by Mick Herron
Because when things were turning to shit, they kept turning to shit faster. Second law of motion. Emphasis on motion. His recent trajectory had taken a shitward direction, and no way was that going to terminate in a couple of strangers turning up with a wellyful of dosh. No, something was going on. And if they thought Struan hadn’t copped on to that yet, they should have stuck to being the missionaries they resembled.
“So who was it pointed you in my direction?”
He slurred on direction, he thought, but then decided he hadn’t, or at least, that you were supposed to slur on it, it had an ecksh sound. But probably the whole mental debate was itself an indication that he’d been drinking neat vodka.
Jane and Jim exchanged a look. “His name was Peter?”
“. . . Pete Fairfax?” said Loy.
“Fairfax, yeah. I think that was it.”
It was good to have these questions answered, especially when the answer was: these people are full of crap. Loy didn’t know a Peter Fairfax.
Might be good to have them not in his living space any more.
“So yeah, well, anyway,” he said. “Good. Good. Definitely a lot to think about.”
“Definitely,” Jim agreed.
“So much,” Jane offered.
“But right now, and thanks for the drink and everything, but right now I’d really better get some shut-eye.” He mimed sleeping, very briefly, unsure why he was doing so. Everyone knew what sleeping looked like. “Gotta be fresh in the morning.”
“Really? Why so?”
This was Jane again.
“Oh, you know.” A vague gesture. “Things to do.”
Jim was unscrewing the top on the second vodka bottle. There didn’t seem to be a snap this time, as if the seal had already been broken.
“No, really. I think I’ve had enough,” Loy said.
“Yeah, probably,” Jim agreed. He looked at Jane. “We about done?”
“To a crisp,” she agreed. And then, to Loy, she said some words he didn’t follow: a pattering of tongue on palate in a language from far away.
“. . . What?”
“Oh, just an observation.”
Jim was holding the bottle upside down now, pouring its contents onto Struan’s sleeping bag.
“Hey! What the hell you doing?”
“What? Oh, this.” He stopped pouring. “Well. You can’t drink it. That’s for sure.”
“That’s for damn sure,” added Jane, and they both laughed.
Jim started prowling the living space, shaking the bottle on the move: liquid spattered everywhere, onto Loy’s possessions, onto the metal walls.
“Will you stop that?” He moved forward, intent on delivering a physical rebuke, but he was on the floor suddenly, his legs a tangle beneath him. Jane stepped away, a small smile on her face. And then Jim was shaking the bottle in his direction, so it was spattering down the front of his sweater, his holey old sweater too long in the sleeves.
“Right. That’s it. Fuck off out of here, both of you!”
“I think he’s right,” said Jane.
“Bottle’s empty anyway,” said Jim.
“Shall we tuck him in?”
“Not sure he’s in the mood.”
“Fuck off,” Loy said. He was sober again, he was sure of it. “Right off. Now.”
Who they were, what they wanted, other questions: they’d still be there in the morning. But one thing he knew: these people, this Jim and this Jane, were remnants of his old life, when he’d been in the Service. This was a call to action. Tomorrow he’d be back at the Park, banging on the door. Home was where, when you went there, they had to let you in. This, they’d want to know about. And he felt a spark light up inside, familiar from years ago: the feeling of belonging, and of being useful, and having something to bring to the fight. He didn’t yet know what the fight was, but had a shrewd idea of who the enemy were. And there was a strange smell, too, which wasn’t vodka but was more energetic, not to mention acrid, not to mention dangerous.
Not to mention this:
That Jim and Jane were leaving, the lighter Jim had just tossed towards the sleeping bag still tumbling over itself in mid-air, more slowly than gravity usually allowed, its flame somehow holding on despite the gyrations it was going through. Already Struan was getting to his feet, and had managed as far as his hands and knees before the lighter hit the bag the way shit hits the fan: with a whump, and an air of there being no going back. Jim and Jane were at the door, and then the door was swinging shut, and there was a ratcheting noise, something indescribable, but perfectly captured by the vision of a length of wood being inserted through a pair of metal handles. There was no way of confirming this from Struan’s side of the door, but its refusal to open told a story. He hammered on the frame, sounding like a German rock group. “Please!” There were flames behind him, the sleeping bag going up, and fire spreading everywhere, greedily swallowing the liquid Jim had sprayed around, and then scarfing up everything else in its path: clothes, some books, the fat in that dirty pan, the sweater he was wearing. “Open the door! Please!” You spent half your life pleading let me in, but when it came down to it, what you really wanted was to be set free.
