‘Nice car,’ said Shepherd. ‘Bit pricy for me.’
Kreshnik weighed the keys in the palm of his right hand. ‘No house keys?’ he said. He had a gold half-sovereign ring on his third finger.
‘I left them in the car.’
‘And the car is where?’
‘In a car park not far from where I met Salik today.’
‘You always do that? Leave your house keys in the car?’
Shepherd shrugged. ‘Habit, when you’re at sea. You don’t clutter your pockets with non-essentials,’ he said. ‘You carry what you need.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Kreshnik. ‘You are a sailor.’ He laid the keys on the table and watched Shepherd with unsmiling eyes.
‘Yes.’
‘My father was a sailor. Were you in the navy?’
‘Merchant navy. Six years. Five on the cross-Channel ferries.’
‘And now?’
‘I go where the money is.’
‘Why did you leave the ferries?’
‘They were cutting back. Competition from the Eurostar.’
Kreshnik held Shepherd’s look. His smile hardened. ‘I do not believe you,’ he said.
Shepherd held his gaze steady. His mind raced. Had he slipped up? ‘I had a bit of legal trouble,’ he said calmly. ‘A fight. I did six months in prison.’
Kreshnik smiled cruelly. ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘I can always spot someone who has been in prison. There is a smell about them. An odour.’
‘I showered this morning,’ said Shepherd.
‘It’s a smell that never leaves,’ said Kreshnik. ‘All the soap in the world won’t get rid of it.’ He grinned. ‘I have never been to prison,’ he said.
‘I’m pleased for you.’
‘Why is it, do you think, that I have never been behind bars?’ asked Kreshnik.
‘You pay off the cops?’ said Shepherd.
The Albanian wagged a finger at Shepherd, but he was smiling. ‘That sense of humour will get you into trouble. We don’t laugh much in Albania, unless we are drunk.’
Arthur returned with two large glasses of white wine on a silver tray. He gave one to Kreshnik, the other to Shepherd. Kreshnik clinked his glass against Shepherd’s, sipped his wine and rolled it round his palate with pursed lips. For a moment Shepherd thought the Albanian was going to spit it out, but he swallowed, smiled and nodded approvingly.
Shepherd drank from his glass then put it on the table.
‘The answer to that question, why I have never been to prison, is that I never do business with people I don’t know,’ said Kreshnik. He picked up the driving licence and waved it in front of Shepherd’s face. ‘Now I know you, Tony Corke, and I know where you live. Your date of birth. I have all the information I need to track you down.’ He slid the driving licence into the back pocket of his golfing trousers.
‘I’ll need that,’ said Shepherd.
‘You can get a replacement,’ said Kreshnik. ‘It’s one of the great things about your country. They issue copies of official documents so quickly.’
‘I don’t know what you’re so worried about,’ said Shepherd. ‘If it wasn’t for me, you’d have lost the consignment you gave that asylum-seeker. I’ve already done you a big favour.’
‘Salik told me you demanded thirty thousand pounds.’
‘It was more of a commission than a demand,’ said Shepherd. ‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘You can ask,’ said the Albanian. ‘Whether I choose to answer or not is up to me.’
‘I get the feeling you’re bigger than Salik. This apartment. The crew you’ve got around you. You’re in the Premier League. Salik, he’s Second Division. Hoping for promotion but still a long way behind you.’
Kreshnik smiled. ‘That is a reasonable assessment.’ His smile widened. ‘You know what my dream is, Tony? To buy a football team in your country one day. Like Roman Abramovich. He bought Chelsea. And that American – he bought Manchester United. I want to do the same. Liverpool is for sale, right?’
‘In England everything is for sale,’ said Shepherd. He leaned forward, fingers interlinked. ‘Look, I might be in a position to do some work for you. Salik told you about my boat, right?’
Kreshnik nodded.
‘Okay, then. I’m running cash for Salik, but I can carry a thousand kilos of anything over the Channel with next to no chance of being caught. I was working with Pepper on his trawler to learn the ropes, but I could see that his boat was a pile of shit. I can put ten men on mine and have them in the UK in under an hour. I can run them from France to Scotland if you wanted.’
‘I don’t run asylum-seekers,’ said Kreshnik. ‘I use them to courier cash, that’s all.’
‘Right. So I’m doing this run for Salik. You must have other customers in the UK. You could use me more often. A thousand kilos a run. That’s a lot of currency.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Or anything else you wanted to take over.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Drugs. Guns. I’m like Federal Express. Door-to-door, guaranteed delivery.’
Kreshnik took another sip of wine, his dark brown eyes fixed on Shepherd. He licked his lips. ‘Let’s see how we get on with this, shall we? Then maybe we’ll talk again.’
The Mercedes stopped in front of the Gare du Nord, close to the taxi rank. Ervin twisted round in the front passenger seat. ‘No hard feelings?’ he asked.
Shepherd grunted. ‘Guess not.’ He nodded at Artur, who was sitting next to him. ‘I’m not so sure about him. I might need stitches in my head.’ He climbed out of the car and slammed the door.
As the Mercedes drove away, Artur made a gun with his fingers and mimed shooting at Shepherd. In return Shepherd gave him a friendly wave.
He walked slowly through the station concourse. He had forty-five minutes before the Eurostar left for London. It was only as he passed through Immigration that he remembered he hadn’t eaten since the sandwich he’d had on his outward journey.
The train was packed, with every seat in standard class taken. Shepherd’s was in a group of four again, the rear-facing window-seat. The three other passengers at the table were Japanese women, chattering in their own language and exchanging their digital cameras with lots of pointing and giggling.
Shepherd folded his arms. He was angry, but couldn’t afford to show it. He was angry with the Albanians, for hitting him over the head and dumping him in the car boot. He was angry with Salik, for forcing him to travel to Paris. He was angry with Kreshnik, for the arrogant way he’d treated him. And angry with the French for not having been anywhere near him when he’d been kidnapped at gunpoint.
He saw Hargrove walking along the aisle. They made eye-contact and Hargrove nodded for Shepherd to follow him. Shepherd stood up and gestured to the Japanese woman sitting next to him that he needed to get out. She stood, bowing, and Shepherd followed Hargrove down the carriage.
The superintendent was waiting for him beside an unmarked door. He pushed it open and Shepherd followed him inside. The room was two paces square, with two first-class-sized seats at either side of a small table. Next to one a padded bench seat, with four thick metal hasps, was set into the wall.
‘What’s this?’ asked Shepherd.
‘One of the little secrets of Eurostar,’ said Hargrove. ‘They’re used to transport criminals to and from the Continent. There are two on every train. Immigration use them for deportations to France. Saves all those nasty scenes we used to see with failed asylum-seekers trying to kill themselves on planes or throwing themselves off ferries.’ He nodded at a metal cupboard on the wall next to the ceiling. ‘Guns have to be locked away in transit.’
‘The French cops, right?’
‘They can carry their guns until they’re at the halfway point of the tunnel. Then they have to put them away. Occasionally the UK cops are armed, Special Branch or SO19, but it’s mainly for the French.’
Shepherd sat on the bench and stretched his legs. ‘That could have turned to shit so easily,’ he said.
‘There was nothing we could do without blowing the whole operation.’
‘It wasn’t an operation, it was a disaster. I was unprepared, there was no back-up and no rescue signal.’