Spider Shepherd 11 - White Lies Read online

  Table of Contents

  Also by Stephen Leather

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  White Lies

  Also by Stephen Leather

  Pay Off

  The Fireman

  Hungry Ghost

  The Chinaman

  The Vets

  The Long Shot

  The Birthday Girl

  The Double Tap

  The Solitary Man

  The Tunnel Rats

  The Bombmaker

  The Stretch

  Tango One

  The Eyewitness

  Spider Shepherd Thrillers

  Hard Landing

  Soft Target

  Cold Kill

  Hot Blood

  Dead Men

  Live Fire

  Rough Justice

  Fair Game

  False Friends

  True Colours

  Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thrillers

  Nightfall

  Midnight

  Nightmare

  Nightshade

  Lastnight

  To find out about these and future titles, visit www.stephenleather.com.

  About the author

  Stephen Leather is one of the UK’s most successful thriller writers, an eBook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mirror, the Glasgow Herald, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He is one of the country’s most successful eBook authors and his titles have topped the Amazon Kindle charts in the UK and the US. His bestsellers have been translated into fifteen languages and he has also written for television.

  Visit Stephen’s website, www.stephenleather.com, find him on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/stephenleather.

  Stephen also has a website for his Spider Shepherd series, www.danspidershepherd.com, and for his Jack Nightingale series, www.jacknightingale.com.

  WHITE LIES

  Stephen Leather

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Stephen Leather 2014

  The right of Stephen Leather to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 444 73660 1

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Marie

  ‘It’s the ultimate earner, mate, better than drugs, better than guns, better than anything.’ The speaker was a dark-haired man in a black pea-coat. Alistair Coatsworth, Ally to his friends. He was forty-nine years old but looked a decade older. ‘People pay thousands to get into the UK. Thousands.’ His nose and cheeks were flecked with broken blood vessels, the result of years at sea and a taste for strong liquor.

  There were three men sitting at the table listening intently as they finished off their plates of steak and chips. They were on their second bottle of red wine and a third had already been opened. They were in a small restaurant in a coastal village between Calais and Dunkirk, close to the border with Belgium. They had a table by a roaring fire that had shadows flickering over the roughly plastered walls.

  Coatsworth waved his knife in the air for emphasis. ‘It’s the Wild West over here, mate. You can make money hand over fist if you know what you doing. I’ve got a pal who smuggles them on to trucks for a grand a go. He pays the driver two hundred of that and keeps eight hundred for himself. Gets maybe five on a truck. He makes four grand and the driver gets one. They almost never get caught but, if they do, the driver just says they snuck on and he knows nothing.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said the man sitting opposite him. His name was Andy Bell. He was a few years younger than Coatsworth, his face burned from exposure to the sun. He was wearing a heavy green polo-necked jumper, combat trousers and Timberland boots.

  ‘He’s got an even better deal with trucks that have been built with secret compartments. Usually when the driver owns his own rig. You can build a compartment that holds three or four and they’ll never be found. He can charge four grand a go for that and the driver takes half. So that’s two grand a person, six grand a run.’

  ‘Why the fifty-fifty split?’ asked Bell.

  ‘It’s obvious,’ said another of the men at the table. Bruno Mercier was an Algerian, short and stocky with a crew cut and a diamond stud in his left ear. ‘Because if they get caught in a secret compartment, the driver can’t say he didn’t know.’

  ‘But most trucks aren’t checked, right?’ asked Bell.

  ‘They don’t have time,’ said Coatsworth. ‘Dover would grind to a halt if they searched every vehicle. The only problem is finding the right driver. That’s not easy. At least doing what we’re doing, we’re not beholden to anyone. No one can let us down. And more importantly, no one can grass us up.’

  Bell nodded and popped another piece of steak into his mouth. Coatsworth emptied his glass and refilled it. He tried to pour more into Bell’s glass but Bell put his hand over the top. ‘It’ll help keep out the cold,’ said Coatsworth. ‘The English Channel gets bitter at night.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Bell, taking away his hand.

  Coatsworth topped up Bell’s glass. ‘I’ll have some of that,’ said the fourth man at the table. Frankie Rainey was in his late twenties. He’d hung his fleece jacket over the back of his chair and had rolled up the sleeves of his denim shirt to reveal a tattoo on each forearm: a galleon in full sail and a dagger with a snake wound around it. One of his front teeth had gone black and the rest were stained from coffee and cigarettes. Coatsworth filled his glass.

  ‘Business is good, yeah?’ said Bell.

  ‘That’s why we need you,’ said Coatsworth, putting the bottle back on the table. ‘I was getting backed up.’

  ‘Where are you getting them from?’ asked Bell. ‘It’s not as if you can advertise smuggling runs to the UK, is it?’

  ‘I pay some middlemen to cruise around Calais and the other jumping-off ports,’ said Coatsworth. ‘We need a particular sort of refugee. Ideally some government official or army guy from Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria who’s managed to grab a decent wad before running away with his family. We’re looking for the happy medium. We don’t want the ones with no money. And if the guy’s got megabucks he can just buy his way into the UK by paying for passports.’

