True Colours ss-10

by Stephen Leather

‘Saw you and kept well away,’ said Harper. ‘You were hanging around Mickey and Mark Moore and I figured you were up to something. I asked around and you were using some fake name or other so I figured you wouldn’t want to have to explain how come you know a former Para.’

  Shepherd sat back and ran his hands through his hair. ‘I don’t believe this,’ he said.

  ‘Believe it,’ said Harper. ‘You were with a guy who was a few years older than you. You kept meeting up with him.’

  ‘Razor,’ said Shepherd. ‘He was my wingman.’

  Harper chuckled. ‘He spent most of his time in massage places when you weren’t around.’

  ‘You know the Moore brothers?’

  ‘Sure. Been to some great parties at their place.’

  ‘How are they?’

  ‘Same old,’ said Harper. ‘They’ve given up blagging. Like me, they finance the odd import-export thing now and then. Enough to make a good living but not enough to attract attention. You were a cop then, right?’

  ‘SOCA,’ said Shepherd. ‘Serious Organised Crime Agency. Supposed to be the British FBI but it turned out to be the Keystone Kops.’

  ‘Is that why Mickey and Mark are still living the life in Pattaya?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ said Shepherd. ‘But I owe you one for not blowing my cover.’ He looked around the park. A woman in a Chanel suit walked by with two chihuahuas in matching pink jackets. ‘Can’t we go to a pub? Or a coffee shop.’ He jerked a thumb to the north side of the park. ‘Bayswater’s over there.’

  ‘I’d rather not, mate,’ said Harper. ‘There’s CCTV everywhere these days. That and face recognition could have me behind bars faster than you could say …’ He laughed. ‘Dunno how to end that sentence.’

  Shepherd laughed. ‘Yeah, you were never a great talker. But you were one hell of a soldier.’ He stood up and stretched. ‘Seriously, mate, two grown men sitting on a bench talking looks a bit weird, don’t you think.’ He nodded at the Serpentine in the distance, the water as steely grey as the overcast sky. ‘We can sit outside at the Lido Bar. There’s no CCTV, you can smoke and at least we can have a drink. Keep the hood of your parka up if it makes you feel better.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ Harper sighed. He pushed himself up off the bench and the two men headed over the grass towards the bar. He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, tapped one out and offered it to Shepherd. Shepherd shook his head so Harper slipped it between his lips and lit it with a yellow disposable lighter. ‘How did you know I was a smoker?’

  ‘I can smell it on you, and you’ve got nicotine stains on your fingers,’ said Shepherd. ‘Elementary, dear Watson. What’s the story? You never smoked in Afghanistan.’

  ‘Never wanted to,’ said Harper. ‘But most of the guys I hang out with now are smokers and I sort of got pulled into it.’ He held up the burning cigarette. ‘It feels good. If it didn’t, people wouldn’t smoke, would they?’

  ‘There’s no accounting for folk,’ said Shepherd. ‘I hear a lot of people like Marmite, but I’ve never seen the point of that.’

  ‘Now Marmite, there I agree with you. Never seen the point of it either.’

  They found a quiet table in the outside area of the bar and ordered coffees. ‘I’ll have a brandy as well,’ said Harper. ‘Take the chill off it.’ He pushed his hood down and shook his head. His hair was starting to grey at the temples but he looked pretty much the same as he had when they had served together in Afghanistan. He had the same lean, wiry frame and his habit of jutting up his chin as if expecting an argument at any moment.

  ‘I’ll have a Jamesons,’ said Shepherd.

  As the waitress walked away, Shepherd stretched out his legs and folded his arms. ‘Why are you here, Lex? If being seen in the UK is such a big thing, why are you putting yourself in the firing line?’

  ‘Because of this,’ said Harper. He reached into his parka and pulled out an envelope. He gave it to Shepherd. Inside was a newspaper cutting with a photograph of a man in a grey shell suit trying to hide his face with an umbrella.

  Shepherd read the story. There were just a few paragraphs. The newspaper said the man’s name was Wayne McKillop and that he was accused of ripping the headscarves off two Muslim women in the Westfield shopping centre. According to the article, McKillop had pleaded not guilty and had told police that it had only been a joke and not a racial attack. ‘So?’ said Shepherd.

