‘Not that I’m aware of. Why?’

  ‘She was grilling me for intel before I left. Felt like she was working me. I need to know what she’s passed back to the NCA.’

  ‘There might be a time lag. But I’ll check.’

  ‘And this other thing can’t wait?’

  ‘It won’t take long. Then you can get off to St Lucia and play the White Knight.’

  ‘What’s so bloody important?’

  ‘I’ll explain in the car.’

  ‘Car? Where am I going?’

  ‘Battersea. The heliport. I’ve arranged a flight to Hereford. Look on the bright side, Daniel. You’ll be able to spend time with the au pair.’

  Willoughby-Brown took Shepherd out of the terminal and along to the short-term car park, where a van was waiting with the engine running. The side door slid back to reveal four large leather armchairs at either side of a table. There was an overhead TV screen and racks containing newspapers, magazines and bottles of water. Willoughby-Brown took one of the forward-facing seats and waved for Shepherd to sit on the other side of the table. The doors whispered shut. There was a privacy panel separating them from the driver so Willoughby-Brown had to press an intercom button to talk to the driver. ‘Mickey, we’re good to go,’ he said. ‘The heliport.’

  The van started to move and Willoughby-Brown took out a packet of the small cigars he liked to smoke.

  ‘I thought this was classed as a place of work so smoking wasn’t allowed,’ said Shepherd.

  Willoughby-Brown pointed at the privacy pane. ‘This means Billy has one place of work and I have another,’ he said.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You don’t smoke?’

  ‘You know I don’t, Jeremy.’

  ‘But you do sometimes. When you’re under cover?’

  Shepherd sat back in his chair. ‘Go ahead and smoke.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Willoughby-Brown, taking out a box of matches. ‘By all means open a window if it annoys you.’

  Shepherd smiled sarcastically. ‘How could you possibly annoy me?’

  Willoughby-Brown returned the smile but there was no warmth in his eyes. He lit a cigar, then passed an A4 envelope across the table. ‘Did you ever cross paths with a guy called Matt Standing? SAS. He’s been a sergeant a couple of times but has just been busted back to trooper.’

  Shepherd slid two photographs out of the envelope, both in colour. One was a head-and-shoulders shot of a man in his mid-twenties, square-jawed and with pale blue eyes He had dark brown hair, like Shepherd’s, but cut shorter. The second picture looked as if it had been taken in the desert: his hair was longer and he had a beard. His skin had browned under the sun and he was carrying a carbine. Shepherd shook his head.

  ‘Not surprising,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘He’s almost fifteen years younger than you and he joined after you left. He made a bit of a name for himself in Afghanistan, Syria and a few other trouble spots.’

  ‘And?’ He put the photographs back into the envelope.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Willoughby-Brown.

  ‘I’m waiting for the point, Jeremy. I went to a lot of time and trouble to get close to Meyer.’ He pulled up his shirt sleeve to show him the scar on his left arm. ‘Spilled blood for it. So you can see I’m not thrilled to be taken off the case.’

  Willoughby-Brown waved his hand dismissively. ‘No one’s taking you off the case. I just need your help for a day or two. It appears that Matt Standing has gone rogue.’

  ‘Rogue? In what way?’

  ‘He’s been beating up police officers. Put two MI5 officers in hospital. And killed at least one Muslim. We want him stopped before he goes any further.’

  ‘Why hasn’t he been arrested?’

  ‘Five doesn’t want any publicity over our officers. If this goes to court at any level the Guardian and the Independent will have a field day. I know nobody gives a toss about what appears in the left-wing press, these days but, the internet being what it is, the story will go viral and we don’t want that, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously,’ repeated Shepherd. ‘But if he killed someone …’

  ‘No witnesses. The man he killed took a flyer off a very tall building. Just because I know Standing did it doesn’t mean the police have a case. I just need you to find him, and get him to stop.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because he’s a younger version of you, Daniel. He’ll think like you and vice versa. You can get inside his head, work out where he is and what he’s doing.’

  ‘Five can’t find him?’

