Dead Men: The Fifth Spider Shepherd Thriller Read online

Button lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

  ‘I thought you’d quit,’ said Ellis.

  Button blew a tight plume of smoke at the ceiling. ‘So did I,’ she said. She waved at a waitress and mimed for her to bring over a second bottle. ‘Why did you lie to me, Patsy?’

  Ellis sipped her wine and put the glass on the table, her fingers lightly touching the stem. ‘I didn’t lie,’ she said frostily.

  ‘You should have told me that Noel Kinsella was an MI5 agent.’

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t lie.’

  ‘You must have known what I was doing in Belfast.’

  Ellis shrugged. ‘You’re with a different agency now,’ she said. ‘You’re not family.’

  ‘I’m not used to having guns pointed at me, Patsy, and it’s not an experience I want to repeat.’

  ‘If I’d known what was going to happen, obviously I’d have stepped in,’ said Ellis.

  ‘You had an IRA killer on the payroll,’ said Button.

  ‘Kinsella was a valuable source of intelligence,’ said Ellis. ‘You take your intel where you can, you know that – and that the people you get information from aren’t usually the sort you’d invite around for tea and crumpets.’

  ‘And Carter? What was he?’

  Ellis sighed. ‘Carter was a grey area. Nothing to do with me, I swear.’

  ‘Black ops?’

  Ellis smiled without warmth. ‘We don’t have a black-ops department, darling, as you also know. We leave that sort of thing to our American cousins.’

  ‘But he fed information to the Loyalists, didn’t he? Information that resulted in the murder of Republicans?’

  ‘That wasn’t official policy.’

  ‘You’re playing with words, Patsy.’ Button drained her glass. ‘Where is that damn waitress?’

  ‘There was never a policy of murdering Republicans, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’

  ‘The guys on Gibraltar in 1988 might argue with that,’ said Button. ‘If they weren’t dead, of course.’

  ‘That was an SAS operation, and you know it,’ said Ellis. ‘The Gibraltar team were planning to detonate a car bomb.’

  ‘The SAS acted on MI5 intel on Gibraltar,’ said Button, ‘and the UFF were using MI5 intel in Belfast to kill IRA Volunteers. Robbie Carter was the conduit for that information.’

  The waitress returned with a bottle. She smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, madam, you can’t smoke here.’

  Button stabbed out her cigarette as the waitress showed her the label on the bottle. Then the two women sat in silence until the waitress had pulled the cork, set the bottle on the table and gone away. ‘Charlie, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, you really are,’ said Ellis.

  ‘Well, having a gun pointed at you can distort your perception, I suppose.’

  ‘That was nothing to do with me,’ said Ellis.

  Button refilled her glass. ‘The IRA hit team went after Robbie Carter because he was feeding information to a UFF hit team. Information supplied by MI5. So, whichever way you look at it, MI5 was involved in Carter’s death. Maybe not responsible, but certainly involved.’

  Ellis said nothing.

  Button lit another cigarette, then leant across the table. ‘If MI5 hadn’t fed information to Carter, there’d have been no reason for the IRA to go after him.’ She jabbed the cigarette at Ellis, punctuating her words.

  ‘I get what you’re saying, Charlie. I’m not stupid. And please stop waving that cigarette in my face.’

  Button flicked ash on the floor. ‘So I’m called in to protect the men who killed Robbie Carter, and what do I find? That one of his killers was an MI5 agent. How perverse is that, Patsy? One of your men helped kill another of your men.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, neither of them was my man. Or Five’s man for that matter. As you said, Carter was a conduit. He was an RUC officer and never on Five’s payroll. And Noel Kinsella was an informer.’

  ‘Informer, agent, it’s the same thing.’

  Ellis sipped some wine, granite-faced.

  ‘Why didn’t he stop them, Patsy? Why did he let them kill Robbie Carter?’

  ‘He couldn’t, without revealing who he was. What he was. If the IRA had found out he was an informer, he’d have been a dead man.’

  ‘You could have pulled him out, given him a new identity, protection.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Charlie. He wasn’t staff. He wasn’t someone we’d put into the IRA. He was an IRA man through and through. He just had an axe to grind with some of his bosses and we were a means to an end. We paid him for information but he was using us to get rid of people who were giving him trouble.’

