Slow Horses

by Mick Herron

  Louisa should keep her mind on the job, though. Lamb thought they were useless. If they were, Hassan would die. If they weren’t, he might die anyway. The odds weren’t good.

  But watching Ho, Louisa realized that he wasn’t useless, anyway; that he might be a dick, but he knew his way round a keyboard. And as he pilfered information from the ether, then peered up at the three of them through the thick black frames of his glasses, it occurred to Louisa Guy that she wouldn’t want him turning his hacker’s gaze on to the private corners of her own life and career.

  Though of course, he probably already had.

  Regent’s Park—the building—was lit up: blue spotlights at ground level cast huge ovals across its façade, drawing attention to the fact that important stuff took place inside. Once upon a time, not many people knew what that was. These days, you could download job application forms from a website adorned with its picture.

  Jackson Lamb parked the stolen SUV half on the pavement outside, and waited.

  It didn’t take long. The vehicle was surrounded inside quarter of a minute.

  ‘Could you step out of the car, please, sir?’

  There were no weapons in evidence. There didn’t need to be.

  ‘Sir?’

  Lamb wound the window down. He was looking at a youngish man who evidently knew his way around a gym: taut muscles under a charcoal grey suit. A white cord coiled from his left ear to the suit’s lapel.

  ‘Step out of the car, sir,’ he repeated.

  ‘Fetch your boss, sonny,’ Lamb said pleasantly, and wound the window back up.

  ‘He hired a car,’ Ho said.

  ‘You have got to be kidding.’

  ‘Straight up. Triple-D Car Hire. Leeds address.’

  ‘He’s in the field? And he hired a car?’

  Catherine said, ‘No. It makes sense.’

  It was a measure of their changing relationship that they waited for her thoughts.

  ‘He’s in the field, sure. But let’s not forget, this wasn’t an op with a future. The boy was going to be rescued. Black didn’t have to worry about covering his tracks.’

  ‘So hiring a car was the simplest thing to do.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Anyone got a phone?’ Ho asked.

  ‘Lamb made us trash them.’

  ‘There’s a payphone by the loos,’ Catherine said. ‘What’s the number?’

  She scribbled it down as he read it off the screen; was heading for the phone a moment later.

  ‘It’s barely dawn. A car hire place’ll be open?’

  ‘Triple-D gives twenty-four-hour breakdown relief,’ Ho quoted.

  ‘A kid with a van and a spanner,’ Min reckoned.

  ‘Tenner says she blows it.’

  ‘I’ll take that,’ Louisa said.

  ‘Me too,’ Min added.

  Ho looked alarmed. ‘What happened since yesterday? Everyone’s acting strange.’

  ‘Slough House went live,’ Min told him. ‘She’ll come back with something we can use.’

  ‘The lady’s got game,’ Louisa said.

  James Webb, whose futile mission in life was to dissuade everyone from calling him Spider, was in his office. After Jackson Lamb had dumped him and Nick Duffy on the pavement—after he’d recovered from the shock of having a middle-aged woman point a gun at him: I’ll put a bullet through your foot. That’ll wipe the smirk off your face—they’d made their way back, Duffy barely speaking. Hey, Webb had wanted to tell him. It wasn’t my fault. But here he was anyway, back in his hutch, Duffy having no further use for him.

  But then, Webb wasn’t one of Duffy’s Dogs. He’d come through the graduate channel; done his two years’ rotation; attended the seminars, taken the exams. Spent nights on various godforsaken moors, in with harsh weather, and undergone assessment exercises, staging posts on the fast track: arresting a putative suicide bomber outside Tate Modern, and acting as control when River Cartwright had spectacularly failed an exercise of his own. Along the way, he’d been taken under Taverner’s wing; which was why he, not Cartwright, was still in Regent’s Park.

