'It's not okay,' said McElroy. 'That b.a.s.t.a.r.d deserves to die. I want him dead. It's just...' He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

'It's just you can't do it, right?'

'I know I should he killed my Debbie but...'

'It's nothing to be ashamed of, sir,' said the policeman. He opened the side door of the van. The burly West Indian constable helped McElroy into the van.

'I'm sorry,' said McElroy. Tears ran down his face.

'You don't have to apologise for anything, sir,' said Fluorescent Jacket. 'I can take care of this for you,' he said quietly. 'If that's what you want.'

McElroy wiped his eyes. 'Yes,' he said. 'That's what I want.'

Fluorescent Jacket smiled. 'That's what we're here for,' he said. He closed the van door. 'I won't be long,' he told the driver, and walked back to the warehouse.

Caroline Stockmann was sitting at a table by the window with a half-full pint of bitter in front of her. She smiled and waved at Shepherd when she saw him walk into the pub. Shepherd went over to her, unsure how he should greet her. The meeting was official but she was dressed casually in a padded skiing jacket and blue jeans so a handshake seemed over-formal. However, she was the SOCA psychologist responsible for a.s.sessing his mental health every six months so a kiss on the cheek seemed equally out of place. She solved the conundrum for him by standing up and proffering her hand. 'Dan, good to see you again,' she said.

'I wasn't avoiding you, honestly,' he said, as he shook it.

'I didn't mean to imply that you were,' she said. 'I was visiting your old Regiment and thought I might kill two birds with one stone.'

'The SAS is being psychologically a.s.sessed?' he said. 'I thought being slightly loopy was in the job description.'

Stockmann sat down and adjusted her square-framed spectacles. 'Post-traumatic stress disorder,' she said. 'Some of the guys are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan a bit worse for wear so we're putting together a therapy programme.'

Shepherd grinned. 'Therapy? How's that working out?'

'You might laugh, but the suicide rate among former SAS troopers is about twelve times the national average, and it looks as if PTSD is one of the major causes.' She glanced at the bar. 'Can I get you a drink?'

'I'll get it,' said Shepherd. 'Can I get you anything?'

She raised her gla.s.s. 'I'm fine with this, and I've got my car outside,' she said.

Shepherd went to the bar, paid for a Jameson's and soda with ice, and returned to her table. 'It's funny being with a civilian,' he said. 'Normally I'd never be sitting at a window.'

'This is your home turf, so I didn't think tradecraft would apply,' she said. 'Would you be happier at a corner table with your back to a wall?' She took a leather-bound notebook and a pen from her pocket.

Shepherd wagged a finger at her. 'Now you've got me thinking that you deliberately chose this table to put me off balance.'

'Maybe I did,' she said, deadpan. She sipped some beer. 'You feel more secure with your back to a wall?'

'Everyone does,' he said. 'And windows make you vulnerable. You can be seen from outside, or worse.'

'So the best place to be would be where?' asked the psychologist.

Shepherd was a regular visitor to the pub so he answered immediately: 'The table over there, next to the booths.'

'Not in a booth? That one in the corner seems perfect.'

'The tables are fixed in booths,' said Shepherd. 'You can get trapped in a booth. But tables can be pushed out of the way. That table over there gives you a view of the main entrance, the bar, and the door to the toilets.'

'Plus you can sit with your back to the wall.'

'Exactly,' said Shepherd.

Stockmann's eyes sparkled with amus.e.m.e.nt. 'I have to say that I did some research which suggests you might be better rethinking that,' she said. 'I looked at over two hundred killings where the victim was sitting in a restaurant or a bar and where the killer came in from the outside.'

'And?'

'And in the vast majority of cases, more than ninety-five per cent in fact, the victim was shot in the face or the chest. Rarely in the back.'

Shepherd frowned. 'That surprises me,' he said.

