Cold Kill dss-3

by Stephen Leather

  Button could sense Shepherd’s concern. ‘It’s an expression,’ she said.

  It was – but it was more than that: it was an attitude. And when you were facing dangerous criminals, it could be a dangerous one. Generally spies didn’t shoot other spies, but drug-dealers most definitely put bullets into undercover cops. When he’d faced Kreshnik in the apartment in Paris, it hadn’t been a game, and it was important that Charlotte Button understood that. ‘No problem,’ he said. He remembered how she’d taken pleasure in telling him she’d followed him to the Ritz. She’d been playing a game then, no question about it.

  ‘I wasn’t minimising what I’m asking you to do, Dan,’ she said. ‘It really is just an expression.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Shepherd. He looked at the photographs and artists’ impressions on the whiteboard and wondered how many of those men and women thought of the jihad as a game.

  Shepherd walked slowly along the pavement, checking reflections in shop windows, more from habit than any fear that he was being followed. The Uddin brothers’ bureau de change was little more than a booth set in a row of shops, with a staircase next to it that led up to the offices. An Asian youth with slicked-back hair was sitting in a glass-fronted cubicle next to an electronic board that listed exchange rates in red numbers. He was engrossed in a book. Plenty of people were walking by, but no one seemed interested in changing money. It was a busy street. There was an Argos, a Woolworth’s, small shops selling electrical equipment and phone cards, and an amusement arcade packed with fruit machines. The bulk of the shoppers were Arabs, and along the street there were several Arab coffee shops with tables on the pavements where men in long white robes sat and sipped strong, sweet coffee and sucked on ornate hookah pipes.

  Shepherd crossed the road at a set of traffic-lights. A huddle of women clothed from head to foot in black burkhas, with veiled letterbox slots at eye level, scuttled out of Argos weighed down with bulging carrier-bags. They waved frantically at a black cab and climbed into the back.

  The youth didn’t look up from his book as Shepherd walked past him and headed up the stairs to Salik’s office. He had a tight feeling in his stomach. He always did when he was wearing a wire. He could feel the battery pack and the digital recorder in the small of his back, the wire that wound round his waist under his shirt, the microphone taped to his chest. He hated carrying digital recorders, but sometimes they were a necessary evil. Devices like the transmitting mobiles and long-distance microphones were all well and good but the quality was variable. Stand-alone recorders with good-quality microphones were pretty much foolproof, so long as they remained hidden. Shepherd only used them when he was sure he had the trust of the people he was talking to, and he knew the Uddin brothers trusted him. He had just brought in seven million euros of counterfeit currency for them and he hadn’t even insisted on being paid in advance.

  On the first floor he came to a white-painted door with a plastic plaque that displayed the name of the bureau de change in large capital letters and underneath it half a dozen other company names in smaller type. Shepherd knocked.

  An Asian youth opened the door. He might have been the elder brother of the boy downstairs, although his hair was longer and he was wearing horn-rimmed glasses.

  ‘I’m here to see Salik and Matiur,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Tony, don’t stand on ceremony, come on in,’ called Salik.

  The office was spacious, with gunmetal grey blinds covering the windows and desks in three corners, each with a computer and flat-screen monitor on it. There was a bank of half a dozen fax machines on a table under one window and a large oval teak table with eight chairs round it. Salik and Matiur were sitting at the table. A tall, long-spouted earthenware teapot stood in front of them with four handleless mugs.

  ‘Tony,’ said Salik. He hurried around the table to give Shepherd a hug. Shepherd untangled himself before the other man could feel the concealed recording device. ‘Sunday was perfect – better than perfect.’

  The youth sat down at one of the computer terminals and began to tap on the keyboard. Matiur stood up and Shepherd reached out to shake hands. ‘You are a good man,’ said Matiur. ‘A professional.’

  ‘Well, hopefully we can do it again some time soon,’ said Shepherd.

