Authors: Stephen Leather
‘Can’t tel you, Razor. Official Secrets Act and al that.’
‘Screw you.’
Shepherd grinned. ‘It’s okay. It’s not as bureaucratic as SOCA and money never seems to be an issue.’
‘And the lovely Charlotte?’
‘She’s a good boss, Razor, no matter what you think.’
Sharpe put down his glass and raised his hands in surrender. ‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘Put your bloody hands down, you idiot. Charlie’s like Hargrove – she takes any flak that’s flying about.’
‘And tel s you the bare minimum.’
‘It’s the Security Service, Razor. Most of what goes on is on a need-to-know basis.’
‘Yeah? Wel , I like to know exactly why I’m putting my bal s on the line. I can’t abide al that secret squirrel stuff.’ He picked up his glass again.
‘Yeah, maybe I’m not total y in the loop but the money makes up for that,’ said Shepherd. ‘Do you want to talk pay grades? You went back into the Met as a DS?’
‘Detective Inspector,’ said Sharpe, squaring his shoulders. ‘Hargrove pushed through a promotion.’
‘Yeah, wel , DIs don’t get overtime, and trust me, I’m paid a shedload more than you.’
Sharpe chuckled. ‘Next round’s on you, then.’ He drained his glass and banged it down on the counter. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’ Shepherd ordered another round of drinks as Sharpe looked around the pub. ‘So what’s with you and Hampstead?’ he said. ‘Ful of TV producers and poncy writers and lesbians, isn’t it?’
‘Part of my legend,’ said Shepherd. ‘And just in case we bump into anyone who knows me, I’m John Whitehil and I’m a freelance journalist.’
‘Yeah? I’m DI Jimmy Sharpe with the Covert Operations Group.’
‘Very funny, Razor.’
‘This job you’re on, terrorism-related?’
‘Pretty much everything Five does at the moment is,’ said Shepherd.
‘The world’s gone mad,’ said Sharpe. ‘You know that, right? The number of people kil ed in acts of terror in the UK is a smal fraction of the number stabbed and shot every year on our streets. Yet how often do you see cops walking the beat?’
‘Flashing back to your days in Glasgow, huh?’
‘Take the piss al you want, Spider. At least we could stil give a teenager a clip round the ear without being hauled up on charges. I don’t know why anyone joins the police these days. It’s al PC bul shit and paperwork, and you’re as likely to be grassed up by a col eague as you are to be dropped in the shit by a member of the public.’
‘Sounds like you’re ready to quit.’
‘Retire, you mean? I’ve thought about it. But what would I do? Too young for a pipe and slippers.’ He took a long pul on his pint. ‘So Button isn’t worried that Hargrove is going to poach you?’
‘Why would she think that? Hargrove was looking for someone and she figured I’d be the best bet because I’ve worked with Hargrove before.’
Sharpe grinned. ‘Is that what she said? Naughty Charlie. Hargrove asked for you specifical y. Because you’ve worked with him before, but also because of your experience with guns. I figure she didn’t have any choice because the request was made at the top. Just like her to take the credit.’
He shook his head and took another pul on his pint. ‘Women, huh?’
‘I don’t think her sex has anything to do with it, Razor. Anyway, doesn’t real y matter whose idea it was. The important thing is that we pul it off.’
‘Piece of piss,’ said Sharpe. ‘How many times have we done this before?’ He took a deep breath and stretched out his arms. ‘I feel like a curry,’
he said. ‘Any good Indians in this neck of the woods?’
Shepherd got back to his flat just after eleven-thirty. He’d taken Sharpe to the Meghna Tandoori in Heath Street, a short walk from the pub they’d been drinking in. The restaurant was much more upmarket than Sharpe was used to, with minimalist white décor and white high-backed chairs. But the food was terrific and they’d washed the meal down with several bottles of Kingfisher. After Shepherd’s cracks about their relative salaries Sharpe had insisted that Shepherd paid, and then he’d left in a minicab.
Shepherd made himself a coffee before sitting down in front of the television and cal ing Major Al an Gannon, his former commanding officer in the SAS and a long-time friend.
‘Spider, how the hel are you?’ said the Major.
‘Al good, Boss. Can you talk?’
‘The hind legs off a donkey. Where are you?’
‘London. You?’
‘Locked up in Stirling Lines,’ said the Major, referring to the SAS headquarters at Credenhil in Herefordshire.
‘I need a favour,’ said Shepherd, and he ran through the undercover operation that Hargrove was planning.
