‘And who did he bring with him?’

  ‘His friends.’

  ‘Boys? Girls?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Asian girls?’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘Just white girls? And Asian men. You didn’t think there was something strange about that?’

  The man closed his eyes, tensing for another kick.

  ‘Did the father ever come here?’ asked Standing.

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘To this room, I mean. To play with the girls.’

  ‘No. He just came to the shop.’

  ‘And did he pay you for the room? Or did Faisal?’

  ‘Faisal. Faisal always gave me the money.’

  ‘Does he have a job?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Standing kicked him in the ribs. ‘Does he have a job?’

  ‘He works as a taxi driver sometimes. But he’s like freelance. Sometimes he works, sometimes he doesn’t.’

  ‘Which taxi firm?’

  ‘In the high street.’

  ‘And his father. Does he work?’

  ‘He’s on benefits. He’s got a bad leg. Gets all sorts of allowances and his wife is down as his carer.’

  Standing put the phone into the pocket of his parka. ‘I’m going to keep your phone, along with the pictures of your family. And I’m keeping your driving licence, so I know where you live. If I hear you’ve spoken to the police, I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you and your family. And, trust me, I have cop friends so if you do talk to the police I will know.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said the man.

  ‘You won’t what?’

  ‘I won’t talk to the police.’

  ‘And you won’t talk to anyone else. Not a whisper, to anyone. If I hear that you’ve told anyone about what happened here, I’ll kill you.’ He gestured with the knife at the younger man. ‘And you need to make sure that he keeps his mouth shut. I don’t give a fuck who he is, because if he talks to anyone it’ll be you I kill. Do you understand?’

  The man nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes what?’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’

  ‘If either of you tells Faisal or Faisal’s father that I was asking about them – well, you know what will happen.’

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  ‘Tell me. Tell me what will happen.’

  The man swallowed. ‘You will kill me and you will kill my family.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure? I don’t hear any conviction in your voice.’ He bent down and pressed the blade of the knife against the man’s little finger on his left hand. ‘Maybe I should cut a finger off, give you something as a reminder. Just in case you think I’m not serious.’ He slid the knife along the flesh and blood flowed.

  ‘No!’ screamed the man. ‘I believe you! I believe you!’

  ‘Best you do,’ Standing said. He stood up and kicked him hard in the ribs. ‘I’m going to leave the knife by the door. You can cut yourself free when I’ve gone. But for now you stay on the floor while you count to a hundred. You can count, can you?’

  ‘Yes,’ sobbed the man.

  ‘Then start now,’ said Standing. He left the storeroom and walked to the shop door, dropping the knife on the counter as he went by. He slid back the bolt and let himself out. He practised square breathing as he walked to the Tube station. Four seconds in. Hold for four seconds. Four seconds out. Hold for four seconds. Repeat.

  The middle stages of an undercover penetration were always the hardest. The initial phase was, more often than not, a matter of waiting for the right moment to make an approach. Shepherd had already done that, courtesy of the two Algerians. By the time the end phase came around, trust had usually been won and it was just a matter of assembling the evidence to bring the target down. But the middle phase was where it could all go badly wrong. If Shepherd came over as too keen, Meyer would become suspicious. But if he maintained too low a profile, Meyer might lose interest. The fact that Meyer now believed Shepherd was Rich Campbell, former bank robber on the run from vindictive colleagues, might mean that he’d want to know more. Or he might decide Campbell was more trouble than he was worth and distance himself accordingly. All Shepherd could do was wait and see.

  Shepherd went for an early-morning run before he had breakfast in the dining room. Later he went for a walk along the beach and took the opportunity to phone Katra. ‘Where are you?’ was the first thing she asked.

  ‘Spain,’ he said.

  ‘Lucky you.’

  He heard the resentment in her voice. ‘I’m working.’

  ‘I can hear seagulls.’

  ‘I’m on the beach.’

  ‘You’re working on the beach?’

