gets about.’
‘Can we talk hypothetically?’ she said.
‘I’d rather talk specifics,’ said Shepherd.
She dropped what was left of her cigarette and stubbed it out with her toe. ‘This is such a bad idea,’ she muttered.
Shepherd said nothing. The approach had to come from her. If he pressed her in any way he risked becoming an
She lit another cigarette. ‘They can kill you, those things,’ said Shepherd.
‘My husband smokes two packs a day and he’s as healthy as a horse,’ she said, and shivered.
‘How did you get so scared of him?’ asked Shepherd.
‘It’s what he does,’ she said. ‘He scares people. He makes them so afraid of him that they do what he wants.’
‘And he scared you into marrying him, did he?’
‘He’s charming with it,’ she said. ‘He can charm the birds down from the bloody trees when he puts his mind to it. I didn’t realise then that sociopaths can turn on the charm at will.’ She took a long pull on the cigarette, then let the smoke seep slowly through her pursed lips. ‘Have you ever turned a job down?’
‘I’ve had people who couldn’t raise the money,’ said Shepherd.
‘I meant, once you’ve found out who the target is, have you ever refused to go ahead?’
‘I don’t care who the target is,’ Shepherd said. ‘All I care about is getting paid. I’m not a vigilante. I don’t care why or who. Just when, where and how much.’
‘Have gun, will travel?’
‘I’m a professional. It’s what I do.’ Shepherd was replaying the conversation in his mind, trying to work out if he had enough. He was pretty sure he hadn’t. It was akin to nailing a prostitute. He needed Angie to tell him exactly what she wanted him to do, and how much she was prepared to pay him. And in an ideal world, he needed her to hand him an envelope full of cash. He looked at his watch.
‘Have you got somewhere else to go?’ asked Angie.
‘I get the feeling I’m wasting my time here,’ he said.
Angie sighed. ‘I want him dead,’ she whispered.
She had spoken so softly that Shepherd doubted the microphone had caught it. ‘And you’re prepared to pay me thirty grand to do it?’
She opened her eyes, nodded and started walking again. Shepherd cursed inwardly and hurried after her. Whispers and nods wouldn’t count for anything in court.
‘Who is it you want me to kill?’ he asked, as he drew level with her.
‘I told you. My husband.’
‘I need his name, Angie.’
‘Charlie. Charlie Kerr.’
‘I’m going to need a photograph. You can give me one with the down-payment.’
She nodded again.
‘You can get it?’
Another nod. Shepherd gritted his teeth. The only proof of the conversation would be the recording, and so far, when it came to specifics, he had done all the talking.
‘Tell me about him,’ he said.
‘Like what?’
‘What he does, where he goes, how he spends his time.’
She held the cigarette inches from her mouth and stared at the filter. It was smeared with lipstick. Her eyes remained fixed on it as she answered his question. ‘A gangster,’ she hissed. ‘He’s a fucking gangster.’
‘Literally?’
‘Literally. Drugs. Protection. He used to rob building societies, but that was way back when.’
Shepherd ran the name through his mental database but drew a blank. It wasn’t a name he’d come across before. His memory was virtually perfect so if he’d so much as read the name in a file or heard it mentioned in conversation he would have remembered. ‘Where do you live?’
Angie gave him their address. Hale Barnes. An affluent suburb of Manchester.
‘I guess he doesn’t have an office,’ said Shepherd.
‘He owns a nightclub in the north of the city, Aces. His little in-joke. Aces. AC’s – Angela and Charlie’s. Sweet, huh? Now he uses it to pick up a succession of teenage tramps. And he has the cheek to tell me that if he ever catches me with another guy he’ll break my legs.’
‘He’s there every night?’
‘He says he is. He tells me to call him on his mobile so he could be anywhere.’
‘Any associates I should know about?’
‘Do you want a list?’
‘I need to know who’s likely to be in the vicinity. Does he have bodyguards, for instance?’
She dropped the half-smoked cigarette and stamped on it as if she was stamping on her husband’s throat. ‘There’s Ray and Eddie. He sees more of them than he does of me, but I wouldn’t call them bodyguards. Eddie drives him around.’
‘Do they carry?’
‘Carry?’
‘Guns. Are they armed?’
‘I don’t think so. I’ve never seen Charlie with a gun.’
‘You said he deals in drugs. What sort?’
‘He doesn’t deal, exactly. He imports. Cocaine, mainly.’
‘From where?’
‘He never says. But we’ve a place in Spain and whenever we go to Morocco he disappears with the guys for hours at a time. He goes to Miami a couple of times a year and that’s business, he says.’ She took out the packet of Marlboro and toyed with it. ‘You’re having second thoughts, aren’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Now you know it’s Charlie Kerr, big-time gangster, I need taking out, you’re getting cold feet.’
‘Says who?’
‘I can see it in your face.’
Shepherd looked at her, his face blank. ‘I’m not scared of your husband, no matter who he is.’
‘I didn’t say you were. I said you were having second thoughts. My husband’s a dangerous man. Not the sort you’d normally come across, I bet.’
‘I come across all sorts,’ said Shepherd.
‘We’ll see,’ said Angie. She stopped walking and stared at him. ‘So you’ll do it? You’ll kill him for thirty thousand pounds?’
Shepherd held her look. Her eyes were burning with a fierce intensity and she was leaning towards him, so close he could smell her perfume.
‘Is that what you want?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, it is.’
So that was it. Caught on tape. What she wanted doing and how much she was prepared to pay. Conspiracy to commit murder. Life imprisonment. The fact that she was young and pretty and had an abusive husband meant that she’d probably get away with seven years, maybe six. She’d still be pretty when she got out, just not as young. ‘I’ll need a number to call you,’he said.‘You blocked your mobile when you called me last time.’
Angie took out her phone and tapped out his number. His phone rang and he took it out of his pocket. Her number was on the screen. ‘Got it?’ she asked. Shepherd nodded, and she cancelled the call. ‘You’re better texting me than calling,’ she said. ‘Every time my phone rings he wants to know who it is.’
Shepherd put away his phone. ‘Worst possible scenario and he wants to know whose number it is, tell him you clipped my car and it’s an insurance job. No damage to yours but I lost a tail-light. Use the name I gave you. Tony Nelson.’
‘That’s your real name?’
