He clipped it to his belt and hung the earphones round his neck. All he had to do now was to get Carpenter talking and activate the recorder.
He went downstairs to collect his cleaning equipment. Weston and Ginger were already cleaning the ones. Amelia Heartfield was standing by the supplies cupboard. 'Come on, Bob, the early bird . . .'
'Sorry, Amelia,' said Shepherd. She grinned at him and winked.
Shepherd took out a mop and a bucket, which he filled from the tap by the boiler. He looked up at the threes. Carpenter was at the head of the stairs, working with his mop. Shepherd pressed the pause button, activating the recorder, then headed up the stairs. He nodded at Carpenter and began to swab the floor. 'Never thought I'd be grateful to have a mop in my hand,' he said.
'Beats being in the workshops with the muppets,' said Carpenter.
Shepherd moved closer to Carpenter. 'What you said about getting a message out for me . . .'
'I'm a bit pushed at the moment,' said Carpenter.
'But you can do it, right?'
'I've got a few problems need sorting.'
Carpenter moved away and Shepherd followed him. 'Are you okay?'
Carpenter leaned on his mop. 'Look, Bob, I'm not your nursemaid, right?'
'Yeah, but you said you'd help me out, right, get a message out for me?'
'I said I'll think about it. And I'm thinking about it.' Carpenter looked around, but there were no prison officers within earshot. 'Let me take care of my business, then I'll help you with yours, okay?'
'Anything I can do?'
'I've someone taking care of it for me as we speak.'
'On the out?'
Carpenter nodded. 'Until that's done, I'm keeping my head down.'
'Getting rid of witnesses, yeah?' Carpenter frowned, and Shepherd realised he'd pushed him too far. 'None of my business,' he added.
'That's right,' said Carpenter.
'Best of luck with it, anyway,' said Shepherd. 'Just don't forget the shit I'm in, that's all.'
Shepherd moved away. Carpenter had said nothing that could be used to build a case against him, but the hint had been clear enough: he was getting ready to move against Roper. He got on with mopping the floor, keeping to the far side of the landing, away from Carpenter, not wanting to crowd him.
He waited until the prisoners returned from the workshops before he went down to the ones and stood in line for the phones. Lee was standing near the hotplate with half a dozen other prisoners, holding a plastic tray. He grinned and flashed him a thumbs-up.
Shepherd looked up through the suicide mesh. Carpenter had gone back to his cell. If he knew where Roper was being kept, he had to have a source high up in the Church or in Sam Hargrove's unit. And if the source could locate Roper, he might also identify Shepherd. Shepherd could feel the muscles tightening at the back of his neck. If Carpenter discovered he was a cop, he could have him killed inside the prison just as easily as out. Shepherd forced himself to relax. There was no point in worrying about what might be. There'd been nothing in the conversation to suggest that Carpenter suspected anything.
A hand gripped Shepherd's shoulder and he whirled round.
'Hey, I'm cool,' said a man, his hands up. 'I was just asking if you want to use the phone.'
Shepherd apologised. He'd been so deep in thought that he hadn't noticed one of the phones was unoccupied. He tapped out his pin number, then Uncle Richard's. It was answered on the third ring. 'What do you need?' said a male voice. Shepherd couldn't tell if it was the man he'd spoken to last time he'd called.
Two West Indians were waiting to use the phone, close enough to overhear everything he said. 'Hiya, Richard, it's Bob,' he said cheerily.
Use of the names meant the man at the other end of the phone realised that the conversation was non-secure.
'What do you need?' said the voice.
'How's Sam doing?' said Shepherd.
'Do you want me to get a message to him?'
Shepherd laughed for the benefit of the West Indians. 'Yeah, that's right. It's been ages since I talked to him.'
'Are you requesting a meeting?'
'No, visiting hours are a pain in the arse here. It takes for ever to put a visiting order through.'
'Is this a matter of urgency?'
'Absolutely. Has he seen Sandy?'
'Sandy Roper?'
'I know, they're perfect for each other, aren't they? It's about time they went on holiday, isn't it?'
'Has Roper's location been compromised?'
'Tell Sam I said they should go away. The sooner the better. The rest will do them good.'
