Cold Kill

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Why the hell did they let that happen?’

  ‘They couldn’t have stopped him. He bit his wrist open. Gnawed through a vein.’

  Shepherd cursed under his breath.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Spider.’

  ‘Like hell it wasn’t,’ hissed Shepherd. ‘I told him we’d found the cans.’

  ‘We’re not sure that’s why he did it.’

  ‘What? You think he just got depressed and decided to top himself? He did it because he knew we were on to him. Which means he was more scared of them than he was of us.’ Shepherd slammed his hand on the counter.

  ‘We couldn’t have known he’d react like that,’ said Hargrove. ‘And whether or not we told him we’d found the money, it would have come out eventually. It wasn’t our fault. The moment the Pernaskas paid for passage on Pepper’s boat, that money was going to turn up.’

  Shepherd bit his lower lip. The superintendent was right. Shepherd had just been the bearer of the bad news. If Rudi hadn’t heard it from him, he’d have heard it from someone else. But that didn’t make the man’s suicide any easier to accept. He remembered how grateful he had been when he came to see Shepherd in the hospital ward. And how the man’s wife had kissed his hand. And how they’d promised that their daughter Jessica would never forget the name of the man who’d saved her life. Except that the name Shepherd had given them had been a lie. It had all been a lie.

  ‘What’s next?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ll talk to the wife,’ said Hargrove.

  ‘Widow,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s a widow now. You’ll talk to the widow.’

  Hargrove sighed. ‘I know you’re upset, Spider.’

  ‘I’m sorry. They were nice people, that’s all. They just wanted a better life and now he’s dead and the kid’s lost her father.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do to change that. All we can do now is go after the guys he was afraid of. Chances are that he was coerced into carrying the money. The way you tell it, he might not have known there was cash in those cans. It’s not a problem. I’ll get a female officer to talk to the wife, find out what she knows.’

  ‘She doesn’t speak English,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘We’ll fix up an interpreter,’ said Hargrove.

  Shepherd sighed. ‘Maybe I should be the one to talk to her,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not your problem.’

  ‘She might respond to me. She’s grateful because I saved her daughter. And I doubt that she thinks I’m anything to do with her husband’s suicide.’

  ‘We haven’t told her yet,’ said Hargrove.

  ‘What?’

  ‘As soon as she knows he’s dead, she’ll shut down,’ said Hargrove. ‘We’ll get nothing out of her. We’ll interview her first, then tell her. It has to be that way.’

  ‘It’s one hell of a world, isn’t it?’ said Shepherd.

  ‘We don’t make the rules,’ said Hargrove. ‘We just play by them. There’s nothing we can do to bring him back, but we can go after the men who put the family in harm’s way.’

  ‘And what happens then? She and her kid get sent back?’

  ‘If she helps us, we can fast-track her to a residency visa,’ said Hargrove.

  ‘And if she can’t?’

  ‘Then we’ll do what we can. If she’s a genuine Kosovan, there’s a good chance she’ll get refugee status anyway.’

  ‘We owe her,’ said Shepherd. ‘However this pans out, we owe her.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Hargrove. ‘I’ll do what I can, I promise.’

  ‘When do we do it?’

  ‘The sooner the better,’ said Hargrove. ‘I’ll get Sharpe to pick you up. She’s still at the hospital so we can do the interview there. I’ll find a room and an interpreter.’

  Shepherd did the calculations. It was a four-hour run up to Newcastle, even if the traffic was good. An hour for the interview. Maybe two. Four hours back. With the best will in the world he wouldn’t be home before midnight. He’d have to take a raincheck with the major. ‘I’ll be ready,’ he said. ‘How do I play it?’

  ‘Dead straight,’ said Hargrove. ‘Short of telling her that you’re an undercover cop, of course. Tell her you’re co-operating with the police, tell her we’ll help her stay in the country if she helps us.’

  ‘Okay,’ agreed Shepherd. ‘Will you be there?’

  ‘Your call.’

  ‘I guess I don’t need back-up,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s not as if she’s likely to turn nasty. By the way, the lovely Doctor Gift dropped by this morning.’

