Soft Target

Praise for Stephen Leather

‘As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping’ Irish Independent on Hard Landing

‘Unputdownable’ South China Morning Post on Hard Landing

‘Stephen Leather should be nestling in your bookshelves alongside Frederick Forsyth and Jack Higgins’ Daily Mail

‘Stephen Leather’s novel manages to put a contemporary spin on a timeless tale of revenge and retribution . . . Leather’s experience as a journalist brings a sturdy, gritty element to a tale of horror . . . which makes The Eyewitness a compelling read’ Evening Herald, Dublin

‘As high-tech and as world-class as the thriller genre gets’ Express on Sunday on The Bombmaker

‘A whirlwind of action, suspense and vivid excitement’ Irish Times on The Birthday Girl

‘A gripping story sped along by admirable, uncluttered prose’ Daily Telegraph on The Chinaman

‘Exciting stuff with plenty of heart-palpitating action gingered up by mystery and intrigue . . . Leather is an intelligent thriller writer’ Daily Mail on The Tunnel Rats

‘Excitement is guaranteed’ Independent on The Fireman

Also by Stephen Leather

Pay Off

The Fireman

Hungry Ghost

The Chinaman

The Vets

The Long Shot

The Birthday Girl

The Double Tap

The Solitary Man

The Tunnel Rats

The Bombmaker

The Stretch

Tango One

The Eyewitness

Spider Shepherd Thrillers

Hard Landing

Cold Kill

Hot Blood

Dead Men

Live Fire

Rough Justice

Fair Game (July 2011)

Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thrillers

Nightfall

Midnight

To find out about these and future titles, visit www.stephenleather.com.

About the author

Stephen Leather was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full-time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London’s Burning, The Knock and the BBC’s Murder in Mind series. You can find out more from his website, www.stephenleather.com

SOFT TARGET

Stephen Leather

For Charlotte

I am indebted to Terry O’Connor for his help and advice on the workings of the Metropolitan Police’s SO19 Firearms Unit. Mick Joyce, Peter Mardle and Alistair Cumming of the British Transport Police were generous with their time and expertise while explaining how the London Underground would deal with a terrorist incident. Any errors of fact are mine and not theirs.

Denis O’Donoghue, Barbara Schmeling and Matt Richards helped me get the manuscript into shape, and I was fortunate once again to have the benefits of Hazel Orme’s editing skills.

Producing a novel can be a long, arduous process, and having an editor of the calibre of Carolyn Mays makes the journey a more pleasant one. I’ll always be grateful for her input and support.

The heroin had come a long way. It had started its journey as opium in Afghanistan, carried on the backs of donkeys to Jalalabad where it sold for a hundred US dollars a kilo. Sealed in polythene and wrapped in burlap sacking, it was carried over the border into Pakistan, under the eye of former Taliban fighters, and from there to Uzbekistan, where Chinese technicians converted it into heroin.

Bribes were paid to Customs officers, and it was dispatched by rail in a consignment of flour to Poland. There, it was transferred to hidden compartments in a containerload of tinned plums and driven to Germany. Customs officials in the European Union were harder to bribe than those in the former Soviet Union, but the truck crossed without hindrance. A German truck driver took the container to France, where a Turk drove it on to a cross-Channel ferry. He had a British passport and was a regular on the ferry. Customs at Dover didn’t give him a second glance.

Three hours later the heroin was being driven on the M2 towards London and had increased in wholesale value to £30,000 a kilo. There were two hundred kilos in the container, six million pounds’ worth. Once it had been cut, the street value would be around fifteen million.

Twice when the truck drove under footbridges across the motorway it was monitored by spotters, men with mobile phones who checked that it wasn’t being followed. Both were satisfied that it was not and phoned ahead to say that everything was as it should be.

As the Turk drove into Central London he was shadowed by two high-powered motorcycles. Once they were certain that the truck still wasn’t being followed he was told where to make his delivery. He went to a warehouse in North London where the plums were unloaded, to be sold on to a legitimate supermarket chain. Four Turkish Cypriots unbolted a metal plate that ran the width of the rear of the container. Behind the plate, steel trays were packed with the white plastic parcels of brown powder, each the size of a small loaf of bread. They checked the purity and weight of the heroin, and sent the driver on his way.

The consignment was divided into four. The Turks took the lion’s share and, for a week or so, the street price of heroin fell by ten per cent in North London. Forty kilos were sold to a group of former IRA activists who took it on the ferry to Belfast where they were arrested by the Northern Irish police. Another thirty kilos ended up on the streets of Liverpool. The dealers usually used milk powder to bulk out the drug but the heroin arrived on a Sunday and their local shop was shut. They substituted quinine but the dealer who did the mixing used too much and twenty-seven heroin addicts ended up in hospital. Three died.

The Turks sold ten kilos to a Yardie gang in Harlesden. They didn’t like doing business with the Jamaicans, but the Yardies were keen to buy for cash. Customs had seized one of their deliveries in the suitcases of a mother of three at Heathrow Airport. Twelve kilos. She had been unlucky: she didn’t fit the profile of a mule but an officer had seen her fumbling nervously for her mobile phone as she pushed her trolley through the green channel. The heroin hadn’t even been well hidden – the false compartments in the bottom of her oversized suitcases were discovered within minutes. The woman had broken down in tears and told the officer that a gang in Kingston had threatened to castrate her two sons if she didn’t do as they wanted, and had promised her a thousand dollars if she did. The investigators told her she’d get a lighter sentence if she gave evidence against the gang, but she cried all the harder.

The handover between the Turks and the Yardies took place on a petrol-station forecourt in Wood Lane. A Turkish godfather owned it, so the CCTV cameras were switched off and the Turks had three heavies with submachine pistols hidden in the toilets in case the Yardies tried to take the drugs for free.

The Yardies, too, were armed but they brought three hundred thousand pounds with them, mainly in fifty-pound notes. The Turks counted the bundles of money and examined three closely. Satisfied, they handed over the drugs. The Yardies had brought a chemical kit and tested two packages, then pronounced themselves satisfied. The deal was done. The Yardies piled into a BMW and drove into the night with their heroin.

‘I hate the Yardies,’ said one of the Turks, as he watched the BMW disappear into the distance. ‘You can’t trust them. Give me the Bangladeshis every time.’ He lit a small cigar and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. ‘You know where you are with a Bangladeshi.’

‘I hate the Turks,’ said Delroy Moran. He was sitting in the front passenger seat of the 7 Series BMW. Gangly, with shoulder-length dreadlocks, he’d flown into London six months earlier to escape a murder investigation in Jamaica. He was wearing a tight T-shirt, and a gold medallion featuring a cannabis plant dangled round his neck. The deal he’d just done was his biggest to date and the adrenaline was still flooding through his veins. He planned to cut the heroin with milk powder and sell it in Harlesden at seventy pounds a gram. Seventy thousand a kilo.

‘Yeah, well, they hate us,’ said Chas Eaton, the driver. He didn’t have a licence or insurance but he did have three convictions for dangerous driving, under different names, and had once run over and killed a thirteen-year-old girl at a zebra crossing in South London. He had left the scene, abandoned and torched the car, and hadn’t suffered a moment’s guilt. ‘But money’s money, innit?’

‘I’m just saying, given the chance they’d rob us blind. You’ve gotta count your fingers every time you shake their hands, know what I mean?’

The two heavies sat in the back of the BMW. Their knees were wide apart but still pressed against the front seats. ‘Starvin’’ Marvin Dexter and Lewis ‘Jacko’ Jackson. Both were London born and bred of Jamaican parents, and when they weren’t riding shotgun for Delroy Moran they were in either the gym or the boxing ring. The duffel bags were stuffed under their legs and they were holding their guns down. There were enough drugs in the car to ensure that they would go down for a double-digit prison sentence so they had no intention of going quietly if they were stopped by the police.

Eaton brought the BMW to a halt in front of a row of shops: a hardware store, an ‘everything for a pound’ shop, a cut-price supermarket, a minicab company, a betting shop, an off-licence – everything that was necessary for inner-city life. There were two storeys of flats above them. The entrance to Moran’s apartment was between the betting shop and the off-licence, both now closed for the night. Three young women were huddled in front of the minicab office. Dyed blondes, short skirts, cheap jewellery. If Moran hadn’t been working he’d have gone over and asked if they wanted to party. One of the blondes, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, smiled at him hopefully through the windscreen but he ignored her. ‘It’s gonna rain, innit?’ he said. ‘Put the car away, yeah?’ There was a line of lock-up garages behind the shops and he rented two. He twisted in his seat and nodded at Dexter and Jackson. ‘Swift, yeah?’

Dexter and Jackson opened the rear doors, heaved themselves out of the car and shouldered the duffel bags, their guns inside their jackets.

Moran hurried to the front door, jabbed at an intercom on the wall to warn the two men inside the apartment that they were on the way up, and opened the door. A small CCTV camera was pointing down at the doorway and Moran flashed it a grin, then stepped aside to let Dexter and Jackson head up the stairs. The intercom was still buzzing, then went silent, and the door closed before Moran could follow the others. He cursed the two men upstairs. Probably spaced out of their skulls. He stabbed at it again and heard a sleepy voice: ‘Yeah?’

‘We’re on the way up, everything okay?’

‘Yeah.’

Moran glared up the CCTV camera. ‘If they’ve been at the crack I’m gonna do for them, innit,’ said Moran. He followed Dexter and Jackson inside, then closed the front door. It had been reinforced with a metal sheet and the door-frame was lined with strips of metal. It would take the police minutes with their ram even to dent it. Moran exhaled. He was home and dry. Three hundred thousand pounds they’d paid the Turks. Cut and on the street, the heroin was worth almost three-quarters of a million. Easy money.

Chas Eaton drove the BMW slowly down the road, turned left, then left again down the alley that ran behind the shops. The lock-up garages were brick-built with corrugated metal roofs and most had wooden doors, but Moran’s two had metal shutters, heavy-duty padlocks and alarms. They kept the BMW in one of the garages and four stolen high-powered motorcycles in the other.

Eaton stopped and climbed out of the car. From where he was standing he could see the rear of the apartments above the shops. Most of the windows that overlooked the alley were bathrooms and several times Eaton had glimpsed naked flesh while he parked the car at night. The light in Moran’s bathroom was off but Eaton frowned when he saw that the window was half open and a ladder was propped under it against the wall. He cursed. There’d be hell to pay if the flat had been burgled. If there had been a break-in, it wouldn’t have been a local. Delroy Moran was feared for miles around.

As Eaton headed for the door he fished the padlock key from his trouser pocket. He heard a muffled footstep behind him and started to turn. ‘Say goodnight, Sooty,’ said a voice, and something hard crashed into the back of Eaton’s head. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

Moran headed up the stairs, after Dexter and Jackson, to a second door, also reinforced with metal. Above it was a second CCTV camera. The door opened and the two men carried the bags inside. Jackson stopped on the threshold. Moran pushed him in the small of the back but he seemed reluctant to move. When Moran peered over his shoulder, he saw why.

A man wearing a rubber Alien mask with teardrop-shaped black eyes was standing in the middle of the room, holding a large automatic in both hands. Dexter was kneeling on the floor, the duffel bag still on his shoulder. ‘Inside!’ hissed Alien.

Moran reached for the Glock tucked into the back of his trousers but a second masked man appeared at the side of the gunman, wearing a Frankenstein mask and holding a Magnum revolver. He was wearing a dark blue anorak with the hood up over the mask, black leather gloves, dark blue jeans and black boots. Frankenstein waved his weapon. ‘Touch that gun and you’ll be one sorry nigger,’ he shouted. ‘Now get inside.’

The man in the Alien mask grabbed Jackson’s coat collar, pulled him into the room and forced him to his knees.

Moran moved his hand away from the butt of the Glock. ‘You don’t know who you’re fucking with,’ he said.

‘Delroy Moran, drug-dealing scumbag, molester of underage girls and murderer of a taxi-driver in Kingston,’ said the Alien. ‘I know exactly who I’m dealing with, and nothing would make me happier than to put a bullet in your sorry excuse for a face. Now, take three steps forward and get down on your knees.’ He was wearing identical clothing to Frankenstein.

‘This is fucked-up, man,’ said Moran.

‘Yeah, life’s a bitch,’ said Frankenstein.

‘Fire that motherfucker and the cops’ll be over you like a rash,’ snarled Moran.

‘Oh, right, Delroy. The cops rush over to Harlesden every time they hear a gun go off, do they? And just how are they gonna get through the two steel doors?’ He gestured with the Magnum. ‘I’ll keep it simple, you being educationally challenged and all. In. Now.’

Moran swore and stepped into the room.

Frankenstein kicked the door shut. ‘Knees. Down. Now,’ he said.

Moran dropped to his knees, his eyes never leaving the gunman’s face. ‘You are dead meat,’ he said.

‘Sticks and stones, Delroy.’

Frankenstein grabbed the duffel bag from Dexter and ripped open the top. He examined the contents. ‘Heroin,’ he said to Alien, then took Jackson’s duffel bag and checked it. ‘Ten kilos, I’d say.’

‘Heading for the big time, hey, Delroy?’ said Alien. ‘Now, everyone put their hands behind their heads, fingers interlinked, nice and slowly.’

The three Yardies did as they were told. Frankenstein took the Glock from Moran and tucked it into his belt. ‘Nice gun, the Glock,’ said Frankenstein. ‘Never jams. But me, I prefer the good old Colt. Can’t go wrong with a Colt, that’s what I always say.’

‘You’ve got the gear, man,’ said Moran. ‘Do I have to listen to a lecture on guns?’

Alien took a step towards Moran and pointed his gun at the man’s face. ‘You’re a very funny nigger, Delroy. But it’s the cash we want, not your drugs.’

‘There’s no money. And the racial slurs are wearing thin,’ said Moran.

Alien whipped his gun across Moran’s face. Blood spurted and Moran’s head spun to the left. He saw the two men he’d left to guard his flat, lying face down with strips of tape across their mouths, their hands bound behind them with plastic strips.

Frankenstein stepped in front of Moran. ‘When did you get the safe?’ he asked.

Moran’s eyes flicked to the left, to the door that led into the main bedroom. ‘Three days ago.’

‘Open it.’

‘It’s empty.’

‘So open it and show me.’

‘It’s empty. We used the cash to buy the gear.’

‘I’m not going to tell you again.’

‘Fuck you.’

Frankenstein lashed out and whipped the gun barrel across Moran’s cheek. More blood flowed. ‘Open the fucking safe.’

‘Open it yourself.’

Frankenstein grabbed Moran by the shirt collar and pulled him along the floor towards the bedroom.

A shot rang out, the noise deafening in the small room. Frankenstein let go of Moran’s shirt and whirled round, cursing. Jackson was still on his knees but he was holding a small gun in his right hand. Alien staggered against the door. Jackson fired again and a second bullet thwacked into the wall above Alien’s head.

Moran rolled over towards a red plastic sofa. Jackson fired again and hit Alien in the chest. Everyone was staring at the gun in Jackson’s hand. Alien straightened up, then grunted and levelled his gun at Jackson.

‘They’re wearing vests!’ screamed Moran. ‘Shoot him in the head, man! Shoot the fucker!’

Jackson pointed his gun at Alien’s head but before his finger could tighten on the trigger Frankenstein fired and a bullet slammed into Jackson’s chest. Jackson pitched forwards, his face screwed up with pain.

Moran rolled again and slammed up against the sofa. He groped underneath for the loaded submachine pistol he kept there. An Ingram MAC 10 with a bulbous silencer and thirty rounds in the clip. His fingers found the butt and he pulled it out.

Frankenstein whirled round as Moran rolled on to his back, ducked low and fired twice, hitting him in the head both times. The Ingram fell from Moran’s hand and clattered on to the floor.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ cursed Frankenstein.

Another shot rang out and a bullet thudded into the ceiling. Bang! Another. Frankenstein flinched but it was Alien who screamed. He dropped his automatic and clasped his hands to his groin. ‘I’m hit!’ he shrieked. Jackson was lying on his side, his .22 still pointing at Alien. He was grinning in triumph, blood seeping between his teeth. Frankenstein fired the Magnum again and Jackson lay still.

Blood seeped through Alien’s fingers. He looked at Frankenstein. ‘I’m hit,’ he said again, quieter this time. ‘I’m fucking hit.’ Then his legs buckled and he fell to the ground.

Frankenstein ran over to him and crouched to examine the wound. The bullet had gone in under the vest, missing the Kevlar by less than an inch.

The intercom buzzed. Frankenstein hurried across the room and answered it. ‘What the hell’s going on up there?’ said a voice.

‘Get up here,’ said Frankenstein, and pressed the button to open the door down below. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and a man in a werewolf mask came in, holding a gun. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ he said.

‘Andy’s been hit.’

‘Shit.’ Werewolf pointed his gun at Dexter. ‘How do we play it?’

Dexter held his hands high in the air. ‘Don’t shoot, man!’

Frankenstein looked around the room. Two men, bound and gagged. Two dead. Another on his knees, pleading not to be killed.

‘How do we play it?’ repeated Werewolf. ‘It’s your call.’

Frankenstein’s mind raced. ‘Let me think,’ he said.

The driver pulled the van to the side of the road, switched off the engine and killed the lights. The werewolf mask was in the glove compartment, along with the short length of lead pipe bound with masking tape that he’d used to club Eaton unconscious. Eaton was bound and gagged, lying face down in the lock-up. The van had been stolen: it was fitted with false plates and had the name of an emergency plumbing firm on the sides. Werewolf had wanted to drive to the nearest Accident and Emergency Unit but Frankenstein had told him to drive out of London. Now they sat in the darkened lane, the nearest house half a mile away, the engine clicking as it cooled.

‘This has turned to shit,’ said Werewolf.

‘Yeah,’ said Frankenstein, in the passenger seat. He had taken off his mask and pulled back his anorak hood. His hair was cropped close to his skull and he was balding on top. He had a curving Mexican-style moustache. ‘What the hell are we going to do?’ He twisted in his seat to look at Alien, who was curled up on the floor in a foetal ball.

‘You know what we have to do,’ said Werewolf, drumming his palms on the steering-wheel. ‘We’ve got to get Andy to a hospital.’

‘And what do we tell them?’ said Frankenstein.

‘We leave him outside. We don’t have to say anything.’

‘Get real,’ said Frankenstein. ‘As soon as they identify him, they’ll come looking for us.’

Werewolf slammed his hands down hard on the wheel. ‘So we deny everything,’ he said. ‘What can they do?’

Frankenstein glared at Werewolf. ‘Don’t be so naïve,’ he said. ‘They’ll dig out the bullet, and if they can match it to any in Moran’s flat that puts Andy at a murder scene – in a gunfight with a Yardie posse.’ He slapped the dashboard with his gloved hand. ‘God damn it, we should have slotted them all.’

‘Rosie, listen to yourself,’ said Werewolf.

Frankenstein stared through the windscreen. ‘They’re witnesses,’ he said. ‘They started the bloody fireworks, we should have ended it. They know how many of us there were. If they identify Andy, they go looking for two others. How long do you think it’ll be before they come knocking on our doors?’

‘We can alibi each other,’ said Werewolf. ‘What are they gonna do? Call us liars?’

‘I’m not doing a twenty stretch,’ said Frankenstein. ‘Before we went into this we knew what the downside was, and we agreed to take the risk.’

‘We said that if one of us got killed, the rest of us would cover it up,’ said Werewolf. ‘Andy isn’t dead.’

‘He’s got a slug in the guts,’ said Frankenstein.

‘But he’s not dead.’

Alien groaned. Frankenstein had given him an anorak to clutch against the wound but blood was pooling around him.

‘Let’s take this outside,’ said Frankenstein. He climbed out of the van and waited for Werewolf to join him. Their breath feathered from their mouths in the cold night air. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted and high overhead the green and red lights of an airliner were heading for Heathrow.

‘Let’s look at this logically,’ said Frankenstein, his voice just above a whisper. ‘The way I see it, Andy’s a goner anyway. It was a bloody .22 so the slug’ll have spun round in his guts and done God only knows how much damage.’

‘Best will in the world, you’re not a doctor, Rosie,’ said Werewolf.

‘But I’ve seen enough people shot to know what’s bad and what isn’t,’ said Frankenstein. ‘And Andy’s bad.’