But no matter how hard he banged, how loud he screamed, nothing happened next except the rest of everything, or Struan Loy’s everything, which involved heat and flame and flesh and smoke and far too much noise, and then silence.
Damien Cantor was watching a video submission, citizen footage of police officers hassling Yellow Vests, when his office door opened and two men entered, black-jeaned, polo-necked and plugged into their mothership, judging by their earpieces. Without word they proceeded to give his office a onceover as he muted his laptop, stared in amazement, and finally said, “Excuse me? Excuse me? What the hell?”
Neither paid attention.
He picked up his phone then replaced the receiver: if Sally wasn’t in the room apologising already, she was either being forcibly restrained or had committed seppuku in reception. So he slipped into a smile, leaned back and said, “Okay, guys. Knock yourselves out.”
They did and they didn’t. There was no self-harm involved, but they quietly, methodically, finished their tasks: the point wasn’t securing the room, but letting Cantor know he was their bitch. Which made this office politics, and you didn’t get to his position—the fifty-second floor of the Needle, snugly inside the square mile’s nest of bankers, lawyers and other corporate scam artists—without knowing how to take a dagger in the back. So when they reached his desk he simply raised his arms so they could lift his laptop and check its underside. “Want to pat me down?” he said. “Shall I assume the position?” Not a flicker of response. “Give me a call now,” he said as they exited. “Don’t be shy.” They left the door open, but it was closed by invisible hands once Diana Taverner was in the room.
“That was exciting,” he told her. “I felt like a movie extra.”
“Oh, I’m sure you felt more important than that.” She sat on the opposite side of his desk, and despite the view on offer looked nowhere but at him. He supposed, once you’d had professionals do the business for you, you didn’t need to pay extra attention.
“Coffee? Tea? I used to have a PA somewhere.”
“I won’t be long. You were at the Park yesterday.”
“I was.”
“Can I ask why?”
“There’s a visitors’ tour. Fascinating stuff. Fascinating.”
“And you thought it would be cute to tag along, oohing and aahing with the common herd.”
Cantor was wearing a blue suit today, with matching tie and three-day stubble. For his common-herd outing, he’d worn windcheater and nerd-specs: plastic frames with vanilla lenses. He wasn’t surprised he’d been recognised.
Taverner said, “Do I have to explain to you why it’s not a good idea that our co
nnection be flagged?”
“And yet here you are. Openly and in broad daylight.” He smiled. “I don’t mean to teach you your trade. But doesn’t the full court press compromise the, ah, clandestine nature of our relationship?”
“Well, now. Imagine how complicated it would be to explain away a furtive encounter.”
He was nodding already; his expression that of the bright child who understands first time of hearing. “So your coming here in the open renders our meeting official but banal. Remind me why it’s happening?”
“I’m curious about footage you’ve been airing. Wanted to quiz you on its provenance.”
“Which is something First Desk would do.”
“It’s something this First Desk does. As the fact of my doing so might indicate. Mr. Cantor—”
“Damien.”
“Damien, I’m going to outline how our relationship works. And then, if you see any difficulties arising, we’ll know we need to rethink its viability.”
“Oh, I’m liking this. Loving it.”
“This is not a partnership, Damien. This is a strictly one-way arrangement. You, along with a number of others, dispense funding. In doing so, you’re providing a service to the nation, in return for which, the nation is in a better position to be able to protect those things you value and hold dear. With me so far?”
“I am.”
“What you don’t get is any say in the uses to which I put that funding. That can not and will not happen. Ever. I would have hoped Peter Judd had made that perfectly clear.”
“Oh, he did. He did.”
“Further to which, I’m not saying there might not be advantages to your role. Potential priority when stories are breaking, for instance. But you can forget about my appearing anywhere near a newsroom camera.”