  ‘You’re not looking carefully enough,’ said Harper.

  Shepherd stared at the cutting, rereading it slowly. Then he moved his face closer to the photograph. There wasn’t much to see of the man’s face. There were two women in the background, and a man. Shepherd’s breath caught in his throat as he stared at the man. He was Arabic looking with a straggly beard and a woollen Muslim cap. The man didn’t seem to be aware of the photographer; he was striding along the pavement, staring straight ahead. In his right hand was a bulging white plastic carrier bag. In profile his hooked nose gave him the look of a bird of prey, but the most distinctive feature was his milky eye. ‘No bloody way,’ whispered Shepherd.

  Harper took a long pull on his cigarette and blew smoke before speaking slowly. ‘Ahmad Khan,’ he said. ‘The bastard who killed Todd and put a bullet in your shoulder. And shot three of my mates in the back.’

  The breath caught in Shepherd’s throat. ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘He’s alive and well and living in London. Or at least he was when that photograph was taken. That’s him walking by West London County Court. And the paper’s dated exactly one week ago.’

  Time seemed to stop for Shepherd as the words sank in. There hadn’t been a day when he hadn’t thought of Ahmad Khan. The wound in his shoulder had long healed, but the scar was still there, an ever-present reminder of the night in October 2002 when the bullet from Khan’s AK-74 had come within inches of ending his life. As he sat on the bench, his left hand absent-mindedly rubbed his shoulder. There were some mornings when he’d stand in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at his reflection and wondering whether there had been anything he could have done differently that day, anything that would have stopped Khan from killing Captain Harry Todd and almost ending his own life. He looked at the top of the cutting. The name of the paper was there. The Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle. And Harper was right about the date. So within the last couple of weeks, Ahmad Khan had been walking the streets of West London.

  ‘You OK, mate?’ asked Harper.

  Shepherd stopped rubbing his shoulder. ‘You definitely think it’s him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have come all the way from Thailand if I didn’t,’ said Harper.

  ‘How the hell does a muj fighter end up in the UK?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘I figured you’d be the one to answer that,’ said Harper. ‘You’ve got access that I haven’t.’

  ‘How did you get this?’ asked Shepherd, holding up the cutting.

  ‘Just one of those things,’ said Harper. ‘I was in an English bar for my morning fry-up and the guy next to me is reading the paper. Turns out he’s lived in Pattaya for fifteen years but every week he has the local paper flown out to him. When he’d finished he left the paper and I grabbed it for a read. That piece was on page seven or so. Recognised him straight away. That milky eye.’

  Shepherd stared at the picture. His memory was close to photographic but ten years was a long time and people changed.

  ‘It’s him, Spider. I’d stake my life on it.’

  Shepherd nodded. It definitely looked like Ahmad Khan. ‘What do you want to do, Lex?’

  ‘At the moment, just check that it’s true, that he’s in the UK. Maybe it is just someone who looks the spitting image of him. They say everyone’s got a double, right? A doppelganger.’ He gestured at the newspaper. ‘Maybe there’s another guy with a milky eye and a straggly beard.’

  ‘Fair enough, I can do that,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘To be honest, mate, I hope it’s not him,’ said Harper. ‘I hope he died back in Afghanistan. I�
�d hate to think of him living the life of Riley all these years in the UK. There’d be something very wrong with that.’

  ‘That’s for sure,’ said Shepherd, scanning the article again, even though his photographic memory had kicked in the first moment he’d set eyes on it. ‘And what if it is him, Lex? What then?’

  ‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’ Harper took a small Samsung phone from his pocket and gave it to Shepherd. ‘Soon as you know one way or another, send me a text on that. I’ve put the number in. I’ll call you back.’

  Shepherd weighed the phone in the palm of his hand. ‘You really are into this cloak and dagger stuff, aren’t you?’

  ‘I know that phone’s clean and it’s a throwaway SIM card,’ said Harper.

  ‘Charger?’

  Harper put his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a black charger with its lead rolled up. Shepherd laughed. ‘I was joking, I’ve got all the chargers I need.’ He put the phone away. ‘Seriously, you’re sure this secrecy is necessary? I’d never heard of you being involved in anything shady.’