  ‘Must be that time of the year again.’

  ‘Nothing to do with you?’

  ‘You’re due your biannual check, aren’t you?’

  ‘Just so long as that’s all it is,’ said Shepherd. ‘I thought maybe you’d sent her to see if I was suicidal after my dip in the sea.’

  ‘You’re not, are you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘There you are, then. How did it go?’

  ‘She thinks I should get out more.’

  ‘She might be right. Call me when you’ve done the interview.’

  Shepherd cut the connection and called the major. He asked if they could reschedule their meeting for the following evening and Gannon agreed. Then Shepherd went upstairs and changed back into his Tony Corke clothes.

  The interpreter was waiting for them outside the hospital, sitting behind the wheel of a six-year-old Ford Ka. She was a middle-aged woman, with permed hair and thick-lensed glasses, and introduced herself as Lyn. She didn’t offer a surname and Shepherd didn’t ask. He and Sharpe shook hands with her.

  ‘You speak Kosovan?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘I speak seven languages fluently,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘and I can get by in another four.’

  Shepherd was impressed. His trick memory was good for facts and faces, but it was of little help when it came to languages. He could memorise vocabulary without any problems but speaking a foreign language was more about comprehension and grammar. ‘We need to talk to a woman called Edita about some items that were found in her belongings.’

  ‘Edita?’ Lyn took a packet of Silk Cut from her coat pocket and lit a cigarette with a cheap plastic lighter.

  ‘Something wrong?’ asked Shepherd.

  Lyn shrugged. ‘It is not a usual Kosovan name,’ she said, ‘but never mind. She’s an illegal?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘That’s usually why I’m called in,’ she said. ‘Immigration cases, mainly. Asylum-seekers.’

  Shepherd had been trying to place her accent, but without success. She spoke English with the same clarity as a BBC newsreader but he had the feeling she was from somewhere in Central or Eastern Europe. ‘She was trying to get into the country, but our interest is purely in what she had with her.’

  Lyn took a long pull on her cigarette. ‘Let me finish this first,’ she said. ‘They don’t let you smoke in hospitals.’

  Shepherd and Sharpe waited until she had stubbed out the cigarette, then walked into the hospital. Sharpe showed his warrant card at Reception and went back to Shepherd and Lyn. ‘The little girl’s out of Intensive Care,’ he said. ‘Her mother’s with her, on the third floor.’

  They took the lift and Sharpe led the way to the room. It was similar to the one Shepherd had been kept in, but there was no uniformed policeman standing guard.

  Edita was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her daughter’s hand. She smiled when she saw Shepherd, who smiled back.

  Jessica was lying on her back, asleep, her arms on top of the blankets. There were no monitoring instruments, no drips, just a little girl asleep in bed.

  ‘Pretty girl,’ said Lyn. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She nearly drowned,’ said Sharpe, closing the door and standing with his back to it. ‘The doctors say she’ll be fine.’

  Lyn spoke to Edita, but she turned away and brushed a lock of hair away fr
om her daughter’s face.

  ‘Tell her we need to talk to her about some money that was found among her belongings,’ said Shepherd.

  Lyn translated. Edita didn’t reply.

  ‘Edita, please, if you co-operate with the police they’ll do everything they can to let you stay in the country,’ said Shepherd.

  Again, Lyn translated. Once again, the woman refused even to acknowledge her presence.

  Shepherd exhaled deeply. ‘Ask her what’s wrong.’

  Lyn spoke again, but was ignored. She frowned and went to stand next to Edita. She put a hand gently on the woman’s shoulder and spoke softly. Edita flinched, then shook her head. Lyn said something else and this time the woman replied.

  Lyn walked back to Shepherd. ‘I know what the problem is,’ she said. ‘She’s not from Kosovo. She’s Albanian.’

  ‘Do you speak Albanian?’

  ‘Enough to get by,’ said Lyn. ‘Probably enough for what you need.’

  Shepherd nodded. The family had Kosovan passports: if they were Albanian their travel documents must be forgeries. Or stolen. ‘Tell her we need to talk to her now. I’m happy to do it here so that she can be near her daughter, but if she doesn’t start talking we’ll take her to an office.’ He forced a smile. ‘Don’t make it sound as threatening as that.’

