The Black Shepherd

by Steven Savile

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, not moving.

  The woman in the yellow coat turned to stare in through the windscreen like she was daring him to hit her.

  He just shook his head.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Annja asked, and for a moment seemed to mistake the headshake for an admission that he wasn’t.

  Kask waited for the woman to get out of the road, then pulled away. He put the radio on. Neil Finn insisted that everywhere he went he took the weather with him, which was just about the most ludicrous juxtaposition the deejay could have managed if he’d been trying. He would have laughed, but his mind was very much on other things.

  Annja didn’t say anything when he indicated to turn left. They were already halfway down the street before she said, ‘This isn’t the way I usually go home.’

  ‘There’s been an accident,’ he lied, smoothly. ‘I had to take a detour earlier. It didn’t look like it was going to get cleared any time soon. I know a workaround. It’ll only take an extra couple of minutes, don’t worry.’ Why would she? He was a cop. She trusted him. He was one of the good guys.

  But that trust was only going to last so long.

  ‘Did you speak to Frankie?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. It was better not to get caught in any specific lie. The trick was to keep as close to the truth as possible. That made it easier. ‘We just sent the files over. I put a note in the email, apologizing that it was all my fault, even though it wasn’t, you know, keep those international relations smooth.’ He tried to make it sound conspiratorial, like he was letting her in on a big secret that he was a really great guy.

  ‘Ah, I may as well cancel the meeting.’

  ‘Meeting?’

  He tried not to let the sudden swell of panic he felt inside reach his voice. He wasn’t sure that he succeeded.

  ‘Another officer from Eurocrimes wanted to talk to me about Irma. I figured they just wanted a new statement. I’m meeting him tomorrow.’

  ‘He’s coming here?’ Kask’s grip tightened on the wheel as his foot pressed a little harder on the accelerator.

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  It was all going wrong.

  He needed her to buy his story. He needed the world to just forget all about this girl. Otherwise he’d never be able to sleep at night again. The Shepherd had made that pretty fucking obvious. It was her or him. And he had no intention of dying for a very long time.

  ‘I can walk from here,’ Annja said, even though she was further away from her apartment than she had been when she’d got into the car.

  Her hands fumbled at the seat-belt clasp, ready to get out.

  He couldn’t let her do that.

  He realized that the traffic lights up ahead had just turned red. If he stopped she was going to get out. He tried to think. He needed to make sure she stayed in the car. The only thing he could think of was to move faster, and risk running the red light, hoping nothing was coming the other way. He floored the accelerator, crossing the junction to a chorus of blaring horns and the screech of crunching metal. There was no impact. No collision. The rear-view mirror was filled with two cars locked in an expensive dance of crushed metal and burned rubber in the middle of the junction.

  ‘Let me out!’ Annja screamed at him, but he ignored her.

  The second scream broke something inside his head. ‘Shut up!’ He lashed out, a single punch slammed into the side of her mouth. Her head jerked back, hitting the passenger window every bit as hard as he’d just hit her.

  She wasn’t moving.

  He checked her seat belt. It was still locked.

  The half-formed idea that had been running around his head started to solidify. A missing piece fell into place.

  He knew what he had to do.

  FOURTEEN

  The rain looked like it could fall for ever.

  It was exactly what the wildfire needed, but it was the very last thing Frankie wanted.

  She’d barely reached the row of old customs warehouses that opened up into the docks when the heavens opened. In the three hundred metre dash to the soup kitchen the entire road had transformed into a shimmering lake. The rain drummed on the surface so hard it bounced ten centimetres back into the air on each tiny impact.

  Tasha was already there, along with another couple of young women. She couldn’t be sure if they were the same ones from that morning. As much as she hated to admit it, they all looked the same. Rain hammered on the roof of the van and filled the awning that extended from the side building to provide a little shelter for anyone who did brave the conditions.

  ‘We won’t get many tonight,’ Tasha said, looking out through the rain-streaked window. ‘At least not while it’s like this. If it lets up later we might see some familiar faces. Plenty of people would rather go hungry than get soaked. People tend to forget they’ve got to sleep in those clothes, and it’s not just that it’s uncomfortable, they’re risking pneumonia.’

  ‘What do you need me to do?’

  Tasha introduced her to the two other women. It didn’t take more than a couple of stumbled sentences and muddled meanings to know they had little in terms of a common language. Still, a juggling act of English, French, and German, along with plenty of pointing and miming, got them working as a team.

  Frankie’s next few hours consisted of trimming, peeling, and chopping vegetables, most of which looked like they were past their best. Tasha explained that it was stuff that had passed its sell-by date and been donated by supermarkets – it was still good, she assured her, and this was much better than throwing it away. Once it was chopped and mixed into the massive vat of soup they were making, it could just as easily have been Fairtrade eco-friendly natural produce for all anyone could tell.

  Occasionally one of them would venture out to push the gathered water from the awning that sagged under the weight. By the time they’d finished the prep and had the vat of soup simmering away the rain had at least eased a little, downgrading from biblical to tropical storm. It was hard work. She could tell the others were grateful for the extra pair of hands.

