Spider Shepherd 10 - True Colours

by Leather, Stephen

  ‘Can you do the GPS thing with the mobile?’ asked Shepherd.

  Harper nodded and pulled out a cheap Samsung phone. He switched it on and scrolled through the menu. ‘What the hell did we do before mobiles?’ he asked.

  ‘We’d have drawn a map with a cross on it,’ said Shepherd. ‘Seriously.’

  Harper laughed, tapped on the screen and showed it to Shepherd. ‘All done,’ he said.

  ‘Bring your spade,’ said Shepherd, and he headed back to the van. Harper followed him. They tossed the spades into the back of the van and closed the doors. Harper took a deep breath. ‘I’ll be glad when this is over,’ he said.

  ‘Me too,’ agreed Shepherd.

  ‘But it needs to be done, right?’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘No question about that,’ he said.

  Shepherd had just got back to his Hampstead flat when his phone rang. It was Button. ‘Sorry to bother you so late, but our interrogation boys have come back to me about the lie detector idea,’ said Button. ‘They seem to think that it’s workable. The latest equipment is a lot more reliable than it used to be, and they’ve had some quite noticeable successes over the last few months.’

  ‘OK …’ said Shepherd, hesitantly.

  ‘They came up with quite a clever idea, I think. If Grechko says that he’s had an expensive watch gone missing, he could request that all his staff be put through a lie detector. Everyone, his cooks, maids, serving staff, cleaners – and the security staff, of course. Now, because nobody has actually stolen the watch, everyone should pass with flying colours. But our guys can put in a few general questions, such as “Have you ever given details about the security arrangements at the house to anyone else”, and that should show up anyone who is helping our elusive killer. But in a way that doesn’t raise any suspicions. What do you think?’

  ‘I guess so,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘You don’t sound convinced.’

  ‘No, it’s not a bad idea. You’re right, if the maids and cleaners are done first, the bodyguards won’t realise it’s about them. What about the timing?’

  ‘That’s the problem, of course,’ said Button. ‘It’s best if the same operator performs all the tests. It maintains consistency. And each test will take at least half an hour.’

  ‘Grechko has a big staff.’

  ‘Exactly. Including gardeners and maintenance workers, we’re looking at about fifty people. Assuming two an hour, ten hours a day, it’ll take three days to clear them all. And that’s pretty hard going for the operator. It can be as stressful for them as for the people taking the test, it requires a lot of concentration.’

  ‘And we can’t put all the new bodyguards in the first day because that would look suspicious.’

  ‘Perhaps not. We could say that we’re doing the new arrivals first.’

  ‘Except that if anyone was stealing it’d be more likely to be the cleaning staff or the serving staff.’

  ‘I agree, it’s a difficult line to tread. But we’re not having much luck on the phone front and I do worry that if we don’t do something, the killer might try again. I’m going to run this by Mr Grechko first thing in the morning and if he’s agreeable I’ll get our lie detector guy out there in the afternoon. Strike while the iron’s hot. If there’s anyone you think should be looked at urgently, feel free to put the names forward.’

  ‘Will do,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘OK, we’ll talk tomorrow. Sleep tight.’

  The line went dead and Shepherd put down the phone. He couldn’t go to sleep yet. He had to shower to get rid of the New Forest dirt and then he had to put his clothes through the washing machine, twice. And his boots had to be thoroughly cleaned to remove all traces of what he had been doing that night.

  Shepherd arrived at the house at seven and got to the briefing room to find that the chef had delivered a plate of egg and bacon rolls, a large bowl of creamy kedgeree and a plate of croissants. McIntyre was already tucking into a roll and he grinned at Shepherd. ‘You didn’t tell me how good the scoff was,’ he said.

  ‘Scoff?’ repeated Popov, who was sitting at the head of the table with a notepad in front of him.

  ‘Food,’ translated Shepherd.

  Grigory Sokolov was making coffee and he looked over at Shepherd. Shepherd flashed a thumbs-up in answer to the unspoken question and Sokolov handed him a mug of coffee.

