by Mick Herron
“Yeah. Like his sister.”
He ended the call and wound the windows down again. What came blasting into the cab was all petrol and scorched rubber, but anything that didn’t taste of prison smelt like freedom. He glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes before meeting Monteith: a car park off the Euston Road. He’d make it with time to spare.
A lot could go wrong, but it wouldn’t be this bit.
Some lifts descended further than River wanted to go. This one didn’t—it was standard, staff-for-the-use-of—but there were others which required top clearance and disappeared deep into London’s bowels, offering access to secure crisis-management facilities, and even a rumoured top-secret underground transport system; a rumour River had regarded with scepticism until he’d learned that it had been officially denied. That there were other areas where deniable interrogations took place, he’d taken as read. Such were the foundations on which security is built.
But he was heading towards the level where the records rooms were.
He’d rarely had occasion to visit these in his time at Regent’s Park, but knew from conversations with his grandfather, the O.B., that they’d long been in danger of reaching capacity, containing as they did hundreds of yards, miles even, of hard-copy information: reports and records, personnel files, transcripts and minutes of varying levels of sensitivity. River had affected surprise that physical documents remained the mainstay of the Park’s archives, but only to give the O.B. the opportunity of riding one of his favourite hobby horses.
“Oh,” the Old Bastard, a purely affectionate monicker, said, “they had to rethink a lot of those early storage protocols, once they realised computers were like bank vaults. Nice and secure, safe as houses, right up to the moment someone blows the doors off and walks away with the loot.”
On the most recent occasion on which they’d had this conversation, it had been late evening: rain pattering on the windows, brandy splashing with almost as much regularity into their glasses.
“Because computers talk to each other, River—that’s what they’re for. Your generation can’t boil an egg without going online, you rely on them for everything, but you tend to overlook their major function. Which is that they store information, but only in order to divulge it.”
Which River had known, of course. Knew that was why the Queens of the Database worked on air-gapped systems, their USB ports gummed up to prevent flash drives being inserted. The Queens had to skip from one row of computers to another to go online—internet and internot being the waggish coinage. Electronic poaching had replaced the nuclear threat as the Big Fear. The Service liked to steal, but it hated getting robbed.
Give a born thief like Roderick Ho five minutes with an internet connection, River thought, and he’d bring back the PM’s vetting history, if it was out there to be snaffled.
Which was why the PM’s vetting history wasn’t held online, but stored in the Park’s personnel archive, on the level River was heading to now.
It was definitely a double-decker bus. One of the old-fashioned type, with a deck you could jump onto as it pulled away, if you didn’t mind being shouted at by the conductor. It was open topped, its upper deck shrouded in canvas, and was parked head-on to the house, so Catherine could see its destination window, which read hop aboard! There were no other vehicles in sight. She’d been right about the outhouses, though; three smaller, bluntly functional buildings, flat-sided, windowless, with sloping roofs. Garages or storage units. Nothing looked currently in use. It was as if her captors had stumbled on this place as a vacant possession, and taken advantage. Except that stumbling on things didn’t fit into Sean Donovan’s worldview. Any mission he was on would be double-plotted; every detail stress-tested for the unexpected, the potential loose screw.
A sudden bitter thought flared. A loose screw—that’s all I was to him then.
So what am I now?
She had been awake for hours; had barely slept. Too much confusion flying around her mind, and this question the biggest of them all: What am I now? A figure out of Donovan’s past, snatched into his present—why? She couldn’t pretend it was because of anything she meant to him; it had to be because of what she did. And what she did was nothing much; was only tangentially Secret Service. What she did was Jackson Lamb’s paper-shuffling; organising the slow horses’ ditchwater-dull number-crunching into what resembled reports, which she then parcelled off to Regent’s Park so they could be officially ignored. If anything they’d done at Slough House lately warranted this kind of excitement, it had passed her by . . . Hours ago, lying on the narrow bed thinking all this, she’d heard the front door closing, and had reached the window in time to see Donovan climbing into the van they’d fetched her here in. He’d driven down the track, turned into the lane, and vanished from sight.
Whatever was happening, there was no stopping it now.
The light on this corridor, three levels below where he’d been talking to Diana Taverner, was blue-tinted, as if replicating the effect of dusk in the outside world. It was mildly disorienting, stepping out of the lift: not only the light, but the blank white walls and tiled white floor. Below the surface, everything changed. Wood panelling and marbled surfaces were nowhere to be seen.
Behind him the lift door closed, and machinery murmured.
Twenty-eight minutes.
So far, no alarms. River had left his pass in the lift, in case it was chipped so Security could track him. He hoped they’d been distracted by the pair of armed terrorists down the road, but it wouldn’t take long to shoot them and get back to work. And he had twenty-eight minutes, or twenty-seven, to retrieve the file the man in the suit wanted, so his thugs wouldn’t vent their poor impulse control on Catherine.
“. . . Break into the Park? Seriously?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
The thing was, he almost had. It was that supercilious smirk he’d worn, the upper-class sneer.