  ‘Until yesterday he was staying at a serviced apartment in Bayswater. After he attacked our people he went to ground.’

  ‘So I’m supposed to find him in a city with more than eight million people?’

  ‘I didn’t say it would be easy.’ Willoughby-Brown grinned. ‘That’s why I’m putting my best man on it.’

  Shepherd scowled. ‘You’re putting me on it because you want information from the Regiment.’

  ‘Guilty as charged,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘And on the QT, too. It has to be off the record. Totally unofficial.’

  Shepherd gazed out of the window as he considered what Willoughby-Brown was asking him to do. It was a simple task. London was a big city but most hotels required identification, and with half a million CCTV cameras, it was almost impossible to walk around undetected. But Shepherd was never happy investigating his own. It was bad enough mounting an operation against an undercover cop, but he really wasn’t happy about going after someone whom Willoughby-Brown so blithely described as being a younger version of himself.

  ‘You say this Standing has gone rogue,’ said Shepherd. ‘Why exactly?’

  ‘His sister was a drug addict and she overdosed. Standing seems to blame Muslims for her death and is on something of a rampage.’

  ‘And why are you involved?’

  ‘It’s complicated, obviously. When it became clear the police couldn’t handle it, Five stepped in. As I said, he put two of our officers in hospital so we need to find him and stop him.’

  ‘If Standing is such a danger, why not just release his picture? Or get the Met to use its CCTV facilities.’

  ‘Because if this gets out, nobody looks good,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘The SAS is shown to have a maverick soldier, the police can’t catch a lone fugitive and MI5 can’t take care of its own, plus there’s the whole racial thing. This has to be kept low profile.’

  ‘Swept under the carpet, you mean.’

  ‘Play with semantics all you want, Daniel. Just get the job done.’

  ‘Get what done? What exactly do you want me to do?’

  ‘Find him, and tell me where he is.’

  ‘What then? What will you do to him?’

  ‘Me? Nothing.’

  ‘Now who’s playing with semantics? What will happen to him?’

  ‘Hand on heart, I don’t know. I really don’t know. But he has to be stopped, one way or another.’

  ‘Which is why you can’t tell the Regiment? Because if Standing is discovered in a zipped-up kitbag in his bathroom, you’ll have the SAS on your back?’

  ‘I don’t think it’ll come to that.’

  ‘Hand on heart?’ Shepherd’s upper lip curled back into a snarl. ‘Sometimes I hate this job.’

  ‘You’re over-thinking, as always,’ said Willoughby-Brown, dismissively. ‘Just find him and let me worry about the consequences.’ He smiled. ‘That’s why I get paid the big bucks.’

  When the van arrived at the heliport, the driver pressed a button to open the side door electronically. ‘I’ll say goodbye to you here,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘I’ve got back-to-back meetings all afternoon.’

  Shepherd climbed out and hefted his bag over his shoulder. In the distance he could hear the roar of helicopter turbines. He wasn’t happy at what he was being asked to do, but at least he could pay Katra a flying visit.

  Willoughby-Brown was already looking at his phone as the van door closed.

  Shepherd walked into the terminal. An earnest young man in a grey suit was waiting for him. ‘Mr Shepherd? We’ve been expecting you.’

  ‘Give me a minute to make a couple of calls,’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ said the man. ‘Just let us know when you’re ready.’

  Shepherd thanked him, then called Major Allan Gannon, his former commanding officer in the SAS and a friend of many years. He explained what he wanted and arranged a meeting in Hereford later that evening.

  His second call was to Katra, who was overjoyed to hear his voice, and even happier when he explained that he would be in Hereford in less than an hour. He asked her to meet him in a field where Liam used to play football. ‘You’re not going to parachute, are you?’ she asked, and he wasn’t sure if she was joking.

  ‘I think my parachuting days are behind me,’ he said. ‘See you soon.’ It was only when he was slipping his phone back into his pocket that he realised yet again he’d put work before his personal life. He’d called the Major before he’d called Katra. He headed over to the man in the grey suit, who was now holding a clipboard. ‘Ready when you are,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Have you flown in a helicopter before, Mr Shepherd?’ asked the man, brightly.

