by Mick Herron
“We’re looking into it.”
“Let me save you the bother. She’s at David Cartwright’s place. Remember him? Used to be the Service’s pied piper. He played, everybody danced.”
“And why would she go there?”
“Because joes on the run look to other joes for help, and Sid was close to River Cartwright. Whose grandfather’s address would be on record as his main contact on account of River living in a six-month rental. She’ll know that from having seen his file back in the day, and our bad actors’ll know it courtesy of your friend Cantor. So now they’re on a two-for-one. They turn up looking for Cartwright, they’ll find Baker too.” He paused. “I hope you’re keeping up. I’m fucked if I’m repeating any of that.”
“Her address wasn’t in the file,” said Diana. “But the facility she’d been treated at was.”
“Stone me. How could they ever have found her?”
She studied her cigarette, which was all ash and filter. “I’ll send a team out.”
“Don’t bother. Cartwright knows we’ve gone dark. He may be an idiot, but of all the idiots I’m proud to call my own, he’s the idiot who’s memorised the protocols. He’ll have vanished and taken her with him.”
“Unless the GRU team got there first.”
“Yeah, well, in that case we’ll need the cleaners in.”
“The past never stops coming back to bite us, does it?”
“It never stops coming back full stop,” said Lamb.
She ground out what was left of her smoke. “I appreciate that you’re pissed off. But it’s under control now, or will be soon. So don’t make waves, Jackson. Barricade yourself somewhere with a case of Talisker. By the time you’ve drunk yourself to death, it’ll be safe to come out.”
“Nice to hear words of comfort. It’s like being offered a glass of water by the arsehole who’s just burned your house down.”
“Oh, and one other thing,” she said. “Two of your lot beat up a civilian tonight. Stole his wallet and phone.”
“We’ve all got ways of making ends meet,” said Lamb. “But how do you know they were mine? It’s not like I’ve got a monopoly.”
“Because Wicinski was being tailed when it happened. My agent reported him lurking in the Gents at Old Street station. Actually spoke to him there. Ten minutes later Wicinski left in a hurry, along with—quote—a squat-looking he/she. I’m assuming that was Dander. And they’d left their victim in a toilet cubicle.”
Lamb considered this. “I’ll give you squat-looking. But Dander’s more of a she/he, I reckon. Your agent’s very rude.”
“And last time I checked, mugging was a criminal offence. So once Slough House’s lights are back on, expect that pair to be clearing their desks. Aside from whatever the Met do with them.”
“Clear their desks? Dander’ll probably do a crap on hers.”
“More work for the cleaners then.”
He said, “This Judd business. The angels. You’ve stepped into a beartrap, you know that.”
“I can handle it.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
“Your funeral.” He offered her an outstretched palm. “Meanwhile, I’ll need your keys.”
“You’ll need my keys. What does that mean?”
“It means I’m going dark, as requested, which means I’ll need a safe house. And for obvious reasons, I don’t currently have faith in the Park’s ability to boil a kettle, let alone keep me or mine out of harm’s way. So if you’ll let me have the keys to your place, it’ll save you having to sweep up broken glass in the morning.”
“You’re not using my house!”
“Like I said. Broken glass.”
“Jesus’ blood,” she said, the words coming out of nowhere. Then found her key ring, and detached a pair. She recited an address, not her own.
“Been dipping a toe in the property market?”
“Just leave it as you found it, all right?”
“My philosophy of life,” said Lamb, taking the keys.
It was clear that damage had been done. There was a noise from the engine suggesting distress, what had started as a polite knock fast becoming an irritated rattle. River had passed several cottages but encountered no further vehicles; couldn’t see anything suggesting tail lights when he reached the occasional straight. He had no idea where he was. Probably he’d cycled this way as a boy, but the curves and twists were lost to memory. These might be ditches he’d already ended up in once. Nice to have had a practice run.
