Stephen Leather - False Friends

‘I understand,’ said Shepherd.

‘Understanding is all well and good, but I need to know how to deal with it,’ said Chaudhry.

It was a good point, Shepherd knew, but he wasn’t sure how to respond to it. Chaudhry was right, undercover work was stressful. Most operatives couldn’t do it for more than a few years. Divorces, breakdowns and career burnouts were common, which is why his bosses at the Met, SOCA and MI5 insisted on six-monthly psychological evaluations for all its undercover people. But Chaudhry and Malik didn’t have the luxury of a psychologist; all they had was Shepherd, and all he could offer them was the benefit of his experience.

‘Do you feel guilty about lying, is that it?’ asked Shepherd.

‘With my family, of course. They ask me how my studies are going and I say great and they ask me what I do in my free time and then I’m a bit evasive, and I really had to lie about the whole Pakistan training-camp thing. But that’s not where the stress comes from. It’s when I’m talking to Khalid and the others that it gets to me. My heart starts beating like it’s going to burst and sometimes I can feel my legs trembling. My mouth goes dry, which means I sometimes stumble over my words. If they see that they’re going to know that something is wrong.’

Shepherd nodded sympathetically. ‘You have to try to believe in what you’re saying,’ he said. ‘You’re like an actor playing a part, and you have to convince yourself that you are what you’re pretending to be. That conviction will then flow out of you. But to be honest, Raj, you’re worrying too much. You’re not pretending to be someone else; you’re yourself. It’s only your beliefs that you’re misrepresenting. All you need to do is to convince Khalid and the rest that you’re an Islamic fundamentalist who has embraced jihad. All the hard work has been done. You went to Pakistan, you went right into the lion’s den, you went through with the rehearsal at St Pancras. You’ve already proved yourself.’

‘But sometimes Khalid looks at me like he doesn’t believe me.’

‘What do you mean, specifically?’

Chaudhry shrugged. ‘It’s difficult to explain. He stares at me, like he’s looking through me. He frowns sometimes, like he’s thinking that something’s not right. He does the same with Harvey.’

‘That’s your guilty conscience kicking in. You know you’re lying and you know that lying is wrong, and because you’re basically a moral person you expect to be punished for what you’re doing. I’m not saying you want to be caught out, but part of you expects it to happen. Only sociopaths can lie without any sort of guilt.’

Chaudhry grinned. ‘That’s what my dad always used to say when I was a kid. He didn’t care what I’d done, provided I told the truth.’

‘That’s what all parents tell their children,’ said Shepherd. ‘Not that they always mean it.’

‘My dad did,’ said Chaudhry. ‘Even if I did something stupid, provided I owned up to it and provided I said I was sorry and tried to make it right, he wouldn’t punish me. Mind you, Dad didn’t have to punish me, it was enough to know that I’d disappointed him.’

‘He sounds like a good guy.’

‘He is,’ said Chaudhry. ‘He’s never laid a finger on me, my whole life. A lot of Asian parents reckon that if you spare the rod you spoil the child, but my mum and dad have been great.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I wish I could tell him what I’m doing.’

‘You can’t,’ said Shepherd. ‘You know that, right?’

‘Oh, I had it drummed into me by Ms Button. But the fact that he doesn’t know means that I have to lie to him, and you don’t know how much I hate that.’

‘No, I understand. I have a son, and I hate having to lie to him. But when you work for MI5 it comes with the job.’

Chaudhry tilted his head on one side. ‘You said you weren’t married.’

Shepherd’s stomach lurched. He’d made the worst possible mistake that an undercover agent could make: he’d slipped out of character. He’d been so relaxed in Chaudhry’s company that he’d answered as Dan Shepherd and not as John Whitehill. He forced himself to appear relaxed, and smiled as if he didn’t have a care in the world, but he could feel his heart pounding. ‘She died, a few years ago,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ said Chaudhry.

‘Yeah, my life’s a bit complicated to say the least,’ said Shepherd. ‘Thing is, it always sounds strange to say widower, but I guess that’s what I am. Easier to say I’m not married.’

‘And you’re a single parent?’

Shepherd nodded. ‘He’s at boarding school, so it works out well.’ He felt strange giving out personal information, which was something he almost never did when he was working. But having Chaudhry talk about telling the truth had struck a chord. Shepherd didn’t enjoy lying, even though over the years he had become an expert in the art of telling untruths.

‘I bet he misses you.’

‘I think he’s having too much fun at the moment,’ said Shepherd.

‘But he knows you work for MI5?’

‘To be honest, no.’

‘And you’re okay lying to him?’

‘It’s not like that,’ said Shepherd. ‘I very rarely look him in the eye and lie to him. On the very rare occasions I do then it’s because there’s a very good reason.’

‘And don’t you forget sometimes? Forget what you said before? That’s my nightmare, that I’ll give myself away by forgetting something.’

‘I’m lucky,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’ve got a photographic memory. I pretty much remember everything I see and hear.’

‘Eidetic they call it, right?’ said Chaudhry. ‘Kid I went to school had it. But the funny thing was that he wasn’t that great at exams.’

‘Same with me,’ said Shepherd. ‘Just because you can remember stuff doesn’t mean you can write great essays. But it’s a big help when you’re undercover.’

‘I worry that I’m thinking too much before answering. Especially with Khalid. It’s as if I have to run everything through a filter, checking that I’m saying the right thing. It’s so bloody stressful.’

Shepherd empathised. It was exactly how he worked when he was undercover. It was vital that he never said anything that wasn’t known by his character, so everything that came out of his mouth had to be analysed and approved. Often he would go into an operation fully briefed on most of the people he would come across, but that didn’t mean his character had access to the same information. He had to be constantly aware of who he’d met and who he hadn’t, and what he had said to them. He understood exactly what Chaudhry meant about it being stressful, because he had to do all that without any sign of hesitation. Hesitation could easily be taken as evasiveness so it was important that conversations flowed. Humour was good, banter back and forth could slow down a conversation and give him time to think, but sometimes jokes weren’t appropriate. Props were good, especially drinks. If a question blindsided him a sip of his whisky would give him time to get his thoughts straight. And as much as he disliked smoking, a cigarette was a perfect way of getting a few seconds of thinking time.

‘The trick is to rehearse stories in your head,’ said Shepherd. ‘Get so familiar with them that you can tell them without thinking. That way if you’re in a situation that makes you uncomfortable you can relax and tell the story because in your mind you’ve told it a hundred times before. And it helps if it’s a funny story. If you get people laughing that takes their mind off you. Makes them less suspicious, anyway.’

‘Khalid doesn’t have much of a sense of humour,’ said Chaudhry. ‘And he’s not one for anecdotes.’