  ‘That’s because I keep below the radar whenever I can,’ said Harper. ‘The guys who drive the Rollers and the Ferraris and who swan around the nightclubs and restaurants, they’re the ones who get on the most-wanted lists. I’m a nobody, Spider, and I plan to stay that way. For as long as possible.’ He stubbed the cigarette out on the sole of his shoe and then slipped the butt into the pocket of his parka. He realised Shepherd was watching. ‘DNA,’ Harper said.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Dead right I’m serious,’ said Harper. ‘At the moment, I’m not in the system. But once they have your DNA, they have you for ever. And then it’s game over.’

  ‘Who’s “they” exactly?’

  ‘Your mob, for a start. And the cops. And the government. I’ll make you a bet, Spider. Within our lifetimes they’ll make DNA sampling compulsory. They want everyone in the world to be in a mass database so that they can track and identify us all. And they’ll have us chipped, too.’

  ‘Chipped?’

  ‘A GPS-enabled microchip, under the skin. Then they’ll know who you are and what you are. Trust me, Spider. It’s coming. All I’m doing is delaying the inevitable.’

  ‘And why would they do that?’

  ‘Control. So that we all became good little consumers.’

  Shepherd laughed. ‘You’re starting to sound paranoid.’

  ‘Really? Most criminals get caught in the act, or they get grassed up, right?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘But how else do you catch people?’ Shepherd opened his mouth to speak but Harper beat him to it. ‘I’ll tell you. DNA. And mobile phones. The cops use phones to show where you were at such and such a time. Which is why they want the chip out of the phones and under your skin. I tell you, mate, that’s where we’re heading. Everyone’s DNA on record, a chip under your skin, and then they can see everything you do. They’ll do away with money, too. All your assets will be recorded on the chip and if you don’t toe the line your chip will be wiped and you’ll be a non-person.’

  ‘I’m starting to wish I hadn’t asked.’

  Harper leaned closer to him. ‘Listen, Spider, do you think we could get away with slotting Khan if the cops were able to pinpoint his location and then identify everyone who came near him? That information plus the time of death makes it an open and shut case. That’s what they want, and eventually that’s what they’ll get.’ He sat back again. ‘But until then, I stay off the grid and squirrel away my assets as best I can. At least in Thailand the authorities pretty much leave you alone. Do you know what Thailand means?’

  ‘Land of the free,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Yeah. Land of the free. And they are free, pretty much. Much more free than people are here. I don’t understand how we let things get as bad as they are.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘Anyway, enough of my bellyaching. Let’s find this Khan and give him what he deserves.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’ asked Shepherd.

  Harper nodded over at the north side of the park. ‘I’m in a B amp;B in Bayswater,’ he said. ‘One of the few places left that doesn’t ask for a credit card.’ He stood up and flipped the hood of the parka up over his head. ‘It’s good to see you, Spider. The circumstances are shit but I wish I’d kept in touch.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Shepherd. He stood up and the two men shook hands, then Shepherd grinned, pulled the man towards him and hugged him, patting him on the back between the shoulder blades. ‘You be careful,’ he said.

  ‘You too, mate.’

  Shepherd called Jimmy Sharpe’s number as he walked across the park. It had been almost six months since he had seen his former colleague but he needed someone he could trust and Razor Sharpe had never let him down. ‘Please tell me you’re in London,’ said Shepherd as soon as Sharpe answered.

  ‘I’m in New Scotland Yard as we speak,’ said Sharpe in his gruff Glaswegian accent. ‘Being briefed on a group of Romanian ATM fiddlers.’

  ‘Now how the hell are you going to blend in with a group of Romanian gypsies?’

  ‘You can’t call them gypsies,’ said Sharpe. ‘That’s racist.’

  ‘You’ve been on another racism and diversity course, haven’t you?’ Shepherd laughed.

  ‘My sixth,’ said Sharpe.

  ‘Is it sinking in yet?’

  ‘You know me, Spider, I treat everyone the same no matter what their colour or where they’re from. If you’re bad you go to jail, if you’re good I’ll do what I can to help you. But I have to say, these Romanians are a right shower of shits. They’re bringing in hundreds of child pickpockets because they know that even if we catch them red handed we can’t do a thing to them. Now they’re using the kids to work the ATM skimmers. The adults stay in the background, organising and taking the money, while ten-year-old kids do the criminal work. And they’re all EU now so we can’t even deport them. ‘

  ‘So what’s the strategy?’

