Free The Hireling's Tale by Jo Bannister Page B

increased the risk that he wouldn’t be able to return. A man got to be a top-class mechanic partly by being good with a gun but mainly by being good at risk assessment. A hit man who doesn’t know when to leave and come back later is going to figure in a lot of photographs with numbers on them.
    But a top-class mechanic would always come back. He would always complete the job. Nothing, including threats to his freedom or his life, would make him abandon a job. It was part of the credo. You decide whether the money’s worth the risk before you take it. Because in this line, commitment has to be absolute.
    Another police car was heading for the motorway interchange. But with no description the chances of spotting something suspicious were right around zero. People like this man didn’t get careless and leave their telescopic sight on the car’s parcel shelf beside the nodding Alsatian. They wore suits and had a briefcase on the back seat, and if stopped their credentials were faultless. If the papers in the briefcase were about critical path analysis, they could talk critical path analysis with the best.
    All of which was bad news for the man on whom a professional hit had been ordered. If he ran he’d be followed; if he hid he’d be found; if the attempt was unsuccessful it would be repeated, as often as
necessary. The assassin couldn’t be found by assiduous detective work among the target’s circle of acquaintance. Even the person who hired him may never have met him, and might be in no position to stop him even if - by dint of detective brilliance or great good fortune - CID managed to track him down. A mechanic on your case was a little like having Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: it mightn’t show right away, but ultimately the results would be devastating.
    ‘Bespoke Engineering,’ ruminated Donovan. ‘These guys make bits of machinery for individual customers?’
    ‘As I understand it.’
    ‘Remember the Iraqi gun fiasco?’
    Shapiro did. A British company was commissioned to manufacture some piping to an Iraqi design. The end use was uncertain: something for the oil industry was a good guess, and one expert positively identified the finished product as part of a condenser. Only it turned out to be part of an artillery piece designed to hurl shells at Israel. Export was blocked, but it took a court case to exonerate the manufacturers.
    ‘You think Kendall’s sold his firm’s services to - what? An unfriendly government? A terrorist organization?’
    Donovan shrugged. ‘Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he’s found out and they want to shut him up.’
    It made sense. It belonged to a different world, but it did make sense. The sort of organization or
individual who could commission that sort of job could afford the most expensive hit available.
    ‘Then perhaps the best way to protect Kendall is to find out what he’s sold to whom and make it public,’ said Shapiro. ‘If it’s no longer a secret his clients might as well call off the dogs. It’ll be hard enough to explain placing an illegal order; if it turns out they were willing to assassinate the salesman as well, they may find it pretty hard to do business in future.’
    ‘Will Kendall talk? A deal like that, confidentiality will be built in.’
    ‘The way he sounded on the phone, he’ll tell us everything he knows, everything he suspects and everything his wife’s mother saw in the tea leaves. He’s a frightened man, Sergeant, and frightened men rethink their priorities. Besides, whatever confidentiality he signed up to, it didn’t include this. They lied to him; now they’re trying to kill him. He’ll talk faster than you can write it down.’
    Understandably, Philip Kendall didn’t meet them at his front gate. The area car was there and PC Stark checked the occupants of Shapiro’s Jaguar before admitting them. WPC Wilson answered the door.
    ‘They’re in the morning-room, sir.’ It was at the side of the house; only a sniper perched in