Soft Target (13 page)

Angie gave him the keys. He pressed the electronic tag and the locks clicked open. 'You okay?' he asked her.

'Fine,' she said.

'Anything you want to say?'

Angie shook her head.

Kerr opened the door and the internal light winked on.

He slid on to the driver's seat and inserted the ignition key.

He peered at the fuel gauge. The needle swung up to the full position. Kerr stared at it for several seconds, then pulled 99 out the key and climbed out of the car. He closed the door and tossed the keys to his wife. 'Come on, let's have a drink,'

he said. 'I'll open a bottle of Dom.'

He went into the house. Angie stared after him, her hands trembling.

The phone woke Shepherd from a dreamless sleep and he fumbled for it. 'Are you awake, Spider?'

'I am now,' said Shepherd, rubbing his face.

'I've had a word with the GPS and NCIS. They're all getting very hot over Angie Kerr.'

'Yeah, well, she's a sexy girl.'

'The initial response is that they want her turned,' said Hargrove. 'They don't feel they've any other way of nailing her husband.'

'Which says a lot about the sad state of policing in this country, doesn't it?'

'Now, now, Spider, you're getting all bitter and twisted.'

'He's a criminal, right? I've read the files you gave me.

MI5, the Church, the Manchester cops, they all know he's bad. Even the DEA's been on his case in Miami. But no one does anything.'

'It's a question of resources, you know that. Even we have to choose whom we assist. My unit gets hundreds of requests every year, but we take on a couple of dozen at most.'

'A guy like Kerr should be a priority, that's all I'm saying.'

'There are hundreds of Kerrs in the UK. Thousands,

maybe. We have to choose our targets carefully.'

'We take the cases we know we'll win, is that what you're saying?'

'What's the alternative? We spend our time chasing dead ends? There's no point in mounting an investigation if we know we're going to fail. You have to play the odds. A guy like Hendrickson, we know we can put him away. Kerr's a 100 bigger fish and you need a bigger hook to catch him.'

'And Angie Kerr is the hook?'

'Hopefully,' said Hargrove. 'The Drugs Squad and the Church can act on anything she gives them.'

'He'll kill her,' said Shepherd grimly.

'She'll be protected,' said Hargrove. 'Look, this isn't a conversation for the phone, and I need to run something else by you. You know the pub by the canal, the place where we first discussed the Hendrickson case?'

'Sure.'

'Can you be there at eleven?'

Shepherd squinted at the alarm clock on the bedside table.

It was just after nine. Plenty of time. 'Yeah.'

'See you, then,' said the superintendent. 'And remember,

we're on the same side here. I'm no happier about using Angie Kerr than you are, but sometimes the end justifies the means.'

Shepherd pulled on an old pair of shorts and a tattered T-shirt and went for a short run, a quick two kilometres without the rucksack, then shaved, showered and changed into a pullover and jeans. He retrieved his leather jacket from the sofa where he'd thrown it the previous night and headed out, picking up a coffee from his local Starbucks as he walked to the meeting-place. The pub was only fifteen minutes from his apartment, on the edge of the city's vibrant Canal Street gay area.

Hargrove was sitting on a wooden bench outside the pub.

He stood up as Shepherd approached, and the two men walked along the canal path.

'Two guys taking an early-morning stroll, people will get the wrong idea,' said Shepherd.

'Since when have you cared what people think?' said Hargrove. 'Besides, you're not my type.'

As ever, the superintendent was immaculately dressed: a IOI well-cut cashmere overcoat over a blue Savile Row pinstripe suit, starched white shirt with cufflinks in the shape of cricket bats, and an MCC tie. 'I could be your bit of rough,' said Shepherd.

'You've been up north too long,' said Hargrove. 'You're developing the northern sarcasm.'

'Aye, and I've started eating mushy peas, too. But you're right, I wouldn't mind being closer to home.'

'That's good, because I need you on another job in London,

ASAP.'

Shepherd grimaced. 'I was hoping for a few days off. It's been a while since I saw Liam.'

'This is urgent, I'm afraid.'

'It always is,' said Shepherd, and regretted it. No one forced him to do the work he did. He was an undercover cop by choice and could walk away any time he wanted to.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I've been in Tony Nelson's skin too long.'