  ‘Following the little fish upstream, see if we can get the godfathers. But you know as well as I do that the sentences the judges hand out are a joke these days. Anyway, enough of my trials and tribulations, what do you need?’

  ‘Why do you think I need anything?’

  ‘Because the only time I ever hear from you is when you want something,’ said Sharpe. ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken, mate. Any chance of a quick chat?’

  ‘It’ll have to be near me,’ said Sharpe. ‘We’re out and about all this evening and into the early hours.’

  ‘I can get to the Feathers.’ The Feathers was the closest pub to New Scotland Yard, a regular hangout for off-duty officers, or at least the ones that still drank.

  ‘Text me when you get there and I’ll pop down,’ said Sharpe.

  Shepherd ended the call and as soon as he left the park he flagged down a black cab. The traffic was light and in less than half an hour the cabby dropped him in front of the pub. Shepherd paid the driver and sent Sharpe a text telling him he’d arrived. As he walked into the pub, Shepherd received a text back. ‘Mine’s a pint of Foster’s.’

  Shepherd was sitting at a corner table with a pint of lager and a Jamesons with ice and soda when Sharpe walked in. He was wearing a heavy black leather coat over a black pullover and black jeans and clearly hadn’t shaved in a few days. The two men shook hands. Sharpe was in his fifties, his hair was greying but the beard growth was almost pure white. He’d grown his hair long and combed it back and was only a week or so away from a ponytail.

  ‘You look tired,’ said Shepherd as Sharpe sat down and picked up his pint.

  ‘I’ve been on this case for over a week and it’s doing my head in,’ said Sharpe. ‘They’re real lowlifes and I’ve got to blend. They drink in some very dodgy dives.’

  ‘I’m assuming you’re not trying to pass yourself off as a Romanian?’

  Sharpe laughed. ‘Nah, I’m a Scottish gangster in the market for swiped debit car
ds,’ he said. ‘I keep upping the ante and I’m working my way up to the top guys.’ He took a long pull on his pint and then smacked his lips. ‘First of the day.’

  ‘They’re OK with you drinking on duty?’

  ‘On this one I’m on duty twenty-four hours a day,’ said Sharpe. ‘And the guys I’m dealing with, if they don’t smell alcohol on my breath they’ll assume something’s wrong.’ He looked around the pub and shook his head sadly. ‘Back in the day this would have been full of coppers,’ he said. ‘Some of them in uniform. Now most of them are scared to show their faces here. God forbid a copper should enjoy a drink or two.’ He chuckled. ‘My old boss in my first CID job, up in Strathclyde, kept a bottle of malt in his bottom drawer and every time we had a result it would come out and it’d be drinks all round. You get caught with a can of lager over there and you’d be out on your ear. I tell you, I’m glad I’m getting near retirement.’ He took another long pull on his lager.

  ‘You’ll never retire, Razor. And they’ll never sack you. You’re too valuable a resource.’

  ‘Aye, well, maybe I’ll go freelance for your mob,’ he said.

  ‘They’d have you like a shot,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Even the fragrant Miss Button?’

  Shepherd grinned. ‘Well, her not so much, maybe, but there’d be plenty of departments would jump at you. Surveillance is always recruiting.’

  ‘I’m too old to be a pavement artist,’ said Sharpe. ‘And like you I get a kick out of being undercover.’

  ‘A kick? I don’t do undercover for kicks, Razor. Behave.’

  ‘You say that, but we both know that you get a buzz from it,’ said Sharpe, jabbing his finger at Shepherd. ‘The adrenalin rush, the endolphin thing.’

  ‘Endorphins,’ said Shepherd. ‘And I don’t get a buzz. It’s a job. And it’s a bloody scary one at times.’

  ‘And you like that. We both do. If you didn’t, you’d have taken a desk job at Five a long time ago.’ He leaned towards Shepherd and lowered his voice. ‘Come on, admit it. Telling lies to get close to someone and then turning them over, you get a kick out of that. Getting a complete stranger to trust you, when everything you’re telling them is a lie, there’s not many people who get the chance to do that, legally.’