The two men began to dig and soon worked up a sweat. After ten minutes of hard digging Shepherd took off his jacket and scarf and put them at the base of a spreading beech tree. ‘The way you’ve organised this, it’s like you’ve done it before,’ said Harper, resting on his spade. He looked around. ‘You got any more bodies buried out here, Spider?’
‘I haven’t, but it’s the disposal area of choice for London’s underworld.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Sure,’ said Shepherd. ‘Despite what you see on the TV, we’re not awash with serial killers and professional assassins. But they are out there, and the good ones never get caught. And the reason they never get caught is that the bodies are never found.’ He took a deep breath and flexed his shoulders. He was physically fit but the earth was hard and his arms and back were already aching. ‘There are anywhere between six hundred and seven hundred murders a year in the United Kingdom, an average of about two a day. The vast majority are committed by a friend or family member, or a neighbour, and are wrapped up by the cops in a couple of hours, a day at the most. More often than not, the murderer’s at the scene when the cops turn up, grief stricken and ready to confess.’
‘Yeah, well, we won’t be doing that, that’s for sure,’ said Harper. He took out his cigarettes, lit one and blew smoke up at the night sky. It was a cloudless night and away from the city all the stars were visible overhead, stretching off into infinity.
‘See, the key to solving any murder, assuming the killer doesn’t immediately confess, is to find the motive. If you know why someone has been killed you almost certainly know who by. And that’s why it’s almost impossible to catch a serial killer who kills at random, or a professional who does it for money.’
‘That’s why the cops profile, right?’
‘Yeah, all serial killers are white middle-aged men who wet their beds and set fire to their pets when they were kids,’ said Shepherd, his voice loaded with sarcasm. ‘It’s not as simple as that. You watch TV and you think that catching serial killers is easy, but in fact profiling is next to useless. Look at the Yorkshire Ripper. White middle-aged male killing hookers in Leeds. That’s as specific a profile as you could wish for. They spent millions trying to get him and they caught him by accident. Fred West? They only got him because he was so stupid he let one of his victims escape. And he buried his victims under his house.’ He pointed at the hole they were digging. ‘The real professionals – the ones that think about what they’re doing – they make sure their victims are never found. Because without a body it’s almost impossible to get a conviction.’
‘It happens, though.’
‘Only where there’s a clear motive. Which is why no one must ever know why Khan has been killed. With no motive and no body, the cops won’t get anywhere, even if they suspect foul play. But if we do this right, it won’t even get to that. People go missing every year. Any idea how many?’
Harper shook his head.
‘Over two hundred thousand,’ said Shepherd. ‘That’s how many are reported missing. Now, all but two thousand or so turn up over the following year, but two thousand is still a hell of a lot, and unless there’s some sign of a crime the cops just don’t have the resources to follow them up. Unless they’re kids. Everything changes if kids are involved, obviously.’
Harper took a long pull on his cigarette, blew smoke, then extinguished it on the sole of his trainers and slipped the butt into the pocket of his parka. He nodded at the hole. ‘Isn’t that deep enough?’ They had dug down just over two feet and shovelled the earth into a neat pile.
‘There’s a reason that gravediggers go down six feet,’ said Shepherd. ‘Any less than that and there isn’t enough weight to keep the coffin down. The earth really does give up the dead unless you plant them well deep.’ He dropped down into the hole and started to dig again.
Harper watched him, grinning. ‘Sadly there’s only room for one of us in there.’
‘We’ll take it in turns,’ said Shepherd. He worked hard for another ten minutes and stepped out to let Harper took his place. The more they dug the harder it became. The earth was stonier and more tightly packed and once they got below four feet it was hard to move in the hole. It took them an hour to go down the last two feet but finally Shepherd was satisfied. He was in the hole and Harper had to offer him an arm to pull him out. It was six feet deep, just over six feet long and varied in width from three feet to four feet.
‘Can you do the GPS thing with the mobile?’ asked Shepherd.
Harper nodded and pulled out a cheap Samsung phone. He switched it on and scrolled through the menu. ‘What the hell did we do before mobiles?’ he asked.
‘We’d have drawn a map with a cross on it,’ said Shepherd. ‘Seriously.’
Harper laughed, tapped on the screen and showed it to Shepherd. ‘All done,’ he said.
‘Bring your spade,’ said Shepherd, and he headed back to the van. Harper followed him. They tossed the spades into the back of the van and closed the doors. Harper took a deep breath. ‘I’ll be glad when this is over,’ he said.
‘Me too,’ agreed Shepherd.
‘But it needs to be done, right?’
Shepherd nodded. ‘No question about that,’ he said.
Shepherd had just got back to his Hampstead flat when his phone rang. It was Button. ‘Sorry to bother you so late, but our interrogation boys have come back to me about the lie detector idea,’ said Button. ‘They seem to think that it’s workable. The latest equipment is a lot more reliable than it used to be, and they’ve had some quite noticeable successes over the last few months.’
‘OK …’ said Shepherd, hesitantly.
‘They came up with quite a clever idea, I think. If Grechko says that he’s had an expensive watch gone missing, he could request that all his staff be put through a lie detector. Everyone, his cooks, maids, serving staff, cleaners – and the security staff, of course. Now, because nobody has actually stolen the watch, everyone should pass with flying colours. But our guys can put in a few general questions, such as “Have you ever given details about the security arrangements at the house to anyone else”, and that should show up anyone who is helping our elusive killer. But in a way that doesn’t raise any suspicions. What do you think?’
‘I guess so,’ said Shepherd.
‘You don’t sound convinced.’
‘No, it’s not a bad idea. You’re right, if the maids and cleaners are done first, the bodyguards won’t realise it’s about them. What about the timing?’
‘That’s the problem, of course,’ said Button. ‘It’s best if the same operator performs all the tests. It maintains consistency. And each test will take at least half an hour.’
‘Grechko has a big staff.’
‘Exactly. Including gardeners and maintenance workers, we’re looking at about fifty people. Assuming two an hour, ten hours a day, it’ll take three days to clear them all. And that’s pretty hard going for the operator. It can be as stressful for them as for the people taking the test, it requires a lot of concentration.’
‘And we can’t put all the new bodyguards in the first day because that would look suspicious.’
‘Perhaps not. We could say that we’re doing the new arrivals first.’