Soft Target

The Saudi told Malik to cleanse himself and prepare for his mission. When the time came Malik would be given only an hour’s notice. He was to be ready at all times, day or night.

Shepherd had three mobile phones on the seat of his Toyota. One rang as he pulled away from the house. It was Hargrove. ‘Bad news, Spider,’ said the superintendent. ‘Bad news, and really bad news.’

‘I’m listening,’ said Shepherd.

‘Where are you?’

‘En route to Leman Street. I’m on the two to ten shift. What’s happened?’

‘Angie Kerr’s dead.’

‘What?’ It was the last thing Shepherd had expected to hear.

‘She killed herself.’

‘She was in custody. How the hell could that have happened?’

‘Sleeping tablets. The custody officer thought she was asleep. They didn’t try waking her until eleven and by then she was cold.’

Shepherd indicated and pulled over to the side of the road. ‘Spider, are you there?’

‘How the hell did she get sleeping tablets? Wasn’t she searched when she was taken in?’

‘They patted her down but I’m not sure how thoroughly. It’s not as if they expected a weapon. But she had two visitors yesterday so we think it was one of them.’

‘Her husband?’

‘Her husband’s lawyer and her own lawyer.’

‘For God’s sake, this is getting worse by the minute. Why the hell did her husband’s lawyer come in?’

‘We didn’t know the man was his lawyer. She made a call, said she wanted legal advice before she agreed to any deal with the CPS. A couple of hours later a lawyer called Gary Payne turned up and spent ten minutes with her. An hour later she spent five minutes with her own lawyer, then asked to go back to her cell.’

‘So Payne told her what Kerr planned to do to her and gave her the tablets?’

‘That’s the way I read it, but it’s one thing knowing and another proving it.’

Shepherd closed his eyes. He’d liked Angie Kerr and, directly or indirectly, he’d been responsible for her death. Hargrove wouldn’t see it that way, of course, but Shepherd had made the decision to extend the Hendrickson investigation, Shepherd had set her up, and Shepherd had been in the car when she was arrested. If she’d never met him, she’d still be alive.

‘There’s more,’ said Hargrove. ‘Hendrickson’s disappeared.’

‘He’s what?’

‘He hasn’t been in the office since Friday.’

‘For God’s sake, this is Wednesday. Wasn’t he being watched?’

Hargrove didn’t reply, which meant no.

‘So the Kerr case has turned to shit, and Hendrickson’s done a runner?’ said Shepherd.

‘With the wife dead we’ve got nothing on the husband,’ said Hargrove.

‘So I’ve wasted the last two weeks,’ said Shepherd.

‘If we get Hendrickson, he’ll go down. Look, I know we should have had the lid on him, but the local cops have budgetary considerations. They took the decision to leave him be until we were ready to move in.’

‘This is a bloody nightmare,’ said Shepherd. ‘What’s the point of me working my balls off if it all turns to shit down the line? Angie Kerr should have been watched – she was supposed to have been an asset. Jesus H. Christ, we were promising her witness protection and we let her husband kill her.’

‘She killed herself,’ said Hargrove.

‘That’s semantics, and you know it,’ said Shepherd, bitterly.

‘There’ll be an inquiry, of course, but life goes on.’

‘Yeah,’ said Shepherd. ‘Life goes on.’

‘Anything turns up on Hendrickson, I’ll let you know,’ said Hargrove.

Shepherd ended the call. He sat in silence, staring through the windscreen with unseeing eyes. He thought about the first time he’d met her. The way she’d sat in the car, smoking and flirting with him. The fear in her eyes when the armed police had charged out of the van. And now she was dead. Not only that, she’d killed herself because of the position he’d put her in. It had been Hargrove’s plan, but Shepherd had forced her into a corner with only one way out. Except that Angie had found another option. He swore under his breath. Her husband had killed her, as surely as if he’d put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

Shepherd was drinking a polystyrene cup of strong tea when the call came in over the main set. An IC One male with a handgun in Maida Vale. He tossed the cup out of the window as Sutherland started the car. Rose entered the address, a council estate off the Harrow Road, into the computer while Shepherd checked it in the street directory.

‘Indian country,’ said Rose. ‘The locals aren’t averse to taking pot-shots out of spite.’

The three men listened as a female officer relayed the details of the incident over the radio. ‘Neighbour saw a man with a gun enter number twenty-eight. He forced his way in. Occupant is a Sharon Jones, estranged from her husband Barry. He has convictions for assault and there’s a restraining order against him.’ Rose scribbled on his clipboard.

‘Anyone confirm that it’s the husband in the house?’ Rose asked.

‘Negative,’ said the female officer. ‘We have no description other than IC One.’

‘Can you confirm that Barry Jones is IC One?’

‘Affirmative,’ said the female officer.

Rose pulled a face. ‘It’s like pulling teeth sometimes,’ he said.

‘I hate domestics,’ muttered Sutherland. He flashed the main beams and cut in front of a double-decker bus. ‘Give me a Yardie with an Ingram any day of the week. You know where you are with a Yardie. Guy with a grudge against his wife can do anything. Shoot her, shoot himself, shoot us. It’s like trying to second-guess a rabid dog.’

‘Nice analogy,’ said Rose.

‘You know what I mean,’ said Sutherland. ‘Criminals with guns, you can generally figure what they’ll do. Citizens are just plain dangerous.’

They reached the Harrow Road and Sutherland killed the blues and twos. The traffic was light and there was no point in announcing their arrival.

They pulled up in front of the housing estate. There were no police cars, no paramedics. A middle-aged man was sitting on a small patch of grass in front of number twenty-eight. Rose frowned and asked the control room who else was attending.

‘A local car is en route,’ said the female officer.

‘Shit, we’re first on the scene,’ said Rose. ‘Come on, break out the big stuff. Mike, you stay on the main set.’

‘Will do,’ said Sutherland.

The man on the grass was sitting perfectly still, his hands in his lap.

Shepherd unlocked the Hecklers and handed one to Rose, then a magazine. ‘Don’t you think these’ll spook him?’ asked Shepherd.

‘My experience, amateurs take one look at an MP5 and throw their hands in the air,’ said Rose.

‘Or panic and do something stupid,’ said Shepherd. ‘It could go either way. He’s got something in his hand and I reckon it’s a gun.’

‘We have to contain the situation,’ said Rose.

‘Let me talk to him,’ said Shepherd.

Rose shook his head emphatically.‘No bloody way,’ he said. ‘You’re not trained in hostage negotiation.’

‘He doesn’t have a hostage,’ said Shepherd.

‘Same difference,’ said Rose. ‘There are guys trained to talk to these psychos, and guys trained to shoot them. We wait for a negotiator.’

‘Sarge, the way I see it, one of two things is going to happen. He’s going to pull the trigger or he’s going to start waving that gun around. Either way, he’s leaving here in a body-bag.’

Rose stared at Shepherd. ‘You done this sort of thing before?’

‘A couple of times,’ lied Shepherd.

‘If he even looks like he’s going to point his weapon at you, I’ll take him out,’ said Rose.

‘I’d want you to,’ said Shepherd.

Rose nodded slowly. ‘Keep out of my line of fire.’

‘Will do.’

‘And if I tell you to get out of there, you do it.’

‘Cheers, Sarge.’

‘I just hope you know what you’re doing.’

Shepherd put the MP5 into the boot of the Vauxhall and reached for his Glock.

‘You’re not going in without a gun,’ said Rose.

‘I want to show him I’m no threat.’

‘So leave it in your holster.’

‘If it’s holstered, I won’t have time to draw it anyway,’ said Shepherd.

‘You do understand why they call us armed police, don’t you?’

‘If he sees a gun, be it an MP5 or a Glock, he’ll panic.’

‘Take the Taser, then.’ The ARVs were equipped with Taser guns capable of firing electrode-tipped wires up to twenty-one feet and delivering a debilitating 50,000-volt electric shock that would drop a man in less than a second.

‘Any sort of weapon could set him off,’ said Shepherd. He made the Glock safe and put it into the ballistic bag in the boot with his CS spray and retractable baton. He took a deep breath. ‘Into the valley of death,’ he said, then winked at Rose. ‘It’ll be fine, Sarge.’ He turned and walked towards the house, his arms out at his sides, palms open to show that he wasn’t carrying.

Jones was sitting cross-legged on the grass. As Shepherd approached, he lifted the barrel of his handgun and pressed it against his right temple. Shepherd stopped a dozen paces in front of him. ‘Barry, I’m going to need you to do something for me,’ he said quietly.

‘Fuck off,’ said Jones. He looked as if he hadn’t washed or shaved for several days and Shepherd could smell the man’s body odour.

‘Listen to me, Barry. I need you to keep that gun exactly where it is, jammed up against your head.’

Jones frowned. ‘What?’

Shepherd nodded at Rose.‘See that guy over there? If you start waving that gun around, he’ll shoot you.’

‘He’ll be saving me the trouble.’

‘Just so you know,’ said Shepherd. ‘As long as you keep the gun where it is, we’ll all be okay.’

‘Just piss off and let me get on with it,’ said Jones.

‘You want to tell me what’s made you so angry?’

‘What are you? A shrink?’

‘I’m the guy who’s going to have to write the report if this turns to shit,’ said Shepherd, ‘and I hate writing reports.’

Jones stared at him.‘You’re wasting your time establishing a rapport with me. I’m not interested.’ His finger tightened on the trigger. The gun was a Chinese knock-off of a Colt .45. It was old but it was in good condition and the barrel glistened with fresh oil.

‘Where did you get the gun from, Barry?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Using my first name isn’t going to win me over,’ said Jones.

‘Just curious,’ said Shepherd. ‘You don’t see too many of those. Practically a collector’s item.’

‘I brought it back from Afghanistan. Souvenir.’

‘You were in the army?’

‘Sort of. Look, piss off and let me get this done, will you?’

Shepherd sat down slowly, taking care to make no sudden movements. ‘I need to take the weight off,’ he said. ‘Been on my feet all day.’ He stretched out his legs.‘The missus giving you grief,is she?’he asked.

‘Ex-missus. As of yesterday.’

‘And what’s this about? Winning her back?’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Tyres squealed and a second ARV came round the corner. Shepherd couldn’t see who was inside it. The Vauxhall braked and stopped behind Rose’s car.

‘Reinforcements,’ said Jones. ‘The more the merrier.’ He took the gun away from his head.

‘Keep the gun where it is, Barry,’ said Shepherd. ‘They won’t do anything while I’m here.’

‘You think I’m scared of a few Robocops?’

‘No, but if you do anything threatening, they’ll blow you away.’

‘So long as I’m dead I don’t see it matters who does the job,’ said Jones.

Shepherd glanced over his shoulder. Rose was behind the Vauxhall, his MP5 targeted on Jones’s chest. The doors of the newly arrived ARV opened and two men hurried over to Rose, bent at the waist.

‘What were you doing in Afghanistan?’ asked Shepherd.

‘That’s classified,’ said Jones. ‘I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.’

Shepherd smiled. So long as the man had his sense of humour, there was less chance of him pulling the trigger.

‘Must have been hairy,’ said Shepherd.

‘It was no picnic.’ Jones took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

‘You were in the Sass?’ Jones was almost a decade older than Shepherd so it was just about possible that they had served at the same time. Shepherd was sure he’d never met the man, though.

Jones shrugged. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘I’m just trying to understand why you’re doing this, that’s all.’

‘Post-traumatic stress syndrome, is that what you think?’ said Jones, contemptuously. ‘You really are an amateur shrink, aren’t you?’

‘If it’s not stress, what is it? What you’re doing isn’t rational – you’ve got to admit that, right? Sitting on the grass with a gun pointed at your head.’

‘Quicker than hanging or slicing my wrists.’

‘Unless the gun jerks and you only blow off a piece of your skull. Then you spend the rest of your life being fed through a tube.’

‘It won’t jerk,’ said Jones. He nodded at Rose. ‘Is he any good with that thing?’

‘Probably not as good as you,’ said Shepherd.

Jones grinned ruefully. ‘Not fired a Five for years,’ he said.

‘Like riding a bike,’ said Shepherd. ‘Why did you leave the Regiment?’

‘RTUd. Just couldn’t hack it any more.’

Life in the SAS was tough, and while some troopers served virtually their whole career in the Regiment, others burned out after just a few years. Shepherd had always felt he could have done a full twenty years, but that was before Sue had become pregnant with Liam. Children changed everything.

‘Couldn’t hack the regular army either, not after being in the Sass. Went back to Civvy Street and it was pretty much downhill from then on.’

Shepherd’s earpiece crackled. ‘We’ve got you covered, Stu. Any sign that he’s getting aggressive and you hit the ground.’ Rose’s voice was close to a whisper so there was no chance of Jones overhearing.

Shepherd nodded towards the house. ‘Sharon’s an army wife?’

‘Met her after I left. She got pregnant first time we slept together and that was it. Game over.’

‘Boy or girl?’

‘Girl. You got kids?’

‘No.’

‘Keep it that way,’ said Jones. ‘They bring you nothing but grief and misery, wives and kids.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ said Shepherd.

‘You don’t know what I mean.’

‘I know most people say that kids are what life is about.’

‘Yeah? And what if your wife uses your kid as a weapon to beat you over the head with? What if she poisons the kid against you so that she won’t even talk to you on the phone because she’s been told that you’re the meanest bastard on God’s earth?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Shepherd, but regretted the words as soon as they’d left his mouth.

‘No, you’re not,’ said Jones. ‘You’re trying to connect so that you can talk me out of doing what I’m going to do.’

‘That’s my job,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s what I’m paid to do.’

‘Yeah, well, enjoy it while you can because when they’ve no more use for you you’ll be out on the streets.’ Jones took another deep breath. ‘You should leave now before you get blood on that nice clean Robocop uniform.’

‘At least tell me why you’re so keen to end it all. I thought the Sass never gave up. Fought to the last man. Never give up, never leave a man behind.’

Jones narrowed his eyes as he looked at Shepherd. ‘Do I know you?’

‘No.’

‘What did you do before you were a cop?’

‘Always been a cop.’

‘Never been in the army?’

‘Never wanted to sleep in a barracks,’ said Shepherd.

‘You look the type, that’s all.’

‘What type?’

‘The type who passes selection, gets badged.’

‘Is it as tough as they say it is?’

‘Tougher than you can ever imagine. The Regiment has never lowered its standards. Your lot, they let anyone in now, right? Height restrictions went, then they lowered fitness levels. Now, providing you’ve got a pulse, you can be a cop. But the Sass, if you’re not the best, don’t even think about it.’

‘And how do you get from there to here?’ asked Shepherd.

An ambulance turned into the street. No siren, no flashing lights. Softly, softly.

‘You mean how did my life turn to shit? Reality, mate. A wife who thought she was marrying a hero, a daughter who thinks I hate her, a world that doesn’t give a shit about who I was or what I did. You’ll find out the same, once you leave the police. You are what you do, and when you stop doing it, your life stops too.’ He gestured at the house. A curtain flickered at an upstairs window. ‘Think she even cares what happens to me? She’s got a restraining order against me. I’m not supposed to come within half a mile of her.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because she lied, told the judge I beat the crap out of her. I never did. On my daughter’s life I never lifted a finger to her. I’ve never hit a woman. Never have and never will. Now she’s got herself another man and I’m still paying her half of everything I earn. Which is half of fuck-all.’ Jones took a deep breath. ‘This is a waste of time,’ he said. ‘Mine and yours.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Shepherd.

‘You talk me out of doing this now, I go to jail for a few months and I’ll still end up topping myself. Might as well let me get it over with.’

‘What is it you want, Barry?’

‘I want you to tell my daughter I loved her,’ said Jones. ‘Can you do that for me?’

‘Barry—’

The gun went off and the top of Jones’s head exploded. Blood splattered across Shepherd’s cheek but most of the brain and skull fragments sprayed over the grass. Jones’s shoulders hit the ground with a dull thud. For a second or two Shepherd thought Rose had fired but his ears were ringing and he realised Jones had pulled the trigger.

‘Stu, are you okay?’ Rose’s voice crackled in Shepherd’s ear.

Shepherd nodded but didn’t say anything. The gun lay on the ground, the barrel pointing towards him. Jones’s eyes were wide open. His left leg twitched once, then was still. There was a faint gurgling sound in his chest, which stopped.

Boots thudded across the grass. Shepherd felt a hand on his shoulder. ‘Stu, are you hit?’ It was Rose, but he sounded as if he was talking through water.

Shepherd continued to stare at Jones. A fist-sized chunk of his skull was missing and blood pooled on the grass. There were shouts in the distance and a woman screamed.

Rose knelt in front of Shepherd, put his hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. ‘Come on, mate, it’s okay.’

‘It’s not okay,’ said Shepherd flatly.

‘You did everything you could. It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Who’s fault was it, then?’

‘He shot himself – no one forced him to pull the trigger. Just be grateful that no one else got hurt.’

Rose pulled Shepherd to his feet. Two paramedics rushed across the grass with a trolley but slowed when they saw the damage to the man’s skull.

Rose put an arm round Shepherd and guided him away from the body. ‘You need a drink,’ he said.

‘I’m fine,’ said Shepherd.

‘First time you’ve seen a kill?’

‘No, but it’s the first time I’ve seen anyone kill themselves,’ he said. ‘He was talking to me and then . . .’

‘Did he mean to do it? It wasn’t an accident?’

‘He knew what he was doing. The gun he had doesn’t have a hair trigger. You don’t fire it by mistake.’ Shepherd looked over his shoulder at the paramedics who were zipping Jones into a black plastic body-bag. ‘I fucked up,’ he said.

‘No, you didn’t,’ said Rose. ‘He was hell-bent on doing it. There was nothing you could have said or done.’

Shepherd wondered if that was true. Maybe if he’d told Jones that he, too, had been in the SAS, maybe if he’d made that connection Jones would have talked for longer. And if he’d kept talking maybe Shepherd could have persuaded him not to take his life. But Rule Number One of living undercover was that you never told an outsider who you really were.

Rose put his arm round Shepherd’s shoulders. ‘You did the best you could, Stu. There aren’t many guys who would have gone out there the way you did.’

Shepherd gestured at the house. ‘The guy’s daughter, is she in there?’

‘Yeah. Emma, her name is.’

Shepherd shook off Rose’s arm and headed for the house.

‘Where are you going?’ asked Rose.

‘I’ve got something to tell her,’ said Shepherd.

Charlie Kerr poured himself a large measure of gin, splashed in tonic water and dropped in a slice of lemon. He drained half, then poured in more gin and belched.

He took a roll of black rubbish bags from one of the kitchen drawers and went upstairs. He put the glass between the twin basins in the master bathroom, then picked up Angie’s cosmetics and dumped them into one of the bags. He took her sanitary towels from the cupboard under the sink, her soap, her shampoo, her medicines, her cotton buds, everything she had ever touched, and tossed them into the bag. He took a long pull at his gin and tonic, checked that he hadn’t forgotten anything, then smiled at his reflection in the mirror. He’d be able to bring back all the women he wanted now. There was no nagging wife to bitch and moan.

