‘Ricky Knight has a track record, and he’s on the run. Pattaya is the new Costa del Crime – it’s full of old familiar faces. There’s every reason he’d go there.’
‘But they’re a tight group, you said.’
‘We’ll let them make the approach,’ said Button. ‘They’ve got a police general on their payroll and a couple of police colonels, so we’ll send out a Europol warning on you. The cops will tip off the brothers so they’ll be looking out for you.’
‘But why would they be interested in me, seeing as how they’re doing so well?’ asked Shepherd.
Button tapped one of the pictures. A black man in his twenties was standing on a diving-board. ‘They’re shorthanded,’ she said. ‘This is Terry Norris, the youngster of the crew. Ex-army, weapons expert, he was their technical man.’
‘Was?’
‘Well, still is, but he’s broken his back so he won’t be travelling. He smashed up his motorcycle and severed his spinal cord. He’s in hospital now, but when he gets out he’ll be in a wheelchair. So that leaves the Moore brothers a man short. It’s been five months since their last job so they’re due.’
‘If you know they did these jobs, why haven’t you pulled them in?’
‘Knowing and proving, as you’re aware, are two different things. They’re pros, Spider. No forensics, no useful witnesses, and they’re experts at laundering and hiding their money. They’ve stolen bearer bonds, jewellery, art, bullion and cash. Every job is different. There’s nothing predictable about them so we’ve no idea where they’ll strike next.’
‘What about red-flagging them at the airports and following them when they come back?’
‘The Flying Squad tried that two years ago but they keep coming in under the radar. You know yourself how porous our borders are. Last time they flew from Bangkok to Paris, Paris to Dublin, and then we lost them. Presumably they either drove over on the ferry or went up to Belfast and flew from there.’
‘Because Belfast is in the UK so no passport control?’
‘Exactly. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. After a big job has gone down, we can find out what flights they were on. But the fact that they left Thailand when the robberies were committed isn’t evidence that they carried them out.’
Shepherd knew there was nothing to be gained from trying to second-guess Button, but the questions helped to put his thoughts in order. ‘Will the Thais know I’m there under cover?’
‘We can’t take the risk of making it official. If the wrong cop finds out, you’ll be dead.’
‘That’s reassuring,’ said Shepherd.
‘There won’t be any arrests made on Thai soil,’ said Button. ‘We’ll wait until they’re back in the UK and hopefully we’ll catch them in the act.’
‘And what were you planning in the way of back-up?’
‘Ricky Knight’s on the run from the cops, so legend-wise you’ll be on your own,’ said Button.
‘You won’t be there?’
Button smiled thinly. ‘A Western woman in Pattaya isn’t exactly going to blend in, though I’m told there are quite a few Russian hookers plying their trade there now.’
‘Charlie, with the best will in the world you can’t send me to another country without some sort of back-up. If the shit hits the fan I’ll need to be able to call on someone local to pull my nuts out of the fire.’
‘Leaving aside the mixed metaphors, I take your point,’ said Button. ‘Who would you suggest?’
Shepherd gestured at the surveillance photographs. ‘Who took those?’
‘Bob Oswald, but he’s surveillance. He wouldn’t be any good as back-up and anyway we need him for a job in London. He can brief you when you get to Pattaya but then I’ll need him back here.’
‘Jimmy Sharpe, then,’ said Shepherd. ‘He could go over as a tourist and keep away from the bad guys, but be around if I need him.’
‘Agreed,’ said Button.
Shepherd studied the photographs. The Moore brothers looked like a couple of easy-going working-class blokes, the type who, if they’d made different choices, might have ended up in the army or the police. They were both well muscled, with thick gold chains hanging around their necks and chunky Rolex watches on their wrists. He’d seen their type in nightclubs and gyms all over the country. He could guess the sort of cars they drove and the houses they lived in and the girls they slept with. Over the course of his undercover career, first with the police and then with SOCA, Shepherd had befriended dozens of men like them. Befriended them and ultimately betrayed them. That was his job, and he was good at it.
‘I realise it’s on the other side of the world, Spider, and I know you don’t like being away from your son. But with Terry Norris out of commission, we’ve got a window of opportunity that I’d hate to miss.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m guessing the sooner the better, right?’