  And unlike River, he’d never wanted to be a field agent. Joes were pieces on the board; Webb’s ambition was to be a player at the table. His current role, interviewing graduates—HR, River had scoffed—was a step on the road to being the keeper of secrets, and if there was less glam to it than the streetwork, there was also less weather, less chance of finding out how well those interrogation-resistance lessons stood up in the field, and, theoretically, fewer opportunities for middle-aged women to point a gun at him. Suits and joes was an age-old opposition, but the game had changed in the last ten years, and intelligence was a business like any other. There would always be battlegrounds where things got bloody, but at boardroom level, today’s intelligence wars were fought the way Coke battled Pepsi. And that was a war Webb felt comfortable waging.

  But right now River seemed to be at the centre of events, because it was the slow horses that had everyone uptight tonight. Sid Baker was under the surgeon’s knife; somebody else was dead; and there were rumours that Jackson Lamb had orchestrated the kidnapping of that internet kid. Whatever the truth, there was a general air that shit was about to hit the fan. But it was all internal. There was no ministerial presence. Spider would have noticed: when the Minister was in the building, the ripples spread outwards.

  But suit or not, Webb felt sidelined. Taverner didn’t like him showing up on the hub uninvited—this was the flipside of being under her wing: she didn’t want anyone knowing about it—but he couldn’t sit here under the unwavering gaze of files and folders much longer without starting to feel like he, and not River, had failed an important test.

  He didn’t think he could, anyway. But after reflecting for a moment on whether he minded pissing Lady Di off, he decided he might manage it a little longer.

  ‘How did you do?’

  Catherine Standish said, ‘Dermot Radcliffe hired a Volvo three weeks ago. Family holiday, he said. He wanted plenty of boot space.’

  Taking this detail in, Louisa felt her heart pound her chest.

  ‘And they just told you that?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they? I’m his sister, desperately trying to reach him. Our mother’s in hospital.’ Catherine sat and picked up her coffee cup. It was cold to the touch. She put it down and recited from memory the car’s number plate.

  ‘Of course, we don’t know they’re using it now.’

  ‘They left Roupell Street in a hurry,’ Min Harper said. ‘So they either took that car or stole another one. In which case, that car’s still nearby, and their new one’ll be reported missing soon.’

  ‘Can’t drive anywhere through London without showing up on CCTV.’

  ‘Which would be great if we were at the Trocadero,’ said Ho. He meant the nerve centre of the city’s surveillance systems, with its massed ranks of monitors covering every inch of the capital. ‘But I’ve only got a laptop.’

  ‘Still,’ said Catherine. ‘That might do the trick.’

  Three pairs of eyes turned her way.

  ‘Triple-D cars come fitted with sat nav,’ she said.

  Joanna Lumley was the saviour of the Gurkhas, who’d been shabbily treated by a succession of British Governments. Joanna Lumley was a formidable woman. The Gurkhas had been denied the right to live in the country they’d served in the war, and Joanna Lumley had deplored this state of affairs. So Joanna Lumley, in one of those quintessentially English turns of event, had turned a Government on its head and bent it to her will. Forcibly charmed, the Government bestowed upon the Gurkhas rights of residence. In return, the Gurkhas worshipped Joanna Lumley as they might a god.

  So how was Hassan supposed to ignore her commands?

  Hassan. Open your eyes, darling. There’s a good boy.

  He didn’t want to open his eyes.

  I’m not going to ask you again.

  He opened his eyes.

  There was nothing to see, of course. But at
least this nothing was actually there, as opposed to the huge unexisting blankness through which he’d been falling a short while ago.

  Things hadn’t changed. He was still folded into the boot of a car, still hooded, gagged and bound. He was still being thrown about like a pea in a whistle. And he could still hear Joanna Lumley, though she was no longer talking to him; she seemed, rather, to be offering directions to somebody else. Straight ahead for two hundred yards. It came to Hassan that he was hearing a sat nav system, programmed with Joanna Lumley’s voice. More expensive than the regular version, but there were those who found it worth it.

  Joanna Lumley hadn’t been talking to Hassan at all.

  On the other hand, for the moment at least, Hassan was back in the land of the living.

  Nick Duffy said, ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘I’m returning your car. I was worried they’d take it out your wages.’

  ‘You pulled a gun on me.’

