He hurried over to the guy with the Uzi. Liam had hit him in the chest with all three shots and blood was soaking into the man’s shirt. Shepherd pulled the coat off him and put it on. There was hardly any blood on it and it was a reasonable fit.
Pritchard came down the stairs. ‘Good idea,’ he said as Shepherd put on the man’s cap, he laid the shotgun against the wall and picked up the Uzi. It wasn’t a genuine Uzi, he realised, but a Croatian clone, probably manufactured during the Yugoslav Wars. At just over eight pounds it was heavier than the original and the markings on the selector switch were different – the clone had R for full automatic fire, P for single shot, and Z for safe. The gun was set to full automatic and Shepherd clicked it to single shot. He ejected the magazine. It was full. Thirty-two 9 mm rounds. It had a folding metal stock, locked in place.
Liam was still standing at the top of the stairs. ‘Nice shooting,’ said Shepherd. ‘But stay where you are for the moment.’
‘Okay, Dad,’ said Liam.
Shepherd buttoned up the coat and went over to the front door. He kept his head down as he opened it. Pritchard moved to the side, covering the door with his Glock. Shepherd pulled open the door and looked out. The two guards who had been at the gate were striding along the drive, cradling their shotguns. Shepherd kept his head down and the Uzi at his side. He waved with his free hand, then stepped back into the hallway and pushed the door so that it was just ajar. He nodded at Pritchard. They both kept their guns trained on the door.
Five seconds later they heard muffled voices and the door swung open. Shepherd stepped to the side. As soon as the two men came into view he fired, two shots into the man on the left, two in the one on the right. The door continued to open as the two men slumped to the floor. Shepherd sprang forward and stepped over the bodies, sweeping the area with the Uzi, finger on the trigger. The driveway was clear. He looked to the left. Clear. He looked to the right, just as a man emerged from behind the garage. He was holding a pistol but didn’t have time to raise it before Shepherd put two shots in his chest. Shepherd ran to the garage. The man was still alive so Shepherd shot him in the head and then ducked around the garage. Two more heavies were running towards the house, one with a handgun, the other cradling a shotgun. They stopped when they saw Shepherd. The heavy with the pistol raised his hand in salute and shouted something in Serbo-Croat.
‘Da!’ Shepherd shouted back, then he swung up his gun and put two shots in the man’s chest. The guy with the shotgun stood fixed to the spot, still trying to process what he was seeing. Shepherd shot him twice, then jogged around the back of the house, looking for any other guards. There didn’t seem to be any. It took him a full thirty seconds to jog all the way around the house and back to the front door. He took another look down the driveway, then went inside. An ashen-faced Liam had joined Pritchard in the hall. ‘All clear outside,’ said Shepherd. He put the Uzi on the floor and took off the coat and hat.
‘I’ll drop you and Liam back at the hotel then I’ll go and collect Andrej,’ said Pritchard. ‘I’ll take the guns back and put them in the hands of the dead heavies in the brothel. It’ll muddy the waters.’
‘What about Katra?’ asked Liam. ‘We can’t just leave her here.’
‘We have to, Liam,’ said Shepherd, tossing the hat and coat onto the floor by the body of the man who had been wearing them. ‘The police will be here later, they’ll take her body away.’
‘You can’t leave her with strangers, Dad.’
Shepherd put his hand on Liam’s shoulder. ‘She’s dead, nothing’s going to change that,’ he said.
‘Dad!’ There were tears in Liam’s eyes.
‘I know, I know. I know exactly what you mean.’
‘You don’t leave your people behind, Dad. Isn’t that what the SAS says?’
‘This is different,’ said Shepherd. ‘Slovenia is her home.’
‘Her home is with us. How can you say that?’
‘This is where her family is. The police will handle everything, her family can identify her, then there’ll be a funeral and we can come to that.’
Liam shook his head. ‘They can’t have the funeral here. She belongs with us.’
‘This is where her family is, Liam,’ said Shepherd. He heard the tremor in his voice and he took a deep breath. ‘She came back here to help them. This is where she needs to stay now.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I understand. I do. But even if we put her in the car and drive her away from here, what do we do? We can hardly take her body back to the UK, can we? She’s dead, Liam. We have to let her go.’ He reached out and took the Glock from Liam’s shaking hands.