  ‘What’s today looking like?’ Shepherd asked Popov.

  ‘Quiet,’ said Popov. ‘We have three visitors during the day, and four guests for dinner. I’ll run all the details by you but they have all been here before.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Where the hell is Leo? He’ll be late for his own funeral.’ At the exact moment he finished speaking the door opened and Tarasov appeared. He apologised for his lateness and sat down, pushing his Oakleys up on top of his head.

  After the briefing, Shepherd went out into the garden and called Shortt. ‘Tomorrow, is tomorrow good for you?’ he asked Shortt.

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Shortt. ‘How did you get on last night?’

  ‘Lex had me doing most of the manual work but we’ve got it done. We’ve got the van sorted and the guns. So we need to do it as soon as possible.’

  ‘Why not today?’

  ‘I’ve got a lot on and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get away. But tomorrow should be good and I’ll send Jock over to yours during the day.’

  ‘I’ll make sure the little woman’s playing golf,’ said Shortt.

  ‘See you tomorrow, then.’ Shepherd ended the call. He looked at his watch. It was just after half past eight. He figured that it would be late morning at least before he heard from Button so he changed into his running gear and went for a run on Hampstead Heath for the best part of an hour.

  When he returned to the house he showered and changed and went back to the security centre, where McIntyre was monitoring the CCTV monitors. ‘This is one hell of a system,’ he said to Shepherd, nodding at the screens.

  ‘The best that money can buy,’ said Shepherd. ‘It switches to IR at night, and all the cameras are motion and heat sensitive. Where’s Popov?’

  ‘Grechko wanted to see him.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  McIntyre shook his head. Shepherd went into the briefing room to make himself a coffee. He was just adding milk when Popov stormed in. ‘You won’t believe this,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ said Shepherd, even though he had a pretty good idea what was upsetting the man.

  ‘The boss has lost a watch. And he thinks it’s been stolen.’

  ‘I would think he could live without a watch,’ said Shepherd.

  Popov busied himself at the coffee machine. ‘Not this one,’ he said. ‘It’s a Patek Philippe worth four million dollars.’

  Shepherd whistled. ‘Four million dollars?’

  ‘It’s one of his favourites. He’s had it for years. He said it was in his study yesterday and went missing some time in the afternoon.’

  ‘Is he calling in the cops?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘He’s got a better idea. He’s bringing in a lie detector expert and he wants everyone in the house to be tested. And he wants you in there supervising.’

  ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Because you’re a cop and for some reason he trusts you more than me. I have to say, Tony, this really pisses me off.’ He turned to face Shepherd. ‘It’s as if he doesn’t trust me. Does he think I stole his bloody watch?’

  ‘It’s more that he wants an outsider supervising,’ said Shepherd. ‘Someone impartial.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’ll be the first one to be tested, that’s for sure.’ He grimaced and sat down. ‘I’ll tell you this much, when I find out who stole the watch, I’ll personally castrate them.’

  The lie detector expert arrived at just after three. His name was Jules Lee and he was Chinese but spoke English with a strong Newcastle accent. He was driving a Volvo estate and, to show his displeasure, Popov insisted that Sokolov and Tarasov searched Lee and his
car thoroughly and checked his ID before allowing him to drive into the underground parking area. Shepherd went with him. ‘They’re letting us use the library for the tests,’ said Shepherd. ‘Is there anything you need?’

  ‘I’ve got everything with me,’ said Lee. He was a small man, barely over five feet, and was sitting on a cushion to see over the steering wheel. It was difficult to judge his age as his face was almost unnaturally smooth and devoid of wrinkles or blemishes, but there were dark liver spots on his hands that suggested he was in his fifties. He was wearing round wire-framed glasses and a grey suit and had a thin gold wedding band.

  ‘What about a translator?’ asked Shepherd. ‘Is it better to do it in English or Russian?’ He pointed to a parking space.

  ‘Either will be fine,’ said Lee, reversing into the space. ‘I’m fluent in both.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  Lee grinned. ‘I speak six languages,’ he said. ‘What can I say? I had a tiger mother. She wasn’t above paddling my backside if I didn’t remember a hundred new words by bedtime.’