'It's counter-intuitive,' she said, opening her notebook. 'But it's a fact, all the same. a.s.sa.s.sins shoot their victims from the front, not the back. So in theory you'd be safer facing a wall.'

'That wouldn't be much good if you were on surveillance,' said Shepherd.

'Agreed,' said Stockmann. 'And undercover cops are rarely murdered in public places. It usually takes place in private.'

'You've researched that too?'

Stockmann smiled coyly. 'You'd be amazed at the things I'm asked to look at,' she said. 'So, how's life?'

Shepherd shrugged. 'Just adopted a stray dog,' he said.

'I wouldn't have put you down as a dog lover,' said Stockmann.

'My son's been asking for one for years.' Shepherd frowned. 'Why wouldn't I like dogs?'

'I didn't say you didn't like them but I wouldn't think you'd necessarily want one in your home. You're not a pack animal, Dan. You know how to operate in a pack but that's part of your skill as an undercover agent. Some men feel the need to have a dog, to have power over another living thing, but I never got the impression that was an issue with you.'

'You're probably right,' admitted Shepherd.

'I should hope so,' said Stockmann. 'SOCA pays me very well for my impressions.'

'And are you staying with SOCA?' asked Shepherd. He watched her carefully over the top of his gla.s.s.

'Why wouldn't I be?'

'Because Charlie b.u.t.ton brought you in. I thought you might be going back to Five with her.'

Stockmann sipped some more beer and carefully placed her gla.s.s on the mat. 'I still do work for Five from time to time I'm a freelance when all is said and done. Have gun, will travel.'

'Did she tell you she was going back to Five?'

Stockmann nodded. 'You seem unsettled by the fact that she's moving on.'

Shepherd sighed. 'It's an important relationship, an undercover agent and the handler. You have to have complete trust because without that you're always looking over your shoulder.'

'And you're worried that Charlotte's replacement won't inspire the same level of trust?'

Shepherd stretched out his legs. 'I'm not resistant to change, if that's what you're implying.'

'I'm not implying anything, Dan. I do understand how important Charlotte is to you, but no one stays in the same job for ever. If she didn't go this year she'd go next year or the year after. So at some stage you're going to have to deal with that.'

'I can deal with it,' said Shepherd, then winced as he realised how defensive he'd sounded. 'That came out wrong,' he said. 'I think I'm just worried about having to break in a new boss, that's all. If I was still a cop, it wouldn't be such a worry, but SOCA is civil service and the last thing I want is some career civil servant making life-and-death decisions on my behalf.'

'I'm sensing some resentment about SOCA.'

'Will that go on my file?'

Stockmann chuckled. 'You are sensitive today,' she said.

'And you're being evasive.'

She raised her gla.s.s to him. 'Fair point,' she said. 'I'm here to a.s.sess your mental health, nothing else. Your opinions on SOCA are just between us. Unless, of course, you tell me that you're planning to go postal.'

'There's no chance of that,' said Shepherd. He drank some whiskey and soda as he gathered his thoughts. 'I guess the problem is that SOCA is an amalgamation of several organisations. It was formed by bringing together policemen, spies, Customs officers, accountants, lawyers, scientists and making them all equal. We're all now civil servants, and that means I'm never sure of the background of the person I'm dealing with. When I was a cop, if you met an inspector you had a rough idea of what experience he had, and how he'd be different from a chief superintendent or a commander. You can't do that with the SOCA staff. A guy at the same level in the organisation as me might have spent ten years just shuffling papers in an office somewhere. Or stood at an airport checking pa.s.sports, or checking white vans for booze on the cross-Channel ferries.'

'And that's a problem?'

'd.a.m.n right that's a problem,' said Shepherd, quickly. Too quickly, he realised. He raised his gla.s.s. 'Sorry,' he said.

Stockmann smiled. 'I want you to express your feelings, Dan, not hide them. That's what I'm here for. Better you talk things through with me than explode while you're on a job.'