In his stomach now, a tightening knot. He was breathing hard and his teeth were clenched. What had been excitement had drained away, and he was in the grip of dread; dread of not finding Sid; dread of finding her body. He’d been half a second away from piling into that oncoming car: subtract an atom of luck and he’d be dead or badly injured. And whatever was going to happen to Sid would carry on happening, unless it already had. And she’d never know he’d tried to stop it.
A gunshot broke the evening in two, but it was only his engine, the knock that was a rattle reaching new heights.
And then a dull grey something shone through trees on his left, and River remembered a lake, a picnic spot. A small piece of his boyhood fell into place, and he slowed approaching the next long curve, suddenly sure there’d be a parking place here, behind a line of trees. Even as the thought formed, reality arrived to meet it: déjà vu made physical. He turned off the road, drove into the darkness, and came to a halt twenty yards from the space’s only other vehicle: silver, its registration ending XTH. The doors hung open, but there was someone in the back seat. Someone not moving.
River killed his engine, and for a second or two was aware only of how loud his breathing was.
The airbag was still in the footwell, and tangled his foot as he climbed out. His heart was beating too fast, and his legs trembled as he approached the other car, thinking No, Christ, not again. Remembering the blood on the pavement the last time Sid had died.
“Let’s finish it here in the car,” Sid said, and pushed the O.B.’s letter opener up through Jim’s jaw, into his head. She was surprised at how easy this was, if not as surprised as Jim. Because his seatbelt was still in place he didn’t fall forward but sagged back against the car’s upholstery, and bubbled some nonsense, and died.
Jane screamed.
Sid opened her door and tumbled out.
She was away already, running along a track to the water’s edge. Speed mattered. Maybe Jane would wait to check that Jim was beyond help, but Sid already knew he was. She hadn’t even bothered trying to remove the blade, it was in so deep.
He had only been cold a few moments, but Sid guessed it was already starting to feel quite normal.
The trees thinned out, and she reached the lake. The path turned into a narrow wooden jetty, lapped by lakewater, and leading to a wooden shack on stilts: a bird-hide. It wasn’t much bigger than a telephone box, and Jane could probably tear it down with her bare hands. So Sid stuck to the shore, veered left, ran a few paces, then ducked among trees, which immediately attacked her, slashing her face and hands with low branches. She stopped, and they calmed down.
Her clothes were dark. She could blend into shadow. But she’d already used up a lifetime’s luck, along with her only weapon.
The look in Jim’s eyes when he’d known he was dead. There’d been outrage there, rather than fear.
All was quiet.
There were no birds, no traffic; only the fussing of the lake as the wind skated across it. You’d have thought there’d be lovers, or drinkers, or both; you’d have expected at least one small group of idiots looking for romance or similar oblivion. But there was only Sid and Jane, who’d be coming for her now, armed and with urgent intent, because this was no longer a job, it was personal. Whatever toxic bond had fused Jim and Jane, she’d avenge its sundering.
So it was likely that Sid would die in this unfamiliar place, and with the thought she pressed against the tree trunk, as if trying to melt inside it, become invisible, become tree.
Tt Tt Tt said the bullet, and a gunshot broke the evening in two.
Sid yelped, but it hadn’t been a gun, had been a passing car, and she opened her mouth to scream for help, then snapped it shut. A scream would bring Jane, and it wouldn’t take Jane a moment to finish her job. Which was what Sid had become: an unfinished job. Like an unswept floor, or an unwashed dish. Fuck that, she thought. Tt Tt Tt said the bullet. Fuck that.
She could slip back onto the track and keep running. She doubted it went anywhere. It would circle the lake and bring her back where she’d started, but didn’t most paths do that? Look at her own travels. When she’d fled Cumbria she’d imagined River a place of safety. For some reason he was a fixed point among a mess of scattered detail: a pair of shoes in a wardrobe, beyond use, but never thrown away. Rubbish littering an office floor. Bad coffee drunk in a car at night. Why did you come here? . . . I couldn’t think of anywhere else. And you’re safe.
There was no fathoming what the mind kept hold of.
“Bitch!”
She was grabbed by the arm and pulled onto the track, flung to the ground and kicked hard. She tried to roll with it, a lesson supposedly burned into bone memory on the Park’s training mats, but she landed like a bag of wet sand, the air punched out of her.