‘It’s like you don’t care,’ said Liam, bitterly.
The words hit Shepherd like a punch in the stomach. ‘I care,’ he said, earnestly. ‘Believe me, I care. I loved Katra. I still love her. But there comes a point when you have to let go and that’s the point we’ve reached. We can come back for the funeral. We can take as long as we need to mourn her. But her body has to stay here.’
‘He’s right, Liam,’ said Pritchard. ‘What’s done is done. Now we have to move forward.’
Liam looked as if he wanted to argue, but then he nodded. ‘Okay.’ He looked up at the stairs. ‘I want to say goodbye to her.’
Shepherd shook his head. ‘You’re better remembering her as she was,’ he said. ‘Don’t let what’s upstairs be the memory you keep with you. Remember her laughing, smiling, remember her cooking for us, sitting on the sofa watching Britain’s Got Talent and laughing until she cried. Remember the holiday we had last year in Florida. Remember all the good things.’
Liam kept looking up the stairs, then he nodded as he realised that Shepherd was right. ‘Okay,’ he said.
Pritchard nodded. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
Pritchard dropped Shepherd and Liam outside the Grand Hotel and then headed back to Novo Mesto. Shepherd took Liam up to his room. His heart was pounding all the way up in the lift at the thought of what he was going to have to say to Mia. She was sitting on the bed when he let them into the room and she smiled when she saw Liam but then her smile turned to confusion when she realised that Katra wasn’t with them. Shepherd sat down next to her and took her hands in his and she burst into tears before he even started to speak. She kept her head down and sobbed quietly while Shepherd told her what had happened in Žagar’s house. When he’d finished she lay down and turned on her side. Shepherd patted her shoulder, not knowing what to say to comfort her.
He stood up and went over to Liam, who had sat down in an armchair by the window. ‘Are you okay?’ asked Shepherd.
‘Not really,’ said Liam. He rubbed his face with his hands. ‘Why did Žagar kill Katra?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Shepherd. ‘It might have been an accident. He was angry, he fired up at the ceiling, maybe the second shot was a mistake. Maybe he wanted to hurt me. I don’t know.’
‘It made no sense,’ said Liam. ‘He didn’t gain anything by killing her. He could have just let us go and everyone would have been okay. He would be alive now and so would Katra. Why are people so fucking stupid sometimes?’
‘They just are,’ said Shepherd. ‘He was an evil shit, you know that. You saw how he treated the girls in that place, and he thought nothing of threatening to kill you and Katra.’
‘But by killing Katra he killed himself. You wouldn’t have killed him if he’d let her go, would you?’
Shepherd didn’t answer. It was a difficult question. After everything that had happened, he couldn’t see how he could have let Žagar live. The gangster would have wanted revenge. More than that, he would have needed it. If he hadn’t struck back then he’d have appeared weak and in Žagar’s line of work weakness usually ended in death. Shepherd didn’t see that Žagar would have had any choice other than to come after him with everything he had, and he wouldn’t have stopped until Shepherd was dead. So the answer to Liam’s question was yes, he was never going to let Žagar go, no matter how it had played out. Had �
�agar known that? Was that why he had pulled the trigger?
‘Dad?’ asked Liam.
Shepherd forced a smile. ‘There’s no point in going over it,’ he said. ‘What happened, happened. We can’t change that.’ Images flashed through his mind. Katra’s eyes, filled with tears. The hand clamped around her throat. The gun. The shot. The blood spraying across the bed. He shuddered.
‘I’d have let him go,’ said Liam. ‘I’d let a hundred guys like him go just so I could keep Katra with us.’
‘I understand,’ said Shepherd. He gripped his son’s shoulder. ‘What you did on the stairs. That was good shooting.’
Liam shrugged. ‘I’m a soldier, Dad. I fly helicopters but I’ve been trained to use guns.’
‘World of a difference between targets and people,’ said Shepherd. ‘You put three rounds in a man’s chest.’