He showed his palms. Total surrender.
“Well then. Now I’ve underlined the message, we have no more to discuss.”
“Of course not. But just so I’m not getting any wires crossed,” he said. “It’s like I make a donation to the Red Cross. That doesn’t give me the right to tell them how to apply bandages. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Or say I give a dosser in the street ten quid. If he wants to piss it up against a wall, that’s his choice.”
“Or perhaps he’ll just piss all over you, Damien. That would be his choice also.” She stood.
“Sure you won’t stay for coffee?”
“I’m sure.”
“Or a tour of the company? I mean, you’ve shown me yours. By the way, I keep meaning to ask, do you ever get called ‘M’?”
“Enjoy your day.”
He said, “One other thing. How’s Doyle working out?”
“. . . What’s that?”
“My man Tommo Doyle. Joined your internal police a few months back, what do you call them? The Dogs?”
Taverner said, “In what way is he ‘your man’?”
“He worked security for me a couple of years, but he was wasted, frankly. I’m not exactly a high-risk subject. And Tommo was SAS, back in the day. Definitely a good fit for you guys.”
“I’m not personally acquainted with Mr. Doyle,” she said.
“Really? I make it my business to be on first-name terms with all my staff,” said Cantor. “Not that I’m trying to teach you how to run your Service.”
“A wise decision.”
After she’d left, he re-ran the footage and approved it for that lunchtime’s bulletin. Ultimately this would be the editor’s decision, but ultimately he paid the editor’s salary. Then he stood near the window, looking down on London: its starts and stoppages, its daily chaos. He shouldn’t have mentioned Doyle really, but the worst that would happen was Doyle would lose his job and there was always room for him back here. Tommo was full of good stuff once you got him loosened up. A couple of drinks and he’d tell you stories would make your hair curl.
Treat those you despise with humanity, especially if the reason you despise them is that they have none. One of those lessons you pick up along the way, a little shard of wisdom—aspirational goodness—that becomes a moral anchor, if only by virtue of the fact that the words are there, in your head. So Lech Wicinski supposed that’s how he ought to regard his fellow beings—with humanity—seeing as how he seemed to be suffering the contempt of all around, but mostly what he felt was, fuck them. Especially Jackson Lamb.
“You want the good news first or the bad news? And I should warn you upfront, the bad news is, there’s no good news.”
Which was how Lamb had greeted them once they’d answered the summons to his room, delivered via Slough House’s version of jungle drums: Lamb’s foot, stamping repeatedly on Lamb’s office floor.
Catherine said, “Why don’t we cut the pantomime for once, and you could just let everyone know what’s up?”
Lamb, who was drinking what was probably tea from a mug the size of a bucket, raised his eyebrows. “Dissent in the ranks? Okay, I’m a reasonable man. Let’s put it to the vote. Hands up those who prefer Standish’s approach. Right. Now, hands up all those in charge. Oh, just me?” He lowered his hand. “The mes have it.”
River Cartwright said, “Glad we’ve established that. What’s the bad news?”
“You know how your self-esteem couldn’t get lower? Well, congratulations. We have a new depth. Tell ’em, Standish.”
“Louisa was right,” Catherine said. “She was being followed, by a Park junior. As are the rest of you, on and off.”
A certain amount of clamour followed this. Lamb, meanwhile, sipped tea daintily from his bucket, like a well-behaved silverback.
“As a training exercise,” Catherine said, once the noise had died down. “That’s why Slough House was wiped. To turn you all—us all—into anonymous targets.”
“So we’re what now,” asked Louisa. “Tin ducks at a fairground stall?”
“Kind of,” said Lamb. “Only without the individual personalities.”
“And this is Taverner’s doing,” said River.
“You have to admit, it has a sly charm all her own.”
Shirley Dander said, “It’s a fucking liberty is what it is.”
Ho was looking from one slow horse to another, as if trying to work out when it would be his turn to speak.
Louisa said, “Have you suggested to Taverner that she curtail this?”
“Hell no. Why would I do that?”