  ‘He was betraying IRA men he didn’t get on with. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Pretty much. It was a symbiosis. We were using him and he was using us.’

  ‘So, rather than spoil his cosy little arrangement, he helped murder Robbie Carter?’

  Ellis nodded but didn’t say anything.

  ‘I’m not wired for sound, Patsy. I’m not recording this.’

  ‘It wouldn’t matter if you were, darling. You’ve signed the Official Secrets Act and a recording of this conversation wouldn’t be of any use to anyone.’ She smiled. ‘Besides, I know you. You’re upset, but you’re not stupid.’

  ‘Kinsella put his own life ahead of Carter’s. By not doing anything, he was responsible.’

  ‘Charlie, he stood up in court and pleaded guilty.’

  ‘Because he knew he’d be released immediately. Why are you defending him?’She shook her head in frustration. ‘When he decided to come back and go into Irish politics, I bet you thought your ship had come in.’

  Ellis toyed with the stem of her glass.

  ‘Was that the plan,Patsy? To have your own man embedded in Sinn Fein? Your own agent at Stormont, a conduit to the inner sanctum?’

  ‘You’re not crying, are you, darling?’ asked Ellis.

  Button blinked away the tears that were threatening to fill her eyes. She was absolutely not going to cry in front of Ellis. ‘I don’t think you realise how angry I am, Patsy,’ she said.

  ‘I do, and I’m sorry you’re angry but I’m not sorry for what I did. Noel Kinsella was gold. He gave us grade-A intel on the IRA leadership at a time when RUC informers were being found in country lanes with bags over their heads. And he could give us intel now on what’s going on in Sinn Fein. Can you imagine how valuable that would be?’

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Button gulped some wine, then took a long drag on her cigarette. ‘We’re supposed to be the guardians of this society. We’re supposed to be defending our way of life against people who want us to live under a different regime. The Communists, the IRA, the Islamic fundamentalists. We’re supposed to have right on our side. If we were backing both sides in Northern Ireland, then what’s the point?’

  ‘That’s not what happened, Charlie. We took intel from some sources and fed intel to others. But the interests of our country always came first.’

  ‘Noel Kinsella was an IRA killer. Robbie Carter was helping to kill Republicans.’

  ‘And we were fighting on two fronts. The Loyalists on one hand, the IRA on the other.’

  ‘And now the killers on both sides are back on the streets. Like it never happened. Like those three thousand or so people weren’t murdered.’

  ‘That was the politicians. It was their call. It had nothing to do with our work.’

  The manager came over. He was a young man in a shiny suit with slicked-back hair and a tuft of hair below his lower lip. ‘I’m sorry, madam, but you really can’t smoke in here,’ he said, in a nasal whine. ‘If you continue to smoke I shall have to ask you to leave.’

  Button regarded him coldly. ‘Listen, you officious little prick, have you ever heard of SOCA, the Serious Organised Crime Agency? Well, I work for them.’ Button gestured at Ellis. ‘And she works for MI5. So if you want to send a plod over, feel free. I’ll exp
lain to him why I need a cigarette, and then I’ll go out of my way to make your miserable little life a great deal more miserable than it already is.’ She smiled brightly. ‘Trust me, I can do it. Okay?’

  The manager’s face reddened. He turned and walked away.

  ‘That was out of order, Charlie,’ said Ellis.

  Button blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘I’ll tell you why I’m so angry, Patsy. I’ll tell you why I’m starting to question everything I’ve ever worked for. What’s the biggest threat we’re facing today? Islamic fundamentalists, right? Al-Qaeda infiltrators from overseas or home-grown terrorists. Everything from shoe bombs on planes to bio-hazards on our transport systems. We’re running around like those guys who keep spinning plates balanced. Except if one of our plates falls, people die. A lot of people.’

  ‘Charlie, I think you’ve had enough to drink, don’t you?’

  Button pointed her cigarette at Ellis. ‘Don’t patronise me, Patsy. Don’t you dare patronise me.’

  Ellis sat back in her chair, her hands flat on the table. ‘I think I’d better go.’