‘Saturday will be soon enough,’ said Button. ‘I’ve booked you on a flight from Heathrow at nine thirty in the evening. That’ll give you a couple of days with your boy at least.’
‘I’m already booked on?’
‘I figured you’d want the assignment, Spider. It’s right up your street.’ She reached into her briefcase and took out a bulky padded envelope. ‘Here’s a passport with your picture in the name of John Westlake and a ticket to go with it. There’s no legend so you can wing it, whatever you feel comfortable with. The brothers will know you’re Knight and that you’re using fake ID. Keep the Knight credit cards and use them in Pattaya.’ She hefted the envelope. ‘There’s cash as well. Five thousand pounds. I’ll arrange to send you more by Western Union if you need it and I’ll see about setting up a bank account for you.’
Shepherd smiled. ‘So I’m Dan Shepherd pretending to be Ricky Knight pretending to be John Westlake? It’s a wonder I’m not schizophrenic.’
Button pointed at the steel Cartier watch he was wearing. ‘I’ll need that back,’ she said.
Shepherd held out his arm. ‘It’s a perfectly okay watch for a villain.’
Button reached into her briefcase again and took out a gold one. ‘The Moores are watch fanatics,’ she said. ‘This’ll give you something to talk about.’
Shepherd took off the Cartier and put it on the table, then slipped on the other and clicked the strap shut.
‘It’s a Breitling Emergency,’ said Button. ‘It cost ten thousand pounds, so do, please, take care of it.’
It had a rotating bezel marked in degrees, analogue hands and two small digital screens, one in the top half of the face and the other lower down. Below the face there was a cylinder almost an inch long with a screw at the end. ‘I’ve heard about these,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s got a transmitter inside, right, and if I unscrew it, it broadcasts on the aircraft emergency frequency?’
‘Exactly,’ said Button. ‘In theory every aircraft within a hundred miles will triangulate your position and the coastguard will send a helicopter to pick you up.’
‘Nice bit of kit.’
‘And we’ll be wanting it back when the job’s over,’ said Button, putting the Cartier into her briefcase. She took out an envelope and poured the contents into his hand – a sovereign ring, a gold money clip and a thick gold chain bracelet. ‘The Moores are a bit flash with their jewellery, so this will help you blend,’ she said. ‘You can stick with the Ricky Knight clothing and personal effects you’ve already got.’
‘I don’t need anything for the Westlake legend?’
‘Just the passport. We want the Moores to see through it straight away.’ She glanced at her own watch, a slim gold Chopard. ‘I’ve booked you a briefing with an intelligence officer at Scotland Yard,’ she said. ‘You should take Razor with you. You’ll be told who you might run into while you’re in Pattaya. Do you want to give Razor the good news or shall I?’
Shepherd grinned. ‘Let me.’
Jimmy Sharpe cursed and sounded his horn at the bus that had just pulled out without indicating. ‘Thai
land?’ he said. They were in Sharpe’s own car, a year-old Lexus he’d bought at a bargain price from a Customs and Excise auction. It had been used to bring forty kilos of cocaine on the ferry from Calais and, other than a bit of damage to the rear seats, it was in near-new condition.
Shepherd checked that his seatbelt was fastened. ‘She wanted me to go solo but I said I needed back-up.’
‘Business class?’
‘Hell, Razor, I don’t know.’
‘I can’t sit for twelve hours in economy. What’s the job?’ He jammed on his brakes as the traffic-lights ahead turned red.
‘A team of blaggers holing up there. They pop back now and again to replenish their coffers.’
‘Land of Smiles,’ said Sharpe. ‘That’s what they call Thailand. Maybe it’ll put a smile on your face. When was the last time you got laid?’
‘None of your bloody business,’ said Shepherd. Actually, he knew pretty much to the day when he’d last had sex. It had been with a woman in Belfast whom he’d suspected was a serial killer, and the relationship had been doomed from the start. Before that, his last experience had been with a South African contractor in Baghdad and it had been very much a one-night stand. Carol Bosch had made no attempt to contact him after he’d returned to the UK and he’d decided that as she was working in Iraq there was no point in pursuing a relationship. All in all, Shepherd’s sex life had been unsatisfying to say the least, but it wasn’t a subject he was prepared to discuss with Sharpe.
