let go when he was talking to the unit’s psychologists. There was too much at stake. They chatted and nodded sympathetically but at the end of the day they decided whether or not he was fit to do his job.
‘It makes the transition easier, allows me to hit the ground running, as it were,’ she said. ‘But I suppose it does give me the advantage. I know a lot about you but I doubt that you were able to find out much about me.’
Shepherd smiled thinly. She would have expected him to check her out – he was a policeman, after all – but while his MI5 contacts had heard of her, none had met her and none had been able to add anything to what Charlotte Button had told him. She was right: she did have the advantage. ‘So, let’s get on to an even playing-field,’ she said, smiling brightly. ‘What would you like to know?’
‘I’m not sure there is anything,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s not like we’re best buddies, is it? Kathy went off and got married and we knew nothing about it.’
‘You expected a wedding invitation?’
Shepherd swirled his whiskey around his glass. ‘No, of course not. But it’s a strange situation. You get to know our innermost thoughts, you get closer to us than our families and friends do, yet there’s no emotional context. You care, but you don’t care.’
‘Kathy liked you, I’ve no doubt about that… Sounds like we’re at primary school, doesn’t it? Who likes who, who’s best friends with who.’
‘It’s not a question of liking, it’s a question of trust.’
‘My security rating is about the highest there is, but I don’t suppose that’s what you mean,’ said Stockmann. ‘You mean emotional trust.’ She leaned forward. ‘Dan, I believe in what I do, and I’m absolutely committed to doing the best possible job I can for the unit.’
‘A friend of mine once explained the difference between commitment and involvement,’ said Shepherd.
‘The breakfast analogy? The chicken is involved and the pig is committed?’
‘Well, that spoils that story,’ said Shepherd.
‘I do understand that when you go into a situation under cover your life is on the line. And the worst thing that can happen to me is that I break a nail typing up a report. But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand or that I don’t empathise with what you do. Anyway, come what may, we’re stuck with each other. I have to do the biannual thing for Charlie, so let’s have a chat and a few drinks and then we can go our separate ways.’
‘Are you full-time with SOCA now?’
‘I’m a sort of consultant,’ she said. ‘I’ll still be doing some work with Five.’
‘You’ve been with them for a while?’ asked Shepherd.
‘Almost a decade,’ she said.
‘Charlie said you were with something called the Predictive Behaviour Group.’
‘The mind-readers,’ she said. ‘Getting inside other people’s heads.’
‘Which is what you’re doing with the undercover unit now.’
She smiled. ‘Bit different,’ she said. ‘In the unit’s case, I’m there to help. The PBG was more about stitching people up – finding their weaknesses and advising others on how to exploit them. It was fun at times.’
‘In what way?’
‘How much did Charlie tell you?’
‘Not much.’
She took another sip of her pint. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any harm in telling you – you’ve signed the Official Secrets Act.’
‘And I’m one of the good guys,’ said Shepherd.
‘Indeed you are. Anyway, when the group was first set up its main task was to advise ministers on how foreign politicians would react to certain situations. Then our brief widened and we started giving briefings on major criminals to the security services. How would Gangster A react if approached by an attractive female undercover agent? What would Gangster B do if asked to give evidence against a competitor? That sort of thing.’
‘Interesting,’ said Shepherd.
‘It got a lot more so when we started to get more proactive,’ said Stockmann. ‘MI5 set up a unit whose brief was basically to unsettle some of the biggest villains in the UK, the really heavy guys, the ones who are virtually untouchable by conventional policing. The idea was to put them under pressure by screwing with their lives.’
‘In what way?’
Stockmann giggled. ‘We had carte blanche,’ she said. ‘That didn’t mean they did everything we suggested, but we were free to let our imaginations roam. From simple things like scratching their cars or arranging for roadworks outside their house, to mortgage loans being called in or flights cancelled.’
‘How does that help anyone?’ asked Shepherd.
‘It’s about putting them off-balance,’ she said, ‘annoying them until their life is in total disarray. The idea is that they spend so much time worrying about all the fertiliser that’s being thrown at them that they row with everyone close to them. They start making mistakes, being more hands-on, which means you guys stand a better chance of catching them in the act.’
‘You’re telling me you were paid to annoy people?’
‘That’s about it,’ she said, ‘but we got results. We’d been looking at a heroin dealer in Wolverhampton and we suggested that his wife’s dog was kidnapped. It was obvious that she loved it more than him, but then it was around more than he was. Cocker spaniel with lovely eyes. Anyway, the dog duly went missing and she nagged him so much that he belted her and a neighbour called the police. They went in to sort out the domestic and found two kilos of heroin in his kitchen. He was fairly low down the food chain but the Drugs Squad turned him and we put half a dozen very heavy guys behind bars.’
‘Who does the dirty work?’
‘You mean who kidnapped the dog? The spooks, bless them. They love playing games. Now, one thing’s not in your file and that’s your nickname – Spider.’
‘I ate one once,’ he said.
‘Lovely,’ said Stockmann.
‘It was in my SAS days. Jungle training. We had a competition to see who could eat the most repulsive thing. I ate a tarantula.’
‘And you won?’
Shepherd shook his head. ‘Came second.’
‘What did the winner eat?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I’ve got a pretty strong stomach.’
‘Really, you don’t want to know. It all got a bit silly.’
‘Boys will be boys,’ said Stockmann. She raised her glass to him. ‘How did the tarantula taste?’ she asked. ‘Like chicken, I suppose.’
‘Like a spider,’ said Shepherd. ‘Bit chewier than a caterpillar.’
Stockmann chuckled. ‘Must come in handy, your SAS background,’ she said, ‘insect-eating notwithstanding.’
‘I don’t behave like a cop who’s spent ten years pounding the beat,’ said Shepherd, ‘and I’m fitter than most.’
‘And there’s the weapons training.’
‘I wondered when you’d get around to that.’
‘We’ve got to talk about it, Dan. It happened.’
‘It happened,’ agreed Shepherd.
‘Any thoughts on it?’
Shepherd sat back in his chair. ‘I talked it through with Kathy. They made me have several sessions with her.’
‘You understand why. You shot three people, two men and a woman.’
‘I took out three suicide-bombers who, if they’d had their way, would have killed hundreds of innocent people.’
‘But being right doesn’t make killing any easier.’
‘Actually, it does,’ said Shepherd.