  ‘Here’s what’s getting me all riled up. Then, we were backing both sides against the middle. What if the powers-that-be are playing the same game now? What if one or more of those guys who went down the Tube with haversacks full of explosives was working for MI5? Or the ones that were planning to kidnap a Muslim soldier and behead him on the Internet. Or the London car bombs – were MI5 agents behind them? What if we’ve got agents in place among the Islamic fundamentalists and we’re letting them run, like we let Noel Kinsella and Robbie Carter run?’

  ‘That’s not how it works,’ said Ellis.

  ‘It’s how it used to work in Belfast, so why can’t it be happening now? And if you tell me it’s not, why should I believe you?’

  ‘I’m not saying we don’t have agents in the Muslim community. Of course we do.’

  Button waved her cigarette in the air. ‘And what if there are other parallels? What if these fundamentalists we’re putting away, these bastards who want to kill and maim the citizens of this country, what if one day in the not-too-distant future our politicians decide to set them free? What if al-Qaeda sets up a political wing and our government agrees to release its people in return for them laying down their arms? What if we start setting murderers free again?’

  Ellis shrugged.

  ‘Don’t you see, Patsy? Don’t you get it? Everything we’re doing now in this so-called War on Terror could be a lie. Smoke and mirrors.’

  ‘Now you really are sounding paranoid.’

  ‘Would you have said I was paranoid if I’d said twenty years ago that we had agents in the IRA and agents in the RUC and that they were killing each other?’

  ‘You’re trying to sum up a very difficult situation in a handy soundbite,’ said Ellis. ‘Life is more complex than that.’

  ‘Too complex for a tiny brain like mine, is that what you mean?’

  ‘You got a double first at Cambridge. This isn’t about your intellect,’ said Ellis.

  ‘So who was making those decisions back then?’ hissed Button. ‘And who’s making the decisions now? The Prime Minister? Of course not. The Home Secretary – with the Sunday Times Insight Team watching his every move? Doubtful. Who decided back then that Robbie Carter should be allowed to pass information to the paramilitaries? And was it the same person who said it was okay for Noel Kinsella to be part of an IRA assassination squad?’

  ‘Those decisions were taken at a salary grade much higher than mine,’ said Ellis.

  ‘Now who’s using handy soundbites?’ snapped Button. ‘Was it men in wood-panelled rooms, smoking cigars and spinning their webs? Thinking up their grubby little schemes, then nipping off to their Mayfair mistresses for a bit of S and M? Was it our bosses, Patsy? And if it was, are they playing the same games now?’

  ‘Enough, Charlie,’ said Ellis, coldly.

  ‘No,’ Button spat. ‘It’s not enough. You make it sound as if my work with SOCA is somehow inferior to the great game you’re playing, that I’m dabbling in the shallows while you’re taking on the big fish. Well, let me tell you, Patsy, at least I’m fighting real criminals. At least I’m upholding real laws. When I put a drug-dealer or a murderer behind bars I know I’m making the streets a bit safer, and that a few years down the line they’re not going to be released because of a change of heart on the part of our political masters.’

  Ellis tried to take Button’s hand, but she jerked it back as if she’d been stung. ‘Don’t touch me. I don’t want you to touch me.’

  ‘I’m going,’ said Ellis, standing up.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’ll put this down to the drink,’ said Ellis, ‘and the stress.’

  ‘Screw you,’ said Button. ‘Screw you and screw MI5. Screw the lot of you.’

  Ellis opened her mouth to say something, but when she saw how intensely Button was glaring at her she shut it and left.

  Graham Pickering opened the kitchen door and whistled for his dog. The Labrador barked from the bottom of the garden but made no move to come back to the house. ‘Poppy, get in here or you can sleep outside tonight!’ shouted Pickering. The dog’s nose was buried in the hedgerow, her tail swishing from side to side. ‘Damn you,’ muttered Pickering. ‘Come on, Poppy, let’s call it a night!’ he shouted.

  It made no sense to him that his daughter was at boarding-school hundreds of miles away, yet every day he was at the beck and call of a four-year-old animal whose only thoughts seemed to be of food and hedges. His wife had agreed to the dog only after their daughter had gone to boarding-school, and Pickering had always felt he was being offered a consolation prize.

