by Mick Herron
“Change of plan,” she said. “I need to see you.”
The COBRA meeting was well underway when Slough House came to life, if the heavy scraping of its back door counted as life: Roderick Ho, his red puffa jacket shiny new, its cuffs and pocket edgings trimmed with hi-viz silver. His earbuds were mainlining chainsaw guitars to his brain when his phone vibrated with an incoming text. That’ll be the ball and chain, he thought fondly. Checking I’ve not copped off with a City-bound babe on the Central line—women who worked in banking looked like they shopped at Victoria’s Secret. No wonder the girlfriends of alpha-types like Roddy Ho got nervous around rush hour. His head still pounding to a jackhammer beat he clicked to his messages, expecting to read “Kim,” but it was from Lamb. He read the text halfway up the first flight of stairs and said, “Jesus.” And then he said “Jesus,” again, and then he stomped the rest of the way up to his office.
When Moira Tregorian arrived, he was on his back in River’s room, fiddling around with cables. She tried to go past but the sight of a pair of legs protruding from beneath a desk defeated her, and she was back fifteen seconds later, coat still on.
“Is everything all right?”
He didn’t reply.
“Is the network down?”
Because if the Secret Service’s network was down, things were potentially serious. Maybe she ought to hide under a desk too.
But he still didn’t reply, and it only then occurred to her she was looking at Roderick Ho’s legs, not River Cartwright’s—Cartwright a lot less likely to be wearing jeans with purple embroidery on the thighs—so chances were their owner’s head was plugged into a Walkman, or whatever they were called. There was a strong argument that such devices should not be countenanced in the office, but it gave her the excuse to do what she did next, which was kick Ho on the soles of his feet.
Which didn’t hurt, but at least made him bang his head on the desk.
“Ow! Christ!”
“Yes, well, there’s no need for that.”
Ho pushed himself out and scowled up at her. “What you do that for?” he shouted.
She tugged at her earlobe.
Ho pulled his buds out and said, “What you do that for?” with equal petulance but less volume.
“Because you weren’t responding to me.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t hear you.”
“Precisely.”
Ho rubbed his head. Talking to women frequently left him bruised. It would be easy to start thinking they were all mad and violent.
“So—what are you doing?”
“Swapping PCs. This one’s better than the spare in my room.”
“But isn’t it Cartwright’s?”
“Oh, yeah, you haven’t heard. He’s dead.”
“He’s what?”
“Lamb texted me. I’m kind of his right-hand,” Ho said. “The others, well. Not exactly your high-fliers. Let’s face it, Shirley’s a nutjob, and—”
“He’s dead?”
Ho said, “Lamb just identified his body.”
“Dear dear me,” Moira said faintly.
There was movement behind her as Louisa arrived. “What’s going on?”
“I’m just swapping—”
“Young Cartwright’s dead,” Moira told her.
“No.”
“Mr. Lamb just texted—”
“No.”
“I’m sorry, but—”
“No.”
Louisa left the room and entered her own office, closing the door behind her as softly as a breeze.
“Oh dear. I didn’t handle that very well.”
“Handle what?” said Ho.
JK Coe arrived, half-invisible in his hoodie. If he registered the presence of intruders, he didn’t say; just slumped at his desk and booted up. Already his fingers were tapping away, caressing invisible keys.
“Did you hear?” Moira Tregorian said.
She had as much luck with him as she’d had with Ho.
“Is everyone deaf?”
Something about her body language, the warning vibes, got through to Coe. He pulled his earbuds out and looked her way from the safety of his hood.
“It’s Cartwright. River. Lamb’s texted to say he’s . . . ”
It occurred to her she wasn’t making the best job of breaking the news, but on the other hand, there were only so many ways of finishing this particular sentence.
“. . . dead.”
Coe stared for a moment or two, then looked at Ho, who had temporarily abandoned his plan of cannibalising River’s kit.
“It was me Lamb texted,” he said, to underline who was whose right hand.
Coe stared a bit longer, then said, “Uh-huh.”
This was the longest speech either had heard him deliver.
More noise from downstairs: Shirley and Marcus, arriving together. And noise from the hallway too, as Louisa re-emerged from her office and came back into River’s room, her eyes the colour of burnt matches. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Ho said, “I was just swapping—”
“Not you, dickhead. Her.”
“Who’s a dickhead? Oh, him,” Shirley said from the doorway.
“Not a fucking word. Anyone.” This included everyone in Louisa’s orbit: Marcus too, on the landing with Shirley. “Except you.” This to Moira. “What. The fuck. Are you talking about?”
“I really don’t appreciate—”
“You have to understand this. You really have to understand this. I am this close to wringing your fucking—”
“Louisa.”
It was Marcus, his hand on her elbow.
“Louisa, you need to cool it. Just sit down, yeah?”
And she wanted to scream that she’d sit down when she was good and ready and what the hell did he know about it, anyway? Because he hadn’t been there when this bitch had said what she’d said, that River was dead—how could he be dead? But she didn’t say any of that because she was shaking too hard. It was as if she’d fallen from a tree into cold, cold water, and would never be warm again.
