Soft Target

‘Daniel,’ she said, and Shepherd could tell she was annoyed with him.

‘Hiya, Moira. Look, I’m not going to be able to pick Liam up.’

Moira sighed. ‘I collected him from school half an hour ago. A teacher phoned me to say that Liam was waiting at the gates.’

Shepherd’s heart sank. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry.’

‘And I don’t think that taking the Lord’s name in vain is going to make things any better,’ said Moira.

‘Can I talk to him?’

‘He’s very upset, Daniel.’

Shepherd gritted his teeth, unable to believe he’d screwed up again. Why hadn’t he kept a closer eye on the time?

‘You can’t keep doing this to him,’ said Moira. Her voice was flat: she wasn’t accusing him, simply stating a fact.

‘I know. Can you just tell him I was held up?’

‘He knows that. He knows you don’t do it deliberately.’

The fact that she was being so understanding made Shepherd feel worse. ‘I’m sorry, Moira.’

‘I know you are. You’re always sorry when you let him down. But you can’t keep doing it.’

‘Please, Moira, can I speak to him?’

‘He’s crying. He won’t want to speak to you. Not for a while.’

Shepherd felt as if he’d been punched in the solar plexus. He squatted with his back to the wall. ‘Look, can you get him into the back garden in fifteen minutes?’

‘What on earth for?’

‘Please, Moira, just do as I ask, will you?’

‘Daniel . . .’

‘Fifteen minutes,’ said Shepherd. He cut the connection and banged the back of his head against the wall. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

Moira knocked on the bedroom door. ‘Liam?’ she said. There was no reply so she knocked again. ‘Liam?’

‘I’m not hungry,’ said Liam.

‘I haven’t made supper yet,’ said Moira. ‘I want you to come outside.’

‘Why?’

‘I just do.’

‘I want to stay here.’

‘Listen to me, young man, you’ll do as you’re told. Open this door now.’

Moira heard him slide off the bed and pad across the floor. He opened the door and looked up at her, cheeks wet with tears. ‘It’s not fair,’ he said. ‘Dad always does this. He always says he’ll be there and then he’s not.’

Moira bent down so that her face was level with her grandson’s. ‘Your father loves you very much, but sometimes he’s busy.’

‘He thinks his work’s more important than me.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Moira. ‘You’re the most important thing in the world to him. Now, don’t be silly and come out into the garden.’

Liam followed his grandmother down the stairs and out through the kitchen door. Moira took him to the end of the garden where Tom had planted a clump of rosebushes. A light wind blew through the branches of a weeping willow close to the shed.

‘What are we doing, Gran?’ asked Liam.

Moira wasn’t sure, but she’d heard the insistence in her son-in-law’s voice and could tell how upset he was. If he wanted them in the garden, then that was where they would be. They heard the helicopter before they saw it, a thudding whup-whup-whup to their right. Moira shaded her eyes with her hand and peered into the sky. There were large cumulus clouds dotted around, as white as cotton wool. She made out a black dot, no bigger than an insect, highlighted against one, and pointed at it. ‘There, Liam, see it?’

Liam jumped up and down. ‘Is it Dad?’

Despite herself Moira smiled. ‘Yes, I think it probably is.’

The helicopter flew lower and gradually they could make out the rotor and the tail. Then they saw a figure in the open hatchway.

‘It’s Dad!’ yelled Liam.

The helicopter was too far away for Moira to make out the man’s features, but she had no doubt that it was her son-in-law. It was a grand gesture, indeed, but he didn’t seem to understand that being a parent wasn’t about making grand gestures, it was about providing security, and being there for your child, day and night. Liam needed a father who helped him with his homework, played football with him in the garden, tucked him up at night, not an action hero who flew in by helicopter to prove how sorry he was.

The helicopter circled the garden, the rotor wash squashing the grass flat. The man waved from the open door. Liam waved back excitedly. ‘Dad!’

The man blew a kiss.

Liam blew one back. ‘Look, Gran!’

Moira patted his shoulder. ‘Yes, I see him.’

The helicopter banked, flew off to the east, towards London. Liam watched it go. ‘He does love me, doesn’t he, Gran?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Moira, quietly. ‘He does.’

Norman Baston bit into his cheeseburger and checked his email inbox for the tenth time that evening. There was no reply from Roger Sewell. Baston had tried Sewell’s mobile twice and both times it had gone straight to voicemail. Sewell hadn’t logged on again. The first time he’d come in remotely: he hadn’t accessed the system from within the company. Baston wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. The meeting Sewell had missed that morning had been an important one. Baston knew that Sewell was vehemently against Hendrickson’s ambition to sell the company. If he succeeded, Baston would never realise the true value of his share options. He wanted Sewell to agree to a new contract that would make up for the money he’d expected to get when the firm was sold. It was Sewell’s company and Baston had no quarrel with that, but he knew what a crucial role he had played in its success. It was time for Sewell to pay the piper.

Baston knew exactly what was going on at the company. He had access to the company’s computer records and could monitor all internal and external emails. Sewell was fanatical about his staff not talking to his competitors, and he also wanted to know what they said to each other. Every Monday Baston provided him with a breakdown of Internet usage and a summary of the more interesting email traffic. He knew exactly who Hendrickson was talking to, and what he stood to make if the sale went through. He’d seen all the arguments that Hendrickson had put forward in his attempts to convince Sewell to sell. And he’d read all Sewell’s objections.

Baston also knew what Sewell got up to in his free time, how he liked having sex with women he met through the Internet. Sewell used pictures of male models to lure in young women, then offered them money for kinky sex. Ninety-nine per cent turned him down, but a one per cent success rate was more than enough when he was getting several hundred replies a month. Baston knew where Sewell took the women, what he did with them, and he knew where on the system Sewell stored the digital photographs he took of his escapades. Baston was sure that Sewell would agree to his pay demands. Blackmail was an ugly word. But so was transvestite. And dildo.

Baston took another bite of cheeseburger and slotted a handful of French fries into his mouth. He chewed with relish. It was almost eleven o’clock at night but he was in no rush to go home. Home was a two-up, two-down terraced house in Salford that wouldn’t have been out of place in an episode of Coronation Street. He’d inherited it from his parents after they’d died in a motorway pile-up outside Preston on the day before his seventeenth birthday. He hadn’t changed anything in the house and still slept in a single bed in the second bedroom. He hadn’t been in his parents’ room since the day they’d died. He hadn’t even opened the door. His father’s pipe was still in the ashtray next to the wing-backed chair by the gas fire. Baston never sat in the chair, or in his mother’s space on the sofa. He never cooked in the house. His mother had never let him make so much as a cup of tea, and all he ate now were takeaway meals and breakfast cereal. Home was just a place where he slept and ate.

His office was where he preferred to be, working on his beloved computers. He preferred the machines to his colleagues. Computers never lied, or sneered at you because you had spots or because you would rather read a