Upstairs, a toilet flushed. Tariq froze. It must be either the woman or the boy. He pressed himself against the wall. It wasn’t a problem. Whoever it was would go back to bed. Tariq heard footsteps coming down the stairs. His heart pounded and for a moment he felt so light-headed that he thought he would pass out. Was it the boy or the woman? Whoever it was, they were half-way down the stairs and were only seconds from reaching the bottom – at which point they would see him. He would have to shoot them first, then turn and shoot Shepherd.
Tariq raised his gun and moved away from the wall. He stepped sideways, both hands on the butt of the gun, swinging it up to aim at the figure on the stairs. He gasped when he saw it was Shepherd. The man was wearing a denim shirt and over it a nylon shoulder holster. As Tariq hesitated, Shepherd ducked, reached for his gun and yelled, ‘Jack!’
Tariq backed away from the stairs. He couldn’t get a clear shot. He heard the man in the sitting room shout, ‘Billy!’ and turned, his finger tightening on the trigger. His mind whirled when he saw that the man in the sitting room was also Shepherd. Two Shepherds? How could that be? He felt as if he was moving through treacle. Was he dreaming? Was it all a nightmare? The Shepherd in the sitting room was reaching for a gun on the coffee-table next to the ashtray, a big automatic with a silencer.
Tariq pulled the trigger and there was a loud popping sound, but his hands were shaking so much that the shot went wide and buried itself in the sofa.
The man in the sitting room rolled on to the floor and Tariq pulled the trigger again. The gun kicked in his hands and there was another loud pop.
Then Tariq felt a thump in his back and gasped. His first thought was that he’d been punched, but a burning pain was spreading between his shoulder-blades. He’d been shot. He turned, his mouth open in surprise. The man on the stairs was holding his gun in both hands, a confident smile on his face. ‘Drop the gun,’ he said.
Tariq tried to breathe but a gurgling sound came from his lungs. His body felt as if all the energy was draining from it, and the slightest movement was an effort.
‘Drop the gun,’ repeated the man on the stairs.
Tariq lifted it. If he was about to die, at least he would take one of the infidels with him. ‘Allahu Akbar,’ he whispered, and pointed his weapon at the man’s chest.
The man fired twice and Tariq felt two blows to his chest. There was no burning pain this time, just a spreading coldness. The strength went from his legs and he fell to the floor. The last thing he saw was the smile on his killer’s face.
Shepherd’s phone rang. He groped for it as he squinted at the clock on his bedside table. He grunted, ‘Yeah?’
‘Spider, it’s Jack.’
Shepherd sat up, immediately wide awake. It was after two o’clock in the morning and Jack Bradford could only be calling with bad news. ‘What’s happened?’ he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. Bradford had called on Shepherd’s personal phone and all the power sockets in the room were switched off so Shepherd knew they weren’t being overheard.
‘Spider, it’s okay. Everyone here’s fine.’
Shepherd exhaled deeply.
‘We had a visitor, an Asian guy. He had a gun and a silencer. Could have been that Salih you were expecting. Anyway, we’ve taken care of it.’
‘What about Liam?’
‘Slept through the whole thing. Katra, too. A couple of shots went off but we’ve cleared up the damage. Bit of blood on the hall floor but we can clean that up. A bullet went into the sofa and another buried itself in a wall.’
‘And the guy?’
‘Dead as disco,’ said Bradford. ‘So, now we’ve got a decision to make. Do you want us to call the cops or not?’
As a SOCA officer Shepherd was duty-bound to call it in. But if he did, his home would be crawling with scene-of-crime officers in their white suits, and detectives from the local force. There’d be journalists too, from the local paper at first but they’d soon be joined by others from the nationals, and television crews. Within hours it would be a circus.
‘Spider?’
‘Give me a minute, Jack. I’m considering my options.’
‘Whatever you decide is fine by us,’ said Bradford. ‘The guy took a couple of shots at me so he had it coming. We can take the body out of here and drop it in some very deep water long before it gets light. Won’t ever be your problem.’
What Bradford was suggesting was legally wrong, no question. The brothers had killed a man, and while it was obviously in self-defence, disposing of the body would be a criminal offence. If they were ever caught, it would spell the end of Shepherd’s career, and they would all be sent to prison. But if the killing was made public, there was a good chance it would end Shepherd’s career anyway. There would be an inquest, and the journalists would keep digging until they found out who Shepherd was and what he did for a living. He’d have to move house, and that would mean uprooting Liam yet again when he was finally getting some stability in his life. There was another option. He could call Charlotte Button, tell her everything and hope she would protect him. If she had been his former boss, Sam Hargrove, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But after what Major Gannon had told him, Shepherd wasn’t sure how far he could trust Button. If Gannon was right and her loyalties lay solely with MI5, she might decide to hang Shepherd out to dry.
‘Jack, if you and Billy did get rid of the evidence, how comfortable would you be with that?’
‘I wouldn’t give it a moment’s thought, Spider.’
‘No one heard the shots?’
‘Silencers all round,’ said Bradford.
‘How did he get in?’
‘Broke a glass pane in the kitchen door,’ said Bradford. ‘I’ll tell Katra I did it accidentally and we’ll get it fixed tomorrow.’
‘He’d have had a car,’ said Shepherd.
‘I’ll check for keys. He won’t have parked it too far away. I’ll take it somewhere and burn it.’
‘Where did you shoot him?’
‘The hall.’
Shepherd smiled, despite the seriousness of the situation. ‘In his body, Jack. Where did the rounds go?’
‘One in the back, two in the chest.’ Bradford sounded crestfallen.
‘Okay, I’m a bit dubious about dropping the guy in the drink with three rounds in him. If ever the body surfaces, the cops will be able to ID the gun.’
‘We can dump the weapon.’
‘Better to get the rounds out,’ said Shepherd. ‘Get the rounds out and put the body in the car. Use a can of petrol to get the blaze going, and leave the can on the lap of the body. Put a lighter in his hand before you start the fire. Do it somewhere where the car can burn out. The cops will probably put it down as suicide.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Bradford.
‘Go through the body first, see if you can get an ID on the guy. But leave everything on him when you torch the car.’
‘Got you.’
‘Jack, if you have any reservations about this at all, I’d understand.’
‘I know what cops are like,’ said Bradford. ‘No offence.’
‘None taken.’
‘If we come clean on this we’ll be answering questions for weeks. Billy and I don’t have time for that. We’ve got work to do. Plus the way the cops are now we might end up in court and then we’re screwed work-wise for life, no matter how the case pans out. So, fire it is.’
‘Call me if you need me. And if anything goes wrong, Jack, anything at all, it’s on me, understand?’
‘Nothing will go wrong, Spider.’
The line went dead. Shepherd got out of bed and went downstairs to make himself a cup of coffee. He doubted he’d get any more sleep that night.
Salih removed the back of his phone, lifted out the battery and the Sim card. It had been two hours since Tariq had phoned to say he was going inside the house. He hadn’t called back. There was no point in Salih checking the number. If Tariq had succeeded,he would have heard. That Tariq hadn’t called meant he was either dead or had been captured. Either way he was of no further use to Salih. He broke the Sim card in half and dropped it into the lavatory. It had probably been a set-up from the start. Whoever had turned Merkulov had wanted Salih to attack Daniel Shepherd so they could catch him in the act. Well, they’d failed. And forewarned was forearmed.