  ‘No, I delegated that. And she didn’t pull it on you, she pulled it on your boy.’ Jackson Lamb, who was still in the driving seat, placed a meaty elbow on the rim of its open window, and mock-whispered: ‘The gun’s in my pocket. Case you thought I was getting excited.’

  ‘Out of the car.’

  ‘You’re not having me shot, are you?’

  ‘Not out here, no.’

  ‘Good. Only I was wanting a word with Lady Di.’

  He sat back, and pressed the button that closed the window.

  Duffy opened the door, and held a hand out.

  Panting with the effort—a piece of drama Duffy wasn’t falling for—Lamb levered himself on to the pavement, then produced the weapon from his coat pocket.

  For a brief moment, everyone within sight tensed.

  Lamb put the gun in Duffy’s outstretched hand, then farted loudly. ‘Sausage sandwich,’ he said. ‘I’ll be doing that all morning.’

  Behind him, the taut young man in the charcoal suit slipped behind the wheel of the SUV. So smoothly it might have been choreographed, he swung the car back into the road and drove it round the corner, where it would disappear down the ramp and into one small part of the subterranean world of Regent’s Park.

  ‘So,’ Lamb said, once this was taken care of. ‘I could murder a coffee. Shall we pop inside?’

  ‘Turn here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Am I talking to myself?’

  Larry took the exit road. Joanna Lumley objected.

  ‘Change of plan, darling,’ Curly said, and switched the sat nav off.

  ‘To what?’ Larry said.

  The turn-off took them on to one of the minor roads skirting Epping Forest. If they’d headed directly north they’d not be within miles of here, but getting lost had its advantages. Curly had never been here, but he knew the name. Everyone knew the name. It was a place of shallow graves; regularly name-checked on true-crime programmes. This was where your gangsters buried their enemies. Or sometimes didn’t even bother: just set fire to the car they’d shot them in, then whistled their way home to the concrete jungle. Place had probably seen more deaths than picnics. Plenty of room for another. Two, if necessary.

  This road was thickly lined by trees, and the sky disappeared behind a canopy of branches. An approaching car dipped its headlights. Flashing past, its noise reached Curly’s ears like something happening under water.

  ‘We’re gunna cut to the chase,’ he said.

  A bubble welled inside him, and escaped as a brief giggle.

  Larry cast him a sideways glance, but didn’t dare open his mouth.

  Pissing off Lady Di was not a good career move, and Spider Webb’s choices were largely dictated by such demands. But he didn’t have to go on to the hub. He could wander downstairs instead. Regent’s Park was like any other office block: the guys on the desk were the first to know what was up. So like any suit with an eye to the edge, Spider made a point of being friendly to the guys on the desk.

  Leaving his office, he walked down the corridor, through the fire door, and into the stairwell. Here he paused a moment, distracted by movement through the window. Two storeys below, a black SUV was coming down the concrete ramp into the car park beneath the building. One SUV was much like the next, but still: Webb wondered if this was the same one Lamb had hijacked earlier. If it was, Lamb had either been picked up again, or turned himself in. Spider hoped the former, and hoped it had happened roughly. The woman, too. I’ll put a bullet through your foot. He wasn’t forgetting that in a hurry. Mostly for the absolute sincerity of the woman’s tone.

  The car was gone. No way of seeing from here who’d been driving, which left open the possibility that it had been Lamb himself. Without Park clearance, Lamb shouldn’t have made it through the barriers, but Webb had heard myths about Jackson Lamb. Clearance might be something required by other people. In which case, Lamb might be loose in the belly of the building.

  It wasn’t likely, but it gave Webb all the excuse he needed to go and find out what was happening.

  As Catherine Standish watched Roderick Ho perform more virtual acrobatics, another shock of excitement fired through her body. Nothing to do with Ho. Catherine didn’t especially admire technological ability; it was useful when other people had it, because this rendered it unnecessary to have any herself, but she no more regarded it as an aspect of character than she would ownership of a particular make of car.

  No: the excitement had been born earlier that morning, when she’d lifted Lamb’s gun from her bag, and pointed it at the young man next to her. I’ll put a bullet through your foot if I need to. That’ll wipe the smirk off your face. Sometimes the scary moments happened to other people.