  Tasha produced coffee as they cleared the scraps away.

  The two girls who’d been working alongside Frankie disappeared out into the rain, running, hands over their heads like that could possibly keep them dry, across the road to the van.

  ‘You’ve done well,’ Tasha said as she handed Frankie a mug. She saw Frankie’s puzzled look and added, ‘Smoke break. You want to join them?’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘I’m glad you came back.’

  ‘I’m sure you would have managed without me.’ She saw the first patches of blue sky through the rain. ‘Maybe tonight won’t be a washout after all.’

  ‘That’s good. We want the speaker from One World to see how much good we’re doing. I hate when they come and there’s no one to feed. You know. It makes it look like they’re wasting their money and we need them to keep funding us if we’re going to do any real good here.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ Frankie said.

  As if on cue a couple of bedraggled men shuffled around the side of the warehouse across the way. She’d noticed that a lot of homeless people seemed to have the same beaten-down walk.

  ‘You want me to give the others a shout? All hands on deck?’

  Tasha shook her head. ‘I’m sure we can manage for a while. Let them have a break.’

  Frankie nodded. It was the answer she’d hoped for; keeping Tasha to herself for a while, now she was talking, meant she had a better chance of hearing the One World spiel and what it was that convinced kids like Irma Lutz to sign their lives away. Because she didn’t get it, and she was never going to get it. She’d see half-forgotten celebrities making a fool out of themselves on television proclaiming how One World had saved their lives, how they’d been in the grips of barbiturate abuse before the drugs programme had helped them kick the habit and find themselves, and all she could think was that they’d swapped one drug for another. They all seemed so
happy; but that could just as easily be said for the turkeys on the way to the slaughterhouse for Christmas.

  The men came in from the rain, stamping their feet on the mat and apologizing as they left a trail of wet footprints up to the counter. Tasha grinned and told them they could mop up after they’d eaten if they felt that bad. That earned a couple of grins, which they exchanged for generous helpings of stew and a couple of crusty bread rolls.

  Almost as soon as they were in their seats another man arrived, and another.

  Before long there was a steady flow of people coming and going. The two smokers seemed to be on the longest cigarettes ever, but Frankie and Tasha coped fine by themselves.

  After maybe an hour, the rain was down to a drizzle. There was a fine mist in the air that fogged the sea out beyond the docks, making the little hole-in-the-wall soup kitchen seem like it stood on the edge of civilization and out beyond it, in the mist, there’d be dragons.

  She heard it before she saw it – a limousine. It came slowly around the corner, between the bonded warehouses, and pulled up a hundred metres or so away, the engine idling before the driver killed the lights. Visitors. Tasha took a moment to straighten her apron and hair, making it pretty obvious she wanted to look her best for whoever was in there.

  Frankie ladled out another helping of soup as the two girls returned from their cigarette break.

  Tasha stepped out from behind the counter and walked out to greet the two men getting out of the car. The fact that it also meant she had a minute or two alone with them to talk wasn’t lost on Frankie.

  She watched the exchange. The passenger greeted her warmly. Hand on shoulder. Not quite an embrace, but definite familiarity and ease. They talked. Tasha mostly, it seemed. Then she pointed in the direction of the window and the still rain-bowed awning. The driver said little. There was no hand on the shoulder, no hugs, and he remained with the car. So, just a driver, not a bodyguard.

  The two girls primped and preened themselves. It was embarrassing to watch. They were so painfully eager to meet the man, though how he was supposed to tell them apart given the whole might-as-well-be-twins thing they had going on, Frankie had no idea.

  Frankie busied herself with stirring the vat of simmering stew and tidying the counter. Once he reached the van, the newcomer exchanged pleasantries with the women. She assumed that meant he was fluent in at least a few of the hundred and twenty languages spoken in the ex-Soviet states. That in itself was noteworthy.

  Tasha brought him inside.

  ‘And this is Ceska,’ she said, once they were through the door. ‘She’s only just joined us.’

  Frankie felt a sudden urge to deny having joined anything, but she let it slide.

  Right now, all she could see was the good that Tasha and the others were doing, and how much it was appreciated by those who needed it the most. This kind of thing, where people fell between the cracks, it should have been down to the authorities to keep them safe, but it wasn’t. Governments couldn’t cope when things left the realm of theoretical poverty and austerity. It was normal people who did that. People like Tasha. They gave of themselves. Their time, their friendliness and honesty. But most of all, their souls. They were just good people.

  And that didn’t fit with what she’d been expecting. She’d be the first to admit that. She’d come in prepared to judge them by the crackpot doctrine spouted by their so-called preachers. But that was a mistake. People like Tasha weren’t all bug-eyed religious fanatics. They were just good people who wanted to help.

  Lesson learned.

  Frankie looked up from what she was doing, making eye contact with the man for the first time. His eyes were a striking blue steel. It was as though they looked inside her, that somehow he could tell what she was thinking simply by staring into her soul. Without the disarming smile he offered, that look would have been enough to ice the blood in her veins.