'I'll pass that on immediately,' said the voice. 'Do you need anything else?'
'I'm fine. Bored out of my skull.'
'You're in no immediate danger?'
'Shit, no. Everything's fine. I'm just looking forward to getting out. Look, I'd better go, there are people waiting to use the phone.'
'Good luck,' said the man.
Kim Fletcher pulled on a pair of night-vision goggles and pressed the on switch. They buzzed, then flickered into life. 'They work?' asked Lewis from the back seat.
'Of course they do,' sneered Fletcher. 'They cost a grand.' He took off the goggles and handed them to Lewis. Lewis was nineteen and had already killed five men, four for money. Sitting next to him was Jewel, who had just turned sixteen. Lewis had taken on Jewel as his assistant and was teaching him the tricks of the trade. He was learning fast.
Jewel screwed a bulbous silencer into the barrel of his pistol, a Swiss-made SIG-Sauer P-220, not that he cared about the make of the weapon: to him, a gun was a gun. As long as it fired bullets, that was all that mattered. Fletcher took a second pair of goggles from the BMW's glove compartment and handed them to him.
Lewis checked the goggles, nodded, then took them off. He checked the safety on his gun. It was also a SIG-Sauer but, unlike Jewel's 9mm, it was the more modern P-232, chambered for 7.65mm Browning cartridges. Like Jewel, Lewis didn't care what the gun was. They'd bought the weapons from an underworld arms dealer in Harlesden, a Yardie who had been prepared to sell them on a return-if-not-fired basis, but Fletcher had told Lewis he was to buy them outright. Fletcher was paying him twenty thousand pounds for the job. It was up to him how much he gave Jewel.
'Okay?' Fletcher asked Lewis.
Lewis nodded. He had been paid half the money in advance and would get the rest when Roper was dead. He took a deep breath. The adrenaline always kicked in when he had a loaded gun in his hands. Not fear, not even excitement, just a gearing-up of all his senses for what lay ahead. The taking of a human life.
'Call me when it's done,' said Fletcher.
Lewis jerked his chin at Jewel and the pair climbed out of the BMW.
They had left their Suzuki jeep in a supermarket car park, behind the BMW. They climbed in and drove for half an hour to the house where Roper was being held.
They parked outside the school that bordered the housing estate and clambered over its railings. They slipped on the night-vision goggles, switched them on, checked their guns and ran across the playing-field. They vaulted the garden wall and stood staring at the rear of the house. They waited for a full ten minutes until they were satisfied that no one was watching from any of the windows, then crept towards the kitchen door, their guns at the ready.
Lewis attached a small suction cup to the glass panel in the kitchen window and used a glass cutter to scratch out a hole big enough for his hand to go through. He tapped the glass and it cracked cleanly. He pulled it out and placed it on the ground, then reached through and unlocked the door.
They moved through the kitchen. There was a stack of dirty plates in the sink, and half-drunk mugs of coffee on the worktop. They stood for a while in the doorway, listening, then moved slowly up the stairs, keeping close to the wall to keep the noise to a minimum.
The bathroom was at the back of the house, the door closed. Lewis put his hand on the handle and nodded at Jewel. Jewel held his gun wit
h both hands and Lewis opened the door. During the day there had been a man in the bathroom keeping watch on the garden, but now he'd gone. Lewis frowned, then pointed towards the master bedroom. That was where Roper and his wife were sleeping. They moved down the hallway towards the bedroom. They passed the children's room and ignored it. Fletcher had been insistent that they were not to be hurt. The same went for the wife. Roper was the target.
They reached the master bedroom. Lewis took the handle. Jewel nodded, and he opened the door. Jewel took three quick steps into the middle of the room and aimed his gun at the bed. It was empty. Lewis moved to the wardrobe and opened it. No clothes. Nothing.
'Fuck,' he said.
'What's going on?' asked Jewel. He still had his gun aimed at the bed, his finger on the trigger.
'The birds have fucking flown,' said Lewis.
'We're getting paid, though, yeah?' said Jewel.
'Fucking right we're getting paid,' said Lewis.