  Min Harper had spoken, unless it had been Louisa Guy. She said, ‘Sorry. I was miles away.’

  Harper said, ‘You think we’ll trace him in time?’

  This was new too. They were looking to her, as if she had answers, or opinions worth listening to. Below the tabletop her right hand curled, as if it were once more wrapped around the handle of a gun. ‘I think we act as if we’re saving his life, not finding his body,’ she said.

  He shared a look with Louisa that she couldn’t interpret.

  It was growing lighter, and traffic was building outside. There was a flow of custom inside, too; people collecting takeaway coffee and breakfast rolls, or grabbing supper on their way home from the nightshift. Catherine was an early riser, a poor sleeper; none of this was unfamiliar to her. But she was seeing through new eyes this morning. She unclenched her hand. Fighting her addictions had taught her about their power, and she knew she was clinging to an unhealthy memory. But right now it felt good, and she could only hope those shocks of excitement weren’t visible to the others.

  Ho said, ‘Now we wait.’

  Louisa said, ‘You’ve got the sat nav system?’

  ‘Sure. They use RoadWise. It’s just a matter of hacking the system.’

  ‘And how does waiting help?’

  ‘Because I’ve reached out for someone who’s done it already. Quicker than doing it myself.’ He bent to his laptop again, until his colleagues’ silence broke through his self-absorption. ‘What?’

  ‘Care to elaborate?’

  He sighed, but overdid it. ‘Hacking, there’s a community, you know?’

  ‘Like stamp collectors.’

  ‘Or trainspotters.’

  ‘Or poets.’

  ‘A bit,’ Ho agreed, to general surprise. ‘Only way more cool. Hackers hack systems for one reason only. They’re there. Some people do crosswords or sudoku.’ His expression made it clear what he thought of that. ‘We hack. And we share.’

  ‘So someone will have hacked, what did you call it? RoadWise?’

  ‘RoadWise. Yeah, sure, if it’s there, it’s been hacked. And anyone cool enough to hack it’ll be in the community.’ He nodded at his laptop, as if it held global masses. ‘And they’ll be getting back to me any moment.’ Perhaps he saw doubt in their expressions. ‘We never sleep,’ he said.
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  Catherine said, ‘There’s something I don’t get.’

  Ho waited.

  ‘You’re telling us you’ve got friends?’

  ‘The best kind,’ Ho said. ‘The ones you never meet.’

  His laptop bleeped.

  ‘My ride’s here.’

  Catherine watched as he bent to work. We act as if we’re saving Hassan’s life, not finding his body. It was the only approach they could take.

  It would be good, though, if they could hurry up a little.

  Time was not on Hassan’s side.

  The car stopped, and the engine cut out.

  For a moment, the silence and stillness were worse than the noise and the motion. Hassan’s heart pounded, struggling for release. He wasn’t ready, he thought—wasn’t ready to put an escape plan into operation, because he didn’t have one. And wasn’t ready because, well, he wasn’t ready. Wasn’t ready to be poured out of the boot and told he was going to die. He wasn’t ready.

  Eyes clamped shut, he tried to summon up Joanna Lumley, but she wouldn’t appear. He was on his own.

  And then he wasn’t, because the boot was opening, and rough hands were hauling him out, dropping him like a sack of vegetables on to cold ground.

  Instinctively, the first thing he did he was pull the hood from his head; a clumsy operation with his hands bound, but he managed it. With his head free, Hassan saw the world for what felt like the first time. He was in a forest. The car had come to a halt on a dirt track, and all around stretched trees, with mossed-over stumps lurking like goblins in the hollows. The ground was hard-packed mud, with a covering of dead leaves and twigs. The air tasted like early morning. Light was starting to make its presence felt; etching a fine tracery of bare branches overhead.

  His two remaining kidnappers stood over him, so his first view was of their boots. That seemed appropriate. He guessed their boots saw more action than their brains ever did. And this thought liberated Hassan a little. He was cold and bruised and filthy and stank, but he was not in a cellar. And he was not these bastards’ dog, ready to roll over on their word. In every way that mattered, he was better than the pair of them.