A chair was being scraped across a floor, and that was Shirley. Two arms were lowering her into it, and that was Marcus.
Who said, “And now I really need to know what the hell is going down.”
There are only so many ways of ringing a doorbell: the brief dash delivered by the confident; the short dot of those who don’t want to disturb you; and the gunna-lean-on-this-thing-till-it-opens approach favoured by bailiffs, ex-husbands, and anyone else unused to a friendly welcome.
“Jackson,” Catherine Standish said. “What a surprise.”
This without a flicker of emotion.
Catherine lived in an art-deco block in St. John’s Wood; a building with rounded corners and metal-framed windows, vaguely futuristic once, and charmingly retro thereafter. In the lobby the tiles were polished to an ice-rink sheen, and the lift had an actual dial over it, indicating which floor it was on. She sometimes imagined a Hollywood musical breaking out there: some business with a bellhop; a haughty matron with fur coat and lorgnette; and Fred twirling Ginger in and out of the lift while its doors slid open and shut: yes/no, yes/no . . . Not prone to whimsy, Catherine occasionally indulged herself when it came to where she lived. There’d been a time when a future in a series of shop doorways had not seemed implausible. A one-bedder in St. John’s Wood was a safe haven in anybody’s book.
Though not enough so to keep Jackson Lamb at bay.
“Nice welcome,” he said. “You might have put some feeling into it.”
“I did. Just not the kind you were hoping for.”
“Going to invite me in?”
“No.”
“Mind if I come in anyway?”
She stepped aside.
The last time
Lamb had been here, it had been the middle of the night, and the slow horses were being rounded up. Today it was morning, and she was dressed . . . All things considered, his appearance wasn’t much of a shock. Some fates you escape. Others keep turning up regardless.
While most guests would hover in the hallway, awaiting further invitation, Lamb barrelled through to her sitting room. “How about a drink?”
“At this hour?”
“I meant tea,” he said, with an air of shocked innocence.
“Of course you did. Why are you here?”
“Can’t drop in on an old friend?”
“Possibly. But why are you here?”
“I’ve just come from identifying River Cartwright’s body,” he said. “And I wanted you to be the first to know.”
“River . . . ”
“His body.”
“How . . . ?”
“Two bullets to the head. Face, actually. Doesn’t leave much, you’ll not be surprised to learn.”
Catherine turned away, to look out of the window onto the street below. There was little happening there. A man walking a dog, a Cockapoo or Labradoodle or something, one of those breeds that didn’t exist one day and the next were everywhere: all bright eyes and floppy tongues. She watched him wait for it to do its business by the side of the road, then scoop its mess into a plastic bag. If he leaves it hanging off the hedge, she thought, I’ll open the window and throw something—the iron, the coffee table. But he didn’t. He walked on, bag swinging by his side. Sometimes people behaved like they were supposed to. Quite a lot of the time, probably. But it was easy to start believing otherwise, the line of work she’d been in.
She thought: River Cartwright, and tried to imagine how she must be feeling now, having just been told he’d been killed, two bullets to the face. But she couldn’t reach whatever feelings this information might be supposed to deliver. She could only watch the man and his dog continue up the quiet road, until they were lost to sight.
“You’re not going to respond?”
“This is me, responding,” she said. “Where did it happen?”
“In a bathroom. Just like old times, eh?”
Because she’d found her former boss, Charles Partner, dead in his bathroom, gun in his hand.
Bullet in his head.
Just the one. Few suicides took two.
“Have you told the others?”
“Sent Ho a text. I expect he’ll have spread it round by now.”
Despite herself, despite all she knew of him, this time she was actually shocked. “You sent a text?”
“You thought I’d tweet it? Jesus, Standish. A man died.”
“You know what that’ll do to Louisa?”
“That’s why I sent it to Ho. You think you invented tact?” He was holding a cigarette now. It had appeared in his hand just like that: no sign of a packet.
She shook her head; at the cigarette, at him, at the way he broke news, which was the way he broke everything else: with a certain grim joy at watching it shatter.
He said, “You didn’t ask whose bathroom.”
“Whose bathroom?”
He wagged a finger. “Sorry. Need to know.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I’d enjoy it more with a cup of tea. I’ve been up since sparrowfart.”
“For God’s sake—”
“Are you alone? I should have asked.”
She said, “Do I look like I have company?”
“Had to ask. Hard to shake off a reputation, isn’t it?”
“You’d know. Everyone you’ve ever met has you pegged as an utter bastard. Now was there anything else? Because you’re free to leave any time.”
“His grandfather’s.”
“. . . What?”
“It was his grandfather’s bathroom. The O.B.?”
“That’s what River called him,” Catherine agreed. “I’m not sure you have the right.”
Lamb said, “Ah, don’t you hate it when people have private jokes? It’s like everyone’s a fucking spy.” He tucked the cigarette behind his ear. “You haven’t asked who yet.”
“Haven’t asked who what?”