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Only a few hundred times.’

  The man was unfazed by Shepherd’s sarcasm. ‘Excellent. You’ll know the drill, then,’ he said.

  Standing didn’t waste time showering or shaving. He changed quickly, into a pullover and jeans, packed his bag and headed downstairs. He didn’t bother telling the Indian girl on Reception that he wouldn’t be back, just said a bright ‘Good morning’ and hurried out. He walked to Queensway and headed into the Tube. The fact that they knew he exercised in Hyde Park almost certainly meant they knew where he was staying so he needed to get away, and quickly.

  The problem was where to go. He went down to the platform. Queensway was on the Central line, which gave him two choices – east or west. He decided east and followed the signs to the westward platform. He kept a watch for anyone who appeared to be following him but didn’t see anyone. The train arrived and he got on. Then, just as the doors started to close, he jumped off. No one followed him and the only people on the platform were passengers who had got off. He sat down and waited for the next train.

  How had they found him? Maybe MI5 were also looking at the pound shop. Had they also been watching Faisal Khan? If they had, why hadn’t they grabbed Standing when he’d left the tower block? Maybe Kaiser or Reynolds had spoken to them. But, no matter how they had found him, it meant that his life was going to be much more complicated from now on.

  The next train arrived and Standing boarded it. He stood staring at the Tube map above the doors, wondering where he should go. He needed somewhere he could stay where he could pay cash and where he wouldn’t have to provide ID, somewhere there were lots of tourists, lots of strangers, but not too far from Kilburn. He settled on the King’s Cross area. The Eurostar train from Paris terminated at St Pancras station and there were hundreds of small hotels in the area. He changed at Holborn and caught an eastbound Piccadilly line train.

  Twenty minutes later he was walking down a road lined with houses most of which had been converted into hotels. Almost all had ‘VACANCY’ signs in the window.

  Standing figured the smaller the premises, the more likely they would be to take cash. And the shabbier the building, the less likely they would be to insist on a credit card.

  He chose a hotel with stained brickwork, windows that hadn’t been washed for a long time and plastic plants in an unruly line on a windowsill. An African man in a cheap suit, reading a book on computer programming, was sitting behind a hole in the wall with a sign saying ‘RECEPTION’ above it. Next to it was a sign in smaller type saying that the front door was locked at 11 p.m. but that the night porter could be summoned by pressing the doorbell. Standing asked for a room and took out his wallet.

  ‘Do you have a passport?’ He had a French accent.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Standing.

  ‘Driving licence?’

  Standing shrugged. ‘I don’t drive.’

  ‘Credit card?’

  ‘Can I pay cash?’

  ‘I’m supposed to ask for a credit card.’

  ‘I know, but I can pay cash in advance and I should have a credit card in a day or two.’ He held out a handful of notes. ‘How much is the room rate?’

  ‘How many days?’

  ‘Three.’

  Standing tried not to smile as he saw the man trying to work out how much to charge, the official rate plus the notes that would go straight into his pocket. ‘Two hundred and forty pounds?’ he said, and Standing heard the hope in his voice.

  ‘No problem.’ He handed over the money.

  The man gave him a key and a big smile. There was no registration, nothing to sign, and Standing doubted there would be.

  The room was on the third floor, overlooking the rear of the property. The window opened and Standing looked out. There was an outbuilding below and, if push came to shove, he could probably jump down without hurting himself too much. From there he’d be able to jump down to the alley behind the property.

  There was a single bed that was sagging in the middle and a small wooden chest of drawers next to it that was covered with cigarette burns and white rings from wet glasses. The television was an old box-type model with a circular metal aerial attached to the back. The bathroom was tiny, with a half-size bath and a dripping shower above it. There was no plug in the washbasin and the mirror above it was cracked. It was far from salubrious but Standing had stayed in worse places.

