Jason Ritchie and Bobby Tanner

Jason Ritchie and Bobby Tanner are old friends and criminal associates whose relationship is defined by separation, uncertainty, and a familiar ease that returns when they meet again. Their shared past belongs to the criminal world around Tony Curran and Gianni Gunduz, but the evidence does not reduce their bond to that history: when they reconnect, they speak with affection, recognize each other’s instincts, and take up an investigation together.

Shared Past and Diverging Paths

Bobby and Jason come from the same earlier circle, in which Tony Curran and Gianni Gunduz were also significant figures. Years later, Bobby is identified as a man detectives across eight police forces had failed to locate. His disappearance has left no settled account of his whereabouts: after leaving town, he worked for Liverpool gangsters in Amsterdam, and investigators found no later official records. Chris Hudson considers that Bobby might have moved on to Brussels or died, but these are possibilities rather than confirmed facts. The uncertainty around Bobby’s life away from Jason is part of the distance between them: each has had to imagine the other as possibly gone for good.

Their lives took different directions. Bobby says he left town a couple of months after his brother died, because there was nothing left for him there. Jason, meanwhile, had drifted away from the old life and begun working in television. When Bobby remarks that Jason had drifted off, Jason agrees that television was not for him anymore. The exchange registers a change in Jason’s course without suggesting that he returned to the life he left behind. Bobby’s departure and Jason’s turn toward television separate them, but do not erase their recognition of one another.

Reunion in the Murder Investigation

The two men meet again in the Jigsaw Room, where detectives Chris Hudson and Donna De Freitas are questioning Bobby. Elizabeth and Joyce have found evidence that Bobby was elsewhere when Tony Curran was murdered. Elizabeth has declined to explain how or where she located him, and Bobby’s arrangement is to tell the investigators what he knows and then disappear back into the crowd. His reappearance turns a long-standing absence into a live connection between the police inquiry and Jason’s past.

Bobby’s account opens a window onto the old network. He says that Gianni had a little over a hundred thousand pounds at his flat and used to keep it safe for Tony. He also recalls that Tony went to Cyprus more than once to look for Gianni, without finding him. Bobby describes the period after Gianni’s disappearance as a time when nothing was the same, while Jason’s departure from their shared world and Bobby’s own exit helped leave the old circle scattered. Their conversation supplies history the investigators need, but it also makes clear that both men carry knowledge that does not readily fit into an official interview.

When Donna asks who might have given Gianni a place to stay if he needed one, Jason suggests that someone from their former circle would know. Bobby catches the implication and looks to Jason; Jason understands in turn and begins composing a text. Asked by Elizabeth whether he will share the idea with the group, Jason says that he and Bobby need to speak to someone themselves. He presents this as their matter to pursue, adding that Elizabeth should not be the only one allowed to solve everything. Donna proposes taking the lead to the police, but Bobby laughs at the suggestion. The exchange shows the friends acting in concert again, while also marking the boundary they draw between their own inquiries and the formal investigation.

Affection, Trust, and Uncertainty

Their reunion is warm without pretending that the years apart have been explained. Over dessert at Le Pont Noir, with a bottle of wine already opened, Bobby says that he has always thought Gianni was dead somewhere. Jason replies that he had always thought Bobby was dead somewhere too, and adds that he is glad Bobby is not. Bobby thanks him. Their parallel assumptions reveal how thoroughly absence had become part of each man’s understanding of the other, while the plainness of the exchange lets affection surface without ceremony.

The same easy familiarity appears in the small decisions that follow. Bobby says they are too old for lunchtime drinking; Jason agrees that they are old men now, then suggests another bottle. They decide they have time for it. Steve Georgiou arrives as they are still waiting for their guest. These details place their renewed connection in ordinary companionship as well as in shared investigation: the old partners can talk about an elusive criminal past, arrange to contact someone together, and linger over lunch.

What the Relationship Does in the Story

Bobby’s return gives Jason a personal route back into the history surrounding Tony Curran and Gianni Gunduz. The relationship is useful to the investigation because the two men share knowledge of the people and habits of an older criminal circle; Jason’s instinct about whom to contact emerges through Bobby’s prompt, and their mutual understanding lets them act before explaining the idea to the others. Their cooperation is not the same as unquestioning disclosure: they keep their intended conversation to themselves, even when the police are present.

The bond also counters the apparent finality of the men’s separate disappearances. Bobby has been absent long enough for detectives to lose his trail and for Jason to imagine him dead; Jason has left the old life for television and found it unsatisfying. When they meet again, neither pretends the past can simply be resumed. Instead, recognition takes the form of shared references, practical cooperation, a private lead, and a drink together. Their friendship survives not as an untouched history but as a connection capable of becoming active again, even while Bobby still intends to slip away from public notice.