‘He was going to shoot you. I wasn’t about to let that happen.’
Shepherd nodded. ‘You saved my life.’
‘Which is why I won’t give it a moment’s thought, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t feel the least bit guilty and I’m sure I never will. And if I could have killed Žagar, I’d have done that happily.’
‘Okay.’
‘What happens now?’ asked Liam.
‘We wait for my friend to get back.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Someone I work with.’
‘He doesn’t look like a cop.’
Shepherd nodded. He had never told Liam that he worked for MI5. There had been no need. And the work he did for the Security Service was similar to what he’d done for the police and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. ‘Looks can be deceptive,’ he said. ‘Do you want to shower? I’ve got clean underwear and a shirt if you want them.’
Liam smiled wearily. ‘Yes to the shower and the shirt, but I’ll pass on the underwear.’ He hugged Shepherd, hard, then headed to the bathroom.
Pritchard returned after two hours. Shepherd let him into the room and Pritchard looked worried when he saw Mia curled up on the bed. He gestured for Shepherd to follow him next door and the two men went through to Pritchard’s room. ‘We need to get back to London before the shit hits the fan here,’ said Pritchard.
Shepherd nodded. He had already reached the same conclusion. ‘I don’t really want to fly out of Slovenia, even if we are using legends,’ said Pritchard. ‘Croatia would be better. There’s a 6.25 a.m. Lufthansa flight leaving Zagreb that will get us in to London City Airport at 9.30 with a change in Frankfurt. I’ve booked seats for you, me and your boy.’
‘What about Mia and her family?’
‘I’ve spoken to Andrej and he’ll arrange for protection for them. I’m pretty sure the debt will die with Žagar. But if anyone does try to give the Novaks any grief, Andrej will be there.’
Shepherd sighed. He knew Pritchard was right. He wasn’t happy at leaving the country so soon after Katra had been killed. But if the authorities realised that he was in the country, it would raise all sorts of awkward questions, none of which he would be able to answer without condemning himself to a world of trouble. He had to be back in the UK when the Slovenian cops started their investigation.
He looked at Liam. ‘Have you got your passport?’
Liam patted his back pocket. ‘Sure.’
‘How do we get to Zagreb?’ Shepherd asked Pritchard.
‘Andrej will send us a car. He’ll wait until our plane is in the air before he tips off the cops about the brothel.’
‘And when the police realise that we took Mia from the brothel, what then?’
‘She tells them nothing. She says she was in shock, that she doesn’t know why she was taken, that she was dropped in the city and found her own way home.’ He shrugged. ‘I know it’s weak, and they’ll realise straight away that Katra and Mia were sisters, but they’ll still see them both as innocent bystanders in all this.’
‘The girls and the customers in the brothel will have our description.’
‘Witnesses are always unreliable, you know that. I doubt that the clients will be saying anything and the girls, most of them owe Žagar no favours.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We need to get going, we have to check in before five.’
They reached Zagreb an hour before their flight was due to leave. As they waited to pass through security, Shepherd took out his personal phone and switched it on. There were several missed messages and a dozen messages on voicemail, including two from Liam and three from Katra. Shepherd’s face tightened. He wanted to listen to Katra’s messages but knew that he wasn’t ready, not yet. He went through to the John Whitehill Facebook account. Dexter and his friends had all accepted his friend requests. And there were three messages from Dexter, inviting him to a British Crusader meeting that night at a pub in Croydon. He held the phone out so that Pritchard could read it. The director nodded. ‘Perfect,’ he said.
The Lufthansa flight touched down at London City Airport bang on time and within half an hour of the plane landing, Pritchard and Shepherd were in a black cab heading west. Liam had taken his own taxi to the flat Shepherd was using in Lambeth. Shepherd had given him his key. Until the Dexter investigation was done and dusted, Shepherd needed to base himself at the John Whitehill Hampstead flat.
‘We can talk over breakfast,’ said Pritchard.
