by Mick Herron
‘Are you with the police?’ But even as she was asking the question, Dodie was answering herself: shaking her head; an angry denial. ‘No. No, you’re not, are you? You’re MI5.’
‘I can’t confirm my precise role, but yes, I’m with the security services.’ She flashed a card which might have been a John Lewis gift token for all Dodie took in. ‘And we need to talk about what just happened.’
‘My husband was murdered.’
‘Your husband died, yes, and I’m very sorry about that. But the cause of death is yet to be established. And it won’t benefit anyone, least of all yourself, if rumours start to circulate.’
‘They’re already circulating!’
Dodie Gimball hadn’t meant to shout, but it seemed she had as little control of her volume as she did of her tear ducts.
‘Here!’
She showed her phone to this woman, this Taverner woman. A Twitter feed, a trending hashtag. An orchestra of outraged lament, screaming blue murder.
‘See?’
‘I know.’ Diana Taverner leaned back in the seat, but kept her eyes on Dodie. She said, ‘I’d as soon seek information from a wasps’ nest. What happened could have been an accident. It could have been natural causes. Nobody can be sure yet. All we know for certain is that it’s now open season on your husband’s life and career, and if you want to honour his memory, and your own career to prosper, you’ve got to be very careful about which donkey you start pinning tails on.’
‘My Dennis was a great man! His life will be celebrated—’
‘And accompanied by photos which will be less than flattering, Dodie. You know the kind I mean.’
Beside them, on the road into London, traffic hissed its displeasure.
‘So here we are,’ said Dodie. ‘My husband dead a few hours, and already you’re back with your nasty threats. Do you know how many people share the same … tastes as Dennis? Do you really think it matters?’
‘I don’t, as it happens. Not one bit. But the people who read your column do, Dodie. Even those who read it wearing their wives’ underwear. You’ll have heard all this from Claude Whelan already. It doesn’t matter how innocent it is, it doesn’t matter that nobody gets hurt, or that it’s nobody else’s business. There’s only one slant a newspaper like yours is going to take on it, and that’s to splash it as a sordid little secret. You know the difference between a dead pervert and a live one? A dead one can’t sue.’
‘My husband was not—’
‘So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to publish the story you were planning on Zafar Jaffrey. You can even let it be known that Dennis was intending to reveal that same story in his speech tonight. What you will omit from that narrative is any mention of Secret Service involvement. Are you clear on that?’
She wasn’t.
The blue lights were still looping, ahead and behind. Their wash turned her visitor’s face different colours: indigo, then purple, then sudden, ghostly white. It occurred to Dodie that, ten minutes ago, she’d thought the police cars there to protect her. Now, it seemed, their purpose had always been to deliver her to another tormentor, whose own mission it was to confuse. She was already nostalgic for simple grief; for the time spent alone in the car.
She said, ‘But the whole point of Whelan’s visit was to warn us off Zafar Jaffrey,’ and even to her own ears, her voice sounded lifeless.
‘Things change,’ Taverner told her. ‘Alliances shift. And you’d be advised to bear that in mind, Dodie. For some reason, you seem to think we’re the enemy. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re not perfect, sure. Sometimes, things get past us. But the rest of the time – all the rest of the times – we’re there, doing our job.’
She turned and observed the passing traffic for a while, as if conscious that this too was under her protection. Then turned back to Dodie.
‘Nothing can bring your husband back, Mrs Gimball. But if you want him to be remembered as a hero, we can help that happen. In due course. And his little embarrassments don’t ever have to see the light of day.’
She opened the car door.
‘I’m going now. Again, I’m sorry for your loss. But if you want your husband’s legacy to be one he’d have been proud of, you’ll remember what I said and omit any mention of Service involvement. I’m sure we understand each other.’
She left. Alone again, Dodie focused once more on the string of red tail lights on the road ahead, breezing into the city. She barely noticed when the driver got back in, and the little procession recommenced its journey.