He carried the bag into the bedroom and dropped it on to the king-size bed. He pulled open the drawers in the dressing-table, grabbed handfuls of her underwear and thrust it into the bag with her brushes, combs and hair spray. The book she was reading – the latest John Grisham – went in, with her alarm clock and slippers. He’d barely started on her wardrobes before the bag was full. He knotted the top, opened the bedroom window and threw it out. It landed on the lawn with a thump. He cursed when he saw it had burst and the contents were strewn across the grass.

Eddie Anderson appeared from behind the garage. ‘You okay, boss?’

‘Sort that out, Eddie.’ He went back to the wardrobes and filled the rest of the bags with Angie’s clothing. Gary Payne had told him she was dead. But the moment she had climbed into the car with Tony Nelson, she’d signed her own death warrant. No way could he have let her live. She’d wanted him dead so badly she’d been prepared to pay a stranger to put a bullet in his head. ‘Stupid cow,’ Kerr muttered. Stupid to have thought she could ever get the better of him. Stupid not to have spotted that she was dealing with an undercover cop. Stupid to have thought he would let her live. Now she was dead and soon Tony Nelson would be, too.

He finished filling another bag with Angie’s clothes and tossed it out of the window. Tony Nelson had it coming, whether or not he was a cop. He must have known who Kerr was. He must know who he was dealing with. And despite that, despite Kerr’s reputation, he’d still tried to entrap Angie. That was what riled Kerr more than anything: the fact that Nelson, or whatever his real name was, thought he was so much smarter than Kerr. ‘I’ll show you,’ muttered Kerr. ‘I’ll fucking show you what happens when you mess with Charlie Kerr.’

There’d be an inquest, of course, but there was no doubt that Angie had taken her own life. The cops would want to know how she got hold of the sleeping tablets and they’d be looking for someone to blame. Payne would never tell, of course. Kerr paid him handsomely for his loyalty. The custody sergeant would probably end up taking the blame for not searching her properly. And if that happened, Kerr would take pleasure in suing the police for millions. He smiled malevolently.

Sutherland drove the ARV into the car park from East Tenter Street and parked next to an undercover van belonging to the Specialist Firearms teams. It had the name of a fictitious florist on the side and a stencilled bunch of flowers that looked as if it had been done by a five-year-old.

Shepherd unlocked the gun-holder and handed the MP5s to Rose and Sutherland, then he climbed out and stretched. The heavy bulletproof vest played havoc with his spine but it had to be worn. He followed Rose and Sutherland through the rear entrance and along to the armoury. Two Specialist Firearms officers were already making their MP5s safe, the barrels pointed into Kevlar-lined metal containers with sand at the bottom while they pulled out the magazines and checked there were no rounds in the breech. The police were safety-conscious to a fault. It was a far cry from the laid-back attitude of the SAS where live weapons were carried as casually as mobile phones.

Rose and Sutherland unloaded, checked their carbines and Glocks, then handed them over to the armoury officer. As Shepherd cleared his weapons, Rose and Sutherland counted their ammunition and handed it in. ‘You okay, Stu?’ asked Rose.

‘Knackered,’ said Shepherd.

‘You need a pint at the Bull’s Head,’ said Rose.

‘Nah, raincheck,’ said Shepherd. ‘I need some kip.’

‘What happened today, there’s people you can talk to here. I don’t know how they did it north of the border but we’ve got psychiatrists and occupational health advisors on tap.’

Shepherd gave his Glock and ammunition to the armoury officer. ‘We had them in Glasgow, but they’re more trouble than they’re worth. I’ll go for a run when I get home.’

‘At night?’

‘Best time,’ said Shepherd. ‘Not so many cars around. A few miles will clear my head.’

‘What you did today, it was above and beyond, you know?’

‘Didn’t do any good, did it?’

‘You tried, and that was more than a lot of guys would have done.’ Rose patted Shepherd’s shoulder. ‘He was going to do it anyway, no matter what you said to him. He just wanted an audience.’

Shepherd knew Rose was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. He looked down at his bulletproof vest. There were still spots of Jones’s blood on it.

Shepherd woke with a start. His heart was pounding and he swung his feet off the bed. He sat with his head in his hands, trying to work out why he had been so affected by Barry Jones’s suicide. He had seen men die at close range, and some had been friends and colleagues. Jones was a stranger – yet he was the one giving him nightmares. He stood up and took deep breaths. He was wearing only pyjama bottoms and padded down the landing to the bathroom. He drank from the cold tap.

The door to Liam’s bedroom was open and the glow of his nightlight seeped out. Shepherd went into the room and found Liam on his side, mouth open, hair over his eyes. Shepherd knelt beside the bed and brushed it off his face. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for an eight-year-old boy to lose his mother – to see her die. He shook his head, trying to kill the train of thought.

Shepherd rested his forehead against his son’s cheek and swore silently that he’d never put Liam through the pain that Emma Jones was now going through. He had lost one parent and that was enough. Liam murmured in his sleep, and Shepherd kissed him, then returned to his room and lay down. He pulled the quilt up to his chin but he doubted that he’d get any more sleep that night. Every time he closed his eyes he was back on the housing estate, waiting for Barry Jones to pull the trigger.

Eddie Anderson wasn’t happy about the way things were going, but he knew there was no way he could tell Kerr. Charlie Kerr didn’t listen to anyone except maybe Gary Payne, but even the lawyer had to tread carefully. Eddie drove in the outside lane at a steady ninety miles an hour, flashing his headlights at anyone in front of him. It wasn’t the way he preferred to drive, but it was what Kerr wanted. Kerr hated being overtaken, so Anderson kept his foot hard on the accelerator and checked the rear-view mirror every couple of seconds.

He was sorry about what had happened to Mrs Kerr. She had never seemed the type who’d want to kill herself, but he’d never thought she’d be stupid enough to try to have Kerr killed. Charlie Kerr was a face, and anyone she hired to kill him would soon realise they’d bitten off more than they could chew.

Anderson didn’t approve of the way that Kerr had treated his wife, but it wasn’t his place to say anything. What Kerr had done, throwing her stuff out of the window before her body was even cold, that was wrong, too, but Anderson still hadn’t said anything. Kerr had made him burn the lot at the end of the garden. He’d had to siphon petrol from the Range Rover to get it going, and he’d used a garden fork to keep turning the clothes until there was nothing left but ashes. The brushes and combs had melted and he’d smashed the perfume bottles.

Anderson had reservations about why they were driving to London, but he could tell that Kerr was in no mood to take, or even tolerate, any advice. He would have to hold his counsel. He looked across at Ray Wates. It was obvious from the way he was grinding his teeth that he was as unhappy as Anderson about what was happening. Kerr sat in the back, chain-smoking. A sawn-off shotgun and two silenced automatics were in the boot.

It was madness, thought Anderson, as the Range Rover powered past a coachload of Japanese tourists. They were driving to London to kill a cop. It made no sense at all. If Kerr wanted the cop killed, he could pay a professional, someone who could take the time to do it right. Kerr was behaving irrationally and had been since he’d watched Angie get into the car with the undercover cop. There was a glazed look in his eyes, and he kept smiling to himself. He’d been taking cocaine, too, and in the rearview mirror Anderson saw Kerr sniff and wipe his nose with the back of his hand. Anderson had a bad feeling about the way Kerr was behaving. If they succeeded in killing the cop, the police would do whatever it took to track them down and bring them to justice. If they failed, God alone knew how it would end.

‘You okay, Eddie?’ asked Kerr.

‘Sure, boss,’ said Anderson.

‘Something on your mind? You’re breathing like a train.’

‘Nothing, boss.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ Kerr opened the rear window, flicked out the butt, then lit a fresh cigarette.

It had been a quiet shift: the ARV had spent most of its time cruising around Central London. They had been called out to Hampstead Heath in the early evening by nervous gays after there had been reports of two men with guns prowling around. It turned out to be two teenagers with airguns, shooting squirrels, which had prompted Sutherland into an hour of anti-gay jokes. Towards the end of the shift they helped a team of CID officers from Paddington Green police station arrest two suspected terrorists, but the men weren’t armed and went quietly, protesting their innocence.

They drove in through the East Tenter Street entrance five minutes before their shift was due to end. Sutherland noted the mileage and fuel details as Rose and Shepherd went inside. They unloaded their weapons and handed them in at the armoury, then went together to the locker room and changed into civilian clothing.

‘Quick one before you head off?’ asked Rose.

‘Sure,’ said Shepherd. He wanted to go home but it was important to keep building bridges with Rose and Sutherland. Several times he had dropped hints about being short of money but he couldn’t do it too often. Soon after he’d joined Hargrove’s undercover unit, Shepherd had memorised a host of sports statistics going back five years and could talk knowledgeably about football, horseracing and boxing. He wasn’t interested in sport but most villains were, and the information was useful to back up his legend as an enthusiastic, and unsuccessful, gambler.

They waited for Sutherland, then walked together out of the main entrance. Immediately next door was a pub called Mr Pickwick’s, a green frontage with a restaurant upstairs. ‘What about here?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Too close to home,’ said Sutherland. ‘Every man and his dog walks by. Can’t relax.’

They headed down Leman Street and into the Bull’s Head, where half a dozen Specialist Firearms officers were standing at the bar. ‘White team,’ said Rose.

Sutherland and Shepherd went over to a table and sat down. Rose carried over their drinks and they toasted each other.

‘Any news of Andy?’ asked Shepherd.

Sutherland frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Just wondered if there was any news, that’s all.’

‘I don’t think we’re expecting any,’ said Rose. ‘He’s done a bunk – I don’t see how he can show his face here again.’

‘Strange business, all said and done,’ said Shepherd. He raised his glass. ‘What the hell? It got me back to London, didn’t it?’

Anderson twisted in his seat. The Range Rover was parked down the road from the Leman Street building and they had watched Nelson and two of his colleagues walk to the Bull’s Head.

‘We wait for him to come out,’ said Kerr. He had a silenced automatic on his lap. ‘Then we teach the bastard a lesson.’

‘That pub’s full of armed cops,’ said Wates. He was holding the sawn-off shotgun between his legs. Anderson had a silenced automatic at his feet.

‘They don’t take their guns home with them, Ray,’ said Kerr.‘It’s against the rules. That’s the great thing about doing what we do. There are no rules.’ He rubbed his nose and sniffed.

Anderson wasn’t happy about his boss snorting cocaine, especially not when he was going to be waving a gun around. Drugs and guns were a dangerous mix. And drugs, guns and Charlie Kerr were about as dangerous a mix as you could wish for.

Shepherd and Rose left the Bull’s Head at just after eleven. They walked back to the underground car park where the SO19 officers kept their cars, arguing over who was the best boxer of all time, a conversation that had started in the pub.

Shepherd drove out first, beeping his horn and waving goodbye to the sergeant. He didn’t see the black Range Rover pull away from the kerb and follow at a safe distance.

Kerr looked around. The streets were deserted. ‘We should do this now,’ he said. ‘He’s gonna see us if we leave it much longer.’ He clicked off the safety. ‘Let’s do the bastard now.’

Anderson glanced at Wates. He looked as worried as Anderson felt. Attacking a cop in the street was just plain stupid, but Kerr had taken it personally, and that, with the cocaine, had pushed him over the edge. There was nothing they could say to him – or nothing that wouldn’t make him as angry with them as he was with Nelson.

‘Whatever you say, boss,’ said Anderson.

‘Don’t fire that unless you have to,’ Kerr said to Wates. ‘Let’s try to do this as quietly as we can.’

Ahead, the Toyota was stopping at a set of traffic-lights turning from amber to red.

‘Okay, let’s do it,’ said Kerr. ‘Let’s do the bastard.’

Rose was about a hundred yards from the traffic-lights when he saw the Range Rover pull up next to Marsden’s Toyota. He was braking when he saw the rear passenger door of the Range Rover open and a man get out. At first Rose thought the man was going to ask directions but then he saw the gun in his hand. A large automatic with a silencer.

The man took a step towards the Toyota just as the front passenger door opened and a second man got out with a sawn-off shotgun.

Shepherd sat with his fingers loosely on the steering-wheel, deep in thought. Liam would be asleep when he got home. The way things were going, he was seeing as little of his son as he was when Liam was in Hereford with his grandparents. The sooner he got on the day shift the better, because then he could spend the evenings with him. Help him with his homework. Read him a story. Do some real father-and-son stuff.

He heard car doors open and turned. Two men were in the road, staring at him, a black Range Rover behind them. Shepherd experienced a surge of adrenaline as he recognised them. Charlie Kerr and Ray Wates. And they had guns.

Rose banged on his horn. He was reacting instinctively, not caring who the men were or why they had guns. All he knew was that Stu Marsden was in danger and he had to help. Ahead of him, the first man out of the Range Rover was bringing his gun to bear on the Toyota.

Shepherd bent down and groped under the front passenger seat for his SIG-Sauer. As he sat up again he saw Kerr turning to look at the rear of the Toyota. He heard a horn blare and an engine roar. He pushed open the door.

Kerr heard the car roar up behind them, then a squeal of brakes. He swore. Some interfering busybody was about to get what was coming to them if they weren’t careful. He pointed the gun at the car and gestured with it so that the driver could see he was armed. Most people pissed themselves at the sight of a gun. In another life Kerr had been an armed robber and he’d only ever had to fire his gun once in anger. Banks, post offices, jewellers, it didn’t matter: as soon as he produced a shooter everyone dived for cover.

As Shepherd opened the Toyota’s door,Wates swung round the shotgun, but he was too slow. Shepherd whipped the barrel of the SIG-Sauer across his face and heard the cheekbone crack. Wates didn’t go down, though, and he brought the gun up again. Shepherd grabbed at the shotgun with his left hand and brought his knee up into Wates’s stomach. Wates doubled over, blood streaming from the cut on his cheek. Shepherd brought the butt of the gun down on the side of his head and kicked the shotgun under the Range Rover. Wates slumped to the ground.

Rose saw the gun in the man’s hand. There was a silencer on the end. He hit the main beam sending a tunnel of dazzling light down the road. There was little an unarmed man could do against a man with a gun but he was damned if he was going to let Marsden take a bullet. He gunned the engine and moved the car forward.

Anderson watched, horrified, as Wates fell, blood pouring from his face. Now Kerr was turning towards Nelson, his upper lip curled back in a sneer, the barrel of the gun pointing up at the night sky. Anderson groped around for his weapon. He knew it had been a bad idea from the start, but now he had to see it through.

Kerr heard Wates go down and faced the Toyota. He brought up his gun. The headlights had dazzled him but he could make out Nelson standing over Wates. His finger tightened on the trigger and he aimed the gun at Nelson’s head. He gritted his teeth, blinking rapidly. The gun fired but the bullet went way over Nelson’s head. Kerr bellowed in frustration and took aim again.

Anderson heard a dull pop and realised Kerr had fired. He transferred his own gun to his left hand and fumbled for the door handle with the other. His bowels felt liquid and he feared that he was going to wet himself. The door opened and he stumbled out into the road.

Rose saw the man lurch out of the driver’s side of the Range Rover. Marsden had hit one of the men but it was still two against one and unless Rose did something, Marsden would die. Then he realised he had a weapon he could use against the men. He stamped on the accelerator and the car leaped forward.

Shepherd heard the roar of the engine as he dropped into a crouch. The first shot had missed his head by inches and Kerr was about to fire again. Shepherd swung up his SIG-Sauer and fired twice in quick succession. Both shots hit Kerr in the chest and he fell backwards, mouth working soundlessly.

Shepherd turned sideways and saw Anderson taking aim, his face contorted by fear or hatred. Shepherd swung his gun round but Anderson had him in his sights. All he had to do was pull the trigger and it would all be over.

Rose gripped the steering-wheel and pressed his foot on the brake, not too hard because he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. The car smashed into the man with the gun, hurling him against the door of the Range Rover with such force that it broke off its hinges. The man fell back on to the door, arms flailing. The gun fell out of his hand,and he slumped to the Tarmac.

Rose climbed out of the car. Marsden was leaning against his Toyota, both hands on the butt of his gun.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ asked Rose.

‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

‘You just shot a man,’ said Rose.

‘Rosie, I can’t be caught here,’ he said. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his trousers. ‘I’m not going down for this.’

Rose glared at him. ‘Okay, follow me,’ he said. He got back into the car, reversed away from the Range Rover, then sped off down the road.

Shepherd followed Rose as he drove off the main road and zigzagged through side-streets, his eyes constantly checking the rear-view mirror. They weren’t being followed. Rose parked behind an overflowing builder’s skip, got out of the car, jogged to the Toyota and climbed into the front passenger seat. ‘What the hell was that about, Stu?’

Shepherd couldn’t tell Rose the truth about Kerr, because Shepherd was an undercover cop and Rose was his target. ‘Just leave it, Rosie,’ he said. If Rose reported what had happened, Shepherd’s assignment was over. If Shepherd told Rose who Kerr was, his assignment was over. The only way out would be to use what had happened to his advantage.

‘Leave it?’ said Rose. ‘You just shot a man and I hit one with my car.’

‘They attacked me, remember?’

‘So why aren’t we calling this in?’ asked Rose. ‘Why did we run? And what the hell were you doing with a gun?’

Shepherd shrugged and avoided eye-contact. The pressure had to come from Rose. ‘Just forget it ever happened.’

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ asked Rose. ‘Have you any idea how much shit we’re in?’

Shepherd’s mind was racing for a workable story. It was always best to go in with the legend in place so that all contingencies could be anticipated. In a good undercover operation every move was planned in advance so that nothing could go wrong. Thinking on your feet got the adrenaline going but it could lead all too easily to disaster.

‘I mean it, Stu. Tell me what the fuck you’ve got yourself into, or I call this in, right now.’

Shepherd took a deep breath.‘I owed them money.’

‘So they were from the Halifax, were they? You behind on your mortgage?’

Shepherd flashed him a sarcastic smile. ‘Good to see you’ve kept your sense of humour,’ he said.

‘It must be one hell of a lot of money for them to come after you with guns.’

‘Thirty grand, and some,’ said Shepherd.

Rose raised his eyebrows. ‘How the hell did you run up a debt like that?’

‘I don’t want to get into this. It was my own fault, and now I’ve got to sort it.’

‘Yeah, regular Gary Cooper, you are.’ Rose leaned towards him and dropped his voice to a low whisper. ‘Think of this as a confession. You have sinned, my son, but by repenting you will be saved.’

‘I’m not a Catholic,’ said Shepherd.

Rose’s voice hardened. ‘And I’m not a fucking priest. I saved your life back there, so spill your guts.’

‘It’s a gambling debt,’ said Shepherd, slowly. ‘At least, twenty grand is. There’s more than ten grand of juice. Interest.’