‘I’m just saying, from what I hear, anyone can get laid in Thailand,’ Sharp continued, not perturbed in the slightest by Shepherd’s unease.
‘Razor, the last thing I want at the moment is another job that takes me away from Liam.’ He saw his eleven-year-old son infrequently at the best of times, but at least when he was in the country he could always drive back to Hereford if there was a problem. If he was under cover in Thailand, getting on a plane to the UK to see his son wouldn’t be an option. ‘Plus the team I’ll be infiltrating are hard bastards. It won’t be a holiday – not for me, anyway.’
‘And all I have to do is watch your back?’
‘That’s the plan.’
‘Excellent,’ said Sharpe. He tapped his steering-wheel impatiently as the traffic-lights remained stuck on red. ‘I might have to pull a flanker on the wife,’ he said. ‘Tell her I’m off to Spain or something. Not sure she’ll be happy about me going to Thailand.’ A cycle courier in a black Lycra jacket and tight black trousers rested his arm on the roof of their car. His blond hair was tied back in a ponytail. Sharpe glared at him and he moved away. ‘Bloody traffic,’ said Sharpe. ‘You know what it is? It’s those bloody bombs near Soho Square. Forensic teams are still there so the traffic’s being diverted. I don’t know what those Paki bastards are thinking. How do bombs outside nightclubs help their cause?’
‘Razor, please.’ Shepherd groaned.
‘What?’
‘You know what,’ said Shepherd. ‘The racial-awareness course – remember?’
‘What? You don’t think they’re mad Paki bastards?’
‘No one knows who they were, and the chances are they’ll be British-born, same as the Tube bombers.’
‘Two words, Spider. Dog. Stable.’
‘What the hell are you talking about now?’
‘What I’m saying is that just because a dog’s born in a stable it doesn’t make it a horse. Those guys who went down the Tube with bombs in their backpacks might have had British passports but they sure as hell weren’t the same as you and me. We haven’t been through al-Qaeda training camps on the Pakistani border for a start.’
Shepherd was bewildered by Sharpe’s flawed logic. ‘Blaming the Asian community for what’s happening is like blaming all the Irish for what the IRA did,’ he said. ‘There’s three million Asians in the UK, and a few hundred at most are terrorists or potential terrorists.’
‘A few thousand, according to the spooks.’ Sharpe grinned. ‘And by spooks I mean MI5 before you accuse me of being racist again.’
‘It’s a small percentage of bad apples in a very large barrel,’ said Shepherd.
‘Let’s say it’s three thousand potential terrorists,’ said Sharpe. ‘You don’t think that’s something that should concern us? Three thousand Muslims planning mayhem and destruction?’
‘I’m not saying it shouldn’t concern us, I’m saying we can’t go around slagging off the whole Muslim community.’
‘Not all Muslims are terrorists, fair enough, but it’s a plain fact that, the way things are at the moment, all the terrorists operating in the UK are Muslims. And most of the really bad ones are Pakis.’
‘I give up,’ said Shepherd. ‘Sometimes there’s no arguing with you.’
‘Because you know I’m right.’
‘Just drive, Razor. Drive and let me get some rest.’
‘Sometimes you’re no fun,’ said Sharpe. He turned on the radio and tapped on the steering-wheel in time to the music.
They parked the Lexus in a multi-storey car park close to New Scotland Yard but took a circuitous route to the building. They walked into the reception area under the watchful eye of two police officers in bulletproof vests cradling MP5 carbines. They showed their ID cards to the bored sergeant on duty. ‘Home Office,’ said Sharpe. ‘Here to see Kenneth Mansfield. Intelligence.’
The sergeant tapped on his computer keyboard, then handed over two visitor badges. While Sharpe and Shepherd clipped them to their jackets he made a phone call. ‘He’ll be right down,’ said the sergeant. ‘If you’re carrying firearms you’ll have to check them in here.’
Sharpe patted his jacket. ‘Do we look like we’re armed?’
‘We get all sorts of Home Office types in here,’ said the sergeant. ‘We have to ask everybody. If you are, best to say now before the metal detector starts buzzing.’