  Salik sat down and picked up the teapot. ‘Have some mint tea,’ he said. ‘We import it.’

  Shepherd joined him. ‘You have your fingers in a lot of pies,’ he said, taking a cup.

  ‘You have to diversify,’ said Salik. ‘Businesses are cyclic. If you have only one, there are peaks and troughs.’ He reached under the table and pulled out a leather briefcase. ‘This is yours, Tony.’ He handed it to Shepherd, who put it on his lap and clicked the two locks. The case was full of bundles of banknotes, fives, tens and twenties. ‘I hope this is all real,’ he said.

  Salik and Matiur laughed. ‘You have our money-back guarantee,’ said Salik. ‘Fifty thousand pounds, and it is all real.’

  Shepherd took out a bundle and counted it carefully. Tony Corke needed the cash and he’d be sure to count every note. When he’d assured himself that there was fifty thousand pounds in the case, he said, ‘Thanks. Now I need to talk to you.’

  ‘What about?’ asked Salik.

  ‘My court case.’ Shepherd closed the briefcase. ‘This is all well and good but my solicitor’s costing me an arm and a leg.’

  ‘Lawyers are expensive,’ said Salik. ‘Does he think he can keep you out of jail?’

  Shepherd scowled. ‘It’d take a miracle to do that, which is why we need to talk.’

  ‘You want more money? Is that it?’

  ‘I want Tony Corke to disappear.’

  ‘But you said you’d lose your house if you run. You had to put it up as surety for your bail, you said.’

  ‘They’ll take the house, sure, but there’s a big mortgage on it. With the equity in it and the cash, I’d be running away from eighty grand. If I’m going to be doing more runs for you, money won’t be a problem.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I need a new identity. A new life.’

  ‘You have a passport already.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t have a birth certificate to go with it. Or any other paperwork.’ He reached into his coat and pulled out the envelope Button had given him. ‘I’ve got paperwork here on a guy who died a few years ago. He was a friend of a friend. He never had a passport so he’s not in the system, but he has a birth certificate, a school record, a university degree and a national-insurance number. With a passport, I’ll have a ready-to-use new identity.’

  ‘But if he died, there’ll be a death certificate and the national-insurance number will have been cancelled,’ said Salik. He took the envelope and examined the papers.

  ‘He died overseas,’ said Shepherd. ‘He was an oil-worker out in the Middle East. He rarely visited the UK and died in a car accident in Malaysia. He had no relatives and was cremated out there. No death certificate’s been filed here – I checked.’

  Salik peered at the birth certificate. ‘Christopher Donovan?’

  ‘I look like a Chris, don’t I?’

  ‘This would make you thirty-seven?’

  ‘So I gain a couple of years. It’s not a problem.’

  Salik nodded. ‘Okay. The fee will be the same as last time. Ten thousand pounds.’

  Shepherd opened the briefcase and gave Salik ten thousand pounds. Then he produced his wallet, fished out two passport photographs and gave them to Salik. ‘How reliable is your guy?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m going to be using the new identity for the rest of my life, hopefully. What if he gets busted down the line? Presumably there’ll be a record of every guy he gave passports to.’

  ‘He’s careful,’ said Salik. ‘So are we. We don’t keep records. We take the money and we hand over the passports. That’s all.’

  ‘I’d like to meet him,’ said Shepherd. ‘To reassure myself.’

  ‘Out
of the question,’ said Salik.

  Shepherd shrugged. ‘I guess I can’t force you,’ he said. ‘I’d just be happier if I knew who I was dealing with.’

  ‘You’re dealing with us, Tony, and you have my word that nothing will go wrong.’ Salik put the photographs into the envelope with the papers. ‘Two days,’ he said. ‘We’ll call you.’

  ‘And what about another currency run?’

  ‘We’re talking about it. We’ll let you know.’

  ‘The sooner the better,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘It’s not something we will rush into,’ said Matiur. ‘Besides, our friends in France require payment in advance. They do not allow us credit.’

