Shepherd needed to ditch the phone, but he also needed a replacement. And for that he had to speak to Hargrove. He stared out of the window and cursed. Even if Hargrove had got on the case as soon as he’d heard that the Uddin brothers were sending him to Paris, Shepherd doubted he’d have time to arrange anything like adequate back-up. Once he was on the train it would take just over two and a half hours to get to Paris. Men had to be assigned, briefed and put in position. Surveillance equipment had to be requisitioned. He could talk to Hargrove and the bug would pick it up, but he’d have no idea if Hargrove had heard him. Equipment failed, usually at the worst of times.
Shepherd had just decided he would have to use the mobile when it rang. It was Hargrove. ‘We’re right behind you, Spider,’ said the superintendent.
Shepherd resisted the urge to look out of the rear window. ‘I’ve got to switch phones,’ he said.
‘Sharpe is on his way, on the back of a bike,’ said Hargrove. ‘He’ll be at Waterloo waiting for you. Men’s toilet. Swap phones and remove this number from the Sim card. You’ll be fine.’
Shepherd smiled to himself. Hargrove, as usual, was way ahead of him – he would be a tough act for Button to follow.
‘I’ve already been on to Paris,’ said Hargrove. ‘They’re getting teams in place.’
‘It’ll be tight.’
‘They promised me at least four men and another monitoring CCTV at the station.’
‘Are you going?’ asked Shepherd.
‘We’ll be on the train but we’ll keep our distance.’
‘Thanks. I’ll feel better knowing you’re around.’
‘It’s short notice, but in a way it’ll help the case,’ said Hargrove. ‘The French won’t have time to get audio but they’ll take pictures and hopefully identify the Albanians. That’ll give us a big advantage for when you do the actual run.’
‘Agreed,’ said Shepherd.
‘Is the ticket first or standard?’
‘Standard,’ said Shepherd.
‘In what name?’
‘Peter Devereux,’ said Shepherd. ‘Same as on the passport they’ve given me.’
‘Okay, let me call Eurostar, get myself and Sharpe on board. Be lucky, Spider.’
The superintendent cut the connection. Shepherd bit his lower lip. He hated going into any situation blind. Preparation was everything. Now he was trav elling to a city he’d only ever visited as a tourist and would be questioned by Albanian gangsters. He didn’t know who they were, or anything about their backgrounds, but they had his photograph and there was an outside chance they might know who he was. That was the big unspoken fear in every undercover operative’s heart: that someone out there might know the truth. And if the Albanians did, they’d kill him. Shepherd’s heart was pounding and he took several deep breaths to calm himself. He was worrying about nothing; he hadn’t worked against Albanians before; this was his first case involving counterfeit currency. All they had was a photograph and a legend that would withstand all but the most thorough investigation. Everything would be fine. In eight hours or so he’d be back in London, asleep in his own bed. He flipped off the back cover of his phone, removed the battery and slid out the Sim card. He put the Sim card into his wallet and reassembled the phone.
The taxi dropped Shepherd outside Waterloo station. He gave the driver ten pounds and told him to keep the change. As the man took it, Shepherd remembered that the station toilets weren’t free. ‘Sorry, mate, you couldn’t give me twenty pence, could you?’ he asked sheepishly. ‘I’ve got to take a leak.’
The driver handed him a coin. ‘Have it on me.’ He laughed.
Shepherd walked into the station and headed down the stairs to the lavatories. He put his twenty-pence coin into the slot and pushed through the turnstiles. All the urinals were unoccupied but two men were washing their hands at the line of basins. There was no sign of Sharpe. Shepherd checked his watch. There was half an hour before the train was due to leave and he still had to go through the Immigration and security checks.
He went over to one of the urinals. Two stalls were occupied, red squares showing in their locks. The rest showed green. Unoccupied. Shepherd urinated, whistling softly to himself. The two hand-washers left.
An elderly man with a walking-stick limped over to a urinal. A toilet flushed and one of the doors opened. Shepherd glanced over his shoulder. It was Jimmy Sharpe. Shepherd zipped up his jeans and went to a washbasin. He put his mobile phone beside it and started to wash his hands. Sharpe stood at the adjacent basin and put down an identical phone next to Shepherd’s, nodded curtly and thrust his hands under the tap.
Shepherd shook his hands dry, picked up Sharpe’s phone and left.
He slid his ticket into the automated barrier and showed his passport to a bored officer of the French Police Nationale, then walked through a metal detector. It amazed him that there were no checks by British officials on people leaving the country. Virtually every other country in the world examined the passport of anyone leaving, and often punished those who had overstayed their visas. Not the British. The government seemed to take the view that as long as people were leaving, that was the end of it.
The train was boarding and Shepherd took the escalator to the platform. Carriage number eight, midway down the train, a window-seat facing the rear in a group of four. Two students sat opposite, sharing an iPod and nodding in time to tunes that Shepherd could hear only as an irritating buzz. It looked as if the seat next to him might be empty, but at the last moment a middle-aged woman in a fake-fur coat hurried down the aisle pulling a wheeled suitcase after her. She rammed it under the table, banging Shepherd’s leg.
Shepherd closed his eyes and rested his head against the seat back. He wasn’t looking forward to meeting the Albanians.
The train pulled out of Waterloo. Shepherd asked the middle-aged woman to let him pass so that he could use the toilet and took the opportunity to walk to the front of the train. He hadn’t realised how long the Eurostar was. He counted the number of seats in one carriage and did a quick calculation in his head. More than seven hundred passengers on the train – the equivalent of two full jumbo jets. Virtually every seat was taken and there was no sign of Sharpe or Hargrove. He hoped they’d managed to get on because he didn’t want to be in France with only the French police behind him.
Just before the train went into the tunnel, Shepherd went in search of the buffet car towards the rear. He bought a chicken-salad sandwich and some coffee, then took them back to his seat. As he was unwrapping the sandwich he saw Hargrove walking through the carriage from the rear of the train. They had the briefest eye-contact and then he was gone. Shepherd relaxed a little. At least he was on board. And, presumably, Sharpe was, too.
Shepherd moved along the platform to the Gare du Nord station concourse, his hands in his pockets. He was fairly sure that Hargrove was some way behind him, but he didn’t look round. Ahead, a line of taxi drivers held up handwritten cards, and behind them was a Haagen Dazs outlet, with a scattering of tables. To the left of the ice-cream shop two big men in black leather jackets and blue jeans were staring at him with hard eyes. Shepherd hoped they weren’t part of the French surveillance team because they were as obvious as hell. He kept walking.
The French station was considerably scruffier than its London counterpart, the concourse littered with discarded fast-food wrappings and crushed cigarette packets. An old woman in a brightly coloured headscarf and a long dark coat flashed him a toothless smile and held out a gnarled hand. Shepherd shook his head and walked past.
The two men in leather jackets were heading purposefully towards him. Not surveillance, then. Shepherd stopped and turned to them, head slightly up, lips tight, playing the hard man.