‘He’s not going to get any better lying in the van, that’s for sure.’

‘Agreed,’ said Frankenstein. ‘So, what are the options? We take him to hospital, then hold up our hands to shooting two Yardies and stealing their heroin? What if Andy goes and dies anyway? Where does that leave us? Looking like twats staring at twenty years behind bars for nothing.’

‘So we wait for him to die, is that what you’re saying?’ said Werewolf.

Frankenstein shrugged.

‘Why don’t you spit it out?’ said Werewolf.

‘I shouldn’t have to,’ said Frankenstein.

‘You want to finish him,’ said Werewolf flatly. ‘You want to put a bullet in his head. What if it was me lying on the floor of the van bleeding? Would you put a bullet in me? Look me in the eyes and tell me that’s what you’d do.’

‘If it was me, I’d expect you to do the same,’ said Frankenstein.

‘Easy for you to say, standing there while Andy’s bleeding to death,’ said Werewolf. ‘Look, maybe there’s another way. We take him to a doctor instead of a hospital.’

‘They’ve all got to report gunshot wounds.’

‘A hookie one,’ said Werewolf. ‘Someone who’ll take the bullet out and not say anything.’

‘You know someone?’

‘There’s a guy in Peckham. We could be there in thirty minutes at this time of night.’

‘He needs major surgery, not a couple of stitches,’ said Frankenstein, ‘and blood. Lots of it.’

‘At least we can try,’ said Werewolf.

‘Then what?’ asked Frankenstein. ‘Your quack patches Andy up, then what? Andy goes on sick leave for six months to recuperate? For God’s sake, how’s he going to explain away a bullet wound? And what about the quack? Does he know you? Are you going to spend the rest of your life waiting for him to grass you up?’

‘We pay him enough he’ll keep schtum.’

Frankenstein threw up his hands. ‘You’re mad,’ he said.

‘Maybe,’ said Werewolf. ‘But if it was you, Rosie, I’d be out here saying the same.’

‘He’ll probably die anyway,’ said Frankenstein.

‘But at least I’d know I tried,’ said Werewolf. ‘Let’s just get him to the quack and see what the quack says.’

Frankenstein took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘Okay. Just don’t expect me not to say I told you so when the shit hits the fan.’

‘The shit has already hit the fan,’ said Werewolf, but Frankenstein was walking back to the van. Werewolf hurried after him.

As Werewolf got into the front, Frankenstein climbed through the rear door and knelt down beside Alien. ‘It’s okay, Andy, we’re going to get you to hospital.’

Alien didn’t respond. Frankenstein took the glove off his right hand and felt for a pulse in his neck, but as soon as he touched it he knew the man was dead. He looked up at Werewolf. ‘You might think I’m a callous bastard, but thank heaven for small mercies is what I say.’

‘What now?’ asked Werewolf.

‘We bury him where he’ll never be found. Then it’s back to life as normal.’

‘What about the gear?’ asked Werewolf, gesturing at the two bloodstained duffel bags.

‘Leave that to me,’ said Frankenstein.

‘We didn’t go into this to steal drugs,’ said Werewolf.

‘You think we should have left with nothing?’ snapped Frankenstein.

‘I’m just saying we went there for cash, that’s all.’

‘And there wasn’t any. And Andy took a bullet in the gut. You want us to go through all that for nothing?’

Werewolf pointed at the MAC 10, which was lying on the floor of the van next to Alien. ‘What the hell did you bring that for?’

‘Souvenir,’ said Frankenstein.

‘It’s a bloody liability, a weapon like that,’ said Werewolf. ‘Spray and pray.’

‘Looks the business, though, doesn’t it?’ said Frankenstein. ‘A gun like that could be useful.’

‘You’re not thinking of doing this again, are you?’ asked Werewolf. ‘After what’s just happened?’

‘I’ll sort it,’ said Frankenstein. ‘Don’t worry.’ He sounded a lot more confident than he felt. Werewolf was right. Cash was one thing – even dirty money could be cleaned, moved and spent. Drugs were trouble, plain and simple.

The man stared through the windscreen at the rain-swept supermarket car park. Housewives were pushing trolleys towards hatchbacks, their shoulders hunched against the rain. Office workers on their way home huddled together at the entrance, their frozen meals-for-one thawing as they waited in vain for a break in the downpour. The sky overhead was gunmetal grey and the forecast had been for rain all night. Every few seconds the wipers flicked across the windscreen.

It occurred to the man that a murder should always be discussed after the sun had gone down, ideally when it was raining. A storm added atmosphere – a flash of lightning, a roll of thunder. It could be planned just as easily on a beach under a blazing midday sun or on a pleasant spring afternoon, but there wasn’t the same sense of menace.

He tapped his fingers on the steering-wheel. He didn’t need to wear gloves but they were part of the image. Hired killers wore gloves. It was expected. His were black leather, moulded to his hands like a second skin. A strangler’s gloves. The man had been many things in his life, but he liked being a hired killer best of all. It was probably the job satisfaction, he thought, and smiled. It was okay to smile when he was on his own but he’d have to watch it when he was with Hendrickson. Hired killers didn’t smile.

He spotted the man driving into the car park. It was a convertible Mercedes with a personalised number-plate. A flash car, designed to impress. It would be noticed and remembered. The hired killer drove a grey Volvo: a nondescript car in a nondescript colour with a nondescript registration number. In his business it was important to blend into the background. It was the same with his clothes. He never wore designer clothes when he was working, or anything other than a plastic wristwatch. He had no tattoos, his hair was cut short, but not too short, and he spoke with no discernible accent. His clothes were simple, off-the-peg, and the black wool jacket he wore was one of thousands sold through a mail-order company.

Larry Hendrickson climbed out of his Mercedes. He was wearing a dark suit, well cut, with three buttons on the jacket. Probably Armani and certainly expensive. He unfurled a red, green and white golfing umbrella. His gleaming black shoes were made-tomeasure.

The man knew that on Hendrickson’s wrist there was an expensive Gucci watch. His hair was expensively cut, his fingernails manicured, and on the two occasions that the man had met him, Hendrickson had used the same aftershave.

Hendrickson walked across the car park, taking care to avoid the deeper puddles on the Tarmac. He was carrying a slim briefcase made from the skin of some exotic animal. He looked over his shoulder, so quickly that the man knew he wouldn’t have spotted a tail even if there had been one.

He hurried to the Volvo and climbed in, shaking the rain off his umbrella and dropping it behind the front seats before he flashed the man a smile. A frightened smile.

‘Great day for ducks,’ said Hendrickson.

‘I guess,’ said the man flatly.

‘Did everything go okay?’ asked Hendrickson. He put his briefcase on his knees. Sweat beaded his forehead and there was a nervous tic at the side of his left eye.

‘Of course,’ said the man. He reached into his jacket and Hendrickson flinched. ‘You wanted pictures,’ said the man.

Hendrickson nodded. He was wearing wire-framed Gucci glasses and he pushed them up the bridge of his nose. The man’s hand reappeared with four Polaroids. He gave them to Hendrickson.

‘Did he say anything?’ Hendrickson asked, as he flicked through the photographs, then put them into his jacket pocket.

‘He said, “Don’t,” and “Please,” but generally I try to get it over with as quickly as possible,’ said the man. ‘Conversations tend to slow the process.’

‘Did you tell him who was paying you?’

The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘Did you want me to?’

Hendrickson’s cheeks reddened. ‘No, no,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I just wondered, that’s all.’

‘I did exactly as you asked,’ said the man. ‘I killed him and I buried him where he’ll never be found. That’s what you wanted, right?’

‘Of course.’

‘So, now it’s time to pay the piper.’ The man held out his hand.

Hendrickson opened the briefcase, took out a bulky brown envelope and gave it to the man, who slid open the flap and ran his fingernail along the block of fifty-pound notes.

‘It’s all there,’ said Hendrickson. ‘Fifteen thousand pounds.’ He closed the case and snapped the two locks shut.

‘I’m sure it is.’

‘Aren’t you going to count it?’

‘Do I need to?’

‘I just meant . . . you know . . .’ Hendrickson’s voice tailed off.

‘If we don’t trust each other now, we’re both in deep shit,’ said the man. He put the envelope inside his coat. ‘This is all about trust. You trust me to do the job, I trust you to pay me in full. We trust each other not to go to the cops.’

‘Oh, God,’ said Hendrickson. ‘The cops.’ He pushed the glasses up his nose again. The smell of his aftershave was almost overpowering.

‘Don’t worry about the cops,’ said the man. ‘They’re stupid.’

‘I hope so.’

‘They’re too busy hassling motorists to worry about a businessman who’s gone AWOL. They won’t even investigate.’

‘They’ll want to know where he’s gone at some point.’

‘They might talk to you, but it’ll be routine. He’s a grown man, and without a body they won’t make it a murder inquiry.’

‘And the body won’t ever be found?’

The man grinned. ‘Not in a million years.’

‘And the gun? You’ve disposed of it?’

‘I know what I’m doing, Larry.’

Hendrickson swallowed nervously.

‘Relax,’ said the man. ‘You asked me to kill your partner. I did. You asked me to dispose of the body. I did. The company’s now yours to do with as you like. You’ve got what you wanted. I’ve got my money.’ He patted his coat pocket. ‘Now we go our separate ways.’

‘It was when you mentioned the police – I panicked.’

‘There’s no need. Even if the cops do suspect that Sewell’s been killed, you have an alibi for when I did it. All you have to do is to keep your head.’

Hendrickson nodded slowly. ‘You must think I’m stupid.’

‘You haven’t done this before. I have.’

‘How many times?’

The man frowned. ‘What?’

‘How many times have you . . . killed someone?’

‘Enough to know that it’s best not to talk about it.’

‘But you don’t . . . feel anything . . . do you?’

The man’s eyes hardened. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

Hendrickson held up his hands defensively. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘You’re not offending me, you’re annoying me.’

The rain thundered down on the roof of the blue Transit van but the three men inside were wearing headphones and barely aware of the noise.

‘What’s he waiting for?’ asked the youngest. He had been with the undercover unit for just two months and this was his first time in the van. He’d arrived with two cans of Red Bull and a Tupperware container filled with ham and cheese sandwiches.

‘It’s his call,’ said Superintendent Sam Hargrove, adjusting his headphones. ‘Has to be.’

Two digital tape-recorders were recording everything that was said in the Volvo, and two CCTV monitors showed visuals – the tops of the two men’s heads and a shot from the front passenger footwell.

‘But we’ve got everything we need. A confession on tape and the money in his hands.’

‘It’s his call,’ repeated the superintendent.

A sheet of paper was stuck to the wall of the van with ‘WE LIVE AND LEARN’ typed on it. Until the man in the car said the magic words, the three men in the van wouldn’t be going anywhere. Nor would the half-dozen uniformed officers crammed into the back of the van on the other side of the car park.

Hargrove ran his thumb over the transmit button of his transceiver. He was as impatient as the youngster to have the target in custody, but he’d meant what he said: it was the undercover operative’s call. It always was. He was the man on the spot, the man whose life was on the line. Until Hargrove was sure it was safe to move in, the operation continued to run.

Hendrickson’s face was bathed in sweat. He took a large white handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped it. ‘You couldn’t turn the heater down, could you?’ he asked. ‘It’s like an oven in here.’

The man adjusted the temperature. It wasn’t especially hot in the car.

‘Are you okay?’ asked the man.

‘I haven’t done this sort of thing before,’ said Hendrickson.

‘There’s always a first time.’

‘It’s just that I might have more work for you.’

‘You want someone else killed?’

‘Not me.’ He swallowed and licked his lips. ‘Someone I know.’

‘So, now you’re touting for business for me, is that it?’

Hendrickson dabbed his lips with the handkerchief. ‘It’s someone at my health club. They have a problem, and I got the feeling they could use you.’

‘Close friend, is it? I wouldn’t want you bandying my name around to all and sundry.’

‘I didn’t tell her who you were. I just said I knew someone who might be able to help, that’s all.’

‘Who is she?’

Hendrickson glanced out of the rear window.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked the man.

‘I feel like we’re being watched.’

‘That’s guilt kicking in.’

Hendrickson wiped his forehead again. ‘What about you? Don’t you feel any guilt?’

The man shrugged carelessly. ‘If I did, I wouldn’t do what I do, would I?’

‘I guess not.’ Hendrickson held out his hands in front of him, palms down. ‘Look at me. I’m shaking.’

‘Go home and have a cup of tea. Plenty of sugar. You’ll be fine.’

Hendrickson folded his arms. ‘He was a bastard,’ he said.

‘Who?’

‘Sewell. He was running the company into the ground.’

‘Better off without him, then,’ said the man. ‘This woman, who is she?’

Hendrickson grimaced. ‘I’m not sure I should tell you. Just in case.’

‘In case what?’

‘In case she changes her mind.’

‘Give me her number and I’ll phone her.’

Hendrickson shook his head. ‘I’d rather pass your number to her. She can call you if she decides to go ahead.’

The man put his hands on the steering-wheel and gripped it. ‘That’s not how it works,’ he said. ‘I don’t hand out my number to strangers. I’m not a plumber.’

‘I rang you, though, didn’t I?’

‘My number was passed to you because you’d been asking around for someone to take care of your problem. I knew who you were before you called. I don’t know who this woman is. For all I know, she could be an undercover cop.’

Hendrickson snorted. ‘No way she’s a cop.’

‘You know her well, do you?’

‘Well enough. Her husband knocks her around.’

‘And that’s who she wants killed? Her husband?’

Hendrickson nodded. ‘She came to the club with bruises on her arm. Didn’t want to talk about it at first. We had a few drinks in the bar and it all came tumbling out.’

‘So you’re having an affair with her, is that it? And with the husband out of the way you’ll be free to move in.’

‘It’s not like that,’ Hendrickson said. ‘She’s just a friend.’

‘Got to be a pretty close friend if you’re talking murder with her.’

‘I didn’t say murder. She just said she wished her husband was dead and I said I might know someone who could help her.’

‘There’s a hell of a jump from wishing he was dead to paying someone to kill him.’

Hendrickson shuddered. ‘Not that big a jump.’

‘It was different for you,’said the man.‘You wanted Sewell out of the picture so that you could control the company. Killing him made financial sense.’

‘Her husband’s rich,’ said Hendrickson.

‘So all she has to do is get a decent lawyer. If her husband’s been abusive, she’ll take him to the cleaners.’

A middle-aged housewife rattled a trolley past the car with one hand as she held a plastic carrier-bag over her head. She looked at them through the windscreen. Hendrickson turned away his face and didn’t speak until she’d gone. ‘Her husband isn’t the sort of man you can divorce,’ he said.

‘Spit it out, Larry,’ said the man. ‘What’s the story? Tell me now or get out of the car and we can go our separate ways.’

Hendrickson hesitated, then spoke quickly. ‘Her husband’s violent, that’s all I know. A real hard bastard. He’s already told her that if she ever leaves him he’ll put her in the ground. She says he means it. Divorce is out of the question.’

‘And what’s her name?’

‘Angie.’

‘Angie what?’

‘I just know her as Angie.’

The man’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘You don’t even know her full name and you’re talking about hired killers with her?’

‘I’ve known her for months.’

‘But not her name?’

‘You know what it’s like in the gym. You nod and say hello – you don’t exchange business cards. We were just talking, that’s all.’

‘About killing her husband?’

‘I think she feels she can open up to me because I’m not a close friend. I don’t know her husband, only what she’s told me. And all I said was that maybe I knew someone she could talk to who might help.’

‘What does she look like?’

‘She’s pretty, blonde, late twenties. A bit tarty, a bit flash – no bra when she exercises, you know the sort.’

The man studied Hendrickson with unblinking pale blue eyes.

Hendrickson looked away nervously.‘I just thought . . .’ he said, then mumbled incoherently.

‘You call that thinking?’ said the man. ‘Did you tell her I was offing your partner?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Don’t you think she’s going to put two and two together when she discovers he’s out of the picture?’

‘She doesn’t know what I do. I didn’t tell her I was paying you. It was just a general conversation, that’s all.’ He leaned forward, his arms round his stomach. ‘I feel sick,’ he said.

‘Not in the car,’ said the man. ‘If you’re going to throw up, open the door.’ He flicked the air-conditioning control and cold air blasted across their faces. ‘Deep breaths,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Hendrickson, still bent double.

‘It’s the stress,’ said the man.

‘I mean about Angie. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. You’re right, it’s none of my business.’

The man tapped his gloved fingers on the steering-wheel. ‘You think she’s serious? About wanting him dead?’

Hendrickson took several deep breaths. ‘I’m sure of it.’

The man’s fingers continued to tap the steering-wheel.

‘Do you want me to give her your number?’ asked Hendrickson.

‘Take the bird in the hand, Spider. For God’s sake– take the bird in the hand!’ There was no way that Shepherd could hear the superintendent: radio communication could only be one way as transmission noise would blow an operative’s cover. Hargrove closed his eyes and massaged the back of his neck. The tendons were as taut as steel wires.

‘He’s going to let it run, isn’t he?’ said the young officer. He had a video camera trained on the car in the distance but the rain meant that the footage would be virtually unusable. Not that the exterior video mattered. The two video cameras in the Volvo had recorded everything, and the audio was all they needed to put Hendrickson away on conspiracy to commit murder.

Hargrove ignored the officer but he knew he was right: Shepherd was going to let it run. The rain continued to beat down on the roof of the van as Hargrove strained to hear what was going on inside the car. ‘Okay,’ said Shepherd, through his headphones. ‘Tell her to call me. But if it turns to shit, I’ll come looking for you.’

Hargrove cursed under his breath. He reached for his bottle of Evian water and took a long swig, then cursed again.

The young officer watched through the viewfinder of his video-camera as Hendrickson climbed out of the car and ran across the car park, the umbrella low over his head. ‘What do we do, sir?’ he asked.

Hargrove sighed. He opened his eyes, put his transceiver to his mouth and clicked the transmit button. ‘Alpha One, everyone stand down. Repeat, everyone stand down.’

Hargrove paid for the drinks and carried them to the corner table of the pub. Shepherd was taking off his black leather gloves and nodded his thanks as the superintendent placed the Jameson’s and soda in front of him. His hair was wet and the shoulders of his coat flecked with water.

‘It’s not how I’d have played it, Spider. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘I had seconds to make up my mind,’ said Shepherd, stuffing the gloves into his coat pocket. ‘What did you expect me to do? Tell him I had to check with my boss?’ He took a sip of his whiskey.

‘No one’s saying it wasn’t your call,’ said Hargrove. He sat down on the bench seat next to Shepherd and stretched out his legs. He had been in the back of the Transit van for the best part of four hours. ‘I’m just reminding you that we’ve spent two months setting up Hendrickson and I wouldn’t want to put that at risk for the sake of a maybe down the line. Plus, we’ve got Hendrickson’s partner tucked away in a safe-house. He’ll be none too happy when I tell him he’s got to stay there for the foreseeable future.’

‘I figure it’ll take a few days at most. I’ll fix up a meet to see if she’s serious. I’ll go in wired up, get her to pay a deposit and we can leave it at that. If her husband’s knocking her around the court’ll probably go easy on her so there’s no point in busting a gut.’

Hargrove cupped his hands round his brandy glass. ‘You’ll be going in blind,’ he said. ‘All we have is a first name.’

‘She’s a battered wife,’ said Shepherd. ‘I doubt I’ll be in any danger.’

‘I don’t like it, Spider. There are too many ifs, buts and maybes.’

Shepherd leaned forward. ‘Boss, if she doesn’t talk to me, she might find someone else.’

Hargrove nodded thoughtfully. ‘Forty-eight hours, that’s all I can give you.’

Shepherd looked pained, but the time frame wasn’t up to him. ‘The ball’s in her court,’ he said. ‘Hendrickson wouldn’t give me her number.’

‘If she’s serious she’ll call. If she isn’t, it’s a waste of time anyway. Forty-eight hours, Spider. Then we arrest Hendrickson.’

Shepherd opened his mouth to argue but the superintendent silenced him with a wave. Shepherd had worked with Hargrove long enough to know when he’d reached his limit. Forty-eight hours was all the time he had.

