Spider Shepherd 10 - True Colours (27 page)

Shepherd tossed his paper on to the passenger seat and climbed out of the car. McIntyre didn’t look up as Shepherd crossed the road, a sure sign that the man had lost his edge.

‘Jock?’

McIntyre carried on walking as if he hadn’t heard.

Shepherd jogged the last few steps. ‘Hey, Jock!’

McIntyre looked up, his brow furrowed into a deep frown. ‘Yeah, what?’ His eyes were red and watery and there were broken veins peppered across his nose and cheeks. He blinked as if he was having trouble focusing, and then his face cracked into a lopsided grin. ‘Bloody hell, Spider Shepherd.’

‘One and the same,’ said Shepherd.

‘What the hell are you doing in this neck of the woods?’ He shook his head in amazement.

‘Just dropped by to see how you were doing,’ said Shepherd.

‘All the better for seeing you, my old mucker,’ said McIntyre. He grabbed Shepherd and gave him a fierce bear hug, then patted him on the back with both hands. Shepherd could smell stale sweat and booze and it was obvious that under the heavy coat McIntyre was carrying a lot more weight than the last time they’d met. McIntyre put his hands on Shepherd’s shoulders and studied his face with eyes that were bloodshot from too little sleep or too much alcohol or most likely a combination of the two. ‘Bloody hell, you’re a sight for sore eyes,’ he said. ‘How long’s it been?’

‘Last time I saw you was November 2002, when I was leaving Afghanistan,’ said Shepherd.

‘Aye, but I didn’t know that you’d be leaving the Regiment,’ said McIntyre. ‘That bloody wife of yours finally got her way, didn’t she? Nagged and nagged until you left. How the hell is Sue? She was a fit one, all right. You did well bagging her. We always thought she was too good for you.’

Shepherd forced a smile. ‘She died, Jock. Back in 2004. Car accident.’

McIntyre’s face fell. ‘God, I’m sorry.’ He gripped Shepherd’s shoulders tightly. ‘Me and my big bloody mouth.’

‘You weren’t to know, Jock.’

‘And your boy? I’m scared to ask.’

‘Liam’s fine. Away at boarding school at the moment.’

‘Boarding school? Hell, you win the lottery, did you?’ He gestured over the BMW. ‘And a bloody Beamer? Life must be good, huh?’

‘Boarding school isn’t that expensive and the car’s from the office pool,’ said Shepherd. ‘What about you, Jock? How’s life?’

‘Life’s shit,’ said McIntyre. ‘But it’s better than the alternative. Anyway, let’s not stand out in the street like this. Come in – I don’t have Jamesons but I’ve got some Johnnie Walker.’

Shepherd nodded. What he had to say to McIntyre was better done in private than sitting in a pub or coffee shop. McIntyre slapped him on the back. ‘Hell, it’s good to see you, Spider. Ten years goes by in a flash, doesn’t it. Seems like only yesterday we were in Afghanistan.’ He shoved his hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out two Yale keys on a keyring with a small black and white plastic football on it. ‘Do you see much of the old guys?’

‘Some,’ said Shepherd. ‘Let’s get that drink and I’ll tell you.’

McIntyre slotted the key into the lock and took Shepherd through into the hallway. The walls were dirty and scuffed and the carpet had worn through in places. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling. ‘Top floor, I’m afraid, but it keeps me fit,’ said McIntyre.

He headed up to the first floor. The door there looked as if it had been kicked in at some point and it had been reinforced with strips of metal. There were two locks, one at eye level and one at knee level. ‘I met your neighbour,’ said Shepherd, nodding at the door.

‘The Kenyan bird?’ said McIntyre. ‘She’s a sweetie, isn’t she? Cooks amazing curries. I can smell them upstairs. Her kids are always crying, though. Does my head in sometimes.’

There was no carpet at all on the final flight of stairs, which had been painted purple but that had worn away to bare wood in places. There was another bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Shepherd followed McIntyre up the stairs, where he used the second key to open a white-painted door. ‘Home sweet home,’ he said, tossing his backpack on to the floor by a pile of unopened mail and circulars.

It was just about the most depressing room that Shepherd had ever been in. It was the attic of the house and the only light came from the single gable window. There were several damp patches in the corners, the plaster wet and speckled with black mould. There was a single bed pushed against the wall opposite the door. There was no headboard, just a pillow and a grubby duvet. Under one of the eaves there was a built-in kitchen unit with a microwave and a single hotplate, and there was a battered kettle on top of a small fridge that rattled and hummed as if nearing the end of its useful life. A plastic accordion door led to a poky bathroom. Shepherd caught a glimpse of a stained toilet and a tiny plastic shower cubicle. His nose wrinkled at the foul smell coming from the toilet.