  ‘And Charlie’s explained everything?’

  Lee nodded and switched off the engine. ‘It’s an interesting one,’ he said. ‘Challenging.’

  Shepherd took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and gave it to Lee. ‘These are the six who joined Grechko’s security team after the sniping attempt,’ he said. ‘Max Barsky, Thomas Lisko, Alina Podolski, Viktor Alexsandrov, Timofei Domashevich and Yakov Gunter. Of the six I think that Domashevich is the …’

  Lee held up his hand. ‘Best not to influence me,’ he said.

  ‘Understood,’ said Shepherd. ‘Did Charlie explain that we need to question those six at random so that no one realises they are being singled out?’

  ‘She did,’ said Lee. He put the paper in his pocket, popped the rear door and climbed out of the car. Popov came walking down the ramp towards them.

  ‘He doesn’t seem happy,’ said Lee, opening the rear door.

  ‘His nose is a bit out of joint, but he’s OK,’ said Shepherd.

  Lee’s equipment was in two metal cases and he insisted that he carry them both. Popov led the way to the lift. He pressed his thumb against the scanner, entered his four-digit code and walked into the lift first.

  When they arrived at the ground floor, Popov led them along to the library. Two tables had been set up in the middle of the room with two high-backed chrome and leather chairs. ‘Do you need anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘This will be fine,’ said Lee, placing the two cases on one of the tables. ‘I would like a glass of water if you have it, and perhaps green tea?’

  ‘I’m not a fucking butler,’ said Popov, but he put up a hand in apology when Shepherd glared at him. ‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you tea and water.’

  He left the room and Shepherd watched as Lee assembled his equipment. Shepherd wasn’t sure what to expect – he’d seen polygraphs in movies and they always had lots of needles moving across graph paper, but Lee’s kit seemed to be a regular laptop, albeit in a brushed stainless steel case. Lee connected two rubber straps to the computer, and several other attachments, which he laid out on the second table.

  Popov returned with a tray on which there was a bottle of water and a glass of ice, and a handleless cup with steaming green tea. He put the tray on the table and sat down. ‘You can do me first,’ he said.

  ‘I have a list to work through,’ said Lee as he tapped on his keyboard.

  ‘If you are to question any members of my team, you will do me first,’ said Popov.

  Lee looked over at Shepherd, and Shepherd nodded. Lee fastened the rubber straps around Popov’s barrel-like chest, attached a white clip to his left index finger and asked him to remove his tie and open his shirt. Popov did as asked and Lee dabbed two electrodes with gel and placed them on his shoulder blades.

  ‘OK?’ said Popov, as Lee went to sit in the chair and looked at his computer. ‘Right? I did not steal Mr Grechko’s fucking watch. I have never stolen a fucking watch. I will never steal a fucking watch.’ He scowled at Lee. ‘Are we done?’

  Lee looked at him over the top of his glasses. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t quite as simple as that,’ he said.

  Monotok woke with a start, his heart racing. He stared up at the ceiling and took slow deep breaths. He’d always had bad dreams but the nightmares were visiting him more often now and he didn’t understand why that would be. Three of the men were dead and the fourth would be dead soon and he had always believed that killing them would end the nightmares.

  The dreams were never the same, not exactly. But they always involved the death of his parents, or the man who had taken care of him after they had died – Boronin, the farmer.

  Monotok was six years old when the Berlin Wall had fallen. He’d watched it happen on television with his mother and father, and his father had told him then that the world – their world – was about to change for ever. Monotok wasn’t called the Hammer back then, of course, he was little Kirill, a sickly child who caught every bug going, with pale skin and spindly arms and legs that never seemed to get any stronger no matter how much food his mother forced down him. ‘Kirill, soon the world will open up to us Russians, and we must be ready to take advantage of it.’ Monotok’s father was the manager of a steel factory some two hundred miles east of Moscow, a huge hellish place of flames and smoke that always filled Monotok with a mixture of dread and awe whenever his father took him to visit.

