Stephen Leather - True Colours

‘Now how the hell are you going to blend in with a group of Romanian gypsies?’

‘You can’t call them gypsies,’ said Sharpe. ‘That’s racist.’

‘You’ve been on another racism and diversity course, haven’t you?’ Shepherd laughed.

‘My sixth,’ said Sharpe.

‘Is it sinking in yet?’

‘You know me, Spider, I treat everyone the same no matter what their colour or where they’re from. If you’re bad you go to jail, if you’re good I’ll do what I can to help you. But I have to say, these Romanians are a right shower of shits. They’re bringing in hundreds of child pickpockets because they know that even if we catch them red handed we can’t do a thing to them. Now they’re using the kids to work the ATM skimmers. The adults stay in the background, organising and taking the money, while ten-year-old kids do the criminal work. And they’re all EU now so we can’t even deport them. ‘

‘So what’s the strategy?’

‘Following the little fish upstream, see if we can get the godfathers. But you know as well as I do that the sentences the judges hand out are a joke these days. Anyway, enough of my trials and tribulations, what do you need?’

‘Why do you think I need anything?’

‘Because the only time I ever hear from you is when you want something,’ said Sharpe. ‘No offence.’

‘None taken, mate. Any chance of a quick chat?’

‘It’ll have to be near me,’ said Sharpe. ‘We’re out and about all this evening and into the early hours.’

‘I can get to the Feathers.’ The Feathers was the closest pub to New Scotland Yard, a regular hangout for off-duty officers, or at least the ones that still drank.

‘Text me when you get there and I’ll pop down,’ said Sharpe.

Shepherd ended the call and as soon as he left the park he flagged down a black cab. The traffic was light and in less than half an hour the cabby dropped him in front of the pub. Shepherd paid the driver and sent Sharpe a text telling him he’d arrived. As he walked into the pub, Shepherd received a text back. ‘Mine’s a pint of Foster’s.’

Shepherd was sitting at a corner table with a pint of lager and a Jamesons with ice and soda when Sharpe walked in. He was wearing a heavy black leather coat over a black pullover and black jeans and clearly hadn’t shaved in a few days. The two men shook hands. Sharpe was in his fifties, his hair was greying but the beard growth was almost pure white. He’d grown his hair long and combed it back and was only a week or so away from a ponytail.

‘You look tired,’ said Shepherd as Sharpe sat down and picked up his pint.

‘I’ve been on this case for over a week and it’s doing my head in,’ said Sharpe. ‘They’re real lowlifes and I’ve got to blend. They drink in some very dodgy dives.’

‘I’m assuming you’re not trying to pass yourself off as a Romanian?’

Sharpe laughed. ‘Nah, I’m a Scottish gangster in the market for swiped debit cards,’ he said. ‘I keep upping the ante and I’m working my way up to the top guys.’ He took a long pull on his pint and then smacked his lips. ‘First of the day.’

‘They’re OK with you drinking on duty?’

‘On this one I’m on duty twenty-four hours a day,’ said Sharpe. ‘And the guys I’m dealing with, if they don’t smell alcohol on my breath they’ll assume something’s wrong.’ He looked around the pub and shook his head sadly. ‘Back in the day this would have been full of coppers,’ he said. ‘Some of them in uniform. Now most of them are scared to show their faces here. God forbid a copper should enjoy a drink or two.’ He chuckled. ‘My old boss in my first CID job, up in Strathclyde, kept a bottle of malt in his bottom drawer and every time we had a result it would come out and it’d be drinks all round. You get caught with a can of lager over there and you’d be out on your ear. I tell you, I’m glad I’m getting near retirement.’ He took another long pull on his lager.

‘You’ll never retire, Razor. And they’ll never sack you. You’re too valuable a resource.’

‘Aye, well, maybe I’ll go freelance for your mob,’ he said.

‘They’d have you like a shot,’ said Shepherd.

‘Even the fragrant Miss Button?’

Shepherd grinned. ‘Well, her not so much, maybe, but there’d be plenty of departments would jump at you. Surveillance is always recruiting.’

‘I’m too old to be a pavement artist,’ said Sharpe. ‘And like you I get a kick out of being undercover.’

‘A kick? I don’t do undercover for kicks, Razor. Behave.’

‘You say that, but we both know that you get a buzz from it,’ said Sharpe, jabbing his finger at Shepherd. ‘The adrenalin rush, the endolphin thing.’

‘Endorphins,’ said Shepherd. ‘And I don’t get a buzz. It’s a job. And it’s a bloody scary one at times.’

‘And you like that. We both do. If you didn’t, you’d have taken a desk job at Five a long time ago.’ He leaned towards Shepherd and lowered his voice. ‘Come on, admit it. Telling lies to get close to someone and then turning them over, you get a kick out of that. Getting a complete stranger to trust you, when everything you’re telling them is a lie, there’s not many people who get the chance to do that, legally.’

‘It’s my job, and I’m good at it, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy lying to people,’ said Shepherd. ‘I do get a kick out of putting away bad guys, though. I can’t deny that.’

Sharpe took another pull on his pint. ‘So what is it you want?’

‘You know I got shot, back when I was in Afghanistan? Well, the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to be accurate.’

‘I’ve seen the scar,’ said Sharpe.

‘I nearly bought it,’ said Shepherd. ‘Closest I ever came. A young SAS captain died during the same operation. Died in my arms.’

Sharpe said nothing and sat watching Shepherd, his face impassive.

‘His name was Harry Todd,’ continued Shepherd. ‘Typical Rupert, wet behind the ears but thought he knew everything.’ Shepherd shrugged. ‘Afghanistan was a baptism of fire for him. He fucked up and three Paras were killed.’ He stopped talking and stared at the floor as the memories flooded back.

‘Fucked up how?’

‘He thought he had this SEP. A Surrendered Enemy Personnel. Basically a Taliban fighter who wanted to change sides. The story was that this muj wanted to bring in his mates and they needed an escort. Todd got a hard-on for the guy and sent him out with three Paras. We found them dead a few hours later. Two of them shot in the back of the head, one shot as he was running away. And no sign of the muj.’

‘It was a trap?’

Shepherd nodded. ‘Yeah. It was a trap. The muj — his name was Ahmad Khan — had set the whole thing up. Told Todd what he wanted to hear and Todd sent three Paras to their deaths.’

‘I hope he was out on his arse,’ said Sharpe.

‘Nah, he wasn’t RTU’d.’

‘RTU?’

‘Returned to unit,’ said Shepherd. ‘That’s generally what happens when someone screws up. But they let Todd stay on.’ He shrugged. ‘As it turned out, it would have been better for him if he had been RTU’d.’

Sharpe sipped his lager and waited for Shepherd to continue.

‘Some time later Todd found out where Khan was. He’d been seen at an al-Qaeda place over the border in Afghanistan, a staging post for money they’d been collecting from opium farmers and the like. Todd put together a team and we went out on a search and destroy mission.’ He drained his glass, then took a deep breath. It wasn’t a memory that he enjoyed reliving. ‘We flew in by helicopter, six of us including the captain. Four-man perimeter while me and Todd set explosives and blew the place. The concussion killed everyone inside so we set fire to the place and exited. That was when Khan started firing. Killed the captain and caught me in the shoulder.’ He shook his head, trying to blot out the memory of the captain dying in his arms. ‘Khan did a runner and the guys got me to the chopper.’