‘AK-47s aren’t a problem; we’ve stacks of them here. But if you’re playing at arms dealer why not go for the Yugo AK?’
‘You’ve got some?’
The Yugo AK was manufactured by Zastava Arms, a Serbian company, and was the Yugoslavian People’s Army’s assault rifle of choice before the country was ripped apart by civil war. It was a good weapon and many soldiers thought it superior to the Russian Kalashnikov.
‘Loads,’ said the Major. ‘We use it al the time in exercises. I’m pretty sure we’ve even got a few of the crates they came in.’
‘That would work,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’l run it by Hargrove, see if we can just use them. It’l make our cover seem more authentic.’
‘Damn right. There’s a fair number of Yugos knocking around the UK. Former Serbian military types have been sel ing them to gang bangers. I tel you what, Spider, I’ve got some Zastava M88 pistols too.’
‘Better and better,’ said Shepherd. ‘And there’s no problem you loaning them to us?’
‘I’l sign it off as an exercise,’ said the Major. ‘You can pick them up from here, can you?’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Shepherd.
‘Let me know when you want them,’ said the Major. ‘Be good to have a chat. I’ve been hearing some very interesting stories about you.’
‘My ears are burning.’
‘They should be.’
‘So how are your studies, Manraj?’ asked Chaudhry’s father as he dropped down on to the sofa and stretched out his legs. His fiftieth birthday was fast approaching but he looked a good ten years younger, with not a single grey hair and only a few laughter lines at the corners of his eyes. He was a keen squash player, had been for more than thirty years, and it showed in his lean physique. On more than a few occasions people had assumed that he was Chaudhry’s elder brother rather than his father.
It was Saturday afternoon and Chaudhry had cycled from Stoke Newington to his parents’ house, a neat four-bedroom detached house in Stanmore. It was the house that he’d been brought up in and as he looked around it he felt as if he’d never left. At the far end of the room was the piano on which he and his brother had practised for half an hour every night; through the French windows he could see the garden where his father had taught him the finer points of spin bowling; he knew that at the top of the stairs was his bedroom, pretty much exactly as it was the day he’d left to go to university three years earlier. Leaving home had been symbolic rather than a necessity. He could have commuted back and forth from Stanmore but Chaudhry had wanted to be independent; plus, he’d become bored with life in the suburbs. His elder brother had studied for his degree at Exeter so it hadn’t been too much of a struggle to persuade his parents to al ow him to rent a place in Stoke Newington.
‘It’s getting harder, but you know what med school is like,’ said Chaudhry. His father was an oncologist at Watford General Hospital, and had been since before Chaudhry was born. ‘Third year was much better because we had the attachments, so you actual y got to deal with patients. The fourth year is al bookwork and the supervised research project. It’s a grind.’
His father nodded sympathetical y. ‘It’s a grind al right, but we al go through it. Just take it one day at a time. Once it’s done and you’ve passed the exams you get your degree and then you can real y start to learn about medicine.’
‘Fourth year’s the worst, right?’
‘Every year’s tough, Manraj; they’re just tough in different ways. But it’s when you start working as a junior doctor that the pressure real y starts.’
‘The kil ing season, they cal it at King’s.’
‘They cal it that everywhere,’ said his father. ‘Just don’t ever let the patients hear you say that.’ He smiled over at his son. ‘I’m real y proud of you, Manraj. I hope you know that.’
Chaudhry nodded. He knew. And he could see it in his father’s eyes.
‘So, are you seeing anyone?’
Chaudhry frowned, not understanding what his father meant, then realisation dawned and he groaned. ‘Dad . . . Please . . .’
‘I’m your father and you’re my only unmarried son, so I’m entitled to ask.’
‘You have only two sons and Akram got married last year.’
‘I’m not getting any younger and I’d like to be able-bodied enough to play cricket with my grandchildren.’
Chaudhry laughed and slapped his own thigh. ‘You’re crazy. Now you want me to be a father and I haven’t even graduated. What’s the rush?’
‘There’s no rush, it’s just that I’ve found what I think might be the perfect girl for you.’
‘Say what?’
His father looked at him over the top of his spectacles. ‘What’s the problem? I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘You thought I’d be happy because you’re fixing up an arranged marriage for me?’
‘Who said anything about marriage? I was at an NHS conference last week and I met up with an old friend who works as a cardiologist in Glasgow. He was talking about his daughter – she’s a second-year microbiology student at UCL – and I mentioned you were at King’s . . .’
