‘What?’ said Shepherd.
‘Just joking,’ said Liam. ‘Sixty-three.’
‘See. You can do that because you learned your tables. Sometimes it’s better to do things the old-fashioned way.’
‘It’s hard,’ said Liam.
‘Nothing worth having comes easy,’ said Shepherd.
‘It’s okay for you – your memory’s perfect.’
‘But it never helped me write essays,’ said Shepherd. ‘The teacher wants to know that you understand what you’ve learned, not that you can repeat parrot-fashion what someone else has written. Having a good memory doesn’t make it any easier to understand things. And being smart is about understanding stuff, not just memorising it.’ He pointed at the exercise book. ‘So, get writing, yeah?’
Liam sat down.
‘Do you want coffee?’ asked Katra.
‘Please.’
‘What about something to eat?’
‘I’ll make myself a sandwich.’
As Katra made coffee, Shepherd took butter and ham out of the fridge. ‘I’ll be away tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘Just for the one night.’
‘Dad, we’re going to Gran and Granddad’s, remember?’
‘You and Katra can go,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll phone Gran and explain.’
‘She won’t like it.’
‘It’s you she wants to see, Liam, not me,’ said Shepherd, buttering two slices of bread.
‘Can we play football?’
‘As soon as you’ve finished your homework.’
‘Can I have my TV back in my room?’
‘No,’ said Shepherd, slapping ham on to the bread and smearing mustard across it.
‘You’re really mean sometimes,’ said Liam.
‘I’m your father,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s my job.’
Shepherd had breakfast with Liam and Katra, and after they had left for Hereford in the CRV he pulled on his black army boots and brick-filled rucksack. Moira hadn’t sounded surprised that he wasn’t going with Liam, nor had she seemed disappointed. He understood why they only wanted to see Liam. Sue had been their only child and he was their only grandchild, all they had left of their daughter. They had a right to as much access as Shepherd could give. Moira and Tom would have liked Liam to live with them, but he wasn’t prepared to allow that: Liam was his son. They were a family – a family of two, but a family nonetheless. It was a pity they didn’t live closer, but Moira and Tom had spent more than half of their lives in their house in Hereford and he didn’t think they would consider moving now. It was also the house in which they’d brought up Sue: giving it up would be tantamount to walking away from their memories of her growing up.
He stared at himself in the mirrored door of his wardrobe. He’d told Liam that selling the house in Ealing would be a good idea, but that wouldn’t apply to Moira and Tom. Liam wanted a new mother, and there was a good chance that, at some point, he’d have one. Shepherd still missed Sue as much as the day she’d been taken from him, but he was enough of a realist to know that eventually he would find someone else to share his life with. But Tom and Moira would never be able to replace their lost daughter. Memories would be all they ever had of her. Memories, and their grandchild.
Shepherd left the house. He did two laps of his regular five-kilometre route through the streets of Ealing and on to Scotch Common, but it was only when he was towards the end of the second that he began to work up a sweat. He preferred to run out of doors, even when the weather was bad. He’d tried exercising in gyms but the machines were boring, the air was stale, and most were full of middle-aged women waddling on treadmills or men in designer clothes with highlighted hair who seemed more interested in attracting partners than in working on their stamina. Shepherd ran to stay fit, but it also helped him to think. When he was working, more often than not, he was in character. He had to think and act in accordance with whatever role he was playing, not as Dan Shepherd. But when he was running he could be himself: he could think and feel without worrying that he might give himself away. Most of the time he ran on autopilot, barely aware of his surroundings and even less so of his pounding heart and burning muscles.
He thought about Charlotte Button and how his life would change when he worked for SOCA; he thought about the Uddin brothers and how their lives would shortly fall apart; about Liam and his piano lessons; about Moira and Tom and how he ought to let Liam spend more time with them.
He’d taken his work mobile with him, stuffed into one of the side pockets of the canvas rucksack, and it started to ring as he ran down the road towards his house. He stopped. It was Hargrove.
‘Not caught you at a bad time, have I?’ asked the superintendent.
‘Just running,’ said Shepherd.
‘The passport they gave you is genuine,’ said Hargrove. ‘It’s in the system. Whoever they’ve got on the inside has access at a very high level. We need to nail him.’
‘Any thoughts?’
‘Get them to fix you up another passport. I’ll get a name for you, and the Passport Agency systems boys will be watching when it goes up.’
‘Before or after the currency run?’
‘Do the delivery first. We might get one of the brothers to roll over on the passport guy, depending on how big an operation it is.’
‘Ten grand a passport? Even doing a few dozen a year it’s not going to be big bucks, is it?’
‘It’s not about the money, Spider. Anyone on a UK passport has visa-free travel to the States. It would be a terrorist’s dream. We need to know how many have been issued and to whom.’
The superintendent cut the connection and Shepherd ran back to his house.
Shepherd drove to a Best Western hotel on the outskirts of Southampton and arrived just before four o’clock. Hargrove and Singh were already there. The superintendent had ordered coffee and sandwiches from room service and was pouring himself a cup when Shepherd walked in.
‘Coffee?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s going to be a long night.’ He took off his pea coat and tossed it on to a sofa.
‘Take your shirt off,’ said Singh, ‘and drop your trousers.’ He had a briefcase full of electrical equipment open on the dressing-table.
‘Amar, I never knew you cared.’ Shepherd did as he was asked.
Singh held up a small grey plastic box. ‘This is the battery pack,’ he said. ‘No way we can get it any smaller, unfortunately. We need power to transmit over long distances.’
‘I’m not putting that up my arse,’ joked Shepherd.
‘It’ll be taped to the small of your back,’ said Singh, ignoring his attempt at humour. ‘Then I’ll run a mike to your chest. It’ll pick up everything you say and should give us anyone talking within a few feet of you.’
‘Until the engine’s on,’ said Shepherd. ‘You have to shout to make yourself heard.’
‘Which is why we’ll need you to give us a position before you set off, if at all possible,’ said Hargrove.
Singh used strips of tape to fasten the battery to Shepherd’s back. Then he held up a metal cylinder the size of a small cigar. ‘The transmitter,’ he said. ‘This we can put up your arse.’
‘What?’
‘Gotchya,’ said Singh, grinning. ‘The higher this is the better, so I’ll strap it to the back of your arm. I’ll be running wires from it to the battery and the mike. It’s all about transmitting power, so you’ll only switch it on when you need it. I’m going to rig an on-off switch under your belt.’
‘If they pat me down, I’m screwed,’ said Shepherd.
‘It’s your call, Spider,’ said Hargrove. ‘If you’ve any reservations we can do it another way.’
Shepherd watched as Singh ran tape around his left arm. He thought of the last time he’d seen Salik, how the man had hugged him and talked about trust. ‘No, it’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’m in with them.’
‘Your new best friends?’ said Hargrove.
‘Pretty much.’