  Lyn spoke to Edita again. Edita turned to Shepherd and said something in Albanian. It sounded very different from Kosovan, but Shepherd couldn’t understand a word of either language.

  ‘She wants to know if you’ve spoken to her husband,’ said Lyn.

  ‘Yes,’ said Shepherd, nodding.

  Edita spoke again. ‘You must speak to her husband about this,’ said Lyn. ‘She says it is nothing to do with her.’

  ‘Tell her that the police need to check the information they have.’

  Lyn translated, but Edita simply shrugged.

  ‘Do you want to try good-cop-bad-cop?’ asked Sharpe.

  Shepherd shook his head. The woman had been through enough, and soon she would learn that her husband had killed himself. ‘Ask her if she knew that there was money in the oil cans,’ he told Lyn.

  Lyn translated. Edita answered angrily.

  ‘She says it was nothing to do with her. They met only her husband, and her husband told her not to talk about it.’

  ‘They? Who does she mean?’

  Lyn translated. Edita snapped back.

  ‘Two men in France. They met her husband before they got on to the boat.’

  ‘Why would he agree to take something on board? Did they threaten him? Or the little girl?’

  This time the conversation went back and forth a few times before Lyn offered a translation: ‘She doesn’t know who the men were, but they were gangsters. There was no need to make any threats because they didn’t have enough money to pay for their passage to England. The husband was told that if he carried the cans with him they would make up the difference. She guessed there wasn’t oil in them but her husband said she was to mind her own business.’

  ‘Would she recognise them if we showed her photographs?’

  Lyn translated, and Edita shook her head firmly.

  ‘And she didn’t know what was in the cans?’

  Lyn spoke to Edita, who waved her away. Lyn looked to Shepherd for guidance. He sighed. It was pointless asking her any more. And he didn’t think there was any point in taking the woman away for further questioning. ‘Let’s call it a day,’ he said. ‘Tell her we’re through here.’

  Lyn spoke to Edita, who nodded, then got up and went to Shepherd. ‘Mr Corke, we thank you,’ she said, in halting English. She grabbed his hand and pressed the palm against her cheek. ‘Thank you.’ Then she said something to Lyn. ‘She wants to see her husband,’ said the interpreter.

  ‘Later,’ said Shepherd. ‘Tell her later.’

  Shepherd untangled his hand and followed Sharpe out of the room. A wave of guilt washed over him. He wanted to tell Edita the truth, that her husband was dead, but he knew that the job of breaking the bad news was better left to professionals, to men and women who could offer therapy and support. Even if he had told her, what would he have done when she’d broken down? Held her and told her that everything would be all right? Patted her back and told her that time healed all wounds? He was finding it hard enough to come to terms with the loss of his wife and had no idea what to say to a woman whose husband had just killed himself.

  Lyn followed them out of the room. ‘Why does she think your name’s Corke?’ she asked, as they walked down the corridor.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘He’s a man of mystery,’ growled Sharpe. ‘Just leave it at that.’

  Shepherd phoned Hargrove on his mobile as soon as he climbed into the Vectra. ‘They’re Albanians, not Kosovans,’ he said. ‘Their passports need a going-over with any other documents they had. They told me they’re called Rudi and Edita, and the interpreter says they’re Albanian names. I’m guessing they won’t be the names on the passports.’

  ‘Did she tell you anything else?’

  ‘Her husband spoke to some men in France before they got on to the trawler. They gave him the oil cans. She asked him what they needed the oil for and he said it was nothing to do with her, and that it was helping to pay for their passage to England.’

  ‘What did she think was in the cans? Drugs?’

  ‘She says she didn’t think anything. Her husband told her not to question him, and she’s a woman who obeys her husband.’

  ‘She’s lucky it wasn’t heroin. If it was, we’d have a hard job keeping her out of prison. So, she’s no idea what he was supposed to do with the cans once they were in the UK?’

