Dan Shepherd 03 - Cold Kill by Stephen Leather

Author:Stephen Leather
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Hodder
Published: 2008-09-17T23:00:00+00:00

Shepherd moved along the platform to the Gare du Nord station concourse, his hands in his pockets. He was fairly sure that Hargrove was some way behind him, but he didn’t look round. Ahead, a line of taxi drivers held up handwritten cards, and behind them was a Häagen Dazs outlet, with a scattering of tables. To the left of the ice-cream shop two big men in black leather jackets and blue jeans were staring at him with hard eyes. Shepherd hoped they weren’t part of the French surveillance team because they were as obvious as hell. He kept walking.

The French station was considerably scruffier than its London counterpart, the concourse littered with discarded fast-food wrappings and crushed cigarette packets. An old woman in a brightly coloured headscarf and a long dark coat flashed him a toothless smile and held out a gnarled hand. Shepherd shook his head and walked past.

The two men in leather jackets were heading purposefully towards him. Not surveillance, then. Shepherd stopped and turned to them, head slightly up, lips tight, playing the hard man.

‘You are Tony Corke?’ asked the taller of the two. He had jet-black hair that kept falling across his eyes, a narrow, hooked nose and a pointed chin.

‘Yeah,’ said Shepherd, hands deep in his pockets. He wasn’t expecting violence in a public place, but he wasn’t going to offer to shake hands.

‘We are here to meet you,’ said the man. ‘I am Ervin. This is Artur.’ He nodded at his colleague, a heavy-set man with a square jaw and a five o’clock shadow. ‘Our English is not so good. You can speak French?’

‘No,’ lied Shepherd. He wasn’t fluent in the language but he had enough to get by. He didn’t want the Albanians to know that, though.

An old man with a wheeled suitcase that must have weighed more than he did banged into Artur and apologised in a gruff Scottish accent. Artur glared at him.

‘We have an auto outside,’ said Ervin.

‘A car,’ corrected Artur.

‘Yes, a car,’ said Ervin.

‘Nobody said anything about a car,’ said Shepherd. ‘We can talk here.’

‘We are just here to meet you,’ said Ervin.

‘You’ve met me. Now I want to go back to London.’

‘Our boss wants to meet you.’

‘Your boss can come here.’

‘He’s in his apartment. He wants us to take you there.’

‘Look, Salik said I was to come to Paris because you wanted to see me. You’ve seen me. I’m just a sailor and I’m working for Salik, not you.’

‘My boss doesn’t work with people he hasn’t met. He doesn’t trust people until he has looked them in the eye.’

‘Where is he?’

‘I said. In his apartment. Please, come with us.’

Shepherd glared at him. He had no way of knowing how good the French surveillance was – or even if it was in place. For all he knew, the two Albanians might have more than a meeting planned for him. ‘How far away is his apartment?’

‘A few minutes.’

‘Walking?’

Ervin shook his head. ‘We have a car. I said.’

‘No one told me I’d be getting into a car with people I don’t know,’ said Shepherd.

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