‘I’m not sure I follow you.’
‘Take Dan, for instance. Until now he’s been working on basic criminal cases. He poses as a drug-dealer, a bank robber, a contract killer, and he gathers evidence against criminals. Hardcore, some of them, but the Serious Organised Crime Agency will go after bigger fish. The IRA’s criminal activities, for instance. The Russian Mafia. The Colombians. Al-Qaeda. If I’m putting Dan up against them I need to know he won’t crack under the pressure.’
Gift raised her eyebrows. ‘He’s tough. He’ll cope.’
‘That’s my view, too,’ said Button. She glanced at her watch. ‘I must go,’ she said. She stood up and offered her hand, which Gift shook.
She left the coffee shop and Gift moved with her coffee to a seat by the window. From there she could look down at the platforms below. Button went down the stairs, then walked away from the trains towards the taxi rank. Gift smiled to herself. She’d caught Charlotte Button in a deliberate lie. She wasn’t there to catch a train. It had been an unnecessary lie, too, because it was of no concern to her where Button was going. Gift wondered why she had lied. Habit, maybe. Instinct. Or because the lie was simpler than the truth, whatever it was. Perhaps the Lancome lipstick and the mascara weren’t for the office but for a lover. Perhaps there was more to Charlotte Button than met the eye.
A phone woke Shepherd from a dreamless sleep. It was Tony Corke’s. He squinted at his watch – just after ten o’clock in the morning. He took a couple of deep breaths to clear his head. He was Tony Corke, seaman, with a son he rarely saw and a court case looming. Early mornings and late nights were always the most dangerous times, when he was most likely to let his mask slip. He ran through his legend, ticking all the mental boxes. Dan Shepherd was pushed into the background. His feelings and memories had to be locked away because they might betray him. He took the call. ‘Yeah?’ he said.
‘Tony, it’s me. Salik.’
‘Hiya, Salik. How’s it going?’
‘Very well,’ said Salik. ‘Very well indeed. We have something for you, Tony.’
‘Music to my ears,’ said Shepherd. ‘So, where do we meet?’
‘Where are you?’
‘At home,’ said Shepherd, ‘but I’m coming in to London so it’s not a problem.’
‘Why don’t you meet us at our office at, say, five o’clock? We can have a chat.’
‘Fine,’ said Shepherd.
‘Do you have a pen? I’ll give you the address.’
Shepherd didn’t need a pen. He knew the address already. It was the bureau de change in Edgware Road.
Shepherd walked into the pub. Hargrove was standing at the bar, staring at a television set on a shelf close to the ceiling. A cricket match. Shepherd didn’t care for cricket. He wasn’t a big fan of games – never had been, even at school. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy being part of a team: the SAS was all about teamwork. The police, too – even on undercover cases, Shepherd was always part of a team. He just couldn’t understand what was enjoyable about throwing a ball at three pieces of wood. Or hitting one with a piece of metal at the end of a stick and walking after it. He was even less convinced by the pleasure to be had in watching others play. Spending ninety minutes watching two groups of men chasing a ball seemed to Shepherd a total waste of time. But that wasn’t an argument he ever wanted to have with the superintendent, who was a diehard cricket and rugby fan, and always wore cufflinks with a cricket motif.
‘Job well done, Spider,’ said Hargrove. ‘Jameson’s and ice?’
Shepherd nodded. Hargrove ordered it, and another pint of lager for himself. He was wearing a tweed jacket with a red waistcoat, dark trousers and brown brogues: his off-duty uniform. When he was working, he always wore a suit.
‘We’ve got all we need to put the Uddin brothers away on currency smuggling, and the French had the Albanians covered at every step of the way,’ said Hargrove.
‘Are they arresting them?’
‘Not yet. They want confirmation that the euros are coming from the North Koreans.’
‘And then what? A strongly worded letter to the ambassador? They can’t put a whole country on trial.’
‘This is bigger than one court case, Spider. It’s about dest abilising economies. It’s political.’
Shepherd shook his head. ‘I don’t agree. It’s about profits. The euro economy is – what? Trillions? Trillions upon trillions? A few million isn’t going to hurt economies as big as France and Germany. A few billion could be absorbed without anyone noticing.’
Their drinks arrived. The superintendent paid with a twenty-pound note and waited until the barman had given him his change before he replied. ‘You might be right.’
‘I know I am. They should do Kreshnik now, take him out of circulation.’
The superintendent sipped his lager. ‘There’s a problem,’ he said.
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Shepherd. ‘He never went near the money.’
‘His men did. We might get them to give evidence against him down the line.’
‘They’ll have family in Albania and they know what’ll happen if they cross him.’
‘Let’s look on the bright side, shall we? His men will be jailed so Kreshnik will have to shut down the operation.’
‘And start up a new one.’ Shepherd grimaced. ‘It’s always this way, isn’t it? The little fish get banged up while the sharks live to fight another day. And the really small fish, like Rudi Pernaska, kill themselves in police custody.’
‘Spider…’
‘I know, I know. I look at the glass and see it’s half empty while others see it’s half full. But the thing is, the glass is half empty. There’s no getting away from it. And the world is a shitty place full of shitty people. And there’s no such thing as fair any more. The meek will never inherit the world, they’ll just get shafted until the end of time.’
Hargrove raised eyebrows. ‘Rough day?’
Shepherd smiled thinly. ‘Rough year,’ he said.
‘I’m not saying that Kreshnik won’t get his comeuppance eventually, but this time we don’t have enough evidence. Europol have him in their sights, though.’
‘I won’t be holding my breath,’ said Shepherd. ‘Their resources are as stretched as ours. That’s always the problem, isn’t it? It costs time and money to nail the big guys, and unless it’s a one hundred per cent sure thing the accountants say it’s not worth committing the resources.’
‘Don’t be too sure,’ said Hargrove. ‘Kreshnik’s involved with drugs and if any are ending up in the States the Americans will be on the case and money will be no object.’
‘Great. So the plan now is for the Americans to bail us out.’ Shepherd drained his glass. ‘Another?’ he said. Hargrove gestured at his barely touched pint. ‘Well, I need one,’ said Shepherd. He waved at the barman and pointed at his empty glass.
‘What’s wrong, Spider?’
Shepherd sighed. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing much.’
‘The Uddin brothers? Is that it?’
Shepherd smiled. The superintendent could always tell what was on his mind. That was what made him such a good boss. ‘They’re nice guys and they’re going to go down. They’ll be taken away from their families and banged up with drug-dealers, burglars and child-molesters for bringing in paper.’
‘Millions of counterfeit euros, actually,’ said Hargrove.
‘Paper,’ repeated Shepherd. ‘They haven’t hurt or killed anyone – it’s as close to a victimless crime as you can get. Yet they go to prison, while lowlifes like Kreshnik live in million-pound apartments in Paris.’
‘So, life’s unfair,’ said Hargrove. ‘We know that. But it doesn’t mean we don’t put away people who break the law.’
Shepherd’s second whiskey and ice arrived and he paid for it, telling the barman to keep the change. ‘Sometimes it looks like we don’t aim high enough.’
‘Well, maybe that’ll change with SOCA,’ said Hargrove. ‘I get the feeling that Charlotte Button will choose her own targets. I’ve always been at the beck and call of the various forces who use the unit, but she’s got more autonomy so you might get your wish.’