Roger Sewell was a big man, a good three inches taller than the superintendent, and thirty kilograms heavier. He had receding hair that he’d grown long and tied back in a ponytail, and a goatee beard. He was wearing a grey suit but had taken off his tie and thrown it on to the hotel bed.

‘No bloody way am I spending another night in this shit-hole,’ he said. ‘I was promised a safe-house not a two-star bloody hotel.’

‘It’s forty-eight hours,’ said Hargrove, patiently. ‘Two days.’

‘Two days during which that bastard Hendrickson is going to be ripping my company apart,’ said Sewell. He pointed an accusing finger at the superintendent. ‘Are you going to reimburse me for any money I lose on this?’ He didn’t give the superintendent time to reply. ‘Of course you’re bloody not. What if he empties the bank accounts and transfers the money off-shore. Then I’m fucked with a capital F, aren’t I?’

‘Today’s Friday,’said Hargrove. ‘You have my word that by Monday your partner will be in custody and you’ll be free to do whatever you want. Just give me the weekend, Mr Sewell.’

Sewell paced over to the window. ‘They won’t even let me go to the bloody pub. This is Leeds, for God’s sake. No one knows me in Leeds. I wouldn’t be seen dead in Leeds.’

‘It’s too much of a risk, Mr Sewell,’ said Hargrove. ‘If anyone recognises you and mentions it to Hendrickson, he’ll know he’s been set up and he’ll run.’

‘So put him under surveillance.’

‘We have. Two men are watching him round the clock. But we can’t account for phone calls or emails.’

Sewell slammed his hand against the window-frame. ‘I’m the innocent party here, yet I’m the one being held prisoner. That bastard Hendrickson should be behind bars and he’s living it up on the outside while I’m eating off a tray.’ He turned to face the superintendent. ‘I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. I even lay down in that hole in the ground with fake blood on my face while you took photographs. But I’ve reached my limit.’

‘Forty-eight hours, Mr Sewell. It’s not much to ask.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to sleep on a lumpy mattress and watch a fourteen-inch TV. And have you seen the bloody room-service menu? Chips with everything.’

‘Mr Sewell, let’s not lose sight of what was happening. Your partner was looking to have you killed. If we hadn’t intervened there was a good chance he’d have succeeded and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’

Sewell dropped into an overstuffed armchair and swung his feet up on to the bed. He ran a hand over his thinning hair and down the ponytail. ‘Bastard,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe he’d have me killed. He’s a vegetarian, for God’s sake.’

‘People have killed for a lot less than he stands to gain with you out of the picture,’ said Hargrove.

‘Yeah, but it’s only bloody money.’

‘We do appreciate the help you’ve given us,’ said the superintendent. ‘By Monday you can be back in the office and you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that your partner is going to prison for a long time.’

‘I hope so,’ said Sewell. ‘I bloody well hope so.’ He looked across at the superintendent. ‘Can you at least tell me why?’

‘It’s an ongoing operation,’ said Hargrove. ‘That’s all I can tell you.’

‘Involving Hendrickson?’

Hargrove nodded. He didn’t like lying to Sewell, but he knew that the man was a lot less likely to cooperate if he knew that the operation had been extended to include a second party. Besides, it was a white lie. Hendrickson was involved. Up to a point. ‘You’ll be doing us a great service,’ said the superintendent.

‘You’ll owe me one,’ said Sewell.

‘Indeed,’ said Hargrove.

‘I want my laptop,’ said Sewell. ‘And my mobile phone.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Hargrove.

‘I won’t call anyone. I won’t send emails. I just need to know what’s happening.’

‘Computers leave traces. So do mobile phones. We can’t afford the risk of anyone finding out you’re still alive.’

Sewell threw up his hands in disgust.

‘Two days, Mr Sewell,’ said Hargrove. ‘You have my word.’

The local police had assigned three uniformed officers to babysit Sewell, taking it in turns to sit in the hotel’s reception area in plain clothes. They weren’t there to guard him, merely to ensure that he stayed in the hotel. The only threat to Sewell’s life was Hendrickson, and Hendrickson was under the impression that his business partner was dead and buried in the New Forest.

The officer on duty was a fifty-something sergeant with a thickening waistline and thinning hair. He began to get to his feet as Hargrove walked out of the lift but the superintendent waved at him to stay seated and sat in the adjacent armchair. ‘How’s he been?’ he asked.

‘Grumpy, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Keeps asking if he can go out for a walk. Complains about the food, the TV, the bed.’

‘He’s not to go out,’ said Hargrove.

‘I understand, sir.’

‘We’re having to extend his stay over the weekend,’ said Hargrove. ‘I’ll be clearing it with your bosses. But the longer he’s here, the more likely he is to slip the leash, so I’m going to have to ask you to set up shop in the corridor outside his room.’

The sergeant looked fed up but said nothing. The superintendent sympathised. Sitting in a hotel corridor wasn’t the most entertaining way to pass an eight-hour shift. ‘If he’s still unhappy about the hotel food he can order in from restaurants but make sure he pays cash. On no account is he to use his credit card.’

‘Understood, sir.’

‘Pass on the instructions to the rest of the team,’ said the superintendent. ‘If you want to break it up into four-hour shifts, that’s fine by me. So long as he’s covered round the clock, you can work it any way you want.’

‘It’s all overtime,’ said the sergeant. ‘You won’t be hearing any complaints.’

Shepherd sat in his car and looked at the front of the house: a neat semi, the garden lovingly tended, the paintwork less than a year old, a TV dish over the garage. Tom and Moira Wintour had put a lot of work into their Hereford home and it showed. A year-old Lexus was parked in front of the garage, freshly waxed.

Shepherd had driven down from Manchester in his own car, a dark green Honda CRV. He’d left the Volvo in the car park below the city-centre loft where his alter ego Tony Nelson lived. Once the operation was over and he had Angie on tape, the surveillance equipment would be removed and the Volvo would go back into the police pool with new licence plates and registration details.

On the back seat of the CRV a carrier-bag contained two PlayStation cartridges that he’d bought in a toy shop in Manchester. He’d spent the best part of an hour there but hadn’t been able to think of anything else to buy his son. He climbed out, walked to the front door and rang the bell. He saw a blurred figure through the frosted glass, then Moira opened the door, smiling brightly. As always, her makeup was immaculate. ‘Daniel, you made it,’ she said.

Shepherd smiled back and forced himself to ignore the implied criticism. He felt bad enough that he had had to cancel his last two visits at short notice without his mother-in-law reminding him of his shortcomings.

Moira was the only person who used his full name. She always had, ever since they’d first met. He’d asked her to call him Dan but she’d paid no attention and Daniel he had remained. Friends and colleagues alike used Dan or his army nickname, Spider.

‘Liam’s in the garden,’ she said.

‘How is he?’

‘Fine.’

‘He sleeping okay?’

‘Daniel, he’s fine. Really. Can I get you a cup of tea?’

Shepherd declined her offer and went through the kitchen into the garden. Liam was kicking a football against a low brick wall. His face broke into a grin as he saw his father walking across the lawn. ‘Dad!’ he yelled, and rushed over, grabbed him round the waist and hugged him hard. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d really come.’

‘I said I would, didn’t I?’ said Shepherd, but he felt guilty. He never deliberately set out to let his son down, but the nature of his work meant that he rarely knew what he’d be doing or where he’d be from one week to the next. He gave his son the carrier-bag. ‘I got you these,’ he said.

Liam let out a whoop as he saw the PlayStation cartridges. Then his face fell. ‘Gran doesn’t let me play video games,’ he said.

‘Never?’

‘An hour a day,’ said Liam, grimly.

‘That sounds reasonable,’ said Shepherd.

‘Mum always let me play as long as I wanted.’

‘No, she didn’t, and you know it,’ said Shepherd. ‘She said it was bad for your eyes.’

‘Can I play them now?’

‘Let’s go to the park for a kickabout.’

Liam picked up his ball and they went back into the kitchen. Moira was standing by the kettle, waiting for it to boil. ‘I’ve got cake,’ she said.

‘Liam and I are off to the park. We won’t be long,’ said Shepherd.

For a moment she looked as if she was going to protest, but then she forced a smile.

The park was a five-minute walk from the house. Liam bounced the ball as they walked.

‘So, are you okay?’ asked Shepherd.

Liam shrugged.

‘You know your gran and granddad love you, right?’

Another shrug.

‘And the school here is okay, right?’Tom and Moira had arranged for Liam to attend the local school until Shepherd had things sorted in London.

‘It’s okay.’

‘It’s not for ever.’

Liam was clutching the ball to his chest. ‘Are you sure?’

Shepherd stopped walking, put his hands on his son’s shoulders, then knelt down in front of him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Are you dumping me?’ He was close to tears.

‘Dumping you?’

‘With Gran and Granddad.’

‘Of course not.’

‘They say I can stay with them for ever.’

‘They’re just being nice.’

‘They keep saying it’s my room. But it’s not my room. My room’s in our house, isn’t it?’ His lower lip trembled.

‘No question about that.’ Shepherd ruffled his son’s hair.

‘Why aren’t I living with you?’

The question’s blunt simplicity was like a knife in Shepherd’s chest. He pulled Liam into his arms and buried his face in the boy’s neck. Liam dropped the football. ‘You’ll come home soon, I promise.’

‘I miss you, Dad.’

‘I miss you, too.’

‘Why aren’t I living with you?’

‘Because I’ve got to find someone to take care of us.’

‘I can take care of us,’ said Liam earnestly.

‘There’s a lot to do, Liam. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping. I’ve got work, you’ve got school. We need someone to do that sort of thing for us.’

‘Like a maid?’

‘Yeah. An au pair they call them. She’ll take care of the house and us.’

‘Like Mum used to do?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But she won’t be my mum, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Because I don’t want a new mum.’

‘I know.’

‘I keep dreaming about her.’

‘Me too.’

Liam sniffed. ‘Where’s my ball?’

Shepherd released the child and looked around. The ball had rolled into the gutter. He retrieved it and gave it to his son. They walked in silence to the park. Shepherd didn’t know what to say to him. Yes, he wanted him back in London, but there was no way he could take care of Liam and carry on working without domestic help. Liam was only eight, too young to be a latch-key kid, and public transport where they lived was so unreliable that he’d have to be driven to and from school every day. There was no way Shepherd could make that sort of commitment while he worked for Hargrove.

There was a football pitch at the park and they wandered over to the closest set of goalposts, passing the ball back and forth between them. Shepherd stood in the goalmouth and Liam took penalty shots but his heart clearly wasn’t in it. There was no power in any of his kicks and he didn’t seem to care whether he got the ball past his father or not.

Shepherd tossed the ball back to his son. ‘Give it some stick, Liam.’

Liam placed the ball on the penalty spot, took a few steps back, then tapped it towards him. The ball rolled across the ground and stopped at Shepherd’s feet. ‘That’s terrible.’ Shepherd laughed. ‘The worst shot I’ve ever seen.’

‘This is stupid,’ said Liam.

‘What’s stupid?’

‘This.’

‘Football? You like football.’ Shepherd picked up the ball and threw it back to the boy.

Liam caught it and held it to his chest. ‘You don’t really want to play.’

‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to play with you,’ said Shepherd.

‘Remember when you were in prison?’ asked Liam.

‘Sure.’ Shepherd had been working undercover on the remand wing of HMP Shelton, trying to get close to a major drugs importer who was sabotaging the case against him from behind bars. Sue had brought Liam to visit him. It was against all the rules, but Shepherd had needed to see them both.

‘Well, that’s what this is like,’ said Liam. ‘It’s like I’m in prison and you’re visiting me. And once visiting time’s over you’ll go and I’ll be here on my own.’

‘You’re not on your own. You’re with your gran and granddad.’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Liam. ‘You don’t want me.’

‘Liam!’ protested Shepherd.

‘It’s true! You never wanted me!’ Liam dropped the ball and ran away.

‘Liam, come here!’ Shepherd shouted. One of his mobile phones rang and he pulled it out of his pocket. ‘Liam, wait for me!’ It was the Tony Nelson phone. The caller had blocked their number. ‘Liam, God damn it, stay where you are!’ Shepherd yelled.

Liam stopped and turned to look at him. Tears were running down his cheeks. Shepherd pointed a warning finger at him, then pressed the button to accept the call. It was a woman.‘Is that Tony Nelson?’

‘Yeah,’ said Shepherd.

‘Larry said I should call you.’

‘He told me I might be able to help you,’ said Shepherd. ‘What do you want?’

‘I think you know,’ she said.

‘I hope you’re not a time-waster.’

‘It’s just difficult. On the phone.’

‘Do you want to meet?’

Liam stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at Shepherd. ‘Dad!’ he shouted.

Shepherd pointed at him, then pressed a finger to his own lips, telling him to be quiet.

‘I think so,’ she said.

‘You’re Angie, right?’

She caught her breath. ‘Larry told you my name?’

‘Just that you were Angie, that’s all. Look, Angie, you called me so that means you’ve already put a lot of thought into this. If we’re going to go through with it there are things to discuss and that’s best done face to face.’

‘I’m not stupid,’ said the woman.

‘I’m not saying you are,’ said Shepherd, ‘but this is outside your normal experience so you’re anxious. I understand that. But I can’t afford to have my time wasted so you have to decide if you want to move forward or forget the whole thing. And to move forward, we have to meet.’

‘Okay,’ she said.

‘So, do you need my help or not?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘I hate you!’ Liam shouted. He turned and ran across the playing-field in the direction of Tom and Moira’s house.

‘Where are you?’ asked Angie, suddenly suspicious.

‘In a park. There are kids here but no one’s listening.’

‘Who was that shouting?’

‘Just a kid. Where do you live?’

She didn’t reply.

‘Are you there?’ asked Shepherd, wondering if he’d lost the connection. Liam left the playing-field and ran along the pavement, arms pumping furiously. Shepherd wanted to run after him but he knew that if he spooked Angie there was a good chance she wouldn’t call back. It was like reeling in a fish: he had to keep just the right amount of tension on the line. Any hint that there was a problem and he’d lose her. He forced himself to ignore Liam and concentrate on the voice at the end of the line.

‘I’m here. I just don’t like you knowing too much about me.’

‘If I don’t know where you are, I’m not going to be able to help you, am I?’

‘I guess not.’

‘So tell me where you are and we’ll arrange a meeting.’

He heard her take a deep breath. ‘You know Piccadilly Gardens?’

‘Of course.’ It was the square in the city centre, terminus for the city’s tram system.

‘We’ll meet there. This evening. Five o’clock.’

‘It’s too crowded,’ he said. ‘Too many people.’ He looked at his watch. It was eleven thirty. Plenty of time to drive back to Manchester.

‘I want there to be people around,’ she said. ‘Safety in numbers.’

‘Look,Angie, this is my field of expertise. We need a place where we can talk. Piccadilly Gardens will be mobbed.’

‘That’s why it’ll be safe. No one will pay us any attention.’

Shepherd cursed under his breath. He wanted her in his car so that he could record their conversation. If they were in a square filled with trams, daytrippers and shoppers, he’d have to wear a wire, and personal wires were unreliable at the best of times. But if he pressed the point too far she’d get suspicious.

‘It’s my way or we forget the whole thing,’ she said, more confidence in her voice.

‘Okay,’ said Shepherd. ‘Piccadilly Gardens, five o’clock. How will I recognise you?’

‘You won’t,’ she said. ‘I want to take a good look at you first.’

‘What are you worried about, Angie? Didn’t your friend vouch for me?’

‘Larry thinks the sun shines out of your arse, but I want to see who I’m dealing with.’

‘Fine,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll be wearing a black leather jacket, grey pullover, black jeans, and carrying a copy of the Financial Times.’

‘This is like a blind date, isn’t it?’

‘Not really,’ said Shepherd, coldly. He had to stay in character and Tony Nelson didn’t flirt, didn’t joke, didn’t make small-talk. He was a stone-cold professional killer. ‘I’ll be by the fountain at five on the dot. If you haven’t contacted me by ten past, I’m out of there.’

‘I understand, Mr Nelson. And, believe me, I’m not wasting your time.’

She cut the connection and Shepherd put the phone back into his pocket. ‘Game on,’ he muttered. He picked up Liam’s football and headed for Tom and Moira’s house.

Moira was waiting for him at the door. ‘Daniel, what on earth happened?’

‘Nothing,’ said Shepherd.

‘Liam came back crying his eyes out.’

‘Where is he?’ asked Shepherd, squeezing past her.

‘In his room.’

Shepherd went upstairs, carrying the football, and knocked on Liam’s door. When there was no reply he tried to open it, but it was locked. ‘Let me in, Liam.’

‘Go away.’

‘Please, Liam, I want to talk to you.’ Shepherd pressed his ear to the door.

‘Go away.’

‘Look, I have to go back to Manchester.’

‘So go.’

‘It’s work.’

‘I don’t care.’

Shepherd sighed. He looked at his watch again. ‘I’ve got time for a coffee. Or we could have a go on the PlayStation.’

Moira came up the stairs. ‘Daniel, maybe you should leave him be for a while,’ she said quietly.

‘He’s my son, Moira,’ said Shepherd. ‘I know how to handle him.’

‘Do you?’ said Moira archly. ‘Well if that’s the case, why’s he in there with the door locked, sobbing his eyes out?’

Shepherd glared at her, then turned back to the door. He knocked on it gently. ‘Come on, Liam. Let’s not be silly. I don’t have long.’

‘I hate you. I just want you to leave me alone.’

‘Daniel . . .’ said Moira.

Shepherd ignored her. ‘I didn’t want to answer the phone, but it was important. I had to take the call. I wanted to talk to you, but this person might not have called back and it was important.’

There was no answer from Liam, but Shepherd heard a sniff.

‘Liam, I love you more than anything. I’m sorry if I’m a bad father at the moment but I’ve a lot on my plate and this is all new territory for me.’

Shepherd put his ear against the door but Liam didn’t say anything. ‘I’ll count to ten, okay? Then you can come out and we’ll be friends again.’

Moira went back downstairs. Shepherd was ashamed at the way he’d spoken to her, but there were times when his mother-in-law’s holier-than-thou attitude got on his nerves. She meant well, but she hadn’t worked since the day she’d married Tom, and the grand total of her life experience came down to her suburban friends, a weekly game of bridge and an annual holiday to either France, Spain or Italy. She had no idea of what Shepherd’s life was like or the pressures he was under. Yes, he wanted to be a good father. Yes, he wanted to do the right thing by his son. But it was easy for her: she had Tom, his bank manager’s salary and an index-linked pension a few years away. Shepherd had a job to do, a living to earn, and a woman in Manchester who wanted her husband dead.

Shepherd started counting. When he got to five he tapped on the door in time with the numbers. ‘Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.’ Shepherd took a deep breath.‘Liam?’The door was so flimsy he could have knocked it down with one kick. ‘Liam, please. At least give me a hug before I go.’ He rested his forehead against the door and sighed. ‘Okay. Look, I have to go, but I’ll phone you this evening. I promise.’

Shepherd started downstairs but he had only gone a few steps when the bedroom door opened. Liam stood on the landing, his cheeks wet. Shepherd rushed back upstairs, bent down and picked up his son. ‘I’m sorry I’m such a rubbish father,’ he said.

‘It’s okay,’ said Liam.

‘I’m trying, I really am. Bear with me, until I get things sorted.’

‘I just want to be with you, Dad.’

‘I know you do.’ He kissed Liam, then sniffed his hair. ‘You need a bath,’ he said.

‘I know.’

‘And wash behind your ears.’

‘I always do.’

Shepherd lowered his boy to the floor. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

‘Cross your heart?’

Shepherd solemnly crossed his heart.

‘And you’ll phone tonight before I go to sleep?’

Shepherd crossed his heart again. Liam nodded, satisfied. Shepherd went downstairs.

Moira was in the kitchen, filling an earthenware teapot. ‘Have you got time for tea, at least?’ she asked.

‘I’ve got to go, Moira. I’m sorry I snapped.’

‘You didn’t, Daniel. You just told an interfering old woman to mind her own business. Nothing wrong with that.’ She finished pouring water into the teapot and replaced the lid.

She wanted to be mollified, Shepherd could tell. Self-criticism was one of the overused weapons in Moira’s extensive psychological armoury. ‘You’re not interfering, and I know you’ve only got his best interests at heart,’ he said.

