Stephen Leather - Cold Kill

On the first floor he came to a white-painted door with a plastic plaque that displayed the name of the bureau de change in large capital letters and underneath it half a dozen other company names in smaller type. Shepherd knocked.

An Asian youth opened the door. He might have been the elder brother of the boy downstairs, although his hair was longer and he was wearing horn-rimmed glasses.

‘I’m here to see Salik and Matiur,’ said Shepherd.

‘Tony, don’t stand on ceremony, come on in,’ called Salik.

The office was spacious, with gunmetal grey blinds covering the windows and desks in three corners, each with a computer and flat-screen monitor on it. There was a bank of half a dozen fax machines on a table under one window and a large oval teak table with eight chairs round it. Salik and Matiur were sitting at the table. A tall, long-spouted earthenware teapot stood in front of them with four handleless mugs.

‘Tony,’ said Salik. He hurried around the table to give Shepherd a hug. Shepherd untangled himself before the other man could feel the concealed recording device. ‘Sunday was perfect – better than perfect.’

The youth sat down at one of the computer terminals and began to tap on the keyboard. Matiur stood up and Shepherd reached out to shake hands. ‘You are a good man,’ said Matiur. ‘A professional.’

‘Well, hopefully we can do it again some time soon,’ said Shepherd.

Salik sat down and picked up the teapot. ‘Have some mint tea,’ he said. ‘We import it.’

Shepherd joined him. ‘You have your fingers in a lot of pies,’ he said, taking a cup.

‘You have to diversify,’ said Salik. ‘Businesses are cyclic. If you have only one, there are peaks and troughs.’ He reached under the table and pulled out a leather briefcase. ‘This is yours, Tony.’ He handed it to Shepherd, who put it on his lap and clicked the two locks. The case was full of bundles of banknotes, fives, tens and twenties. ‘I hope this is all real,’ he said.

Salik and Matiur laughed. ‘You have our money-back guarantee,’ said Salik. ‘Fifty thousand pounds, and it is all real.’

Shepherd took out a bundle and counted it carefully. Tony Corke needed the cash and he’d be sure to count every note. When he’d assured himself that there was fifty thousand pounds in the case, he said, ‘Thanks. Now I need to talk to you.’

‘What about?’ asked Salik.

‘My court case.’ Shepherd closed the briefcase. ‘This is all well and good but my solicitor’s costing me an arm and a leg.’

‘Lawyers are expensive,’ said Salik. ‘Does he think he can keep you out of jail?’

Shepherd scowled. ‘It’d take a miracle to do that, which is why we need to talk.’

‘You want more money? Is that it?’

‘I want Tony Corke to disappear.’

‘But you said you’d lose your house if you run. You had to put it up as surety for your bail, you said.’

‘They’ll take the house, sure, but there’s a big mortgage on it. With the equity in it and the cash, I’d be running away from eighty grand. If I’m going to be doing more runs for you, money won’t be a problem.’

‘So?’

‘I need a new identity. A new life.’

‘You have a passport already.’

‘Yes, but I don’t have a birth certificate to go with it. Or any other paperwork.’ He reached into his coat and pulled out the envelope Button had given him. ‘I’ve got paperwork here on a guy who died a few years ago. He was a friend of a friend. He never had a passport so he’s not in the system, but he has a birth certificate, a school record, a university degree and a national-insurance number. With a passport, I’ll have a ready-to-use new identity.’

‘But if he died, there’ll be a death certificate and the national-insurance number will have been cancelled,’ said Salik. He took the envelope and examined the papers.

‘He died overseas,’ said Shepherd. ‘He was an oil-worker out in the Middle East. He rarely visited the UK and died in a car accident in Malaysia. He had no relatives and was cremated out there. No death certificate’s been filed here – I checked.’

Salik peered at the birth certificate. ‘Christopher Donovan?’

‘I look like a Chris, don’t I?’

‘This would make you thirty-seven?’

‘So I gain a couple of years. It’s not a problem.’

Salik nodded. ‘Okay. The fee will be the same as last time. Ten thousand pounds.’

Shepherd opened the briefcase and gave Salik ten thousand pounds. Then he produced his wallet, fished out two passport photographs and gave them to Salik. ‘How reliable is your guy?’ he asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m going to be using the new identity for the rest of my life, hopefully. What if he gets busted down the line? Presumably there’ll be a record of every guy he gave passports to.’

‘He’s careful,’ said Salik. ‘So are we. We don’t keep records. We take the money and we hand over the passports. That’s all.’

‘I’d like to meet him,’ said Shepherd. ‘To reassure myself.’

‘Out of the question,’ said Salik.

Shepherd shrugged. ‘I guess I can’t force you,’ he said. ‘I’d just be happier if I knew who I was dealing with.’

‘You’re dealing with us, Tony, and you have my word that nothing will go wrong.’ Salik put the photographs into the envelope with the papers. ‘Two days,’ he said. ‘We’ll call you.’

‘And what about another currency run?’

‘We’re talking about it. We’ll let you know.’

‘The sooner the better,’ said Shepherd.

‘It’s not something we will rush into,’ said Matiur. ‘Besides, our friends in France require payment in advance. They do not allow us credit.’

Shepherd sipped his tea. ‘Can I ask you something about your business here?’

‘Of course,’ said Salik, waving expansively.

‘I see these bureau de change places all over London, but I don’t understand how they make money.’

Salik frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, they’re always in busy shopping streets – Edgware Road, Oxford Street, Knightsbridge, expensive places – but I never see queues of people lining up to change money.’

Salik laughed. ‘You are feeling sorry for us, my friend?’

‘No, I’m sure you’re making a living or you wouldn’t stay in business. But the margins are tight, right? You buy a currency at one price and sell at another. It’s the margin where you make the profit.’

Salik chuckled again. ‘And you think we don’t have enough tourists wanting to change their traveller’s cheques, is that it?’

‘I don’t see you’d make big money, that’s all.’

‘We don’t make our money from the tourists,’ said Salik. ‘If a German wants to change five hundred euros into sterling, of course we make a pittance on the transaction. But there are plenty of people around who need six-figure sums changing, and that’s where we make our money. You never see it because, of course, that doesn’t happen down on the street. They come upstairs to our office.’ Salik said something in Bengali to his brother, who muttered in response.

Salik stood up. ‘Come on, let me show you,’ he said.

He took Shepherd along the corridor to another office, pulled a key chain from his pocket and opened the door. Inside there was no furniture, just a metal door set into the wall. He used another key to open it. Behind it a space three feet wide and three feet deep was filled with metal shelving on which were stacked thick bundles of banknotes, euros, dollars, pounds and a dozen other currencies that Shepherd didn’t recognise, many from the Middle East. His jaw dropped. ‘Don’t tell me that’s one day’s takings,’ he said.