13
DAWN HAD COME ONCE more, and slipped in unnoticed. In Slough House she was met with the unfamiliar spectacle of living, waking humans; most of whom, true, might have been mistaken for some other kind. River Cartwright and J. K. Coe both had their eyes shut, though in Coe’s case this reflected an effort at memory: he was trying to recall the exact shape of an emotion, the precise geometry of a particular moment, when he had fired three bullets into the chest of a manacled man. River, meanwhile, was screening horrors on his eyelids: the never-ending tumble of a lethal can of paint; its repeated collision with a human head. Both men were seated, both on the floor; in fact, of all those present, only Louisa Guy was upright, her back ramrod straight against the wall, her right leg raised level. She held this position for a full thirty seconds, then lowered that leg and raised the other. Through crocodile eyes Jackson Lamb watched her, his mind busy with other things.
Shirley Dander was also on the floor, curled into a ball, but she wasn’t sleeping either; she was adding another day to her tally, and wondering where this numerical sequence would end. An hour earlier Catherine Standish had laid a coat across her, which had given her a tremor. Being tucked in didn’t really figure in her lifestyle. Catherine, mother-henning done, had settled in an office chair, on the opposite side of the desk from where Lamb was sprawled; a configuration replicated from Lamb’s own office, as if they remained engaged in the same dance, regardless of location. She seemed alert and unruffled, her hair tied back in its usual manner; her dress as uncreased as if she’d put it on an hour ago. Lamb had fetched his bottle from upstairs, and it stood, a nearly empty sentry, on the desk in front of him. But there was only one glass there – his – and Catherine’s eyes never lingered on it or the bottle itself.
They were in Roderick Ho’s office, though Ho himself, of course, was elsewhere. Of those in the room, only two gave any thought to this, and one of those was Catherine.
From across the hall she could hear a low murmur, which had started as a singular flow, Emma Flyte’s voice, with the occasional interjection. Now there was a mumbled counterpoint, hesitant at first, a drip from a faulty tap, which had since become more regular; a steady trickle which would, in time, fill any vessel provided. This was what happened when you opened up: there was no stopping what you’d started. It was one of the reasons Catherine was wary of AA meetings.
Now she thought of that poor girl’s face, her nose a mess, her eyes black and swollen; and then of the TV footage from Abbotsfield, the Derbyshire fastness which guns had undone, in part because of that girl’s actions. It was odd she could feel sympathy for the one in spite of the other. Or that even now she worried about Roddy Ho, when really they should have banded together ages back, and dangled him from a window. Made him realise there were hard facts beyond the bubble of his own ego; among them, the nearest pavement.
Lamb stirred. ‘Isn’t this cosy?’
‘I’d have made her talk by now,’ said Shirley, her voice muffled by her own arm.
‘You’d have made her scream. There’s a difference.’
Louisa said, ‘What if she doesn’t know anything?’
‘Well if she’s that fucking ignorant she can join the team,’ said Lamb.
Catherine turned on her iPad and flicked through news channels. All were burning up the same story: the death of Dennis Gimball in an alleyway in Slough. Speculation ranged from assassination by Remainers –
as unlikely a theory as it was inevitable – to a conspiracy hatched in Downing Street. The latter, admittedly, wasn’t getting coverage on the mainstream sites, but was popular with idiots on social media. Then again, idiots on social media had dictated world events of late, and were clearly on a roll.
Elsewhere, there were follow-ups on Abbotsfield; a Home Office spokesperson saying that investigations were continuing, arrests would be made. The lack of concrete detail was explained by the need not to compromise ongoing operations; a need that most readers understood would be jettisoned as soon as concrete details became available. Meanwhile, a service for civilian casualties of war, re-dedicated as a memorial for Abbotsfield, would be held that afternoon at Westminster Abbey, attended by the younger princes, the PM, and everyone with a desire to have their tears recorded for posterity. A less star-spangled, somewhat hijacked service would take place in Abbotsfield itself. She found a shaky little video from the village: its church; a weathered cemetery; the multicoloured dullness of stained glass viewed from the wrong side. The lychgate was draped with wreaths and the small offerings the living consecrate to the dead – toys and ribbons, flowers, photographs. Catherine wasn’t sure how she felt about this. On the other hand, it wasn’t her grief.