‘We all have,’ said Moira. She began wiping down the worktop, even though it was spotless. ‘He’s been through a lot and what he needs now, more than anything, is stability.’

‘I’m getting there,’ said Shepherd.

Moira opened her mouth, then evidently decided not to say anything. She carried on wiping.

‘I’ll phone tonight from Manchester,’ he said.

‘What’s happening up there?’

‘Just a job. It should be over this afternoon, then I’ll be back in London.’

‘What about Sue’s things? I could come down one weekend. Help you sort out the clothing and shoes. There are charity shops that will take them.’

‘I’ll do it,’ said Shepherd. He kissed her left cheek awkwardly, then hurried down the hallway and out of the front door. She was right, of course. It was time to clear out Sue’s clothes. Four months was a long time. He’d tried several times. He’d opened her side of the fitted wardrobe in the bedroom and even gone as far as taking out some of her clothes, but he’d never managed to throw any away. Somehow it seemed disloyal. They weren’t just clothes, they were Sue’s clothes. Everything she had, everything she’d touched, everything she’d worn – it was all a part of her and he wasn’t prepared yet to discard anything. Or her.

He looked up as he climbed into the car and saw Liam standing at a bedroom window. Shepherd waved and flashed him a thumbs-up. Liam did the same and Shepherd grinned. At least his visit hadn’t been a complete disaster.

Shepherd parked on the top floor of a multi-storey car park close to Piccadilly Gardens and sat for ten minutes to see who drove up. There were housewives, families with children, young couples out for a Saturday’s shopping in the city centre. Eventually he locked the car and walked down to the third floor. The blue Transit surveillance van was in the corner furthest away from the stairs and lifts. Shepherd tapped the rolled-up copy of the Financial Times against his leg as he walked over to it, knocked twice on the rear door and climbed inside. Hargrove was there with Jimmy Faley, the young officer who’d been on the Hendrickson surveillance, and an Asian technician whom Shepherd hadn’t met before.

Hargrove took a swig from his plastic bottle of Evian water. ‘This is Amar Singh,’ he said. ‘He’s on attachment from the National Criminal Intelligence Service with some state-of-the-art surveillance gear.’ Shepherd shook Singh’s hand.

‘I can’t imagine a worse place to record a conversation,’ said Singh.

‘Yeah, it wasn’t my choice,’ said Shepherd. He nodded at Faley and sat down on a plastic stool.

Singh pushed a black attaché case across the metal floor. ‘Make sure the briefcase is as close to her as possible,’ he said.

‘You don’t have to teach me to suck eggs,’ said Shepherd.

‘I’m not teaching you to suck anything,’ said the technician, ‘but its effective range is down to three feet on the outside and I wouldn’t want you blaming me if all we pick up is traffic. I’d be happier if you were wearing a wire, too.’

‘She’s jumpy enough to pat me down,’ said Shepherd.

‘In a crowded square?’

‘A lover’s hug, hands down my back, a quick grope between the legs, all she’s got to do is touch something hard and she’ll be off.’

‘She might just think you’re pleased to see her,’ said Singh.

Shepherd gave him a tight smile. ‘I’ve got better things to be doing on a Saturday afternoon, believe me,’ he said. He looked at Hargrove. ‘Long-range mikes?’

‘We’ll have two guys on top of the office blocks overlooking the square, but I don’t hold out much hope. There’s a lot of noise out there.’ He pointed at the case. ‘That’s our best hope.’

Shepherd clicked the twin combination locks and examined the interior. It was lined with a light brown fake suede material and had pockets for pens, business cards and a small calculator. He took out the calculator and examined it. There was nothing unusual about it. He put it back into its pocket, then inspected the exterior. It looked like an ordinary attaché case. ‘Okay, I give in,’ he said. ‘How does it work?’

Singh grinned. ‘The batteries and transmitter are built into the body of the case, and there’s a recording chip in there as back-up in case we lose transmission. There’s no way anyone will find it, short of cutting the leather. There are two microphones, one in each lock. You set the combinations to nine-nineeight to open, nine-nine-nine to start transmitting.’

‘The three nines would be your idea, I guess,’ said Shepherd.

‘The whole gizmo’s my baby,’ said Singh.

Shepherd closed the case and clicked the locks shut. ‘Nice piece of kit,’ he said.

Singh beamed.

‘Anything on her?’ Shepherd asked Hargrove.

‘Not enough,’ said Hargrove. ‘We contacted the health club first thing this morning but the admin staff are away until Monday. I decided against calling the centre manager at home because there’s an outside chance that he might be a friend and I didn’t want to start raising red flags. We did a check on the electoral register for Angie and Angela, but without a surname or address it threw up hundreds of possibilities within twenty miles of the fitness centre.’

‘So I go in blind? I hate that.’ Usually when Shepherd went undercover he was fully briefed on his target. He had time to memorise photographs and background details and knew exactly who he was dealing with. But this time all he had was a name. Angie. And a brief description that Hendrickson had given him. Blonde, pretty, late twenties. A bit tarty, a bit flash. ‘No bra when she exercises, you know the sort,’ Hendrickson had said. Shepherd didn’t. He looked at his watch. ‘I said I’d be there at five and wait ten minutes.’

‘Did she sound serious?’ asked Hargrove. ‘I’d hate to think we’re on a wild goose chase.’

‘She sounded worried,’ said Shepherd. ‘Easily spooked.’

‘All we need is the offer,’ said Hargrove. ‘We can’t give it the full monty, like we did with Hendrickson. Sewell’s been on ice long enough. Just get the offer and tell her you need the money by Monday. The offer and the down-payment are all we’ll need. I’ll get her to roll over.’

Shepherd let himself out of the rear door. Singh reached over and pulled it shut.

Shepherd ran down the stairs to the ground floor and pushed open the double doors that led out of the building and on to a side-street. It was a warm afternoon but he’d told her he’d be wearing his leather jacket so he couldn’t take it off. The attaché case was in his right hand, the Financial Times in the left.

The narrow street opened into Piccadilly Gardens. The flowerbeds were full of yellow and purple blooms. There was a hi-tech fountain to the left, small jets of water that leaped and curved through the air, then splashed into metal-lined holes in the ground. Half a dozen small children rushed around, trying to avoid the water but shrieking with pleasure each time they got drenched.

Shepherd walked round the edge of the square towards the fountain. He looked at his watch. Five o’clock exactly. There was an empty wooden bench a dozen paces from the fountain and he sat down, swung the case on to his knees, and placed the newspaper on top. There was no point in scanning the crowds so he read through the paper’s headlines. Not that he cared a jot for the fate of the nation’s businesses. He had no shares, and only a few thousand pounds in his one and only bank account. When he had been in the SAS his salary had been the same as a regular paratrooper drew, and a police officer’s wasn’t much better. No one joined the military or the police to get rich.

‘Tony? Tony Nelson?’

Shepherd looked up and squinted in the bright sunlight. He shaded his eyes with the flat of his hand. Slim. Blonde. Pretty. Cute upturned nose. Pale blue eyes. Naturally blonde hair, loose around her face. Lips that curved easily into a smile. ‘Angie?’

The smile widened, but Shepherd could see nervousness in her eyes and the furrowing of her brow. ‘Shall we walk and talk?’ she suggested.

‘I’m okay here,’ said Shepherd.

‘I’m a bit restless, truth be told,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can sit still at the moment.’ She was wearing a loose-cut white linen jacket and Versace denim jeans, with high-heeled open-toe shoes and a Louis Vuitton shoulder-bag. There was a gold Rolex on her left wrist.

‘Okay.’ Shepherd opened the case, put the newspaper inside, and clicked the locks shut. He flicked the combinations to nine-nine-nine, then transferred the case to his left hand as he stood up. ‘We could go for a coffee, or something stronger.’ He wanted her inside, away from the noise of the traffic.

‘I’m driving,’ she said, ‘and caffeine’s the last thing I want.’ She held out her left hand, palm downwards. It was trembling. Shepherd noted the large diamond engagement ring and the thick gold band on her wedding finger. ‘See?’

‘Nervous?’

‘Shouldn’t I be?’ she said. She glanced around, as if she feared that someone might be watching them. ‘Come on, let’s walk.’

They moved away from the fountain. Shepherd kept the attaché case between them, but there was a lot of noise: children squealing, engines rumbling, couples arguing, two black teenagers break-dancing next to a boom box. Shepherd doubted that the hidden microphones would pick up much more than background sounds.

‘You’re not from Manchester, are you?’ she asked.

‘I move around a lot,’ said Shepherd. ‘It doesn’t pay to stay too long in one place, doing what I do.’

‘How much do you charge?’ she whispered.

‘Didn’t Hendrickson tell you?’

‘He just said you weren’t cheap. And you did what you were paid for.’

‘I’m not cheap,’ said Shepherd, ‘but for what you want, you don’t want cheap. You want it done right, without repercussions.’

‘He said you were professional.’

‘I am. Thirty thousand pounds. Half when you decide you want to go ahead. Half on completion.’

She took a packet of Marlboro menthol out of her bag, put one between her lips and lit it with a gold Dunhill lighter, then offered one to Shepherd. He shook his head.

‘How do I know you won’t just take the fifteen thousand and disappear?’ she asked.

‘Because I’m a professional.’

‘So I have to trust you?’

Shepherd stopped. ‘I didn’t come here to be insulted,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who you are or where you’re from. I’m the one taking things on trust here. For all I know you could be a cop.’

‘Do I look like the filth?’ She flicked ash on the ground.

‘Cops come in all shapes and sizes,’ said Shepherd. ‘Just because you’ve got a double-D cleavage and fuck-me high heels doesn’t mean you haven’t walked a beat.’

‘They’re Cs,’ she said, ‘and they’re real.’

‘I didn’t doubt it for a second,’ said Shepherd. ‘And so am I. Do you have thirty thousand pounds?’

She smiled sarcastically. ‘Not on me, no, but I can get it.’ She started walking again. Shepherd caught her up.

‘When?’

‘When do you want it?’

‘The sooner you pay me, the sooner I can do the job.’

‘Just like that?’

‘You give me the down-payment. We fix up a time and a place. You establish an alibi. I do the job. You pay me the rest of the money. We go our separate ways.’

‘No guilt? No recriminations?’

‘For me? Or for you?’

Angie smiled tightly. ‘Oh, don’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘I won’t lose a minute’s sleep, believe me.’

‘Hendrickson said he beats you.’

She blew smoke at the sky. ‘And the rest.’

‘Why don’t you just go to the cops?’ said Shepherd. ‘They don’t look kindly on wife-beaters. When he’s locked away, you can get a divorce.’

‘You don’t know my husband,’ she said.

‘I’m going to have to, though. To get the job done I’ll need to know everything about him.’

She blew more smoke at the sky, then stopped and looked at him through narrowed eyes. ‘This is where the whole trust thing comes into play,’ she said. ‘Suppose I tell you, and suppose you decide you’ll make more money by talking to him?’

‘I wouldn’t have lasted as long as I have if I’d gone around double-crossing clients,’ said Shepherd. ‘Word gets about.’

‘Can we talk hypothetically?’ she said.

‘I’d rather talk specifics,’ said Shepherd.

She dropped what was left of her cigarette and stubbed it out with her toe. ‘This is such a bad idea,’ she muttered.

Shepherd said nothing. The approach had to come from her. If he pressed her in any way he risked becoming an agent provocateur.

She lit another cigarette. ‘They can kill you, those things,’ said Shepherd.

‘My husband smokes two packs a day and he’s as healthy as a horse,’ she said, and shivered.

‘How did you get so scared of him?’ asked Shepherd.

‘It’s what he does,’ she said. ‘He scares people. He makes them so afraid of him that they do what he wants.’

‘And he scared you into marrying him, did he?’

‘He’s charming with it,’ she said. ‘He can charm the birds down from the bloody trees when he puts his mind to it. I didn’t realise then that sociopaths can turn on the charm at will.’ She took a long pull on the cigarette, then let the smoke seep slowly through her pursed lips. ‘Have you ever turned a job down?’

‘I’ve had people who couldn’t raise the money,’ said Shepherd.

‘I meant, once you’ve found out who the target is, have you ever refused to go ahead?’

‘I don’t care who the target is,’ Shepherd said. ‘All I care about is getting paid. I’m not a vigilante. I don’t care why or who. Just when, where and how much.’

‘Have gun, will travel?’

‘I’m a professional. It’s what I do.’ Shepherd was replaying the conversation in his mind, trying to work out if he had enough. He was pretty sure he hadn’t. It was akin to nailing a prostitute. He needed Angie to tell him exactly what she wanted him to do, and how much she was prepared to pay him. And in an ideal world, he needed her to hand him an envelope full of cash. He looked at his watch.

‘Have you got somewhere else to go?’ asked Angie.

‘I get the feeling I’m wasting my time here,’ he said.

Angie sighed. ‘I want him dead,’ she whispered.

She had spoken so softly that Shepherd doubted the microphone had caught it. ‘And you’re prepared to pay me thirty grand to do it?’

She opened her eyes, nodded and started walking again. Shepherd cursed inwardly and hurried after her. Whispers and nods wouldn’t count for anything in court.

‘Who is it you want me to kill?’ he asked, as he drew level with her.

‘I told you. My husband.’

‘I need his name, Angie.’

‘Charlie. Charlie Kerr.’

‘I’m going to need a photograph. You can give me one with the down-payment.’

She nodded again.

‘You can get it?’

Another nod. Shepherd gritted his teeth. The only proof of the conversation would be the recording, and so far, when it came to specifics, he had done all the talking.

‘Tell me about him,’ he said.

‘Like what?’

‘What he does, where he goes, how he spends his time.’

She held the cigarette inches from her mouth and stared at the filter. It was smeared with lipstick. Her eyes remained fixed on it as she answered his question. ‘A gangster,’ she hissed. ‘He’s a fucking gangster.’

‘Literally?’

‘Literally. Drugs. Protection. He used to rob building societies, but that was way back when.’

Shepherd ran the name through his mental database but drew a blank. It wasn’t a name he’d come across before. His memory was virtually perfect so if he’d so much as read the name in a file or heard it mentioned in conversation he would have remembered. ‘Where do you live?’

Angie gave him their address. Hale Barnes. An affluent suburb of Manchester.

‘I guess he doesn’t have an office,’ said Shepherd.

‘He owns a nightclub in the north of the city, Aces. His little in-joke. Aces. AC’s – Angela and Charlie’s. Sweet, huh? Now he uses it to pick up a succession of teenage tramps. And he has the cheek to tell me that if he ever catches me with another guy he’ll break my legs.’

‘He’s there every night?’

‘He says he is. He tells me to call him on his mobile so he could be anywhere.’

‘Any associates I should know about?’

‘Do you want a list?’

‘I need to know who’s likely to be in the vicinity. Does he have bodyguards, for instance?’

She dropped the half-smoked cigarette and stamped on it as if she was stamping on her husband’s throat. ‘There’s Ray and Eddie. He sees more of them than he does of me, but I wouldn’t call them bodyguards. Eddie drives him around.’

‘Do they carry?’

‘Carry?’

‘Guns. Are they armed?’

‘I don’t think so. I’ve never seen Charlie with a gun.’

‘You said he deals in drugs. What sort?’

‘He doesn’t deal, exactly. He imports. Cocaine, mainly.’

‘From where?’

‘He never says. But we’ve a place in Spain and whenever we go to Morocco he disappears with the guys for hours at a time. He goes to Miami a couple of times a year and that’s business, he says.’ She took out the packet of Marlboro and toyed with it. ‘You’re having second thoughts, aren’t you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Now you know it’s Charlie Kerr, big-time gangster, I need taking out, you’re getting cold feet.’

‘Says who?’

‘I can see it in your face.’

Shepherd looked at her, his face blank. ‘I’m not scared of your husband, no matter who he is.’

‘I didn’t say you were. I said you were having second thoughts. My husband’s a dangerous man. Not the sort you’d normally come across, I bet.’

‘I come across all sorts,’ said Shepherd.

‘We’ll see,’ said Angie. She stopped walking and stared at him. ‘So you’ll do it? You’ll kill him for thirty thousand pounds?’

Shepherd held her look. Her eyes were burning with a fierce intensity and she was leaning towards him, so close he could smell her perfume.

‘Is that what you want?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, it is.’

So that was it. Caught on tape. What she wanted doing and how much she was prepared to pay. Conspiracy to commit murder. Life imprisonment. The fact that she was young and pretty and had an abusive husband meant that she’d probably get away with seven years, maybe six. She’d still be pretty when she got out, just not as young. ‘I’ll need a number to call you,’he said.‘You blocked your mobile when you called me last time.’

Angie took out her phone and tapped out his number. His phone rang and he took it out of his pocket. Her number was on the screen. ‘Got it?’ she asked. Shepherd nodded, and she cancelled the call. ‘You’re better texting me than calling,’ she said. ‘Every time my phone rings he wants to know who it is.’

Shepherd put away his phone. ‘Worst possible scenario and he wants to know whose number it is, tell him you clipped my car and it’s an insurance job. No damage to yours but I lost a tail-light. Use the name I gave you. Tony Nelson.’

‘That’s your real name?’

‘It’s the name I’m using. That’s what you’ll call me. And when this is over, Tony Nelson will no longer exist.’

‘And I’ll never see you again?’

‘Why would you want to? The reason I can get away with what I do is because no one knows who I am. Even if you decide to go to the police, what can you tell them? That you paid a man called Tony Nelson to kill your husband. A man who doesn’t exist.’

‘Why would I go to the police?’

‘Guilt. Remorse.’

‘There’ll be no guilt,’ she said vehemently. ‘He’s made my life a misery.’

‘No kids?’

‘He can’t.’ She smiled coldly. ‘Low sperm count, the doctors said, but he won’t accept it. Blames me. That’s probably why he screws around as much as he does.’ She wrapped her arms round herself. ‘More information than you need, right?’ she said.

‘Anything you tell me helps,’said Shepherd.‘When can you get the money?’

‘I’ll have to withdraw it from one of my accounts. That’s a problem, isn’t it?’

‘Because?’

‘The cops might check for withdrawals in the days up to . . .’ She hesitated, then finished the sentence. ‘ . . . up to the day it happens.’

‘You just need a cover story,’ said Shepherd. She was right, of course, Shepherd knew, but he didn’t want her dragging things out while she withdrew the cash in dribs and drabs. He already had enough on tape to charge her with conspiracy, but the cash would be proof positive. ‘Say you were going gambling. Are you a member of any casinos?’

‘A couple in Manchester. Charlie likes to play blackjack.’

‘Perfect,’said Shepherd.‘Worst comes to the worst, you say you went gambling.’

‘The casinos keep records,’ she said.

‘So make sure you go a few times before I do the job. In fact, as alibis go, you could do a lot worse than be in a casino – lots of witnesses, and you have a story for where the cash went.’

‘Do you think the police will suspect me?’

‘I’ll make it look like a gangland hit,’ said Shepherd. ‘The police will put it down to a drugs war and do the bare minimum.’

‘Good riddance to bad rubbish?’

‘Something like that,’ said Shepherd.

She shivered again. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? It’s just another day, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, people are living their lives, and we’re talking about murder.’

‘We have to talk about it. It has to be planned down to the last detail because if we make one mistake they catch us. Can you get the fifteen grand by Monday morning?’

She nodded.

‘And pictures. The more the merrier. We’ll talk about his schedule once you’ve paid me the deposit.’

They stood in silence for a while. ‘That’s it?’ Angie said eventually.

‘That’s it.’

‘I feel like I’ve just made a deal with the devil.’

‘In a way you have.’

She forced a smile, then walked away. Shepherd saw two of Hargrove’s men, both dressed casually, moving parallel to her as she left the square. They’d follow her back to her car and would be in radio contact with two motorcyclists who had parked close by. By nightfall they would know all there was to know about Angie Kerr and her gangster husband.

Shepherd headed back to the multi-storey car park, checking reflections in office windows and car wing mirrors to make sure he wasn’t being followed. Angie Kerr was the suspicious type and he wouldn’t put it past her to have someone tail him. Just as he had satisfied himself that no one was behind him, his mobile rang. ‘Looking good, Spider,’ said the superintendent.

