‘I will help you,’ said Merkulov. ‘I will get you the information you want.’
Yokely reached into his trouser pocket and took out a pound coin. ‘Heads or tails, Viktor?’
‘What?’
‘Heads or tails?’
Merkulov swallowed nervously. ‘Heads.’
Yokely tossed the coin high into the air, watched it rise and fall, caught it with his right hand and slapped it on to the back of the left. He slid away his hand to reveal that the coin was heads up. ‘You see, Viktor? It’s your lucky day, after all.’ Yokely turned to the men behind him. ‘Give Mr Merkulov his clothes. He’ll be working with us for a while.’
Shepherd walked Button out to the waiting minicab. ‘Well, she’s all primed,’ said Button. ‘If you can’t get her to open up after that, you never will.’
‘Were those tears real?’
‘I can empathise with someone losing a child, Spider. I’m a mother, remember?’
‘You were good in there,’ said Shepherd.
‘Surprised?’ She shivered.
‘Frankly, yes. I’ve never seen you in an undercover role before.’
‘I didn’t sit at a desk when I was at MI5. Do you think they’d have allowed me to head up SOCA’s undercover unit if I didn’t know what I was doing?’
‘I was trying to pay you a compliment.’
‘Well, you failed miserably,’ she said. ‘Now, give me a brotherly peck on the cheek and I’ll be out of here. She might be watching.’
She turned her cheek and Shepherd brushed it with his lips. ‘Take care, yeah?’
‘Always,’ she said. ‘Don’t forget that the microphones are on.’ She climbed into the back of the minicab and he waved as the car drove off.
Shepherd went back into the house. Elaine was pouring more wine into her glass. ‘Do you want to sit in the front room?’ said Shepherd. ‘The sofas are more comfortable than those wooden chairs.’
‘Sure,’ said Elaine. She got to her feet unsteadily with her glass. Shepherd picked up the bottle and they went into the sitting room. ‘It’s funny being in your house because it’s a mirror image of mine,’ she said, dropping into one of the sofas. The television was still on, the sound muted. A news programme. Three men in suits were being grilled by an overweight presenter with thinning hair.
Elaine half watched the screen as she sipped her wine. ‘I had the BBC asking me a couple of years ago if I’d meet the men who killed Robbie. Can you believe that?’ She slipped off her shoes and drew her legs underneath her.
‘Journalists are parasites, most of them,’ said Shepherd. ‘They don’t care about the people they write about, or the effect their stories have on them.’
‘It wasn’t just journalists. That black archbishop was part of it – Desmond Tutu. They were making a series where they were bringing together people from both sides and getting them to talk while he sat there and looked all sympathetic. I told them to go screw themselves.’
‘Who exactly did they want you to talk to?’ asked Shepherd.
‘We never got that far,’ said Elaine, ‘but I didn’t want to talk to any of them. There’s not one of the bastards expressed any regret for what they did. What was I supposed to do? Forgive and forget, shake the hands of the men who blew Robbie’s brains across the kitchen floor?’ She swigged her wine. ‘Fuck them – fuck them all. I hope they rot in hell for what they did to Robbie and Timmy.’
She was close to being drunk, Shepherd could see. And the microphones Amar Singh had planted would be recording every word. Her defences were down, so all he had to do was let her talk. With the right nudges she might incriminate herself.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘You said they didn’t hurt Timmy, that he died of leukaemia.’
Elaine had another swig. There were tears in her eyes. ‘Yes, Timmy got leukaemia. Bad leukaemia.’ She forced a smile, ‘It’s funny – isn’t it? – but that’s what they say. Good leukaemia and bad leukaemia. Good leukaemia has a high cure rate, bad leukaemia . . . doesn’t. They tried chemo and they wanted to try radiation but they needed a bone-marrow donor. After they’d looked at all our relatives and searched all the databases without sucess, they told me Robbie would probably have been a match. So when those bastards killed Robbie, they killed Timmy too.’
Shepherd reached over and took her free hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t have to say that,’ said Elaine.
‘I’m sorry for the hurt you’re feeling. I can understand why you feel the way you do.’
‘How?’ said Elaine, pulling away her hand. ‘You never lost a wife, you never held a newborn baby in your arms, knowing he was part of you, that you were totally responsible for him, then watched him die in a hospital bed, begging you to stop the pain.’
Shepherd did know what it was like to have a spouse snatched away, to know that the person you loved most in the world was gone for ever. But he couldn’t tell Elaine because to her he was Jamie Pierce and Jamie Pierce had never married and didn’t have children.
‘I’m sorry, Jamie, I didn’t mean to snap,’ she said.
‘I’m amazed you’re as calm as you are,’ said Shepherd. ‘I don’t think I’d cope half as well as you if I was married and someone shot my wife.’
‘What would you do?’
Shepherd pretended to consider the question, but he already knew what he was going to say. ‘I’d hunt them down and kill them,’ he said slowly. ‘No question about it.’
Elaine smiled. ‘And how would you do that? You’re a website designer.’
‘I’d do whatever I had to,’ said Shepherd. ‘Pay someone.’
‘A hitman? Now, where in God’s name would you find a hitman?’ She was still smiling at him.
‘This is Belfast, Elaine. There’s no shortage of killers here. You know that better than anyone. I’d find someone who’d do it and pay them whatever they wanted.’
Elaine shook her head. ‘It’s not as easy as that.’
‘Or I’d do it myself,’ he said.
‘And where would you get a gun?’
‘Gun, knife – I’d strangle them with my bare hands. I don’t know. I’m sure I’d do something, but I guess it’s all hypothetical.’
‘For you,’ she said. ‘For me . . .’ She sighed. ‘The anger and the hatred eat away at you, so you have to deal with them as best you can. I know some women who lost their men who have forgiven and moved on with their lives, but there’s no way I can forgive the men who killed Robbie. They killed him as if they were killing a dog, Jamie. They forced their way into our house and shot him in front of me, then walked out as if it was the most natural thing in the world. How can men act like that? How can they sit down and plan to kill a husband and father? Killing in a war I can understand, or losing your temper and lashing out, but planning to murder a man in front of his wife and child? How can a human being do it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And then the British Government lets them go. They say it’s okay to let the evil bastards back on to the streets because the IRA has given up violence. But what about Robbie and Timmy? Am I going to get them back?’
‘It’s a nightmare, I know.’
‘No, you wake up from a nightmare. This is my life, Jamie. You know Noel Kinsella, the one who ran off to the United States? He came back and pleaded guilty to murdering my husband and served not one day in prison. Not one day. Even the judge said that was wrong. Tell me, Jamie, what sort of world do we live in where you can murder a man and not be punished?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You and me both,’ she said. She gulped some more wine and refilled her glass. ‘You’re not trying to get me drunk, are you?’ she asked.
‘Now, why would I want to do that?’
‘To have your wicked way with me.’ She laughed.
‘Great! So I’d have to get you drunk to stand a chance with you, would I?’
Elaine stopped laughing. ‘Are you flirting with me, Jamie?’
Shepherd held her eyes for a few seconds, then grinned and shook his head.