  Shepherd sipped his tea. ‘Can I ask you something about your business here?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Salik, waving expansively.

  ‘I see these bureau de change places all over London, but I don’t understand how they make money.’

  Salik frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, they’re always in busy shopping streets – Edgware Road, Oxford Street, Knightsbridge, expensive places – but I never see queues of people lining up to change money.’

  Salik laughed. ‘You are feeling sorry for us, my friend?’

  ‘No, I’m sure you’re making a living or you wouldn’t stay in business. But the margins are tight, right? You buy a currency at one price and sell at another. It’s the margin where you make the profit.’

  Salik chuckled again. ‘And you think we don’t have enough tourists wanting to change their traveller’s cheques, is that it?’

  ‘I don’t see you’d make big money, that’s all.’

  ‘We don’t make our money from the tourists,’ said Salik. ‘If a German wants to change five hundred euros into sterling, of course we make a pittance on the transaction. But there are plenty of people around who need six-figure sums changing, and that’s where we make our money. You never see it because, of course, that doesn’t happen down on the street. They come upstairs to our office.’ Salik said something in Bengali to his brother, who muttered in response.

  Salik stood up. ‘Come on, let me show you,’ he said.

  He took Shepherd along the corridor to another office, pulled a key chain from his pocket and opened the door. Inside there was no furniture, just a metal door set into the wall. He used another key to open it. Behind it a space three feet wide and three feet deep was filled with metal shelving on which were stacked thick bundles of banknotes, euros, dollars, pounds and a dozen other currencies that Shepherd didn’t recognise, many from the Middle East. His jaw dropped. ‘Don’t tell me that’s one day’s takings,’ he said.

  ‘This is our float,’ said Salik. ‘We do several runs a day to the bank.’

  ‘But where does it come from?’

  ‘Cash businesses that want to convert currencies without going through a bank. On large amounts we can give a better deal than the banks. Our overheads are lower.’ He smiled. ‘And we tend to be less concerned about paperwork.’

  ‘So it’s money-laundering?’

  Salik looked pained. ‘Tony, please…’

  ‘But that’s what it is, right?’

  ‘We provide a service for people who don’t want to go through the banking system,’ said Matiur. ‘That doesn’t mean we have a stream of drug-dealers passing through. Let me give you an example. A Saudi prince is over here and he wants to buy a car for his new girlfriend. The Saudis pay cash for almost everything. Now, if he’s just come from the South of France, he might have euros. If he has been in New York, he’ll have dollars. He might even have riyals. Do you think the car dealer is going to protest when one of the prince’s assistants produces a briefcase full of banknotes, no matter whose face is on them? Of course not.’

  ‘Cash for everything?’

  ‘The Saudis don’t use credit cards,’ said Salik, ‘and they rarely write cheques. In the UK, foreign nationals are only taxed on the money they bring into the country. So if it comes in as cash on a private jet, the Inland Revenue never gets its cut. Now, is that money-laundering? No, not strictly speaking.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘Then there are companies that deal with overseas buyers and need cash.’

  ‘For bribes?’

  ‘For commissions,’ said Salik, with a sly smile. ‘We get a lot of Nigerians and South Americans. They give us sterling and we supply whatever currency they need. Hookers come to us too. Bayswater and Lancaster Gate are full of prostitutes and escort-agency girls, and they’re all paid in cash. Some of them pull in twenty thousand a week, and a lot of that is in foreign currency.’ He smiled. ‘Not many men are stupid enough to pay for sex with their credit cards.’ He patted Shepherd on the back. ‘So, you see, Tony, there is no need to feel sorry for us. We do good business. Once the money is ours, we can put it straight into the banking system.’

  ‘What about the ten-thousand-pound limit?’ asked Shepherd, playing the Tony Corke role to the hilt. ‘I thought all big transactions had to be reported to the cops and you had to prove it wasn’t drugs money.’