When she opened her eyes Jane was a fuzzy rim of light, which brightened and dimmed to the beat of Sid’s heart. She crouched to be sure of being heard.
“I could put a bullet in you now. Kill you one piece at a time. But you’re still going in that water in the end, and you’re going to die with your lungs bursting. Because that was the plan.”
That and plan were where she kept the beat: her tool the handle of her gun, her drum Sid’s head.
Tt Tt Tt.
The world was flaring grey and white, like a washed-out flashback in a creepy movie. Sid’s head hurt, as did her knees, and everywhere between.
“So small and harmless, so fucking wounded you looked. Holding that lump of metal as if that was your only weapon.”
Another blow. Another moment of nearby lightning. Sid felt her teeth scream.
“And all the time that fucking knife up your sleeve.”
Sid spoke, but the words came out so thickly they might have been made of mud.
Jane shook her. “What?”
Sid spat. “He helped me on with my jacket,” she said. “He let me have the knife.”
Be Villanelle. Be Lara Croft.
She’d been Sid Baker, but the old one, not the new.
“Get on your fucking feet.”
Jane dragged her back to the jetty, her gun hand round Sid’s collar, the gun itself pressed to Sid’s ear. Sid’s feet were next to useless, and seemed to slide off the earth, but progress was made.
The walkway to the bird-hide was solid and new. Halfway along Jane sent her sprawling again.
“I should gut you like a fish. Make you eat your own entrails.”
You can borrow my knife. I left it in your lover’s head. But the words wouldn’t emerge: Sid’s throat was locked.
There ought to be birdwatchers. Crews of twitchers, awaiting the dawn chorus. But it wasn’t even early yet; was still getting late.
Then Jane was kneeling beside her, one palm flat on her back, the other pulling her hair, forcing her to look up. “What you’ll see when you’re dying. My face, laughing at you. And all your dead friends too.”
Sid said, “His jaw was soft. The knife went right through.”
Jane banged her head on the woodwork, then heaved her across it, one hand still on her collar. She forced Sid’s head over the edge. The water was high and stared back at her, an ever-folding blanket laced with sequins, reflections from nowhere. Sid could only see two inches in front of her, but the view reached all the way to life’s end. And then it was gone and her head was underwater, held there by Jane’s hand.
You’re going to die with your lungs bursting.
She tried to kick, but Jane was on top of her, one knee in her back, one hand pressing her right arm to the jetty. These sensations were happening in a different time zone. Meanwhile, Sid was holding her breath, while Hercule Poirot wheezed inside her. Tt Tt Tt, he said. Then Pp Pp Pp, and finally Qq Qq Qq. The water tightened round her head, and memories broke from the mass of her past: the shape of the bedknob on her first bed. The coat she wore on her first day at school. Something was burning inside her chest, and might swallow everything, if she let it. A piece of coloured paper on which she’d fixed gold stars and drawn a friendly horse . . . It would be simplest to breathe in now, and let the lake’s cool water put the burning out. She had forgotten why she was here. But all paths lead back to where they started, don’t they? The coloured paper crumpled and vanished, joined all the things she couldn’t remember yet, and then Jane’s hand released her and she almost slid into the water anyway, because that seemed the obvious move. But with what was left of her free will she pulled back, and breathing air seemed the most extraordinary event: unusual, unprecedented, worth lighting a candle for. It hurt, and her chest still burned, but for a minute she couldn’t get enough of it, and lay there gasping, staring at the clouds, while a yard away Jane, taking a break from killing Sid, was killing River instead.
When River followed the path through the trees, it led him to the lakeside he remembered from boyhood, or thought he did, though this was new: a wooden jetty, ten yards long, leading to a small hut, probably a bird-hide. The jetty was low, or the lake high: either way, its elevation allowed a woman to drown Sid Baker by holding her head under water while kneeling on her back. Sid was alive because her feet were kicking, just barely. Something silver on the planking caught a random sliver of light: a gun. She’d put the gun down the better to drown Sid. This thought took a moment to process itself, and by the time it was done River was halfway there.
