Hard Landing (39 page)

‘You do understand how the British trial system works, don’t you, Hamilton?’ said Shepherd. ‘Innocent until judged guilty by my peers.’

‘That’s the theory, Macdonald. But I can count the number of innocent men in here on the fingers of one hand.’

Hamilton unlockedthe gate to the remandblock and ushered Shepherd through. Lloyd-Davies was in the bubble and she smiled when she saw Shepherd. ‘I was worried that the Jocks might not let you back, Macdonald,’ she said.

‘Mistaken identity, apparently,’ said Hamilton.

‘Just in time for tea,’ said Lloyd-Davies.

Shepherd was about to say he wasn’t hungry, but that would have been a mistake: as far as the prison staff were concerned, he’d been in the custody of cops who wouldn’t have given him much in the way of food and drink. Not when he had been involved in the shooting of one of their own. ‘Thanks, ma’am,’ he said.

Hamilton unlocked the door to the spur and Shepherd walked through. It was association time. Down on the ones four prisoners were playing pool, and there was a card game going on. Shepherd stood at the stairs, looking for Carpenter. No sign of him. He walked back to the bubble and asked to have Jimmy Sharpe’s name and telephone number on his approved list.

‘Who is he?’ asked Lloyd-Davies. ‘Family?’

‘He’s the cop who took me to Glasgow,’ said Shepherd. ‘Said he might have something to help with my case.’

As Shepherd walked away from the bubble, Lee came over to him, his hands in his pockets. ‘How did it go, Bob?’ he asked.

‘Blind as a bat, she was,’ said Shepherd.

‘Couldn’t identify you?’

‘I doubt she’d recognise herself in the mirror,’ he said. ‘Much happen while I was away?’

‘You weren’t away long.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Traffic must have been good to get to Glasgow and back so quick.’

Shepherd frowned. ‘We drove to King’s Cross and got the train from there. Bastards wouldn’t even let me have a hot meal on the journey.’

‘Where did they take you?’

‘Some hospital.’

‘What about the cop shop?’

Shepherd frowned, not understanding the question.

‘They must have taken you to a cop shop for questioning, right? Craigie Street, was it?’

‘Not much to question me about. It was a waste of time. She said it wasn’t me. Not by a mile.’

‘Still, you got a day out, didn’t you? Raining, was it?’

‘What?’

‘Raining in Glasgow, was it? Always rains in Glasgow, it does.’

Shepherd’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why the sudden interest in the weather, Jason?’

‘Just making conversation.’

‘Sounds more like the third degree. What’s going on? You planning on writing my biography?’

Lee put his hands up and took a step backwards. ‘Fine, I’ll keep my gob shut,’ he said. He pushed past Shepherd. ‘It’s teatime, anyway.’ He joined the queue at the hotplate.

Shepherd hadn’t selected his meal so he was given the vegetarian option – mushroom pizza. When he got back to the cell, Lee was sitting at the table. Shepherd apologised for snapping at him. ‘It’s been a shitty couple of days,’ he said.

‘Gave you a lot of grief, did they?’

‘You know what cops are like.’

‘Was your brief there?’

‘Phoned him to put him in the picture, but I’m a big boy, Jason.’

Lee chuckled. ‘Good to have you back, anyway. It was too quiet without you. Nobody got their legs broken.’

Carpenter waited until one o’clock in the morning before he got out of bed and took the Nokia phone and battery from their hiding places. He slotted the battery into the phone and switched it on. About a quarter of the power had already gone.

He went over to the door and listened. There’d been a check at a quarter to one so there shouldn’t be another for at least forty-five minutes. He tapped out a number. Fletcher answered on the second ring.

‘How’s it going, Kim?’

‘He’s there,’ said Fletcher. ‘We’ve eyeballed Roper.’

‘Much in the way of security?’

‘A couple of Cussies. No guns, as far as we can see.’

‘I need him taken care of, Kim.’

‘I’m on it, boss.’

Carpenter massaged the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. He had a headache. ‘Wait a minute. Kim.’

‘What’s up, boss?’

Carpenter took a deep breath. He had a bad feeling about Roper, but couldn’t put his finger on what was troubling him. ‘Get in a couple of freelancers,’ he said.

‘I can take care of it myself,’ said Fletcher.

‘I don’t doubt that. But just in case, yeah? Get blacks. Muddy the waters.’