“Who shot River,” Lamb said. “Are you just out of bed? You’re not exactly firing on all cylinders.”
“I’m still reeling from your presence,” she told him. “I’d feel a lot happier if you weren’t here.”
“Then I’ll go.”
“Thank you.”
“Just as soon as I’ve had that cup of tea,” he said, and bared yellow teeth.
A barge was puttering down the Thames, rubbish piled high in its middle, and there were seagulls all over it, a great boiling mass of them, arguing and scrapping for riches. Earth has not anything to show more fair. For Diana Taverner, it looked like politics as usual. She was waiting by a railing near the Globe, on a stretch of pavement which fell neatly into a CCTV blind spot, so highly prized by those aware of the fact. It was before ten, and while once pedestrian traffic would have been at a lull, all decent citizens at their jobs, now there were streams of people passing, a good proportion of them plugged into Smartphone and Tablet, working on the move. From a distance, there’d be little to choose between the upbeat rat-a-tat of their mobile conferencing and the screaming of the gulls, which was heading downriver now, and might make it as far as the sea. She checked her watch: two minutes to the hour. And then Emma Flyte was there, one gloved hand on the railing, an immaculate profile taking in the view: the City, draped in the beauty of the morning.
A garment unsuitable for the season, today being wet and cold.
“News?” asked Diana.
Flyte said, “He’s still missing.”
“Wonderful. How old is he, ninety?”
“Not quite.” She paused. “Someone’s reported a stolen car. About a mile away.”
“You think he could walk a mile?”
“I’m told he’s an old bastard,” said Flyte. “They tend to be tough.”
“Who said that?”
“Jackson Lamb.”
“Ah.” For some reason, whenever Lamb came up in conversation Diana felt a reflexive need to smoke. “The thing about Jackson is, he gives lessons to corkscrews. If he tells you the right time, it’s because he’s just stolen your watch.”
“I’ve heard similar said of you,” said Flyte in a level tone.
Taverner regarded her. Emma Flyte shouldn’t be in the Service, she should be on a catwalk—that was the kind of judgment the Park’s dinosaurs were prone to passing when a perfect ten hoved into view. But seriously: Christ. Watching her hail a taxi must be like seeing the flag drop on a chariot race. Which didn’t earn her any latitude with Lady Di, but it was interesting to note she had moxie to go with her looks. “Yes, but when it’s said of me it’s a compliment,” she said.
“I know.”
Okay, that was better.
She conquered the nicotine twitch, because it never did to show weakness early in the game, and while Diana Taverner had been playing for some while, the game always started anew when fresh blood joined. She had yet to work out whether Flyte was a team player, let alone whose team she was on. In part, that was what this meeting was for. And team player or not, Flyte had worked that much out for herself, because now she said, “You didn’t bring me here just for a heads-up on the Cartwright mess.”
“No.”
“So what is it you wanted?”
Which wasn’t quite the tone Diana had been hoping for, but was at least a start. A pawn shifted out there, front and centre. She’d never learned the notation, but she knew what the object was: to hang, draw and quarter the opposition’s king.
She said, “Giti Rahman.”
“She’s one of your girls.”
“On the hub, that’s right.”
; One of the brightest and the best, in fact; an appraisal she had confirmed a little less than three hours previously. Currently she was taking some crash-time in one of the Park’s sleeping pods, or Diana hoped he was. Where she wanted Giti Rahman to be right now was dreamland, because the information she’d uncovered was such that the Park itself might come crashing round their ears if she was awake and broadcasting it.
Flyte said, “What about her?”
“I need her taken care of.”
The barge, some hundred yards downriver now, let out a whistle; a curiously jaunty note for what was basically a waterborne dustbin. The gulls ballooned away, scrambled for purchase in the air, then renewed their cackling onslaught.
“I’m going to have to ask you to be a little more specific.”
“Good grief, what on earth do you think I’m asking?”
“I’m not about to speculate, Ms. Taverner. I simply want to be sure that whatever it is, you have the authority to ask me to do it, and I’m going to be comfortable carrying it out.”
“How very extraordinary,” Diana said smoothly, though it was in fact useful to have the parameters clarified. “I wasn’t aware that I had to meet your standards when issuing instructions. I’d better check your terms and conditions. Better check my own, in fact. No, what I had in mind was a C&C.”
Collect-and-Comfort, in the jargon. Meaning scoop up and isolate, and cause no harm in doing so.
“If that doesn’t offend your code of ethics, obviously,” she added.
Flyte wouldn’t be drawn on that. “Where?”
“The Dogs have their own safe house, I believe.”
“Several,” said Flyte. “Where is she now?”
“In a sleeping pod. Wake her up, dust her down, and get her off the premises before you put the mufflers on. I don’t want anyone knowing she’s in your hands.”
“How long for?”
“Until I say otherwise.”
“I’ll need overtime authorised.”
“The budget will stretch. One of the advantages of being on red alert.”
“Is this to do with Westacres?”
“I’m pretty sure I can issue orders without needing to explain my reasons,” Diana said. “Unless you’re about to tell me that’s not so?”