Stephen Leather - False Friends

‘No, Raj. If I was handling you I’d have lied and said that everything was okay. But I told you I would never lie to you and I’m sticking to that.’

Chaudhry put his hands up to his head and covered his ears as if he didn’t want to listen to anything that Shepherd had to say. ‘I don’t believe this,’ he said. ‘This can’t be happening.’ He walked away and again turned back after a couple of steps. ‘Who?’ he said. ‘Who tortured him?’

‘We haven’t identified them yet. The woman is presumably the one who sent him the text. They’re all Asians.’

‘Do you think Khalid is behind this?’

‘Probably not. If he was why would he take just Harvey? And why would he call you this morning and tell you both to get ready?’

‘So who, then?’

Shepherd held up his hands. ‘I don’t know, Raj. If I did I’d tell you.’

Chaudhry frowned and began pacing up and down. ‘Is it about The Sheik? Is it al-Qaeda? If it was al-Qaeda why did they take Harvey and not me?’ He stopped pacing. There was a wild look in his eyes and his hands were shaking. Shepherd recognised the symptoms. Shock. Stress. Fear. ‘Maybe they are coming for me. Maybe when they come to pick me up they’ll torture me.’ He walked back to Shepherd and stared at him. ‘You’ve got to pull me out now. And my family. We need protection. What do you call it? Witness protection?’

‘No one’s saying you need protection, Raj.’

‘The fact that Harvey’s in hospital suggests that I do,’ said Chaudhry. ‘If Harvey had been protected he wouldn’t have been tortured would he?’

‘We’ve got the people who were hurting him.’

‘Hurting him? They were going to kill him. And then they would have gone after me.’

‘Raj, they’re out of the picture.’ Shepherd wasn’t going to lie to Chaudhry but he didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell him that he’d personally shot and killed the two men.

‘But what if there are more of them? What if they weren’t alone?’ Chaudhry began pacing again. Shepherd watched and waited for him to calm down. Adrenaline would be coursing through his system and it would take time for it to work its way out.

‘You’ve got to get me and Harvey out of this,’ said Chaudhry.

‘Harvey’s out already,’ said Shepherd. ‘He’s been taken care of. The woman is being questioned so we’ll find out who she is and who sent her.’

‘And what about me?’

‘That’s what I want to talk about, Raj. That’s why I’m here.’

Chaudhry stood and glared at him. ‘Talk? I think we’re way past talking.’ The shaking of his hands had intensified and he looked down at them as if seeing them for the first time. ‘For fuck’s sake, look at me.’

‘It’s stress. It’ll pass.’

‘Don’t patronise me!’ hissed Chaudhry. ‘I’m a med student. I’ll be a doctor soon. I know why I’m shaking. I’m shaking because my best friend is in hospital and it could have been me. I’m shaking because unless I do something I could end up dead.’

‘You’re not going to end up dead, Raj.’ Shepherd took a step towards Chaudhry but Chaudhry put up his hands to ward him off.

‘You can’t say that,’ said Chaudhry. ‘You don’t know.’ He put his hands over his face and swore vehemently.

Shepherd said nothing. He had to wait for the anger to subside.

Chaudhry turned his back on Shepherd and started walking down the path. Shepherd walked after him. For two or three minutes there was only the sound of their shoes squelching on wet leaves.

‘I need to see him,’ said Chaudhry eventually.

‘Sure,’ said Shepherd.

‘Today.’

‘Not a problem.’

Chaudhry turned to look at him. ‘That’s your technique, is it? Agree with everything I say? That’s your way of handling me?’

‘It’s not about handling you. I think you should see Harvey. I think he’d want to see you.’

Chaudhry started walking again, his arms folded, his head down. Every now and again he would shake his head as if trying to clear his thoughts.

They reached the old church in the centre of the graveyard. Abney Park Chapel had been an impressive building in its time, built when churches were meant to stand for centuries. The walls were made of blocks of grey granite and the roof tiles were slate. The chapel had been closed for years and most of the lead flashings had been stolen. Vandals had also damaged many of the slates, with the result that water had seeped inside and caused so much damage that the chapel would almost certainly never again be opened for worship, especially as the percentage of Christians in the area was declining year by year.

Chaudhry stopped and looked up at the spire. ‘How many people have died because of religion?’ he asked quietly.

‘A lot,’ said Shepherd. ‘A hell of a lot.’

‘Why is that? What it is about religion that makes people go out and kill?’

Shepherd shrugged. ‘That’s something else that’s above my pay grade,’ he said.

Chaudhry’s shoulders began to shudder and for a moment Shepherd thought that he was crying. Then he heard a throaty chuckle that grew into a full-blown belly laugh. Chaudhry turned round, laughing and shaking his head. ‘Pay grade,’ he said. ‘You’re a funny man, John.’ He pulled his hood down and rubbed his eyes.

‘Just trying to lighten the moment, Raj.’

Chaudhry wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. ‘You really are a piece of work,’ he said. ‘You know, I still can’t think of you as anything other than John Whitehill, freelance journalist. You did a good job with that.’ He sighed. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m ready. Talk.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘I need you to be there at five. I need you to get into the van so that we can follow you.’

‘They’ll want to know why Harvey’s not there.’

‘You can just say his phone’s off and that you couldn’t reach him.’

‘And what if they don’t believe me? Or what if they know something’s wrong? What if it’s a trap?’

‘It’s not a trap.’

‘You don’t know that, John. Not for sure.’ He bit down on his lower lip, then shook his head. ‘I can’t get into that van on my own,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t.’

Shepherd said nothing for several seconds, then he took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Maybe there’s a way round this.’

‘Here he comes,’ said Charlotte Button, pointing at one of the twelve LCD screens on the wall. Chaudhry was walking along the pavement towards the restaurant where the van was due to collect him. He had the hood of his duffel coat up, his head down, his hands in his pockets. He walked slowly and purposefully.

Button looked at the clock on the wall. It was five minutes before five. They were in the operations room on the top floor of Thames House and more than a dozen officers were bent over computer screens and talking into Bluetooth headsets. Commander Needham was at his desk, talking animatedly into a headset. He turned, gave Button a thumbs-up and held up four fingers. Four more ARV units on the way. She smiled back at him and mouthed ‘Thank you.’

‘Luke, what do we have in place?’ she asked.

Luke Lesporis looked up from his terminal. ‘Two black cabs in Stoke Newington Church Street; two bikes in parallel streets; two delivery vans, each facing a different direction. I’ve got an outer perimeter with two more bikes and four black cabs all within half a mile. The other vans we identified at St Pancras are all covered too.’

An LCD flickered into life and they had an overhead view of the street. Then the screen went black and all they could see were greenish figures and red spots marking car engines. ‘We have helly telly,’ said a blonde woman in a dark-blue suit.