  He laughed. ‘Believe it or not, I am,’ he said.

  ‘When are you coming back?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘I miss you,’ she said.

  ‘I miss you too.’

  ‘Hurry home.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said, even though he knew there was nothing he could do to speed things up. He ended the call and looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock.

  He walked back to the hotel and spent an hour in the gym, forty-five minutes on a treadmill and the rest of the time with free weights. Then he showered, changed into clean clothes and went upstairs to Docherty’s suite.

  Docherty was sitting on the terrace with his binoculars and a glass of gin and tonic on a table next to him, with a copy of the Daily Telegraph and a half-eaten club sandwich. ‘Help yourself to the minibar,’ said Docherty. There was a Nikon camera with a two-foot lens on a tripod next to him.

  ‘I’m good,’ said Shepherd, dropping into the seat on the other side of the table. He jerked his thumb towards the marina. ‘Anything happening?’

  ‘The girl went shopping at just after nine. There was a wine delivery at ten. She returned about half an hour ago. Jeeves has been doing some boat stuff.’

  ‘Meyer hasn’t left?’

  Docherty shook his head. ‘He was up and about when the girl got back but they’re both below decks. He’s probably giving her one.’ He grinned at the disgust that flashed across Shepherd’s face. ‘Come on, don’t tell me you wouldn’t give her one, if you had the chance.’ So far as Docherty was concerned, Lucy Kemp was just a pretty girl hanging out with a known drug dealer. He didn’t know her real name or that she was an undercover cop.

  ‘She’s not really my type,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Good to know,’ said Docherty. ‘Because she’s just the type I go for. I like them small with long black hair.’

  ‘You should go to Thailand,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Nah, I’m not into Asians,’ said Docherty. ‘Not that I get the chance to fool around anyway.’ He raised his glass. ‘I’m married with three kids and the wife keeps me on a very short leash.’

  ‘How are Farouk and Salim?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘Back in Algeria until Meyer moves on,’ he said. ‘Farouk was worried about the cut.’

  ‘Tell him I’m fine,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘He said there was a lot of blood.’

  ‘There was, but I heal quickly.’

  Docherty sipped his drink. ‘What’s the plan?’ he asked.

  Shepherd shrugged. ‘The ball’s in Meyer’s court. All I can do is wait.’ He put his Jeff Taylor phone on the table. ‘I suppose a beer wouldn’t hurt.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ said Docherty. ‘It’s all on the taxpayer.’

  Standing got to Zoë Middlehurst’s house at just before four o’clock. The two car parking spaces were empty so he figured her parents weren’t home and rang the bell. Zoë had changed out of her school uniform and was wearing a black T-shirt and leggings. ‘Oh, Matt,’ she said, when she saw who it was. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I need to talk to you, Zoë.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Lexi.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any point,’ she said.

  ‘Just a few minutes,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen her phone, Zoë. I know she called you on the day she died.’

  ‘That’s not a secret,’ she said. ‘She wanted me to come and take her home.’

  ‘So you didn’t go to the house in Kilburn with her.’

  Zoë shook her head.

  ‘She went with Frankie?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Can I come inside, Zoë? I don’t want your neighbours wondering why a strange man is standing on your doorstep.’

  ‘You’re not strange,’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘You know what I mean.’

  She thought about it for a few seconds, then pulled the door open. Standing stepped into the hall. There were stairs to their right and two doors to the left. She took him down the hall to the kitchen where several textbooks were scattered across a stripped-pine table beside a glass of Coke. ‘I was doing my homework,’ she said.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ he promised. ‘What time do your parents get back?’

  ‘Mum’s home by six, unless she’s out drinking. Dad gets back when Wall Street opens. So, late.’ She flopped down on a chair and took a sip of the Coke. The schoolbooks reminded him how young she was. And that he was alone in the house with a schoolgirl. He suddenly felt guilty about what he was doing, but knew that he had no choice. Only she could answer his questions about what had happened to Lexi on the day she’d died.