‘Aye, there’ve been problems with the drains,’ said McIntyre. ‘I think the Kenyan bird has been trying to flush her Pampers. Still, this is only temporary, I’m going to be moving to a new place soon.’ He went over to a wall cupboard and took out a half-full bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label and two glasses. ‘I don’t have soda water,’ he said apologetically. ‘But there’s tap water.’

‘Neat is fine,’ said Shepherd, looking around for somewhere to sit. There was a single wooden chair next to a small table under the window but there were three crusty saucepans stacked on it and the table was littered with KFC and pizza boxes. There was a scuffed leather armchair with stuffing bursting from the sides but it was covered in dirty clothing, including several pairs of soiled underwear.

‘I know it’s a mess, it’s the maid’s day off,’ said McIntyre, handing a glass to Shepherd. ‘Good to see you, Spider.’ The two men clinked glasses. McIntyre waved at the bed. ‘Sit yourself down there,’ he said. As Shepherd perched on the end of the bed, McIntyre shoved the dirty saucepans off the wooden chair and they clattered on to the stained carpet, which had possibly once been beige or yellow but now was the colour of a smoker’s fingers and there was barely a square foot that wasn’t peppered with cigarette burns. The ceiling had once been white but years of smoking tenants had turned it the same shade as the carpet. It was presumably from the previous tenant because there were no signs of McIntyre being a smoker.

McIntyre took a gulp of whisky and then poured more into his glass. He raised it in salute. ‘You know, you’re the first visitor I’ve had in here,’ he said, sitting on the wooden chair.

‘How long have you lived here?’ asked Shepherd.

McIntyre screwed up his face as if he’d been given a difficult mathematical problem to solve. ‘Six months,’ he said eventually. ‘Seven, maybe. It’s just somewhere to sleep.’

‘What happened to your marriage, Jock? You and Emma seemed a great couple. Two kids – they’re in their twenties now, right?’

‘Haven’t seen the kids for four years,’ said McIntyre. He smiled tightly. ‘Had a bit of a falling-out with Emma. Can’t go near her at the moment.’

‘Can’t go near her? What do you mean?’

‘Restraining order. Bloody cops.’ He shrugged and drained his glass before refilling it again. ‘She’ll come around eventually. Till death do us part, right?’ He grimaced. ‘Sorry. Stupid thing to say.’

Shepherd waved away the man’s apology. ‘Where are you working, Jock?’

‘I’m looking after an office building near the station,’ said McIntyre. ‘Days mainly but I get overtime overnight a couple of days a week. It’s quiet at night so I can catch forty winks.’ He raised his glass to Shepherd. ‘At least no one’s shooting at me and I don’t have to keep looking out for IEDs.’

‘I thought there was plenty of work out in Iraq, private security and that,’ said Shepherd.

‘Not any more,’ said McIntyre. ‘At least not for the likes of you and me. They do it on the cheap now, the days of a thousand dollars a day are long gone. Used to be you got great food and business-class flights back and forth and plenty of leeway to do what needed to be done, but that’s all gone. There are guys out there now earning a hundred and fifty bucks a day, Spider. That’s close to minimum wage. And it’s as dangerous as it ever was. More so. What they’ve done is to privatise casualties. Whereas it used to be the army that took the hits, now it’s the contractors. And when you do get hurt, you’re sent back home and left to your own devices. You have to take out your own insurance and that costs an arm and a leg.’ He laughed harshly, the sound of a wounded animal. ‘No pun intended. I wouldn’t go back to Iraq if they got down on bended knee and begged me.’ He raised his glass but his hand was unsteady and whisky slopped on to the carpet. ‘So what brings you to Reading? I’m guessing it’s not a social visit.’ He sipped his whisky and scrutinised Shepherd over the rim of his glass.

Shepherd met McIntyre’s gaze and forced a smile. McIntyre was a mess, he looked as if he was close to a breakdown. There was a tenseness about his movements and a small twitch to the side of his right eye that made it look as if he was winking. His nails were bitten to the quick and his skin had a yellowish pallor, a sign that all the alcohol he was drinking was taking its toll on his liver. Shepherd had half a mind to walk out.

‘Come on, Spider. Spit it out. It’s got be something important to get you out here.’