  ‘People assume that the limit applies to every transaction,’ said Salik. ‘Of course, that’s nonsense. Every shop in Oxford Street takes at least ten thousand pounds every day and the big stores take hundreds of thousands, most of it in cash. Do you think they are interrogated every time they pay in their takings? Of course not. Providing the banks know their customer and where the money has come from, there is no problem.’

  ‘They trust you, and that’s enough?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Salik, closing and locking the steel door. ‘All business is down to trust.’

  Shepherd followed the brothers back to the office. He sat down and took another sip of the fragrant mint tea. ‘What about the money I brought in?’ he said. ‘What happens to that?’

  ‘Some we change. Plenty of businesses need euros, these days. Some we pass on to other companies like ours that need large amounts of euros. Some we pay into our bank.’

  ‘But why go to all the trouble of smuggling the cash in? That’s what I don’t understand.’

  ‘You don’t need to understand,’ said Matiur.

  ‘I’m just interested. You buy the euros from Kreshnik, and you use them here in London. But you’re paying me an arm and a leg so that can’t leave much in the way of profit for you.’

  Salik chuckled softly. ‘It’s good of you to be so concerned about our welfare, Tony, but please believe me, we make money on the deal.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Shepherd. He’d pushed it as far as he could – to probe any further might make them suspicious. ‘Hopefully, we’ll do just as well next time,’ he said. ‘ Inshallah.’

  Salik did a double-take at Shepherd’s use of the Islamic phrase, then nodded approvingly. ‘ Inshallah,’ he said.

  ‘ Inshallah,’ repeated Matiur.

  The digital recorder pressed against the small of Shepherd’s back. It had recorded everything that had been said.

  Shepherd went into the underpass where the Marylebone flyover crossed the Edgware Road. The few shops down there had done decent business until the council had installed traffic-lights above ground that allowed pedestrians to cross in safety. Now the shops were finding it tough going. There was a public toilet, too, now only rarely visited.

  The only other person in the underpass was a homeless man with two scruffy collies. He was lying on a sheet of cardboard, snoring loudly, an empty cider bottle clutched in a filthy hand. The dogs wagged their tails as Shepherd walked by.

  He went into the public toilet, locked himself into an empty stall and put the briefcase on the floor. He stripped off his coat and pullover and removed the digital recorder and microphone. He flushed the tape that had secured the device to him down the toilet and slid the equipment into the pocket of his pea coat. Then he went back above ground and phoned Jimmy Sharpe, who was sitting in his car round the corner from the bureau de change. He told Sharpe that everything had g
one according to plan and that he could stand down. His next call was to Amar Singh. The technician was parked in nearby Gloucester Place, close to Marylebone station. Shepherd took a circuitous route through residential streets to the black Cherokee Jeep with wire wheels.

  ‘This is a bloody pimp’s car,’ he said.

  ‘Pimps drive Beamers, you know that,’ said Singh.

  ‘It’s a bit high-profile, is what I mean,’ said Shepherd. ‘This isn’t a pool car, is it?’

  ‘Damn right it isn’t. It’s mine. Bought and paid for.’

  ‘You’re a very sad man.’ Shepherd took the recording equipment from his pocket and handed it over.

  ‘Anything good on it?’ said Singh, twisting to put it into his briefcase.

  ‘Not really. Just confirmation that they’re getting the Christopher Donovan passport for me and that they’re thinking about another run.’

  ‘All grist to the mill,’ said Singh. ‘I’ll pass it on to Button.’ He closed the briefcase.

  ‘Yeah, you kept that close to your chest, didn’t you? The Button thing.’

  ‘So did you.’

  ‘How do you rate her?’

  ‘Too soon to say,’ said Singh.

  ‘You don’t think it’s strange that she’s not here?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Sam Hargrove would have been, that’s all,’ said Shepherd.