‘It’s just a social call,’ said Sharpe. ‘We’re not planning to shoot anyone – we leave that up to you guys.’
The lift doors opened and a man in his late twenties stepped out, tall and thin with a slight stoop and wrists that projected several inches beyond the sleeves of his cheap chain-store suit. ‘You the SOCA guys?’ he asked.
‘We’re supposed to say Home Office,’ said Sharpe. ‘Low profile.’
‘I’m Kenny,’ said the man. He smiled, showing uneven yellowed teeth, and shook hands with them. His fingernails were bitten to the quick. In his left hand he had a pack of Rothmans and a disposable lighter. ‘Don’t suppose you guys are smokers?’ he asked.
Shepherd and Sharpe shook their heads.
‘I’m gasping,’ said Mansfield. ‘Do you mind if we start the briefing outside while I have a cigarette?’
Shepherd could hardly believe what he’d heard. ‘Yeah, we do mind,’ he said. ‘It might have escaped your attention but we’re SOCA undercover agents. The only reason we’ve agreed to come here for a briefing is because your boss insists that the information you have is too classified to leave the building. What we’re not prepared to do is stand on the pavement in central London being briefed while God-knows-who walks by.’
‘Right,’ said Mansfield, his face reddening. ‘Sorry.’
‘Patches,’ said Sharpe.
‘What?’ said Mansfield.
‘Nicotine patches,’ said Sharpe. ‘Slap a couple on your arse. You’ll be fine.’
‘Right,’ said Mansfield, slipping his cigarettes and lighter into his pocket. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I’m a sixty-a-day man and they won’t let us smoke anywhere in the building. I work twelve hours a day, I get phoned at home in the middle of the night and my wife says if I don’t get a job with regular hours she’ll divorce me. I’m trying to sell my house because we’ve a kid on the way and I’ve been gazumped twice. I’m a bit stressed out and this briefing was dumped on me at short notice. I just wanted a cigarette, that’s all.’ He shrugged apologetically.
‘Bloody hell, Razor, I thought we had stressful lives.’ Shepherd patted Mansfield�
�s shoulder. ‘Okay, Razor and I can have a coffee in the canteen while you go and suck on a coffin nail.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Mansfield.
‘They’re your lungs,’ said Shepherd. He gestured at Sharpe. ‘And if he doesn’t get his caffeine he won’t be able to concentrate. We’ll see you up there. The canteen’s still on the fourth floor, right?’
‘I’ll have to come with you,’ said Mansfield. ‘Visitors have to be escorted at all times.’
Shepherd and Sharpe put their mobile phones, keys and coins into a grey plastic tray and Mansfield walked them through the metal detector. He took them to a lift and up to the fourth floor. It had been three years since Shepherd had last been in the Met canteen and it still had the same drab orange walls and chipped plates. He and Sharpe sat at a table by the blast-proof windows that looked over Victoria station. Mansfield got mugs of coffee for them, then hurried out for his smoke.
‘The new face of policing,’ said Sharpe.
‘He’s okay,’ said Shepherd, sipping his coffee and pulling a face. It hadn’t improved since his last visit.
‘A puff of wind and he’d blow away,’ said Sharpe, dismissively. ‘Can you imagine him at an Old Firm game, trying to keep Rangers fans and Celtic fans from killing each other?’
‘He’s intelligence, Razor. He doesn’t need muscle.’
‘A cop is a cop,’ said Sharpe. ‘And cops used to be cops. Big guys you could depend on. Guys that could run a couple of hundred yards without gasping for breath. Guys you could depend on if punches started to fly. Now they’ve dropped pretty much all the physical requirements. They’ve got short cops, overweight cops, short-sighted cops. I bet before long they’ll have cops in wheelchairs. The world’s gone mad.’
Shepherd grinned at him. ‘Have you looked in a mirror lately?’
‘I’ve put on a few pounds, I’m not denying that,’ said Sharpe, ‘but I’m middle-aged and I’ve been doing the job for almost twenty years. Back in the day, I was a fit bastard and you had to be, walking the beat in Possilpark. These days, most of the bobbies on the beat couldn’t chase after a villain, never mind wrestle them to the ground.’
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