country.' He took a long pull on his cigarette and blew a plume of smoke down at the ground.
'Don't blame you,' said Fletcher.
Neary waved for them to go over to the BMW.
'Now what does he want?' said Fletcher.
Yates started walking towards Neary. He took another pull on his cigarette and filled his lungs with smoke. It wasn't just the nicotine he missed, but the smoking. The feel of the cigarette in his hands, the inhaling, holding the smoke in his lungs, exhaling. Even the flicking of ash. They were all tactile sensations that were missing from the gum and the patches. He was going to start smoking again, he thought. So what if he got cancer down the line? He was just as likely to get hit by a bus while crossing the road. 'How long have you been smoking, Kim?' he asked.
Fletcher didn't answer. As Yates turned to see what Fletcher was doing, a .38-calibre bullet exploded into the back of his skull and blew away most of his face.
'Run it by me again, Spider. From the top.' Superintendent Hargrove leaned back in his chair as Shepherd told his story for the third time. Hargrove steepled his fingers under his chin and listened. They were in an interview room in Paddington Green police station at the junction of Harrow Road and Edgware Road. Shepherd didn't know why Hargrove had wanted to interview him at Paddington Green. It was the most secure police station in the country and the place where Special Branch interviewed suspected terrorists. Shepherd didn't know and didn't ask.
The story that Shepherd told the superintendent was close to the truth. The best lies always were. The interview room had a tape-recorder with two decks, but it wasn't switched on. It was an informal debriefing, Hargrove had said, but if it had been that, they could have chatted in a pub or a coffee shop. So Shepherd checked and cross-checked everything he told the superintendent. One slip and he knew the man would pounce.
The story he told was simple. Shepherd had been sitting in his cell. The door had been opened by a man in a ski mask. Then he'd been taken to Carpenter's cell. The man in the ski mask had knocked Carpenter out and forced Shepherd to carry him. That was pretty much the truth. Shepherd had no choice in that because it would all have been captured on CCTV.
They'd been taken to a van and driven out of the prison. Somewhere on the outskirts of London, Shepherd had been thrown out. Carpenter had gone off with the masked men. End of story. End of lie.
'Did they have accents?' asked Hargrove.
'Irish, maybe.'
'Maybe?'
'Everything was staccato. Rushed. It's hard to pin down an accent when all they say is 'Run, run, run.' But if I had to choose, I'd say Irish.'
'North or south?'
'I couldn't say. Hand on heart.'
'We found a discarded Russian RPG launcher. Fire and throw away.'
'That was how they got in?'
'Blew the gate off. It was part of a shipment from Bosnia that Six tracked during the late nineties. Disappeared when it got to Belfast. Red faces all round but no heads rolled.'
'IRA?'
'Real IRA. The nutters.' Hargrove leaned forward. 'So, why do you think the Real IRA would break into a Cat A prison to break out a drug-dealer and not rescue their own?'
Shepherd pulled a face. 'Money?'
'Carpenter paid them? Is that what you think? Terrorists for hire?'
'Overseas funding is down since September the eleventh. Carpenter's got millions stashed away.'
'So he pays politicals to break him out?'
Shepherd didn't say anything. Hargrove was either being deliberately vague or setting a trap for him.
'You ever have any dealings with the IRA in your former life?' asked the superintendent.
'Some,' said Shepherd. 'Provos mainly.' Hargrove knew exactly what Shepherd had done in the army, where he'd served and who with.
'What's your opinion of the Real IRA?'
'Like you said. Nutters.'
'Well trained?'
Shepherd exhaled deeply. 'Not really. They don't have the same discipline as the Provos or the training facilities.'
Hargrove nodded. 'That's my opinion - and, in fact, most people I've spoken to don't think the Real IRA would be physically capable of mounting an operation like the one at Shelton.'
Shepherd tried to look relaxed. Hargrove was an experienced interrogator so his body language wasn't necessarily an indication of what was going through his mind.
'At least we know who Carpenter's man in the Church was.'
'Who?'
'Stan Yates. He drove the Head of Drugs Operations. Carpenter knew about everyone Mackie met outside the office, every phone conversation he had from the car.'
'Yates is talking?'
'Yates is dead. At least, we assume he is. He went missing the day after the breakout. Car's gone too.'
'He might have done a runner.'
'His stuff's in his flat. Passport, money, personal stuff. Carpenter's had him killed, for sure.'
'Red faces at the Church, then.'
Hargrove chuckled. 'Mackie will probably be processing VAT refunds until he retires,' he said.
'And Rathbone was Carpenter's man inside Shelton?'
Hargrove nodded. 'We've arrested Stafford. Gosden has been suspended pending an inquiry. I doubt he'll ever run a prison again.'
Shepherd had no sympathy for the governor. If he'd done his job properly, Carpenter would never have been able to run his operation from behind bars.
'You didn't have any clue that Carpenter was planning to break out?' asked Hargrove.
Shepherd forced himself to relax. The interrogation was back on. 'None at all,' he said.
'And if you had?'
'Hypothetically?'
'Hypothetically,' said Hargrove.
'I'd have called the number you gave me. Or gone through the governor.'
'You wouldn't call anyone else?'
Shepherd frowned. 'Such as?'
'We ran a check on all phone calls made prior to the breakout. There was just one from you. To DC Jimmy Sharpe.'
Shepherd looked at the superintendent, keeping his eyes steady and his breathing regular. No looking away. No fiddling with his hands. No biting his nails. 'I wanted him to check on Liam.'
'I can understand that. You were worried about your boy. It's only natural. Did he go to see him?'
'I'm not sure. He said he'd write to me.'
'And he never wrote?'
Shepherd shook his head. 'It's water under the bridge now, isn't it?'
'It might be,' said Hargrove.
'Did you talk to Jimmy?'
'Oh, sure. He said he was about to call on your in-laws when the shit hit the fan. He never got the chance to see if Liam was okay.'
Shepherd nodded slowly. 'That sounds about right.'
'He was a bit vague about the other thing you asked him to do.'
'What was that?' asked Shepherd.
Hargrove smiled tightly. 'Your memory really is giving you problems, isn't it?' he said. 'I hope it's not early Alzheimer's.'