'Well, you'll be leaving him behind for this next case,' said the superintendent. 'You'll be a cop. Investigating cops.'

Shepherd groaned. An operation against other cops was dirty work at best, dangerous at worst, and he'd tried to steer clear of it. 'Can't IIC handle it?'

'Not this one. We need someone with your specialist knowledge.'

'Specifically?'

'Your ability to handle automatic weapons. No one in the Internal Investigation Command has your military background,

and while most of my people are proficient with handguns, I need someone familiar with carbines. Especially the MP5, which is what the SO 19 guys use.'

The Heckler & Koch was the weapon of choice in the SAS,

and Hargrove was right. Even four years after leaving the regiment,

Shepherd knew he could take apart and reassemble the weapon blindfold, and it wouldn't take him more than a few 102 hours on the range to be as accurate as he ever was. The MP5 was a simple enough weapon, but few police officers were trained in its use. The Diplomatic Protection Group used them.

So did the Met's armed-response units.

'We think the Met might have a rogue armed-response unit,' said Hargrove. 'Rogue as in they've either gone vigilante or they're ripping off drugs-dealers at gunpoint.'

'Bloody hell,' said Shepherd.

'Yeah, tell me about it,' said Hargrove. 'The commissioner's one unhappy bunny.'

'If it's cut and dried, why do they need us?'

'Because it isn't. All the Met has is circumstantial.'

'No smoking gun?' said Shepherd.

'Just a roomful of dead drugs-dealers and a cop who's disappeared.'

'So you want me to do what? Infiltrate the gang and get them to take me on their next heist?'

'Your intuition never ceases to amaze me, Spider.'

Shepherd's eyebrows headed skywards. 'You're serious,

aren't you?'

'I'm afraid I am.'

Shepherd put his hands into his jacket pockets.

'Investigating cops is always messy.'

'It doesn't come messier.'

'Plus, they can spot undercover cops.They know the signs.'

'You'll be in as a cop. We can stick close to your true background.'

'Not my name, though. Shit hits the fan, I want to disappear.'

'I'll get a legend sorted by tomorrow evening. We can use the SAS background but say you left because you couldn't hack it, then seven years up in Scotland. Strathclyde, maybe.

The three men we're looking at are all London boys, never been north of the border.'

'They can pick up a phone/ said Shepherd.

'I'll have it covered,' said Hargrove. 'You don't go in unless your legend's watertight.'

'I'd rather we didn't use the SAS. I don't want them asking for war stories. Let's say I was in the Paras.'

'Agreed,' said Hargrove. 'I'll get our background boys to draw something up and run it by you at the end of the week.

I'll get a car sorted. We'll play you having money problems and looking to make a fast buck.'

'So they ask me to take part in the robberies? How likely is that?'

'I want you looking corruptible. It might get them talking.'

Shepherd wasn't convinced it would be that easy to get maverick cops to open up to him. 'So, what's the story?' he asked.

'Last week two drugs-dealers were shot dead in a Harlesden crack house. It took the police the best part of an hour to force their way in and by then the shooters had gone out the back way. There was a witness alive in the house and another in a lock-up. All they can tell us is that the robbers were white and that there were three, two in the house and one who was outside most of the time. They wore dark clothing and rubber masks.

When the shooting started two of the witnesses were bound,

gagged and face down, so they don't know what happened.

But one of the dead Yardies had a .22 that had been fired five times. Only two of the bullets have been accounted for.'

'So one or more of them was hit?'

'The witnesses say that one of the Yardies who died screamed something about a vest. Then one of the robbers yelled that he was hit.'

'Why do you think it was cops?' asked Shepherd.

'The forensics boys got hold of a decent slug from one of the dead Yardies, ran it through the Scotland Yard database,

and that's when it all got interesting.'

'In what way?'

'The bullet came from a .45 Python that was used in a robbery in South London last year. They got the guy, a Clapham blagger by the name of Joey Davies. He's doing a fifteen stretch in Parkhurst. They never found the gun.'

'Guns are bought and sold.'

'Of course they are. But Davies always claimed that the Python was in his flat when he was busted. The police found two other guns, but not the Python. First guys into the flat were an SO 19 Trojan unit, which included one of the guys we think has gone bad. Keith Rose.'