'Why don't you just arrest them?' asked Roper. He was watching a CCTV monitor that showed a night-vision view of the bedroom window of the safe-house. He could see two men standing in the middle of the room, holding guns.
'It'd tip Carpenter off that we know what he's up to,' said Hargrove.
'The fact the house is empty will tell them that,' said Roper.
'Not necessarily,' said Hargrove. 'They might just think we've moved you.'
'Bit of a coincidence. They must have staked the place out, and then, just as they move in, the place is abandoned.'
'Give me a break, Sandy,' said Hargrove. 'We got you and your family out, didn't we? If we pull those two in Carpenter's going to suspect we've got someone on the inside. At least this way there's some confusion. There they go.'
On the monitor, the two men moved out of the bedroom. Hargrove flicked a remote-control button and another view flickered on to the screen. This time it was from a camera inside the house. The two men moved down the stairs. They were both wearing night-vision goggles.
'Do you know who they are?' asked Roper.
'Not yet, but we've put a tracking device in their car so we soon will. And we'll keep an eye on them from now on.'
'None of his crew are black. None of the ones I met, anyway.'
'They might be hired help.'
'Which means what? That he didn't want to risk his own people on a hit?'
'That's how I read it. We'll keep an eye on them and pull them in when we've got Carpenter.'
'Now what?' asked Roper.
'You and your family are on a flight to Florida. The DEA will put you under armed guard, with a watch at all airports for anyone who's even spoken to Gerald Carpenter.'
'Maybe they'll take us to Disneyland.'
'Maybe they will,' said Hargrove. 'But it won't be for long. We're entering the end phase now, Sandy. I promise.'
Roper nodded, but he wasn't convinced. Hargrove and Mackie had promised on a stack of Bibles that he and his family were safe in Milton Keynes, but the two men in night-vision goggles had just given the lie to that.
Carpenter waited until just before dawn before he assembled his phone. He listened at the door, and when he was satisfied that the landing was clear, he switched it on and called Fletcher's number.
'Yes, boss,' said Fletcher.
'We're gonna have to keep this short, Kim. Battery's on the way out. Get me another sent in, yeah?'
'Will do, boss.'
'How did it go?'
'Not good, boss.'
Carpenter cursed under his breath. 'Spit it out, Kim.'
'Roper's gone. The house was empty.'
'I thought you had the place under surveillance.'
'We did. He was there, no doubt about it. But we had to leave to brief Lewis and pay him. By the time he went in, Roper had gone.'
Carpenter ran a hand through his hair. It might just have been bad luck - the Church might be moving Roper around as a precaution. 'What does Yates say?'
'His mobile's off. I'll catch him tomorrow. But I've got the last set of tapes from him. I'll go through them now.'
'You think there might be more on them about Roper?'
'It's a possibility. Yates does his best but he can't remember everything.'
'Do it, Kim. I'll call you back tomorrow.'
'Boss, Lewis wants paying. The full whack.'
'That's okay.'
'But he didn't do the job. Bloody liberty, if you ask me.'
'Just pay him. It wasn't his fault. But keep your distance. If they moved Roper out, they might have had the place under surveillance.'
'There were no cops there, boss. Guaranteed.'
Carpenter swore. 'Just let me do the thinking, will you? They might be trying to link Lewis to me by letting him run. That's why we've got to pay him to keep him sweet. And get someone else to hand over the money. I've got to go. Don't forget that battery.' He cut the connection. He paced up and down with the mobile in his hand. That had been the last thing he'd wanted to hear from Fletcher. Roper was the key to his freedom. With Roper out of the picture, the case against Carpenter would collapse. He could only hope that he'd be able to find out where Roper had been moved to. But at least he still had the inside track on everything the Church did. Or, more accurately, Carpenter knew everything that Roy Mackie, Head of Drugs Operations, did. And wherever Roper went, HODO wouldn't be far behind.
Shepherd spent the morning cleaning the ones with Charlie Weston. Amelia Heartfield was supposed to be overseeing them but she spent most of her time in the bubble with Tony Stafford. From time to time he heard her laughing. Shepherd wondered what she had to be so happy about. He never saw her in anything other than good spirits, yet she had a high-stress job with four children to take care of on the out.