‘Okay, boss.’

‘Soon as you can. If there’s a grass inside, I could get turned over at any moment. And if I lose this phone, we’re back to passing messages.’

‘Tomorrow night, boss. On my life.’

‘We’ve given him plenty of chances to back out, anything that happens from now on is his own bloody fault.’

‘What about the wife and kids?’

‘Unless they get in the way, leave them be,’ said Carpenter. He had no wish to hurt the man’s family. In fact, he had no wish to hurt the man. He wasn’t killing Roper out of anger or hatred, simply removing the last remaining obstacle to his freedom.

Hal Healey opened the cell door at a quarter to eight. Shepherd had put in an application to shower and he was on the way out when Healey stopped him and handed him a plastic bag. It contained a Walkman and a set of headphones. ‘Your lawyer sent this in,’ said Healey. He thrust a clipboard at Shepherd. ‘Sign for it.’

Shepherd did so and put the bag on his bunk.

He went along to the shower room, and after he’d changed into a clean polo shirt and jeans, he waited until Lee had left for labour before checking the Walkman. It was a device he’d used before. It functioned as a cassette-player and radio, but the pause button activated a separate recording system that could store up to twelve hours of audio on a hidden chip.

He clipped it to his belt and hung the earphones round his neck. All he had to do now was to get Carpenter talking and activate the recorder.

He went downstairs to collect his cleaning equipment. Weston and Ginger were already cleaning the ones. Amelia Heartfield was standing by the supplies cupboard. ‘Come on, Bob, the early bird . . .’

‘Sorry, Amelia,’ said Shepherd. She grinned at him and winked.

Shepherd took out a mop and a bucket, which he filled from the tap by the boiler. He looked up at the threes. Carpenter was at the head of the stairs, working with his mop. Shepherd pressed the pause button, activating the recorder, then headed up the stairs. He nodded at Carpenter and began to swab the floor. ‘Never thought I’d be grateful to have a mop in my hand,’ he said.

‘Beats being in the workshops with the muppets,’ said Carpenter.

Shepherd moved closer to Carpenter. ‘What you said about getting a message out for me . . .’

‘I’m a bit pushed at the moment,’ said Carpenter.

‘But you can do it, right?’

‘I’ve got a few problems need sorting.’

Carpenter moved away and Shepherd followed him. ‘Are you okay?’

Carpenter leaned on his mop. ‘Look, Bob, I’m not your nursemaid, right?’

‘Yeah, but you said you’d help me out, right, get a message out for me?’

‘I said I’ll think about it. And I’m thinking about it.’ Carpenter looked around, but there were no prison officers within earshot. ‘Let me take care of my business, then I’ll help you with yours, okay?’

‘Anything I can do?’

‘I’ve someone taking care of it for me as we speak.’

‘On the out?’

Carpenter nodded. ‘Until that’s done, I’m keeping my head down.’

‘Getting rid of witnesses, yeah?’ Carpenter frowned, and Shepherd realised he’d pushed him too far. ‘None of my business,’ he added.

‘That’s right,’ said Carpenter.

‘Best of luck with it, anyway,’ said Shepherd. ‘Just don’t forget the shit I’m in, that’s all.’

Shepherd moved away. Carpenter had said nothing that could be used to build a case against him, but the hint had been clear enough: he was getting ready to move against Roper. He got on with mopping the floor, keeping to the far side of the landing, away from Carpenter, not wanting to crowd him.

He waited until the prisoners returned from the workshops before he went down to the ones and stood in line for the phones. Lee was standing near the hotplate with half a dozen other prisoners, holding a plastic tray. He grinned and flashed him a thumbs-up.

Shepherd looked up through the suicide mesh. Carpenter had gone back to his cell. If he knew where Roper was being kept, he had to have a source high up in the Church or in Sam Hargrove’s unit. And if the source could locate Roper, he might also identify Shepherd. Shepherd could feel the muscles tightening at the back of his neck. If Carpenter discovered he was a cop, he could have him killed inside the prison just as easily as out. Shepherd forced himself to relax. There was no point in worrying about what might be. There’d been nothing in the conversation to suggest that Carpenter suspected anything.

A hand gripped Shepherd’s shoulder and he whirled round.

‘Hey, I’m cool,’ said a man, his hands up. ‘I was just asking if you want to use the phone.’