'So this Rose picks up a gun last year and saves it for a rainy day?'

'Looks that way.'

'So why don't the rubber-heels boys pick him up and sweat him?'

'Because he's been a cop for fifteen years so he's not going to sweat, and because all we've got is circumstantial and hypothesis. We have a bullet, we don't have a gun. And we have witnesses who can only remember Frankenstein and alien masks and dark clothing.'

'It's possible that the gun was stolen but sold on to a gang with a grudge against the Yardies.'

'It's possible, but this doesn't feel like a gang fight to me. If it was, they'd have killed everyone. It's more like a robbery that went wrong. The way we see it, the robbers got in and overpowered the two Yardies, then waited for the rest of the guys to come back. One of the Yardies pulled a gun and all hell broke loose. Then the robbers bailed out.'

'Presumably the Yardies won't say what was taken?'

'They deny there were drugs in the flat. There was crack processing equipment in the attic and a safe with twenty grand in it. Twenty grand doesn't seem much, so I think it's 105 safe to assume that the robbers got away with drugs or cash.

Maybe both.'

A narrow boat put-putted past them. A big man wearing a brown-leather jerkin and a floppy felt hat waved a can of Carlsberg in salute, his other hand on the tiller. Hargrove smiled back.

'I'm missing the obvious, aren't I?' said Shepherd.

'Maybe,' said the superintendent.

Shepherd ran through everything Hargrove had told him.

'One of the robbers was hit,' he said eventually.

The superintendent smiled. 'Exactly.'

'Do any of the SO 19 guys have any unexplained injuries?'

'One has disappeared. Andy Ormsby had only been with them six months. Didn't turn up for work the day after the robbery. After three days the police broke into his flat and it looked as if he'd just packed a suitcase and left.'

'No note?'

'Nothing. And no one's heard from him since.'

'So the Yardies killed him, then?'

'Maybe,' said Hargrove. 'Maybe not.'

Shepherd's brow furrowed as he realised what the superintendent had suggested. 'His mates killed him? He was wounded but they couldn't take him to a hospital so they topped him?'

'Or waited for him to die. Only they know what happened.

But there wasn't any blood in the flat, not from the robber.

If there was we'd have done a match with Ormsby's DNA and we wouldn't be having this conversation.'

'That's my way in, then? I replace Ormsby?'

'It's the way I see it,' said Hargrove.

'Isn't it a bit obvious?'

'They probably won't realise we traced the bullet. There's no reason for them to think they're suspects. People do have nervous breakdowns and disappear, and jobs don't get more 106 stressful than serving with an armed-response unit.'

'How about an undercover cop pretending to be a member of an ARV? I'd be trying to set up cops with guns. How7 stressful is that?'

'Are you saying you don't want the assignment?'

Shepherd flashed Hargrove a tight smile. It was always up to an undercover operative to decide whether or not they would accept a job. It had to be that way. But Shepherd had never turned down an assignment and he had no intention of starting now. 'I'll need a couple of days on the range. If I'm rusty, they'll spot it.'

'We can fix you up on a police range here. Or in Scotland.'

'I'll get it sorted.'

'Hereford?'

Shepherd nodded. 'It'll give me a chance to see Liam, too.'

'Can you be ready to go in on Monday?'

That gave Shepherd six days to prepare. Six days in which to wipe away the persona of Tony Nelson and step into his new character. 'If you can have the legend ready by then,'

he said. He took a deep breath. 'No rest for the wicked.'

'Are you okay?'

'It never ends, does it?' said Shepherd. 'At first you think you're making a difference, but for every villain we put away,

there's another two waiting to take his place.'

'That doesn't mean we stop trying, Spider. You've put some dangerous men behind bars. You can be proud of what you've achieved.'

'Yeah, but in the grand scheme of things, what difference do we really make?'

'Ah, now you're getting all metaphysical. The meaning of life.'

'I know what life's about,' said Shepherd. 'It's about raising children. First time I held Liam in my arms I knew that.

Nothing else matters. But how do babies grow up to be 107 rapists, drugs-dealers and murderers? I look at Liam and I just know he's going to turn out okay. He's only eight but you can already see he's a good kid. He's polite, he's considerate,