‘Seize control of the media,’ said Lamb. He seemed to be pouting, his lower jaw thrust forward. Could mean anything from deep thought to imminent flatulence.
Shirley sat up. The left shoulder of her sweatshirt was spattered with blood from her torn ear, a spattering which her attempts at rinsing the top without first removing it had made substantially worse. The ear wasn’t pretty either. There had been no sticking plasters of the appropriate size in the first aid box, and by the time Catherine had trimmed an over-large one down to size, Shirley had self-medicated with a length of Sellotape. This had clogged the bleeding right enough, but gave Shirley the appearance of a mended doll.
She said, ‘TV. That’s their next target. Shepherd’s Bush or wherever. Where’s Sky?’
For a brief confused moment, Catherine thought Shirley had just asked where the sky was. More worryingly, she’d found it a reasonable question.
‘They’re not going to attempt to take control of a television company,’ said Louisa. ‘I mean, seriously?’
‘Why not?’ River asked.
‘Because they couldn’t even plant a bomb on a train successfully. Which, let’s face it, isn’t much more difficult than forgetting an umbrella.’
‘Somebody wandered into Dobsey Park and blew up a lot of penguins,’ River reminded her.
‘Yeah, penguins. Hard target or what?’
‘Okay, but they got in, they got out, they weren’t caught.’
‘It’s not a maximum-security prison, it’s a zoo. You buy a ticket. TV studios have checkpoints, they have guards, you need passes. You need to know what you’re doing. This bunch have tripped over their own dicks twice.’
‘Three times,’ said Shirley.
‘Whatever, they’re hardly the A-Team. Shooting up a village full of pensioners, that’s one thing. But what they’re best at is falling through windows.’
‘Well, okay, maybe not TV,’ River said.
‘Newspaper? Same story,’ Louisa said. ‘You don’t just waltz into a newspaper office unchallenged. In fact, you especially don’t waltz into—’
‘Radio?’ said River.
‘They could hang a few DJs,’ Shirley suggested.
‘—a newspaper office.’
Devon Welles said, ‘Is this brainstorming? I’ve often wondered what it looked like.’
‘Seize. The. Media,’ said Lamb again, and they all looked at him. ‘Where does that mention a building?’
J. K. Coe said, ‘The original plan—’
‘The Watering Hole paper,’ River offered.
‘—was predicated on a developing nation state.’ He spoke slowly, as if reading from notes. ‘Pre-satellite. Pre-internet. One where there’d only be a single TV channel. A single radio station. So seizing control of the media would be a straightforward business.’
‘You could do it with a couple of machine guns,’ said Shirley.
‘That was more or less my point.’
‘But it’s not so simple in Big London, right? Different rules.’
Coe rubbed his chin, and opened the scratch Kim had given him.
Welles, despite himself, was drawn in. ‘Remind me how they attempted to bring down the transport infrastructure?’
‘With a dud bomb,’ said Shirley.
‘On a train,’ said Welles. ‘That’s the key point. They put a bomb on a train.’
Louisa said, ‘Ri – ight.’
‘A dud bomb,’ Shirley repeated. ‘We’ve established they’re screw-ups. How is the small print helping?’
‘Doesn’t matter that it was a dud,’ Louisa said. ‘It matters that it was a train.’
‘Because blowing up a train, even with a bomb that works, is just blowing up a train,’ said Welles. ‘It’s not bringing down infrastructure. Get it?’
‘They’re ticking boxes,’ said Louisa. ‘Good thinking.’
‘Oh God, she’s in heat,’ said Lamb.
‘So they’re gonna blow up a TV set?’ said Shirley. ‘Set fire to a newspaper?’
River said, ‘Not the media. A media event.’
The door opened, and Emma Flyte came in.
‘Did she talk?’ Welles asked.
‘She talked,’ said Emma.
Claude Whelan tugged a loose thread on his shirt collar, then wished he hadn’t. Sometimes, when you pulled at things, all you did was make them worse.
Oh God, he thought. Way too early in the day for symbolism.
