‘Exactly,’ said Hargrove.
‘Which is where I come in?’
Hargrove looked at Shepherd. ‘Are you okay about this?’
‘It’s messy,’ said Shepherd, ‘getting close to the wife to get to the husband.’
‘No one’s asking you to get into bed with her, Spider,’ said the superintendent. ‘Just find out how much she knows about his business. It could be that he keeps her in the dark, in which case she’s no use to us.’
‘And we charge her with conspiracy anyway? Even though there’s a good chance he’ll have her killed?’
‘She’s the one who’s hired a killer. We can’t let her walk just because her husband’s a villain.’
‘A drugs baron who knocks her around, who terrorises her and screws anything in a short skirt?’
The superintendent raised an eyebrow quizzically. ‘You’re not going soft on me, are you?’
‘It’s not about being soft. It’s about justice. You’re saying that if we can’t put him away, even though he’s a grade-A villain, we’ll make do with wifey.’
‘If you feel that strongly about it, make sure there’s enough to put him away. And if wifey helps, wifey walks. Look, there’s a whole series of imponderables we have to nail down. We have to find out how much she knows about Kerr’s wrongdoing, then see if she’s prepared to give evidence against him – as his wife she’s entitled to refuse. And if she
‘What about Sewell?’ asked Shepherd. ‘He’s not going to be happy about being kept under wraps.’
‘Leave Sewell to me.’
‘What about resources?’
‘Whatever we need. Greater Manchester Police will be footing the bill.’
And taking the credit if we bring Kerr down, thought Shepherd, ruefully. It was always that way. Hargrove’s undercover unit had a roving brief: forces around the country put in a request to the Home Office whenever they needed the unit’s services, and Hargrove reported to the Home Secretary. The members of the unit never took credit for their successes and never appeared in court. They simply amassed the evidence, put the case together and moved on. Taking credit would mean blowing their cover, and the last thing an undercover policeman needed was publicity.
Shepherd stood up. ‘I’ll make a call, tell her I need more info.’
‘And get the deposit. We need it on video.’
Shepherd walked away, hands in his pockets. He didn’t look back, but could feel Hargrove watching him. He cursed under his breath. The Angie Kerr job wasn’t going to be as cut and dried as he’d hoped, and every day in Manchester was a day away from his son.
Rose drove back to the airport and parked the rental car next to his own vehicle. He checked that no one was around, then transferred the MAC 10 to the boot of his car. Customs checks into the UK were as cursory as those into Ireland so he had no qualms about taking it back to London.
He took the rental back to its drop-off point, then retrieved his own car and drove it to the ferry terminal. He had an hour’s wait before boarding. His mobile rang as he was getting out of his car. ‘It’s good gear you’ve sold us,’ said a voice. A guttural Irish accent. Not the boxer and not the man to whom Rose had spoken on the phone before.
‘I told you so,’ said Rose. He headed up the metal stairway to the main deck.
‘And your price was fair. Would you be able to get us more?’
‘Maybe,’ said Rose.
‘You know where we are,’ said the man.
‘Yes,’ said Rose. He cut the connection and walked up on to the deck. He watched as the remaining cars drove on to the ferry. As they left Dublin port and headed across the Irish Sea, he took the Sim card out of the phone and flicked it out over the waves.
Shepherd made himself a cup of coffee, then slotted the CD into his laptop. The information on the disk was password protected and Shepherd keyed in the eight-digit number that would give him access. It was one of the perks of having a near-photographic memory: he never had to remember a password or phone number.