Shepherd apologised. He’d been so deep in thought that he hadn’t noticed one of the phones was unoccupied. He tapped out his pin number, then Uncle Richard’s. It was answered on the third ring. ‘What do you need?’ said a male voice. Shepherd couldn’t tell if it was the man he’d spoken to last time he’d called.

Two West Indians were waiting to use the phone, close enough to overhear everything he said. ‘Hiya, Richard, it’s Bob,’ he said cheerily.

Use of the names meant the man at the other end of the phone realised that the conversation was non-secure.

‘What do you need?’ said the voice.

‘How’s Sam doing?’ said Shepherd.

‘Do you want me to get a message to him?’

Shepherd laughed for the benefit of the West Indians. ‘Yeah, that’s right. It’s been ages since I talked to him.’

‘Are you requesting a meeting?’

‘No, visiting hours are a pain in the arse here. It takes for ever to put a visiting order through.’

‘Is this a matter of urgency?’

‘Absolutely. Has he seen Sandy?’

‘Sandy Roper?’

‘I know, they’re perfect for each other, aren’t they? It’s about time they went on holiday, isn’t it?’

‘Has Roper’s location been compromised?’

‘Tell Sam I said they should go away. The sooner the better. The rest will do them good.’

‘I’ll pass that on immediately,’ said the voice. ‘Do you need anything else?’

‘I’m fine. Bored out of my skull.’

‘You’re in no immediate danger?’

‘Shit, no. Everything’s fine. I’m just looking forward to getting out. Look, I’d better go, there are people waiting to use the phone.’

‘Good luck,’ said the man.

Kim Fletcher pulled on a pair of night-vision goggles and pressed the on switch. They buzzed, then flickered into life. ‘They work?’ asked Lewis from the back seat.

‘Of course they do,’ sneered Fletcher. ‘They cost a grand.’ He took off the goggles and handed them to Lewis. Lewis was nineteen and had already killed five men, four for money. Sitting next to him was Jewel, who had just turned sixteen. Lewis had taken on Jewel as his assistant and was teaching him the tricks of the trade. He was learning fast.

Jewel screwed a bulbous silencer into the barrel of his pistol, a Swiss-made SIG-Sauer P-220, not that he cared about the make of the weapon: to him, a gun was a gun. As long as it fired bullets, that was all that mattered. Fletcher took a second pair of goggles from the BMW’s glove compartment and handed them to him.

Lewis checked the goggles, nodded, then took them off. He checked the safety on his gun. It was also a SIG-Sauer but, unlike Jewel’s 9mm, it was the more modern P-232, chambered for 7.65mm Browning cartridges. Like Jewel, Lewis didn’t care what the gun was. They’d bought the weapons from an underworld arms dealer in Harlesden, a Yardie who had been prepared to sell them on a return-if-not-fired basis, but Fletcher had told Lewis he was to buy them outright. Fletcher was paying him twenty thousand pounds for the job. It was up to him how much he gave Jewel.

‘Okay?’ Fletcher asked Lewis.

Lewis nodded. He had been paid half the money in advance and would get the rest when Roper was dead. He took a deep breath. The adrenaline always kicked in when he had a loaded gun in his hands. Not fear, not even excitement, just a gearing-up of all his senses for what lay ahead. The taking of a human life.

‘Call me when it’s done,’ said Fletcher.

Lewis jerked his chin at Jewel and the pair climbed out of the BMW.

They had left their Suzuki jeep in a supermarket car park, behind the BMW. They climbed in and drove for half an hour to the house where Roper was being held.

They parked outside the school that bordered the housing estate and clambered over its railings. They slipped on the night-vision goggles, switched them on, checked their guns and ran across the playing-field. They vaulted the garden wall and stood staring at the rear of the house. They waited for a full ten minutes until they were satisfied that no one was watching from any of the windows, then crept towards the kitchen door, their guns at the ready.

Lewis attached a small suction cup to the glass panel in the kitchen window and used a glass cutter to scratch out a hole big enough for his hand to go through. He tapped the glass and it cracked cleanly. He pulled it out and placed it on the ground, then reached through and unlocked the door.

They moved through the kitchen. There was a stack of dirty plates in the sink, and half-drunk mugs of coffee on the worktop. They stood for a while in the doorway, listening, then moved slowly up the stairs, keeping close to the wall to keep the noise to a minimum.