There was no sign of Carpenter. At dinnertime Gilchrist came down from the threes and took a plate of food up to Carpenter's cell. In the afternoon Amelia was back on the ones. Shepherd asked her if it was okay to use the phone. 'You know you're supposed to wait until association,' she said.
'It's personal,' he said. 'During association every man and his dog listens in, you know that.'
Amelia looked concerned. 'Wife trouble?'
Shepherd shrugged. Lying was a way of life when working undercover and it came naturally to him, but he still felt bad about being dishonest with Amelia.
'Go on, then,' she said.
Shepherd went over to the phones and tapped in his pin code followed by the number for Uncle Richard. A man answered.
'Richard, it's Bob,' said Shepherd. 'I'm calling to see how everything went.'
'He had visitors but he wasn't in.'
'Anyone we know?'
'We're on the case.'
'But no one known?'
'No one obvious.'
'And our man's well?'
'Fine and dandy. And you?'
'As well as can be expected,' said Shepherd. 'Tell Sam that the Walkman's working fine, but I've nothing worth listening to yet.'
'I'll tell him,' said the man. 'Do you need anything else?'
Shepherd tapped the receiver against his head. What he needed was to be on the out with his son. But first he needed Carpenter on tape, incriminating himself. And that was all down to Shepherd. 'No,' he said. 'I've got everything I need.' He replaced the receiver and went back to cleaning the floor.
Carpenter waited until an hour after lock-up before he took the Nokia from its hiding place in his stereo and phoned Fletcher. His man had obviously been waiting for the call because he answered it on the first ring. 'You've got a major fucking problem, boss. There's a grass in there.'
'What the hell are you talking about, Kim?'
'Mackie talked about a guy in prison. He only refers to him in passing, but he says he's got balls of steel. "Twentyfour hours a day among some of the hardest bastards in the realm" is what Mackie said. His name's Shepherd.'
'Why didn't Yates tell you about this?'
'It was a throwaway line, boss. Easy to miss unless you know
the context.'
'That's all you've got?'
'I ran it by Ryan. And he came up trumps.'
Malcolm Ryan cost Carpenter upwards of a hundred grand a year but he was one of his most useful police sources. He worked in the Metropolitan Police payroll and pensions office and had access to the Met's personnel records. Carpenter was grateful that Fletcher had used his initiative rather than waiting for the go-ahead to contact Ryan. 'What did he say?'
'Said there's a Daniel Shepherd who worked for the Met for a year but who was seconded to some Home Office undercover unit.'
'Have you a picture?' asked Carpenter.
'Got better than that, boss. Ryan sent me a copy of his file.'
'Get it to me, Kim. You paid off Lewis?'
'Got the money to him,' said Fletcher. 'Did it through a courier. No link back to us, guaranteed.'
'Good man. Don't go near him again, not even a phone call. Persona bloody non grata.'
Carpenter cut the connection and put the phone away. He smiled savagely. As soon as he found out who the grass was, he'd take care of him. Permanently.
The next day the newspapers and mail weren't delivered until after dinner. Carpenter was lying on his back listening to Mozart on his headphones when Healey appeared at his cell door with his papers and two letters, one from Bonnie, the other from his lawyers. Both had been slit open. All his mail, incoming and outgoing, went through the prison censors. 'Short-staffed again,' said Healey. 'Lot of lead-swinging at the moment.'
'Gym's still on?'
'Yeah. The problem's over at admin,' said Healey. He left and Carpenter pushed the door shut.
The manila envelope was inside the Guardian. Unlike the posted mail, it was sealed. Carpenter opened it. There were three sheets of A4 paper, a printout of a computer file. There was a name at the top of the first sheet. Daniel Shepherd. There was a photograph in the top left-hand corner. As he recognised the man Carpenter swore. Bob Macdonald. Bob fucking Macdonald. Carpenter felt a surge of anger. He'd talked to the man, shared confidences with him. And everything Macdonald had said had been a lie. It had been a set-up, right from the start. Bob Macdonald was Daniel Shepherd, and Daniel Shepherd was a lying, cheating undercover cop.
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