Soft Target: The Second Spider Shepherd Thriller (A Dan Shepherd Mystery)

by Stephen Leather

  Sewell reread the chief constable’s letter. ‘The twenty-five grand’s mine whatever happens?’

  ‘Providing you co-operate.’

  ‘And if I come to you after this is over and tell you that as a result of that shit Hendrickson being in charge of my company I’m a hundred grand down, the Greater Manchester Police will write me a cheque to cover the loss?’

  ‘That’s what the letter says,’ said Hargrove. ‘The chief constable might want to see a breakdown of your losses, but I can’t see him going back on his word.’

  ‘All right, then.’

  ‘You’re okay to lie low for the rest of this week?’ asked Hargrove.

  ‘Yes, but not here,’ said Sewell. ‘I want an upgrade.’

  ‘I don’t think that’ll be a problem. We’ll move you tomorrow.’

  ‘Five stars.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Hargrove wearily.

  ‘A suite. Not a room.’

  Hargrove nodded.

  ‘And sex,’ Sewell added.

  ‘I’m going to have to draw the line there, Mr Sewell,’ said the superintendent.

  ‘I’ve had nothing but my right hand for company,’ said Sewell. ‘That’s a cruel and unusual punishment in my book.’

  ‘I can’t risk you meeting a girlfriend,’ said Hargrove. ‘It’s only four or five more days.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have to be a girlfriend,’ said Sewell. ‘I’d use an escort agency. They’ll send a girl round. I’ll make sure it’s not one I’ve had before.’

  Hargrove rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Okay,’ he said wearily.

  ‘And the sergeant uses his money to pay for it.’

  ‘For God’s sake, man!’ said Hargrove.

  Sewell shrugged. ‘I can’t use my credit cards, can I?’ he said. ‘Besides, if the chief constable wants me to be happy, he’ll pay.’

  Hargrove stood up. ‘I think I’d better go before you take the shirt off my back,’ he said.

  ‘It wouldn’t fit,’ said Sewell, grinning, ‘but I’ll have the tie.’

  Angie Kerr climbed out of the shower and stood watching her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror as she towelled herself dry. The scab on her breast was about to come off and she dabbed it carefully with the edge of her towel. It wasn’t the first time her husband had burned her, but if everything went to plan it would be the last. No more burns, no more slaps, no more punches to the stomach that he knew would hurt but not leave a permanent mark. All his friends knew how he treated her. Sometimes when he abused her in public, she got a sympathetic glance or some small acknowledgement that they knew what she was going through, but they were all too scared of Charlie to say anything.

  Eddie Anderson had come closest to talking to him about it. Charlie had punched her in the stomach while they were in the VIP section of Aces after she’d asked him to stop flirting with one of the waitresses. The girl was a tall, leggy blonde, barely out of her teens, and Charlie had had his hand on her backside, squeezing it as if he was checking a melon for ripeness. The girl was leading him on, flashing her eyes and flicking her hair, and she had known full well that Angie was his wife.

  Angie had waited until she and her husband were alone before she told him she didn’t like him making a fool of her. He’d smiled coldly, then slammed his fist into her belly. She’d been unable to breathe for a minute or so, gasping as tears streamed down her face. Charlie had stood up and walked over to the bar where Eddie and Ray were drinking. Angie had just about recovered her breath when Eddie came over and told her he was to drive her home. Angie didn’t argue. She knew that if she did, her husband would hurt her all the more.

  He had given her his arm, she had taken it gratefully and they had walked out together. Angie would never forget the look of triumph on the waitress’s face. She wondered if the girl knew what Charlie was like, if he ever showed her his violent side. Maybe he only needed one woman to dominate, and it was her bad luck that he’d chosen her. Eddie had helped her into the back of the car, but he didn’t say anything until he was sitting in the front with the engine running. He’d looked at her in the rear-view mirror. ‘Are you all right, Mrs Kerr?’ he’d asked.