‘Sure,’ said Shepherd, though food was the last thing on his mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened, how Katra had died and how he had been powerless to help. There were so many ‘what ifs’, so many things he could have done differently. He should have shot Žagar the moment the gangster had grabbed Katra. He should have tied the man’s hands or knocked him out as soon as they had found Katra. He had given Žagar too much time. Instead of talking, Shepherd should have just put a bullet in his head. He couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened and his perfect recall made the memories all the more painful. He could remember everything in minute detail and there was nothing he could do to block out the images.
The cab pulled up in front of a neat semi-detached house. Shepherd frowned; he had been so busy with his own thoughts that he had lost track of where they were. Pritchard paid the driver and they climbed out. There was a paved driveway leading up to a single garage and a front door with leaded windows. Pritchard unlocked the front door and Shepherd followed him inside.
There were two rooms leading off to the left, a sitting room with a floral print sofa and framed watercolours on the wall, and a dining room with an oval table that would seat six and an oak sideboard on which stood a collection of animal figurines. The house had a feminine feel, and the kitchen was no different – it was bright yellow with country-style cabinets, a shelf of cookery books and pots of herbs growing in small terracotta pots along the windowsill.
Pritchard took off his jacket and hung it over the back of one of the chairs around a circular pine kitchen table then took a frying pan from an overhead cupboard. It was twice the size of the frying pan that Shepherd had at home, and divided into five compartments. He put it on the stove and took bacon, sausages, mushrooms and a box of eggs from the double-doored fridge.
‘Daniel, can you make the coffee?’ asked Pritchard, gesturing with a spatula at a Nespresso machine.
Pritchard put bacon in the largest of the compartments, cracked eggs into another two, then added the sausages and mushrooms.
Shepherd made two mugs of coffee while Pritchard deftly fried the food. He saw Shepherd watching him and he smiled. ‘You’re wondering if I’m married, or gay, or all of the above.’
‘No, I’m not,’ said Shepherd, though that was a pretty accurate assessment of what had been going through his mind.
‘It’s what you do. You have to assess people so you know how to deal with them. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t last long undercover.’
‘You’re not a case, though.’
‘So tell me you weren’t wondering about my marital status.’
‘It’s a nice house. But you s
eem to be here alone.’
Pritchard nodded. ‘My wife died, about five years ago. No kids. Partly by choice, partly because we ran out of time.’ He smiled wearily. ‘I would have been a shit father, anyway. Probably in my genes.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Shepherd.
‘For what? My wife, my shit father, my genes?’
‘Your wife, mainly.’
Pritchard started putting the food onto plates. ‘She had breast cancer,’ he said. ‘She had chemo and surgery and she was lucky, for a few years she was clear, and then it came back and when it came back …’ He shrugged. ‘She wasn’t so lucky.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Nothing to be sorry about,’ said Pritchard. ‘Five years is a long time. And it’s not as if there were any “what ifs”. There was nothing anyone could have done any differently. She got cancer and she died.’
‘I know what you mean about “what ifs” all right,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m going to spend the rest of my life wondering if we should have handled Žagar differently.’
Pritchard put the frying pan down. ‘I blame myself. He grabbed the gun from me.’
‘I should have killed him as soon as we were in his house,’ said Shepherd. ‘There was no way he was coming out of the situation alive, I should have done it straight away.’ He forced a smile. ‘Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve. What happened, happened. There’s no going back. That’s what I told Liam.’
‘He seems to be taking it well.’ Pritchard finished putting the food on the plates and put the frying pan into the sink. He carried the plates over to the table and both men sat down. Shepherd added Heinz ketchup to his plate, Pritchard went with HP sauce.
Shepherd stared down at his plate. He had absolutely no appetite. ‘I haven’t really had the chance to talk to him,’ said Shepherd. ‘But I will.’
‘The question is, where do we go from here?’ said Pritchard. ‘I have a contact in Europol who will keep an eye on the Slovenian police. The only police who’ll be overly concerned will be those on Žagar’s payroll and I’m not sure they’ll want anyone looking too closely at his death in case it turns the spotlight on their involvement. Same with the men who died, none of them were innocent civilians. They’ll probably put it down to inter-gang rivalry.’
Short Range (The Spider Shepherd Thrillers Book 16) Page 31