Cold Kill dss-3

by Stephen Leather

  He refilled the delicate china cup with Earl Grey and dropped in a slice of lemon. He could never understand why people put milk and sugar into Earl Grey. It destroyed the tea’s delicate flavour. He sipped and watched the devastation on the television set in the corner of his suite. Everything had gone exactly as he’d planned. The bomb in the Hyatt had gone off at one o’clock on the dot, destroying the restaurant at its busiest time. He remembered the young waitress with the bright smile and wondered if she was among the dead. The first bomb in the street market had detonated at the same time, ripping through the throngs of tourists as they shopped for trinkets to take home to their families and friends. Those who hadn’t been killed in the first market bomb had fled straight into the path of the second. CNN was saying that a hundred and twenty people had died, but the Saudi could tell from the pictures on the screen that the death toll would be much higher.

  Sydney had been a good choice. It wasn’t the capital city, but it was one that everyone identified as quintessentially Australian. Bringing the jihad to Australia would make the world realise that no one was safe. If the shahids could strike in Sydney, they could strike anywhere. CNN didn’t refer to them as shahids, of course – or martyrs. They called them suicide-bombers, as if somehow it was their own deaths that had been the objective. It was always that way with American journalists. If the bombers were on the Americans’ side, they were freedom-fighters; if they were against them, they were terrorists. They didn’t bother to try to understand: they sought only to label.

  The Saudi spread honey across his toast and took a bite. The use of shahids served two functions. It meant that there were no perpetrators to put on trial, and it brought home to the world that the fighters for the Muslim cause were prepared to die for their beliefs. It was easy for Western soldiers to go into battle with their weapons, armour and mobile hospitals: they were better-armed and equipped than their adversaries, and rarely went into battle without being sure that they would win. But at heart they were cowards, hiding behind walls as they fired their high-powered weapons, dropping bombs from planes high above the clouds and shooting artillery shells from afar, going in with tanks and armoured cars, only ever fighting from a position of strength. But the shahids fought alone: they went into battle knowing they would die, and died happily, knowing their death would serve the greater good. It was impossible to defeat such men and women. Nothing could be said or done to sway them from carrying out their mission. They were true heroes, but the Western media would never describe them as such.

  The Saudi took another sip of tea. Already there were calls for the Australian government to pull their troops out of Iraq. The same thing had happened after the Madrid bombings: the Spanish had obeyed the calls and brought their soldiers home. The Saudi doubted that the Australians would pull out as easily. Not that he cared what happened in Iraq. This wasn’t about the occupation of Iraq, who controlled the oil or decided who should or shouldn’t hold elections. It was about the struggle between Islam and Christianity, between Allah and the infidels, and it was a struggle that could end with only one victor.

  Liam kicked the ball hard and low, and Shepherd had to stretch to stop it going into the net. ‘Nice shot,’ he called, and threw the ball back. Liam caught it on his chest and let it drop to his feet. ‘You’re getting good at this,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘I scored two goals last week,’ said Liam. He kicked the ball and this time it went straight past Shepherd into the back of the net.

  ‘You play at school, yeah?’

  ‘Every Thursday.’

  ‘Is there a school team?’

  ‘Yeah, but Mr Williams says I’m too small to play for it. I have to wait until next year.’

  Shepherd retrieved the ball and tossed it to Liam. Liam headed it back.

  ‘Are you going to get married again, Dad?’ he asked.

  Shepherd’s jaw dropped. ‘What makes you ask that?’

  ‘Pete’s dad’s getting married next week and Pete says his new mum’s really cool,’ said Liam.

  ‘What happened to Pete’s old mum?’

  ‘She and his dad got divorced. She went to live in America with her new husband and Pete got to live with his dad.’

  Shepherd tried to spin the football on his right index finger but it fell to the ground. He trapped it with his foot. ‘And you want a new mum, is that it?’

  Liam shrugged awkwardly. ‘It might be fun.’