  He’d kept looking at her, waiting for her to answer. Angie had wondered what he expected her to say. If she’d said no, she wasn’t, that her husband had hit her one time too many, would he have taken her to hospital? To the police station? Had Charlie asked Eddie to pretend to be concerned to see how she’d react? And if she had told Eddie that she was sick to death of the beatings and the verbal abuse, would he have told Charlie, and would Charlie have made her life more of a misery than it already was?

  ‘The way he treats you, it’s not right,’ Eddie said quietly. This time she had seen concern in his eyes.

  Angie had found herself smiling, even though her stomach felt as if it had burst. ‘I’m okay, Eddie,’ she’d said. ‘I know he loves me really.’

  Eddie had stared at her for several seconds, then put the car into gear. He hadn’t spoken again all the way home, even when he’d walked her to the door.

  Angie towelled her hair dry, brushed it, and sprayed Kenzo perfume around her neck. Charlie liked her to smell good when she got into bed. She turned off the light and walked into the bedroom.

  He was standing by the window, looking up at the moonlit sky. ‘I love you, Peaches,’ he said, without turning.

  She knew he meant it. But ‘love’ didn’t mean the same to Charlie Kerr as it meant to most people. It meant control. It meant ownership. He loved his car. He loved his house. He loved his villa in Spain. And he loved her.

  ‘Come here,’ he said.

  He was naked – he never wore anything in bed and insisted that she didn’t either. She padded across the carpet and slid her arms round his waist, pressing her breasts to his back.

  ‘You’ll never leave me, will you?’ he said.

  The moon was full and looked so close that Angie felt she could almost reach up and grab it. ‘No, Charlie. I’ll never leave you,’ she said.

  ‘You know what would happen if you did?’

  Angie swallowed. She kissed the back of his neck.

  ‘I’d find you,’ he said. ‘I’d track you down and I’d kill you with my bare hands.’

  ‘I know you would,’ she whispered.

  He reached behind and stroked the insides of her thighs. ‘You’re my wife and I love you,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t lose my temper,’ he said.‘I’d just walk away. I wouldn’t care.’He turned and pressed his lips against hers, his tongue forcing its way into her mouth so quickly that she didn’t have time to breathe. She felt herself gag and fought it. The times when he was having sex with her were the most dangerous. If she did the wrong thing, said the wrong thing, even moaned in the wrong way, his caresses turned to punches, his kisses to bites. She let him kiss her hard, and moaned softly, the way he liked. She had to make him think she was enjoying it. He stopped kissing her and held her head in his hands, staring into her eyes. ‘I love you, Angie,’ he said.

  ‘I love you too,’ she said, although it had been a long time since she’d loved him. Now there was just contempt for him in her heart, and hatred. She didn’t want to leave him. She wanted him dead. And Tony Nelson was going to kill him for her.

  Charlie grinned, then turned her so that she was facing the window. He grabbed her wrists and put her arms up against the glass. ‘Open your legs,’ he said.

  Angie did as she was told, and he forced himself inside her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, yes, yes.’ She stared up at the moon and imagined Tony Nelson shooting him in the back of the head with a large handgun. ‘Yes,’ she moaned. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

  Shepherd walked around the ground floor of the house, checking the locks on the windows and doors. He was only going to be away for a couple of days but there had been several opportunistic break-ins in the area, according to a flyer put through his letterbox by
the local crime-prevention officer.

  He’d considered selling the house after Sue’s accident but Liam had protested vociferously. It was Mum’s house and he didn’t want to live anywhere else. Shepherd knew what the boy meant. He’d been the one who’d paid the mortgage but Sue had decided on the décor and furniture and there wasn’t a room that didn’t have her presence in it. Saying goodbye to the house would mean saying goodbye to Sue, and neither he nor Liam was prepared to do that.

  Most of the books on the shelves in the sitting room had been Sue’s and her magazines were in the bathroom. After he’d got back from Manchester he’d cleared Sue’s clothes out of his bedroom into black plastic bags, then left them in the spare room. He couldn’t throw them away.

  One of his mobiles rang and he hurried to the kitchen. It was the one Hargrove used, but a woman’s voice spoke. She introduced herself as Kathy Gift and said that Superintendent Hargrove had suggested she call to arrange an appointment.