Shepherd nodded as he held his glass with both hands. ‘Remember Ahmad Khan?’

‘The muj that shot you and the captain? Like it was yesterday. One of the biggest regrets of my life is that we didn’t slot that bastard in Pakistan.’

Shepherd reached inside his jacket and pulled out the newspaper cutting that Harper had given him. McIntyre put his glass on the table next to a Domino’s pizza box and walked unsteadily over to Shepherd. He took the cutting from him and peered at it, then walked back to the table and began rooting through the fast food boxes, muttering to himself. Eventually he found a pair of reading glasses and he perched them on the end of his nose and stared at the cutting again. ‘What the hell is he doing in the UK?’ he said.

‘You think it’s him?’

‘Of course I think it’s him. And so do you. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Shepherd.

‘Come on, how many Afghans with straggly beards and one milky eye do you see in London?’

‘I don’t know, to be honest,’ said Shepherd. ‘There are thousands of Afghans in London, and a lot of them have beards. I don’t know how common that eye thing is.’

‘We were in Afghanistan and he was the only one I saw with an eye like that.’

Shepherd nodded. That was true. It was a very distinctive blemish, one that Shepherd had never seen elsewhere.

McIntyre paced up and down the tidy room as he reread the newspaper cutting. ‘How the hell does this happen?’ he muttered. ‘How does a Taliban murderer end up living here?’

‘That’s a good question,’ said Shepherd. ‘But a better question is what are we going to do about it?’

McIntyre took off his glasses. ‘You know what we’re going to do about it. We’re going to slot him, like we should have done in Pakistan.’

‘One step at a time, Jock,’ said Shepherd. ‘First we’ve got to be sure it’s him.’

McIntyre gave the cutting back to Shepherd. ‘Then we slot him, right?’

Shepherd pocketed the cutting. ‘One bridge at a time,’ he said.

McIntyre put his spectacles back on the table and picked up his glass of whisky. He raised it in salute. ‘We’re going to give that bastard what he deserves.’

‘No offence, Jock, but you need to lay off the booze.’

‘Sure, sure.’

‘I’m serious. We’re going to need clear heads to pull this off.’

McIntyre nodded. ‘No worries. I can take it or leave it.’ He saw the look of disbelief on Shepherd’s face and he grinned. ‘Spider, I drink because I’m bored, end of.’

‘That’s good to hear,’ said Shepherd. ‘How about we start by pouring that in the sink?’

McIntyre held up the glass. ‘Now that’d be a waste of perfectly good whisky, wouldn’t it?’

‘Clear heads,’ repeated Shepherd. ‘Starting now.’

McIntyre sighed, then walked over to the sink and emptied the glass. Then he fetched the bottle and poured the contents away. ‘Happy now?’ he said, tossing the empty bottle.

‘Happier,’ said Shepherd.

McIntyre gestured at the glass in Shepherd’s hand. ‘The no-drinking rule applies to you as well, right?’

Shepherd laughed. ‘Fair comment,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay off the booze as long as you do.’ He looked at the whisky in his glass, then quickly drank it. He grinned at McIntyre. ‘Starting now.’

A
hmad Khan and Captain Todd flew to the Jalalabad base on a Blackhawk helicopter and then drove the final thirty miles to the SAS Forward Operating Base in a convoy of armoured Land Rovers as soon as it was light. It was ‘bandit country’ and all the occupants of the Land Rovers, including Khan, were armed. Khan had a scarf around his head and face, concealing his identity from any Taliban spies who might be watching from the shadows.

He looked around him with interest as they approached the Forward Operating Base. The road that led up to the gates was studded with huge concrete blocks, forcing any vehicle to slow down and weave from side to side as it approached, preventing suicide bombers from driving a truck packed with explosives straight into the gates.

The base was small, surrounded by razor-wire fences and berms bulldozed out of the stony soil, providing blast protection and cover for those inside. From what he could see, it looked much less well equipped than the American bases. Beyond the berms, Khan could just glimpse the tops of rows of shipping containers and tents and a heavily sandbagged, mud-brick building, the only permanent structure on the site. Around them were sandbagged emplacements from which protruded the barrels of General Purpose Machine Guns, and the much thicker firing tubes of mortars.

Bulldozers had flattened everything within half a mile of the perimeter in all directions, removing any cover for insurgents and giving the defenders of the base a clear field of fire. The cleared ground included the flattened rubble of a series of buildings, and as they passed them, Khan wondered whether they had merely been sheds or barns, or had once been people’s houses.