‘And you can’t pay?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Rosie, didn’t you hear what I just said? Thirty grand. Could you lay your hands on thirty grand cash? That’s more than a year’s salary after tax and insurance and all the rest of the shit they take off us.’

‘Haven’t you got a house you could have mortgaged?’

‘The only asset I’ve got is the car.’

‘How bad a gambler are you? You’re what, thirty-three, thirty-four, and the only thing you’ve got to your name is a three-year-old Toyota?’

‘I had a bad year,’ said Shepherd. ‘Okay, a couple of bad years.’

‘Horses?’

‘Some horses. But football recently. Long-odds stuff. Liverpool to win three–one with Owen scoring twice, that sort of stuff.’

‘Is that why you had to leave Scotland?’

Rose had taken the bait. Shepherd had set up the story and Rose was filling in the gaps, which was always the best way. He nodded.

‘And you thought by moving to London they wouldn’t find you?’

Shepherd nodded again.‘My father’s here,though, and he does need me around. But, yeah, I thought they wouldn’t be able to find me down here.’

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the engine click as it cooled.

‘The gun,’ said Rose, eventually. ‘Where did it come from?’

‘I bought it from a guy in Glasgow. It’s untraceable. I needed protection.’

‘Suppose I offered you a way of getting thirty grand. And more.’

Shepherd knew what was coming next. ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

‘We can help each other, two birds with one stone.’

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘What happened out there, we’re in this together.’

‘No arguments there,’ agreed Shepherd.

‘Are you prepared to take it a step further? Become proactive?’

‘If the rewards are there, sure. Depends what you have in mind.’

‘Remember the pizza place? Mike was saying you made a crack about the money.’

‘It was just that. A crack.’

‘But it was a good point. Drugs money is fair game. You take it, who loses out? Drugs-dealers. Do we care? Of course we don’t. Does anyone?’

‘What are you saying?’ said Shepherd, although he knew exactly what Rose was proposing. It was what he’d been working towards over the past week. The attack on his life had been unforeseen, but it had shown Rose that Shepherd had the qualities to take Andy Ormsby’s place.

‘I’m saying that if the circumstances were right, we could help each other. I need a lot of cash.’

‘For Kelly?’

Rose’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who told you about her?’

‘Mike said she was ill.’

‘That was none of his business. Or yours.’

Shepherd held up his hands. ‘It came up in conversation. But it gives you a reason for needing money, so I see where you’re coming from.’

‘You’ve no idea where I’m coming from,’ he said. ‘You haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘She’s really sick?’

‘She’s going to die unless I do something. But that’s not the issue. The issue is how far you’re prepared to go. I’ve got the weaponry, I’m in the process of gathering the intel. All I need is the manpower.’

‘You mean there’s more than you and me?’

‘It takes a three-man team.’

‘You,me and . . .?’

Rose smiled tightly. ‘Let me talk to the third party first. Just in case . . .’

‘Just in case he doesn’t trust me?’

‘It’s like being in the ARV. We all have to trust each other one thousand per cent. We’ve all got too much to risk.’

‘Assuming he’s okay with me, what’s the next step?’

‘We work out where and when.’

‘And we rip off a drugs-dealer?’

‘That’s the plan.’

Shepherd whistled softly. ‘You are one hell of a dark horse.’

‘I’ll fix up a meet tomorrow and call you.’

Shepherd ran a hand through his hair. ‘How soon before we move?’

‘Next week. I’ve got a deadline, money-wise.’

Shepherd sat in his car for a while, looking at his house. His heart was still racing. He felt guilty, but not because of what he’d done to the men who’d attacked him. He’d reacted instinctively, as he’d been trained. The guilt came from having lied to Rose. He liked the man. He was a good cop, too, reliable and disciplined, and he’d crossed the line because he wanted to provide for his daughter. He’d helped Shepherd in the street, with little or no thought for his own safety. If Rose hadn’t turned up there was a good chance that he would have been killed. Rose had saved his life, but Shepherd didn’t want to dwell on that. Rose’s reward was going to be a long prison sentence, and Shepherd didn’t want to think what that would mean for his daughter.

He let himself into the house. There was a light on in the kitchen and Katra was at the sink, washing up. ‘Hiya, Katra,’ he said. She was wearing a white dressing-gown. For a moment he thought it was Sue’s, but then he realised it fitted Katra perfectly and she was smaller than his wife had been. He switched on the kettle.

‘I’ll make you coffee,’ said Katra. ‘And I have a beef and paprika stew and baked potatoes in the oven.’

‘It’s nearly midnight!’ exclaimed Shepherd.

‘You have eaten already?’ she asked.

‘No, but I worry about you staying up so late on my account when you’ve got to take Liam to school. How was he today?’

‘He is a good boy,’ she said. ‘He wants to spend more time with you.’

‘I know. I won’t always be as busy as this. These shifts are unusual.’ Even as the words left his mouth, Shepherd knew he wasn’t telling the truth. He often worked late, no matter what case he was on, and sometimes he was away for days on end. Villains didn’t work nine to five, and neither did undercover cops. ‘I’ve got to make a call first,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the food.’

She beamed.

‘You go to bed. I’ll get it out of the oven.’

Shepherd waited until she had gone upstairs, then phoned Hargrove. ‘I’m in,’ he said. ‘Rose tried to recruit me tonight.’

‘Excellent,’ said Hargrove. ‘That was quick work.’

‘I had help,’ said Shepherd. He explained to the superintendent about Kerr’s attack and how he’d reacted.

‘What state are the casualties in?’ Hargrove asked.

‘Kerr’s dead, I’m sure. Shot in the chest. I hit Wates hard. Anderson was hit by Rose’s car. I’m sorry it got so messy.’

‘Not your fault, Spider. I guess what we need to worry about is how the hell Kerr found out who you are.’

‘He could have followed me from Manchester. But if he did, shame on me for not spotting it.’

‘The Manchester operation was over and Angie Kerr was in custody. You were heading home.’

‘And I let my guard down.’ It was something he was going to have to think about. If Kerr had followed him to Leman Street, he could just as easily have gone to his home. His carelessness had put his son at risk. That was unforgivable.

‘What happens next?’ asked Hargrove.

‘Rose is going to call me tomorrow and set up a meet with his partner.’

‘We’ll arrange surveillance,’ said Hargrove.

‘No,’ said Shepherd quickly. ‘They’re cops, they’ll know what to look for. I’m not even going to wear a wire for this first meeting.’

‘I don’t think you should go in alone,’ said Hargrove.

‘Rose is convinced I’m with him,’ said Shepherd. ‘He saw me shoot Kerr and I spun him a yarn about gambling debts in Glasgow. Tomorrow’s just about meeting this other guy.’

‘And who do you think it is?’ asked Hargrove.

‘If I had to name a name I’d say Mike Sutherland, but only because he’s so close to Rose. And they were both in the ARV with Ormsby.’

‘We could put a tail on Sutherland.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’d rather see what they’ve got planned.’

‘Catch them red-handed?’

‘Maybe not. But I’d like to know who they’re planning to rip off.’

‘It’s your call, Spider.’

‘As soon as I’ve had the meet I’ll fill you in.’ Shepherd cut the connection, then went upstairs.

Liam was fast asleep, hugging his pillow. It scared Shepherd, how much he loved his son. He would do anything for him. He wondered if Keith Rose was sitting by his daughter, watching her sleep, wanting to be a good father, promising to do whatever it took to ensure that she’d be healthy and happy. He felt uncomfortable. He kissed his son then went to his bathroom. He felt dirty and wanted to shower.

Shepherd got up early and had breakfast with Liam, who asked his father if he could drive him to school. Shepherd said yes. ‘Great!’ shrieked Liam.

‘I could drive you both,’ said Katra.

‘Nah, that’s okay,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll take the Toyota.’

‘That’s a horrible old car,’ said Liam. ‘Why are you driving it?’

‘It’s for work.’

‘The Golf’s much better—’ Liam stopped and put down his knife and fork. His lower lip was trembling.

Shepherd laid a hand on his son’s arm.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Liam.

‘I keep doing the same thing.’

Liam pushed away his plate and stood up. ‘I’ll get my bag.’ He ran out of the kitchen and thumped up the stairs.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Katra.

‘His mum drove a black VW Golf,’ said Shepherd. ‘It was the car they were in when they crashed.’

Katra looked horrified. ‘When his mother died?’

Shepherd nodded.

She wiped her hands on a tea-towel. ‘I’ll go and talk to him.’

‘I will,’ said Shepherd. He hurried upstairs. Liam was sitting on his bed, clutching his schoolbag. Shepherd sat down next to him. ‘I miss her, too,’ he said.

‘I miss her all the time.’

‘We’ll always miss her. That’s what happens when someone you love goes away.’

‘She didn’t go away,’ said Liam. ‘She died.’

‘I know.’

‘Why do people say that? Why do they say she went away when that’s not what happened? Gran says that. So does Granddad. They say she went away but if she went away she’d come back. But she’s never coming back, is she?’

Shepherd felt tears prick his eyes and fought them back. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but that doesn’t mean she’s not in our hearts, because she is. She’ll always be with us.’

‘But not really, right? She’s never going to hug me again, is she?’

Shepherd felt a tear run down his right cheek and brushed it away. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I’m still here. I can hug you.’

Suddenly Liam reached for him, and buried his head in his father’s chest. ‘I don’t want you to die, Dad,’ he sobbed.

‘I won’t,’ said Shepherd. ‘Not for a long, long time.’

Shepherd held Liam until he stopped crying, then wiped his eyes and told him to go and wash his face. He carried Liam’s schoolbag into the hallway and waited until Liam was ready to go.

Katra was standing at the bottom of the stairs and ruffled Liam’s hair as he went by. She looked up at Shepherd, who mouthed, ‘It’s okay.’

He went after Liam and gave him his bag. As they walked to the Toyota, one of Shepherd’s mobiles rang – his Stuart Marsden phone. He told Liam to go back into the house while he took the call. It was Rose.

‘Where are you?’

‘Home,’ said Shepherd.

‘You up for a meet?’

‘Where?’

‘Wapping High Street. Outside the tube station. In an hour.’

Shepherd glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll be there,’ he said.

As he put away the phone he saw Liam standing at the front door. Katra was behind him, her hand on his shoulder. Shepherd could see from the look on Liam’s face that he knew what he was going to say. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Work?’ said Liam.

Shepherd nodded.

‘You can drive me to school, can’t you, Katra?’

‘Of course. I’ll get changed,’ said Katra. She went inside. Liam walked over to the CRV.

‘Liam, I’m sorry,’ said Shepherd.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I’ll take you to school tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow’s Saturday,’ said Liam.

‘Well, we’ll do something tomorrow. It’s my day off, too.’

Liam climbed into the back of the CRV. He fastened his seatbelt and deliberately avoided his father’s eyes.

Shepherd waited at the front door until Katra came downstairs. She was wearing the green parka and sand-coloured cargo pants she’d had on the first time they’d met.

‘I’ll phone you later,’ he said. She waved and got into the car. Shepherd watched them drive away, hoping that Liam would wave. He didn’t.

He set the burglar alarm and locked the house, then drove the Toyota across town. He found a parking space about ten minutes’ walk from Wapping High Street. He sat for a few minutes, staring at his reflection in the rear-view mirror, preparing himself mentally for what he was about to do. He was going to lie to a man who thought he was his friend. It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. He put the Stuart Marsden phone into his jacket pocket and the others into the glove compartment.

He got out of the Toyota and walked slowly towards Wapping tube station. Rose was already there, wearing a long black coat over blue jeans and a black polo-neck sweater. He nodded at Shepherd and started walking down the street. Shepherd caught up with him and the two men walked in silence. Rose turned into a side-street and they went between two warehouse conversions, ornate black metal grilles over the windows, CCTV cameras covering all angles. Fortresses for City workers.

Rose made a left turn and walked up to a modern block. Concrete stairs led to the entrance. Someone had spray-painted ‘HOMES FOR LOCALS NOT YUPPIE SCUM’ across the glass door that led into the building. A line of thirty doorbells was set into a stainless-steel intercom system, covered by a CCTV camera above the door. Rose pressed one of the bells. Flat twenty-seven. Shepherd heard a tinny voice but couldn’t make out what was said. Rose smiled apologetically at him. ‘He wants me to pat you down.’

‘He what?’

Shepherd tried to look surprised – and angry. It was a narrow line to tread but one he’d trodden dozens of time in the past. A search meant a lack of trust, and anyone would take offence at not being trusted. But protesting too much could be as dangerous as not protesting at all. The trick was to call it just right: righteous indignation followed by annoyed resignation.‘You approached me, remember?’ said Shepherd.‘I didn’t come knocking on your door.’

‘Just humour him,’ said Rose. ‘It’s his flat we’re going into.’

‘What does he think I’m carrying? A gun?’

Rose looked uncomfortable.

‘He thinks I’m wearing a wire? For God’s sake, why would I?’

‘Like I said, humour him. Please.’

Shepherd sighed and raised his arms. Rose patted him down quickly and efficiently. He made Shepherd take out his mobile phone and examined it carefully.

‘It’s a phone, Rosie.’

‘They can bug them so they transmit all the time,’ said Rose, ‘with or without your co-operation.’ He pulled off the back, took out the battery and the Sim card, then handed the pieces back to Shepherd and continued his search. He missed nothing, even patting Shepherd’s groin and running his hands up and down his inner thighs. If Shepherd had been wearing any sort of transmitter or recording device, Rose would have found it.

‘Satisfied?’ said Shepherd.

‘Don’t get ratty,’ said Rose. ‘We get caught doing this and they’ll throw away the key.’ He went back up the stairs and pressed the bell again. ‘He’s okay,’ Rose said, into the intercom. The glass door buzzed and Rose pushed it open. Shepherd followed him into the hallway. There was a lift to the right but Rose headed up the stairs. The flat was on the second floor and the door was already open.

‘Out here,’ said a voice.

Shepherd walked through what was clearly a rented property. Cherrywood laminated flooring, a beige sofa, a glass-topped coffee-table, a small television and DVD player. There was nothing of a personal nature. The framed prints on the cream-painted walls were as bland and nondescript as the sofa. At the far end of the room, open french windows led to a large square balcony, overlooking the Thames. There were three white plastic chairs and a matching round table on which stood a cafetière, mugs, a carton of low-fat milk, a box of sugar cubes, and a basket of croissants. The occupant of the flat was standing with his back to the window. He turned as Shepherd walked out. It was Ken Swift.

‘Do you want coffee, Stu?’ he asked.

‘That would be good,’ said Shepherd, casually. Swift was watching him closely, trying to gauge his reaction, but Shepherd played it cool. Swift poured coffee into the three mugs.

‘Milk?’ he asked Shepherd.

‘Black, no sugar.’

Swift poured a dash of milk into Rose’s coffee and handed it to him, then he and Rose dropped on to the chairs.

‘Nice place,’ said Shepherd.

‘I can walk to Leman Street, which is a plus,’ said Swift. ‘Just the one bedroom, but the balcony makes up for it. All I can afford at the moment.’

‘Three divorces?’

‘First wife got fifty per cent, second wife got fifty per cent of what was left. Wife number three is aiming for the house and everything in it, which doesn’t leave me much. You’re better off being single, Stu. And don’t get me started on kids. I’m responsible for them right through university, and at the moment I’m lucky to see them twice a month.’

Shepherd sipped his coffee.

‘Rose says three guys attacked you. Three guys from Glasgow.’

‘They might have been from Manchester. I borrowed the money in Glasgow but it was a Manchester bookie.’

‘You were lucky.’

‘Rosie helped me. If it hadn’t been for him, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’

‘You had a gun?’

‘For my own protection.’

‘You know the guy you shot is dead?’ said Swift. ‘There’s a full-scale murder inquiry on the go.’

‘No one saw us. No forensics. Rosie and I can alibi each other if necessary. No way will they pin anything on us.’

‘And you owed them money?’

‘Thirty grand.’

‘Gambling debts, Rosie said.’

‘I was a twat, I know. I just kept getting in deeper and deeper.’

‘So you’re up for what we’re planning?’

‘I don’t know what it is,’ said Shepherd. ‘Ripping off a drugs-dealer is all I know.’

‘But in principle?’

‘In principle I’m more than happy to relieve them of their ill-gotten gains. So long as we don’t have to go in with guns blazing.’

‘We don’t intend to hurt anyone,’ said Rose. ‘We’re not vigilantes. It’s not about putting them out of business. It’s solely about money. They have it. We take it.’

‘Count me in,’ Shepherd said. ‘But I could do with knowing one thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You’ve done this before, haven’t you?’

Swift and Rose exchanged a look. Then Swift nodded. ‘Once. We hit a crack-dealing crew in Harlesden.’

‘And was Andy Ormsby involved?’

Swift’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Who the fuck told you about Andy?’

Shepherd returned the man’s stare. ‘Andy disappeared. You and Rose barely mention his name. You’re a man short, which means you’re a man down, and you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that Andy’s the missing link.’

‘He took a bullet. We did what we could but he died before we could get him to a doctor. We buried him.’

‘Just like that?’

‘No!’ Rose had raised his voice. ‘We thought long and hard about what to do.’

‘And if he hadn’t died, would you have taken him to hospital?’

‘There was nothing we could do,’ said Rose.

‘That wasn’t what I was asking,’ said Shepherd. ‘If you screw up again and I get shot, what happens to me?’

‘We didn’t screw up,’ said Swift.

‘Every time shots are fired, someone’s screwed up,’ said Shepherd.

Swift stood up. ‘This isn’t about what happened to Andy. It’s about where we go from here.’

‘I understand that, but I need to know exactly what I’m getting into,’ said Shepherd. ‘Where did you bury him?’

‘Why do you want to know?’ asked Swift.

‘If there’s a body out there that could lead back to me, I want to know it’ll never be found.’

‘The New Forest,’ said Swift. ‘And don’t worry, no one will find him.’

‘He didn’t have anyone close,’ said Rose. ‘It’s not like he was married or had kids.’

‘Like me,’ said Shepherd. ‘No one would miss me either. But that’s not to say I want to end up buried in the New Forest.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘I don’t mean to sound negative, but it’s not every day you get an offer to take part in an armed robbery.’

‘We don’t look at it that way,’ said Swift. He picked up a croissant. ‘We’re stealing from drugs-dealers. Bad guys. The money we take is drugs money. If we didn’t take it, they’d only be using it to wholesale more drugs.’

‘So we’re sort of Robin Hoods?’ said Shepherd.

‘The only way it can go wrong is if someone gets hurt,’ said Rose. ‘If we get away clean there’s no way they can report it.’

‘And three is enough?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Three’s best,’ said Rose. ‘Two to go in, one to drive.’

‘And my role would be?’

‘You come with me, Ken stays with the car,’ said Rose.

‘And weaponry?’

‘We’ve an Ingram, there’s a Python .45 and a Glock. We’re well sorted. Whatever happens, you should ditch your gun.’