  ‘Why?’ he asked. Hargrove hadn’t mentioned her.

  ‘Sorry, I should have said. I’m a psychologist attached to Superintendent Hargrove’s unit,’ she said.

  ‘I said I didn’t want a shrink,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I’m just about to leave for a training exercise.’

  ‘When are you back?’

  ‘A couple of days.’

  ‘Friday?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I’ll be away from London at the weekend whatever happens.’

  ‘Will you call me when you’re back so that we can schedule an appointment?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Shepherd, and cut the connection. He had no intention of meeting her or any other psychologist.

  He looked at his watch and cursed. He’d told the au pair agency he’d be there at ten and he was already a few minutes late. He carried his bags out to the CRV and drove half a mile to the neat row of shops where the agency had its offices above a veterinary surgeon. He parked on a meter, buzzed the intercom and hurried up the stairs.

  The office consisted of two rooms, one with two secretaries surrounded by filing cabinets and a window overlooking the rear yards of the shops, and a larger office for the owner, Sheila Malcolm, BSc. Shepherd knew about the academic qualification as it was on the agency’s letterhead and on the metal plate on the door.

  Shepherd apologised for being late and the secretaries made him wait while Miss Malcolm rearranged her schedule to accommodate him. She was alone in her office when Shepherd was ushered in and he assumed that either she had been on the phone or she was punishing him. He apologised again as he sat down in front of her desk.

  Miss Malcolm tapped on her computer keyboard and looked at the screen over the top of her glasses. ‘You need someone to live in and take care of your home and your young son.’ She was archly elegant in a well-cut two-piece tweed suit. Her dyed auburn hair was perfectly coiffured and her pale pink lipstick had been applied with a surgeon’s precision.

  Shepherd nodded.

  ‘A lot of our girls are reluctant to live in when there isn’t a lady of the house,’ said Miss Malcolm.

  ‘My wife died,’ said Shepherd.

  Miss Malcolm had the grace to blush. She removed her spectacles and let them hang round her neck on a thin silver chain. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said. ‘It’s usually divorced husbands who come to us, and they’re sometimes more trouble than they’re worth.’ She flashed him a smile. ‘I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘My wife died,’ repeated Shepherd, ‘and, as you can see from the form I filled in, I’m a police officer. I think it’s fair to say that I’m a safe bet.’

  ‘Absolutely, Mr Shepherd.’

  ‘My boy is with his grandparents at the moment, but I want live-in help so that he can be with me.’

  ‘A boy should be with his father,’ said Miss Malcolm. She looked at her terminal. ‘You have a room for her, which is good, and a car. How does your son get to school?’

  ‘Car,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘And will you be responsible for the school-run, or will the girl?’

  Shepherd swallowed. Images flashed through his mind. Sue at the wheel of her black VW Golf. Liam in the back seat. Sue twisting to pick up Liam’s backpack. The traffic lights on red. The Golf accelerating. The supermarket lorry.

  ‘Mr Shepherd?’

  Shepherd shook his head. ‘I’d do it when I was in London, but from time to time I’ll be away.’

  ‘You travel a lot?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘So you’d want someone a bit more mature, who could take responsibility for everything in your absence.’

  ‘That sounds good,’ said Shepherd. ‘If possible, I’d prefer them to be British.’

  ‘Ah, these days we have few British girls on our books,’ Miss Malcolm said. ‘It wasn’t always like that, of course. Some of our best girls were filling in time before university. We had Cheltenham Ladies’ College girls, but now they’re either working in Switzerland or trekking across South East Asia. The bulk of our girls are from the new entrants to the EU, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia. I can wholeheartedly recommend the Polish girls. They’re hard workers and trustworthy. We’ve had a few negative experiences with the Slovenians, but we now have them thoroughly checked before we bring them over.’

  Shepherd would have preferred a girl from the UK so that he could run his own check through the Police National Computer, but it sounded as if he wasn’t going to get the chance. ‘Do you have anyone who could start immediately?’