  He smiled, trying to put her at ease. ‘So, I saw that Lexi called you that night.’

  Zoë nodded. ‘As I said, she wanted me to come and get her. Frankie had left her at the house and she said the other men there wouldn’t let her go.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They weren’t kidnapping her or anything like that. They just kept giving her drinks and saying she should stay. She called me and asked me to come and get her. And that’s what I did.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to the house with her?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘For the drugs?’

  ‘I never touch drugs. Well, not heroin. Ecstasy, sure, but everyone takes ecstasy.’

  ‘So she went on her own?’

  ‘No, like I said, she went with Frankie. I told her she was stupid, but she still went. She always went.’

  ‘Why? Because he gave her drugs?’

  ‘She said he was her boyfriend, but he was using her.’

  ‘Using her how?’

  Zoë picked up a pen and began doodling on a pad.

  ‘Using her how, Zoë?’ Standing repeated.

  She screwed up her face. ‘You won’t like it, Matt,’ she whispered.

  ‘You have to tell me. I need to know.’

  She sighed. ‘When they first started going out, he was nice. He bought her flowers and perfume, he took her to Pizza Express, he paid for an upgrade for her phone. Then he started giving her drugs. Ecstasy. Weed. She used to smoke it in a place he used in Kilburn.’

  ‘The pound shop?’

  She looked up. ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘I just do. Did you go?’

  ‘Sometimes. Frankie had a PlayStation 4 and he always had Bacardi Breezers. He’d order pizza and that. He and Lexi were always fooling around and he was trying to get me to go with one of his mates, but I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Zoë wrinkled her nose. ‘I always thought Frankie was sleazy but Lexi loved him.’

  The word ‘loved’ hit Standing like a punch to the stomach, but he tried not to show how much it upset him. ‘And he gave her drugs at the pound shop?’

  Zoe nodded. ‘Yeah, first it was just cannabis and ecstasy, but then he got her to try heroin. Chasing the dragon, he called it. You heat it on silver foil and smoke it through a straw. I tried it once but just the once. Lexi loved it.’

  ‘And he started her injecting?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know she was injecting, honest to God, not until I went around to the house to get her. I thought she just smoked.’ She shook her head fiercely. ‘I told her he was only using her. I told her.’

  ‘What do you mean, using her?’

  Zoë stared out of the window. Her left leg was jigging up and down, a sign of nerves. Standing let the unanswered question hang in the air for almost a minute before repeating it. ‘What do you mean, using her?’

  She winced. Then she turned to him with tears in her eyes. ‘You don’t want to know,’ she whispered.

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘Tell me.’

  She sighed again. ‘He gave her drugs when he was first going out with her. Whenever she wanted cannabis or ecstasy or heroin, Frankie gave it to her. Then about three months ago he changed. He said he had to pay for the drugs, which meant she had to pay him. Of course she didn’t have any money, just what her parents gave her. So Frankie said she’d have to do things for him.’ Her cheeks reddened and she looked away.

  ‘What sort of things, Zoë?’

  ‘You know,’ she whispered, averting her eyes.

  ‘Sex?’

  She nodded.

  ‘He made her have sex with him?’

  ‘Not with him. She wanted to have sex with him. She was a virgin before she met Frankie and he was her first. But Frankie said she had to have sex with his friends. For the drugs.’

  Standing’s throat had gone dry and he could barely swallow. ‘And did she?’

  ‘She said no – at least, that was what she told me. She said she just gave them blow jobs.’

  Standing’s heart was racing and he forced himself to stay calm. He didn’t want Zoë to know how upset he was because then she’d clam up. ‘Where was this? The pound shop?’

  ‘They stopped using the pound shop. The guy who owned it started using the back room for something else. So Frankie took her to a minicab firm in Kilburn. They had a room upstairs. That’s where she used to do it.’