‘You heard everything?’

‘We lost you a few times but we got the gist,’ said Hargrove. ‘That plus the fifteen grand will nail it for us. Our guys are on her tail as we speak.’

‘I’m on my way back now,’ said Shepherd.

‘Don’t bother. We’re in a side-street overlooking the square – we’ll pick you up. Where are you?’

Shepherd gave him directions, and five minutes later the Transit pulled up. Shepherd climbed into the back. Singh pulled the attaché case out of his hands. The superintendent took a swig of Evian water. ‘We didn’t get much from the directional microphones but the case worked a treat.’

‘Of course it did,’ said Singh, caressing it as if it were a favourite cat.

Shepherd grinned at his enthusiasm and patted him on the back. ‘We’re done?’ he asked.

‘Absolutely,’ said Hargrove.

Shepherd climbed out of the van. He took a circuitous route to the warehouse conversion and used his swipe card to open the outer door. His flat was on the second floor. He kept nothing of himself in it. If anyone should become suspicious of Tony Nelson, they could search it for hours and never find a clue as to his real identity. The utility bills were in Nelson’s name, paid for by direct debit from a bank account that would stand up to any scrutiny. The flat had been decorated and furnished by the landlord: white walls, light oak floors, pine furniture ordered from the Habitat catalogue. Shepherd took a bottle of lager from the stainless-steel fridge in the kitchen and sat down on the white canvas square-armed sofa in front of the television.

He looked at the clock on top of the empty bookcase. Six thirty. He’d finish the beer, have a shower, then phone Liam. He took the three mobiles from his jacket pocket and put them on the glass-topped coffee-table. He sipped his lager. If all went to plan he’d be back in London on Monday afternoon. Hargrove hadn’t mentioned a new assignment so there was a chance that he could take a few days off. It would give him time to fix up an au pair and get the house ready for Liam’s return. He took a drink from the bottle. He might even make a start on clearing out Sue’s things. It was about time.

He lay back on the sofa and rested the bottle on his stomach. It had been a hell of a day. Driving from Manchester to Hereford and back, then straight into the Angie Kerr sting. One hell of a day.

Keith Rose couldn’t help smiling as he drove west on the M25. Here he was, fifteen years into a career with the Metropolitan Police, two awards for bravery on the living-room wall, and he had ten kilos of heroin in the boot of his car on the way to his very own drugs deal. ‘Funny old world,’ he whispered.

He’d thought long and hard about what he should do with the heroin they’d taken from the crack house in Harlesden. In a perfect world he’d have dumped the polythene-wrapped packages in the nearest landfill or lake, but the world wasn’t perfect and ten kilos of grade-four heroin was worth more than three-quarters of a million pounds on the street. Not that he would get anywhere near that amount. Three-quarters of a million was what the drug was worth when it was cut with whatever the dealers had to hand and sold on to addicts in single-dose wraps. The Yardies had probably paid about three hundred grand for it. The only way Rose could get that sort of money for the heroin was if he were to sell it on to street dealers and that was too much of a risk. The only way to sell it safely was to pass it on to an importer at a price below the cost of bringing it into the country. It was a simple matter of economics. A street dealer had to pay between twenty and thirty thousand pounds a kilo. An importer bringing it in from the Continent would pay half that. So, to an importer in the UK, the heroin in Rose’s boot was worth a maximum of fifteen thousand pounds a kilo. And it would have to be even cheaper than that for them to risk doing business with someone they didn’t know.

The problem for Rose was that most of the major drugs importers were under surveillance by the Drugs Squad or MI5. And the smart ones were so cagey that they would only do business with people they knew. Which meant that Rose would be putting his career, if not his life, on the line for a hundred and fifty grand at best. And he had to split that two ways. Seventy-five grand wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things. Two years’ salary, give or take. Which meant plan B: take the drugs to Ireland. Irish prices were generally twenty or thirty per cent higher than in Britain – a reflection of the Celtic Tiger’s healthy economy and the fact that most of the drugs sold on there were brought from England – and the Garda Siochana, the Irish police force, was about as efficient as the Keystone Cops on a bad day. Also there was no real equivalent of MI5. The Irish Defence Forces Military Intelligence G2 Branch and the Garda’s Special Branch C3 Section concentrated on terrorism and counterintelligence, so drugs were left to the boys in blue.

Half an hour on the Police National Computer was all it had taken for Rose to compile a list of the top three drug barons in the Irish Republic with their addresses. All had done business at one time or another with an Irish crime family in North London and were known to the Drugs Squad. All were put under surveillance whenever they set foot on British soil, but they weren’t stupid: they rarely visited the UK and even avoided stopovers at Heathrow en route to their villas in Spain.

They were ex-directory, but Rose’s method of contacting them had been simplicity itself. He had sent a one-ounce package of his heroin by regular mail to each man, with a laser-printed note saying he had ten kilos for sale at twenty thousand euros a kilo, delivery in Ireland, and the number of a pay-as-you-go mobile that he’d bought in a shop on the Edgware Road. Two had replied. One had sent a text message in two words, one of which was an obscenity. The other had phoned late at night and started by telling Rose of all the terrible things that would happen to him if he was messing them around. Then he said they wanted to see the gear. He promised to call when he was in Dublin and the man had given him a mobile number. Game on. You didn’t have to be especially clever to be a drugs dealer, just careful. And, as gamekeeper-turned-poacher, Keith Rose knew how careful to be.

The heroin they’d taken from the Harlesden flat was double-wrapped in thick polythene so a drugs dog wouldn’t so much as wag its tail if it stumbled across it, but Rose knew that the chances of him being checked when he drove his car off the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin were next to zero. And, in the unlikely event that he was stopped, he’d produce his warrant card before they even thought about giving his car the once-over. If plan B went as well as he expected, he’d be back in London with two hundred thousand euros within twenty-four hours. Having taken the opportunity to down a couple of pints of the genuine black stuff.

A band was playing, far off in the distance. Shepherd groaned and opened his eyes. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. One of his mobiles was ringing. He groped for it. Hargrove’s phone. He swung his feet off the sofa and took the call. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘Nothing, but we need to meet tomorrow,’ said the superintendent. ‘Charlie Kerr’s a bit out of the ordinary. I have to run some things by you before Monday.’

Shepherd rubbed a hand over his face. The lager bottle lay on its side by one of the sofa legs. He must have fallen asleep with it in his hand. ‘Fine. Where and when?’

‘I’ll let you have a lie-in,’ said Hargrove. ‘Let’s say three o’clock. There’s a rugby field in Trafford by a pub called the Golden Fleece.’

‘I’ll be there. Everything’s okay, right?’ He looked out of the floor-to-ceiling window that took up most of the left-hand side of the apartment. It was dark outside. A full moon hung in the pitch black sky, the night so clear that he could see the craters that pockmarked its surface.

‘Everything’s fine. I’ll brief you tomorrow.’

Shepherd cut the connection and stared at the phone. It was half past eleven. He cursed. He dialled Moira’s number and groaned inwardly when Tom answered the phone. He apologised for phoning so late.

‘It’s almost midnight.’ Tom groaned.

‘I promised to call Liam before he went to sleep.’

‘He’s been in bed for hours.’

Shepherd apologised again, but before he’d finished Moira had taken the phone from her husband. ‘Daniel, this isn’t good enough, it really isn’t.’

‘I fell asleep,’ said Shepherd, lamely.

‘And your son cried himself to sleep,’ said Moira. ‘I let him stay up until ten and that’s an hour past his weekend bedtime. You promised, Daniel, and you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.’

‘It wasn’t a question of not keeping a promise,’ said Shepherd. ‘I fell asleep, that’s all. It wasn’t deliberate.’

‘Whatever, he’s asleep now. Call again tomorrow. And think of how much your thoughtlessness has hurt him.’

She cut the connection. Shepherd lay back on the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. His mother-in-law was right. He’d let his son down yet again. His stomach churned and he felt like throwing up. He’d cut short his promised visit, he’d fallen asleep when he’d promised to phone and he’d left his son in storage, like unwanted furniture. If there had been a prize for worst father of the year, he’d win it. He made a silent promise to himself: as soon as the Angie Kerr job was tucked away, he’d make it up to Liam. He’d show his son just how good a father he could be.

Rose spent two hours driving around the north of Dublin looking for a suitable place to hand over the drugs, then spent the night in a cheap bed-andbreakfast. Before he went to sleep he phoned his wife and told her he was on a surveillance operation at Gatwick Airport and that he loved her. He spent five minutes talking to his daughter, then he phoned the Irish mobile number and told the man who answered that he would show him the heroin at eleven o’clock in the morning. He had the venue already planned and the Irishman didn’t argue. After making the second call he slept a dreamless sleep.

Breakfast was a full Irish – eggs, bacon, sausage, white pudding, black pudding, potato scone, fried bread – and Rose cleared his plate before he drove to the airport. He left his car in the short-term car park and walked to the arrivals terminal where he picked up the keys to a rental. He drove it to the short-term car park, and when he was sure he wasn’t being watched he switched the drugs and a cloth-wrapped bundle to the new car, then drove out of the airport whistling to himself.

The place he’d chosen for the handover was the car park of a pub on the edge of a rough housing scheme – blocks of flats with broken windows and graffiti, shopfronts protected by roll-down metal shutters. It didn’t look the sort of place that was regularly visited by the Garda, and he doubted that any of the locals would be members of a Neighbourhood Watch scheme. There were no CCTV cameras and the nearest police station was five miles away. According to the Police National Computer, it was slap in the middle of the area controlled by the gang that was going to buy the heroin. Rose had thought they’d be more relaxed on their home turf, less likely to be trigger happy.

He arrived half an hour before the time he’d told the Irishman. He parked with the front of his car facing the road and slid the cloth-wrapped bundle between his legs. He was wearing sunglasses and leather gloves, with a baseball cap pulled down over his face. A ten-year-old Mercedes pulled into the car park at a quarter to eleven. There were four men in it and Rose recognised two of the faces from the computer files. They were enforcers. The man who ran the gang was keeping his distance, but Rose had expected as much. He flashed his headlights and the Mercedes rolled slowly across the car park.

Rose stayed in his car. The rear doors of the Mercedes opened and two men walked towards him. They wore long coats that flapped in the wind, and had their hands in the pockets. Rose wound down the window. ‘Can you guys do me a favour and stop where you are?’ he called.

The two men halted, a dozen paces from the car. ‘Have youse got the gear?’ said the taller of the two. Six feet two, maybe, with wide shoulders hunched against the wind that blew between the blocks of flats. His nose was almost flattened against his face. A boxer’s nose.

‘Have you got the money?’

‘We’re gonna have to see the gear before youse gets to see the cash.’

‘I’ve no problem with that, but just so we know where we stand, what are you carrying?’

The boxer frowned. ‘What?’

Rose smiled patiently.‘What sort of weaponry have you got under your coats? I’m guessing handguns or a sawn-off at most.’ He raised the gun he was holding, just enough so that they could see what it was. ‘I’ve got an Ingram MAC 10, which fires eleven hundred rounds per minute and holds thirty in the magazine so I don’t want you making me nervous– if my trigger finger gets jumpy I could accidentally empty the whole clip in less time than you could say . . . well, before you could open your mouth, actually.’ He glanced at the weapon in his hand. ‘Recoil-operated, select-fire submachine-gun, fires from an open bolt. Nice, but not especially accurate beyond twenty-five metres. And in case you’re wondering, yes, it would shoot right through the panel of this door. And with the silencer, not too many people would hear it. Not that they’d give a shit around here anyway.’

The two men looked at each other, then back at Rose, whose smile widened. ‘I’m not trying to pull a fast one on you,’ he added. ‘I just want us to know where we all stand. Let’s see what you’ve got.’

The boxer slid his right hand out of his pocket. An automatic, probably a Colt. The other pulled back his coat: a Kalashnikov assault rifle with a folding stock hung from a nylon sling.

‘Nice,’ said Rose. The file had mentioned the gang’s links to former paramilitaries so the Kalashnikov wasn’t a surprise. ‘So, if the shit does hit the proverbial, it’s going to get very noisy and very messy. I’m just here to sell the gear and get back over the water. It’s good stuff, and it’s pure as the driven, so you’re getting a hell of a good deal.’

‘Youse could be the cops,’ said the boxer.

‘I could be, but my accent alone should let you know that I’m not working for the Garda. And the fact that I’m cradling a MAC 10 in my hot little hands sort of puts paid to any undercover police operation, doesn’t it?’

The boxer nodded slowly. ‘So now what do we do?’

‘I show you the gear. You show me the money. When we’re both happy, we exchange and go our separate ways.’

‘Where is it?’

‘The boot. Where’s the money?’

‘Back seat.’

‘Okay. Why don’t you get into the seat here next to me while your mate with the heavy artillery checks the gear?’

‘Youse wouldn’t have an itchy trigger finger, would you?’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ said Rose.

The boxer sighed, opened the passenger door and climbed in. He had his gun in his lap, the barrel pointing at the dashboard. Rose popped open the boot and watched in his rear-view mirror as the guy with the Kalashnikov went to the back of the car.

‘Youse came alone?’ mused the boxer.

‘I just want to sell the merchandise,’ said Rose. ‘I don’t want to start a gang war. I thought if I turned up mob-handed you’d get jumpy and that’s the last thing we need.’

‘Where did youse get it from?’

Rose tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger. ‘Need to know,’ he said.

The guy with the Kalashnikov bent down and disappeared from Rose’s view. Rose was relaxed, but he kept his finger on the trigger.

‘Youse look like a cop.’

‘Yeah, everyone says that.’

‘Except you’re as nervous as a cat in a kennel right now, which you wouldn’t be if youse had backup.’

‘I’ve no back-up. Trust me on that. But I do have a gun that can fire eleven hundred bullets a second so tell your mate to get a move on, will you?’

The boxer gave him a curt nod and shouted something in Gaelic to his colleague.

‘English,’ said Rose. ‘If you don’t mind.’

‘How does it look, Kieran?’ shouted the boxer.

Rose took his eyes off the rear-view mirror and checked out the Mercedes. The driver had his hands on the steering-wheel. The front passenger was sitting stony-faced, chewing gum.

‘Looks good,’ said Kieran. He walked to the passenger side of Rose’s car.‘Ten kilos. Good stuff. The man walks the walk.’

‘So far so good,’ said the boxer. ‘Now, how do youse want to play it?’

‘You and I walk over to your car and check the money. Kieran stays in front of us and keeps his hands away from the Kalashnikov.’

The boxer climbed slowly out of the car. Rose did the same, sliding the MAC 10 under his jacket as he closed the door. Kieran walked to the Mercedes, his long coat flapping behind him. Rose accompanied the boxer, his finger still on the MAC 10 trigger. He scanned the windows of the flats overlooking the car park but no one was watching. Two plump teenage girls pushed prams away from the block entrance, smoking and swearing.

They reached the Mercedes and Kieran pulled open the rear doors. There were two black Adidas gym bags on the back seat. He pulled them out and swung them on to the boot.

‘Watch the paintwork, will youse?’ snarled the boxer.

Kieran unzipped one of the bags and stepped to the side. He kept his hands free, a faint smile on his face. Rose peered inside the bag. It was full of bundles of fifty-euro notes. He pulled one out at random and flicked through it. Then he sniffed it.

The boxer laughed. ‘Think we printed them ourselves?’

Rose put back the bundle and unzipped the second bag. He checked another bundle at random. It seemed genuine, and all the notes were used. If they had been counterfeit they would all have been new, Rose thought. He stepped back from the car. ‘Everything looks cool,’ he said.

‘Youse don’t want to count it?’

‘I trust you,’ said Rose, deadpan. ‘Plus, you rip me off for a few grand, so what? I didn’t see you weighing the gear to see if I’m a few ounces short. It’s all based on trust at the end of the day. Trust and artillery.’

‘Trust and artillery,’ said the boxer. ‘I like that.’

‘Kieran can put the bags in my boot, and take the gear.’

The boxer nodded at Kieran, who transferred the money and carried the heroin to the boot of the Mercedes and slammed it shut.

Rose backed towards his car, ready to swing out the MAC 10 at the first sign of a double-cross, but Kieran slid into the back seat of the Mercedes. ‘It’s been a pleasure doing business with youse,’ said the boxer, throwing Rose an ironic salute. ‘Have a safe trip home.’ He got into the back of the car, slammed the door and the vehicle rolled slowly out of the car park.

Rose watched as it drove away, white plumes feathering from the exhaust. His heart was hammering in his chest but he wanted to throw back his head and howl in triumph. He’d done it. He’d bloody well done it.

The bad guy popped his head up from behind a crate and Liam fired twice with the shotgun. The man’s skull exploded with a satisfying pop and brains splattered over the wall behind him. Two more bad guys appeared from behind a row of oil barrels, brandishing axes. Liam reloaded smoothly and blew them away.

‘Don’t those things carry parental warnings?’ asked Moira. She was carrying a tray with a glass of orange juice and some fig rolls on it.

‘Parents don’t play video games, Gran,’ said Liam, his eyes never leaving the screen. His thumbs flashed over the handset and two more villains slumped to the ground.

‘You know what I mean, young man. Don’t be cheeky,’ she admonished him, as she placed the tray on the coffee-table.

‘Sorry, Gran,’ said Liam. He reloaded and waited for a bad guy to appear at the top of the stairs, then shot him in the chest.

Moira sat down on the sofa next to Liam. ‘Did your father buy you that?’

‘Nah, he got me two racing games. I got this with my pocket money.’

‘An hour we said, remember? An hour a day.’

‘Okay.’

‘Would you mind switching it off and talking to me?’

‘Gran . . .’

‘I’d like to talk to you.’

Liam sighed and switched off the console. He reached for his orange juice and gulped it down.

‘You know your granddad and I love having you here,’ she said.

Liam wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

‘And you’re happy at school?’

‘It’s okay.’

‘But it’s a good school, isn’t it? And there’s a better mix of children in your class. Not as many . . . well, you know what I mean, don’t you? It’s not like London.’

‘The teachers are nice,’ said Liam, ‘and I like walking to school.’

‘There you are, then,’ said Moira. ‘You like your room here, too, don’t you?’

Liam nodded, and bit into a biscuit.

‘Your granddad and I were thinking that perhaps you’d like to stay with us.’

Liam frowned. ‘For ever?’

‘Not necessarily, no,’ said Moira, hurriedly. ‘But your father’s very busy at work, you know that. And remember what happened last night. He said he’d phone but he didn’t. He isn’t very reliable, so Granddad and I think you might be better off here with us.’

‘Is this Dad’s idea?’ asked Liam. Tears sprang to his eyes.

Moira put her arm round his shoulders. ‘No, it’s not. He’s still talking about you going to London to be with him. But it’s going to be difficult, and it might be better for him if you stayed here.’

Liam wiped his eyes on his sleeve. ‘It isn’t fair.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Moira.

‘It’s like you’re all trying to force me to do something I don’t want to do.’

‘No one’s trying to force you to do anything, Liam.’

‘Dad never asked me if I wanted to come and stay here. He just dumped me.’

‘Now you’re being silly.’

‘He doesn’t want me. That’s why he left me here and it’s why he didn’t call.’

‘He does want you, Liam, of course he does. We want you, too – and we all want what’s best for you.’

‘I want to be with my mum!’

‘Liam!’ Moira protested. ‘Calm down.’

‘I don’t want to! I wish I was with Mum right now. I wish I was dead like her!’

Liam rushed out of the room, knocking over his glass with what remained of the juice.

Tom came in from the garden as Moira was dabbing at the carpet with a damp cloth. ‘I heard shouting, what’s wrong?’

Moira shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

Even from the far side of the field Shepherd could hear the crunch of bone against bone as the two men collided at full pelt. The rugby ball bounced into touch and the two men helped each other up, grins on their mud-splattered faces.

Hargrove was sitting on a wooden bench outside the pub, which overlooked the rugby pitch. Shepherd sat down next to him, wearing his black leather jacket and blue jeans. He hadn’t shaved. The superintendent was immaculately dressed as always, in a pristine blue blazer, grey flannels and gleaming brogues. He sipped his shandy. ‘Can I get you a drink, Spider?’

‘I’m okay,’ said Shepherd. He stretched out his legs and sighed.