“To stop your team being treated with disrespect? . . . Sorry. Forget I spoke.”
“Already done.” Lamb set his mug down carefully, then belched with all the restraint of a defrocked nun. “Anyway, I can’t see the harm, to be honest. Not like you present a challenge. And if you’re now serving two purposes instead of one, it’s like I’ve just halved all your salaries.” He beamed. “Win-win.”
“What level surveillance are we under?” asked Lech.
“What level whattery are we what?”
“Surveillance. Are they simply using us for pavement practice, or should we assume our airwaves have been tagged?”
“Ah, yes, I can see why that’s an issue for you. What with all the porn out there, just waiting to be Googled.” He adopted a pious expression. “If that’s what one does with porn. You’re asking the wrong person, really. But as far as the surveillance question’s concerned, the answer is, I have no fucking clue. But thank you, Forrest Gimp. Good input.”
Catherine said, “So the plan is, we just put up with whatever nonsense the Park wishes upon us?”
Lamb rolled his eyes. “God, you’re a drag to have around. Moan moan moan. It’s like being shackled to the ghost of Bob Marley.”
“I think you mean Jacob.”
“Depends,” said Lamb. “Which was the one surrounded by wailers?”
After that, the morning crawled past. Lech was deep into
his register of social media absconders; #gonequiet, as he’d mentally dubbed it. There seemed no useful algorithm he could apply, so mostly he was making a random trawl of hot-button issues, particularly the aftermaths of terrorist events. In the midst of grief and anger, you could always discern hate. It occurred to him that, for all his pre-digital outlook, Lamb was a walking correlative of Twitter, inasmuch as his daily outpourings of bile didn’t look like drying up anytime soon. An insight he’d once have enjoyed relaying to Sara, his fiancée, when he got home, except they were no longer engaged and no longer lived together. There probably weren’t many relationships could survive accusations of paedophile leanings, he thought. He couldn’t blame Sara for pulling the plug, though he did.
Someone called @thetruthbomb had enjoyed the New Zealand murders. giving it some of there own innit, he’d opined. Almost certainly “he.” drink your medicin boys. He hadn’t tweeted since, unless he’d been banned, or changed his name.
Shirley Dander was standing in the doorway.
Lech assumed she’d come to see Roderick Ho, who was headphoned and might as well have been blinkered too, which was as much to say, he was being Roderick Ho. But Dander walked straight to Lech’s desk and stood waiting for a reaction, like a mute charity mugger.
“. . . What?”
“You doing anything?”
Lech looked at his computer, looked at Shirley, looked at the ceiling, looked back at Shirley. “Now?”
“For lunch.”
“What do you want?”
“I was thinking, maybe fish?”
Lech said, “And why do you want me along?”
“Bait,” said Shirley.
The keeper of overlooked history, thought Diana. The curator of the dusty box file.
Or just an old bag in a wheelchair.
Two views of Molly Doran.
Elsewhere in Regent’s Park, the Queens of the Database managed information: stored it, catalogued it, rendered it readily obtainable for the boys and girls on the hub. They were the digital do-it-alls, and prided themselves on the meticulous nature of their record-keeping. They also fielded a formidable pub quiz team. Molly Doran, meanwhile, stalked the perimeter of her analogue estate like an old-world gamekeeper, if admittedly one on wheels; her archive, modelled on the stacks found in its real-world counterparts, was some floors below the surface, at the end of a blue-lit corridor. It occupied a long room lined with upright cabinets, set on tracks allowing them to be pushed together accordion-style when not in use, and in these cabinets languished acres of dusty information, the Park’s past lives and glories, and also its failures and dismal misadventures. All of which could be housed on a thumb drive, if the money was there for digitisation; a process which would be carried out over Molly Doran’s lifeless corpse, as the woman herself had asserted, in the apparent belief that this was a disincentive. When the Beast—Molly’s collective name for the array of databases and info-caches the Queens oversaw—when it broke down or, as daily seemed more likely, turned out to be also available in Mandarin, her shelves would be all that remained secret and untarnished. She’d have shielded the past from the present, which, as far as Diana Taverner was concerned, was the almost exact inverse of the task in hand.