‘I don’t know,’ said Shepherd. ‘If we pull out now, will I still have to pay your fee?’
‘The bulk of the work has already been done,’ said the solicitor. ‘I could probably knock ten per cent off our agreed fee, but that would be as far as I could go.’
‘So either way I lose out,’ said Shepherd. ‘I stump up the fifteen grand or I start from scratch – and lose the house I’m buying.’
‘That’s the problem with a chain,’ said the solicitor. ‘If one link breaks, the whole thing collapses. There is another option. We could tell the seller of the Hereford house that we want to drop our offer by fifteen thousand.’
‘Do you think she’d agree?’
‘We could try.’
The woman selling the house in Hereford was a widow in her seventies. Her husband had died two years earlier and she was planning to move closer to her married daughter in Essex. She was buying a small bungalow so she would have money to spare, but Shepherd had felt that he was getting a good deal on the house and didn’t like the idea of trying to snatch back fifteen thousand pounds at this late stage. ‘No, I don’t want to do that. It’s not…’ He hesitated. The word he wanted to use was ‘fair’ but he’d sound so naive. As a serving police officer, he knew that life wasn’t fair – in fact, it was a long way from it. More often than not the bad guys got away with villainy and the good ones got hurt. The richer and more successful the villain, the more likely he was to stay free. The poorer the victim, the less likely he or she was to see justice done. So, life wasn’t fair and only the naive or stupid thought it was. ‘Necessary,’ finished Shepherd. ‘Let me think about my options.’
‘The buyer says he’ll give us three days,’ said the solicitor. ‘Seventy-two hours.’
‘Now he’s setting deadlines?’ said Shepherd, exasperated. ‘This is extortion. He’s deliberately putting me under pressure hoping I’ll crack.’
‘I dare say that the buyer of his property has set the same deadline,’ said the solicitor.
‘I know, I know,’ said Shepherd. He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Let me think about it. I’ll get back to you.’
He ended the call and tapped in his mother-in-law’s number. She answered in her usually crisp manner, but when she realised it was him she was immediately chatting away: ‘Daniel, I’m so glad you called. The headmistress wants to confirm Liam’s start date, and I said he’d be with them next Monday. I’ve already bought his uniform but he’ll need white plimsolls and I wasn’t sure what size to get.’
‘Moira, there’s been a hitch…’ He explained what had happened.
‘Oh, Daniel,’ she said. She was the only person who used Shepherd’s full name and had never called him anything else, even though he’d asked her to call him Dan. To his friends and colleagues, Shepherd was either Spider or Dan. His wife had called him Dan. Or ‘lover’. Even Moira’s husband, Tom, called him Dan. But to Moira he had always been Daniel and always would be, just as trainers would always be plimsolls. ‘Look, if it’s a problem with the financing, Tom and I can tide you over. Tom would talk to his bank. I’m sure they’d agree a bridging loan.’
‘Really, it’s okay,’ said Shepherd.
‘Whatever happened to honesty and decency?’ asked his mother-in-law. ‘A man’s word used to be his bond.’
‘It’s every man for himself, these days,’ said Shepherd.
‘Well, it shouldn’t be. They agreed to buy your house for a price and now they’re going back on it. You should be able to sue them.’
‘Sadly, the law’s on their side,’ said Shepherd.
‘Then the law’s wrong,’ said Moira.
‘No argument there,’ said Shepherd. ‘Look, it’s not the end of the world.’
‘You’re still moving, aren’t you?’ said his mother-in-law. Shepherd could hear the apprehension in her voice. He knew how much she wanted Liam close by. Since Sue had died, Moira and Tom had seen their grandson mainly during school holidays and for the occasional weekend. Shepherd knew that they deserved more. Sue had been their only child and Liam was their only grandchild. He was all they had left of her, and Shepherd was determined that Liam would be a bigger part of their life in future.
‘Of course we are,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll talk to my bank about a bridging loan, but if they won’t play ball I might have to pull out of the house I’m buying in Hereford.’
‘Oh, Daniel…’
‘It’s okay, really. Worst possible scenario, Liam can come and stay with you again.’
‘I hope you don’t mean that’s the worst possible scenario,’ said Moira.
‘I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant,’ said Shepherd. ‘I meant if I can’t sort it out, it would be great if he could stay with you for a while.’
‘Of course,’ said Moira. ‘His room is here whenever he needs it.’
‘Thanks,’ said Shepherd.
‘What about Katra?’
‘If the house sale falls through, she can stay in Ealing. I’ll stay there too. It might work out, Moira, but if it doesn’t I want Liam settled in his new school as soon as possible. I know the headmistress moved heaven and earth to get him in mid-term.’
‘Is everything else okay, Daniel?’ she asked.
‘Everything’s fine,’ he said.
‘You sound a bit stressed, that’s all.’
‘It’s been a stressful week.’
Richard Yokely was watching the flat-screen computer monitor with Marion Cooke, one of the CIA’s top video analysts, whom he had known for almost a decade. This video was a little less than two minutes long and only one man spoke; he wore a ski mask and brandished a Kalashnikov. It was the seventh time they had viewed it. Now Cooke sat back and exhaled through pursed lips. ‘Not much of a plot,’ she said. ‘I’ll give it both thumbs down.’
‘Anything on the ringleader?’
She looked pained. ‘My Arabic’s good but I’m not a linguistics expert so I can’t even tell you his nationality. But I’ll run it past our guys and we’ll get it nailed down. I can cross-check it with voices on file and I’ll let you know if we get a match.’
‘The banner?’
‘“The Holy Martyrs of Islam. Death to the Infidels.” The sort of rhetoric we usually see in this sort of thing.’
‘Can you cross-check it with previous videos? Use of language, handwriting – I need to know if they have links to other fundamentalist groups.’
‘Yeah. I’d never heard of the Holy Martyrs of Islam before now.’
‘No one has,’ said Yokely, ‘but this is their second kidnapping and they haven’t made any mistakes so I’m assuming they’ve got experience.’
Cooke tapped the keyboard and zoomed in on the face of the man in the orange jumpsuit. ‘He’s a Brit, right?’
‘Yeah. Civilian contractor.’
Cooke pressed another button and the video began to play again, but this time the man’s face filled the screen. ‘You know what’s interesting?’ she mused.
‘Tell me,’ said Yokely.
‘He’s not afraid,’ said Cooke. ‘I’ve seen a few hostage videos and you can see the fear on their faces. Wide eyes, hyperventilating, shaking. This guy’s like a rock. And look at his eyes – he’s watching everything. He’s not at all scared.’
‘Ah,’ said Yokely. ‘Perhaps I understated his background. He was in special forces for a while.’
‘The SAS?’ She grinned. ‘Then, from what I’ve heard, his captors are the ones who should be worried.’
‘They don’t know what he was before,’ said Yokely. ‘So far as they’re concerned, he’s just a hired hand.’
‘Probably best,’ said Cooke.
‘What about the other men in the video?’
‘Can I see through the masks, you mean? Sadly, the technology isn’t there yet, Richard.’
‘You know what I mean, Marion.’