Rose drank his coffee and Swift put another chunk of croissant into his mouth.

Shepherd put down his mug. ‘And what would my take be?’

‘Three-way split,’ said Swift. ‘How much we get depends on who we turn over.’

‘How much did you get from the Yardies?’ asked Shepherd.

‘It didn’t work out as planned,’ Rose said awkwardly.

‘In what way?’

‘The cash wasn’t there. They’d done a coke deal, so we took the drugs.’

Shepherd raised his eyebrows. ‘There’s no way I’m being paid in gear,’ he said.

‘I sold it to some Paddies,’ said Rose.

‘You did a drugs deal?’

‘It was a one-off.’

Shepherd was astounded. He was sitting opposite two long-serving police officers who had admitted to murder, armed robbery, and drugs-dealing. ‘One more question,’ he said.

‘This is turning into Mastermind,’ said Swift.

‘It’s a big step,’ said Shepherd.

‘Except that you killed a man last night,’ said Swift, ‘and put two more in hospital.’

‘Self-defence,’ said Shepherd.

‘Self-defence or not, you’ll be off the force if it comes out. Maybe worse.’

‘No argument there,’ said Shepherd.

‘So, what’s the question?’

‘Knowing what I know, what happens if I turn you down?’

‘After what happened last night, we know enough about each other to cause everyone a whole lot of grief.’

‘So if I say no, I just walk away?’

‘Like I said, you killed a guy last night. Rosie and I did what we did. We don’t have to force you to do anything against your will. It’s your choice.’

Shepherd picked up his mug. ‘It’s good coffee,’ he said.

‘I don’t like instant,’ said Swift. ‘It’s all about grinding it fresh each time.’

Shepherd took a sip. ‘I’m in,’ he said.

Rose looked at Swift and nodded enthusiastically. ‘Great,’ he said.

‘The three musketeers,’ said Shepherd. ‘All for one and all that shit.’

Swift leaned over and shook his hand. ‘Good to have you aboard, Stu.’

‘It’s just the one job,’ said Rose. ‘I need one more hit. So does Ken. One hit and we walk away.’

‘One hit,’ repeated Shepherd. ‘That’s all I need.’ He put his mug on the table and stood up.

‘Can you find your own way out?’ asked Rose.

‘Sure.’

As Shepherd stepped through the french windows, Swift called after him, ‘Hey, haven’t you forgotten something?’

Shepherd turned. ‘What?’

‘That SWAT shirt I lent you, the one from New York. I want it back, you know. Sentimental value.’

‘I’ll get it cleaned,’ said Shepherd. He went back through the sitting room and out of the front door. He knew the two men were talking about him, but that was to be expected. He replayed the conversation in his head as he walked along Wapping High Street. It had gone well. He’d played it just right. Not too keen, not too suspicious, not too eager to break the law. They thought they could trust him because of what had happened the previous night, that he was as much of a criminal as they were. A cold wind was blowing off the Thames and Shepherd shivered.

He went back to his car, taking a circuitous route to check that he wasn’t being followed. He reassembled his mobile phone as he walked. As it was the Stuart Marsden phone he didn’t use it to call Hargrove. When he was in his car, he took his other two mobiles out of the glove compartment and used one to phone Hargrove. ‘It’s Ken Swift,’ he said, ‘the inspector with Specialist Firearms Team Amber.’

‘You met with him?’

‘He’s got a rented flat in Wapping High Street.’

‘And what’s the plan?’

‘He and Rosie are putting together a robbery. Drugs-dealers, same as they did in Harlesden. I’ll be taking Andy Ormsby’s place.’

‘They talked about him?’

‘Shot by one of the Yardies. Died in the back of the van they were using. Buried in the New Forest.’

‘So that’s it, then?’

‘You want to move in on what I have?’

‘Did they mention the Python?’

‘They’re going to use it on the next job.’

‘We need that gun, Spider. The icing on the cake. We’ll get dogs looking for Ormsby’s body. With what we’ve got, Rose will roll on Swift. You won’t be involved.’

‘They’re cops, and they’re not stupid,’ said Shepherd.‘You bust them straight after they’ve talked to me and they’ll put two and two together.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Let it run for a few days. Rose has to move soon because he needs the money for his daughter’s medical bills. Swift said they were putting something together now, so let them fill me in on it and bust us en route. Take me in with them, then they’ll assume I’ve cut a deal. That way I stay as Stuart Marsden, bent cop, and don’t show my hand.’

‘You’re okay with that?’

Shepherd grimaced. He wasn’t happy about setting up Rose and Swift but he had to keep his undercover status secret. The more people who knew who he was and what he did, the harder it would be for him to operate in future. And the greater the risk to Liam. ‘It’s the best way,’ he said.

‘Still no wire?’ asked Hargrove.

‘I don’t want to show out on this case,’ said Shepherd.

‘I understand,’ said Hargrove. ‘Swift needs money, does he?’

‘Two ex-wives and one on the way.’ Shepherd cut the connection, then tapped in another number. The major answered. ‘Gannon.’

‘It’s Spider. Don’t suppose you’re free for a chat?’

‘Where are you?’

‘Wapping.’

‘I’m in Westminster, on my way to talk to a select committee who want reassurance that all’s well with the world. It isn’t, of course, but I’m supposed to sound confident that we can handle anything that’s thrown at us. This afternoon I’m over at New Scotland Yard to meet their anti-terrorism guys. All good stuff.’

‘No sweat. If you’re busy it can wait.’

‘If you can get to the Embankment within half an hour we’ll talk before I go in to the great and the good.’

‘Do you know a guy called Barry Jones? From the Regiment? He just killed himself.’

‘Doesn’t ring a bell. But I’ll check. Is that what you want to talk about?’

‘That’s part of it.’

Shepherd ended the call and drove westwards. He parked in a multi-storey near Charing Cross station and walked down to Victoria Embankment. It wasn’t a problem for him to be seen with the major: Stuart Marsden was an armed policeman not a drugs-dealer or a gangland hitman, so it wouldn’t be out of character for him to know a member of the SAS. The worst that would happen was that he’d have to lie, but lying was second nature.

Shepherd headed along the paved walkway on the north side of the river. It felt good to be out in regular clothes rather than driving around in the ARV in his combat gear. He wasn’t used to working regular hours. His usual roles involved passing himself off as a career criminal, and one of the perks of the criminal fraternity was being able to choose your hours.

Shepherd spotted the major looking out over the river, a metallic attaché case in his left hand.

‘Good to see you’re not in uniform, Spider,’ he said as they shook hands. His was the size of a shovel and he wore the Regimental signet ring on his little finger.

They walked together towards Westminster Bridge.

‘Thanks for this, Major.’

‘I was early, anyway. I hate these briefings to politicians, but at least they get me out of the barracks.’ He hefted the metal case. ‘All I do is wait for the sat phone to ring, and when it does all hell breaks loose. But until it rings, it’s just me and four walls. With a staff sergeant who still can’t make a decent brew.’

‘It’s like that in the ARV. We spend hours driving around waiting for something to kick off. But when it does, there’s all sorts of rules and regulations about what we can and can’t do. It’s like going into battle with one hand tied behind your back.’

‘Any idea how long you’ll be undercover this time?’

‘I’ve almost cracked it.’

‘Hell of a job, Spider.’

‘If they’re bent, they deserve what’s coming to them.’

‘I meant a hell of a job for you. Winning their trust so that you can betray them. Especially when they’re cops.’

‘I try not to think of it that way,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m just gathering evidence. If they weren’t bad, they wouldn’t have anything to worry about.’

‘It would do my head in,’ said Gannon. ‘We tried using our guys undercover in Ireland, but it never worked.’

‘Different skills,’ said Shepherd.

‘Yeah. They grew their hair long, wore the right clothes and got the accent, but they just didn’t fit.’

‘Everyone knows everyone else over the water. You were trying to blend into an incestuous community.’

‘The UK criminal fraternity’s not that big – aren’t you worried you’ll be rumbled by someone you’ve come across before?’

‘I’m good with names and faces,’ said Shepherd. ‘I can usually spot trouble before it happens. And, more often than not, I leave an operation before the bad guys are busted so no one’s the wiser.’

‘But you’re doing okay?’

Shepherd knew Gannon wasn’t talking about work. Was he okay about Sue? ‘One day at a time,’ he said. ‘That’s what they say, isn’t it? You take each day as it comes, and after a while it doesn’t hurt as much. Eventually life gets back to normal.’

‘It’s easy to say, I know.’

‘I miss her so damn much.’

‘That’ll never change.’

‘It would be easier if there was someone to blame.’ Shepherd took a deep breath. ‘There’s no one I can talk it through with,’ he went on. ‘Liam’s too young, Sue’s parents are trying to deal with their own grief. The unit’s given me a psychologist but she’s more interested in knowing if I’m up to the job.’

They sat down on a bench beside the London Eye. Shepherd grinned. ‘Let me give you a crap analogy.’ He pointed to the giant wheel. ‘That’s life, in a way. We all get one circuit, then it’s someone else’s turn. But with the whole world to experience, most people never get beyond the pod they’re born in. Once round and then off into the long night.’

‘Fuck me, Spider, how depressed are you?’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not after the meaning of life. It’s just that there are times when you wonder what the point of it is.’

‘Life? Or the London Eye?’ Gannon smiled. ‘The London Eye’s a tourist attraction – but life? Who the hell knows?’

‘The guy who topped himself in front of me – Barry Jones. We’d started on a meaning-of-life conversation before he pulled the trigger.’

‘He had a history of depression. That’s why he was RTUd. He was a loose cannon, waiting to go off.’

‘His life had turned to shit, was what he said. Wife had left him, found a new man, wouldn’t let him see his daughter.’

‘He used to knock her around. That’s what I was told. Any problems he had, he brought them on himself.’

‘That’s not the way he saw it. He said he loved his kid, that his wife was turning her against him, and that he’d never laid a finger on her.’

‘He had a short fuse – it was in his file. He decked an officer once but it was in the field and the officer was due to move on so nothing came of it.’

‘I tried to see the little girl afterwards,’ said Shepherd. ‘Jones asked me to tell her that he loved her, but her mother wouldn’t let me into the house. Said I was a murderer – she seemed to think we’d killed him. I had his blood all over me.’

‘Probably best that you didn’t see the child, then. It would have been pretty traumatic for her. The gear that SO19 wear is as intimidating as our kit, with or without bloodstains.’

‘I keep having dreams that she was at the window watching her dad shoot himself. She wasn’t – I know she wasn’t.’

‘Small mercies,’ said Gannon. ‘You wouldn’t want a kid seeing something like that. Probably wouldn’t benefit from seeing you, either, to be honest. She’s always going to remember you as the man who was there when her dad died.’

‘Yeah, you’re probably right. Maybe I’ll write her a letter or something.’ He scowled. ‘Nah, the mother would just throw it away. But she has to know her dad loved her. If I don’t tell her, she’ll go through life thinking he didn’t.’

‘You’re not responsible for his actions,’ said Gannon. ‘You don’t owe him anything.’

‘He was Sass, and it was his last request,’ said Shepherd. ‘And if I don’t carry it out, who will? Jeez, what state must he have been in to pull the trigger? We were talking and then, bang, he was gone.’

‘Jones lived for the Regiment. It was his be-all and end-all. When he was RTUd, he fell apart. It happens.’ Gannon took a packet of Wrigley’s gum from his pocket and offered a piece to Shepherd. Shepherd shook his head. Gannon popped a stick into his mouth and chewed. ‘It’s like greyhounds. They’re bred for one reason. To win races. As soon as they’re past their best, they’re surplus to requirements. Twenty-five thousand healthy dogs are put down every year just so that the punters can bet a few quid on a Saturday night.’

‘It’s a better analogy than my London Eye.’

‘It’s the way it is. Greyhounds aren’t bred as family pets, they’re bred to win races. The Sass doesn’t train men to be good fathers or husbands or to run businesses. It trains them to jump out of aeroplanes, march through hazardous terrain with back-breaking loads and kill people. Once your Sass days are over, those skills aren’t especially useful. You know what most guys used to end up doing after they left the Regiment?’

‘The building trade.’

‘Dead right. Brickies or scaffolders. I’ve had guys end up as gravediggers and lollipop men. Most leave thinking they’re going to earn a living as mercenaries or security consultants, but most end up on building sites or guarding car parks. Iraq has thrown up job opportunities but not everyone’s suitable for close-protection work. And the ones who’ve been out of the Regiment for a few years have lost their edge. Life’s tough, and it’s even tougher for our guys out in the real world. I’m sorry Barry Jones took his life, but he’s one of half a dozen former members of the Regiment so far this year.’

That was news to Shepherd. ‘And there’s nothing anyone can do?’

‘It’s a rough old world. We’re the SAS, not the Samaritans. I’m not happy about the way it is, Spider, and I do what I can. But I’ve enough on my plate with the Increment. So, tell me about the trick-cyclist.’

‘My boss reckons I might be stressed out. It was tough going undercover in a high-security prison. Then there was Sue’s accident. And I’ve been pretty much flat out since I started with the unit.’

‘You seem straight and level to me.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You were never the most relaxed of guys, but that’s the nature of our job.’

‘Thanks again. I’ll tell her when I see her next.’

‘Ah, the plot thickens. A woman?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘I guess it’s difficult for her to relate to, right?’

‘She’s a smart girl but, yeah, she’s never fired a gun in anger.’

‘Not many people have.’

‘I don’t see why they should expect me to spill my guts to a stranger, someone who has no conception of what it’s like to be in combat or to work undercover.’

‘I doubt they’d be using her if she wasn’t qualified.’

‘Oh, she’s good all right. Downright bloody devious. Keeps trying to get me to talk about Sue without asking me full on.’

‘Why’s she interested in Sue?’

‘She reckons I’m not dealing with her death. I get the feeling she thinks I should be crying my eyes out.’

‘We all deal with death in our own way,’ said Gannon.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me just because I’m not bursting into tears every other day.’

‘I didn’t say there was,’ said Gannon. ‘I know how much she meant to you. You gave up the Regiment for her.’

‘For her and Liam,’ said Shepherd. ‘She wanted the quiet life. Me at home with a pipe and slippers.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Out of the frying-pan and into the bloody fire. She didn’t realise the cops would have me undercover. She saw more of me when I was with the Sass.’

‘How’s Liam handling it?’

‘How does any kid deal with the death of his mum? She was the world to him.’

‘Have you talked to him about it?’

‘It’s like pulling teeth.’

‘Like father, like son,’ said Gannon.

‘You think he gets it from me?’ said Shepherd.

‘You’re his role model,’ said Gannon. ‘If you’re the strong, silent type he’ll try to be the same.’

Shepherd stared up at the cloudless blue sky. ‘Maybe that’s it.’

‘What’s eating you, Spider?’ asked Gannon, quietly.

High overhead a 747 banked towards Heathrow. ‘I’m not sure. There’s something not right but I don’t know what it is.’ He wasn’t used to telling people how he felt: his whole undercover life was spent masking his true feelings.

‘Maybe Jones made you aware of your own mortality.’

‘I’m not suicidal,’ said Shepherd. Too quickly: he’d sounded defensive. ‘And I’ve seen men die. Hell, I’ve killed them close up, too.’

‘Yeah, but they were the enemy. You didn’t get to know them before you pulled the trigger. You had a chance to talk to Jones, to get inside his head – you let him get inside yours too. And there were obvious similarities to your own situation.’

‘Maybe.’ Shepherd was unconvinced. He was no stranger to death. He’d killed on missions and slept the sleep of the just. He’d seen friends and colleagues die, too – a young trooper had died after a snake bite in the Borneo jungle during a training exercise. He’d seen another fall to his death in a climbing accident. He would never forget the men’s faces, but they didn’t haunt his dreams as Jones did.

‘You and Jones both left the Regiment and both have one child,’ said Gannon. ‘Maybe you saw a bit of yourself in him. Seems to me that if you really want to get to the bottom of what’s troubling you, you should try opening up to the psychologist.’

‘But you think I’m okay?’

‘You keep asking me that, and you seem fine – but what the hell do I know?’

His head hurt. His throat hurt. His left knee felt as if it was on fire. His right hand ached and the slightest movement of his thumb sent pain lancing down his arm. The only good thing was that at least it meant he was alive. Eddie Anderson would have smiled except he was missing his front teeth and moving his lips was agony.

He heard movement at the side of his bed. He didn’t open his eyes. A nurse came to check on him every fifteen minutes. Sometimes they changed his dressings. There was a drip in his left arm and sometimes they did something with the bag.

‘You’re in a right state, aren’t you?’

Anderson opened his eyes a fraction and squinted up at his visitor. He expected a doctor but the man looking down at him wasn’t wearing a white coat. He was wearing a black raincoat over a dark blue suit. He was a tall, thin man with close-cropped bullet grey hair and he was holding a warrant card six inches from Anderson’s nose.

‘No comment,’ said Anderson, wincing because it hurt to speak.

‘I admire your loyalty but your boss is dead,’ said the detective.

‘Dead?’

‘Deceased. No more. Dead on arrival. He is an ex-boss. Am I getting through to you?’

‘What about Ray?’

‘Wates is in a worse state than you, Eddie. They’re taking his spleen out this afternoon.’

‘Shit,’ said Anderson.

‘You can live without a spleen. They say.’

Anderson closed his eyes.

‘Three against one and two of you are in intensive care while one’s on a slab. And the other guy, not a mark on him.’

Anderson said nothing.

‘You knew he was a cop, right?’ said the detective.

‘No comment.’

‘This is just you and me, Eddie. There’s no tape. Whatever you tell me stays in this room.’

‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I’m a cop who hates mysteries,’ said the detective. ‘You, Charlie Kerr and Ray Wates go charging in with guns. Kerr gets shot dead, Wates gets beaten to a pulp and you get hit by a car. That’s a mystery.’

‘How do you know what happened?’ said Anderson. He opened his eyes. ‘You weren’t there.’

‘No, but I know a man who was,’ said the detective.

‘So why no caution?’ asked Anderson suspiciously. ‘You caution me, I get a brief. Piss off and leave me alone.’

The detective leaned over the bed, his face a few inches from Anderson’s. ‘The way things stand at the moment, they reckon you’re the victim here. Crazy as it seems, the plods think you, Charlie and Ray were attacked. So, you tell me what I want to know and I walk out of here and maybe, just maybe, you get to go home to your wife and kid in Chorltoncum-Hardy. But you screw me around any more and I’ll put the plods right. You’ll go down for attempted murder.’

Anderson glared at the detective. ‘It sounds like you know everything anyway.’

‘The guy you attacked, you knew he was a cop?’

‘Fucking right.’

‘And that didn’t worry you?’

‘It worried me and Ray, but Charlie wanted him dead.’ Anderson frowned. ‘No comebacks, right?’

‘On my mother’s life,’ said the detective.

