Soft Target

checks on the Police National Computer were recorded so he’d wait until he could get on using another officer’s log-on.

They’d been sitting in the Range Rover for the best part of two hours when a blue Vauxhall parked next to the Volvo. After thirty seconds or so Tony Nelson climbed out, waved to its occupants and got into the Volvo.

‘What the fuck . . .!’ exclaimed Anderson.

‘Boss, did you see that?’ said Wates.

Kerr looked at the GPS unit in his hand. ‘Follow him, Eddie, but keep your distance.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘We’ll see where the rat runs to,’ said Kerr.

‘Why did they let him go?’ asked Anderson.

‘Just drive, will you?’ said Kerr, tersely. ‘Leave the thinking to me.’

Shepherd drove into the underground car park and reversed the Volvo into the space next to the white Toyota. He took the lift up to his apartment and changed into his Stuart Marsden clothes. He left the Volvo keys in the kitchen, went back to the car park and got into the Toyota. He was dog-tired but he had to get back to Leman Street and report for duty. He’d left his kit-bag in the boot so he could go straight to work. It would be at least eleven o’clock before he got home.

He slotted his mobile into the hands-free kit, then drove out of the car park and headed for the M6. He called Katra first. She said Liam was fine, that she was cleaning the bathroom and planned to do the kitchen. Later she was going food shopping.

His second call was to Hargrove. ‘Nice work, Spider,’ said the superintendent.

‘Has she rolled?’

‘She’s thinking about it,’ said Hargrove. ‘She’s asked for a lawyer so until he turns up we can’t question her.’

‘You can’t let her see a lawyer – he’ll just report back to Kerr.’

‘We can’t stop her,’ said Hargrove. ‘We’ve explained that we’ll need her to gather evidence against her husband, and that he can’t know what’s going on, but she says she wants a lawyer to advise her on the legality of any deal we make.’

‘I don’t like this at all.’

‘We’ve no choice. And you can see her point of view – she’s got no reason to trust us. We could be planning to use her, then throw her to the wolves. She called her own lawyer, a guy who doesn’t work for her husband. We’re waiting for him to come in now. We’ve told her you’re spilling your guts and that we’ve got the whole thing on tape anyway.’

‘She doesn’t know I’m a cop?’

‘Absolutely not. I can’t see her lawyer advising her to do anything other than co-operate with us, so as soon as she agrees the Drugs Squad and the CPS move in. Your name won’t come up.’

‘And Hendrickson?’

‘We’ll pick him up this evening. It’s open and shut so I can’t see him doing anything other than copping a plea. Job well done, Spider.’

Shepherd thanked the superintendent and ended the call. Technically it had been a job well done. Hendrickson was a scumbag who had deserved what was coming to him, but Shepherd was less convinced about Angie Kerr. Her husband had beaten her and threatened to have her killed. What sort of man would stub out a lighted cigarette on his wife’s breast? Charlie Kerr was the villain, but his wife was going to be punished.

Keith Rose sat down opposite Mike Sutherland, who was working his way through a fry-up and a stack of bread and butter. ‘Do you ever measure your cholesterol?’ said Rose.

‘There’s good and bad cholesterol, so there’s no point. Six of one, that’s what I figure.’

‘Shot in the dark, I think sausages are probably heavy on the bad sort.’

Sutherland jabbed his fork at Rose’s plate.‘Cornish pastie and chips is healthier, is it?’ He looked around the canteen. ‘Where’s Stu?’

‘Some sort of medical. He never had a chest X-ray up in Strathclyde but the Met insists on it.’

‘He’s not a smoker, shouldn’t be a problem.’

‘Rules is rules,’ said Rose. ‘Dave Bamber will be map man today. Stu’ll report to Ken and Amber team when he gets in.’ Rose leaned across the table. ‘The guy in Chicago’s given me a date for Kelly’s operation.’

‘Brilliant,’ said Sutherland.

‘Three weeks,’ said Rose. ‘I’ll put in for the leave and we’ll all fly out together.’

‘That’s great,’ said Sutherland.

‘Yeah, but I’m still short, money-wise.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Yeah.’

Sutherland leaned across the table, a chunk of sausage on the end of his fork. ‘If there’s anything you need, Rosie, all you have to do is ask.’

Rose nodded. ‘Thanks, Mike.’

They almost lost the Toyota just outside Birmingham. The M5 split off the M6 and they were too far away to see which fork the Toyota took.‘Head for London,’ said Kerr. It was a gamble, but they caught up with Nelson just before the junction with the M42.

There were two other cars on the Toyota’s tail: a BMW driven by two brothers from Chorlton-cum-Hardy who worked for Kerr when he needed extra muscle, and Sammy McEvoy, who ran security at Aces, in his Audi T4. The Audi was a conspicuous car so the Range Rover and the BMW did the close work with the Audi either hanging back or overtaking and staying half a mile ahead of the Toyota. They kept in touch by mobile, switching position every few minutes. The man pretending to be Tony Nelson was either an undercover cop or worked for one of the intelligence services. Either way he’d be trained to spot a tail so they gave the Toyota a lot of space.

He was a conscientious driver, never exceeding the speed limit and only using the outside lane to overtake, so they could keep well back until they were near an intersection. Twice the Audi took a wrong turn while it was ahead of the Toyota but McEvoy was able to get back on the motorway and make up lost ground.

‘Looks like London all the way,’ said Bill Wallace, in the BMW. He was a couple of hundred yards behind the Toyota in the inside lane.

‘Looks like it, but stay on your toes,’ said Kerr. ‘If we lose him he’s gone for good.’

Kerr had phoned his police contact and told him not to bother checking the registration number of the Volvo. No undercover cop would be stupid enough to use his own vehicle on a job, and if his man discovered that the Volvo was a plain-clothes police car alarm bells would ring.

Kerr had called in McEvoy and the Wallace brothers when he’d seen the Volvo drive into the underground car park of the city-centre warehouse conversion. His first thought was that Nelson lived in the block but when he drove out in a second vehicle he realised it was merely a staging-post. As soon as the Toyota had driven on to the motorway, Kerr knew Nelson wasn’t local. He was going home.

Shepherd swiped his ID and pushed through the revolving door into the main building. The inspectors who headed the Specialist Firearms teams shared an office at the rear of the building, and Ken Swift was sprawled in his chair with his feet on his desk when Shepherd opened the door. ‘I’m to report to you, sir,’ said Shepherd.

‘How was the medical?’ asked Swift, looking up from the tactics manual in his lap. He was wearing his black overalls and rubber-soled boots.

‘Just an X-ray,’ said Shepherd. ‘The docs in Scotland were supposed to give me one two years ago but it slipped by. Personnel department at the Met spotted it and said I couldn’t be active until it was sorted. All done now, anyway.’

‘The guys are at the range,’ said Swift. ‘Get changed and join them.’

‘Anything happening?’ asked Shepherd.

‘We’ve got a briefing from British Transport Police about an operation in Central London. Other than that, it’s all quiet on the Western Front.’

‘This is getting bloody weird, boss,’ said Anderson, scratching his head. They had pulled in at the side of the road when they saw Nelson drive into the underground car park, and when he’d walked out he’d been carrying a large black kit-bag. From where they’d parked they’d seen the building Nelson had walked into. ‘That’s a cop shop,