False Friends

Shepherd smiled and shook his head. ‘Everything’s fine,’ he said. ‘This is just a training exercise.’

‘Do you think someone might be following us?’

‘No, this is just a precaution,’ said Shepherd. ‘But the closer we get to the operation, the more likely it is that they’ll run a check on you. I don’t want a panicky phone call from either of you in a week or so saying that you think you’re being followed.’

‘Khalid, you mean?’ asked Chaudhry.

Shepherd nodded. ‘There’s every possibility that he’ll have you checked out, just to see what you’re up to. It might be nothing more than him getting someone to follow you for a day or two, but if it happens I want you to know it’s happening and to act in the right way.’ He could see that both men were tense so he smiled, trying to put them at ease. ‘The good news is that today at least you were clean. We’re sure that no one was following you today, other than our people. And in future, if at any time you are worried that someone is following you, you can call me and I’ll get you checked out.’

There was a loud knock at the door and both men jumped.

Shepherd grinned. ‘Relax, guys. It’s our coffee.’

‘Okay, there’s one of ours now, within a hundred feet,’ said Shepherd. ‘See if you can spot him.’ He smiled. ‘Or her.’

They were sitting on a bench in Forbury Gardens, close to Reading Town Hall. It was lunchtime and a lot of office workers were strolling around, many of them either smoking or eating sandwiches.

Chaudhry and Malik looked around.

‘Try to be casual,’ said Shepherd. ‘Don’t stare and try to avoid eye contact, but if you do make eye contact with anyone make it as natural as possible. If it’s a pretty girl it’s okay to say hello. The key is for every interaction to be exactly as it would normally be. So you’d normally want a prop like a newspaper or your mobile, something that you can keep looking at. Especially in a static situation like this. A guy sitting on his own doing nothing looks suspicious. Give him a newspaper and he’s just a guy taking a break. Better still give him a pen so that he can do the Sudoku and no one will give him a second look.’ He held up the copy of the Telegraph that he was holding. ‘Also, just like in the movies, you can open it up and peer over the top of it.’

‘The woman with the pram has walked by us three times,’ said Malik.

‘Yes, but the baby’s crying. It’s very rare for a watcher to bring family. Especially kids. If something goes wrong and a kid gets hurt there’d be hell to pay.’

‘Maybe it’s not a real baby,’ said Malik. ‘Maybe it’s a recording.’

Shepherd laughed. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘But no, it’s not her.’

A council employee in blue overalls and a fluorescent jacket was emptying a litter bin. He was bobbing his head in time to whatever music he was listening to through large black headphones atop a woollen hat.

‘That guy,’ said Chaudhry, nodding at the man.

‘Because?’

‘Because when we walked by that bin it wasn’t even half full.’

Shepherd grinned. ‘Well spotted.’

‘Am I right?’

‘Spot on,’ said Shepherd. ‘We’ll often use people in uniforms because they tend to pass unnoticed; generally you’ll see the uniform and not notice the face. The downside of uniforms is that if they’re not in the right setting they show out. So he looks right in the park, or the street, but you’d notice him straight away in a shop or a bar.’ He took out his BlackBerry and tapped out a number. A few seconds later, the man who was emptying the litter bin straightened up and answered his phone. ‘All right, Tim, on to phase two.’

‘Phase two?’ asked Malik.

Shepherd ended the call and put his phone away. The man in the fluorescent jacket pulled the rubbish-filled black bag out of the bin, fastened it and then walked away towards the town hall.

‘Tim’s going to walk behind the town hall. We’re going to carry on with another exercise and I want you to tell me when you see him reappear.’

‘Check we can multitask, is that it?’ asked Chaudhry.

‘Sort of,’ said Shepherd. He stood up. ‘Let’s just take a walk,’ he said. ‘But keep your eye on the town hall. As we walk around I want you to watch out for someone taking your photograph. There are plenty of buildings overlooking the park so you can easily be snapped with a telephoto lens.’

They did a slow circuit of the park, with Chaudhry and Malik keeping a close eye on the town hall while also checking out the buildings around them. They walked slowly and Shepherd chatted to them both as they walked, explaining in detail how the surveillance team had followed them from their flat to the hotel in Reading.

When they got back to the bench a middle-aged man in a raincoat and trilby hat had taken their place. He was reading an iPad and chewing on a baguette.

‘So first things first,’ said Shepherd. ‘Did you see Tim come back from behind the town hall?’

Chaudhry shook his head. ‘Definitely not,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ agreed Malik. ‘I saw him go behind the building but he never came back.’

Shepherd grinned. ‘Well done, Tim,’ he said to the man on the bench. ‘They missed you completely and I only just made you.’

The man with the iPad stood up and pushed back his trilby. Chaudhry and Malik groaned as they realised it was the man who had been emptying the litter bin.

‘He changed his clothes,’ said Malik.

‘Exactly,’ said Shepherd.

Tim nodded and walked away as Shepherd, Chaudhry and Malik went to sit on the bench.

‘Here’s the thing,’ said Shepherd. ‘Professional followers will always carry with them things that can change their profile. Hats. Jackets. Bags. Plus props. If you see a guy carrying a copy of the Financial Times you’re more likely to notice the paper than the man’s face. So if he drops the paper and carries a cup of coffee you won’t remember him. If he goes into a shop wearing a baseball hat and comes out wearing a scarf there’s a good chance you won’t recognise him. It can help you lose a tail too. A reversible jacket can change your colour scheme completely, or take off your pullover and tie it round your waist, roll up your sleeves, develop a limp, put your arm in a sling. Glasses on, glasses off. Tim there was wearing a fluorescent jacket and carrying a black bag the first time you saw him. That’s what you were looking for, so when he walked by you in a raincoat and carrying an iPad you didn’t notice him.’

‘So what’s the trick, what are you supposed to remember?’ asked Malik.

‘Try to get a good look at faces. If you can’t see their faces look for body shape. And despite what I said about developing a limp, most people tend to move the same way. Look at the way people walk, how they move their shoulders, the angle of their neck. And shoes. A watcher might have time to change his jacket but shoes are usually too much trouble.’

Shepherd’s BlackBerry buzzed and he took it out of his pocket. He looked at the screen and grinned. ‘Here’s the first of the photographs,’ he said. He showed them the screen. There was a picture of Chaudhry and Malik, close up.

‘You’re shitting me,’ said Chaudhry. ‘Who took that?’

‘One of the watchers. She walked right by us.’

‘Why didn’t we see her?’ asked Malik.

‘Because you were looking at the buildings,’ said Shepherd. ‘You were concentrating on the distance so you didn’t see what was right under your noses.’

Shepherd’s BlackBerry buzzed again as it received a second photograph. This one was of Chaudhry, side on. He showed it to Chaudhry, who shook his head in amazement.

‘That was taken just feet away. From a phone, right?’ Chaudhry said.

‘No, that was taken by Jake, who had a camera in his hat. He can take a picture of anything he’s looking at, and the shutter button is in his pocket. Even close up you’d never see the lens; it’s not much bigger than a pin.’

The phone buzzed once again. The third photograph was of the three of them, taken from some distance away. Shepherd showed it to Chaudhry and Malik. ‘This camera was in a briefcase.’

‘Okay, I get it,’ said Chaudhry. ‘Your guys are pros and we’re the amateurs. But you didn’t have to bring us all the way to Reading to tell us that.’