'Wanted a bit more excitement, I guess.'

'Yeah, well, you'll get that in spades.' He grinned at Fogg. 'Are you allowed to say that, these days?'

'Probably not,' said Fogg.

Potter finished his toast and stood up. 'No rest for the wicked,' he said. He nodded at Shepherd. 'See you around, Terry.' He picked up his helmet and headed out, followed by his two colleagues.

'Nice guy,' said Shepherd.

'One of the best,' said Fogg. 'But crazy about bikes. He should be an inspector by now, maybe chief inspector, but he refuses to leave Traffic.' He looked at his watch. 'Come on, I've got a briefing to give.'

Shepherd and his team spent the afternoon driving around north-west London, and in the afternoon they were called out to help search for a six-year-old girl who had gone missing. She had wandered out of her back garden while her mother was smoking crack cocaine in her bedroom. By the time the mother had woken up, the child was nowhere to be found, but two hours into the search she was discovered at a corner shop, trying to buy a bar of chocolate with play money. Mother and daughter were reunited and Shepherd's shift was over.

As he was stripping off his uniform in the locker room, his mobile beeped to show that he'd received a text message. It was from Charlotte b.u.t.ton: 'Call me.' He pulled on a pair of jeans and a polo shirt and went into the briefing room with his phone.

'How's it going?' she asked.

'Softly softly,' he said.

'You still working?'

'Just finished.'

'I think we need a strategy meeting.'

'Charlie, I wanted to get back to Hereford tonight.'

'What time's your last train?'

'Eight twenty.'

'We can meet in the office in Praed Street. Seven. I won't keep you more than an hour. Razor will be there. You can swap notes.'

'Okay,' said Shepherd. He ended the call and went back into the locker room to get his sports jacket.

Simmons had finished changing into his civilian clothes. 'You up for a pint?' he asked.

'Nah, I've got a date,' said Shepherd.

'Anyone I know?'

'I hope not.'

'Is she in the job?' Shepherd shook his head. 'She local or from Hereford?'

Shepherd looked at him. 'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Simmo, you bucking for CID?'

Simmons chuckled. 'Just seems like you're not wasting any time you've only been in the Big Smoke a week and already you're fixed up.'

Shepherd put on his jacket. 'Okay, she's a girl from Hereford. I'm going up to see her. Are you happy now?'

Simmons winced. 'Long-distance relationships are difficult, mate.'

'Tell me about it.'

'I'm serious. Get her down here ASAP if you're serious about her. You need to keep a woman under lock and key or she'll stray, for sure.'

Shepherd grinned. 'Where the h.e.l.l did you learn about relationships? From your mum?'

'I'm just saying, it's hard enough to keep a relationship going for the guys that live with their girls. If she's on the other side of the country, what hope do you have?'

Shepherd could see that the young constable meant well and he patted him on the back. 'I'm a big boy, I can handle my women,' he said.

'You know, the divorce rate in the TSG's more than fifty per cent,' said Simmons. 'Wives just don't get it, the job and what it means.' Parry walked into the locker room, pulling off his stab vest. 'Carpets here is one of the few to stick at it.'

'Stick at what?' asked Parry, hanging up his vest.

'Marriage,' said Simmons.

'Yeah, coming up for ten years,' said Parry. 'But my girl's one in a million.'

'She'd have to be to put up with you,' said Simmons.

Shepherd closed his locker and picked up his holdall. 'I'm off,' he said. 'See you on Monday.'

Outside he b.u.mped into Robin Potter, who was smoking with two CSOs in fluorescent jackets. Potter made a gun with his gloved hand and pointed it at Shepherd. 'Your bike's sorted,' he said.

'Excellent,' said Shepherd.

'You not riding tonight?'

Shepherd held up his holdall. 'Weekend away,' he said.

One of the CSOs held out his hand. 'How are you doing?' he said. 'Ross Mayhew. Saw you on your first day in the canteen.'

Shepherd shook it. 'Terry,' he said. 'Terry Halligan.'