  ‘Do you have anyone in mind?’

  Liam’s cheeks reddened. ‘Katra, maybe.’

  Shepherd laughed. ‘Katra? She’s not much older than you.’

  ‘She’s twenty-three,’ said Liam.

  ‘And I’m thirty-five. I’m almost old enough to be her dad, too.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ said Liam. ‘You’d have been twelve when she was born and you can’t be a dad when you’re twelve.’

  ‘The way things are going, these days, you can,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘I like Katra,’ said Liam.

  ‘You marry her,’ said Shepherd.

  Liam pulled a face. ‘I don’t want to marry her,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I don’t want a wife. I want a mum.’

  ‘I miss your mum, too,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘All the time?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I dream about her.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Sometimes I dream that she comes back. She says she’s been away on holiday and now she’s going to live with us again.’

  Shepherd picked up the ball and tossed it back to his son. He had the same dreams, less often now, but they still came every few weeks. She’d be back with him and Liam, back in the house, back in his bed.

  ‘When I dream about Mum, is it really her?’ asked Liam. He sat on the ball, his hands on the ground to steady himself.

  ‘It’s just a dream,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘But it feels so real. Like it’s really her.’

  ‘I know, but it’s not. It’s just your subconscious trying to make you feel better.’

  Liam frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Shepherd went and sat on the grass next to his son. ‘First, there’s the thinking bit of your brain, the bit you use to solve problems, the bit you use when you’re talking, or when you just sit and think. But then there’s another part that does its thinking in the background. Like your imagination.’

  Liam’s frown deepened and Shepherd realised he wasn’t doing a good job of explaining himself. If he’d known in advance that he’d be going over the finer points of psychology with his son he’d have phoned Kathy Gift for a briefing.

  ‘The subconscious does things without you thinking about it,’ he continued. ‘Sometimes you might feel sad but you don’t know why, and that’s because you’re thinking about something subconsciously.’

  ‘Thinking without thinking?’ said Liam. ‘Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Shepherd. His lecture was going from bad to worse he thought. ‘It’s, like, we know Mum’s dead, and that she’s not coming back. But part of us wants to believe she will come back. And that part of us is what makes the dreams.’

  ‘But when I talk to her in the dreams, it’s like I’m really talking to her.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ Shepherd had conversations with Sue in his dreams. And more. They kissed and touched, and sometimes he entered her – and then he’d wake with a hard-on and his stomach would lurch when he remembered he’d never make love to her again. Sue was dead and she’d stay that way for all eternity. Shepherd didn’t believe in God or in heaven, so he knew he’d never see her again. Ever. ‘You’re talking to her memory, Liam,’ he went on. ‘And you’ll always have that. She’ll always be in your heart and your head.’

  Liam’s lips quivered. ‘Sometimes I forget what she looks like,’ he said.

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘When I think about her, I can’t remember her face. I look at the photographs and I know it’s her
and I can remember the photographs, but when I try to remember the things we did and the places we went sometimes I can’t see her face. But when I dream it’s like she’s really there and I can see her and everything.’

  ‘Hey, that’s okay,’ said Shepherd. ‘You remember her and that’s what matters. And you know how much she loved you. Your mum loved you more than anything.’

  ‘More than you?’ Liam wiped a tear from his cheek.

  ‘You’re her son. Her boy. You were the most important thing in her life.’

  ‘So why am I forgetting her?’

  ‘You’re not,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘It’s okay for you. You can remember everything,’ said Liam bitterly.