“I’ll keep it simple. You don’t even have to steal it. Pictures will do fine.”
“They don’t let you just walk in,” River had said, stupidly.
“We’d hardly have needed to take your colleague if they did.”
Through an open door down the corridor, a figure appeared.
She was quite round, with a messy cap of hair, and her face was a thick white mask of powder; a childish attempt to make up as a clown, was River’s first thought. But there was nothing childish about her eyes, which were steely-grey as her hair; and nothing of the toy about her wheelchair, which was cherry-coloured, with thick wheels, and looked capable of powering itself over or through any manner of obstacle: a closed door, an enemy trench, River Cartwright.
And this was Molly Doran, of whom he’d heard much, some of it good.
She rolled towards him, head to one side. A faint ping from the closed shaft behind him was the lift stopping on another floor, but could as easily have been this woman beginning to speak: he’d not have been surprised if she vented in a series of pips and squeaks—nothing to do with the wheelchair (he told himself); everything to do with that doll-like face, its porcelain veneer.
But her voice, when she spoke, was standard-issue, no-nonsense, mid-morning BBC.
“One of Jackson’s cubs, aren’t you?”
“I . . . Yes. That’s right.”
“What’s he after this time?”
Without waiting for a response she reversed through the doorway she’d appeared from. River followed her, into a long room not unlike a library stack, or what he imagined a library stack looked like: row upon row of upright cabinets set on tracks which would allow for their being accordioned together when not in use, and each stuffed with cardboard files and folders. Somewhere along this lot was the file he’d been told to steal. No, keep it simple. He only had to photograph its contents.
Molly Doran slotted neatly into a cubbyhole designed to accommodate her
wheelchair. Her legs were missing below the knee. For all the tales River had heard about her, not one had ever laid down the indisputable truth as to how she’d lost them. The only thing all accounts agreed on was that it was a loss—that she’d once had legs.
She said, “Maybe you didn’t hear me. What’s he after this time?”
“A file,” River said.
“A file. So you’ll have the requisition form then.”
“Well. You know Jackson.”
“I certainly did.”
She was a bird of a woman, though not the usual bird people meant when they used that phrase. A penguin, perhaps; a short fat bird in squatting mode, head tipped to one side; her nose becoming beakish as her head jutted upward. “What did you say your name was?”
“Cartwright.”
“I thought so . . . You’ve the look of him. Your grandfather.”
He could feel himself becoming heavier, as if the time ticking past was accruing weight, loading him down with the consequences of its passing.
“It’s around the eyes. The shape of them, mostly. How is he?”
“He’s sprightly.”
“Sprightly. There’s an old person’s word if ever there was. Women are feisty and old people sprightly. Except when they’re not, of course. What’s this file Jackson’s after?”
River began to recite the number the man on the bridge had given him, but she cut him off.
“I meant what’s it about, dear? What interest does our Mr. Lamb have in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Keeps you in the dark, does he?”
“You know Jackson,” he said again.
“Better than you, I expect.” She appraised him. “How did you get in?”
“Get in?”
“Upstairs. Or have they adopted an open-door policy since this morning?”
“I made an appointment.”
“Not with me you didn’t. Where’s your laminate?”
“I had a meeting with Lady Di.”
“My, aren’t we grand. I didn’t know she lowered herself to parleying with exiles. Or does your grandfather’s name open doors?”
“I’ve never relied on it,” River said.
“Of course not. Or you wouldn’t be a slow horse.”
River didn’t care to follow this thread. And the seconds were ticking away. It occurred to him to take out his phone and show this woman the image of Catherine. All he’d have to do was ask her help.
And Security would be kicking down the doors a moment later.
She said suddenly, “How is he?”
Without needing to ask, he knew she’d changed the subject.
“Lamb? Same as ever,” he said.
She laughed. It wasn’t an especially happy sound. “I doubt that,” she said.
“Believe me,” River said. “There’s been no improvement.”
Twenty minutes now, if that. And he didn’t just have to trace the file and photograph its contents, he had to get somewhere he could transmit them, which meant leaving the Park. Anywhere inside these walls, trying to send an attachment out would be sounding a fire alarm.
The couple in the car would have been checked out by now. His own failure to reappear would have been noted. He doubted they’d put the building into lockdown—he was only a slow horse; could easily have got lost—but they’d send people looking, and soon. He had to make a move. But Molly Doran was talking.
“Jackson Lamb’s lived so long under the bridge he’s half-troll himself now. But you should have met him a lifetime ago.”
“Yeah,” said River. “I bet he was a heartbreaker.”
She laughed. “He was never an oil painting, don’t worry about that. But he had something. You’re too young and pretty to understand. But a girl could lose her heart to him. Or other parts of her body.”
“About this file.”
“For which you don’t have a chitty.”
“Even when he was young, and girls were losing their hearts to him,” River said, “did you ever know him to fill out a form?”
