Stephen Leather - False Friends

‘No arguments here,’ said Shepherd.

‘They should have left us with the Met instead of forcing us to work with Customs officers and tax inspectors. Whoever thought that was a good idea should be put up against a wall and shot. SOCA turned into the worst sort of bureaucracy and didn’t put away a single high-profile villain. And what did it cost? Billions? All of it money down the drain.’

‘Water under the bridge now, Razor.’

‘Maybe, but one of the reasons that the cops are so under-resourced is because so much was put into SOCA. Like the bloody NHS: too many chiefs and not enough Indians.’ He took another drink of lager. ‘What about Five? What’s it like there?’

‘Can’t tell you, Razor. Official Secrets Act and all that.’

‘Screw you.’

Shepherd grinned. ‘It’s okay. It’s not as bureaucratic as SOCA and money never seems to be an issue.’

‘And the lovely Charlotte?’

‘She’s a good boss, Razor, no matter what you think.’

Sharpe put down his glass and raised his hands in surrender. ‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘Put your bloody hands down, you idiot. Charlie’s like Hargrove — she takes any flak that’s flying about.’

‘And tells you the bare minimum.’

‘It’s the Security Service, Razor. Most of what goes on is on a need-to-know basis.’

‘Yeah? Well, I like to know exactly why I’m putting my balls on the line. I can’t abide all that secret squirrel stuff.’ He picked up his glass again.

‘Yeah, maybe I’m not totally in the loop but the money makes up for that,’ said Shepherd. ‘Do you want to talk pay grades? You went back into the Met as a DS?’

‘Detective Inspector,’ said Sharpe, squaring his shoulders. ‘Hargrove pushed through a promotion.’

‘Yeah, well, DIs don’t get overtime, and trust me, I’m paid a shedload more than you.’

Sharpe chuckled. ‘Next round’s on you, then.’ He drained his glass and banged it down on the counter. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’ Shepherd ordered another round of drinks as Sharpe looked around the pub. ‘So what’s with you and Hampstead?’ he said. ‘Full of TV producers and poncy writers and lesbians, isn’t it?’

‘Part of my legend,’ said Shepherd. ‘And just in case we bump into anyone who knows me, I’m John Whitehill and I’m a freelance journalist.’

‘Yeah? I’m DI Jimmy Sharpe with the Covert Operations Group.’

‘Very funny, Razor.’

‘This job you’re on, terrorism-related?’

‘Pretty much everything Five does at the moment is,’ said Shepherd.

‘The world’s gone mad,’ said Sharpe. ‘You know that, right? The number of people killed in acts of terror in the UK is a small fraction of the number stabbed and shot every year on our streets. Yet how often do you see cops walking the beat?’

‘Flashing back to your days in Glasgow, huh?’

‘Take the piss all you want, Spider. At least we could still give a teenager a clip round the ear without being hauled up on charges. I don’t know why anyone joins the police these days. It’s all PC bullshit and paperwork, and you’re as likely to be grassed up by a colleague as you are to be dropped in the shit by a member of the public.’

‘Sounds like you’re ready to quit.’

‘Retire, you mean? I’ve thought about it. But what would I do? Too young for a pipe and slippers.’ He took a long pull on his pint. ‘So Button isn’t worried that Hargrove is going to poach you?’

‘Why would she think that? Hargrove was looking for someone and she figured I’d be the best bet because I’ve worked with Hargrove before.’

Sharpe grinned. ‘Is that what she said? Naughty Charlie. Hargrove asked for you specifically. Because you’ve worked with him before, but also because of your experience with guns. I figure she didn’t have any choice because the request was made at the top. Just like her to take the credit.’ He shook his head and took another pull on his pint. ‘Women, huh?’

‘I don’t think her sex has anything to do with it, Razor. Anyway, doesn’t really matter whose idea it was. The important thing is that we pull it off.’

‘Piece of piss,’ said Sharpe. ‘How many times have we done this before?’ He took a deep breath and stretched out his arms. ‘I feel like a curry,’ he said. ‘Any good Indians in this neck of the woods?’

Shepherd got back to his flat just after eleven-thirty. He’d taken Sharpe to the Meghna Tandoori in Heath Street, a short walk from the pub they’d been drinking in. The restaurant was much more upmarket than Sharpe was used to, with minimalist white decor and white high-backed chairs. But the food was terrific and they’d washed the meal down with several bottles of Kingfisher. After Shepherd’s cracks about their relative salaries Sharpe had insisted that Shepherd paid, and then he’d left in a minicab.

Shepherd made himself a coffee before sitting down in front of the television and calling Major Allan Gannon, his former commanding officer in the SAS and a long-time friend.

‘Spider, how the hell are you?’ said the Major.

‘All good, Boss. Can you talk?’

‘The hind legs off a donkey. Where are you?’

‘London. You?’

‘Locked up in Stirling Lines,’ said the Major, referring to the SAS headquarters at Credenhill in Herefordshire.

‘I need a favour,’ said Shepherd, and he ran through the undercover operation that Hargrove was planning.

‘AK-47s aren’t a problem; we’ve stacks of them here. But if you’re playing at arms dealer why not go for the Yugo AK?’

‘You’ve got some?’

The Yugo AK was manufactured by Zastava Arms, a Serbian company, and was the Yugoslavian People’s Army’s assault rifle of choice before the country was ripped apart by civil war. It was a good weapon and many soldiers thought it superior to the Russian Kalashnikov.

‘Loads,’ said the Major. ‘We use it all the time in exercises. I’m pretty sure we’ve even got a few of the crates they came in.’

‘That would work,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ll run it by Hargrove, see if we can just use them. It’ll make our cover seem more authentic.’

‘Damn right. There’s a fair number of Yugos knocking around the UK. Former Serbian military types have been selling them to gang bangers. I tell you what, Spider, I’ve got some Zastava M88 pistols too.’

‘Better and better,’ said Shepherd. ‘And there’s no problem you loaning them to us?’

‘I’ll sign it off as an exercise,’ said the Major. ‘You can pick them up from here, can you?’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Shepherd.

‘Let me know when you want them,’ said the Major. ‘Be good to have a chat. I’ve been hearing some very interesting stories about you.’

‘My ears are burning.’

‘They should be.’

‘So how are your studies, Manraj?’ asked Chaudhry’s father as he dropped down on to the sofa and stretched out his legs. His fiftieth birthday was fast approaching but he looked a good ten years younger, with not a single grey hair and only a few laughter lines at the corners of his eyes. He was a keen squash player, had been for more than thirty years, and it showed in his lean physique. On more than a few occasions people had assumed that he was Chaudhry’s elder brother rather than his father.

It was Saturday afternoon and Chaudhry had cycled from Stoke Newington to his parents’ house, a neat four-bedroom detached house in Stanmore. It was the house that he’d been brought up in and as he looked around it he felt as if he’d never left. At the far end of the room was the piano on which he and his brother had practised for half an hour every night; through the French windows he could see the garden where his father had taught him the finer points of spin bowling; he knew that at the top of the stairs was his bedroom, pretty much exactly as it was the day he’d left to go to university three years earlier. Leaving home had been symbolic rather than a necessity. He could have commuted back and forth from Stanmore but Chaudhry had wanted to be independent; plus, he’d become bored with life in the suburbs. His elder brother had studied for his degree at Exeter so it hadn’t been too much of a struggle to persuade his parents to allow him to rent a place in Stoke Newington.