'I'm not the exploding type, Caroline.'

'Everybody has his breaking point,' she said. She wrote something in her notebook.

'This isn't about breaking points,' said Shepherd. 'It's about trusting the people you work with. In the army, you can trust the men either side of you because you've all been through the same basic training. More so with the Regiment. Even with the police, there are standards, even if the powers-that-be seemed to be determined to drop those standards day by day. SOCA doesn't have that. Every time you come up against another SOCA face, you have to start from scratch. Does he know what he's doing?' He smiled thinly. 'He or she, I should say. Does he or she know what they're doing? Can they be trusted? Will they watch your back or cover their own a.r.s.e? Can they fire a gun, and if they can, will they hit what they're shooting at?' He caught her looking at the plaster on his forehead. 'You're so sharp,' he said.

'No, you're just hyper-sensitive,' she replied. 'I wasn't thinking about the fact that you were shot.'

'Grazed rather than shot,' he said.

'I really wasn't thinking that. I just happened to glance at the plaster. Cross my heart.'

'It barely touched me,' said Shepherd. He frowned. 'You knew I'd been shot?' He shook his head. 'Of course you did, that's why you're here.'

'You're due a psychological review, Dan. That's why I'm here.' She grinned. 'Don't start getting paranoid on me. I'm on your side.'

'Until the day when you think I'm not capable of doing the job. Then you can end my career.'

'Do you think you'll be working under cover your whole life?'

'I hope not,' said Shepherd. He sipped his whiskey slowly, playing for time as he got his thoughts in order. Chatting with Caroline Stockmann, as pleasant an experience as that could be, was often the equivalent of tiptoeing through a minefield. He smiled at her as he put his gla.s.s back on the table. 'You know what's funny? I had a similar conversation with Razor a few days ago.'

'Razor?'

'Jimmy Sharpe.'

'Ah, yes. How is he?'

'Infiltrating racists, as we speak,' said Shepherd. 'I was telling him that no one stays in the same job for ever.'

'Which is very true.'

'Yeah, but I'd rather choose when I leave. I wouldn't want to be sent packing because of a negative psychological evaluation.'

'That's understandable,' said Stockmann. She had another mouthful of beer and smacked her lips. 'This is a good pint,' she said. 'I should come to Hereford more often.' She gestured at the plaster. 'So, tell me about the graze.'

'Friendly fire,' he said. 'The Swedey, with guns.'

'The Swedey?'

'Avon and Somerset's armed-police unit,' he said. 'Shoot first and ask questions maybe at some undetermined point in the future.'

'You're not serious?'

Shepherd pulled a face. 'They came charging in, yelled that they were armed police and before I could drop my weapon one of them fired.'

'They didn't know you were one of the good guys?'

'I was wearing a ski-mask, but even so they wouldn't have known that I was with SOCA. But that's not the point. You don't shoot anyone, villains, cops or civilians, without giving them a chance to surrender. I tell you, Caroline, I could easily have died. One inch to the left and it would have blown away a good chunk of my skull.'

'You were lucky.'

'Yeah, that's what they said the first time I was shot. I always say that if I was really lucky I wouldn't have been shot in the first place.'

'And I gather that you came close to being shot by one of the robbers, too?'

Shepherd narrowed his eyes. 'You're well informed.'

'It's my job, Dan. Can you tell me what happened?'

'I had to get heavy with two of the guys. One was going to rape an underage girl, the other guy, the boss, was going to let it happen.'

'There was a Mexican standoff?'

'There were no Mexicans there but, yeah, it turned into one of those if-you-shoot-me-I'll-shoot-him scenarios.'

'Very Tarantino-esque.' She scribbled in her notebook but Shepherd couldn't see what she was writing.

'Is that a word?' he asked.

'I gather,' said Stockmann. 'So you were pointing your gun at...?'

'Grimshaw, his name was. Lex Grimshaw.'