The files were split into three sections: MI5, Customs and Excise, and the Greater Manchester Police Drugs Squad. The MI5 file was the largest but contained little intelligence. It consisted mainly of copies of wire-tap authorisations and transcripts of conversations that Charlie Kerr had made over the previous eighteen months, none of which appeared to have had anything to do with drugs. Hargrove had been right: the Security Service had nothing more than a watching brief, and if all they were doing was monitoring his phone traffic then they didn’t stand a chance of getting anything on him. A criminal of Kerr’s calibre would hardly start organising cocaine shipments by phone, even using pay-as-you-go mobiles. MI5 had access to the Echelon eavesdropping system, a joint venture between the United States, Great Britain and New Zealand, which allowed for the world-wide monitoring of all phone and email conversations. It was also equipped with voice-recognition so accurate it could identify a target from among millions of conversations. But listening to Kerr and catching him in the act of setting up a major drugs deal were two different things. The only way to get him would be to use an undercover agent, or persuade a family member or associate to inform on him.
The Customs and Excise file was a tenth the size of MI5’s, but it contained surveillance photographs of Charlie and Angie arriving at Heathrow airport and leaving Malaga airport. Kerr was balding, a big man with broad shoulders. He was a head taller than Angie and in several of the photographs he had an arm round her as if he wanted to establish ownership. There were also photographs of them at their villa in Spain, and at various restaurants with several Costa del Crime faces. There was nothing wrong with the Kerrs wining and dining with major criminals, of course, drinking Dom Perignon and tipping with fifty-euro notes. It wasn’t a criminal offence to associate with villains. Yet. There were reports of Kerr’s trips to the United States, Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI reports on whom he had met in Miami. There was no information on any pending US investigations in the file, so either they weren’t telling the Church or the Church was playing Secret Squirrel with its overseas information.
In theory, the intelligence services, Customs and the police were supposed to co-operate on major cases, but in practice they guarded their turf jealously. There was a lot of resentment on behalf of the police and Customs that MI5 had moved into anti-drugs work. The Security Service had shown little interest in catching drugs barons until their own jobs were on the line and now whenever they were involved in a major seizure their press-relations people went into overdrive, trumpeting every drugs bust as a major victory for MI5. Also the spies were able to operate in decidedly grey areas, while the police had to follow the Police and Criminal Evidence Act to the letter. And while Customs had to fight for every penny of its budget, it seemed that MI5 had a blank cheque book to play with.
Customs had tried using an undercover agent to infiltrate Kerr’s circle in Marbella, but two weeks into the investigation he’d been sussed and had made a rapid withdrawal. He was only identified by his cover name in the reports he’d filed. There was nothing in them that would have resulted in charges: he had met with Kerr three times in various nightclubs but the only conversations they’d had were social chit-chat. According to the agent, Charlie Kerr was notoriously unfaithful to his wife, and on the nights he was out without her he usually ended up bedding one pretty girl or another, although he was always back in his villa by dawn. The agent had suggested sending in a pretty female undercover agent but the head of Drugs Operations had vetoed a honey trap. Charlie Kerr was too dangerous: a borderline psychopath.
The Marbella operation had been aborted one night after the agent had been out in a group with two of Kerr’s associates, Ray Wates and Eddie Anderson – the men Angie had talked about. They’d sat on either side of the agent and plied him with drink. When Charlie had left with a young Spanish waitress they’d suggested they move on to another club. The agent had had a bad feeling about the way the men were smiling at him. He’d pretended to be more drunk than he was and said he had to go to the bathroom. He’d broken a window, climbed down a drainpipe and caught a plane back to London. Shepherd understood the man’s decision. Sometimes you had to go with your instincts. If a situation felt wrong it probably was.
The police file contained more hard intelligence than those of MI5 and the Church put together. In his mid- twenties Charlie Kerr had been charged with armed robbery three times. Each time the case had collapsed before it had got to court. Witnesses were intimidated or paid off; evidence mysteriously disappeared. In one case CCTV footage was wiped in police custody. Kerr was thought to have been responsible for more than two dozen building- society and bank robberies over a five-year period, netting, according to police estimates, close to a quarter of a million pounds. Sometimes he worked alone, sometimes with a partner, and he hadn’t served a day in prison. He