  ‘She says not. She could be lying, but I doubt it. She just wanted a new life in the UK and didn’t much care what she did to achieve it.’

  ‘I’m going to get Forensics to examine everything. I can’t see that they’d have expected her husband to remember the contact details, not with a million euros at stake, so there must be an address or phone number somewhere.’

  ‘Who’s going to tell her about her husband?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘I’ve got someone from one of the refugee charities on their way,’ said Hargrove. ‘They’ll break the news, fix her up with somewhere to stay, legal advice, the full monty. She’ll be in good hands, Spider. I promise. Get a decent night’s sleep and I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  Shepherd cut the connection, sat back and closed his eyes as Sharpe powered down the motorway. When he opened them again, they were driving up the road towards his house. All the lights were off. Shepherd cursed.

  ‘What?’ said Sharpe.

  ‘I didn’t call Liam. I promised I’d take him to play football.’

  ‘He’ll understand,’ said Sharpe. ‘He’s a cop’s son.’ He brought the car to a gentle stop in front of Shepherd’s house.

  ‘It was a pinkie promise,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A pinkie promise. We linked little fingers.’

  ‘Right …’

  ‘The sort of promise you can’t break.’

  ‘Except you did.’

  Shepherd smiled sarcastically. ‘See? You do understand.’

  ‘He’s a kid,’ said Sharpe. ‘Kids know that dads do their best.’

  ‘Cheers, Razor.’ Shepherd punched his arm and climbed out of the Vectra. Sharpe drove away as he walked up to the front door and let himself in.

  He switched on the hall light, padded upstairs and pushed open the door to Liam’s bedroom. His heart lurched when he saw that his son’s bed was empty, the quilt thrown to one side. He switched on the light and glanced round the room, then hurried to the bathroom. Liam wasn’t there. Shepherd’s heart raced and he fought to quell rising panic. If anything had happened, Katra would have phoned him. He took a deep breath, headed for her room and opened the door. Liam was curled up next to Katra, who was lying on top of the quilt in flannelette pyjamas, one arm round the child, her hai
r a dark curtain over the pillow. She opened her eyes as the light from the hallway fell across her face.

  She opened her mouth to speak but Shepherd smiled and pressed his index finger to his lips, then closed the door. He went to his room, pulled off his clothes and showered. He still felt bad about not calling Liam, but at least he had until morning to think of some way to make it up to him.

  It was just after eleven when Shepherd woke. He changed into his running gear and went downstairs. Katra had heard him and had a mug of strong coffee waiting for him. ‘I didn’t hear you guys get up,’ he said.

  ‘Liam went in to say good morning but you were fast asleep,’ she said, as she unloaded the dishwasher. ‘You must have been tired.’

  ‘I’ve had a rough few days,’ he said. He took several gulps of coffee. ‘I had to go back up north. Unfinished business.’

  ‘You work too hard,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know about hard, but I’m certainly putting in more than my fair share of hours.’

  ‘Can’t you transfer to an office job, with more regular hours?’

  That was exactly what Sue had always said. Undercover work was dangerous and meant long hours away from home. But the overtime payments were generous and he knew he’d never get the same satisfaction sitting behind a desk. ‘It’s what I do, Katra,’ he said. That had always been his answer to Sue, even though he knew it was more excuse than explanation. He could have done other jobs within the police – he still could. He could even go back to the SAS as an instructor. The major had made clear to him that an offer to join the Directing Staff was always on the table.

  ‘I know Liam wishes he could spend more time with you,’ said Katra.

  ‘It’s just been a busy period, that’s all,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll be around over the weekend. Most of it.’ He drained his mug and put it into the sink.

  ‘Do you want breakfast?’ asked Katra.

  Shepherd grabbed his rucksack and headed for the door. ‘I’ll eat when I get back,’ he said.

  Shepherd was lying on the sofa watching a black-and-white cowboy movie when he heard Katra walking down the hallway. He looked at his watch and realised she was going to pick up Liam from school. ‘Katra!’ he called. ‘Hang on a minute.’ He switched off the television and hurried into the hallway. ‘I’ll fetch Liam.’ He held out his hands for the car keys.