  Shepherd pulled the boy close to him. ‘Not everything,’ he said. But his photographic memory was virtually infallible and Shepherd could remember almost everything he’d ever done with Sue. Every conversation they’d had. Every place they’d been. Every argument they’d had. Liam wanted a new mother. Shepherd understood that. Every child needed a mother. But Shepherd didn’t need or want another wife when his memories of Sue were as fresh as they had ever been. He could remember the glint in her eye when she wanted to make love, the tightening of her mouth when she was preparing for an argument, the way she bit her lower lip just before she laughed. Sue was a hard act to follow. In a way, fading memories could be a blessing: as they receded so did the pain. That was what Liam was going through. Every day the pain of losing his mother would get a little less. His heart wouldn’t ache quite as much and one day the pain would have gone and he’d be able to think about her without crying. It seemed to Shepherd that, for most people, dealing with grief meant forgetting the pain, rather than coming to terms with it. And he knew that his pain would never go away. ‘Sometimes forgetting can be a good thing,’ Shepherd whispered. ‘Like when you hurt yourself. You can remember that you were hurting, but you can’t remember how much.’

  ‘Like when you were shot?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Shepherd. ‘I know it hurt, but I can’t remember the pain. It’s the same with Mum. Every day it’ll hurt less.’

  ‘I don’t want to forget her,’ said Liam.

  ‘You won’t.’ He patted his son’s shoulder. ‘So, what’s with wanting a new mum?’

  Liam shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I think I just want to be a family again.’

  ‘You and I are a family.’

  ‘We’re half a family,’ said Liam.

  ‘There must be lots of kids at school with just one parent,’ said Shepherd. ‘Half of all marriages end in divorce, these days.’

  ‘You weren’t going to divorce Mum, were you?’

  Shepherd smiled. ‘Of course not.’ He had loved Sue from the first moment he’d spoken to her in the pub in Hereford. He had been a cocky SAS trooper, the best of the best, and she had been a local girl who knew all about the heartbreak the soldiers caused in the town. Her friends had warned her of the danger in getting involved with one, and so had her parents. But Shepherd had won her over and when he’d married her he’d known he was married for life. ‘Till death us do part,’ he’d said, and he’d meant it. Sue was the love of his life, even when they’d argued and fought. They’d argued about his career with the SAS, and he’d let her talk him into leaving for the sake of their marriage and their son. And they’d argued about his career as an undercover cop because it kept him away from home for long periods. But divorce? Never.

  ‘So it’s not the same. If you and Mum weren’t living together, we’d still be a family. We’d just be one that had split up. I’d still have a mum and a dad.’

  Shepherd lay back on the grass and stared up at the pale grey sky. It was overcast but dry and not too cold.

  ‘So, you won’t marry Katra?’ asked Liam.

  Shepherd chuckled. ‘It’s not really on, Liam,’ he said.

  ‘She likes you.’

  ‘And I like her. But I’m her boss. She works for us.’

  ‘She does the same for us that Mum did. She cooks and cleans and takes me to school. She irons your shirts, same as Mum did.’

  ‘That’s her job.’

  ‘But she likes you.’

  Shepherd sighed. ‘Someone liking you is no reason to get married. You have to love them. I loved your mum, and I love her as much now as I did when we got married. I’m going to have to wait until I meet someone I love as much as your mum. Maybe more… I have a question for you,’ he said, linking his fingers behind his head. ‘How would you feel if we moved house?’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not far. You’d still go to the same school.’

  ‘So why would we move?’

  His son and Kathy Gift had one thing in common, Shepherd mused. The knack of asking questions he found difficult to answer. ‘Okay, here’s the thing,’ he said. ‘This house was our family house, for you, your mum and me. Your mum chose the decoration, she laid out the garden, she picked the furniture.’

  ‘That’s why it looks so good.’

  ‘Right. But maybe we should get a new house – a house that belongs just to us.’

  ‘And not Mum?’

  ‘Mum doesn’t need a house.’

  ‘Because she’s in heaven?’

  That wasn’t somewhere Shepherd wanted to go. He knew there was no such place as heaven and that Sue wasn’t sitting on a cloud playing a harp. But although he’d been happy enough for Liam to know that Father Christmas didn’t exist, it would serve no purpose to blow his faith in God and heaven out of the water.