‘Nelson tried to fuck with Charlie’s missus. Charlie, not surprisingly, took it personal. That’s why he was there. I told him it was a mistake.’

‘Nelson?’ said the detective. ‘Who the fuck is Nelson?’

‘Nelson’s the undercover cop. That’s the name he was using anyway. Tony Nelson.’ A wave of nausea washed over him and Anderson closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the detective was staring at him. ‘How do you know he was an undercover cop?’

‘Because he was cracking on he was a fucking hitman, that’s why. And we followed him to a cop shop in the City.’

‘Leman Street?’

‘I don’t know what road it was. Near Aldgate station.’

‘And Nelson was pretending to be a hitman?’

Anderson fought another bout of nausea. ‘I need a doctor,’ he said.

‘No, you need me,’ said the cop. ‘I’m the only one standing between you and a life sentence. You tried to kill a cop, remember.’

‘A fucking supercop, that’s what he is. Who the hell is he anyway?’

‘Kerr didn’t tell you?’

‘When we followed him from Manchester, we thought he was a hitman. Angie had paid him to put a bullet in Charlie. We saw her and Nelson get busted, then Nelson got a get-out-of-jail-free card. We followed him to London and he reported to a cop shop.’

‘That was when?’

‘Tuesday.’

‘And what time did he arrive at the cop shop?’

‘Four o’clock. Four thirty, maybe.’

‘And you left it until Thursday before you made your move?’

‘Charlie had things to do up north.’

The ward doors crashed open and a middle-aged Chinese man in a white coat hurried over the linoleum floor towards Anderson’s bed. ‘What the hell is going on here?’ he asked, in a perfect Home Counties accent.

‘I’m just having a few words with Mr Anderson,’ said the detective.

‘He’s a sick man,’ said the doctor.

‘He almost killed a policeman.’

‘And once he’s stabilised you can charge him. But at the moment he’s my patient.’

‘I’m done anyway,’ said the detective.

‘Yes, you are,’ said the doctor.

The detective stared at him, long and hard. The doctor tried to meet his gaze but his face reddened. He began to busy himself with the equipment monitoring Anderson’s vital signs.

‘So that’s it?’ said Anderson. ‘I’m in the clear?’

‘Fingers crossed,’ said the detective. He left the ward, his black leather shoes squeaking with each step.

It was only as the detective barged out through the double doors that Anderson realised the man hadn’t identified himself, and the warrant card had been too close to his face to read.

The name on the passport that the man was using was Muhammad Zahid. It was a good name, but it wasn’t the name that he had been born with. The passport was Iraqi, but the man was Palestinian. When he had joined the ranks of the shahid a video would be shown on Arab TV stations across the Middle East proclaiming his love for the Palestinian people and his hatred for the infidels who aided the Israeli murderers. The man calling himself Zahid hadn’t been in Palestine for five years and hadn’t seen his family for six. Ever since his Arab brothers had achieved martyrdom during the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the West’s intelligence service had gone into overdrive. Suspected terrorists were watched, hunted and held without trial. Phones were tapped, emails were read, letters were opened. There was no such thing as secrecy any more. The Americans wanted to photograph, fingerprint and take DNA samples from every human being on the planet, but until they did, all that a man like the Palestinian needed was a valid passport with a valid visa. The immigration officer at Heathrow’s Terminal Three was underpaid and overworked: he had only seconds to look at the passport and compare the photograph in it with the man in front of him. The resemblance was close enough and the passport was genuine, so the Palestinian was waved through. The immigration officer even welcomed him back to the United Kingdom. It had been so easy. The British were so trusting, so gullible.

The passport the Palestinian was using belonged to an Iraqi whose brother had been murdered by Saddam Hussein. The man had fled with his wife and two young sons before the Iraqi secret police could visit him in the middle of the night. The British had granted the family asylum, and permanent residency in the United Kingdom. The Iraqi hated the British as much as the Palestinian did, but he was happy to take advantage of them. He had received a new hip, courtesy of the National Health Service, lived in a spacious three-bedroomed council flat in Notting Hill, with a balcony and use of a communal garden, his children were receiving a free education and would, hopefully, go to university one day. The Iraqi didn’t need his passport any more. He had no plans to leave the country. Iraq was a hellish place run by the infidels, but even if it wasn’t he wouldn’t want to return. In Britain he was richer than he would ever be in Iraq. His children would soon be granted British citizenship, and they already spoke with British accents.

The Iraqi wasn’t grateful for what the British had done for him. He saw it as his right. The British helped the Americans, who murdered and tortured Muslims around the world. He owed the infidels no loyalty. His only loyalty was to Islam and his Arab brothers. When he was approached by the Saudi one summer afternoon as he strolled through a pretty London square, he didn’t take much convincing to hand over his passport. He didn’t even want to know how it would be used. All he knew was that his Arab brothers were preparing to strike at the heart of the infidels and lending his passport was the least he could do. Even if the authorities ever traced it, all the Iraqi had to do was say it had been stolen. That was one of the benefits of living in Britain: it was so easy to lie to the police. Unlike in Iraq, where the secret police could torture and kill with impunity, the British police had to call him ‘sir’ and would get him a lawyer, free of charge, if he needed one.

The Palestinian had been in the UK for two weeks, and he had spent all that time in the bedsit that had been found for him. Food and drink was brought to him by a man who never spoke. Another man – a Saudi, the Palestinian thought – came after a week, took measurements of his chest and waist and gave him some newspaper cuttings about the latest atrocities on the West Bank. Five schoolchildren killed by an Israeli rocket. A baby shot in crossfire. A student killed by a rubber bullet that hit him in the throat. The Palestinian didn’t need the newspaper stories to fuel his hatred for the West. That had been forged more than ten years earlier when the Israelis had thrown him and his family out of their house, then bulldozed it. His father had fought back and been shot in the leg. The doctors had amputated it above the knee and he had never worked again. A year later, the Palestinian’s elder brother had died when Israeli soldiers had fired into a crowd of protestors, and his mother had died of a broken heart six months later. The Palestinian hated the Israelis, he hated the Americans, who funded the Israelis, and he hated the British, who kowtowed to every demand the Americans made. It was time to hit the British, to show them what it was like to have people die in the streets. To make them suffer as the Palestinians had suffered.

There was a knock and the Palestinian got up off the prayer mat. He unlocked the door. It was the Saudi.

The Saudi opened his bag and took out a canvas vest with bulky packages in pockets spaced around it at even intervals. Red and blue wires ran from the pockets.

The Saudi helped the Palestinian fit the vest and tightened it with straps and buckles. The button to detonate the explosives was at the end of a white wire. The Palestinian tucked it away in one of the pockets. He knew how the vest worked: he’d been on a training course that was part technical, part indoctrination. He hadn’t needed brainwashing: he’d welcomed the opportunity to join the ranks of the shahid. Once he had given his life for the jihad,he would be with his mother and brother in heaven, his father, too, when his time came.

The Palestinian put on his coat over the vest and fastened the buttons. The Saudi walked round him several times. He made a small adjustment to the shoulders, then handed the Palestinian an envelope. He picked up his bag and left. ‘Allahu akbar,’ he whispered, as the door closed. God is great.

The Palestinian opened the envelope. Inside, there was a single sheet of paper. It was a photocopy of a map of the London Underground system. One station had been circled in red ink. King’s Cross. And written in the margin was a time: five o’clock.

The Palestinian looked at the cheap clock on the wall by the door. It was a quarter to one. He had plenty of time. He knelt to pray.

Ken Swift swiped his card and pushed through the revolving door. His boots squeaked as he walked down the corridor, head swivelling to left and right. He popped his head into the COMMS room and saw Mike Sutherland checking a radio. ‘Seen Rosie?’ he asked.

‘On the range,’ said Sutherland. ‘He’s not happy with the sights on his Glock.’

Swift turned on his heel. He heard the cracks of 9mm rounds as he went down the stairs to the range, single shots, evenly spaced. He barged through the door and saw Rose firing at a bullseye target ten metres down the range. Rose was in his black overalls, wearing orange ear-protectors.

‘Rosie!’ shouted Swift.

Rose carried on firing. When he’d emptied the magazine he pressed the button that brought the target closer so that he could see exactly where his shots had gone.

Swift walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. Rose pulled off his ear-protectors. ‘What?’ he said.

‘Where’s Marsden?’

Rose frowned.‘He’s with BTP this afternoon. They want him undercover on Operation Wingman. Why?’

‘We’re in deep shit,’ said Swift. ‘Deep, deep shit.’

The Palestinian pulled the door to his bedsit shut behind him and walked slowly down the stairs. He heard loud rock music from one of the rooms on the first floor. Whoever was living there played music all day long and well into the night. Some nights the Palestinian had been unable to sleep but he had never gone down to complain. He hadn’t wanted to draw attention to himself. He just hoped that whoever was in the room would be at King’s Cross station at five o’clock.

At the bottom of the stairs a glass door led to the street. The Palestinian pulled at it but it wouldn’t open. Then he realised he had to press a button to unlock it. He stared at it. It was exactly the same as the one on his vest. It was an omen, he decided. An omen that everything would go as planned. ‘Allahu akbar,’ he whispered. He pressed the button and the lock buzzed. It would be just as easy to press the other button, when the time came. Click, and he would be in heaven. He pulled open the door and walked into the street. He was just five minutes’ walk from Brixton station in South London, the terminus of the Victoria Line.

The sky was overcast, another good omen. He had to wear the coat to cover the vest and it would have looked out of place on a warm, sunny day. Allah was smiling on him because what was about to happen was Allah’s will.

The streets were busy with afternoon shoppers. Music blared from an open window. Reggae this time, not rock, but it was just as offensive to the Palestinian’s ears. He walked past a travel agency, whose windows were plastered with posters offering cheap holidays – one for two weeks in Israel. The Palestinian shook his head sadly. Why would anyone want to holiday with murderers? he wondered. Had the Nazis offered package holidays to their extermination camps? London was full of tourists, coming to spend their money in a country that aided the persecution of Muslims. It was time to show those tourists that they would have been better to stay at home.

He walked under a railway bridge and a train rattled overhead, making him flinch. Brakes squealed with the sound of a tortured animal. He walked along a street filled with market stalls selling cheap clothes, flimsy luggage and counterfeit batteries. Most of the shops catered to the Afro-Caribbean community, supermarkets with open boxes piled high with vegetables the Palestinian had never seen before, butchers offering halal meat, posters advertising phonecards to make cheap calls to Jamaica and West Africa. The Palestinian moved through the shoppers, trying to avoid physical contact with those around him.

He turned right on to Brixton Road. He was only yards from the tube entrance. He was so busy with his thoughts that he didn’t see the two men blocking his way until he had almost bumped into them. He mumbled an apology and tried to step to the side, but a hand gripped his right arm just below the shoulder. He looked up to see two big black men. One had dreadlocks tumbling from under a red, green and yellow woollen hat. The other was shorter but wider, with a large medallion on a thick gold chain. Both stared at him with undisguised hatred.

‘Give us your mobile,’ said the man with dreadlocks.

‘Excuse me?’ said the Palestinian.

‘I don’t want your fucking apology, I want your fucking phone. You speaka da fucking English, don’t you?’ He pushed the Palestinian in the chest and he staggered back against a shop window. He was facing a bus stop where half a dozen housewives and old men stood with bags of shopping. They didn’t intervene: they knew from experience that it brought only grief and a trip to the local Accident and Emergency department.

The Palestinian was confused. ‘I understand English, but I don’t have a phone.’

‘Everybody’s got a fucking phone,’ said the shorter of the two men. He pulled a small knife out of his pocket, a shiny blade with a brown wooden handle. ‘Now, give us your fucking phone or I’ll stick you.’

‘I don’t have a phone,’ said the Palestinian. ‘Please, I have to be somewhere.’

‘Give us your wallet, then.’

‘I don’t have a wallet,’ said the Palestinian. He had nothing in his coat pockets and only a handful of coins in his trousers, just enough to buy his tube ticket to King’s Cross. He had been told to carry nothing that might identify him.

The Palestinian tried to push between the two men. ‘Excuse me, please,’ he said. The knife flashed in and out and he felt a searing pain in his side. He gasped.

‘You fucking Arab piece of shit,’ hissed the man with the medallion. He stabbed the knife into the Palestinian’s side again. And again. The Palestinian staggered back against the window and it rattled from the impact. He felt blood flow under his vest and his legs went weak. He tried to reach under his coat so that at least he could die with honour, with glory, but his arms were like lead.

‘Think you’re better than us, do you?’ hissed the man with the knife. The knife struck again, in his chest this time. The Palestinian’s breath gurgled in his throat and he sank to his knees, a red mist falling over his eyes. His last thoughts were of the shame he would bring upon his family when they heard he had died in the street, that he had failed in his mission, that he had died for nothing, murdered by an infidel for not having a phone. He slumped forward and slammed face down on to the pavement, bloody froth spilling from his lips.

Shepherd took a drink from his plastic bottle of water, sat down under a map of the Underground system and stretched out his legs. He had been walking around Piccadilly Circus tube station for the best part of an hour, moving from platform to platform. His radio was clipped to the back of his belt under his leather jacket and there was a microphone inside his right cuff.

Nick Wright, Tommy Reid and four other British Transport Police undercover officers were on the same frequency, as were Brian Ramshaw and a controller at the Management Information and Communications Centre in Broadway. She was monitoring the CCTV cameras at Piccadilly Circus, where Wright and a female BTP officer were with Shepherd, Leicester Square, where Ramshaw was with Reid, and Tottenham Court Road, where the rest of the BTP officers were staked out.

‘How’s it going, Stu?’ asked Wright, through the earpiece.

‘Bored rigid,’ said Shepherd.

‘You can pop up for a coffee,’ said Wright.

‘Maybe later,’ said Shepherd. The BTP had wanted Wright and Ramshaw on the operation because they had seen Snow White and her crew up close. But they’d decided not to stake out the Trocadero again in case the steamers recognised any of the undercover officers. Four new BTP undercover officers were hanging around the amusement arcades while the officers from Wednesday’s operation were in the tube system. Shepherd was wearing his leather jacket, blue jeans and a grey pullover. Wright had been more creative and was dressed as a priest, complete with dog collar and a shabby document case with the name of an East London church stencilled on the side.

Shepherd folded his arms, and felt the Glock hard against his left side. He couldn’t get over the fact that armed police were going up against teenagers, but Shepherd couldn’t forget how the boy had casually knifed the little girl. There had been no fear in his eyes, no regret. He’d smiled as he stuck the blade into the child’s flesh. Shepherd wasn’t happy about being taken off ARV duties, but he was glad to have another crack at the Snow White gang. This time he’d be quicker off the mark.

Eric Tierney had seen it all on the streets of Brixton. On a good day it could be a heart-warming, lively place, vibrant in its ethnicity. On a bad day it was a cross between a third-world slum and a war zone. Over the six years that Tierney had been a paramedic, he’d tended teenage boys with bullet wounds, twelve-year-old girls after back-street abortions, drug overdoses, young men who’d had pub glasses thrust into their faces, underage prostitutes who’d been slashed with razors. On a bad day, Brixton was the closest thing to hell that Tierney could imagine. But it was never dull. Tierney would have hated a nine-to-five job in a factory or office. Not that he’d ever tried one. He’d joined the army from school, and trained as a medic. He’d done ten years in uniform and served in Iraq, then decided that if he didn’t leave before he was thirty he never would. The Ambulance Service had snapped him up and sent him to work in South London where his skill in patching up bullet wounds was a welcome bonus.

Today Tierney had started work at two and it was only four fifteen but already he had dealt with two heroin overdoses and a toddler who had been knocked out of her push-chair by a bus driver who had the dilated pupils of a drug-user. The police had taken the man for a blood test and the little girl was in intensive care with head injuries.

The fourth call of the day was to a man lying face down in the street. That was all the information they had. He could be drunk, on drugs, or dead. The driver had the siren and lights flashing but the traffic was heavy and there was no room for the cars ahead to pull to the side, so they had to wait it out.

The ambulance crawled along the road. Eventually Tierney saw a small crowd of onlookers and a police car with its blue light flashing. He grabbed his resuscitation kit, opened the door and ran down the street. As he got closer to the police car he slowed. The body was on the pavement, close to the road. One uniformed officer was holding back the onlookers, the other was on the radio. Tierney could see why neither was attending to the man on the ground. There was a large pool of blood around him: a body couldn’t lose that much and still be alive.

Tierney knelt down beside the body, taking care to avoid the blood. He couldn’t see a wound, but there was no doubt that the man had been stabbed or shot. There were no cartridge cases on the pavement and the local gang-bangers tended to use semiautomatics because that was what they used in the movies. The man had probably been stabbed.

Tierney put a hand on his back, preparing to turn him over.

‘CID’s on the way,’ said one of the officers. ‘Best leave the body where it is.’

‘I’ve got to confirm that it is a body,’ said Tierney, ‘check for a pulse.’

‘Waste of time,’ said the officer.

‘Them’s the rules,’ said Tierney, although he knew the officer was right. He felt something hard and oblong under the coat, and frowned. He moved his hand round the body and felt another object, the same shape as the first. He sat back on his heels. His first inclination had been to turn the man over, but now he was having second thoughts. Something was not right – something that was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

He remembered a poster he’d seen in Iraq, one of many produced by the Americans. It warned of the dangers of suicide bombers, and on it was a photograph of a vest with pockets that held tubes of dynamite – not oblong blocks like Tierney had felt but tubes like Blackpool rock. Tierney craned his neck and looked at the man’s face. It was pale but definitely Middle Eastern.

‘Get those people back,’ Tierney said quietly.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked the officer.

‘Just move them back, get everybody as far away from here as you can.’

Tierney reached for the bottom of the man’s coat and pulled it slowly up his legs. Then he rolled it up to the man’s waist. He saw grey canvas and knew his hunch had been right. A few more inches and he could see three pockets, each containing something oblong. Tierney swallowed. His mouth was bone dry.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ asked the officer, his voice a harsh whisper.

Tierney didn’t reply. He eased the coat higher. It snagged on something and he cursed. He couldn’t reach the coat buttons without turning the body over, and he didn’t want to risk that. It was something for the bomb-disposal experts. But Tierney wanted to be sure. He eased the coat from side to side, then pulled it further up the body. He saw wires. Red and blue. Now he was sure.

Major Allan Gannon enjoyed his monthly meetings with the head of the Met’s Anti-terrorist Squad. Commander Ronnie Roberts was a career cop who’d worked his way up from the beat in South London, with stints in Special Branch and the Robbery Squad. His office on the eleventh floor of New Scotland Yard overlooked Broadway, and as Gannon stood at the window and looked through the bomb-proof curtains he saw a group of Japanese tourists photographing themselves in front of the famous triangular rotating sign.

‘How does it feel to be a tourist attraction?’ asked Gannon.