  He dropped his bag onto the floor by the bed, lay down and stared up at the ceiling. He was pretty sure that the men in the park had been spooks. They certainly hadn’t been cops. And he couldn’t see that they had been friends of Faisal or Ali. MI5 had warned the cops off their investigation into the Asian grooming gang, so it was likely that they had also decided to get heavy with Standing. A matter of national security, they had said. Which presumably meant terrorism. Islamic terrorism. So was Ali Hussain a terrorist? Was Faisal?

  If it was MI5, the powers-that-be would now know that Standing couldn’t be warned off. So what would they do next? He’d felt that their threat to talk to his bosses was an empty one. If they wanted to do that they would already have done it. That meant they didn’t want the SAS top brass to know what was going on. Secret Squirrel. Spies did love to play spy games. Standing was sure of one thing – they would be back. And next time there would be more than two of them. And they wouldn’t want just to talk.

  Katra was waiting for Shepherd at the entrance to the field, standing next to her Saab. She jumped up and down and waved as the helicopter came into land, circling the field once before landing into the wind. Shepherd climbed out and jogged towards her, crouching forward even though the rotor blades were well above head-height.

  She ran towards him and practically threw herself against him. She was still hugging him as the Agusta 109 took off again, retracted its wheels and flew east, back to London. ‘How long are you staying?’ she asked, when he finally untangled himself.

  ‘It’s literally a flying visit,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back to London tomorrow.’

  Her face fell.

  ‘But I can take you out to dinner tonight,’ he said. ‘I’ll see if I can get a table at Castle House.’

  ‘I was going to cook,’ she said.

  ‘Even better,’ said Shepherd, putting his arm around her as they walked to her car. ‘I’ve got to see someone at about six, so I’ll be back around seven thirty. And I’ll bring some decent wine with me.’

  ‘Champagne?’

  He grinned and nodded, even though he wasn’t keen on it and, in any case, was fed up with it. ‘Champagne it is,’ he said.

  Standing didn’t like being confined, but he wasn’t sure how actively MI5 would be looking for him so he decided to stay put for a while. He sat down on the bed and logged on to Facebook on his phone. He searched for Ali Hussain and went through all the entries, looking for a match to the face he’d seen in the cab office. There were hundreds of people – men and women – with the name and it wasn’t until early evening that he was sure his quarry didn’t have an account. The electoral roll was equally unhelpful: there were almost two hundred Ali Hussains in London. Not exactly a needle in a haystack, but there was no way he could put two hundred properties under surveillance.

  He left the hotel once, to pick up new clothing from various charity shops, toiletries, and a selection of sandwiches, a box of Kentucky Fried Chicken and half a dozen bottles of beer.

  Back in the flat he spent the afternoon working out in his boxer shorts, switching between press-ups, sit-ups, planks and various stretching exercises. He followed that with half an hour doing the exercises that Dr Doyle had recommended. Later he showered, then watched the news while eating some of the chicken and a sandwich. All the time his mind was working through all his options. The minicab office seemed to be his only way forward, though if MI5 were still on the case it would put him in the firing line. Standing knew he didn’t have any choice. He wasn’t going to back down now. Or ever.

  Shepherd got to The Barrels early and took his Jameson’s and soda outside to the cobbled courtyard. It was a cloudless evening with a slight breeze that ruffled his hair as he sipped his drink. The Barrels was a traditional pub, just down the road from Hereford Cathedral, with five bars and a manager who allowed the televisions to be switched on only for major sporting events. Major Allan Gannon arrived exactly at seven o’clock. He was several inches taller than Shepherd, with wide shoulders, a strong chin, with a dimple in the middle, and a nose that had been broken several times. He was in his early fifties but as fit as any SAS trooper half his age. His grey hair was close-cropped and his eyes were watchful as he walked across the courtyard. He smiled as he reached Shepherd, shook his hand and clapped him on the back. ‘I don’t see enough of you, these days,’ he said. ‘You still live in Hereford, right?’

  ‘Sure, I’ve still got the house. But I’ve been in London most of the last six months.’

 

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