‘Not a rugby player, are you?’ asked the superintendent.

‘Not really, no.’

‘Too many rules?’ said Hargrove.

‘Something like that.’

‘I’m a cricket man myself,’ said Hargrove. ‘Never understood why it isn’t played all year round.’

‘The weather, maybe,’ said Shepherd.

‘The thing I like about it is that it’s a team game,’ said Hargrove, ignoring Shepherd’s comment. ‘But at the same time you function as an individual. When you’re batting, it’s all down to you. No back-up, no support. When you’re fielding, you’re working as a team.’

Play restarted on the pitch, but after a few seconds there was another juddering crunch, three players went down and the referee blew his whistle.

‘You’re a runner, right?’ asked Hargrove.

‘It’s a way of keeping fit,’ Shepherd said. ‘I don’t run for fun.’

‘What do you do for fun?’

Shepherd ran a hand through his unkempt hair. It was a good question. He used to go to the cinema and for long walks. He used to eat, drink and make merry. But that was before Sue had died. He still tried to have fun with Liam, but more out of parental duty than from the desire to enjoy himself. He’d kick a football with his son, play video games and take him to matches, but no matter how much he loved Liam, the boy was an ever-present reminder of the wife he’d lost. Fun hadn’t been a major part of his life in recent months.

Hargrove took a sip of his shandy. ‘Charlie Kerr,’ he said. ‘We’ve opened a real can of worms.’

Shepherd looked across at him. ‘He’s known?’

Hargrove smiled. ‘Oh, yes. Not Premier Division yet, but on the way. Greater Manchester Drugs Squad have been on to him for a while. The Firm and the Church have been keeping a watching brief.’

The Firm: MI5. It had been tasked with targeting big-time drugs-dealers and career criminals after the fall of the Soviet Union and the IRA’s decision to start peace talks had left the Security Service with little to do. And the Church: Customs and Excise.

‘Why just a watching brief?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Kerr’s one of the smart ones. Doesn’t go near the gear, doesn’t touch the cash. It’s a question of resources. It would cost millions to put him away. They’ve been hoping that eventually he’ll deal with someone they’ve turned.’

Hargrove took a CD Rom in a plastic case from his blazer pocket and handed it to Shepherd. ‘Those are the files on him. Surveillance pictures, known associates, all the intel we have.’

Shepherd pocketed the disk. He knew that the nature of the investigation was about to change, but he waited for the superintendent to continue. Spectators cheered as a bald, burly player ran a good fifty yards down the pitch and hurled himself between the posts. The referee’s whistle blew long and hard.

‘He runs a sideline in protection rackets but that’s a hangover from his old days. Now he leaves that pretty much up to one of his heavies, Eddie Anderson. His nightclubs are busy, but they’re money-laundering set-ups more than anything.’

And a source of eager young girls, Angie had said. The woman scorned. The woman whose life was about to change for ever, and not for the better, thought Shepherd.

‘Kerr’s father was an old-school villain, Billy Kerr. Armed robber who got involved in the drugs trade in the late eighties. Got shot on the Costa del Crime a few years back. Professional hit, but there was never anyone in the frame for it.’

‘So Charlie’s following in his father’s footsteps?’

‘Seems that way. But he’s self-made. He was only a teenager when his dad was killed. He was living with his mother. She and Kerr had separated not long after he was born and Kerr had almost no hand in raising him. Must have been in his genes.’ Play started again on the pitch. ‘This could be a godsend, Spider.’

‘Maybe,’ said Shepherd.

‘We’ve got her on tape, conspiracy to murder. If she turns up with the cash tomorrow, that’s the icing on the cake. If we offer her a way out, there’s a good chance she’ll take it.’

‘She’s scared to death of him.’

‘She doesn’t have a choice,’ said Hargrove. ‘No real choice, anyway. If she goes down he’ll know exactly what she was planning. He might decide that life behind bars is punishment enough, but a guy with his resources can have someone killed in prison just as easily as on the outside. If she gives evidence against him, though, he’ll be the one behind bars.’

‘Yeah, but she’s not stupid. She’ll know that just because he’s banged up doesn’t mean he can’t have her killed,’ said Shepherd.

‘So she’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t,’ said Hargrove. ‘At least we can offer her protection. A new identity. The works.’

‘Plus she gets to keep his money?’

‘Anything that’s not confiscated as the proceeds of crime,’agreed Hargrove.‘That’s got to sound more attractive than life behind bars.’

Shepherd stretched out his legs. If it had been a simple matter of offering Angie Kerr the choice of two evils, there would have been no need to give him the files on her husband. Hargrove obviously wanted him to make the approach.

‘We’ll only get one shot,’ said Shepherd. ‘If she turns us down, Kerr will know we’re on to him and go to ground.’

‘Which means we’re no worse off than we are now,’ said Hargrove.

‘And we’ve no idea how much she knows about her husband’s operation.’

‘Exactly,’ said Hargrove.

‘Which is where I come in?’

Hargrove looked at Shepherd. ‘Are you okay about this?’

‘It’s messy,’ said Shepherd, ‘getting close to the wife to get to the husband.’

‘No one’s asking you to get into bed with her, Spider,’ said the superintendent. ‘Just find out how much she knows about his business. It could be that he keeps her in the dark, in which case she’s no use to us.’

‘And we charge her with conspiracy anyway? Even though there’s a good chance he’ll have her killed?’

‘She’s the one who’s hired a killer. We can’t let her walk just because her husband’s a villain.’

‘A drugs baron who knocks her around, who terrorises her and screws anything in a short skirt?’

The superintendent raised an eyebrow quizzically. ‘You’re not going soft on me, are you?’

‘It’s not about being soft. It’s about justice. You’re saying that if we can’t put him away, even though he’s a grade-A villain, we’ll make do with wifey.’

‘If you feel that strongly about it, make sure there’s enough to put him away. And if wifey helps, wifey walks. Look, there’s a whole series of imponderables we have to nail down. We have to find out how much she knows about Kerr’s wrongdoing, then see if she’s prepared to give evidence against him – as his wife she’s entitled to refuse. And if she is prepared to help, we’ll need evidence to back it up.’

‘What about Sewell?’ asked Shepherd. ‘He’s not going to be happy about being kept under wraps.’

‘Leave Sewell to me.’

‘What about resources?’

‘Whatever we need. Greater Manchester Police will be footing the bill.’

And taking the credit if we bring Kerr down, thought Shepherd, ruefully. It was always that way. Hargrove’s undercover unit had a roving brief: forces around the country put in a request to the Home Office whenever they needed the unit’s services, and Hargrove reported to the Home Secretary. The members of the unit never took credit for their successes and never appeared in court. They simply amassed the evidence, put the case together and moved on. Taking credit would mean blowing their cover, and the last thing an undercover policeman needed was publicity.

Shepherd stood up. ‘I’ll make a call, tell her I need more info.’

‘And get the deposit. We need it on video.’

Shepherd walked away, hands in his pockets. He didn’t look back, but could feel Hargrove watching him. He cursed under his breath. The Angie Kerr job wasn’t going to be as cut and dried as he’d hoped, and every day in Manchester was a day away from his son.

Rose drove back to the airport and parked the rental car next to his own vehicle. He checked that no one was around, then transferred the MAC 10 to the boot of his car. Customs checks into the UK were as cursory as those into Ireland so he had no qualms about taking it back to London.

He took the rental back to its drop-off point, then retrieved his own car and drove it to the ferry terminal. He had an hour’s wait before boarding. His mobile rang as he was getting out of his car. ‘It’s good gear you’ve sold us,’ said a voice. A guttural Irish accent. Not the boxer and not the man to whom Rose had spoken on the phone before.

‘I told you so,’ said Rose. He headed up the metal stairway to the main deck.

‘And your price was fair. Would you be able to get us more?’

‘Maybe,’ said Rose.

‘You know where we are,’ said the man.

‘Yes,’ said Rose. He cut the connection and walked up on to the deck. He watched as the remaining cars drove on to the ferry. As they left Dublin port and headed across the Irish Sea, he took the Sim card out of the phone and flicked it out over the waves.

Shepherd made himself a cup of coffee, then slotted the CD into his laptop. The information on the disk was password protected and Shepherd keyed in the eight-digit number that would give him access. It was one of the perks of having a near-photographic memory: he never had to remember a password or phone number.

The files were split into three sections: MI5, Customs and Excise, and the Greater Manchester Police Drugs Squad. The MI5 file was the largest but contained little intelligence. It consisted mainly of copies of wire-tap authorisations and transcripts of conversations that Charlie Kerr had made over the previous eighteen months, none of which appeared to have had anything to do with drugs. Hargrove had been right: the Security Service had nothing more than a watching brief, and if all they were doing was monitoring his phone traffic then they didn’t stand a chance of getting anything on him. A criminal of Kerr’s calibre would hardly start organising cocaine shipments by phone, even using pay-as-you-go mobiles. MI5 had access to the Echelon eavesdropping system, a joint venture between the United States, Great Britain and New Zealand, which allowed for the world-wide monitoring of all phone and email conversations. It was also equipped with voice-recognition so accurate it could identify a target from among millions of conversations. But listening to Kerr and catching him in the act of setting up a major drugs deal were two different things. The only way to get him would be to use an undercover agent, or persuade a family member or associate to inform on him.

The Customs and Excise file was a tenth the size of MI5’s, but it contained surveillance photographs of Charlie and Angie arriving at Heathrow airport and leaving Málaga airport. Kerr was balding, a big man with broad shoulders. He was a head taller than Angie and in several of the photographs he had an arm round her as if he wanted to establish ownership. There were also photographs of them at their villa in Spain, and at various restaurants with several Costa del Crime faces. There was nothing wrong with the Kerrs wining and dining with major criminals, of course, drinking Dom Pérignon and tipping with fifty-euro notes. It wasn’t a criminal offence to associate with villains. Yet. There were reports of Kerr’s trips to the United States, Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI reports on whom he had met in Miami. There was no information on any pending US investigations in the file, so either they weren’t telling the Church or the Church was playing Secret Squirrel with its overseas information.

In theory, the intelligence services, Customs and the police were supposed to co-operate on major cases, but in practice they guarded their turf jealously. There was a lot of resentment on behalf of the police and Customs that MI5 had moved into anti-drugs work. The Security Service had shown little interest in catching drugs barons until their own jobs were on the line and now whenever they were involved in a major seizure their press-relations people went into overdrive, trumpeting every drugs bust as a major victory for MI5. Also the spies were able to operate in decidedly grey areas, while the police had to follow the Police and Criminal Evidence Act to the letter. And while Customs had to fight for every penny of its budget, it seemed that MI5 had a blank cheque book to play with.

Customs had tried using an undercover agent to infiltrate Kerr’s circle in Marbella, but two weeks into the investigation he’d been sussed and had made a rapid withdrawal. He was only identified by his cover name in the reports he’d filed. There was nothing in them that would have resulted in charges: he had met with Kerr three times in various nightclubs but the only conversations they’d had were social chit-chat. According to the agent, Charlie Kerr was notoriously unfaithful to his wife, and on the nights he was out without her he usually ended up bedding one pretty girl or another, although he was always back in his villa by dawn. The agent had suggested sending in a pretty female undercover agent but the head of Drugs Operations had vetoed a honey trap. Charlie Kerr was too dangerous: a borderline psychopath.

The Marbella operation had been aborted one night after the agent had been out in a group with two of Kerr’s associates, Ray Wates and Eddie Anderson – the men Angie had talked about. They’d sat on either side of the agent and plied him with drink. When Charlie had left with a young Spanish waitress they’d suggested they move on to another club. The agent had had a bad feeling about the way the men were smiling at him. He’d pretended to be more drunk than he was and said he had to go to the bathroom. He’d broken a window, climbed down a drainpipe and caught a plane back to London. Shepherd understood the man’s decision. Sometimes you had to go with your instincts. If a situation felt wrong it probably was.

The police file contained more hard intelligence than those of MI5 and the Church put together. In his mid-twenties Charlie Kerr had been charged with armed robbery three times. Each time the case had collapsed before it had got to court. Witnesses were intimidated or paid off; evidence mysteriously disappeared. In one case CCTV footage was wiped in police custody. Kerr was thought to have been responsible for more than two dozen building-society and bank robberies over a five-year period, netting, according to police estimates, close to a quarter of a million pounds. Sometimes he worked alone, sometimes with a partner, and he hadn’t served a day in prison. He had a criminal record, though, for an assault on his eighteenth birthday: he’d bitten the ear off a middle-aged man in a pub and had been given a year’s probation after three witnesses swore that he had been provoked. It was the only time he had been in court but it meant that his fingerprints, teeth impressions and DNA were in the system.

Kerr had channelled the profits from the robberies into drugs but, because of his record, he took more care than most to cover his tracks. He was paranoid about phones and did virtually all his business outdoors, face to face. There were hundreds of surveillance photographs in his police file, but no hard evidence of drugs-dealing. The police had looked into Kerr’s nightclubs, and while they were sure he was using them to launder his drugs profits, they hadn’t been able to prove it. There were also rumours that his men were extorting money from other nightclubs in the Manchester area, but only one owner had ever complained officially – his club had burned down the next day and he left the city shortly afterwards.

Shepherd read the file with a heavy heart. It was always the really nasty pieces of work who got away with it. Petty thieves, small-time pimps, street-corner drugs-dealers were rounded up, tried and packed off to prison. But the real villains were virtually untouchable. They surrounded themselves with physical and legal protection, intimidated or bought their way out of trouble, and caused untold misery to the population at large. Time and again, in police and Customs files he saw appeals for major investigations turned down because the resources weren’t available: it was too expensive to put together a case that was guaranteed to result in a conviction. And the powers-that-be couldn’t afford to move against the likes of Kerr without a guarantee of success. If the case collapsed they would look incompetent, so it was easier, and safer, not to try.

The Drugs Squad had tried working its way up the chain, picking up dealers on the street with balloons of heroin in their mouths, then using the threat of a jail sentence to get them to roll over on their supplier. They’d had some success, putting two major wholesalers away, but they couldn’t get near Kerr or his associates. People were simply too scared to give evidence against him.

Shepherd sat back and ran his hands through his hair. What about Angie? She, more than anyone, must know what her husband was capable of. Would she be prepared to go into the witness box and tell a court how he brought hundreds of kilos of heroin and cocaine into the country? And what about afterwards? If the Crown could find a non-corruptible jury and a judge who couldn’t be paid off or intimidated, and if Charlie Kerr was sent down for ten or fifteen years, what would happen to her? A lifetime in witness protection? Or a bullet in the head from the contract killer that Kerr would surely put on her trail to show the world that you never went up against Charlie Kerr?

Angie Kerr’s life as she knew it was about to end. If she refused to help the police she’d go to prison on conspiracy to murder. If she co-operated, she’d be in hiding for the rest of her life. And Shepherd knew that anyone could be found eventually, providing you had time and money. And Charlie Kerr had plenty of both.

Roger Sewell finished drying himself and tried to pull on the hotel robe. It would barely have fitted a man half his size and he couldn’t get it across his shoulders. He swore and flung it away from him. The hotel room was eight paces from door to window, and six from the bed’s headboard to the TV cabinet. Sewell knew this because he had spent the best part of the day pacing up and down, cursing Larry Hendrickson for wanting him dead, and the police for keeping him locked in a room the size of a cell. He’d only agreed to co-operate in the first place because he wanted to see Hendrickson behind bars, but right now Hendrickson was probably wining and dining a couple of escort girls in one of Manchester’s top clubs.

Sewell glared at the half-eaten cheeseburger and chips on the dressing-table. He hadn’t stayed in anything below four stars since his teenage years. The food was terrible and they didn’t have a bottle of wine for more than twenty pounds. Sewell wouldn’t ask a dog to live in the place, but the cops seemed to think it was acceptable to ask him to stay put for another two days. And Sewell hadn’t been fooled by the smooth-talking Superintendent Hargrove. Something had obviously gone wrong and they wanted to keep him on ice until they’d covered their arses. He didn’t believe Hargrove’s story about there being another contract. They’d screwed up their investigation and Sewell was paying the price.

He wrapped a towel around his waist, picked up the remote control and flicked through the TV channels. Nothing but soap operas and quiz shows. There were at least three policemen downstairs so there was no way he could leave the hotel. When they’d first told him about Hendrickson’s plan, they’d asked him not to tell anyone else, not even his family. Not that Sewell had much in the way of family. A mother in a nursing-home in North Wales, a sister who’d got halfway round the world during her gap year, married an Australian and never come home, and a couple of elderly aunts. If Sewell died, the only people at his funeral would be business acquaintances – he had fewer friends than he had relatives. He had followed instructions and no one knew where he was. But that meant he didn’t know what Hendrickson was doing with the company, or its money. If Hendrickson was sure he’d got away with murdering Sewell, he wouldn’t hurry to take over the company. He would probably wait a few days before he reported him missing, then bring in his own man as cosignatory on the bank accounts and sell the company. He had been pestering Sewell to sell for the past three years but he had always refused. Sewell owned seventy per cent of the shares so there was no way Hendrickson could sell without his agreement. Or death.

Everything depended on Hendrickson being convinced that no one suspected he had murdered his partner. If Hendrickson knew the police were closing in on him, he’d probably empty the bank accounts and make a run for it. Some offshore accounts could be accessed 24/7, and it wouldn’t take more than a few phone calls to transfer around half a million pounds out of the business. If Hendrickson realised the police were on to him, that would be more than enough running-away money.

Sewell picked up the hotel phone and pressed nine for an outside line. He smiled as he got a dial tone. He was fed up to the back teeth of following instructions. He could call his lawyer, John Garden, and at least check up on the bank accounts to see if Hendrickson had been making unexpected withdrawals. A few minutes on the phone would either put his mind at rest or confirm his worst fears. Garden had been on Sewell’s payroll for almost ten years and he trusted him as much as he trusted anyone.

Sewell tapped out the number of his lawyer, but before he’d hit the fifth digit a brusque voice was on the line: ‘Sir, who are you trying to call?’

‘That’s none of your business,’ said Sewell.

‘I’ve been instructed not to let you make any phone calls,’ said the man.

Sewell recognised the voice of the sergeant who’d brought him to the hotel in the first place. ‘I want my laptop brought in, and I need cash.’

‘No visitors, sir. Those are my orders.’

‘You tell me I can order food to be brought in, but I have to use cash and I’m down to my last twenty quid.’

‘I’ll speak to the superintendent,’ said the sergeant.

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said Sewell. ‘I’m cooperating, I’m doing everything you ask – all I want is my laptop and some cash.’

‘Like I said, sir, I’ll speak to the superintendent.’

‘I want to talk to my lawyer,’ said Sewell, forcefully.

‘I can’t allow that, sir,’ said the sergeant, ‘without the superintendent’s say-so.’

‘Isn’t there something called habeas corpus?’ said Sewell. ‘A lawyer has the right of access to his client?’

‘That applies to people in custody, sir,’ said the sergeant.

‘Well what do you call this?’ asked Sewell. ‘It’s worse than prison.’

‘I think that’s an exaggeration, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’ve visited a few in my time and I don’t remember one with room service.’

‘Listen, you sarcastic piece of shit, either I talk to my lawyer tonight or I set fire to my room. There’s no way you’ll be able to keep me here if the place burns down.’

‘That would be a very foolish thing to do, sir.’

‘Tell Hargrove I want to talk to my lawyer or I start lighting matches.’ Sewell slammed down the phone. He picked up his room-service tray and threw it against the wall.

It was just after nine o’clock when Keith Rose got home. As he pulled into the drive he saw his wife at the sitting-room window. She waved and disappeared. He drove into the garage and went through the internal door to the kitchen. Tracey was in her pink dressing-gown, pouring boiling water into two mugs. ‘Sorry I’m late, love,’ he said, putting his hands on her hips and nuzzling her neck.

‘You need a bath,’ she said, stirring sugar into one of the mugs of coffee.

‘How was she today?’ he asked, stroking his wife’s long auburn hair.

‘Not good,’ said Tracey. She turned and linked her arms round his neck, kissing him hard on the lips.

Rose broke away first. ‘Is she asleep?’

‘Just dropped off.’

‘I’ll go up and see her.’

Tracey released him. ‘Was it bad?’ she asked.