‘It’s a funny old world, isn’t it?’ said Roberts. ‘On the one hand we’re supposed to be Dixon of Dock Green and walking guidebooks for tourists, and on the other we’ve got machine-guns at Heathrow and surveillance operations on terrorists trying to buy anthrax spores over the Internet.’

‘I blame TV,’ said Gannon. ‘Newspapers make do with words but TV needs pictures and sound. The Iranian embassy siege did it for us. Once they saw us in action they wanted to know everything. Next thing we know there’s movies about us, kill-and-tell books, the works.’

‘I don’t know who thought openness was a good thing,’ said Roberts, ‘but they should have slapped a D Notice on anything connected with you guys. Now every man and his dog knows what weapons you have and how you train.’

‘And everyone in the world knows where MI6 is,’ agreed Gannon.‘Never understood that. They’re supposed to be the Secret Service but they allow their HQ to be featured in a James Bond movie. And they act all surprised when the IRA takes a pot-shot at them with an RPG.’

There was a knock on the door and a secretary showed in Greig Mulhern, number three at Special Branch. He shook hands with Gannon and Roberts and sat on a sofa in the corner of the room. He was a bulky man, almost square, with a thick neck and bullet-shaped head.

‘Coffee’s on the way,’ said Roberts. The meeting had no agenda and no notes were taken. It was just an opportunity to share information without having to go through multiple layers of bureaucracy.

‘Martin not here yet?’ asked Mulhern. Martin Jackson was the fourth member of the group and as he had furthest to travel he was, more often than not, the last to arrive. He worked for GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping facility that monitored phone, satellite and Internet traffic around the world.

‘On his way,’ said Roberts. ‘How’s business?’

‘We’ve got the Yanks on our back, big-time,’ said Mulhern. ‘They want us to put undercover guys in the London mosques. They’re picking up intel that al-Qaeda’s planning a big one in the UK.’

‘That’s just them wanting to keep us on side,’ said Gannon. ‘Every time public opinion swings against what they’re doing in Iraq, they crack on that the whole world’s in danger. Remember what Bush said? You’re either with us or against us.’

Mulhern scratched at his shirt collar. He had short arms and he always had trouble finding shirts that fitted. Either the sleeves were too long or the collars too tight.‘They’re not talking specifics,but they rarely do in case they give away their sources. But they say there’s a big one being planned and that they’ll be using Muslims with British passports. Invisibles.’

‘That narrows it down to – what? About a million?’ Gannon laughed.

‘Thing is, do you know how many Arabs we have in Special Branch? Or how many could even pass for Arab or Pakistani? The answer is a big fat zero.’

‘Five’s the same,’ said Roberts. ‘They’ve got Oxbridge graduates who can speak the languages and who know everything there is to know about the culture, but they’re all whiter than white, so undercover operations are out of the question. We’re only just getting black officers into our undercover units. We don’t have a single Arab we could put into play.’

‘What’s the nature of the London threat?’ asked Gannon.

Mulhern shrugged. ‘No details. But there’s been heavy selling short of the UK market through New York from clients out in the Middle East. That much is a fact. Someone reckons the London stock market is going to plunge.’

‘Not all terrorists play the market,’ said Gannon, drily.

‘Agreed, but there was a lot of selling short of shares in the airlines whose planes crashed into the World Trade Center,’ said Mulhern. ‘But it’s not just the trading, there’s been phone traffic in which British Muslims were referred to.’

‘Do you think they’ve got intel they’re not telling you about?’ asked Roberts.

Mulhern frowned. ‘It’s possible, but if they have they’re playing it close to their chest. They might well have an undercover agent somewhere in the al-Qaeda network and don’t want to expose him by giving us the full details.’

‘So what’s the game plan?’ asked Gannon.

‘We’ve got sympathetic Muslims in most of the country’s mosques,’ said Mulhern. ‘We’ll put out feelers. That’s about all we can do. Martin can tell us what GCHQ is doing. I’m sure the National Security Agency has already been on to them.’

A harsh beeping came from the metal case at the side of the sofa. It was Gannon’s satellite phone. He stood up and went to it. As he reached for it, the pager on Mulhern’s belt went off. As Mulhern checked the message, one of the phones on Roberts’s desk rang.

The three men exchanged a worried look. It couldn’t be a coincidence that they were being contacted at the same time. Something had happened. Something big.

Rose sat deep in thought as Sutherland drove the ARV away from the traffic-lights. It was a cold day but the heater was on too high and he could feel sweat running down his back. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and ran his hand over his shaved head.

‘You okay, Sarge?’ asked Sutherland.

‘Huh?’

‘You’re a million miles away. Something wrong?’

Rose forced a smile. ‘Just bored. I hate these days when nothing happens.’

Dave Bamber was sitting in the back by the MP5s. He was a ten-year veteran of SO19, a Welshman with a shock of freckles across his nose and cheeks. ‘I like a quiet day, myself,’ said Bamber.

‘It’s because we haven’t got Jonah on board,’ said Sutherland.

‘Jonah?’

‘Stu Marsden. Every time we have him in the back, shit happens. First day on the job we get the call to Big Ben. Then the shoot-up at the pizza place.’

‘Yeah, bugger about Kev, right?’

‘He’ll be okay,’ said Rose. ‘The other guy let loose with a shotgun first. Kev was lucky he didn’t get a face full of shot.’

‘He and Stu are up for commendations,’ said Sutherland.

Rose stared out of the window, tight-lipped. If only he hadn’t driven down the road at the moment Marsden had been attacked, he would never have told him about the Harlesden job or taken him to see Swift. They’d have recruited someone else and done the second job, Kelly would have flown to Chicago and everything would have been all right. Now it was turning to shit. Unless he did something fast he was going to prison and his daughter would die.

Rose had replayed his conversation with Swift and Marsden over and over in his head as he sat in the front seat of the ARV. He and Swift had confessed to everything – the robbery, disposing of Ormsby’s body, the Dublin drugs deal. They’d told him about their guns. It was open and shut.

‘Commendations don’t mean shit,’ said Bamber.

‘Yeah, that’s what Stu said.’ Sutherland laughed.

Rose and Swift had spent fifteen minutes before their shift working out their options. That they hadn’t already been busted by IIC meant that the powers-that-be were waiting for something. Marsden’s evidence plus the gun would be all that was needed to file charges against them both, so the fact that they hadn’t already been arrested meant that IIC wanted more. Marsden hadn’t been wearing a wire, so maybe that was what they wanted: he would try to get them to confess on tape. Maybe he’d even get them to talk about the next job. If that was so they had a few days’ grace, a few days in which to dig themselves out of the shit they were in. They could get rid of the guns. Rose could dismantle them, screw up the barrels so that they’d get no usable forensics, then throw away the pieces where hopefully they’d never be found. They’d have to make sure they weren’t being followed. It had been a big mistake telling Marsden where Ormsby was buried. The alarm bells should have rung when he’d asked where they’d put the body, but he’d seemed so bloody reasonable. He was a cop, for God’s sake, an undercover cop, and they hadn’t spotted what he was up to. Rose gritted his teeth.

They’d have to dig up the body and move it. Rose wasn’t looking forward to that. He wasn’t looking forward to any of it. The money would have to go, too. There was no way he could pay for Kelly’s operation now, not without showing out. The best he could do was sit on the money until after he’d retired, and by then Kelly would be dead. Rose stamped on the thought. No way was he going to let his daughter die.

He took a deep breath. Sutherland flashed him a sideways look. ‘This vest is killing me today,’ Rose said. ‘Must be putting on weight.’

‘Take the plate out,’ suggested Sutherland.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Rose, but he left it where it was.

So, they got rid of the guns, moved the body and took care of the money. What then? They already had cast-iron alibis for the night of the Harlesden robbery. Without a recording of the conversation that had taken place on Swift’s balcony, it would be Marsden’s word against theirs. Two cops against one. They could try to pass it off as a joke, claim they were just pulling the new guy’s leg. That would leave Swift in the clear, but Rose’s situation was more complicated. There had been the drugs deal in Dublin. He’d used his own car to cross the water. And the biggest problem was what had happened on Thursday night: the shoot-out. One man dead and two in hospital. That was the part that made no sense to Rose. If Marsden, or whoever he really was, was an undercover cop, then why had those three guys driven down from Manchester to kill him? And if Marsden’s bosses had heard about the shoot-out, why hadn’t he been pulled out? The big question, the one that Swift and he still had to deal with, was what to do with Stuart Marsden.

Major Gannon strode into the Management Information and Communications Centre. He was carrying his grey metal sat-phone case. Two uniformed officers were behind him and Commander Roberts brought up the rear. ‘Who’s in command here?’ shouted Gannon.

A uniformed inspector in shirtsleeves stood up at a workstation. ‘Who are you?’ asked the inspector.

‘I’m the guy with a direct line to the prime minister, and as of now I’m in charge,’ said Gannon. ‘Major Gannon, SAS. I need you to do exactly as I say over the next few minutes.’ He looked up at a large clock on the wall behind the inspector’s desk. It was four thirty-one.

Commander Roberts flashed his warrant card at the BTP inspector. ‘Roberts, Anti-terrorist Squad,’ he said. ‘Just follow Major Gannon’s instructions.’

Gannon swung his sat phone on to the BTP inspector’s desk and held up his hands. There were some twenty men and women in the control room, all wearing headsets and each facing three flat computer screens. Most were talking into their microphones but all were looking at Gannon.

‘Would you all please stop what you are doing, right now?’ Gannon shouted. ‘No matter who you’re talking to, cut them off.’

Most of the officers did as Gannon said but some continued to talk. Gannon waved at the uniformed officers who had arrived with him. They walked over to those who were talking and unplugged their headsets.

‘As of now we are dealing with a category-one emergency,’ said Gannon. ‘This has priority over everything else until I tell you otherwise. You will not answer the phones, you will not deal with any other enquiries. I can tell you that a man wearing a vest full of high explosive has been found on the pavement in Brixton with a map of the tube, and we believe that King’s Cross station was the intended target.’

The inspector’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’

‘It’s unlikely that King’s Cross would have been the only target, which means we have to assume that there are other person-borne explosive devices heading towards others.’ Gannon smiled grimly. ‘That’s what we call suicide bombers these days – person-borne explosive devices. I want every CCTV camera on the tube system checked now. We are looking for Arabs wearing bulky clothing, or anyone who looks suspicious.’

‘You can’t—’ began the inspector.

Gannon silenced him by pointing a finger at his face. ‘If you say “can’t”, “won’t” or “shouldn’t” to me again, one of the men with me will throw you through that window over there, and I don’t care what floor we’re on. You will listen to me, you will answer my questions and you will carry out my orders, because if you don’t a lot of people will die. Are we clear?’

The blood had drained from the inspector’s face. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good man. I need you to contact the manager of every station on the Underground system and tell them to send their staff to the platforms. If they spot anyone suspicious they are to radio in here and notify you. We will then view the person on your CCTV screens. Got that?’

The inspector nodded.

‘How many stations are there on the system?’

‘Two hundred and eighty-seven,’ said the inspector.

Gannon did a quick calculation in his head. Even if each call could be completed in a minute, it would still take one man almost five hours to contact every station. They would have to split the workload. There were twenty officers here. Even with all of them on the case, it would still take about fifteen minutes. ‘Split your officers into teams and divide the stations between them. Cover the ones with mainline terminals first.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Gannon pointed at the BTP sergeant who had been sitting to the inspector’s right. ‘Show me how this equipment works,’ he said, and sat in the inspector’s chair. ‘Get me one of those headsets.’

Rose looked at Sutherland. ‘I wouldn’t mind a coffee, Mike,’ he said.

Before Sutherland could say anything, the main set burst into life. ‘MP to all Trojan units. Possible Operation Rolvenden in Central London, location unspecified. All Trojan units to report to nearest mainline rail station and await further instructions.’

Sutherland frowned. ‘That’s a bit bloody vague,’ he said.

‘Ours not to reason why,’ said Rose. ‘What would our nearest station be?’

Sutherland looked across at his visual display.

‘Six of one,’ he said. ‘Victoria, Charing Cross. Waterloo if you want to cross the water. They’re all five minutes away, max.’

‘Victoria,’ said Rose. ‘I can get a decent coffee there.’ He picked up the main set microphone. ‘Trojan Five Six Nine, en route to Victoria Station.’

Shepherd’s earpiece crackled. It was the female control officer at the Management Information and Communications Centre. She sounded blonde and thirtyish but that might have been Shepherd’s imagination in overdrive.

‘PC Marsden, please switch channels to three-seven.’

‘Will do,’ said Shepherd, but that was easier said than done with the radio in the small of his back. He got up and walked to the far end of the platform where there were fewer passengers and retuned it to channel thirty-seven. ‘Marsden receiving,’ he said, into his cuff.

‘Bloody hell, Spider, you said you were in deep cover but I didn’t think you meant going underground literally.’

‘Major?’ said Shepherd. ‘Where are you?’

‘The BTP control centre. I asked what resources they had in play and when they said they had a couple of SO19 officers undercover I asked for a description and put two and two together.’

‘No one can hear you, can they?’ asked Shepherd.

‘I’ve got one of those headsets on and everyone’s working so hard they don’t have time to eavesdrop on me,’ said Gannon. ‘At four twenty-four today a suicide bomber was found on a Brixton street, knifed. He was on his way to King’s Cross and we know he was looking to detonate at about five. If he was alone, all well and good and we’ve had a narrow escape, but if there are others the chances are they’ll be primed to go off at the same time, a few minutes either way at most.’

Shepherd was hardly able to believe what he was hearing. He looked at his watch. It was four thirty-five.

‘We’re checking CCTV cameras and station staff are checking their platforms. Where are you now?’

‘Piccadilly Circus,’ said Shepherd.

‘We think mainline stations are the most likely targets, followed by intersections. Have a look around. And forget all that PC crap spouted by the civil libertarians. We’re not looking for ninety-year-old Catholic nuns. You know the profile.’

‘Got you,’ said Shepherd.

Two middle-aged women were staring at Shepherd. He walked past them, scanning the faces of the passengers waiting for the next train. He knew the profile. Young, male and Muslim. Middle Eastern or Asian. Late teens a possibility. Twenties most likely. Thirties and above, possible but unlikely. Wearing clothing capable of hiding explosives.

Blinking or staring. And as the deadline drew closer, probably muttering phrases from the Qur’a¯n.

Malik stood up, even though there were empty seats in the carriage. The raincoat looked fine as long as he was standing but if he sat down the vest would press against the coat and somebody might notice the outline of the blocks of explosive.

The train stopped at Oxford Circus and half a dozen people got off. Two Japanese tourists got on, clutching a street directory and peering at the route map above the doors. The man was wearing a Burberry golfing hat and squinted at Malik. ‘Baker Street?’ he asked.

Malik tried to ignore the man.

‘Baker Street?’ repeated the Japanese.

Malik forced himself to smile. ‘You need to go north.’

‘North?’ repeated the man. He looked at his wife. ‘North?’

The doors clunked shut and the train lurched towards the tunnel. Several of the seated passengers were looking at Malik, waiting to see what he would say next. Malik swallowed. He wasn’t supposed to be noticed. He was supposed to move unseen through the crowds until he detonated the explosives.

He tapped the Bakerloo Line map. ‘This is Oxford Circus. You’re going south. Baker Street is here. You need to go north.’

The man’s frown deepened and he spoke to his wife in rapid Japanese. More faces were turning to watch.

‘You need to get off at the next station,’ added Malik. ‘Piccadilly Circus. Then find the platform for northbound trains. Bakerloo Line. North. Okay?’

‘North. Thank you.’

A couple of teenagers in combat trousers and camouflage-patterned coats were whispering and smirking. Malik fought to keep calm. It didn’t matter who saw him. At precisely five o’clock he would press the button that would activate the bomb that would send him to heaven and take with him dozens if not hundreds of infidels. He looked across at the teenagers. Maybe they would get off at Charing Cross. Maybe they would be on the platform at five o’clock. He hoped so. Malik smiled. It was all going to be just fine.

It was, thought Major Gannon, like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. There were some six thousand CCTV cameras covering the tube system. In any one hour a hundred and fifty thousand people were heading underground, more at rush-hour – and it was rush-hour now. There were too many cameras to monitor. With twenty workstations in the control room, even a ten-second look at each camera would take fifty minutes. And there were no cameras on any of the trains criss-crossing the system. The bomber in Brixton had been on his way to King’s Cross on the Victoria Line. If others were en route, they would probably be travelling by train too, so they wouldn’t be visible until they stepped out on to a platform. The cameras would have to be checked every time a train pulled in. It was an impossible task. Even if they had a face recognition system they could run in conjunction with the CCTV cameras, they didn’t know who they were looking for. And there was a good chance that whoever had planned the operation had recruited Invisibles, men or women who held British citizenship in their own right and who were able to move around under the intelligence service’s radar.

A phone rang and the inspector answered it, then handed the receiver to Gannon. It was Commander Matt Richards, who was running the GT Ops room at New Scotland Yard, the main control room in the event of a major terrorist incident. Richards was in direct communication with COBRA, the Cabinet Office briefing room, and the prime minister.

‘How’s it going there, Major?’

‘Ronnie Roberts and I are checking the CCTV cameras but there are too many people down there. Can we evacuate?’

‘Sorry, Major, that’s not an option. Every scenario we’ve ever run shows that evacuation causes more problems than it solves. Crowds form outside the stations and if a bomb goes off there we have more casualties than if the explosion takes place below ground.’

‘The good of the many outweighs the good of the few?’

‘We’ve run the numbers, Major. Evacuation of the system doesn’t save lives. If we have a specific threat, place and time, we can shut down a section of line or run trains through a station without stopping. But shutting the whole system is just not on.’

‘No clues on the Brixton bomber?’

‘Just the Underground map. Only King’s Cross was circled, so there’s a possibility that he was a lone wolf,’ said Richards.

‘If it’s al-Qaeda, multiple targets are more likely,’ said Gannon.

‘God be with us,’ said Richards, and cut the connection.

The commander was a regular churchgoer and fond of quoting from the Bible. Gannon doubted that God would be of much help over the next half an hour. He sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin. King’s Cross was an obvious target because so many tube lines intersected at the station. But Victoria was the busiest station on the system. Gannon wondered why the man was travelling from Brixton to King’s Cross when Victoria was only four stops away. King’s Cross was four stops further on. Why risk travelling the extra distance? Because someone else was going to Victoria. Someone who would be using a different tube line.

Gannon jumped to his feet. He pointed at the sergeant. ‘I want Victoria station evacuated,’ he said.

Shepherd’s earpiece crackled. ‘Spider, you there?’ It was Gannon.

‘Receiving,’ said Shepherd.

‘Victoria station, how quickly can you get there?’

‘It’ll have to be on foot, there’s no direct line.’

‘There’s going to be a bomber at Victoria. I’ve got guys heading over from the barracks but you might get there first.’

‘On my way,’ said Shepherd.