The woman turned before he reached her, and her face was pure calculation: work in progress versus approaching deadline. She abandoned her task, leaving Sid flapping like a landed fish, and lunged for the gun, which River’s foot reached first: he sent it flying towards the hide. It hit the door and clattered to the woodwork. He tried to kick her in the face as a follow-up, but was unbalanced. She was on her knees, a good height at which to direct a jab at his balls, but his forward motion had propelled him past her, and she hit his thigh instead, which went briefly numb. He turned, dipped and reached for the gun, but she was on her feet now and kicked out, catching him on the shoulder, but only because he averted his head in time. Before she could snatch the weapon he sprang forward and caught her midriff, rugby tackle-style: now they both went down, River on top. He felt her knee thrust upwards between his legs and jammed his thighs shut, and crashed his forehead onto her nose. Blood spurted. Then her open palms slapped both his ears at once, and the resulting thunderclap split his head open. She pushed him off, and for a moment they shared a look: one of them was going to kill the other. Whoever had the gun was favourite.
She was nearest.
She scrambled onto all fours and scurried for it, but River recovered in time and leaped on her. He tried to grasp her collar, and gain leverage to smack her head on the platform, but she rolled without warning, throwing him off. He nearly went in the water; she nearly reached the gun, but he grabbed her wrist, and when she tried to smack her forearm into his face, bit her. She screamed in outrage, and he hauled himself over her, stretching for the gun, but two swift punches to his side stopped him. He jabbed his elbow into her face in response and she loosened her grasp, and this time his hand did reach the gun, but before that could matter, she punched him in the throat. His whole body convulsed, fingers included, and the gun went off: a sudden firework against a dark background. The bullet could have gone anywhere. The g
un did; before she could wrest it from his breathless grip he launched it, hard as he could, into the night: the splash it made when it hit the water met the gunshot’s echoes coming back.
Still trying to breathe, feeling like his head was wrapped in plastic, he tried to crawl free, but he was on his back and she was clinging to him tight as a lover: her face soaked in blood, her teeth a grimace. And then she hit him in the face, twice, each blow sending pain rocketing through his head. Before a third blow could connect he arched his back violently and threw her aside. For a second he felt weightless, and had to anchor himself: there was work to be done. He scrambled to his feet, lost balance, and tumbled against the bird-hide again, but didn’t fall. She was on her feet too, in the crouching dragon position, unless it was flying tiger: she was about to launch herself, and almost did, but something stopped her—Sid Baker, wrapped around her legs like an angry toddler. River stepped forward and punched her in the face and she fell back over Sid and hit the deck. River threw himself onto her while Sid clung to her legs; she was kicking madly, but Sid wouldn’t let go. Kneeling on her stomach, River put his hands round her throat and squeezed. It was like wrestling a fish: she arched and flapped and tried to punch him again; then seized his wrists and tried to break their grip. He felt himself winning, but she freed a foot; kicked Sid in the head, and dislodged River. She rolled, began to crawl, but he was on her again, and this time for good: for good? Was this good? River was suddenly aware of the noise, all the noise they were making. Yelps and snarls and pained mouthfuls of air. She was flat on the deck and he was on her back, and the water was there in front of them. She’d tried to drown Sid. It seemed like a plan. He hauled her forwards, and she struggled when she realised what he was doing, but it didn’t help her, not with the two of them holding her down. And then River had her head in the water, like some godawful baptist ceremony, and her arms flailed about, desperate to grab hold of something; she caught his ear and tried to rip it off, digging her nails in, but River wouldn’t relax his grip, couldn’t, and now Sid was pulling the woman’s hand away and holding it in both her own. Her feet were beating a message in Morse code, just a loose collection of vowels expressing who knew what. She had never died before. It was new territory. And then the letters spaced themselves out, and the message fragmented, as whatever it was the woman was seeing outgrew her ability to describe it. One last shimmered attempt at resistance, and she fell silent. It was over. It would never be over. But it was over.