  ‘What, real ones? Real passports?’

  ‘Depends,’ said Coatsworth. ‘The really rich ones get the red-carpet treatment; invest a million quid in the UK and you and your family can all get passports. But twenty grand or so will get you a genuine passport, probably from some UK-born Asian who’s never left the country. He applies for a passport then sells it and forgets about travelling for ten years. But passports aren�
�t easy to get and we offer a cheaper way in. The trick is to find the ones with cash. It’s just a matter of separating the wheat from the chaff.’

  ‘The chaff being what?’

  Coatsworth laughed. ‘The chaff being the morons with nothing, the ones who climb into refrigerated vans and freeze to death. My middlemen make sure that the clients have the cash to pay.’

  ‘Always cash?’

  ‘Mostly,’ said Coatsworth. ‘Dollars, euros or pounds, no funny Arab money, though. So long as it adds up to three grand sterling, I’m happy. But I’ve taken gold in the past. And jewellery.’ He pushed the sleeve of his jacket up his arm and showed Bell the watch on his wrist. It was a gold Rolex. ‘Got this off an Iraqi doctor. It’s the real thing, it’d cost you twenty grand in a jeweller’s.’

  ‘It’s genuine, right?’

  Coatsworth scowled and held the watch under Bell’s chin. ‘Of course it’s bloody genuine. I’m not stupid. You can tell by the way the second hand moves. If it’s jerky it’s a fake. If it moves smoothly, it’s real.’

  Bell looked at the watch and pulled a face. ‘I thought it was the other way around,’ he said.

  Coatsworth frowned and pulled back his arm. He stared at the second hand and his frown deepened.

  Rainey and Mercier burst out laughing but stopped when Coatsworth glared at them. ‘I’m yanking your chain,’ said Bell. ‘It’s kosher. You can tell just by looking at it. Quality.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Coatsworth. He tapped the watch. ‘We should be heading out soon,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to meet the van in ten minutes.’

  Bell sipped his wine. ‘So you think this is good money, long-term?’ he asked.

  ‘Best you’ll ever see,’ said Coatsworth. He leaned across the table. ‘I’ve been doing this for eighteen months now. During the summer the weather’s good enough for maybe twenty-five days. Less during spring and autumn. I’ve not done a winter yet but even then there’ll be days when I can do a run. The summer months, I was doing two runs a day. Eight customers each trip, that’s sixteen a day. Sixteen a day is forty-eight grand. OK, I’ve got costs. I pay the middlemen in France and I pay a guy to handle transport in the UK, and there’s fuel and expenses, but I can still clear forty-five grand a day. A day, mate. In August alone I pulled in more than a million quid.’

  ‘So what do you do with all the money, that’s too much cash to hide under the bed.’

  ‘I’ve got a guy who does my laundry,’ said Coatsworth. ‘He lives on Jersey, I take a run out to see him every month and leave the cash with him. He gets it into the banking system for a fee of ten per cent.’ He nodded at Rainey. ‘Frankie uses the same guy.’

  ‘That’s a lot, ten per cent,’ said Bell. He put his knife and fork down and belched. ‘Better out than in,’ he said.

  Coatsworth shook his head. ‘It’s cheap as chips, mate. If you ever do get done the first thing they do is to go looking for the money and take it off you. My money’s in shell companies and trusts all around the world, safe from their grubby little hands. It’s worth paying ten per cent for. Trust me.’ He frowned. ‘What do you do with your money, then?’

  ‘Spend it,’ said Bell. His face broke into a grin. ‘But then I haven’t been earning a million quid a month. Running tourists out to the Holy Island doesn’t bring in the big bucks.’

  ‘Yeah, well, now you’re with me that’ll change. And you need to start thinking about what you’re going to do with the money you earn. The reason I brought you in is because I’m getting more customers than I can handle myself. It’s a growing market, mate, and you’ll grow with it.’ He looked at his watch again, drained his glass and stood up. ‘Time to go,’ he said, dropping a fifty-euro note on to the table and waving at the waiter, a grey-haired man in his fifties who doubled as the restaurant’s barman.

  ‘I need the toilet,’ said Bell.

  ‘Bladder like a marble,’ said Rainey.

  ‘Be quick about it,’ said Coatsworth. ‘We’ll be in the car.’

  Bell hurried off to the toilet while Coatsworth, Rainey and Mercier headed outside and climbed into a large Mercedes. Rainey got into the driving seat and Coatsworth sat next to him. ‘Your mate’s not in there throwing up I hope,’ said Coatsworth.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ said Rainey. He lit a cigarette and then offered the pack to Coatsworth. Coatsworth took one and handed the pack back to Mercier. ‘He’s short of a bob or two,’ Rainey continued. ‘He borrowed from the bank to buy his boat and he’s having trouble with the payments. Did you see the look on his face when you asked him what he did with his money? He was thinking about selling his boat, things were that bad.’

