‘Probably,’ said Shepherd. ‘There are just too many guns in the hands of drug-dealers and the like, these days. You can’t expect unarmed policemen to give chase down a dark alley blowing their whistles as they did in the days of Dixon of Dock Green. The world has changed, and the police have to change with it. It’s like patrol cars – the villains drive faster vehicles so we have to upgrade our transport. There’s no point in ours having a top speed of a hundred if the villains are roaring along at a hundred and twenty.’
‘I suppose not,’ said the headteacher. She sighed. ‘Anyway, that’s beside the point, isn’t it? We have to decide what to do with young Liam.’
‘He’s very settled here,’ said Shepherd. ‘I really, really don’t want to have to move him. So much of his life has changed recently that he needs the stability school offers him. My wife was killed and then he stayed with his grandparents for a while. Now at least we’re a family again.’
‘I do understand, Mr Shepherd.’ She chewed her lip, then nodded slowly. ‘You’re right, of course. Excluding him will do more harm than good. I’ll speak to him and make it clear that he’s had a lucky escape. But you must talk to him too, Mr Shepherd, and there has to be some sort of punishment.’
‘His PlayStation and the television set in his room will go. And he’ll do housework until it comes out of his ears.’
The headteacher smiled. ‘That should be enough,’ she said. She stood up and offered her hand. Shepherd shook it over the desk. ‘We haven’t seen you at any of the PTA meetings, have we?’ she said.
‘I’ve been busy,’ said Shepherd, ‘but I’ll make time in future, I promise.’
‘Excellent,’ said the headteacher. ‘And perhaps one day you could come in and give a talk to our pupils – a career in the modern police force, something like that.’
‘Sure,’ agreed Shepherd, although he doubted that the headteacher would appreciate him giving her pupils a rundown on life as an undercover officer. He’d been shot at more times than he cared to remember, and he’d lied, cheated and conned his way into the lives of numerous villains so that he could put them behind bars. Shepherd loved the job and relished its challenges, but it wasn’t the sort of profession that a seventeen-year-old should be nudged towards. And the way the police were going, he wouldn’t recommend any youngster to sign up straight from school. Police pay wasn’t great, while political correctness and mounting paperwork meant that the job was as much about protecting your back as it was about putting villains away. The only way to make a decent career was to go in as a graduate on the fast-track promotion scheme, but then it was more about climbing the greasy pole than it was about fighting crime. Shepherd had always been happier at the sharp end. As a soldier he had wanted to be where the bullets were flying. As a police officer, he wanted to be head-to-head with the bad guys. But explaining that to a group of impressionable schoolchildren probably wasn’t what the lovely Mrs Hale-Barton had in mind.
‘Liam’s still in class,’ she said. ‘School finishes in ten minutes. I can have him brought here or you can wait for him at the gates.’
‘No problem, I’ll wait outside,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m really grateful for you giving Liam another chance.’
He waited at the school gates until he heard the bell ring. Thirty seconds later the doors banged open and pupils flooded out, laughing and shouting. On the road a line of four-wheel-drives stretched into the distance as far as he could see, engines running. Shepherd stood with his hands in his pockets, wondering what he should say to Liam. Discipline was the part of parenting he hated most, but kids needed boundaries: they needed to be told what their limits were and kept to them. They had to be taught the difference between right and wrong, and when they did wrong they had to be punished. Shepherd hated punishing his son. He’d never laid a finger on him. Never had and never would. He’d always left the disciplining to Sue when she was alive. Good cop, bad cop. She’d administer the punishments, and Shepherd would flash his son a sympathetic smile when she wasn’t looking. It was only after she had gone that Shepherd had understood how much she must have hated the bad-cop role.
Shepherd saw Liam among a group of youngsters, all with their ties at half-mast and their shirt collars open. A grin broke across Liam’s face, which vanished when he realised why his father was there. He slowed and stared at the ground, avoiding Shepherd’s baleful stare.
He muttered something as he got close.
‘What?’ said Shepherd.
‘I said I’m sorry,’ Liam mumbled.
‘You are in so much trouble,’ said Shepherd.
‘I know,’ said Liam. ‘They’re going to exclude me.’
‘No, they’re not,’ said Shepherd. He started walking away and Liam hurried after him. Shepherd held up his right hand, the thumb and first finger almost touching. ‘But you were this close to getting kicked out. You’re lucky the headteacher decided to give you a break. What the hell were you thinking of?’
‘I don’t know. It just looked kind of cool.’
Shepherd stopped dead. ‘ Cool? There’s nothing cool about knives.’
‘I’d never seen a flick-knife for real, only on telly.’
‘Yeah? Well, the reason for that, Liam, is that they’ve been banned since 1959. Since before I was born. And since 1988 no one has been allowed to carry any knife with a blade more than three inches long unless they’ve a very good reason. And why would you even think you could go waving it around at school?’ He started walking again.
Liam followed. ‘I wasn’t waving it, Dad. I was just showing it to my friends.’
‘Well, your little show-and-tell has cost you your PlayStation. And the TV comes out of your room. And I want you to help Katra with the washing and cleaning. You’re going to be in the garden every weekend, pulling up weeds.’
‘Okay,’ said Liam.
‘You know how dangerous knives are, right?’
‘Of course.’
‘And flick-knives are just about the most dangerous of them all. You press the button and the blade is there. It serves only one purpose. It’s not like a Swiss Army knife. The only thing you can do with a flick-knife is attack someone.’
Liam said nothing.
‘Do you know where I got it from?’
Liam shook his head.
‘Someone tried to stick it into me. And they weren’t playing. The only reason you carry a weapon like that is if you want to hurt someone. And you don’t want to hurt anyone, do you?’
‘No. I just wanted to show it to my friends.’
‘Can you imagine what would have happened if someone had taken it off you and started waving it around? Someone could have been cut – or worse. And it would have been your fault. What were you doing in my bathroom anyway?’
‘I wanted some toothpaste and I saw the knife by the basin.’
‘You shouldn’t have taken it, Liam. Hell, if you’d asked me about it I could have explained what it was and why I had it. Why didn’t you ask me first?’
Liam was silent.
‘Because you knew I’d say no, right?’
‘I guess.’
‘So you knew that what you were doing was wrong, didn’t you?’
Still Liam said nothing.
‘That makes it worse. You were being sneaky.’
‘I wasn’t, Dad.’
‘You thought that if I didn’t know you had it you could take it to school. That’s being sneaky. I thought you were better than that, Liam.’
Liam muttered under his breath.
‘What?’ said Shepherd.
‘I said I’m sorry,’ said Liam.
‘Okay,’ said Shepherd. ‘And I’m sorry, too.’
‘For what?’
‘For having it in the house. For not locking it away. We both made mistakes, kid, but it’s not the end of the world.’
‘So will you have a punishment, too?’ asked Liam.
Shepherd pointed a finger at his son. ‘It’s punishment enough being your father sometimes,’ he said. ‘Don’t push your luck. And we’d better get a move on, because you’re going to be cleaning the toilet before dinner.’