'I've been under a lot of pressure.'
'You said if there were any problems, he was to call a number you'd given him.'
'Don't remember saying that.'
'So you don't remember who Sharpe was to call?'
'Sorry. No.'
'Must be contagious,' said Hargrove. 'Sharpe said he couldn't remember the number either. Said he didn't call because there wasn't a problem.'
'There you are, then,' said Shepherd.
Hargrove studied Shepherd with unblinking brown eyes. Shepherd looked back at him. Now he knew what was coming. He forced himself to relax.
'You had a visitor. On the fifteenth.'
'I guess.' He smiled. 'You lose track of the days in prison.'
Hargrove was still staring at him. 'You applied for a visiting order. Joe Humphreys. You put him down as a cousin.'
'Bob Macdonald's cousin.'
'Who is he, Spider?'
'Just a friend.'
'Must have been important if you were prepared to compromise the operation to see him.'
'I needed to see a friendly face, banged up in there.'
Hargrove chuckled. 'Interesting choice of words,' he said. 'I had a look at the CCTV footage for the visiting room, the day Joe Humphreys visited.'
'And why would you do that?'
For a brief moment Hargrove's eyes hardened. 'Just to put my mind at rest. It wasn't the best picture quality in the world, but there wasn't much of his face to see anyway, not with the baseball cap and sunglasses.'
'It was a sunny day, when he visited.'
'Yeah, that's what I thought,' said Hargrove. 'How long have you known him?'
'A few years, I guess.'
'An elusive character, this Humphreys.'
'In what way?'
'He had photo ID to get in, but the address on the visiting order is a newsagent's in Battersea.'
'He moves around a lot.'
Hargrove settled back in his chair. 'Going back to the phone conversation you had with Detective Constable Sharpe. Can you remember what you said?'
Shepherd had been expecting the change in subject so he wasn't fazed by it.
'Not word for word.' A deliberate lie. Shepherd's memory was faultless when it came to conversations.
'Because I've listened to the conversation. Word for word.'
Shepherd kept on looking at the superintendent, kept a smile on his face, kept breathing regularly, kept his hands in his lap.
'I think your exact words to Sharpe were that if there was anything untoward, he was to call the number you'd given him and tell him what had happened. 'But that's all. Don't start raising red flags.' That's what you said. What did you suspect might have happened?'
'I just wanted reassurance that my boy was okay, that's all.'
'This man you wanted Sharpe to contact, he wasn't the mysterious Mr Humphreys, was he?'
'No.'
'You're sure of that? You being confused and stressed and everything.'
'I'm sure.'
'I'd like to talk to Mr Humphreys.'
Shepherd looked pained. 'Like I said, he moves around a lot.'
'You've always been one of my best men, Spider,' said Hargrove. 'I know you're not bent, so I've got to ask you, unofficially and off the record without the machine running, is there anything you want to tell me?'
Shepherd stayed silent.
'Anything at all?'
Shepherd shook his head.
There were two dozen DEA agents working out of the American embassy in Grosvenor Square, but Matt Willis was the one Major Gannon regarded most highly, not least because Willis had spent seven years as a Navy Seal and had seen action in the Gulf and Afghanistan.
The American's Special Forces background gave the two plenty to argue about whenever they met up, and often led to early morning drinking sessions in the Special Forces Club, behind Harrods in Knightsbridge.
Gannon arranged to meet Willis there at lunchtime, so they would not be tempted to embark on a drinking binge. The club was in an anonymous red-brick mansion block. The brass plaque identifying it had been taken down after 11 September and now passers-by had no idea that some of the most specialised soldiers in the world were inside the building, or that drunken SAS and SBS officers often hurtled down the stairs on metal trays - a makeshift toboggan run.
Gannon signed in and went up to the first-floor bar, all dark wood and leather armchairs. Willis was already sitting in a corner, his back to the wall, nursing a tumbler of whiskey and ice. He stood up, shook hands with Gannon, then slapped him on the back and ordered him a whiskey as the major dropped into an armchair. 'Busy?' asked Gannon, placing his case on the floor next to the chair.
'As ever,' said Willis. 'You?'
Gannon pulled a face. 'Sitting on my arse in the barracks,' he said.
'Really?' said Willis, grinning.
'The Provos are finished, what's left of the Republican movement are nutters, pretty much, and Al Qaeda aren't up to much here. All quiet on the western front.'
'Pity you missed out on Iraq.'
'Tell me about it. Three-quarters of the Regiment were there but all I did was babysit the bloody sat-phone.' He gestured at the case by his side. Wherever he went, Gannon had to take the Almighty with him.
The two men clinked their glasses and drank. 'Have you got time for lunch?' asked Gannon. The club's dining room offered the sort of food that soldiers enjoyed - good solid meals with no-fuss service. Willis shook his head. 'We've got a satellite conference with Langley this afternoon.'
'It was a lot easier before the spooks got involved in drugs,' said Gannon.
'It was the end of the Cold War did it,' said Willis. 'Had to find themselves a new role and drugs was the war of choice. Half the undercover operations we run come up against CIA agents. They treat us like we're the enemy.'
'Same with the cops and our spooks. Hate the sight of each other, and we end up in the middle.'
Gannon waved at the elderly barman for more drinks.
'So?' said Willis.
'What?'
'You didn't ask me here to complain about the security services, did you?'
Gannon grinned. Willis knew him too well. 'There's a drug-dealer we'd like to sort out. Gerald Carpenter.'
'I know the name.'
Gannon smiled. Of course the American knew the name. Carpenter was one of the biggest players in the country, and his escape from Shelton prison had been plastered across the newspapers for the best part of a week.
'Why didn't you sort him out when you had him?' asked Willis.
Gannon's eyes narrowed. 'What are you getting at, Matt?'
'Don't try to kid a kidder,' said Willis, evidently enjoying Gannon's discomfort. 'The papers might fall for that crap about the Real IRA breaking into Shelton to get their men out, but I'm a bit too old to believe in fairy stories.'
'So what do you think happened?'