“That’s smooth. I like that.” Without warning, Molly rolled forwards, so her chair was back in the aisle. “You get that from your grandfather, I expect.”
“The thing is,” River said. He leaned forward, bending so his mouth was near her ear. “I’m not entirely supposed to be here.”
“You amaze me.”
“But since I had an appointment with Lady Di anyway, and knowing Jackson needed to see this file . . . ”
“You thought you’d kill two birds with one stone.”
“Precisely.”
“Maybe you’ve picked up a bit of him to go with your grandpa,” Molly said. “Jackson was never one for going round the houses. Not when he could drive a battering ram through them.”
“I told you he was the same as ever.”
“What was the file you wanted?”
He repeated the number. He’d always had a good memory for numbers; he had, too, a good memory for the man on the bridge. He hoped they’d meet again.
“That’s curious,” Molly Doran said.
“How so?”
“Slough House is all closed cases and blind alleys, isn’t it? Nothing live, nothing contagious. That’s what I’ve always heard.”
“We crunch numbers,” River admitted. “And chase tails. If anything interesting popped up, we’d probably hand it over to the Park.”
“Probably?”
“It hasn’t happened yet.”
Fifteen minutes. Or fourteen. Or twelve. He’d studied Molly Doran’s face as he gave her the number, but not by the slightest eye movement had she indicated in which direction the file might be found. And without some kind of clue, he could wander round here for hours without coming close. The last kind of system a Molly Doran would have would be one where the numbers explained where they were.
“Then what’s happening now?” she asked. “Because this file’s most definitely live. What with its subject being the Prime Minister and all.”
Her tone hadn’t changed.
Someone walked down the corridor, their heels loud as boots on cobbles. When they paused, River felt his heart do the same. Something hummed and something murmured, and that was the lift door opening. The boots found their way inside, and the hum and murmur repeated themselves in reverse.
All this while, her eyes were breaking him down like Lego.
“Can I tell you the truth?” he said.
“I really don’t know,” Molly said. “But it might be interesting finding out.”
“Jackson’s in one of his . . . playful moods.”
“He has those,” she agreed.
“Right.”
“About as often as I go jogging.”
“There’s a bet involved.”
“That sounds more plausible.”
“He bet me I couldn’t find out the PM’s schoolboy nickname.”
“And Wikipedia isn’t helping?”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you? I expect he’s got someone wiping it.”
“So a quick glance would be all you need.”
“That’s right.”
“And maybe I should turn round while you’re doing that. A quick three-pointer.”
“. . . If you like.”
“Well, if I wasn’t watching, I wouldn’t be involved, would I? So that would save me being your accomplice while you break the Official Secrets Act. And I really can’t be doing with a five-year stretch in Holloway. Prison food plays havoc with the digestion, so I’ve read.”
River didn’t have to turn to know they had company. As he felt his arms gripped from behind, and the plastic restraints clip into place, he was conscious mostly of Molly Doran’s gaze, which was partly pitying, partly curious, as if his behaviour was beyond an
ything she could readily understand. And this from a woman familiar with Jackson Lamb, he thought. I must really be in trouble.
She didn’t speak again as he was taken, moderately politely, from the room.
When Catherine heard the padlock being shifted, she sat up on the bed, feet on the floor. Wasn’t this how prisoners responded to a rattle on their chain?
She’d thought it would be Bailey again—the young man who’d taken her photo—but it was the second soldier; the one whose presence at the Angel had driven her back onto the streets. Like Sean Donovan, he had the lifetime soldier’s way of entering a room: taking it all in in one sweeping glance. Nothing could have changed since the last time he’d been in here, but that was no reason for taking chances. This done, his gaze rested on Catherine.
She waited.
“Sorry about this,” he began.
But he didn’t look sorry.
Time was, walking up Slough House’s stairs made every day midwinter for Louisa. Now, she carried her own weather with her. Stepping through the yard, pushing open the door that always stuck, didn’t affect her. It was a mood she was already part of, wherever she happened to be.
On the first landing she stopped at Ho’s office. Ho was at his desk, four flat screens angled in front of him as if he were catching a tan. He was nodding in time to something, which the well-padded earphones dwarfing his head suggested might be music, but could as easily be the binary rhythms of whatever code was conjuring the images swarming on his screens. More than once she’d come into this room and he hadn’t even noticed, though he’d configured his workstation for a view of the door: when he was in the zone, if the webheads still said that, it was like he’d relocated to the moon. Because while Roderick Ho was a dick, that was only the most obvious thing about him, not the most important. Most important was, he knew his way round the cybersphere. This was arguably the only thing keeping him alive. If he weren’t occasionally useful, Marcus or Shirley would have battered him into a porridge by now.
But today he wasn’t on the moon because he was watching her as she stepped into his office. He even pulled his earphones off. That put him in Jane Austen territory, etiquette-wise: Louisa had known him to hold a palm up, as if warding off traffic, if he suspected somebody was about to speak when he was doing something more interesting, like popping a cola can, or preparing to exhale.