another view flickered on to the screen. This time it was from a camera inside the house. The two men moved down the stairs. They were both wearing night-vision goggles.
'Do you know who they are?' asked Roper.
'Not yet, but we've put a tracking device in their car so we soon will. And we'll keep an eye on them from now on.'
'None of his crew are black. None of the ones I met, anyway.'
'They might be hired help.'
'Which means what? That he didn't want to risk his own people on a hit?'
'That's how I read it. We'll keep an eye on them and pull them in when we've got Carpenter.'
'Now what?' asked Roper.
'You and your family are on a flight to Florida. The DEA will put you under armed guard, with a watch at all airports for anyone who's even spoken to Gerald Carpenter.'
'Maybe they'll take us to Disneyland.'
'Maybe they will,' said Hargrove. 'But it won't be for long. We're entering the end phase now, Sandy. I promise.'
Roper nodded, but he wasn't convinced. Hargrove and Mackie had promised on a stack of Bibles that he and his family were safe in Milton Keynes, but the two men in night-vision goggles had just given the lie to that.
Carpenter waited until just before dawn before he assembled his phone. He listened at the door, and when he was satisfied that the landing was clear, he switched it on and called Fletcher's number.
'Yes, boss,' said Fletcher.
'We're gonna have to keep this short, Kim. Battery's on the way out. Get me another sent in, yeah?'
'Will do, boss.'
'How did it go?'
'Not good, boss.'
Carpenter cursed under his breath. 'Spit it out, Kim.'
'Roper's gone. The house was empty.'
'I thought you had the place under surveillance.'
'We did. He was there, no doubt about it. But we had to leave to brief Lewis and pay him. By the time he went in, Roper had gone.'
Carpenter ran a hand through his hair. It might just have been bad luck - the Church might be moving Roper around as a precaution. 'What does Yates say?'
'His mobile's off. I'll catch him tomorrow. But I've got the last set of tapes from him. I'll go through them now.'
'You think there might be more on them about Roper?'
'It's a possibility. Yates does his best but he can't remember everything.'
'Do it, Kim. I'll call you back tomorrow.'
'Boss, Lewis wants paying. The full whack.'
'That's okay.'
'But he didn't do the job. Bloody liberty, if you ask me.'
'Just pay him. It wasn't his fault. But keep your distance. If they moved Roper out, they might have had the place under surveillance.'
'There were no cops there, boss. Guaranteed.'
Carpenter swore. 'Just let me do the thinking, will you? They might be trying to link Lewis to me by letting him run. That's why we've got to pay him to keep him sweet. And get someone else to hand over the money. I've got to go. Don't forget that battery.' He cut the connection. He paced up and down with the mobile in his hand. That had been the last thing he'd wanted to hear from Fletcher. Roper was the key to his freedom. With Roper out of the picture, the case against Carpenter would collapse. He could only hope that he'd be able to find out where Roper had been moved to. But at least he still had the inside track on everything the Church did. Or, more accurately, Carpenter knew everything that Roy Mackie, Head of Drugs Operations, did. And wherever Roper went, HODO wouldn't be far behind.
Shepherd spent the morning cleaning the ones with Charlie Weston. Amelia Heartfield was supposed to be overseeing them but she spent most of her time in the bubble with Tony Stafford. From time to time he heard her laughing. Shepherd wondered what she had to be so happy about. He never saw her in anything other than good spirits, yet she had a high-stress job with four children to take care of on the out.
There was no sign of Carpenter. At dinnertime Gilchrist came down from the threes and took a plate of food up to Carpenter's cell. In the afternoon Amelia was back on the ones. Shepherd asked her if it was okay to use the phone. 'You know you're supposed to wait until association,' she said.
'It's personal,' he said. 'During association every man and his dog listens in, you know that.'
Amelia looked concerned. 'Wife trouble?'
Shepherd shrugged. Lying was a way of life when working undercover and it came naturally to him, but he still felt bad about being dishonest with Amelia.
'Go on, then,' she said.
Shepherd went over to the phones and tapped in his pin code followed by the number for Uncle Richard. A man answered.
'Richard, it's Bob,' said Shepherd. 'I'm calling to see how everything went.'
'He had visitors but he wasn't in.'
'Anyone we know?'
'We're on the case.'
'But no one known?'
'No one obvious.'
'And our man's well?'
'Fine and dandy. And you?'
'As well as can be expected,' said Shepherd. 'Tell Sam that the Walkman's working fine, but I've nothing worth listening to yet.'
'I'll tell him,' said the man. 'Do you need anything else?'
Shepherd tapped the receiver against his head. What he needed was to be on the out with his son. But first he needed Carpenter on tape, incriminating himself. And that was all down to Shepherd. 'No,' he said. 'I've got everything I need.' He replaced the receiver and went back to cleaning the floor.
Carpenter waited until an hour after lock-up before he took the Nokia from its hiding place in his stereo and phoned Fletcher. His man had obviously been waiting for the call because he answered it on the first ring. 'You've got a major fucking problem, boss. There's a grass in there.'
'What the hell are you talking about, Kim?'
'Mackie talked about a guy in prison. He only refers to him in passing, but he says he's got balls of steel. 'Twentyfour hours a day among some of the hardest bastards in the realm' is what Mackie said. His name's Shepherd.'
'Why didn't Yates tell you about this?'
'It was a throwaway line, boss. Easy to miss unless you know the context.'
'That's all you've got?'
'I ran it by Ryan. And he came up trumps.'
Malcolm Ryan cost Carpenter upwards of a hundred grand a year but he was one of his most useful police sources. He worked in the Metropolitan Police payroll and pensions office and had access to the Met's personnel records. Carpenter was grateful that Fletcher had used his initiative rather than waiting for the go-ahead to contact Ryan. 'What did he say?'
'Said there's a Daniel Shepherd who worked for the Met for a year but who was seconded to some Home Office undercover unit.'
'Have you a picture?' asked Carpenter.
'Got better than that, boss. Ryan sent me a copy of his file.'
'Get it to me, Kim. You paid off Lewis?'
'Got the money to him,' said Fletcher. 'Did it through a courier. No link back to us, guaranteed.'