  ‘You’re sure about this?’

  She was still avoiding his gaze. ‘She hated it. She said she didn’t want to but Frankie said she had no choice and she always did what he wanted. Sometimes he drove her to houses where she had to … you know …’ She left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘And you don’t think she was screwing them? These guys?’

  ‘She always said it was just blow jobs, but about two weeks before she died she got really upset. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. Frankie had taken her somewhere and …’ She trailed off.

  ‘You think he made her have sex with them?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I told her she should chuck Frankie. Have nothing to do with him any more. Tell him to fuck off. I said she should tell her parents, or the police. Or even one of the teachers. What he was doing was wrong, wasn’t it?’

  Standing nodded. ‘Of course it was. Very wrong.’

  ‘That’s what I said. I said she should tell Frankie that if he kept passing her around she’d tell the cops. I said that if he thought she was going to go to the cops he’d have to stop.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘About two weeks before she …’

  ‘Died?’

  She sniffed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you think she told Frankie she would tell the police?’

  She sniffed again. ‘She wouldn’t, though, because she didn’t want to get him into trouble. She just wanted him to tell the other men so that they would stop …’ Another unfinished sentence.

  Tears were running down her face and Standing wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t want any physical contact to be misconstrued so he stood up and went over to a kitchen roll. He pulled off a few sheets and gave them to her to wipe her tears, then left the house, pulling the front door closed behind him. As he walked down the road he started square breathing. Inhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. By the time he’d reached Maida Vale Tube station he had almost calmed down. Almost.

  ‘Windchaser’s got visitors,’ said Docherty. Shepherd got up off the sofa. He’d been half watching a football match between two Spanish teams and snacking on peanuts from the minibar. ‘Two IC2 males from the look of it.’

  He went out onto the terrace where Docherty was snapping away with his long-lensed camera. Shepherd picked up the binoculars, but by the time he had focused them on the jetty, the two men had boarded the boat.

  Docherty took the camera off the tripod and handed it to him. Shepherd flicked through the photographs. Docherty had snapped the two men walking along the jetty and getting onto the boat. In several images he had caught their faces. Shepherd zoomed in on one of the photographs. Both men were dark-haired. One had a five o’clock shadow, the other was clean-shaven. They wore light suits and open-necked shirts. The clean-shaven guy was in his late twenties or early thirties, the other maybe a decade older and wearing a light-coloured hat and sunglasses. Shepherd flicked to the next picture. The faces were more visible and Shepherd recognised the younger man. ‘That’s Randy Garcia,’ he said, showing the close-up to Docherty.

  ‘Randy?’

  ‘His real name is Juan Garcia but he’s a bit of a one for the ladies so the DEA call him Randy. For the sex and after the actor. He works for the Hernandez cartel – his great-uncle is Jesus Hernandez. Big-time cocaine exporters. Vicious bastards, they’ve killed at least four DEA agents over the years and ten times as many Colombian government officials.’ He checked more of the pictures, trying to get a clearer view of the older man, but the hat and glasses made identification difficult. ‘The other guy might be Oscar Lopez, one of the cartel’s enforcers, but I couldn’t swear to it.’

  ‘So they’re putting together a drug deal?’ said Docherty. ‘It’s a pity we can’t get a bug on the boat.’

  ‘That’s why Meyer has his meetings afloat,’ said Shepherd. ‘Very hard to eavesdrop.’

  ‘Do you think you can get a bug on board?’

  Shepherd grimaced. ‘I could try, but if it was discovered it would be pretty obvious where it had come from. Too risky, I reckon.’

  ‘So what do you think’s going on?’

  ‘I guess he’s arranging a delivery,’ said Shepherd. ‘The Colombians move a lot of product through Spain, these days. The open-border thing means that once it’s there they can get it to anywhere else in mainland EU without any Customs checks, and there’s so much stuff crossing the English Channel that checks there are cursory at best.’

 

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