Stephen Leather - Dead Men

‘Hey, I did a lot of digging in the old one, remember?’

‘Only because Mum told you what to do,’ said Liam. ‘She decided where to plant things.’ He kicked the ball hard and it sailed past Shepherd. He turned and jogged after it, retrieving it from an overgrown vegetable patch. Liam was right. Sue had designed their old garden in Ealing, and although he’d done the spadework and helped her carry bedding plants and fertiliser from the garden centre, it had been her vision. ‘So how about you and me get to work here?’ he asked.

‘Do you know how?’

‘How hard can it be? Anyway, we need a big lawn to play football on, right? And the trees are fine as they are. We just need plants and bushes and stuff. Maybe a rockery or two.’

Liam grinned. ‘A rockery?’

‘Your mum liked rockeries. Don’t ask me why.’ Shepherd kicked the ball back so Liam, who caught it on his chest, let it fall to the ground and trapped it with his right foot. ‘You’ve been practising,’ called Shepherd.

‘I’m on the school team now,’ said Liam. He flicked the ball into the air, headed it three times, then let it drop on to his right foot. There was a strip of plaster just below his knee.

‘What happened?’ asked Shepherd, pointing at it.

‘I tripped,’ said Liam. ‘It’s just a graze.’ He kicked the ball, which whizzed past Shepherd and banged against the shed.

‘Why didn’t Katra call me?’

‘I told her not to. Are we going to play?’

Shepherd went to Liam and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Why did you tell her not to phone me?’

‘I didn’t want you to worry, Dad. It’s only a graze. It’s not like I needed stitches or anything.’

‘I’m your dad, it’s my job to worry,’ said Shepherd.

‘Yeah, but what could you have done? Would you have come home?’

Shepherd screwed up his face. His son had the knack of asking disconcerting questions. ‘If you’d needed me, sure.’ Shepherd could hear the lack of conviction in his voice and it was clear from Liam’s face that he’d heard it too. ‘But you’re a big boy, right? You’ll be eleven soon.’

‘That’s what I thought you’d say,’ said Liam. ‘That’s why I told Katra not to call you.’

‘I’m your dad, Liam. I care about you more than anyone else in the world.’

‘I know.’ He seemed unwilling to meet Shepherd’s eye.

‘Just because I’m away, it doesn’t mean I’m not worried about you or that I’m not thinking about you.’

‘Are you going away again?’ asked Liam.

‘Hopefully not for a while,’ said Shepherd.

‘You always say that,’ said Liam, ruefully.

‘And I always mean it,’ said Shepherd. ‘But sometimes there’s work that needs doing and I have to do it.’

‘Why can’t someone else do it?’

‘It’s my job.’

‘But you could get another job, couldn’t you?’

Shepherd laughed. ‘Like what?’

‘You could work in a bank, like Granddad.’

‘Liam, I was a soldier. Now I’m a policeman. Well, sort of a policeman. Anyway, guys like me, we can’t work in an office.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’d be bored,’ Shepherd said. It was the best answer he could come up with.

‘So you do it because it’s exciting, not because it’s your job?’

‘Everyone has to work,’ said Shepherd. ‘Everyone has to do something.’

‘I just wish you weren’t away such a lot,’ said Liam.

‘If I was a salesman I’d be away all the time. People have to travel for all sorts of jobs. Look at airline pilots. If I was a pilot, I’d never be here, would I?’

‘At least people don’t shoot at pilots,’ said Liam, flatly.

‘What?’ said Shepherd.

‘Nothing.’

‘Who says I’m being shot at?’ asked Shepherd. ‘Have Gran and Granddad said something?’

‘I just heard them talking, that’s all, last time I was at their house.’

‘And what did they say?’

‘Nothing,’ said Liam. ‘Really, nothing.’

‘They said I was shot at?’

Liam shrugged. ‘That’s what Mum used to say, too.’

Shepherd flopped down on to the grass. ‘Sit,’ he said. Slowly Liam sank down next to him, but turned his back. ‘I help to catch criminals,’ said Shepherd, ‘but it’s not like on the TV – the bad guys don’t go around shooting the men who are trying to catch them. They honestly don’t. They know that if they shoot someone, they’ll go to prison for a long, long time.’

‘Sometimes policemen get killed.’

‘Not very often, Liam, and if I do my job properly, which I do, no one’s going to get the chance to hurt me. I have partners, I have a boss, I have a whole lot of people watching out for me.’

‘But you have a gun, right?’

Shepherd sighed. Yes, he had a gun. It was in the house, locked in a drawer in his wardrobe. A SIG-Sauer,his favourite weapon. It had always been a bone of contention with Sue, but Shepherd had argued that it was just a tool he needed to carry out his job effectively. She had always insisted that it be hidden from Liam, but when the boy was ten Shepherd had decided he was old enough to know about firearms. Most firearm accidents involving children arose from ignorance so he had shown the gun to Liam and explained how it worked, how dangerous it was, and that it was never, ever, to be taken from the locked drawer. ‘I have a gun, yes.’

‘Because you shoot people, right?’

‘Liam, I don’t go around shooting people.’

‘Granddad says you do.’

‘He said what?’

‘He said you’ve shot people. Is that true, Dad? Have you shot people?’

‘What did Granddad say to you?’

‘Nothing. I was upstairs and he was talking to Gran.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I just want to know what he was saying, Liam. You’re not in any trouble. And neither is your granddad.’

Liam sighed. ‘Gran said she wished you had a job that wasn’t so dangerous because I’d already lost one parent and it was stupid of you to take risks when you were all I had left. Granddad said you were a hero and that you only shot people to save lives.’

Shepherd smiled ruefully. ‘They’re both right.’

Now Liam turned to him. ‘So you have shot people, right?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But it’s not something I want to talk about now. Maybe when you’re older.’

‘Why not now?’

‘Because it’s not easy to explain, Liam. And because you’re too young to understand.’

‘I’ll be a teenager in two years.’

‘And I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.’ He put his arm round his son. ‘One day I’ll talk it all through with you, I promise. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ said Liam.

‘Some people like to talk about what they do,’ said Shepherd. ‘They like to tell war stories. I don’t. A lot of what I’ve done is locked away, deep inside, like it’s in a vault. And it’s a big thing for me to open that vault. I did for your mum, and one day I will for you.’

‘Dad, I understand. I’m not a kid.’

Shepherd laughed. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now, shall we have another kick-about before we eat those cow brains?’

‘Pig brains,’ said Liam. ‘I bet I can get six past you one after the other.’

Shepherd groaned. ‘I bet you can, too.’

Joseph McFee blinked as the hood was pulled off his head. He was kneeling opposite a blindingly bright light that was shining into his face. He coughed and spat on the floor. A figure was standing in front of him. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he asked. He strained against the duct tape that had been wrapped tightly round his wrists.

The figure walked to the lamp and twisted it so that it was shining at a framed photograph, on a metal table, of a man in his twenties, wearing the uniform of an RUC inspector. There was a half-smile on the subject’s face, as if he was flirting with whoever had taken the shot. Recognition dawned. ‘Robbie Carter,’ McFee said. He knew then that there was no hope. ‘You killed Adrian Dunne? He was a good man.’