'Another bike nut, Robbo was saying,' said Mayhew. He nodded at the other CSO, an Asian woman in her thirties. 'This is Rhonda, my wing man.'

Rhonda flashed Mayhew a tight smile. 'Wing person,' she said.

For a moment Shepherd thought she was joking, but the look on her face told him she wasn't. Mayhew shrugged and corrected himself. 'Wing person.'

'Nice to meet you both,' Shepherd said, 'but I've got to rush. See you around.' He winked at Potter. 'And thanks, Sarge, I owe you one.'

'I might take you up on that one day, Terry,' said Potter.

Shepherd crossed the road and headed towards Paddington station. He walked through the concourse, checking reflections in shop windows, went up the escalator to Starbucks, down the stairs and back along the concourse until he was sure he wasn't being followed. Then he walked on to Praed Street.

Jimmy Sharpe was already in the first-floor office with Charlotte b.u.t.ton and Amar Singh, one of SOCA's most innovative technicians. It had been more than six months since Shepherd had seen Singh and he shook his hand warmly. Singh was wearing a brown leather jacket that was stylish enough to be Armani, with Versace jeans. 'Looking good, Amar,' said Shepherd.

'I try to please,' said Singh. 'How's your boy?'

'He'll be a teenager soon can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that,' he said, sitting down and putting his holdall beside his chair. 'What's new?' he asked b.u.t.ton.

Sharpe pa.s.sed Shepherd two photographs of a young black man covered with blood. 'This happened two nights ago, a couple of miles north of your place in Kilburn,' said b.u.t.ton.

'It wasn't me,' said Shepherd, and grinned at Sharpe.

b.u.t.ton ignored his attempt at levity. 'Name of Denzel Holmes, a member of the Much Love Crew. He was shot in the knees and the gut at close range. Someone called nine-nine-nine and an ambulance picked him up within eight minutes.'

'Why do you think it was our guys?' asked Shepherd.

'The paramedics doped him up at the scene and while he was in A and E he was mumbling about being shot by cops. He changed his story when he woke up this morning and now claims it was other g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers. Operation Trident are investigating but I think his first accusation was the truth. I think he was shot by cops.'

'What time did this happen?'

'Late,' said b.u.t.ton. 'One in the morning.'

'Could have been anyone, then,' said Shepherd. 'Why isn't he dead? And who called the ambulance?'

'It was a man, his voice m.u.f.fled, but he gave very clear, precise directions. He wanted him found and found quickly. And the front door was left on the latch.'

'So they didn't want him dead.'

'That's how I read it,' said b.u.t.ton. 'It was a punishment and a warning. Holmes was the drug-dealer that the Trident boys are sure was behind a drive-by shooting in Harlesden the one last month where the little girl was. .h.i.t in the crossfire.'

Shepherd remembered the case. The little girl had been to the cinema with her father and two brothers, and a car had driven by spraying bullets at a group of youths standing on a street corner. They were with a gang called the Lock City Crew, mainly West Africans and Jamaicans. None of the youths had been hit but one had pulled out a gun of his own and started shooting back. The little girl had taken a bullet to the head and had spent two weeks in intensive care. The youth who had fired the shot was due to stand trial later in the year and his legal-aid lawyer had already announced that he would be pleading not guilty and that he had been acting in self-defence.

'There's fairness in what these guys are doing, isn't there?' said Sharpe.

'Excuse me?' said b.u.t.ton.

'Look, they shoot gun-wielding g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers in the gut, they kill killers, and they smash the hands of housebreakers. It's a sort of judgment of Solomon, isn't it?'

'It's nothing of the sort, Razor. If it is them, they shot a teenager at point-blank range.'

'But they didn't kill him. And a lot of people might say he deserved it.'

'And a lot of people might like to see adulterers walking around with a big red A on their chests.'

