Free Fair Game by Stephen Leather Page A

that a question you’d rather not answer?’ asked Stockmann.
    ‘Is this you asking, or Charlie?’
    The psychologist frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Did she ask you to ask me that question?’
    ‘It doesn’t work like that, Dan. This isn’t an interrogation. It’s an assessment.’
    Shepherd took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. Stockmann wasn’t the enemy, but the question had caught him off guard.
    ‘So why would you ask me a question like that?’
    ‘Because of the nature of your career. You were a soldier, you were in the SAS, you moved to the police, then the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and now you’re with MI5. I was wondering if during the course of those different jobs you’d ever been asked to take a life in a situation where combat wasn’t involved.’
    ‘Because?’
    ‘Because I’d be interested to know how you reacted. Whether guilt kicked in afterwards.’
    Shepherd nodded slowly. He didn’t like lying to the psychologist, but she had given him no choice. Yes, he had been in situations where there had been no combat, where he’d helped to cold-bloodedly take the lives of men who were no immediate threat. And no, there had been no guilt afterwards. But he couldn’t tell Caroline Stockmann. He shrugged carelessly. ‘It’s never happened,’ he said.
    ‘That’s a relief,’ she said. ‘From your point of view, I mean. It’s not something I’d want to put to the test.’
    ‘What about you, Caroline? Do you think you could take a life?’
    She laughed carelessly. ‘Me? Good gracious, of course not,’ she said. ‘How on earth could I? I don’t have the strength, mental or physical. I’m one of life’s victims.’
    ‘That you’re not,’ said Shepherd. ‘But say you were at home and a rapist broke in and you had a knife.’
    ‘That’s a lot of ifs.’
    ‘It’s only two,’ said Shepherd. ‘Rapist. Knife. Do you stab him to save your life?’
    ‘I suppose so, yes.’
    ‘And suppose someone was about to kill your husband or wife. Would you kill them?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, more confidently this time.
    ‘See, you do have what it takes,’ said Shepherd.
    ‘If pushed, anyone can kill, is that what you’re saying?’
    Shepherd nodded. ‘And if you were defending your child, I don’t think there would be any guilt. Do you?’
    ‘I suppose not.’
    ‘Now let’s take it a step further. Suppose someone murdered your child. And you knew without a shadow of a doubt who’d done it. Would you kill them if you could?’
    ‘That’s too hypothetical, Dan.’
    ‘How can anything be too hypothetical? It’s a simple question.’
    ‘But not one that I can answer in the abstract. We can’t take the law into our own hands.’
    ‘You think the criminal justice system is working, do you?’
    ‘You’re very good at that, aren’t you?’ she said.
    ‘Good at what?’
    ‘At deflecting questions by changing the subject. You do it so subtly that one’s hardly aware of you doing it.’
    Shepherd chuckled. ‘It’s a necessary skill when you’re undercover,’ he said. He put up his hands. ‘Sorry, go ahead. Ask away.’
    She raised her glass. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said, before taking a sip. She put down her glass. ‘Let’s talk about your career path,’ she said. ‘I know that joining the police from the SAS was a big step. Because of your late wife.’
    ‘She wanted a quiet life, she was fed up with me risking everything for Queen and country. I don’t think she realised it was going to be out of the frying pan into the fire.’ He smiled at the memory of his wife, Sue, who’d died in a senseless car accident when Liam was just seven years old.
    ‘But when you moved from the police to SOCA, it had more to do with Charlie than anything?’
    Shepherd shook his head. ‘I hadn’t met her before I joined SOCA,’ he said. ‘I was with a police undercover unit that got absorbed by SOCA, and she was in charge.’
    ‘Why did you leave the