Shepherd saw Nick Wright at the far end of the platform and jogged over to him. ‘Nick, I’ve got to get to Victoria now.’

‘You’ll have to go through Green Park. Piccadilly Line to Green Park, then Victoria Line south.’

‘I don’t have time, what about running through the tunnels?’

‘Other than that it’s pitch black and there’s a live rail that’ll fry you if you touch it, it sounds like a plan. Over ground is the only way.’

‘Cheers,’ said Shepherd. He rushed for the escalator and ran up the moving stairs two at a time.

Gannon put his hand on the shoulder of the young WPC and peered at her screen. On the display was a view of the southbound Victoria Line platform at Victoria station and a map of its CCTV cameras.

The platform was deserted except for a uniformed member of staff who was pacing up and down with a radio pressed to his ear.

‘How’s the evacuation going?’ he asked.

The WPC was wearing a lightweight headset. She reached for her computer mouse and clicked on to a CCTV camera in the main ticket hall. The screen showed four staff members holding back a crowd of frustrated passengers.

She clicked to another view, this time of the escalators, both running upwards. Then a passenger walkway, which was deserted. She flicked from camera to camera. Other than a few stragglers the station was empty. ‘So far, so good,’ said the WPC. ‘As each train comes in the passengers are shunted upstairs.’ She looked up at the major. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but why don’t you just close the station and not allow the trains to stop?’

‘Because if I’m right, there’s a bomber on one of those trains. We need him out in the open.’

‘And then what?’ asked the WPC.

‘We just hope we can take him out before he blows himself to kingdom come.’

The tube train slowed to a halt. Malik wondered what was happening. Several passengers swore. Malik glanced at his wristwatch. It was a quarter to five. The Saudi had said that Malik should be on a platform when the bomb went off. Malik wondered what he should do if the train remained in the tunnel. Should he press the button at five o’clock, or wait until the train got to the station? He counted the people in the carriage. Twenty-six. Not enough. There would be hundreds on the platform. He would wait until the train reached the station, even if it meant going over the deadline by a few minutes. The Saudi had insisted that Malik pressed the button at exactly five p.m., but he hadn’t known that the train would be stuck in a tunnel. Malik was the man on the spot, and he would decide when to activate the bomb. Why kill only twenty-six when he could kill hundreds?

His pulse raced at the thought of the explosion. The Saudi had said it would happen so quickly that there would be no sensation, just the bright light, and then he would be with Allah, one of the revered shahids, and he would receive all the rewards that were the right of those who gave their lives for Islam. Those closest to him would feel no pain. They probably wouldn’t be aware of the explosion: their lives would just wink out. There would be no place in heaven for the unbelievers. But that wasn’t Malik’s problem. They were infidels, no better than animals.

The train lurched and started moving again.

‘Thank God,’ murmured a middle-aged man, cradling a briefcase.

Malik wondered if the man really believed in God. And if he did, would that God save him from what was about to happen?

The train arrived at Charing Cross. The two Japanese pushed in front of him, eager to get off. The man with the briefcase also pushed ahead. Malik let them go, then stepped slowly off the train. A housewife knocked his shoulder as she got on to the train. She gave him a bright smile and apologised. Malik watched her as the doors closed and she mouthed, ‘Sorry,’ again.

The train pulled out of the station. There were only a dozen people waiting for the next, but more were arriving. At the far end of the platform a CCTV camera seemed to look accusingly at him, but he knew he was just one of millions of passengers passing through the station every day. No one was looking for him. He had nothing to fear from the surveillance, but he didn’t want to stand on the platform for too long: someone might wonder why he didn’t board a train. He started to walk, following signs for the Northern Line.

Shepherd’s jacket flapped behind him as he ran and he kept his arm pressed to his left side so that no one would see the Glock in its holster. His feet pounded on the pavement and he breathed deeply and evenly. Ahead of him the Mall separated Green Park from St James’s Park. Shepherd upped the pace. It was virtually a mile from Piccadilly Circus to Victoria as the crow flew but Shepherd wasn’t a bird and he wasn’t flying. He’d run along Piccadilly, which was crowded with shoppers and office-workers heading home, then turned down St James’s Street. It was no distance, compared with his normal running schedule, but he was sweating in his pullover, jeans and jacket.

He ran past St James’s Palace and turned on to the Mall. In the distance he could see Buckingham Palace. The Royal Standard was flying, indicating that the Queen was in residence. A girl was throwing a Frisbee for a barking cocker spaniel. Two teenagers were kissing on a bench. A crocodile of Chinese tourists was walking down the Mall towards the palace, their faces impassive. Two policemen looked over at Shepherd, but dismissed him as just a man late for an appointment. Shepherd ran on. He was halfway there.

Malik walked on to the Northern Line platform. It was crowded and he smiled inwardly. Perfect. He looked up at the electronic board and saw that a train was due in four minutes, then another five minutes after that. Malik looked at his wristwatch. It was four fifty-one. Passengers were piling on to the platform, their faces falling when they saw how long they had to wait. Malik walked slowly to the middle, his hands in his pockets. The button was still tucked into the vest so that it could not be pressed accidentally. He wouldn’t hold it until the last minute.

He moved back to stand by the wall. There was a chocolate machine to his left. Malik looked at it, his mouth watering. It would be good to taste chocolate one last time. Maybe even to have a piece in his mouth as he pressed the button. He had some coins in his pocket and ran them through his fingers. He felt the milled edges of a pound, and took that as a sign that Allah meant him to have the taste of chocolate in his mouth when he went to heaven.

He went to the machine and slotted in the coin. He chose a bar of mint chocolate, then went back to the wall. He unwrapped it and popped a piece into his mouth. There were over a hundred people along the platform.

Malik let the chocolate melt in his mouth. It reminded him of the mint tea his mother had made for him. Would there be chocolate in heaven? Yes. All his needs would be taken care of. Malik hadn’t seen his mother and father since he returned to England, but when it was over and the media reported what had happened, they would realise where he had been and what he had done. Whether or not they understood why he had given his life for the jihad, they would know that he had earned them a place in heaven and they would thank him for all eternity.

Malik felt a tug at his coat and he flinched. Then he saw it was a little girl of five or six and smiled. Blonde curly hair, blue eyes, wearing a grey overcoat with toggles and bright pink wellington boots. ‘Can I have some?’ she asked.

‘Go away, little girl,’ he whispered.

‘I want some chocolate.’

‘Didn’t your mother tell you not to talk to strangers?’

The child nodded solemnly.

‘Well, go away.’

‘I just want some chocolate.’

A young woman rushed up to him. Her hair was the same colour as the child’s and she had the same big blue eyes. She grabbed the child’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

‘She wanted some chocolate,’ said Malik. ‘Is it okay if I give her a piece?’

‘I don’t like her to eat chocolate,’ she said. ‘It’s bad for her teeth.’ She looked down at her daughter. ‘What have I told you about bothering people?’

‘Really, it’s no bother,’ said Malik.

The woman’s brow creased as she looked at Malik. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You look hot. Like you might be ill. I have a flu powder, the sort you can take without water.’ She fumbled in her handbag.

‘I’m not sick, but thank you,’ said Malik. ‘It’s the air down here. It’s always so stuffy.’

‘I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘I hate it but it’s the easiest way to travel around, especially when you have children. So much safer than the roads.’

‘Yes,’ said Malik, quietly. ‘So much safer.’

He felt a breeze on his cheek, heralding the arrival of the train. The lines vibrated and then he heard the train powering through the tunnel. Several passengers moved back but most stayed close to the edge, not wanting to lose their place. The little girl reached up for her mother’s hand and Malik felt a surge of relief that they were getting on to the train.

‘No, pet, it’s too crowded,’ said the woman. ‘Let’s wait for the next one.’ She smiled at Malik. ‘We’re going to see my parents. It’s my father’s birthday.’ Malik saw she had a prettily wrapped package in a carrier-bag, tied with a gold bow.

The train roared into the station and its brakes squealed. Malik kept his back to the wall as the door opened and passengers flooded out. Many stayed on, though, heading south to Waterloo, and the train was still too full for those on the platform to get on. Some tried, but the carriages were filled to capacity. Malik looked up at the electronic display. Five minutes until the next train.

The little girl waved at Malik but he turned his back on her and walked away,holding the chocolate. He passed two Canadians, their rucksacks emblazoned with red and white maple-leaf logos. They were holding hands and whispering to each other. An Indian woman was sitting with three young children, her arms around them protectively. She smiled at him and looked into his eyes. For a second Malik felt as if she could see right into his mind. He averted his eyes and hurried past.

He could barely breathe. His way was blocked by a group of students standing guard over a line of suitcases. They were talking excitedly in Italian. Malik tried to get through them, apologising. One, a teenage boy, put his hand on Malik’s back. Malik twisted away. More passengers were pushing their way on to the platform. Malik saw a gap by the wall and moved into it. There were hundreds of people on the platform with more arriving all the time, parents with children, businessmen carrying briefcases, couples holding hands.

He couldn’t see the little blonde girl now, but he knew she was there, and that she was still holding her mother’s hand. Malik’s mind was racing. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. They were the enemy. The infidel. They weren’t people – they were targets. But now he couldn’t stop seeing them as people. Men, women and children who would soon be lying broken and bleeding on the platform. Dead and dying. Those still alive crying out for their loved ones. Begging their gods to save them.

Malik’s hands were soaked with sweat and he wiped them on his raincoat. He felt the bulky packages of explosive. Three Arab women moved down the platform, clothed from head to foot in the traditional black jibab, only their eyes visible. They were all carrying bulging Marks & Spencer carrier-bags. Malik stared at them in horror. Muslim women. He looked around frantically. There were two Pakistani women to his left. It wasn’t how he’d pictured it when he’d lain on his back in the graveyard. In his dreams he’d been surrounded by men when he’d pressed the button. Evil men, who hated Islam and everything it stood for, who murdered innocent Muslims, slaughtered women and children. But as Malik stood on the station platform he realised that he was the one who’d be killing innocents. He would be as bad as the infidels he hated. And how could he live in heaven for eternity knowing he had earned his place with Allah by killing women and children? The three Muslim women stopped next to Malik. He rubbed a hand over his face. This wasn’t right, he thought. What he was doing wasn’t right.

The ARV pulled up in front of Victoria station. BTP officers had drawn up a cordon and were preventing passengers entering the station. A manager was using a megaphone to tell the crowds that the station was closed until further notice. Rose radioed in that they had arrived. They were told to wait for further instructions.

‘What’s the story?’ Rose asked the controller.

‘When we know, you’ll know,’ said the controller. ‘All we’re being told is that it’s a possible Operation Rolvenden.’

‘If it’s those Fathers for Children nutters again, I’ll shoot them myself this time,’ said Sutherland.

Suddenly Rose saw a man running at full pelt towards the station. He frowned. It was Stu Marsden.

‘What’s he doing?’ asked Sutherland.

‘Who is it?’ asked Bamber.

‘Stu, our observer,’ said Sutherland. ‘He’s on attachment with BTP today. Undercover.’

Rose climbed out of the ARV. ‘I’ll have a word with him,’ said Rose. ‘Maybe he knows what’s going on.’

Shepherd saw the crowds at Victoria station long before he reached the tube entrance. He forced his way through, holding up his warrant card and identifying himself as a policeman. There was a uniformed BTP officer at the entrance. He checked Shepherd’s ID and waved him through.

Shepherd headed for the turnstiles. A tube employee in a blue uniform and peaked cap opened a gate to let him through. He ran for the escalator. Three tube lines operated through the station: the District, Circle and Victoria lines. As he reached the top, he heard the sound of boots behind him. Shepherd looked over his shoulder. It was Rose. ‘What’s up, Sarge?’ he asked.

‘I was going to ask you the same,’ said Rose.

The two men stood looking at each other. Rose’s hand moved towards the butt of his Glock. ‘You’re going to take me down, aren’t you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean. Don’t fucking lie to me. You’re an undercover cop.’

Shepherd looked at Rose for several seconds without saying anything. Then he nodded.

Rose screwed up his face. ‘Shit.’

‘It’s my job,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s what I do.’

‘You’re a cop investigating cops,’ said Rose bitterly. ‘Scum of the earth.’

‘You’re the first police officer I’ve ever gone up against,’ said Shepherd, ‘and I’m as happy about it as you are.’

‘I goddamned liked you, Stu,’ he said fiercely. ‘I thought you were my friend.’

Shepherd didn’t know what to say.

‘You know why I did it.’

‘Sure. Your daughter.’

‘My daughter’s got a name. Kelly. She’s seven years old, Stu. Seven.’

‘I know.’

‘Have you got kids?’

Shepherd stared at Rose. As Stuart Marsden, he didn’t, so the answer was no. He was in character, and it was against every rule in the book to step out of role. But Keith Rose deserved better than a lie. ‘A boy. Eight.’

Rose smiled grimly. ‘So you know exactly how far a father will go to save his child. If you were in my position, you’d do whatever you had to.’

‘You killed two people, Keith.’

‘They were drugs-dealers. And they started shooting first.’

‘You sold drugs.’

‘They were on the streets anyway. I just changed their location.’

‘You broke the law.’

‘Whose law?’ said Rose. ‘The state’s? Fuck the state, Stu. My daughter’s dying and the state isn’t lifting a finger to help her. So I’m doing what I have to do. End of story.’

‘It’s not like I don’t understand,’ said Shepherd.

‘Do you understand, Stu? Do you really? Do you know what’s it like to see your little girl getting weaker by the day and to be told by some pen-pushing bureaucrat that there aren’t the resources to treat her? And when I go hunting on the Internet and find a guy in Chicago who might save her the same fucking bureaucrat tells me that the health authority can’t afford it. Can’t afford it? I pay my taxes. I pay National Insurance. And the one time I need something from the state, they tell me they don’t have the money. The specialist here – who we waited three months to see – says her tumour’s inoperable. The guy in Chicago says he can operate and there’s an eighty per cent chance she’ll be okay. But will the state pay? It’ll pay to rehabilitate child-killers but it won’t to save my daughter.’

‘What do you want me to say? That life’s not fair?’

‘Life isn’t fair,’ said Rose. ‘We cops know that better than anyone. We know that the biggest villains never go down because we don’t have the resources to take them down. And they have enough cash to buy the best lawyers and pay off anyone who needs paying off. Cops, CPS, judges, juries. You know how it works. Speed cameras generate revenue, but putting drugs barons behind bars doesn’t. So millions of motorists send off cheques every year while the biggest, hardest bastards live lives of luxury. The state chooses the soft targets. Always has and always will.’

‘So you started ripping off drugs-dealers to redress the balance?’

‘By hook or by fucking crook, my daughter’s going to live. I’ll do whatever it takes.’

‘I don’t have time for this,’ said Shepherd. ‘There are terrorists on the tube system. Suicide bombers.’

‘Bollocks there are,’ said Rose.

‘They got one at Brixton. They think Victoria’s a target.’

Malik walked up to the two constables. They were deep in conversation, close to the tube-station exit. One of the policemen nodded curtly when Malik approached them. ‘Yes, sir?’ He was young, maybe a year younger than Malik. He was good-looking, thought Malik, handsome, even. A man who would have no trouble winning the hearts of pretty girls. ‘I have done a terrible thing,’ he said.

The second constable was in his early thirties, with a square jaw and unfriendly eyes. ‘What would that have been, sir?’ he said.

‘I have followed the wrong path. I know that now. I need to repent.’

The second constable raised his eyebrows at his colleague. ‘What exactly have you done, sir?’

Malik stepped closer to the two policemen, unbuttoning his raincoat.

‘Not a bloody flasher,’ muttered the older policeman.

‘You must take me somewhere safe,’ said Malik, ‘somewhere I can take this off.’ He opened the raincoat so that they could see the vest and its pockets of explosives.

The two policemen froze. ‘Bloody hell,’ said the younger constable.

‘It’s okay,’ said Malik. He held up his hands to show that he was not holding a trigger. ‘It will not go off.’

‘Bloody hell,’ repeated the constable, taking a step back.

‘It is safe,’ said Malik. ‘I don’t want to harm anybody.’

‘Who are you?’ said the older constable.

‘My name is Rashid Malik. I was to explode this bomb in the Underground but I cannot be a murderer. I cannot kill women and children.’

The younger constable reached for his radio mike but the older one grabbed his arm. ‘No!’ he said. ‘Radio frequencies can set them off.’ He looked at Malik. ‘How does that thing go off?’

Malik opened his coat wider so that the policemen could see the button tucked into one of the vest pockets. ‘I have to press that.’

‘What about if you take it off? Is that okay?’

‘I think so.’

‘We’re not going to touch it, are we?’ said the younger constable, his voice shaky.

The older constable gripped his shoulder.‘It’s going to be okay, Chris. We have to start moving people back, just to be on the safe side. Can you do that?’

Chris nodded.

‘Okay. I’ll sit him down here.’

Malik smiled encouragingly. ‘It is okay, really,’ he said. ‘It is safe now. Nobody is going to get hurt.’

Rose’s hand was still on the butt of his Glock but he made no move to take it from the holster. ‘Your name isn’t really Stu, is it?’

Shepherd shook his head.

‘What is it? Or are you undercover guys not allowed to say?’

‘Dan. Dan Shepherd.’

‘At least I got one truthful statement out of you– but it’s your job, isn’t it, to get close to people and then shit on them?’

‘It’s not like that, Rosie.’

Rose’s earpiece crackled. ‘MP, Trojan Five Six Nine, what is your location?’

Rose kept his eyes on Shepherd as he took the call. ‘Trojan Five Six Nine, still at Victoria station.’

‘MP, we need you at Charing Cross station concourse, suspected suicide bomber.’

Rose’s eyes widened.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Shepherd.

‘They’ve found one. Charing Cross.’

Shepherd frowned. ‘You mean it’s gone off?’

Rose shook his head. ‘They want us there now.’

The two men stared at each other. ‘That’s it, then,’ said Rose, eventually. ‘Whatever happens, it’s over for me, isn’t it?’

Shepherd said nothing. Rose started walking towards the tube entrance.

‘Rosie?’

Rose stopped. ‘What?’

‘I’m sorry.’

Rose held Shepherd’s eyes for two seconds, then jogged away. Shepherd watched him go. Then his earpiece crackled. It was the major.‘Where are you, Spider?’

‘Just got here, heading downstairs now.’ Shepherd ran down the escalator. A train must have arrived because passengers were heading up. Several looked at him curiously, wondering why he was the only person going down.

Major Gannon used the mouse to change viewpoints. There were tube staff and BTP officers on the platforms, and each time a train arrived they ushered the passengers quickly out of the carriages. He flicked from platform to platform. There were just too many passengers, too many possibilities. He looked up at the clock. Four fifty-six. If there were multiple bombers, they would almost certainly be under orders to detonate at about the same time. As soon as one device exploded, the authorities would have to evacuate and all advantage of surprise would be lost. If Gannon had been planning it, he’d have them primed to explode at the same time. The chances were that if there was another bomber, he would also be working to a five p.m. deadline. It meant that if Victoria was a target, he would be arriving within the next four minutes.