  ‘I hope it works out with him,’ said Coatsworth. ‘With two boats we make twice as much money.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ said Rainey. He started the engine.

  The door to the restaurant opened and Bell jogged over to the car and climbed in the back next to Mercier. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Better to do it here than at sea, right?’

  Rainey edged the car out of the car park and on to the main road to Dunkirk. Bell wound down the window and let the breeze play over his face.

  ‘You’ve never been a smoker, Andy?’ asked Mercier.

  ‘Nah,’ said Bell.

  ‘You should take it up, now you’re on this crew. We smoke like chimneys.’

  ‘I think I’m getting a nicotine high from the secondary smoke,’ said Bell.

  They drove to a garage that had closed for the night and parked behind it. ‘Where the fuck are they?’ asked Coatsworth. He looked at his watch and scowled.

  ‘I’ll call him,’ said Rainey. He pulled out his mobile phone but before he could make the call a large white Renault van pulled on to the garage forecourt and switched off its lights. It drove slowly around the garage and stopped next to the Mercedes.

  Coatsworth climbed out, dropped what was left of his cigarette on to the tarmac and ground it out with his boot. Mercier and Bell joined him.

  The driver of the van was a middle-aged Frenchman wrapped up in a sheepskin jacket and a thick red wool scarf wound several times around his neck. He climbed out of the cab and hugged Coatsworth, his breath reeking of garlic and brandy. ‘We have a problem,’ said the Frenchman as he broke away.

  ‘I pay you so I don’t have any problems,’ said Coatsworth.

  The Frenchman looked pained. ‘One of them, he didn’t come up with the money.’

  ‘He’s in the van?’

  The Frenchman nodded.

  ‘Why the hell’s he in the van? You know the deal, Alain. No money, no passage. If he doesn’t have the cash, he doesn’t get in the van.’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ said the Frenchman. ‘He’s with his family.’

  ‘Do I give a shit?’

  ‘He said he wanted to talk to you. I didn’t see the harm.’

  ‘You mean you want me to do your job, is that it? Well, how about you give me back the commission for the whole family? How about that?’

  ‘Ally, my friend, come on …’

  ‘Don’t give me that, you fat French fuck. I pay you to make sure that everything goes smoothly, not to bring the problems to me.’ He shook his head. ‘This ain’t right, Alain.’

  ‘He’s got kids.’

  ‘Yeah? You’ve got kids and I’ve got kids, we’ve all got kids. Having kids doesn’t get you a free pass in life.’

  The Frenchman held up his hands. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right.’

  ‘I know I’m right,’ said Coatsworth. He gestured at the van. ‘OK, get them out.’ He turned to Bell and Mercier. ‘You need to search them. No weapons and no drugs. One bag each. They know that’s the deal so don’t take any shit from them.’

  The Frenchman pulled open the rear doors. There were sixteen people sitting on the floor of the van: men, women and children. ‘Sortez!’ he said. ‘Get out!’

  The first man out was a young Somalian, tall and with a wicked scar running down his left cheek. He was carrying a Manchester United
holdall.

  ‘Over there,’ said Coatsworth, pointing to the front of the van.

  Three Middle Eastern men were next out, all in jeans and pullovers and wearing heavy overcoats. ‘Where is the boat?’ asked one in a thick accent.

  ‘We search you, you pay, then we go to the boat,’ said Coatsworth.

  ‘We want to see the boat first,’ said the man.

  ‘No, you pay me first. Or you can fuck off. I don’t care which.’

  The three men talked among themselves as they walked towards the front of the van. The one who had done the talking looked over his shoulder but looked away when he saw that Coatsworth was glaring at him.

  A man and a woman climbed out of the van with a small boy who couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old. The boy was holding a toy dog and looking around excitedly as if he were on his way to a fairground. The woman had a black headscarf and the man was wearing a Muslim skullcap. The man was carrying two suitcases and the woman held the boy’s free hand.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ said Coatsworth. ‘We haven’t got all night.’

  Three Somalian teenagers climbed out and stood looking around. They were carrying supermarket carrier bags stuffed with clothes. They were all tall and gangly, well over six feet. ‘What’s their story?’ Coatsworth asked the Frenchman.

  ‘Their father’s already in London. He sent them the money to come over. They’re OK. Good kids.’

  Coatsworth pointed for the teenagers to go to the front of the van where Bell was patting down the three in the big coats. Mercier was on his knees, going through a suitcase.

  ‘This is the guy,’ said the Frenchman. ‘He’s Iraqi.’

  A middle-aged man in a heavy leather jacket climbed out of the van. He held up his arms to lift down a small boy, then offered his hand to help down a teenage girl. His wife then handed him three large blue nylon holdalls and one by one he placed them on the ground before helping her down. The wife and daughter were wearing long coats and headscarves.

  ‘Does he speak English?’ Coatsworth asked the Frenchman. The Frenchman nodded.