Rose frowned, not understanding what she meant.

‘Gatwick. The surveillance.’

‘Waste of a weekend,’ he said. ‘All foreplay and no orgasm.’

Tracey smiled coyly. ‘I’ll see if I can remedy that,’ she said. ‘Go and see your little girl, then come to bed.’

Rose went upstairs. Kelly’s bedroom door was ajar and a nightlight cast shadows from the toys scattered around the room. He sat down on the bed, taking care not to disturb the drip line that ran across the sheet and into her left forearm. He ran his hand down the side of her face. There were dark patches under her eyes and her chest barely moved as she breathed.

‘It’s going to be okay, sweetheart,’ Rose whispered. ‘Daddy’s going to do whatever it takes to make you better.’

The phone rang. Sewell slid off the bed and padded over to answer it.

It was Superintendent Hargrove. ‘I gather you’re not happy, Mr Sewell.’

‘Damn right I’m not,’ said Sewell. ‘Your Rottweilers won’t even let me talk to my lawyer.’

‘What do you intend to talk to him about?’ asked Hargrove.

‘No one knows where I am and I need someone on my side.’ Sewell thought it best not to mention that he wanted Garden to check up on his firm’s financial status.

‘As we prevented your murder, you can assume we’re on your side, Mr Sewell. Your partner was looking for a hitman. If we hadn’t presented him with our man, you’d be lying in a shallow grave in the New Forest with a bullet in your skull.’

Sewell sighed. Every conversation he had with the superintendent went around in circles. ‘Fine. I’m grateful. But I need to know my legal position.’

‘You’re helping us put a criminal behind bars.’

‘But I’m the one who’s being held at the moment.’

‘It won’t be for long, Mr Sewell.’

‘Two days, you said. Which means one more day to go.’ Sewell sensed hesitation in the superintendent. ‘One more day to go, right?’ he pressed. ‘I’m out tomorrow?’

‘I hope so,’ said Hargrove.

‘You’d better do more than hope,’ said Sewell. ‘Look, I can go at any time, can I?’

‘I’d rather you didn’t, but I can’t stop you. You don’t need a lawyer to tell you that.’

‘You’re saying I can go home now?’

‘Yes, Mr Sewell, but I’d rather you didn’t. As soon as Hendrickson sees you he’ll know he’s been set up.’

‘So you’ll have to arrest him?’

‘Probably. Which means that our secondary investigation gets blown out of the water.’

‘So?’

‘Another potential murderer will get away with it.’

‘Like I said, so?’

‘What if you were the potential victim, Mr Sewell? What if we needed someone else to stay hidden for a few days so that we could catch Hendrickson in the act? Wouldn’t you want that person to co-operate?’

‘There you go again,’ said Sewell. ‘Now it’s a few days. You said two before.’

The superintendent sighed. ‘I’m as unhappy about this as you are,’ he said, ‘but we now have a second ongoing investigation. Another contract has come to light, and we want the same man who nailed your partner to go after this person. If you surface, Hendrickson will tip off the other person and all hell will break loose. And you will put my man at risk.’

‘Have you got Hendrickson under surveillance?’

‘We know where he is.’

Sewell pounced on the evasion. ‘Do you have men watching him?’

‘We don’t have a car outside his house, but we have him red-flagged at all ports and airports. If he was going to run, we’d know. We’re watching his credit-card activity so we’ll know if he buys a ticket to go anywhere. He doesn’t suspect anything so there’s no reason for him to run. He thinks he got away with murdering you. Provided you stay where you are, that won’t change.’

‘I want my laptop,’ said Sewell. ‘I’ve got work to do.’

‘I can’t allow you to send emails,’ said Hargrove.

‘You’re monitoring all calls so you’d hear if I fired up the modem. Look, I’m not asking for much. My laptop – and I need cash. Someone told the Rottweilers I can’t use my credit cards and I’m running low on funds.’

‘I’ll sort that out,’ said Hargrove.

‘And my computer?’

‘Where is it?’ asked Hargrove.

‘In the boot of my car.’

‘The car in your garage? The BMW?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Okay. Give your keys to the sergeant on duty and I’ll pick it up for you. I’ll drop it round tomorrow.’

‘If you don’t, I’m walking.’

‘The sergeant says you were threatening arson.’

‘That’s still a possibility,’ said Sewell, and hung up before the superintendent could respond.

Shepherd was making himself a cup of coffee when one of his mobile phones rang. He had three lined up on the kitchen table. One was personal, one was the phone Hargrove used to contact him, the third, which was ringing, was for his current operation. He picked it up. It was Angie Kerr. He pressed the green button to take the call. ‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Is that Tony?’

‘Yeah. Have you got the money?’

‘Yes. And the photographs. Can you see me today?’

‘The sooner the better,’ said Shepherd. He looked at his watch. It was ten thirty. His car was already wired for sound and vision but it would take at least an hour for the surveillance team to get into position. ‘How about midday?’

‘Okay. Piccadilly Gardens again?’

‘No,’ said Shepherd. ‘From now on I call the shots. You’re not handing money to me in a crowded square. We do it where no one can see us.’ He wanted it captured on video and the only way to do that was in his car. ‘Where are you now?’

‘Home. Charlie went out and said he wouldn’t be back all day.’

‘And there’s no problem with you leaving the house?’

‘No, I’m here on my own.’

‘Better make it some distance away,’ said Shepherd. ‘Do you know Altrincham? There’s a Safeway supermarket there.’ It was a ten-minute drive from Hale Barnes, a small town that had long ago been engulfed by Greater Manchester.

‘I know it.’

‘I’ll be in a grey Volvo. Drive around the car park until you see me, then park away from me. Don’t look at me. Get out of your car and go into the supermarket. That’ll give me a chance to check that you’re not being followed. Wait two minutes, then walk out. If I’m sitting with both hands on the steering-wheel, it’s safe to come to my car. If my hands aren’t on the wheel the meeting’s cancelled and you wait for me to call you. Have you got that?’

‘Yes, but who do you think’ll be following me?’

‘Better safe than sorry,’ he said curtly. ‘Just do as I say. Be there at noon.’ He cut the connection.

Hargrove parked down the road from Sewell’s house, then sat in the car to check that he hadn’t been followed – from force of habit rather than genuine concern. He got out of the car, turned up the collar of his coat and kept his head down as he walked to the garage door. He unlocked it and pushed it upwards, slipped inside, flicked the light switch and pulled the door down.

The laptop was on the back seat of the car in a black nylon case. Hargrove picked it up and was heading to the garage door when he saw the door that led through to the house. He stopped and looked at it, then tried the handle. It opened. Hargrove smiled to himself. He had no authority to search Sewell’s house, but the man had given him the keys. He went through into the kitchen and put the laptop on the table.

All the equipment and appliances were stainless steel and didn’t appear to have been used. The refrigerator contained bottles of Bollinger and imported lager. There was a stainless-steel bread bin, but it was empty, and Hargrove couldn’t find any food in the cupboards. Menus from various local restaurants hung on a hook by the oven and a carrier-bag containing the remnants of a Chinese takeaway was in the steel bin by the door.

There was a big-screen plasma television on the sitting-room wall and a state-of-the-art sound system with DVD recorder and satellite receiver. The furniture was black leather, the coffee-tables mainly glass, and there was a black-wood sideboard loaded with bottles of spirits. Hargrove could see why Sewell wasn’t enjoying his stay in the hotel.

He went back into the kitchen and switched on the laptop. It was a new model Sony with wi-fi to connect it to the Internet via wireless. There was also a modem. Hargrove found a connecting cable in the nylon case and slipped it into his pocket. He couldn’t afford to have Sewell prowling around the Internet. There was nothing he could do about the wi-fi other than to check there was no signal in the hotel. He doubted there would be – it didn’t have satellite TV or a business centre.

Hargrove’s fingers played across the keyboard. He ran Sewell’s Outlook Express program, then went through his Inbox and Sent Items folders. His mail seemed to consist of two sections: office correspondence and contacts from an adult matchmaking service. Hargrove read through more than fifty replies from women who thought that Sewell was a handsome twenty-five-year-old with blond hair, a six-pack abdomen and a sexual organ that would put an elephant’s to shame. He had clearly posted someone else’s photograph on the website and was reaping the benefits. Many of the emails in his Inbox had photographs attached, and in most of the pictures the women were naked. Hargrove didn’t know if Sewell ever met any of them or if he just got a kick from reading their replies, but he’d have some explaining to do if they met him. The real Sewell was neither handsome nor twenty-five; he didn’t have a six-pack or blond hair.

The office correspondence was far less racy but even more interesting. There were emails going back nine months from Larry Hendrickson, pressing Sewell to agree to sell his company to a London firm. The offer had been raised from an initial £750,000 to just under two million. There were no copies of the replies Sewell had sent, but it was obvious that Hendrickson had been getting increasingly desperate. His emails initially detailed the financial reasons for a sale, then practically begged Sewell to accept the deal. The last few were terse. Not threatening, nothing that could be used in court, but it was clear that the two men were no longer friends. The bigger chunk of the shares was owned by Sewell, who had founded the company, but Hendrickson would still be in line for almost half a million pounds. That alone was worth killing for, but with Sewell out of the way Hendrickson stood to gain control of the whole company.

Hargrove switched off the laptop, closed it and put it back into the case. He drove to Altrincham and dropped off the laptop at the local police station with a chief inspector who owed him a few favours. The man promised to get the laptop to the Leeds hotel by nightfall. Hargrove thanked him and headed off to meet the surveillance van. It would soon be time for Shepherd’s meeting with Angie Kerr.

Shepherd parked his Volvo in a space well away from the building. Supermarket car parks were his favourite place for a meeting. No one was surprised to see a man sitting alone in his car: they assumed that he was waiting for his wife. There were always plenty of people about, which meant that faces tended not to be recognised.

Hargrove’s surveillance van drove slowly round the car park, then reversed into a space in the far corner.

‘Check for sound,’ said Shepherd. The van’s lights flashed once. There were two microphones, one in the passenger-side ventilation duct, the other in the hands-free telephone.

‘Check for vision,’ he said. The van’s lights flashed again. There were two tiny video cameras in the car, one down in the passenger-side footwell, the other in the overhead light fitting. Both microphones and cameras were linked to a transmitter in the boot of the Volvo and the sound and images could be heard and seen up to a mile away. Shepherd had a gun under the passenger seat, a SIG-Sauer with seven cartridges in the clip. He wasn’t expecting trouble from Angie, but her husband was a different matter.

He scanned the vehicles in the car park. Nothing out of the ordinary. He slid into character. He was Tony Nelson, hitman for hire. Former paratrooper turned mercenary who’d fought for the highest bidder in the Balkans before moving into private practice. No wife, no children, parents long since dead, in a car accident caused by a drunk driver, and a sister he hadn’t seen for ten years. There was nothing about Tony Nelson that Shepherd didn’t know; there was no question that could be asked of him to which he didn’t know the answer. That was the way it had to be.

Shepherd saw Angie at the wheel of a Jaguar, crawling between the ranks of parked cars. A large red motorcycle peeled away from the supermarket entrance and headed down the road. A woman in a Mini sounded her horn impatiently, but Angie continued to drive slowly until she spotted Shepherd at the wheel of the Volvo. She smiled instinctively, then bit her lower lip and looked away as she remembered she wasn’t supposed to acknowledge him until she’d been inside the supermarket.

She found a parking space and walked into the shop. She was wearing a well-cut blazer over a white polo-neck sweater, faded blue denims and high-heeled boots. Her body language screamed that she knew Shepherd was watching her: her back was ramrod straight and her right hand gripped the strap of her shoulder-bag as if her life depended on it. Shepherd knew that looking relaxed when you were scared was one of the hardest things to pull off. Feigning anger, aggression, fear or any strong emotion was easy, but being normal when your life was on the line was a skill that came only with years of experience.

Shepherd placed his gloved hands on the steering-wheel and waited for her to reappear. He glanced at the surveillance van. The cab was empty. The driver had moved into the back and was probably waiting to snap Angie with a long lens. Hargrove would be sitting with his headphones on and sipping the Evian water he always had by his side on surveillance operations.

When Shepherd looked back at the supermarket, Angie was already heading his way. He avoided eye-contact until she slid into the passenger seat. ‘It’s the last car I’d expect you to have,’ she said.

‘That’s why I drive it,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s a family car so anyone driving one is assumed to be a family man.’

‘Your whole life is like that, I suppose,’ she said. ‘Layers and layers of disguise. Do you even know who you are?’

It was a good question, thought Shepherd, one that got to the heart of his undercover work. He had assumed so many identities over the years that sometimes even he wondered who Dan Shepherd really was. Or if he existed any more. But it wasn’t a question he wanted to address now. He was Tony Nelson, hired killer. ‘Do you have the money?’ he asked.

Angie reached into her bag and took out a thick envelope. It wasn’t sealed and Shepherd ran his thumb along the stack of fifty-pound notes. He slid it into his jacket pocket.

‘You said you wanted a photograph,’ she said, taking another envelope from her bag. ‘I brought a few.’

Shepherd flicked through them: Kerr lying on a sofa, grinning at the camera, Kerr sitting under a beach umbrella raising a bottle of Spanish beer, Kerr kneeling next to a golden retriever. ‘What’s the dog’s name?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Brinks,’ said Angie. ‘After Brinks Mat. All that gold bullion stolen from the airport. I wanted to call her Goldie but he said she was Brinks and that was the end of it.’

‘He wasn’t involved in the Brinks Mat robbery, was he? He’d only have been a teenager.’

‘His dad was,’ said Angie.

‘A family business, then?’

Angie shrugged. ‘Not really. Charlie didn’t have much to do with his father.’

‘Maybe that’s the problem,’said Shepherd.‘Maybe he’s spent his life trying to prove that he’s as big a man as his father was. Trying to win his approval through imitation.’

Angie tilted her head to one side. ‘That’s very perceptive, considering you’ve never met him,’ she said.

‘It’s common enough,’ said Shepherd.

‘What about you? Was your father a hired killer?’

‘My father was a baker. All I remember of him was the smell of flour.’

She smiled. ‘Don’t tell me you both needed the dough,’ she said.

Despite himself Shepherd laughed, and felt himself slip out of character. As Dan Shepherd, he liked the woman. But Tony Nelson wasn’t sitting in the Volvo with fifteen thousand pounds in his jacket pocket because he liked her. He was there to do a job. ‘Does he walk the dog on his own?’

Angie’s hand went up to her mouth. Her nails were a deep pink, Shepherd noticed. ‘Don’t do it in front of Brinks,’ she said. ‘Oh, God, that would be terrible.’

‘I need him to be on his own.’ Shepherd continued to flick through the photographs. Kerr standing with two men. Shepherd recognised them as Eddie Anderson and Ray Wates. Anderson was small and wiry with tight black curls. Wates was as tall as Kerr but broader, his head shaved. ‘Who are these guys?’ he asked Angie. One of the hardest things to do undercover was to compartmentalise what he knew and what others thought he knew. As Dan Shepherd he knew everything the police knew about Eddie Anderson and Ray Wates, but as Tony Nelson they were just faces in a photograph.

‘Eddie and Ray,’ she said. ‘They’re practically joined at the hip to Charlie these days.’ She tapped a fingernail on Anderson’s face. ‘That’s Eddie. He’s Charlie’s yes man. Everything Charlie says, Eddie agrees with him. He thinks the sun shines out of Charlie’s arse.’ She pointed to Wates’s burly chest. ‘Ray’s Charlie’s muscle. You wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.’

Shepherd nodded. Wates was a hard case, all right. He’d been sent down in his twenties on a seven stretch for GBH but had been released after four. Since he’d started working for Kerr he’d been charged by the police half a dozen times for threatening behaviour and assault, but witnesses had always failed to make it to court and Wates had walked each time.

‘They don’t stay at the house, though?’

‘Bloody right they don’t,’ said Angie. ‘But they’re there first thing in the morning and usually in for a nightcap last thing.’

‘Who drives your husband?’

‘Eddie.’

Shepherd took a pen and a notepad from his jacket pocket. He scribbled down the names. For her benefit, not his. ‘What’s your address?’

She told him and Shepherd wrote it down. It was a five-bedroom house with a double garage standing in almost an acre of gardens. There was a swimming-pool at the back and a tennis court. Shepherd had seen surveillance photographs and a floor plan of the internal layout.

‘And what car does he drive?’

He knew it was a black Range Rover, but Tony Nelson had to be spoon-fed the details.

Her mobile phone rang and she jumped as if she’d been stung. She fished it out of her bag and swore. ‘It’s him,’ she said. ‘Christ!’

‘Don’t answer it,’ he said.

‘He gets stroppy if he has to leave a message,’ she said. ‘Accuses me of all sorts.’ She pressed the button to take the call and put the phone to her ear. ‘Hiya,’ she said. Shepherd heard the stress in her voice. ‘At the supermarket,’she said.‘We needed wine.’ A pause. ‘That Frascati I like. We’re out of it.’ Another pause. ‘I know but I just felt like the Frascati.’ She bit her lower lip, her right hand clenched into fist. ‘Half an hour,’ she said. ‘I was going to get some seafood, too. Make a paella. Is that okay?’ The fist clenched and unclenched. ‘What time?’ She screwed up her face. ‘I’m not nagging,’ she said eventually. ‘I was just asking what . . . Hello? Charlie?’

She looked at Shepherd. ‘Hung up on me,’ she said, as she put her phone away. ‘He does that a lot.’

‘Was he giving you a hard time?’

‘He wanted to know why I wasn’t at home. Then when I asked what time he’d get back he went ballistic. Accused me of spying on him.’

‘How late does he stay out?’

‘Late. He comes back stinking of cheap perfume and thinks I won’t notice.’

‘The guys he does business with, do you know who they are?’

‘Why?’

‘I want to muddy the waters as much as possible,’ said Shepherd. ‘If I shoot him in the head in your back garden, the police will want to know where you were and if you and your husband had been rowing. If he gets shot in a Moss Side council block full of crack-heads and gang-bangers they’ll put it down to a business deal gone wrong. You said he dealt in cocaine. Does he sell it to crack dealers?’

‘He hates blacks,’ said Angie. ‘No way would he ever do business with them. Says they’d kill their own mothers for a tenner.’

‘What about South Americans? Last time we met you said he went to Miami twice a year. I figure it wasn’t for the sun, so who does he meet there?’

‘He never takes me,’ she said. ‘He says it’s business and I don’t know who he sees.’

Shepherd did. There were DEA files on the CD Hargrove had given him, along with photographs of Kerr meeting representatives of Carlos Rodriguez, one of Colombia’s most successful cocaine and heroin dealers. The DEA surveillance hadn’t produced any concrete evidence, but Shepherd doubted that the three-thousand-mile trip had been a social visit.

‘Does he take you to Spain?’ Kerr had a large villa overlooking Marbella. Six bedrooms, six bathrooms, and a pool twice the size of the one in Hale Barnes.

‘Three or four times a year,’ she said.

‘Does he go on his own?’

‘Why?’

‘I could do it there. If you were in the UK, no way would the police be looking at you. Shootings are ten a penny on the Costa del Crime.’

‘Usually I go with him, but I could come up with an excuse next time.’ She frowned. ‘Problem is, I don’t know when he’ll be going next. And I’d rather you did it sooner than later.’

‘Is there a rush?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s just that now I’ve decided I want it done, I want it done. I don’t want it hanging over me. Is it okay if I smoke?’

Shepherd nodded and she took a packet of Marlboro menthol out of her bag. She lit one and put the packet back. ‘Do you always ask this many questions?’ she asked. She opened the window and blew smoke through the gap.

‘The better prepared I am, the less chance there is of something going wrong,’ he said, ‘and from what you’ve told me, Charlie Kerr isn’t the typical target.’

‘What is typical?’ she asked.

‘Usually it’s a business disagreement that can’t be solved any other way. Or a way of teaching somebody a lesson.’

She chuckled throatily. ‘You don’t teach somebody a lesson by killing them,’ she said.

‘No, but you can kill someone as a warning to others,’ he said.

‘And you’ve done that?’

‘I do what I’m paid to do,’ he said. ‘You asked what a typical job was.’

‘You don’t have many wronged wives contacting you, then?’