  Frankie reached out, shaking his hand when he offered it.

  ‘Hello, Ceska. That’s a beautiful name,’ he said, his voice rich with a softness and warmth that was both kind and sensual without the words themselves being seductive. He was a charming man. It was easy to imagine him as a politician or a preacher, someone that inspired dedication and love by charisma alone.

  But then, he was a man of faith.

  FIFTEEN

  If anyone had seen her as they drove along they would have assumed she was asleep.

  For a moment Kask thought, or rather hoped, that she was already dead. He didn’t want to think about what he was going to have to do to her otherwise. But he was never going to be that lucky, was he? A single punch to silence her and save himself? Never.

  It wouldn’t be the first time he had taken a life, but it would be the first time he’d done it like this, like a murderer. The words they always used made it sound so detached, in cold blood, ruthless killer, but it was nothing like that. He felt like his skin was on fire. Because this wasn’t just. This wasn’t in the line of duty. This was different. The only other person he had killed had deserved it – as much as anyone could deserve death. Killing him had saved the country tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of euros in a trial and sentence, and more in terms of lives and the human cost. The man was a monster. He didn’t deserve a prison cell. He didn’t deserve to stand up in court and spout his racial hatred and supposed genetic superiority. No, killing him had done the country a favour.

  And that was how he slept at night.

  But the girl was different. Nothing that applied to that monster of a man could be said about her. Her only crime was being friends with the wrong person.

  If she could have just shut up …

  But he couldn’t trust that she would, not now she had another visitor from Eurocrimes coming to stir things up. He had to do something. And something meant silence. He drove on, telling himself he had no choice. The radio mocked him, this time the Gin Blossoms promised to follow him down. Meaning hell, they were telling him he was going to hell. He wanted to shriek – not just scream, shriek – something really primal, just let it all out. But he couldn’t. He had to think smart. He had to protect himself. It was absolutely key that he could never be implicated in her death. He couldn’t worry about his soul.

  He knew a strip of waste land on the edge of the city. The place was free of CCTV. He knew it would make a good dumping ground for the body because he’d been there on the other side of the job, an investigator staring down at a mutilated corpse and realizing just how little the place offered in terms of help for his investigation.

  He would have preferred to make her body disappear completely – acid or lye – then dump the waste with the other toxic crap the petro-chem companies poured out into the sea. But another disappearance, two girls from the same flat, would raise too many questions, and questions didn’t bring closure.

  Kask took a circuitous route through the outskirts of town, cutting through residential areas he knew were CCTV black spots.

  The rain had almost stopped by the time he reached his destination. The tower blocks on the edge of town disappeared in mist. He killed the wipers, changing the quality of sound inside the car immediately.

  The woman gave another groan and shifted in her seat. She made no move to fight the belt or struggle to escape, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t fully alert and faking it.

  He pulled the car to a halt and jerked the handbrake on.

  Annja shifted in her seat, turning her head.

  He didn’t want her to open her eyes. That was going to make this so much worse. He needed to get it done before she came round.

  Kask slipped out of the car.

  He ran around to the passenger side.

  Before he could reach for the door, she threw it open, slamming it into him. The impact was enough to send him slipping and slithering back in the mud as he lost his footing. She tried to make a run for it, but the rain had turned the ground into swampland. Every step was a half-slide, the mud sucking up around his ankles as he cha
sed her.

  She didn’t get far.

  He drove his fist into the base of her spine. Her head went back, her back arched, her legs buckled as she stumbled, but didn’t fall. The blow cost him precious distance in the chase. Somehow, Annja found the strength to carry on running, the mud gripping her trainers as her arms and legs pumped furiously. No onlookers were going to mistake what was happening this time. Kask stumbled after her, and for a second thought about taking his service weapon out and shooting her in the back, but that was a dumb fantasy that would have put him in prison before the week was out.

  It needed to be more intimate than that.

  Face to face, like lovers do …

  Kask found a burst of speed as Annja began to flag, muscles burning, and hit her again – higher this time, in the base of the skull. She fell and he was down on top of her in a heartbeat, straddling her body, using his weight to pin her. She looked up at him. She looked into the very heart of him, her eyes seeing the darkness before it descended.

  He had to do it now.

  He had to end it.

  Kask slipped both hands around her throat, all of his weight pressing down on her, and squeezed. Tighter and tighter, saying, ‘Sorry,’ over and over, as he willed Annja Rosen to stop breathing.

  She didn’t die quietly. She fought desperately, her heels scrambling against the mud, cutting channels. Her hands thrashed wildly, clawing at his arms as she tried to throw him off her, reaching for his face, trying to mark him, to get a scratch, anything that might mean she could fight him from the other side.

  But then it was over.

  Kask kept his hands locked around her throat long after she fell motionless.

  He knew she was dead.

  But he couldn’t let go.

  What came next was worse.

  But it had to be done.

  SIXTEEN

  Peter Ash was watching a busker playing the Beatles on piano-accordion as Mirjam Rebane’s car pulled up at the kerb.