story and I really don't want to bore you with it.

She struggled up onto one elbow and gazed down at him through eyes that were a kind of sea green one moment and grey green the next. Her right nipple was only a few centimetres from his lips and raising his head he kissed it. She pushed his head back down on the pillow, careful not to hurt his wound.

Come on, Jack. I won't tell anybody else if you don't tell them you spent the night here. Not that I mind them knowing I had you in my bed, but I don't want every would be Romeo at Heathrow trying to do a number on me. Its bad enough already.

She wrinkled her nose at him.

I'll tell you what. I will tell you all about me first.

You don't have to, Gussie.

Shut up. My dad was the Town Clerk. When I was young all three of us, my two sisters and me, had to be totally respectable because of his position. Consequently at eighteen I was married to William Brown who had a good future in the sanitation department. It wasn't his fault because he had a decent heart, but William, I discovered too late, was a totally boring fart. You would have thought he was fifty-six instead of twenty-six. I left him after three years

She paused at the memory and Ropell wondered about William Brown who had not realised what life and vitality his young wife possessed and so lost her.

I went back to college, got my A levels, and then went to university I got a degree in sociology. I moved down here when I graduated aged twenty-six and got a job in the Department of Employment catching benefit frauds and then met Rod. He was a teacher and two years older than me. We shared a flat for six years and I thought that we were an item. Then the bastard met a girl with a rich daddy who runs a private school and moved out practically overnight.

Her face showed that it still hurt a to think about it. She suddenly smiled down at him. It was a mischievous smile.

So I applied to join the service, probably because I wanted to be the one in charge for a change. Now I catch drug smugglers at work and in my spare time when I feel randy I prey on attractive young men and leave them before they can leave me. It usually lasts about a couple months on the average.

Ropell knew he was being given a message and accepted it gratefully. He could live with that arrangement. She flopped back into her snuggle arrangement on his shoulder.

Your turn.

He waited a few seconds and then decided he had to tell some body at some time and Gussie was probably as sympathetic a listener as he would get. He took a deep breath.

We are a bit of a mix as a family. My maternal grandmother, dead now, was Spanish. My Grandfather was English. My Mother is basically French although her Mother was a French Canadian from Quebec. I speak French fluently and can get by in Spanish, which is why this job suites me so well. Those three languages cover over half of the world's population.

Gussie tried to look suitably impressed, but the grin spoiled it. Ropell ignored her expression.

Once upon a time you know I had a sister. She was quite a bit younger than me, eight years younger in fact. My Dad was a policeman in the Mounties, and my Mother was a keen supporter of the Quebec Separatist Movement, so a lot of the time when we were kids, we were left alone and I was responsible for looking after her.

He looked up.

I not telling you this to let you see what a hard time I had, Its to try and explain why we were so close. He shrugged. Anyway, Marie Louis was a beautiful child. Tall, slim and very blonde and I guess she kind of hero worshipped me.

He smiled self-consciously.

You know I was pretty good at school. Football and Basketball teams and usually second or third in most of my grade subjects.

"That was part of the problem I suppose. When she was ten I went off to college and hardly saw her anymore, except for vacations. Oh, we wrote to each other regularly, but after a while I made some new friends and got interested in adult subjects, like law and order, freedom and such like and