‘Most wronged wives head for a solicitor,’ said Shepherd.

‘You think I’m being a bit drastic, don’t you?’

Shepherd didn’t reply.

Angie turned to him and pulled down the neck of her sweater. Just below the collar bone, on her right breast, was a circular scab. A cigarette burn, healing nicely. ‘Last time we had an argument, he did this to me. He’d had a bit to drink. Said he was sorry afterwards, said he only did it because he loves me so much, but it wasn’t the first time and I doubt it’ll be the last.’ She let go of the sweater and took a drag on the cigarette. ‘Bastard,’ she hissed.

‘How much is he worth, your husband?’

‘Not planning to raise your price, are you?’ she asked.

‘Just background,’ he said.

‘Forewarned is forearmed?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Seven million, give or take,’ she said.

‘And do you know where it all is?’

‘It’s not buried under the swimming-pool, if that’s what you mean.’

‘What I mean is that, once he’s dead, you’ll have to make sure you can get your hands on his assets. Most heavy criminals hide their ill-gotten gains and if your husband’s done that you might find you’re penniless when he’s gone.’

Angie smiled thinly. ‘Most of the bank accounts are in my name,’ she said. ‘I’m the majority owner of most of his businesses. In fact, nothing’s in his name. He doesn’t even have a credit card. Says the filth can track you anywhere you go if you use plastic.’

He was right. One of the easiest ways to keep someone under surveillance was to watch their credit-card spending. Restaurants, hotels, plane tickets. It was indelible proof of where a target had been. The smart ones stuck to cash. And the really smart ones made sure that no assets were in their name.

‘So, you’re going to do it?’ she asked. She flicked the stub of her cigarette through the window.

‘I’ve taken your money,’ he said. ‘It’s as good as done.’

‘When?’

‘Give me a day or two. I’ll have to watch him for a while, get used to his habits.’

‘What if he sees you?’

‘He won’t.’

‘He’s edgy. Thinks the cops are watching him. Doesn’t discuss business on a land line, only uses pay-as-you-go mobiles.’

‘If the cops are watching him, I’ll spot them,’ said Shepherd. He knew they weren’t. Hargrove had checked with the head of the Greater Manchester Police Drugs Squad and been told that Kerr wasn’t under active surveillance.

‘And if they are?’

‘It’ll make it more difficult, that’s all. Once I’ve accepted a job, Mrs Kerr, I follow it through, come what may.’

‘Tony,’ she said. ‘You and I are about as close to each other as two people can get without having sex, right?’

Shepherd laughed again, then forced himself to straighten his face.

‘You look different when you smile,’ she said.

‘Everybody does,’ he replied.

‘No, you look like a totally different person.’

‘I don’t have too much to smile about in this line of work,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s not like I get to see people in their best light. I’ll call you once I’ve decided when and where.’

‘And I fix up an alibi?’

‘The more people the better. Ideally somewhere with CCTV. You mentioned the casino last time. That’s the perfect place.’

‘Will I see you again?’

‘Afterwards. To pay me the rest of the money.’

‘So that’s it, then?’

‘That’s it,’ said Shepherd.

She opened the door and climbed out of the Volvo, then leaned back in. ‘I’m not a hard-hearted bitch, you know.’

‘I never said you were,’ he said.

‘And it’s not about the money. I couldn’t give a shit about how much he’s got. It’s just . . .’

‘You’re scared,’ he finished for her. ‘You’re scared of what he might do to you.’

‘He’s always said he’d rather I was dead than with someone else.’ She slammed the door and walked towards the supermarket.

Shepherd leaned his head on the rest. So that was that. He had the money in his pocket and she’d handed it to him with bare hands so her fingerprints would be on the envelope. He had her on video discussing the murder of her husband. Life behind bars. Unless she co-operated.

One of his mobiles rang. He was carrying two, the one used by Tony Nelson and the other to take calls from Hargrove. It was the latter. ‘Excellent, Spider,’ said Hargrove. ‘Perfect sound and vision.’

‘Now what?’

‘I’ll run it by the CPS.’

‘Are we going to use her to get the husband?’

‘Doesn’t sound like she’s got much to offer,’ said the superintendent.

‘She knows where the money is,’ said Shepherd. ‘And we could use her in Spain.’

‘You heard what she said, Spider. She doesn’t know when he’ll be over there again.’

‘So she gets thrown to the wolves?’

‘She’s conspiring to commit murder, not shoplifting a can of catfood,’ said Hargrove. ‘Look, it’s been a stressful couple of days. Take an early bath, you’ve earned it.’

‘Thanks,’ said Shepherd. He cut the connection and tapped the phone against his chin. He wasn’t proud of himself. Angie Kerr was a victim, yet the full weight of the law would be used against her. If there had been any justice in the world the authorities would have moved against her husband years ago. But it was always easier to go for the soft targets.

He drove back to the rented flat and changed into his running gear. At the bottom of the wardrobe there was an old canvas rucksack containing half a dozen housebricks wrapped in newspaper, a habit from his SAS days. A run without weight on his back wasn’t a challenge. And he didn’t wear state-of-the-art nylon trainers stitched together by Chinese juveniles earning a dollar a day: he ran in army boots. For Shepherd running wasn’t a fashion statement, it was a way of keeping his body at the level of fitness his job required.

He took the stairs down to the ground floor and pushed through the double glass doors that led out to the pavement. It didn’t matter whether he ran in the city or through woodland. After the first ten minutes he wasn’t aware of his surroundings. Now he ran on automatic pilot, his thoughts never far from Angie Kerr and the unfairness of it all.

Angie parked next to her husband’s Range Rover. She picked up the supermarket carrier-bags from the passenger seat – the ingredients for paella and three bottles of Frascati. She liked the Italian wine. Her husband was always getting her to drink expensive champagne when they were out but she preferred Frascati. It was smoother and didn’t have the acidic aftertaste she always got from champagne.

She unlocked the front door. ‘Charlie, it’s me,’ she called, but there was no reply. She went through to the kitchen and put the wine in the fridge.

‘Where were you?’ said her husband. She jumped. She hadn’t heard him come up behind her. He was leaning against the doorway, a smile on his face.

‘I told you. Shopping.’

‘You were gone almost two hours.’ He enunciated each word as if he was speaking to someone who had to lip-read.

‘Charlie, I had to park, I had to get the food. The supermarket was busy.’

‘It’s Monday. It’s never busy on a Monday. And you went to the supermarket on Saturday.’

‘For general food shopping. But I wanted more Frascati. And I said I’d make paella, right?’

Kerr nodded at the carrier-bag on the kitchen table. ‘So that’s why you were gone so long, yeah? For paella and cheap Italian plonk.’

‘And petrol.’

Kerr lit a cigarette and blew smoke at her. ‘So you filled up the Jag?’

Angie nodded.

Kerr took another long drag on his cigarette, held the smoke in his lungs, then exhaled through clenched teeth, all the time watching his wife’s face. ‘So,’ he said, ‘if we go outside and check, the tank’ll be full, will it?’

‘Charlie, why are you doing this?’ she whispered.

‘Because I don’t like being lied to. In fact, I hate it – hate it more than anything. And you know why?’

Angie knew. He’d told her a hundred times or more.

‘Tell me why I hate being lied to.’

‘Because it means people think they’re smarter than you. When they’re not.’

Kerr smiled.‘That’s right. And do you think you’re smarter than me?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’

He pushed himself away from the door and walked across the kitchen, passing so close that she could smell his aftershave. She stiffened when he drew level with her but she forced herself not to flinch because she knew he would take that as a sign of guilt. Her heart pounded and her mouth was dry, but she tried not to swallow. He picked up the carrier-bag and looked inside. ‘Paella,’ he said.

‘I know you like paella.’

‘You like paella,’ he said. ‘I’m more of a lobster man.’

‘You know you can’t get decent lobster in Manchester,’ she said.

‘Not a patch on Spanish lobster, you’re right there,’ he said. He put the carrier-bag down on the work surface. ‘So, let’s go and have a look at the Jag, shall we?’

‘Charlie . . .’

‘What?’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Want to change your story? A last-minute amendment to the details of where the hell you’ve been for the last two hours?’

Angie felt tears spring to her eyes and blinked them away. He took a perverse pleasure in making her cry, then having sex with her as the tears ran down her face. It wasn’t making love – it wasn’t even sex. It was rape. Without love, without tenderness, just grunts, curses and threats of what he wanted to do to her. It was hardly ever in bed, either. It was in the kitchen, over the back of one of the sofas in the sitting room, or against a bathroom wall. He was always sorry afterwards. Or he said he was. He’d stroke her hair and kiss her neck and say he really loved her, that it was only because he loved her so much that he hurt her. And he made her a promise as he stroked her hair and kissed her neck: if she ever left him, if he ever thought she was going to leave him, he’d kill her. Because he loved her so much.

‘I went to the supermarket for the shopping and I got petrol,’ she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. She kept smiling at him because he’d take any other facial expression as an excuse to get physical – a push, a pinch, a slap. Then her tears and the violence.

He took a step towards her and raised his cigarette. She flinched. He grinned and put the cigarette slowly to his lips. He inhaled slowly and the tip went bright red. Then he took it out of his mouth and held it a few inches from her left cheek. Her face ached from smiling. She knew he wouldn’t stub it out on her face. He was too clever for that. When he marked her it was on a place no one else would see.

‘Let’s have a look, shall we?’ he said. He blew smoke into her face. ‘Got the keys?’

‘Sure,’ said Angie.

He walked into the hallway. Angie followed him. Kerr opened the front door and headed for the Jaguar. He stopped when he reached the driver’s side and held out his hand. Angie gave him the keys. He pressed the electronic tag and the locks clicked open. ‘You okay?’ he asked her.

‘Fine,’ she said.

‘Anything you want to say?’

Angie shook her head.

Kerr opened the door and the internal light winked on. He slid on to the driver’s seat and inserted the ignition key. He peered at the fuel gauge. The needle swung up to the full position. Kerr stared at it for several seconds, then pulled out the key and climbed out of the car. He closed the door and tossed the keys to his wife. ‘Come on, let’s have a drink,’ he said. ‘I’ll open a bottle of Dom.’

He went into the house. Angie stared after him, her hands trembling.

The phone woke Shepherd from a dreamless sleep and he fumbled for it. ‘Are you awake, Spider?’

‘I am now,’ said Shepherd, rubbing his face.

‘I’ve had a word with the CPS and NCIS. They’re all getting very hot over Angie Kerr.’

‘Yeah, well, she’s a sexy girl.’

‘The initial response is that they want her turned,’ said Hargrove. ‘They don’t feel they’ve any other way of nailing her husband.’

‘Which says a lot about the sad state of policing in this country, doesn’t it?’

‘Now, now, Spider, you’re getting all bitter and twisted.’

‘He’s a criminal, right? I’ve read the files you gave me. MI5, the Church, the Manchester cops, they all know he’s bad. Even the DEA’s been on his case in Miami. But no one does anything.’

‘It’s a question of resources, you know that. Even we have to choose whom we assist. My unit gets hundreds of requests every year, but we take on a couple of dozen at most.’

‘A guy like Kerr should be a priority, that’s all I’m saying.’

‘There are hundreds of Kerrs in the UK. Thousands, maybe. We have to choose our targets carefully.’

‘We take the cases we know we’ll win, is that what you’re saying?’

‘What’s the alternative? We spend our time chasing dead ends? There’s no point in mounting an investigation if we know we’re going to fail. You have to play the odds. A guy like Hendrickson, we know we can put him away. Kerr’s a bigger fish and you need a bigger hook to catch him.’

‘And Angie Kerr is the hook?’

‘Hopefully,’ said Hargrove. ‘The Drugs Squad and the Church can act on anything she gives them.’

‘He’ll kill her,’ said Shepherd grimly.

‘She’ll be protected,’ said Hargrove. ‘Look, this isn’t a conversation for the phone, and I need to run something else by you. You know the pub by the canal, the place where we first discussed the Hendrickson case?’

‘Sure.’

‘Can you be there at eleven?’

Shepherd squinted at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was just after nine. Plenty of time. ‘Yeah.’

‘See you, then,’ said the superintendent. ‘And remember, we’re on the same side here. I’m no happier about using Angie Kerr than you are, but sometimes the end justifies the means.’

Shepherd pulled on an old pair of shorts and a tattered T-shirt and went for a short run, a quick two kilometres without the rucksack, then shaved, showered and changed into a pullover and jeans. He retrieved his leather jacket from the sofa where he’d thrown it the previous night and headed out, picking up a coffee from his local Starbucks as he walked to the meeting-place. The pub was only fifteen minutes from his apartment, on the edge of the city’s vibrant Canal Street gay area.

Hargrove was sitting on a wooden bench outside the pub. He stood up as Shepherd approached, and the two men walked along the canal path.

‘Two guys taking an early-morning stroll, people will get the wrong idea,’ said Shepherd.

‘Since when have you cared what people think?’ said Hargrove. ‘Besides, you’re not my type.’

As ever, the superintendent was immaculately dressed: a well-cut cashmere overcoat over a blue Savile Row pinstripe suit, starched white shirt with cufflinks in the shape of cricket bats, and an MCC tie. ‘I could be your bit of rough,’ said Shepherd.

‘You’ve been up north too long,’ said Hargrove. ‘You’re developing the northern sarcasm.’

‘Aye, and I’ve started eating mushy peas, too. But you’re right, I wouldn’t mind being closer to home.’

‘That’s good, because I need you on another job in London, ASAP.’

Shepherd grimaced. ‘I was hoping for a few days off. It’s been a while since I saw Liam.’

‘This is urgent, I’m afraid.’

‘It always is,’ said Shepherd, and regretted it. No one forced him to do the work he did. He was an undercover cop by choice and could walk away any time he wanted to. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve been in Tony Nelson’s skin too long.’

‘Well, you’ll be leaving him behind for this next case,’ said the superintendent. ‘You’ll be a cop. Investigating cops.’

Shepherd groaned. An operation against other cops was dirty work at best, dangerous at worst, and he’d tried to steer clear of it. ‘Can’t IIC handle it?’

‘Not this one. We need someone with your specialist knowledge.’

‘Specifically?’

‘Your ability to handle automatic weapons. No one in the Internal Investigation Command has your military background, and while most of my people are proficient with handguns, I need someone familiar with carbines. Especially the MP5, which is what the SO19 guys use.’

The Heckler & Koch was the weapon of choice in the SAS, and Hargrove was right. Even four years after leaving the regiment, Shepherd knew he could take apart and reassemble the weapon blindfold, and it wouldn’t take him more than a few hours on the range to be as accurate as he ever was. The MP5 was a simple enough weapon, but few police officers were trained in its use. The Diplomatic Protection Group used them. So did the Met’s armed-response units.

‘We think the Met might have a rogue armed-response unit,’ said Hargrove. ‘Rogue as in they’ve either gone vigilante or they’re ripping off drugs-dealers at gunpoint.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Shepherd.

‘Yeah, tell me about it,’ said Hargrove. ‘The commissioner’s one unhappy bunny.’

‘If it’s cut and dried, why do they need us?’

‘Because it isn’t. All the Met has is circumstantial.’

‘No smoking gun?’ said Shepherd.

‘Just a roomful of dead drugs-dealers and a cop who’s disappeared.’

‘So you want me to do what? Infiltrate the gang and get them to take me on their next heist?’

‘Your intuition never ceases to amaze me, Spider.’

Shepherd’s eyebrows headed skywards. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘I’m afraid I am.’

Shepherd put his hands into his jacket pockets. ‘Investigating cops is always messy.’

‘It doesn’t come messier.’

‘Plus, they can spot undercover cops. They know the signs.’

‘You’ll be in as a cop. We can stick close to your true background.’

‘Not my name, though. Shit hits the fan, I want to disappear.’

‘I’ll get a legend sorted by tomorrow evening. We can use the SAS background but say you left because you couldn’t hack it, then seven years up in Scotland. Strathclyde, maybe. The three men we’re looking at are all London boys, never been north of the border.’

‘They can pick up a phone,’ said Shepherd.

‘I’ll have it covered,’ said Hargrove. ‘You don’t go in unless your legend’s watertight.’

‘I’d rather we didn’t use the SAS. I don’t want them asking for war stories. Let’s say I was in the Paras.’

‘Agreed,’ said Hargrove. ‘I’ll get our background boys to draw something up and run it by you at the end of the week. I’ll get a car sorted. We’ll play you having money problems and looking to make a fast buck.’

‘So they ask me to take part in the robberies? How likely is that?’

‘I want you looking corruptible. It might get them talking.’

Shepherd wasn’t convinced it would be that easy to get maverick cops to open up to him. ‘So, what’s the story?’ he asked.

‘Last week two drugs-dealers were shot dead in a Harlesden crack house. It took the police the best part of an hour to force their way in and by then the shooters had gone out the back way. There was a witness alive in the house and another in a lock-up. All they can tell us is that the robbers were white and that there were three, two in the house and one who was outside most of the time. They wore dark clothing and rubber masks. When the shooting started two of the witnesses were bound, gagged and face down, so they don’t know what happened. But one of the dead Yardies had a .22 that had been fired five times. Only two of the bullets have been accounted for.’

‘So one or more of them was hit?’

‘The witnesses say that one of the Yardies who died screamed something about a vest. Then one of the robbers yelled that he was hit.’

‘Why do you think it was cops?’ asked Shepherd.

‘The forensics boys got hold of a decent slug from one of the dead Yardies, ran it through the Scotland Yard database, and that’s when it all got interesting.’

‘In what way?’

‘The bullet came from a .45 Python that was used in a robbery in South London last year. They got the guy, a Clapham blagger by the name of Joey Davies. He’s doing a fifteen stretch in Parkhurst. They never found the gun.’

‘Guns are bought and sold.’

‘Of course they are. But Davies always claimed that the Python was in his flat when he was busted. The police found two other guns, but not the Python. First guys into the flat were an SO19 Trojan unit, which included one of the guys we think has gone bad. Keith Rose.’

‘So this Rose picks up a gun last year and saves it for a rainy day?’

‘Looks that way.’

‘So why don’t the rubber-heels boys pick him up and sweat him?’

‘Because he’s been a cop for fifteen years so he’s not going to sweat, and because all we’ve got is circumstantial and hypothesis. We have a bullet, we don’t have a gun. And we have witnesses who can only remember Frankenstein and alien masks and dark clothing.’

‘It’s possible that the gun was stolen but sold on to a gang with a grudge against the Yardies.’

‘It’s possible, but this doesn’t feel like a gang fight to me. If it was, they’d have killed everyone. It’s more like a robbery that went wrong. The way we see it, the robbers got in and overpowered the two Yardies, then waited for the rest of the guys to come back. One of the Yardies pulled a gun and all hell broke loose. Then the robbers bailed out.’

‘Presumably the Yardies won’t say what was taken?’

‘They deny there were drugs in the flat. There was crack-processing equipment in the attic and a safe with twenty grand in it. Twenty grand doesn’t seem much, so I think it’s safe to assume that the robbers got away with drugs or cash. Maybe both.’

A narrow boat put-putted past them. A big man wearing a brown-leather jerkin and a floppy felt hat waved a can of Carlsberg in salute, his other hand on the tiller. Hargrove smiled back.

‘I’m missing the obvious, aren’t I?’ said Shepherd.

‘Maybe,’ said the superintendent.

Shepherd ran through everything Hargrove had told him. ‘One of the robbers was hit,’ he said eventually.

The superintendent smiled. ‘Exactly.’

‘Do any of the SO19 guys have any unexplained injuries?’

‘One has disappeared. Andy Ormsby had only been with them six months. Didn’t turn up for work the day after the robbery. After three days the police broke into his flat and it looked as if he’d just packed a suitcase and left.’

‘No note?’

‘Nothing. And no one’s heard from him since.’

‘So the Yardies killed him, then?’

‘Maybe,’ said Hargrove. ‘Maybe not.’

Shepherd’s brow furrowed as he realised what the superintendent had suggested. ‘His mates killed him? He was wounded but they couldn’t take him to a hospital so they topped him?’

‘Or waited for him to die. Only they know what happened. But there wasn’t any blood in the flat, not from the robber. If there was we’d have done a match with Ormsby’s DNA and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’