  It seemed to the young boy that the factory was staffed by giants, big men stained with soot and sweat with bulging muscles and rippling chests who communicated with nods and grunts but who smiled whenever they saw how scared he was, hiding from them behind his father’s legs.

  Monotok was eight when the Soviet Union fell apart, and again his father had tried to explain the significance of the monumental event. He had chosen his words carefully, because even as the Soviet Union collapsed, the KGB were still everywhere and the state came down heavily on dissenters. Monotok remembered little about what his father had said, other than that he was excited about the prospect of being given more responsibility at work and that the government would let him run the factory the way he wanted to. His father had big plans, he wanted to expand the factory, seek out export markets, and increase the wages of his staff. All of it would happen in time, he promised his son, all they had to do was to wait and see.

  What Mark Luchenko didn’t know was that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent demise of the Soviet Union would result not in a capitalist boost for his factory but in his own death and the death of his wife, Monotok’s mother.

  Monotok was orphaned shortly after his ninth birthday. His uncle took him away from the house and they never returned. By the age of ten, Monotok had been ‘adopted’ by a farmer, Sergei Boronin, a widower who bought Monotok from his uncle for fifty roubles, as if he was mere livestock.

  Boronin’s farm, little more than a smallholding, was in a remote area, beyond the Ural Mountains, a thousand miles east of Moscow. He proved to be a vodka-sodden, petty tyrant who beat Monotok, kept him out of school and used him as virtual slave labour on his farm. If Monotok complained or didn’t work fast enough, or if Boronin was angry or hung over from one of the vodka-fuelled binges that followed his weekly visits to the small town where he sold his animals and bought his supplies, Monotok would get another brutal beating.

  There was worse to come. One night Boronin returned drunk as usual from a trip to town. Monotok was already in bed, and when he heard his bedroom door open, he pretended to be asleep, fearing another beating. There was the shuffling sound of Boronin’s footsteps and then a creak as he sat down on the edge of the bed. He spent some time looking down at the boy and then the blanket was pulled aside and Monotok felt the farmer’s calloused hand on his thigh. He lay motionless, still trying to feign sleep, though his heart was pounding. He heard the rustle of fabric as Boronin fumbled with his trousers and then the farmer’s weight was on him
, crushing him and pinning him down, and a moment later the boy felt a burning, agonising pain.

  That brutal ritual became such a regular part of his life that he grew to dread the sky darkening into evening because he knew what the night would bring. At first it was just Boronin himself, but after a few weeks, other men began to appear at the isolated cabin in the forest, bringing a bottle of vodka and perhaps a couple of roubles for the farmer. Monotok would hear voices and the clink of glasses, and then his door would open and a figure would be outlined against the glow of light from the kitchen where Boronin still sat, pouring himself another drink.

  Monotok ran away twice but both times was found by the police, who ignored his tearful pleas and protests and returned him to his guardian. Each time, after the police had drunk Boronin’s vodka and gone, Boronin would wrap the end of his belt around his fist and beat the boy almost senseless.

  In the end Monotok became numbed to everything that happened to him. The beatings and the nightly abuse became just another part of his life, as hard, unvarying and predictable as the work of feeding and mucking out the animals that he had to carry out. But, although now outwardly calm and resigned to his fate, inside he burned with dreams of revenge.

  He was patient – he had to be – but every day he schemed, planned and prepared for his opportunity. Although Boronin worked him like a dog, Monotok used what little spare time he had to further build his strength and stamina, taking long runs through the taiga – the forest that spread unbroken across northern Russia, spanning nine time zones – and using logs, buckets of water and large stones as primitive weights.

  On the rare occasions when Boronin took Monotok with him to town, he grabbed the chance to toughen himself and hone his fighting skills by picking fights with much bigger boys. Inevitably he took a few beatings at first but kicks and blows were too familiar to him to be a concern, and before long, he was flattening any boy who got in his way, landing his blows with a cold, cruel calculation, his pulse rate barely rising above normal as he beat them into submission and then laid them out with a final brutal punch or kick.