Spider Shepherd 11 - White Lies by Stephen Leather Page A

had no evidence that he had been compromised. We had him under constant surveillance the whole time he was in Bradford and we would have pulled him out if there had been the slightest hint that he was having problems. He was accepted by the mosque and eventually approached by the imam. They would have checked him out before approaching him, so we knew his legend was good.’
    ‘Bradford isn’t Pakistan,’ said Shepherd.
    ‘I know some members of the English Defence League who might disagree,’ said Willoughby-Brown. He put up his hand. ‘OK, bad joke,’ he said. ‘But if his cover wasn’t watertight it would have shown up long before he went to Pakistan.’
    ‘Then you explain to me what went wrong,’ said Shepherd.
    ‘We don’t know,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘Maybe he slipped up.’
    ‘He wasn’t the sort to make a mistake,’ said Shepherd. ‘He was a quick learner.’
    ‘And he always spoke highly of you. Or rather John Whitehill.’ Willoughby-Brown flashed his cold smile. ‘In fact young Manraj thinks the sun shines out of your arse. He was a virgin before you took him under your wing, wasn’t he?’
    Shepherd nodded. ‘He was a medical student. He was infiltrating a radical group in London and he needed some guidance. Surveillance and counter-surveillance, undercover techniques and the rest.’
    Willoughby-Brown blew smoke and sighed contentedly. ‘What was it Churchill said? A woman is just a woman but a good cigar is a smoke?’
    ‘It was Kipling.’
    ‘The baker?’
    ‘The poet.’
    ‘But he did make exceedingly good cakes, didn’t he?’ said Willoughby-Brown before chuckling at his own joke.
    ‘What was Raj doing in Pakistan?’ asked Shepherd. ‘And how did he end up working for Six?’
    ‘Second question first, he was too good an asset to waste. Five were going to let him go back to his studies. We realised that there was a lot more he could do.’
    ‘We?’
    ‘My boss, as it happens. He has a contact in Five and they chatted at their club.’
    ‘Not Charlie?’
    ‘The lovely Miss Button?’ He shook his head. ‘Above her pay grade.’
    ‘Did she know?’
    ‘Why does that matter?’ asked Willoughby-Brown, narrowing his eyes.
    ‘I’d just like to know.’
    ‘Curious?’
    ‘I guess.’
    Willoughby-Brown smiled thinly. ‘You know what curiosity did to the cat.’
    ‘It’s a fair question,’ said Shepherd. ‘I was Raj’s handler. I was told he was going back to his studies. If she had known that he was remaining active then she should have told me.’
    Willoughby-Brown looked at him levelly. ‘She didn’t know,’ he said.
    ‘So he was approached by Six?’
    ‘By me.’
    ‘You were his handler?’
    Willoughby-Brown nodded. ‘But not in Pakistan, obviously. Pasty white face like mine would stand out a mile and not do him any favours.’
    ‘Please don’t tell me you sent him to Pakistan on his own?’
    ‘We had a handler for him over there. A Pakistani.’
    ‘A local?’
    ‘No, one of ours. British-born, bit of a rising star, actually. Double first at Oxford, fluent in Urdu and Arabic and a smattering of Pashto.’
    ‘How old is this wonder kid?’
    ‘Why does that matter?’
    ‘It matters.’
    Willoughby-Brown sighed. ‘Twenty-seven.’
    Shepherd groaned. ‘You handed Raj over to a kid?’
    ‘Taz is an experienced operative. Tazam Bashir. His father’s a QC, his mother’s on the boards of several charities.’
    ‘So young Taz is being fast-tracked, is he?’
    ‘You say that as if it was a bad thing,’ said Willoughby-Brown. He blew smoke over the river and flicked ash over the balcony. ‘He’s bright, he’s articulate, and he can think on his feet.’
    ‘Undercover experience?’
    ‘He’s been a handler for almost five years and never put a foot wrong.’
    ‘Until he managed to lose Raj?’
    ‘That was just bad luck,’ said Willoughby-Brown.
    Shepherd folded his arms. ‘You had a twenty-seven-year-old handler running a