‘And the next thing you know you’ve got us married off. Dad, I’m more than capable of finding my own girlfriend.’
‘Which is why I asked you if you were seeing anyone.’ He pushed his spectacles higher up his nose. ‘Her name’s Jamila, and she’s from a very good family. According to her father, she hasn’t had a steady boyfriend. He was very impressed to hear that you’re at King’s.’
‘You didn’t show him my CV, did you?’
‘I might have mentioned a few of the highlights, yes. Look, no pressure, but why don’t you at least get in touch, maybe ask her out?’
‘It’s not going to be one of those chaperoned things, is it? With half the family tagging along?’
His father laughed. ‘What century do you think you’re living in?’ he said. ‘She’s on Facebook. She’s been told to expect you to ask to be a Facebook friend, to chat online for a while and see if you get on.’
‘You’ve already told her about me?’
‘Her father has, yes.’
‘How long have you been planning this?’
‘We’re not planning anything. I told you, I met her father at a conference and we got talking. You can at least get in touch on Facebook, can’t you?
I don’t want her father to think that we’re snubbing her.’
Chaudhry sighed. ‘Okay, I suppose I can do that.’
‘Manraj, there’s no pressure here, real y. There’s no need to make a big thing about it. It’s not like when your mum and I were introduced. Back then they almost put a gun to my head.’
‘Seriously?’
His father laughed again. ‘Of course not seriously,’ he said. ‘But I was left in no doubt that I’d need a pretty good reason to turn her down. Things were very different back then and most marriages were arranged.’
‘And you were okay with that?’
‘Your grandfather is a pussycat these days, but thirty years ago he was as tough as they come. He was born in Pakistan, remember. Or British India, as it was then. He came over with nothing and it wasn’t like it is now, with benefits and handouts. The people in his vil age paid for him to come to the UK and when I was old enough to marry it was time for him to pay the piper.’
Chaudhry leaned forward. ‘You never told me this before.’
His father shrugged. ‘That’s the way it worked. Your mother’s grandparents helped pay for my father to come to this country. I had citizenship so if I married her then her parents and her grandparents could come too. Which is what happened, of course. Our marriage helped their family, and that was only fair because they’d helped my father.’
‘And what if you hadn’t liked her?’
His father laughed out loud. ‘We’l never know,’ he said. ‘But I did have a few tense moments, I can tel you. They sent over a photograph but it was a group photograph and her face wasn’t clear because she was wearing a headscarf. There was no Skype back then and no Facebook. We managed a few phone cal s but she was shy and she didn’t speak any English.’ He shrugged. ‘I tel you, I was bloody shaking when I got off the plane.’
‘You flew to Pakistan to meet her?’
‘To marry her, Manraj. It was a done deal by the time I arrived in Pakistan.’
Chaudhry’s jaw dropped. ‘And that didn’t worry you?’
‘I understood that I had an obligation to my father. How could I have refused? It would have been a slap in the face for him and for everyone who had helped him get to England.’ He sat back on the sofa. ‘Anyway, al ’s wel that ends wel . We were met at the airport by her parents and they drove me to their vil age in this rickety old truck that seemed to be held together with string. The first time we met her whole family was there, so were my parents, and she had her face covered. The minutes before she took down her veil were the scariest in my life. Then she did and . . .’ He grinned. ‘Wow. That’s what I said. Wow. I remember how everyone laughed. She was a lovely girl, Manraj. Like a supermodel. Her hair was just amazing; it came down to her waist and was so soft and shiny. And her skin . . . I tel you, the first time I touched her arm I—’
‘Dad, please,’ said Chaudhry, holding up his hands. ‘Enough. I get it.’
‘Get what?’ said his mother, arriving with a tray of tea things and a plate of chocolate cake that she had baked special y for him. She put the tray down on the coffee table and sat next to her husband.
‘I was just tel ing him about Jamila,’ said his father.
‘Oh, isn’t she lovely?’ said his mother, picking up the teapot.
His mother wasn’t supermodel fit any more, thought Chaudhry, but she was stil a lovely woman. The woman he’d known had always been cuddly rather than fit but as he looked at her pouring tea he could see what had attracted his father. She had high cheekbones and flawless skin the colour of the milky tea that she handed him. Her eyes were wide, with impossibly long lashes, and her hair was stil as lustrous as a model’s in a shampoo advertisement. It was hard to imagine her as a simple vil age girl unable to speak English. His mother was always immaculately dressed, either in a traditional sari or in a western designer outfit, and she was always wel made-up, even if she was just popping down to the local shops.