In a different world, he’d done what he’d intended yesterday evening: had left work, gone home, suppered with Claire. Some nights they shared the same bed, but not often, and always chastely. Was it any wonder … but no point going down that road. He loved his wife. Had phoned her at midnight, to tell her he wouldn’t be home; that things were moving, that he was on top of them. He’d had an image of young Josie while saying that: an image of being on top of her while she was moving. Was that his fault? He supposed it depended who you asked.
She had returned to him with her rundown on Dancer Blaine:
‘A small-time fixer, sir. Fake IDs, sometimes safe houses, the occasional used firearm. But mostly it’s IDs.’
‘And he reports back to us?’
‘Not on everything, or we’d have hauled him from the river by now. But he’s been helpful.’
She had a sheaf of printouts: a rough tally suggested Blaine had helped put away a dozen bad actors, none of them marquee names, and through it all had been allowed to continue his dreary little enterprise hard by St Paul’s. A little fish, Whelan had thought, leafing through the pages. One we throw back. Surely there’s an argument for feeding him into a waste disposal unit instead? Because let’s face it, the big fish are still out there. Sparing the little ones never changes that.
But it was late and things were sour, and you couldn’t change the rules once the game was under way. He was pretty sure that was one of Lady Di’s diktats.
‘Sir?’
He must have been staring at the pages too long.
‘Was there anything else you want?’
God, no, she hadn’t said that. Hadn’t said anything like it.
She returned to the hub. Everyone was working late; the perspective had altered now they knew they were no longer looking at Islamist extremism. The net they’d thrown had too wide a mesh. ISIS had claimed responsibility, true, but stop all the clocks: a death-worshipping bunch of medieval fascists had taken time off from beheading hostages to tell porkies. And if he said that out loud, he’d be the one in trouble: ‘porkies’ was a no-no … No wonder he was exhausted. Watching the world go mad was a tiring business.
Di Taverner had come into his office, and was staring. ‘Are you feeling all right?’
‘Sorry.’ He had run a hand through his hair, thin
king, even as he did so, that it was a dramatic gesture more than a grooming need. ‘Things have happened.’
‘They never stop.’
This was true. Was it yesterday he’d been charged with ensuring Zafar Jaffrey was squeaky clean? And he’d fulfilled that mission by determining the exact opposite, which meant the PM wouldn’t be happy. On the other hand, the PM’s days were numbered, Jaffrey’s lack of squeaky-cleanliness being one more nail in what was starting to appear an over-engineered coffin.
‘Your presence at the Gimballs’ yesterday officially didn’t occur,’ Lady Di told him. She’d removed her raincoat and hung it over the back of his visitor’s chair. She didn’t sit, but didn’t pace either, preferring to remain upright with one hand lightly on the chairback, as if posing for a magazine shoot.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘We stand together,’ she said, which he took to mean, for as long as it suited her. Now was not the time to see her boss sink beneath the waves, not with them both on the same liner. She wanted him around until a lifeboat hoved into view. ‘Now. What things?’
He rose, went and closed the door and returned to his seat. Then frosted the office wall, blurring Josie and all the other girls and boys to dim shapes huddled over monitors. ‘These attacks. It’s not ISIS. It’s North Korea.’
Taverner nodded. Her refusal to be surprised was one of her more irritating traits. ‘Okay. I think we’ve all been expecting that shoe to drop. Does Number 10 know?’
‘Not yet. There’s more.’
Of course there is, her silence said.
He told her about the document Ho had passed on.
Outside, the dim shapes kept up their blurry movements. Inside, the only movement was that of time passing, while Taverner caught up with the implications.
‘They’re using our playbook,’ she said at last.
‘Well, it’s not exactly a—’
‘They’re using our playbook.’
He nodded.
‘That,’ she said, ‘is not going to go down well.’
‘Your input’s always welcome. But I’d got that far myself.’
‘A North Korean black op. Here. Jesus.’ At least she had the grace to swear, even if her expression remained unperturbed. He wondered if she Botoxed; thought about finding out. Shelved the thought as not important right now. She said, ‘So what’s the order of play?’