Sharpe frowned. 'Who's talking about adultery?' he said. 'They're not hurting adulterers. They're hurting sc.u.m sc.u.m that, if you were to ask me, deserve everything they get. That g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ger had no qualms about firing guns in a crowded street, no compa.s.sion for the innocent pa.s.sers-by caught in the crossfire. So don't expect me to cry my eyes out because he took a gut shot.'

Shepherd could see that b.u.t.ton was about to tear into Sharpe so he flashed him a warning look. 'We are sure that the TSG were behind the shooting?'

'A ballistics check matched the bullets to a gun that belonged to a drug-dealer in Wembley. He was busted in a crack lab a year ago and he's just started a seven-year sentence. No gun was found when he was arrested.'

'And what's the connection between the gun and the TSG?'

'Roy Fogg's Serial was part of the TSG team that went into the crack lab,' said b.u.t.ton.

'Any connection between Gary Dawson and the gun?' asked Sharpe.

'He wasn't involved in the raid on the lab,' said b.u.t.ton.

'So it's all circ.u.mstantial,' said Shepherd.

'Agreed,' said b.u.t.ton, 'but circ.u.mstantial evidence is better than no evidence at all.'

'But there's no evidence at all connecting Dawson to the vigilantes,' said Sharpe.

'Except the fact that he's a racist, you mean?' said b.u.t.ton.

'Dawson's not a racist and I don't think he's a vigilante, either,' said Sharpe.

'He's a member of a racist organisation,' said b.u.t.ton.

'For political reasons, not racism,' said Sharpe. 'I've been at meetings with him and sat in the pub with him and nothing he says is racist. And he's had every chance to talk to me about vigilantes and he hasn't. I came pretty close to suggesting it myself and he's just not interested. Gary Dawson's a good cop who's just fed up with what's happening to this country. And I don't think he's alone on that score.'

'He might just be being careful,' said b.u.t.ton.

'I don't think so,' said Sharpe. 'He knows I'm with SOCA, he thinks I'm a kindred spirit. If he was going to confide in anyone it'd be me. I think he's straight. I certainly don't think he's going around kneecapping drug-dealers.'

'He was lucky that the TSG were the ones keeping the demonstrators apart,' said b.u.t.ton. 'If they'd been regular cops and started taking names and addresses his career would have ended there and then.'

'As opposed to a few months down the line, do you mean?' said Sharpe. 'He's finished anyway, by the sound of it.'

b.u.t.ton ignored the interruption. 'When Fogg told you to let Dawson go, did you get the feeling it was anything more than just one cop helping out another?' she asked Shepherd.

'I don't follow you,' said Shepherd.

'Is there some special connection between the two of them, do you think? Or was it a cop thing?'

'The latter, I reckon,' said Shepherd.

'And who else spotted Dawson?'

'Parry. He was the one who called Fogg over. I got the impression that Parry wasn't going to breach the bubble off his own bat, but he was happy to do it once Fogg had given him the go-ahead. Kelly definitely saw Dawson. c.o.ker? I don't think so. Turnbull was in the van, and Castle couldn't see anything from where she was, ditto Simmons. Fogg called me, Parry and Kelly in to mark our cards, but that was all. And it wasn't discussed on the bus. So I think it was just Parry, Kelly, me and Fogg. Dawson was doing a good job of not drawing attention to himself. Razor, too.'

'Yeah, well, I was just hoping that your buddies weren't going to start using their riot sticks,' said Sharpe. 'And those b.l.o.o.d.y shields hurt, you know. Do they teach you to slam them down on people's knees?'

'Actually they do,' said Shepherd. 'Where do we go from here?' he asked b.u.t.ton. 'I a.s.sume we're going to need more. I've got to say, I don't know how likely it is that the vigilantes are going to sign me up.'

'Well, something's cooking because you've both been checked up on,' said b.u.t.ton. 'I was just telling Razor that his name was put through the PNC yesterday.'

'Was that Dawson?' asked Shepherd.

b.u.t.ton shook her head. 'An intelligence officer at Paddington Green. It was one of a dozen names that were checked out, so it looks as if Dawson just slipped Razor's name into a list.'