  Charlie was right, of course, and he hadn’t argued when she had suggested sending Zoë away. They both had demanding careers and it wouldn’t have been fair to turn Zoë into a latch-key kid, with or without an au pair. She was blossoming now, and so were their careers, so it had worked out for the best, though there were times when Pickering missed watching her grow. He’d read her bedtime stories when she was four, taught her to swim when she was five and how to ride a bike when she was six, but now it seemed that all she needed from him were the school fees and pocket money.

  It was the way of the world, Pickering knew. You give birth to children and you spend a few years teaching them the skills to survive on their own, then they leave to start families of their own. Pickering wished he’d had a few more years with Zoë before she’d been packed off to school. Throwing sticks in the park for Poppy came a poor second to watching movies and eating popcorn with a giggling thirteen-year-old.

  The doorbell rang and Pickering frowned. He wasn’t expecting anyone other than Charlie, and she had her key. ‘Poppy, get the hell in here now!’ he shouted. The dog ignored him.

  Pickering closed the kitchen door and hurried to the hallway. The bell rang again. He opened the door to find an Arab man in his thirties on the step smiling amiably.

  ‘Mr Pickering, it’s Mr Hassan, from your office. I hope I’m not imposing.’

  ‘Of course I remember you, Mr Hassan,’ he said. ‘I just didn’t expect to see you here, that’s all.’

  Salih smiled. ‘You made Virginia Water sound so attractive that I thought I’d take a drive round the area and see for myself,’he said. ‘You weren’t exaggerating. It’s quite lovely. And your house is spectacular.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Pickering, ‘but as I said, it’s not for sale.’

  Salih flashed a broad smile and held up the fistful of brochures Pickering had given him. ‘I understand that. I just thought you might have time to go over a few of these with me. I’m a cash buyer and I do want to move quickly.’

  Pickering looked at his watch.

  ‘I’m sorry. You’re busy with your family. How thoughtless of me,’ said Salih.

  ‘No, my wife’s not back yet,’ said Pickering. A two-million-pound sale generated a lot of commission. ‘Come on in, we can chat until my wife returns. Who knows? Mayb
e you can make her an offer she can’t refuse.’

  ‘You are a kind man, Mr Pickering,’ said Salih, walking into the hall. ‘This is quite beautiful, your wife has wonderful taste.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Pickering, closing the door. ‘Mr Hassan, I don’t remember giving you my home address.’

  Salih smiled. ‘You didn’t.’ He dropped the brochures. The knife slid down his sleeve and the handle into the palm of his hand. He stepped forward and drove the blade between the third and fourth rib on Pickering’s left side, forcing it into his heart. He clamped his left hand over Pickering’s open mouth and pushed him back against the wall. He kept the knife pressed hard into Pickering’s heart. A trickle of blood ran down the handle. Pickering grunted. Most of the blood from his pierced heart was pooling inside his body, and as long as Salih kept the knife in place there would be none on the floor.

  Pickering’s legs gave out and Salih moved down with him, keeping the knife in the man’s heart and his hand over his mouth. He eased Pickering on to his back so that there would be no spillage. Pickering’s eyelids fluttered, his body went into spasm and his heels drummed against the floor. The reflex lasted three or four seconds, then Pickering was still.

  Salih took his hand off the man’s mouth and slid out the knife. He wiped the blade on Pickering’s shirt and stood up. ‘Allahu Akbar,’ he whispered. ‘God is great.’

  Charlotte Button poured more wine into her glass. As she lifted it to her lips, she saw Shepherd smiling down at her. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘Fancied a drink,’ said Shepherd. ‘Can I?’

  ‘You may,’ she said. She lifted the bottle and showed him the label. ‘I’m on red, but I suppose we could order some of the Irish whiskey you love.’

  Shepherd took it from her and poured some into an empty water glass. ‘Wine is fine,’ he said.

  ‘So now you’re a poet,’ she said. ‘How did you know where I was?’

  ‘I followed you from the hotel,’ said Shepherd. ‘You didn’t do much in the way of counter-surveillance. I guess you had other things on your mind.’

  She pushed her packet of cigarettes across the table towards him. Shepherd shook his head. ‘Strong will?’ she said.