Stephen Leather - Cold Kill

He heard a mobile phone ring and hurried back into the kitchen. It was Hargrove.

‘I’ve bad news, Spider,’ said Hargrove. ‘Rudi Pernaska’s dead.’

‘How?’

‘He killed himself.’

‘Why the hell did they let that happen?’

‘They couldn’t have stopped him. He bit his wrist open. Gnawed through a vein.’

Shepherd cursed under his breath.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Spider.’

‘Like hell it wasn’t,’ hissed Shepherd. ‘I told him we’d found the cans.’

‘We’re not sure that’s why he did it.’

‘What? You think he just got depressed and decided to top himself? He did it because he knew we were on to him. Which means he was more scared of them than he was of us.’ Shepherd slammed his hand on the counter.

‘We couldn’t have known he’d react like that,’ said Hargrove. ‘And whether or not we told him we’d found the money, it would have come out eventually. It wasn’t our fault. The moment the Pernaskas paid for passage on Pepper’s boat, that money was going to turn up.’

Shepherd bit his lower lip. The superintendent was right. Shepherd had just been the bearer of the bad news. If Rudi hadn’t heard it from him, he’d have heard it from someone else. But that didn’t make the man’s suicide any easier to accept. He remembered how grateful he had been when he came to see Shepherd in the hospital ward. And how the man’s wife had kissed his hand. And how they’d promised that their daughter Jessica would never forget the name of the man who’d saved her life. Except that the name Shepherd had given them had been a lie. It had all been a lie.

‘What’s next?’ he asked.

‘We’ll talk to the wife,’ said Hargrove.

‘Widow,’ said Shepherd.

‘What?’

‘She’s a widow now. You’ll talk to the widow.’

Hargrove sighed. ‘I know you’re upset, Spider.’

‘I’m sorry. They were nice people, that’s all. They just wanted a better life and now he’s dead and the kid’s lost her father.’

‘There’s nothing we can do to change that. All we can do now is go after the guys he was afraid of. Chances are that he was coerced into carrying the money. The way you tell it, he might not have known there was cash in those cans. It’s not a problem. I’ll get a female officer to talk to the wife, find out what she knows.’

‘She doesn’t speak English,’ said Shepherd.

‘We’ll fix up an interpreter,’ said Hargrove.

Shepherd sighed. ‘Maybe I should be the one to talk to her,’ he said.

‘It’s not your problem.’

‘She might respond to me. She’s grateful because I saved her daughter. And I doubt that she thinks I’m anything to do with her husband’s suicide.’

‘We haven’t told her yet,’ said Hargrove.

‘What?’

‘As soon as she knows he’s dead, she’ll shut down,’ said Hargrove. ‘We’ll get nothing out of her. We’ll interview her first, then tell her. It has to be that way.’

‘It’s one hell of a world, isn’t it?’ said Shepherd.

‘We don’t make the rules,’ said Hargrove. ‘We just play by them. There’s nothing we can do to bring him back, but we can go after the men who put the family in harm’s way.’

‘And what happens then? She and her kid get sent back?’

‘If she helps us, we can fast-track her to a residency visa,’ said Hargrove.

‘And if she can’t?’

‘Then we’ll do what we can. If she’s a genuine Kosovan, there’s a good chance she’ll get refugee status anyway.’

‘We owe her,’ said Shepherd. ‘However this pans out, we owe her.’

‘Agreed,’ said Hargrove. ‘I’ll do what I can, I promise.’

‘When do we do it?’

‘The sooner the better,’ said Hargrove. ‘I’ll get Sharpe to pick you up. She’s still at the hospital so we can do the interview there. I’ll find a room and an interpreter.’

Shepherd did the calculations. It was a four-hour run up to Newcastle, even if the traffic was good. An hour for the interview. Maybe two. Four hours back. With the best will in the world he wouldn’t be home before midnight. He’d have to take a raincheck with the major. ‘I’ll be ready,’ he said. ‘How do I play it?’

‘Dead straight,’ said Hargrove. ‘Short of telling her that you’re an undercover cop, of course. Tell her you’re co-operating with the police, tell her we’ll help her stay in the country if she helps us.’

‘Okay,’ agreed Shepherd. ‘Will you be there?’

‘Your call.’

‘I guess I don’t need back-up,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s not as if she’s likely to turn nasty. By the way, the lovely Doctor Gift dropped by this morning.’

‘Must be that time of the year again.’

‘Nothing to do with you?’

‘You’re due your biannual check, aren’t you?’

‘Just so long as that’s all it is,’ said Shepherd. ‘I thought maybe you’d sent her to see if I was suicidal after my dip in the sea.’

‘You’re not, are you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘There you are, then. How did it go?’

‘She thinks I should get out more.’

‘She might be right. Call me when you’ve done the interview.’

Shepherd cut the connection and called the major. He asked if they could reschedule their meeting for the following evening and Gannon agreed. Then Shepherd went upstairs and changed back into his Tony Corke clothes.

The interpreter was waiting for them outside the hospital, sitting behind the wheel of a six-year-old Ford Ka. She was a middle-aged woman, with permed hair and thick-lensed glasses, and introduced herself as Lyn. She didn’t offer a surname and Shepherd didn’t ask. He and Sharpe shook hands with her.

‘You speak Kosovan?’ asked Shepherd.

‘I speak seven languages fluently,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘and I can get by in another four.’

Shepherd was impressed. His trick memory was good for facts and faces, but it was of little help when it came to languages. He could memorise vocabulary without any problems but speaking a foreign language was more about comprehension and grammar. ‘We need to talk to a woman called Edita about some items that were found in her belongings.’

‘Edita?’ Lyn took a packet of Silk Cut from her coat pocket and lit a cigarette with a cheap plastic lighter.

‘Something wrong?’ asked Shepherd.

Lyn shrugged. ‘It is not a usual Kosovan name,’ she said, ‘but never mind. She’s an illegal?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘That’s usually why I’m called in,’ she said. ‘Immigration cases, mainly. Asylum-seekers.’

Shepherd had been trying to place her accent, but without success. She spoke English with the same clarity as a BBC newsreader but he had the feeling she was from somewhere in Central or Eastern Europe. ‘She was trying to get into the country, but our interest is purely in what she had with her.’

Lyn took a long pull on her cigarette. ‘Let me finish this first,’ she said. ‘They don’t let you smoke in hospitals.’

Shepherd and Sharpe waited until she had stubbed out the cigarette, then walked into the hospital. Sharpe showed his warrant card at Reception and went back to Shepherd and Lyn. ‘The little girl’s out of Intensive Care,’ he said. ‘Her mother’s with her, on the third floor.’

They took the lift and Sharpe led the way to the room. It was similar to the one Shepherd had been kept in, but there was no uniformed policeman standing guard.

Edita was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her daughter’s hand. She smiled when she saw Shepherd, who smiled back.

Jessica was lying on her back, asleep, her arms on top of the blankets. There were no monitoring instruments, no drips, just a little girl asleep in bed.