  ‘I have three Polish girls arriving tomorrow, two from Estonia, and I’m having half a dozen applicants interviewed in Slovenia later this week. Nurses. They can earn five times as much in London as au pairs.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Now, I’ll have to check whether they have international driving licences, and I’m not sure whether they want live-in positions. Sometimes they like to stay together. We try to discourage sharing – bad habits spread. But we should have several likely candidates for you to see before the end of the week.’

  ‘And they’re all screened for criminal records?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Miss Malcolm. ‘We insist on a letter from the local police authority saying they haven’t committed any offences, and an HIV-status certificate. We prefer them to have references from previous employers, ideally in the UK. That’s not always possible, of course, as many are coming here for the first time.’

  Shepherd stood up. ‘I’m going to be away for a few days,’ he said. ‘You can get me on my mobile.’

  ‘Going anywhere nice?’ asked Miss Malcolm.

  ‘Not really,’ said Shepherd. ‘Business rather than pleasure.’

  ‘Well, hopefully by the time you get back we’ll have fixed up the perfect young lady for you,’ she said brightly.

  The phone rang and Sewell frowned. He wasn’t allowed to call out and since he’d been in the hotel no one had rung him. He picked up the receiver. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mr Sewell, this is Sergeant Beattie, downstairs.’

  Sewell sighed, expecting bad news.

  ‘If you could have your bag packed, we’d like to move you in about fifteen minutes.’

  Sewell thanked him, then threw his clothes and washbag into the holdall he’d brought with him when the police had picked him up from home on Friday morning. He switched off his laptop, closed it and put it into its nylon bag with the unopened bottle of Bollinger.

  The sergeant knocked on his door and took him downstairs to where a younger officer in plain clothes was waiting at the wheel of a green Rover. Sewell and the sergeant climbed into the back. There was no small-talk during the short drive across the city, but Sewell wasn’t trying to make friends with his custodians.

  The lobby of the hotel to which they took him was a big improvement on his previous accommodation. It was bright and airy, and there were three pretty girls behind the desk who greeted them with smiles. The sergeant handled the check-in, the younger plain-clothes officer carried Sewell’s holdall.

 
A porter showed them to Sewell’s suite. There was a large sitting room with a sofa, two armchairs and a television set three times the size of the one in the previous hotel. There was a DVD player, too. Sewell opened the minibar and grinned. There was a full range of beer, spirits and mixers, and two half-bottles of champagne. It wasn’t Bollinger, but it was drinkable.

  There was another big-screen TV in the bedroom and a king-size bed. The bathroom contained a Jacuzzi and a shower big enough for a rugby team. Sewell’s smile widened. Things were getting better by the minute.

  ‘Is there anything we can get you, sir?’ asked the sergeant.

  Sewell picked up a copy of the room-service menu and flicked through it. Oysters, fillet steak, Dover sole, a full range of French and Italian wines. ‘Hookers,’ he said. ‘Lots and lots of hookers.’

  The guard checked Shepherd’s ID against the computer printout on his clipboard and waved to the far end of the parade-ground.‘If you’d park in bay thirty-two, sir, and head on through the door over there. Major Gannon’s expecting you.’

  Shepherd edged the CRV over the metal teeth that would rip into the tyres of vehicles going the wrong way. He appreciated the ‘sir’ but it didn’t apply to his former rank in the SAS or to his present status as a detective constable with the police.

  He locked the car and went through the door with his overnight bag. Two soldiers in fatigues were standing behind a reception desk. Shepherd showed his ID and one took him down a corridor and knocked on a mahogany door. As he walked in, Major Gannon was already striding across the room, his arm outstretched. ‘You’re looking good, Spider,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, sir. You’re in no bad shape yourself.’ The major was a big man with a strong chin, wide shoulders and a nose that looked as if it had been broken at least once. He had the appearance of an enlisted man rather than the high-flying officer that he was. In all the years Shepherd had known him he had never heard him referred to as a Rupert, the derogatory term troopers used to describe their officers. The major was always ‘the Boss’. Shepherd had gone into battle with him twice, and would have died for him without a second thought.