  ‘Yes, she’s in heaven.’ He’d promised himself that he would never to lie to his son but the truth, as Shepherd saw it, would have been far more hurtful. ‘She’s in heaven watching over you and helping me to take care of you.’

  Liam nodded, and Shepherd knew he’d done the right thing. Perhaps some lies were acceptable.

  ‘It’s just that if we had somewhere new to live, maybe we wouldn’t miss her so much. I think that one of the reasons we think about her all the time is that we’re still living in her house.’ He sat up and rubbed his legs.

  ‘So if we move, we’ll forget her?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s not about forgetting her. We won’t ever forget her. But the house keeps reminding us that she’s not here.’

  ‘But I like that,’ said Liam. ‘Sometimes when I come in from school, it’s like she’s waiting for me in the kitchen.’

  ‘But doesn’t it make you feel bad when she’s not?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘So if we were in a new house, maybe you wouldn’t.’

  Liam wiped his nose with his sleeve. ‘Okay.’

  Shepherd left Edgware Road Tube station and wandered round Marks amp; Spencer for five minutes to check that he wasn’t being followed, then crossed the road and went into the Hilton Hotel. He was dressed as Tony Corke – cheap jeans, a roll-neck pullover, work boots and a new pea coat to replace the one he’d lost on the trawler.

  He took the lift to the seventh floor and went to Hargrove’s suite. A dozen men and two women were with the superintendent, all in casual clothing. Jimmy Sharpe and Paul Joyce were among them, and an Asian guy in his late twenties, who grinned. ‘If I’d known it was you, Spider, I would’ve used something more heavy duty.’ Amar Singh worked for the National Criminal Intelligence Service but was often utilised by Hargrove’s undercover unit as he had access to state-of-the-art surveillance and tracking equipment.

  ‘Good to see you again, Amar,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t drop anything.’

  ‘Right,’ said the superintendent, raising his voice. ‘Spider will be taking a rucksack with the three cans to Speaker’s Corner. Amar, please.’

  Amar picked up a blue canvas rucksack and heaved it on to a coffee table. He took out three large cooking-oil cans and held up one in both hands. ‘This is the one with the transmitter, but hopefully you won’t see the difference. We’ve built the power pack and electronics into the base and
incorporated the aerial into the ridge round the bottom. Even when they cut open the can to get at the cash, they shouldn’t find our gear.’ He put the cans back into the rucksack.

  ‘There’s an outside chance that they’ll pat Spider down so he won’t be wearing any recording devices or transmitters,’ the superintendent continued. ‘We won’t be using long-range eavesdropping either, but we will be taking photographs. This afternoon’s meeting is solely to make contact with the targets. Spider will hand over the money, and we’ll follow it. Our primary objective is to identify the men taking possession of it, but we will also be using the handover as an opportunity for a longer-term penetration of the gang. Spider’s going to have to play that by ear. If he decides to go voluntarily with them, he’ll pinch the bridge of his nose with his right hand. If we get that signal we follow – but at a distance. Everyone clear on that?’

  They nodded.

  ‘We doubt they’ll bring firearms to such a public place, but he’s wearing a Kevlar vest in case they do.’

  Shepherd pulled up his pullover to reveal it.

  ‘We’re not sure how many will turn up, or how they’ll react,’ said Hargrove. ‘Spider’s to hand over the cans in exchange for thirty thousand pounds. It’s just possible that they’ll pull guns or knives and snatch the cans but, again, in view of the location it’s unlikely. However, they might try to take Spider against his will. There’s no way we can allow that to happen. We don’t know who they are or what they’re capable of, so if at any time Spider wants out, the signal will be for him to rub the back of his neck with his left hand.’

  Shepherd demonstrated.

  ‘If he can’t make the signal for some reason, he’ll yell for help,’ said Hargrove. ‘Inspector Steve Priestley will head up an armed unit dressed as park-keepers. They’ll only move in if Spider’s attacked or if the targets try to abduct him.’