Katra stirred Liam’s eggs and cheese. The toaster pinged, and she pulled out the toast.
‘Maybe,’ said Shepherd, ‘but we can’t let that worry us. If we’re scared all the time the terrorists have won. That’s what they want, to scare us. So if we aren’t scared, they can’t win.’
‘But you’re going to help catch them, aren’t you?’
‘I’m going to try.’
‘And they’ll go to prison, right?’
‘Sure.’
‘And you’ll get a medal?’
Shepherd laughed. ‘Maybe.’
There were more images on the screen. A Sydney hospital with ambulances unloading the injured. A voiceover saying that at least a hundred people had been killed but that the final death toll was likely to be much higher. Shepherd wondered what sort of men would set off a bomb to kill civilians. He could understand combat: man against man, weapon against weapon. Terrible things happened in wars, but it was always soldier against soldier. He’d killed in combat, but the men who had died might just as easily have killed him. He’d been shot, too, taken a sniper’s bullet in the shoulder in Afghanistan and only survived because of the skill of an SAS medic and the fact that a chopper had been nearby. Shepherd felt no hatred for the guy who’d shot him: Shepherd had been doing his job and so had the sniper. Shepherd had been trained in the use of explosives, but only in military situations. He knew how to place a shaped charge to destroy a bridge or bring down a building, and he knew how to handle grenades. But if he had ever been ordered to plant a bomb that served no purpose other than to kill civilians, he would have refused, no matter what the circumstances.
Katra put down a plate of scrambled eggs and cheese on toast in front of Liam and he attacked it enthusiastically. ‘Chew it properly,’ said Shepherd.
‘It’s scrambled eggs,’ said Liam. ‘You can’t chew scrambled eggs.’
‘And don’t talk with your mouth full.’
‘What would you like, Dan?’ asked Katra.
‘Just toast, please,’ said Shepherd. The newsreaders were back on screen. The woman was talking via a video link to a so-called terrorism expert, a balding, bespectacled academic in a turtleneck sweater who was trying to explain the aims and objectives of the various Muslim extremist groups around the world. To Shepherd, it was obvious: they wanted to kill as many Westerners as possible. They wanted to provoke a backlash against Muslims so that they could point the finger at the West and say, ‘See? We told you they hated us.’ The West was in an impossible situation. If it did nothing, the deaths would continue. But in invading Iraq, in locking people up without trial, it was playing into the hands of the enemy. It was a no-win situation for which Shepherd had no solution. That was for the politicians to work out. Shepherd was a policeman: his job was to uphold law and order. It was for politicians to solve the insoluble, but most of those he saw on television didn’t have the intellectual skills necessary to programme a video recorder, never mind broker a peace with Islamic fundamentalists.
Shepherd scowled at the academic’s woolly language and even woollier thinking. He seemed to have no clearer understanding of the aims of al-Qaeda than Shepherd did. What did al-Qaeda want? The dismantling of Israel? Death to all infidels? A world of Muslims? All women covered from head to foot in black and walking ten steps behind their men? If that was their aim, there would be no negotiating with them. And if negotiations were pointless, what then?
Katra put a plate of buttered toast in front of him. ‘You look very serious,’ she said.
Shepherd smiled up at her. ‘Busy week,’ he said.
‘Can we watch cartoons?’ asked Liam.
Shepherd pushed the remote control across the table to him. ‘Watch whatever you want,’ he said.
Liam flicked through the channels and stopped at a cartoon. Roadrunner was doing what he did best, running through the desert. A gleeful Wile E. Coyote was unwrapping an Acme bomb, a black sphere with a long fuse and ‘ BOMB ’ written on the side. Shepherd drank some coffee and wondered when bombs had stopped being funny. ‘I’ve got to make a phone call,’ he said and picked up a piece of toast. ‘I’ll be upstairs. You two stay down here, okay? I don’t want to be disturbed.’
Liam nodded, his eyes on the television.
‘It’s a work call,’ Shepherd said to Katra. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’
Shepherd went upstairs to his bedroom and took the Tony Corke mobile out of his bedside cabinet. He checked the call register. They hadn’t rung back and there were no texts.
Shepherd pressed ‘redial’. The call was answered on the third ring. ‘Who are you?’ said an Asian voice. Shepherd was fairly sure it was the second man he’d spoken to the last time he’d called. ‘I can’t deal with someone I don’t know. You could be the police.’
‘If you really thought I was a cop, you wouldn’t be talking to me at all. Now, do you want these cans or not?’
‘They are my property.’
‘So, let me ask you a question,’ said Shepherd. ‘Who am I talking to?’
‘You don’t need to know my name,’ said the man. ‘I want what belongs to me.’
‘So now it’s “I”, is it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Yesterday it was “we”. Today it’s “I”. Am I talking to you or am I talking to a group?’
‘You’re talking to me.’
‘So, I need a name. I need someone to ask for if I call again.’
‘I will be the only one answering this phone from now on,’ said the man, ‘but you can call me Ben.’
‘That’s a start,’ said Shepherd. ‘You can call me Bill. That makes us Bill and Ben.’
‘Bill,’ repeated Ben. ‘You are English?’
‘As English as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding,’ said Shepherd. ‘Now, about my money.’
‘We have it.’
‘There’s that “we” again,’ said Shepherd.
‘Please, do not play games with me,’ said Ben.
‘Where do I get my money?’ asked Shepherd.
‘We will meet you at Paddington station. You give us the cans, we give you the money. Providing the cans have not been opened.’
‘Don’t worry, they haven’t,’ said Shepherd. ‘But Paddington isn’t good for me.’ Shepherd doubted that Hargrove would want the tracking device to disappear underground.
‘Where, then?’
‘What part of London are you in? Are you close to Paddington?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I was trying to make it easy for you,’ said Shepherd.
‘What’s wrong with Paddington?’
‘I’m scared of trains,’ said Shepherd. ‘I choose the venue, okay? That’s the way it’s going to be. What about Hyde Park? Speaker’s Corner. Sunday. Three o’clock. It’ll be busy. Lots of people. Safety in numbers.’
‘Okay.’
‘We’ll be out in the open, which means we’ll have plenty of time to check each other out.’
‘Agreed.’
‘And come alone,’ said Shepherd. ‘One more thing. The price has gone up. To thirty thousand pounds.’
‘You are a thief!’
‘I haven’t stolen anything,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m the guy who’s returning your property and I deserve a decent finder’s fee.’
‘You are a thief.’
‘Call me all the names you want, Ben, but if you don’t come up with thirty grand I’ll open the cans and take my chances with what’s inside.’
‘Do that and we’ll track you down and kill you. I swear on my children.’
‘It’s not nice to bring your kids into a business transaction. Are you going to come up with thirty grand or do I get me a can-opener?’
‘We have a deal,’ hissed Ben. ‘But I warn you, my friend, if you increase the price again, you will die in