He flicked to the westbound District Line. A train burst out of the tunnel. There was no sound on the monitor. The doors opened and passengers stepped out, confused when they saw that the platforms were empty. Three CCTV cameras were covering the platform and Gannon skipped from view to view. When he clicked on the camera covering the rear of the train, something caught his attention. He leaned forward, staring at the screen.

The ARV pulled up in front of Charing Cross station. Bamber unlocked the MP5s. ‘Stay with the car, Mike,’ said Rose. ‘Monitor the main set.’ He stripped off his personal radio. ‘Dave, you stay between me and the car. I won’t be able to use the radio because it might set the thing off. Anything I should know, shout. Keep at least fifty metres from me.’

‘Sarge, I don’t—’

Rose cut Bamber off with an impatient wave. ‘Just do as you’re told.’

Bamber held out an MP5 but Rose shook his head. At the entrance to the station a uniformed sergeant was standing next to a young Pakistani man in a long raincoat with his hands on his head. He was talking animatedly to the sergeant. Rose looked at the huge station clock. It was almost five o’clock.

He put on his ballistic helmet and fastened the chinstrap as he walked towards the two men.

There were crowds on the pavement, standing and staring.‘Can you all move back,please?’shouted Rose, but no one paid him any attention.‘Keith Rose,SO19,’ he said, as he drew level with the sergeant.

‘Ben Harris. Are you bomb disposal?’

‘They’re on their way.’ Rose nodded at the Pakistani. ‘You’ve seen it?’

The sergeant nodded. There was no colour in his face. ‘He opened his coat. I made him stay like that so he can’t touch the button.’

‘It’s okay,’ said the Pakistani. ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone.’

Rose was surprised at the man’s nasal Birmingham accent. ‘What’s your name?’ asked Rose.

‘Rashid Malik.’

‘Okay, Rashid. Just stay where you are. We’ll get this fixed, don’t worry.’

Malik smiled eagerly.‘It is okay. The bomb is safe.’

A uniformed constable and two rail employees were trying to stop people leaving the station as they would have to walk past the Pakistani. Commuters were shouting angrily. ‘Ben, go and help your colleague over there. Keep everyone at least a hundred metres away.’

‘The bomb is safe,’ said Malik.

The sergeant looked as if he was going to argue so Rose pointed in the direction of the station concourse. ‘If more people arrive, we’ll have major crowd problems over there. Find another way for them to leave.’

‘Everything is all right,’ said Malik.

The sergeant hurried off to shout at the crowds.

Rose waved at Bamber. He pointed at the crowds on the pavement. ‘Dave, get them moving towards Trafalgar Square.’

‘Right, Sarge!’ shouted Bamber. He ran over to the commuters and yelled at them to move away. He was faced with a wall of blank faces. The office-workers wanted to go home and they weren’t prepared to budge.

Rose took one of the plastic ties from his belt and moved behind Malik. ‘I’m just going to fasten your wrists, Rashid,’ said Rose, matter-of-factly. ‘It’s for your own safety.’

‘There is no need,’ said Malik, but he didn’t resist as Rose fastened the tie.

‘Now, stand very still, Rashid. Let me see what we’re dealing with.’

Shepherd scanned the northbound Victoria Line platform as the passengers rushed out of the carriages and registered surprise when they saw the platform was empty. Blue-uniformed members of staff cajoled them towards the escalators. Shepherd saw two Pakistani teenagers, young men with gelled hair and gold chains, but they were wearing loose sweatshirts with designer labels. No threat.

He walked back down the platform. He saw anxious faces, nervous faces, angry faces, but he didn’t see the face of a man prepared to kill himself and dozens of others. There were businessmen with briefcases, secretaries wearing drab office suits and white trainers, schoolchildren with ties at half mast, tourists looking bemused and holding maps of the Underground system.

‘Spider, I have a possible. Just got off the westbound District Line,’ said the major in Shepherd’s ear.

Shepherd started to thread his way through the passengers.

Gannon moved his face closer to the monitor. The man was an Arab and he’d been in the second to last carriage of the westbound train. He was walking slowly down the platform, wearing a brown raincoat that looked several sizes too big for him. The coat had attracted Gannon’s attention, but the man’s body language also suggested something wasn’t right. He was tense: his eyes darted from side to side, and he was clenching and unclenching his fists. Gannon clicked on to a camera closer to the man. It was clear that the man was Middle Eastern: skin the colour of weak coffee, clean-shaven with a hooked nose. Gannon clicked back to the distant view. The man had a scrawny neck but the coat looked bulky round his chest. Or was he imagining it? Gannon had to be sure. ‘Ronnie,’ he said. ‘Have a look at this.’

The commander came up and stood behind him.

‘What do you think?’ asked Gannon.

Roberts exhaled. ‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe’ wasn’t good enough. Gannon clicked back to the close-up. ‘Not a face you recognise?’

Roberts shook his head. ‘He’s not right, though. Look at his eyes – he’s hyper.’

As they watched, the man began to mutter to himself. He looked as if he might be praying.

Shepherd ran through the pedestrian tunnel. Half a dozen office workers using the tunnel as a short-cut glared at him even though they were the ones heading in the wrong direction. Shepherd pressed in his earpiece.

‘Arab male, late twenties, wearing a long brown raincoat. Clean-shaven. He’s on the platform about eighty feet from the exit tunnel.’

Shepherd pulled the Glock from its holster as he ran. A middle-aged woman opened her mouth wide in astonishment and Shepherd had a glimpse of black fillings as he ran past her.

‘Where are you, Spider?’

‘Tunnel leading to the platform,’ said Shepherd.

‘He’s just passed it. You’ll come out behind him. He’s stopped.’

Shepherd raised his gun so that the barrel was pointing at the ceiling. The tunnel curved to the right and ahead of him he saw the platform.

There could be no mistake, Gannon knew. If he called it wrong and an innocent man was shot in the head for no other reason than that he was an Arab, his career would be over, Shepherd’s too. Gannon stared at the CCTV picture, Roberts at his shoulder. ‘It’s a definite maybe,’ said Roberts.

‘I think so.’

The man was still muttering to himself, hands by his sides. Commuters were bumping into him as they passed but he showed no reaction.

Gannon linked his fingers and continued to stare at the screen, unblinking. The man’s hands were empty, he was sure. He wasn’t holding a trigger. Gannon’s eyes flicked to the wall-mounted clock. It was four fifty-nine. The timing was right. The location was right. The man fitted the profile. But was that enough? Was that enough to order a man to be killed?

The Arab stopped. Commuters passed by him like river water flowing around a rock. He raised his head until he was staring into the CCTV camera. His eyes bored into Gannon’s. The Arab smiled. A cruel, knowing smile. His right hand moved to unbutton his raincoat.

‘It’s him,’ said Gannon, calmly. ‘Green light.’

Shepherd ran out on to the platform. There were a dozen or so passengers still there: stragglers in no rush to get home, tourists who weren’t sure if they were heading the right way. A woman in the light blue uniform of the station staff was hurrying them along.

Shepherd dropped into the firing position, legs shoulder-width apart, left foot in front of the right, toes turned inward. He brought up his left hand to cup the right and took aim with the Glock.

The man was fifteen feet ahead. Brown raincoat, black trousers, black shoes. His hair was jet black and glistened under the tunnel lights. Shepherd couldn’t see any facial features. The man’s left hand was hanging by his side; he couldn’t see the right. Shepherd was all too aware of the enormity of what he was doing: he was shooting a man in the back of the head, with no warning, giving him no chance to surrender. It was a cold kill, done for no other reason than that Major Gannon was telling him to do it. Shepherd didn’t even consider that the major might be wrong. He trusted him.

Shepherd pulled the trigger and the Glock kicked. The front of the man’s forehead exploded in a shower of blood, brain matter and bone fragments. Immediately Shepherd fired again and this time a chunk of skull blew across the tracks.

The shots were deafening in the confined space, followed by screams of terror. Passengers scattered, bent double and running for the exit. Shepherd ignored them. He stayed focused on the target. A BTP officer rushed out on to the platform, saw what was happening and dashed back into the pedestrian tunnel.

The man’s legs started to go. The right hand appeared at his side, fingers fluttering like the wings of a trapped bird. Shepherd fired a third shot, which blasted away most of what was left of the top of the skull.

As the body slumped to the floor Shepherd kept the gun trained on the man’s head and started walking. He fired again. And again. He had to be sure.

The body hit the ground, blood seeping from the gaping head wounds. The legs were twitching. Shepherd pumped two more rounds into the head at close range. Gobs of brain matter splattered across the platform.

Shepherd was breathing heavily and his heart was pounding. It hurt when he swallowed. If the man he and Gannon had killed was just an innocent bystander, all hell was about to break loose.

Slowly he knelt beside the body.

The phone on Gannon’s desk rang. He kept his eyes on the monitor as he took the call. It was Commander Richards at the New Scotland Yard control centre.

‘The vests have timers,’ said Richards. ‘The EOD boys have defused the one in Brixton. It was set to go off at five-oh-two p.m.’ Gannon’s eyes flicked to the wall clock. It was exactly five o’clock.

‘Any other circuits?’

On the monitor, Shepherd was using his Swiss Army knife to cut the raincoat up the middle. He stripped it away as if he was skinning a rabbit.

‘Just the timer and the manual switch,’ said Richards.

‘I’ll call you right back,’ said Gannon, and replaced the receiver. ‘Spider, you okay?’

On the monitor Gannon saw Shepherd’s hand go to his mouth. ‘Good call, Major,’ he said.

‘Listen to me, Spider. There’s a secondary circuit. The EOD guys at Brixton called it in. If it’s not detonated by hand, a timer kicks in.’

‘What do I do?’ Shepherd seemed unfazed by what he had been told.

‘The EOD guys say there are no booby traps so you can just pull the detonators out of the explosives. Then rip the clock out of the circuit. Easy-peasy.’

The man was one of the Invisibles, but after he had fulfilled his destiny he would be invisible no longer: his name would join the long list of martyrs to the cause of Islam. He was British-born of Iranian parents who had fled their country when it was known as Persia, but the man had never felt British. He was a Muslim, first and foremost. It was as a Muslim that he lived and it was as a Muslim that he would die.

He stepped off the train and groped inside his coat for the button. He looked left and right down the platform. It was packed with commuters rushing to get upstairs and on to their trains home. Liverpool Street station, five o’clock in the evening. The place and time of his destiny. The place and time that would be remembered for ever.

He walked along the platform. People were still pouring off the train. The exits were blocked and the man heard sighs of annoyance and frustration. He was nudged in the back, his shoulders were pressed tight on either side; all around him, men and women were pushing and shoving, like cattle rushing into an abattoir.

‘Allahu akbar,’ whispered the man. His thumb was on the button. God is great.

No, he thought. It wasn’t something to be whispered, as if he was ashamed of what he was doing. There was no shame. He was proud to die in the service of Allah. It was something to be shouted with pride.

‘Allahu akbar!’ he screamed. Angry faces glared at him. ‘Allahu akbar!’ he cried, and pressed the button.

Shepherd ran his hands down the vest. There were four pockets in the back, each with a slab of explosive wrapped in nails. Wires led from the front to the explosives. Shepherd tugged at one and a thin metal cylinder the size of a cigarette eased out. Shepherd quickly pulled out the other three detonators, then rolled the body over. There were six pockets on the front of the vest, three on each side of the chest. Shepherd used both hands to pull out the detonators. Then he grabbed the wiring cluster and yanked it away from the vest. A digital clock emerged from a pocket. Shepherd grabbed it and pulled out the wires. He stared at the digital readout: 17:01.

The main set burst into life. ‘MP, Trojan Five Six Nine, are you receiving?’ A man’s voice.

Sutherland reached over and picked up the microphone. ‘Trojan Five Six Nine, receiving.’

‘Trojan Five Six Nine, we’ve just received intel on the bomb in Brixton. There is a secondary circuit attached to the device, activated by a timer.’

Sutherland stared through the windscreen at Rose. He was holding the Arab’s raincoat open.

‘What do we do?’ asked Sutherland.

‘Is there an EOD team there yet?’

‘Negative,’ said Sutherland.

‘The detonators can be removed from the explosive,’ said the controller. ‘Just slide them out. What is your situation there?’

‘Trojan Five Six Nine, hang on . . .’ Sutherland got out of the car and waved both hands above his head. ‘Sarge! Sarge!’

Rose turned, still holding open the raincoat.

Before Sutherland could say more, Malik and Rose were engulfed by light. The two men were vaporised as the ten kilos of Semtex exploded. A hundred yards away, Sutherland was flung back against the car by the force of the explosion.

The Saudi watched the BBC reporter detail the casualties. Forty-seven dead, including a police officer. Over a hundred injured. Third time lucky. Only two explosions, and one had been above ground, but it had been more than enough. The TV images of the dead and dying were winging their way round the world. There would be more pressure on the British government to pull out of Iraq. More protests in the streets. More recruits eager to join the ranks of al-Qaeda, willing to sacrifice themselves in the war against the infidel.

The Saudi knew it was time to move on. He had done his work in London. He already had his ticket for Thailand. It would soon be the peak tourist season in Phuket, the island in the south of the country. Much of the population in the south was Muslim and the Saudi already had three cells in place, planning his next operation. The bar area of Patong was a prime target, packed every night with Australians, Americans and Brits. It was a soft target, the sort the Saudi preferred.

He would be travelling on a British passport so he wouldn’t need a visa. He would automatically be granted a month’s stay on arrival. The Saudi had held British citizenship for more than twelve years. His father had invested heavily in the country and had made large donations to both major political parties. He had offered his hospitality to MPs from across the political spectrum, and over the years several dozen had enjoyed themselves on yachts in the South of France, in hotels in Dubai and on the family’s stud farm in Ireland. His application for citizenship for himself and his family had gone through smoothly, boosted by the fact he had signed a half-billion-pound contract with a British construction company. The government had bent over backwards to welcome the Saudi’s father, even though in private the man made no secret of his hatred for the British. They were there to be used, he said. They granted citizenship to anyone willing to pay for it, allowed outsiders to live in their country without paying taxes, allowed foreigners to buy everything from land to their football teams. They had no pride in their country and were prepared to prostitute themselves to the world. They deserved what they got.

The Saudi had been educated at a top public school, his entrance facilitated by his father’s multi-million-pound donation towards a new science wing. No bribe had been necessary to get into the London School of Economics: the Saudi had won his place on merit. With his perfect English, first-class degree and wealthy family, the world was at the Saudi’s feet. But his hatred of the West matched his father’s, and he had devoted his life to bringing the West to its knees.

The Qur’a¯n promised unlimited sex with seventy-two black-eyed virgins to the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for Islam. Virgins as beautiful as rubies, with complexions like diamonds and pearls. The Qur’a¯n said that martyrs went straight to heaven and that places would be saved for seventy relatives. There would be eighty thousand servants to take care of them. And they would see the face of Allah Himself. It was all nonsense,the Saudi knew. The Qur’a¯n also said that suicide was wrong. A sin. And it forbade the killing of women, children and old people, even for jihad. The Saudi didn’t believe in the virgins and didn’t believe in heaven. But he did believe in punishing America and her allies, striking where it hurt until they removed their forces from Muslim territories around the world.

He walked over to his prayer mat and knelt facing Mecca. For the next hour he bowed and prayed, offering his life to the jihad and asking to be lucky again.

Shepherd and the superintendent walked together along the path through the gravestones, some more than a hundred years old. The superintendent’s driver stood by the official Rover at the entrance to the churchyard, ready to open the rear door. ‘It was a good service,’ said Hargrove.

‘He was a good cop,’ said Shepherd.

‘A good cop gone bad.’

There was going to be a headstone, but there had been no coffin and no body. Rose’s Kevlar vest had been found intact, and there was some metal from his weapons but not a fragment of bone or soft tissue.

‘Rose did what he did for his family,’ said Shepherd.

‘He killed two people for money.’

‘They were drugs-dealers and they shot first.’

‘That was his story,’ said Hargrove.

‘I believe him.’

‘He was ripping off drugs-dealers, and because of that Andy Ormsby died along with the two Yardies, don’t forget that.’

‘I won’t,’ said Shepherd. ‘But he was still a good cop.’

‘And as far as the world’s concerned that’s all he was,’ said Hargrove. ‘His family gets the insurance, his pension and a medal for the sideboard.’

‘No one gets to know?’

‘Just you and me. And the commissioner. He figures we should let sleeping dogs lie.’

‘That’s one hell of a decision.’

Hargrove shrugged.‘Rose is dead. The money’s probably hidden offshore where no one will ever find it. What’s served by going public? We tell the world that the capital’s armed police can’t be trusted? The way it is now, Keith Rose was a hero. And the way things are at the moment, we need all the heroes we can get.’

Ken Swift walked out of the church in full uniform. With him was Rose’s widow, dressed in black and clutching a shiny black handbag. She had her arm through his and as they walked he bent down to whisper something in her ear.

‘And Rose’s daughter gets to go to America for her operation? On the insurance money?’

‘The Met is footing the bill. She’s the daughter of a dead hero. They didn’t have a choice. So all’s well that ends well.’

‘Depends which way you look at it,’ said Shepherd.

‘If he hadn’t died as he did there’d have been a court case followed by life in a cat-A prison and the kid would have died in an NHS hospital. Given the choice, I know which I’d prefer.’

Shepherd sighed. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

Swift helped Mrs Rose towards a waiting limousine. Briefly he locked eyes with Shepherd, then nodded, almost imperceptibly, and got into the car with her.

‘Swift?’

‘We can’t charge him without revealing Rose’s wrongdoing. He’s taking early retirement next week.’

‘Keeps his pension?’

‘Let it go, Spider.’

The limousine drove away.

‘He told us where Ormsby was buried,’ Hargrove added. ‘Now the lad can have a proper funeral.’

‘What about Ormsby’s family?’

‘There isn’t one. He was an only child. Parents died when he was a teenager. No wife.’

‘Swift knows who I am. And what I did.’

‘He can’t say anything. He knows what will happen if he does. You did a good job, Spider.’

‘I’ll take some convincing of that.’

‘Take some time off. Go and be a dad for a while.’

‘For a while? It doesn’t work like that and you know it. You’re either a good father or you’re not. Over the last few months I’ve been a crap one.’

‘That’s why I said take some time off.’

‘And then what? I come back to investigate more cops? Hound some other poor bastard until he decides that his only option is to kill himself.’

‘Keith Rose didn’t kill himself. He died trying to save lives.’

‘You can keep telling yourself that,’ said Shepherd, ‘but we know what really happened.’

‘It was his choice,’ said Hargrove.

‘I know,’ said Shepherd. ‘But you know as well as I do, sometimes choices aren’t really choices at all.’