“You can laugh. But if he doesn’t get fired, you’ll be finding desk space for him.”
“Up your bum. I’ve barely room for the moody tossers I’m saddled with now.”
“What about Cartwright’s desk?”
“I’ve converted it into a shrine.”
“You’re missing him.”
“I’ve had kidney stones I miss more. And as for your latest reject, No Khan Do? If it wasn’t against the rules, I’d give her back.” He looked at what was left of his second cone, grimaced, tossed it over his shoulder and visibly ran a tongue round his gums. “She’s trouble.”
“What’s she done?”
“Passive-aggressive shit mostly. But I can read the signs. It’s like when pets start disappearing, and you know a serial killer’s moved into the area. Or a Korean takeaway.”
She shook her head. “Normally, there’s nothing I like better than listening to you philosophise, but in case you hadn’t noticed it’s the middle of the morning, and we’ve both got jobs to do.” She paused, reconsidered. “I’ve got jobs to do. You’ve got a hard day’s dossing about to be getting on with. So what did you mean last night by things being complicated? And bear in mind I’m not in the mood for games.”
Lamb scratched his head, and when his hand reappeared it was holding a cigarette. “Yeah, funny how that works out. Because when you are in the mood I’ve got Claude Whelan turning my staff over, looking for a Downing Street pointy-head.”
“If you’re after an apology, sod off. Claude was being a pest and you’ve got all the time in the world. If I annoyed just one of you, I call that a result.”
“So it had nothing to do with your jolly at the Ivans’ HQ yesterday evening?”
“. . . With my what?”
“Which you left at 8:05.”
“You were watching?”
“Well, not personally. But I like to keep an eye on my crew’s work-life balance. And if it looks like life’s winning, I put my thumb on the scales.”
He showed her the thumb he meant. It was visibly sticky.
She shuddered, and said, “So you had them watch the embassy coverage.”
“Well. I only had to get one of them do it, and the rest stuck around in case they missed anything. MOFO, they call it.”
“FOMO.”
He shrugged. “Either way, it’d be what they also call sad, if it wasn’t so fucking hilarious.”
“Jackson—”
“And how was Vassily? I met him once. Long time back. He’d just graduated to Spook Street after working as a gangster’s blunt instrument. I could tell he was destined for greatness.”
“How did you know he was there?”
“I didn’t,” said Lamb. “But I do now.”
He rummaged around in his pockets and produced a plastic lighter.
“What’s going on?” said Diana.
“Well, that’s a long story. And it requires a flashback, a voiceover, and all sorts of technical shit.”
“What on earth are you—?”
“Not to mention a gallon of coffee. There’s a kiosk down the alley.” He gestured with his cigarette in that direction. “Fair’s fair. I bought the ice creams.”
It was worth it just to have ten minutes’ headspace. Diana spent it sieving through what she knew about Sophie de Greer: that she’d worked with Anthony Sparrow, been namechecked by Vassily Rasnokov, been missing for barely four days, and was evidently at the centre of some new clusterfuck, details as yet unknown. Unknown to her, anyway. Apparently Lamb had an inkling.
Which, she thought, carrying four large black coffees back to the bench, meant trouble coming down the tracks.
Upon her return Lamb grunted, accepted three of the coffees, glared at the one she kept for herself, farted leisurely, set the cups in a row, prised the lid off the first, farted again, and said, “Once upon a time—”
“Oh, please. Spare me the grace notes.”
“Shut up and listen.”
Act I
Monkey Business
It had started earlier that week: Lech Wicinski and John Bachelor meeting for a drink in the upstairs bar at The Chandos on St. Martin’s Lane; Lech late, because he didn’t want to come; Bachelor early, having nowhere else to be. These circumstances combined to allow Bachelor to be two drinks up, or down, by the time Lech arrived to pay for his third. The older man was drinking G&T, and had some patter prepared about how more thought went into the T than the G, but Lech wasn’t listening. He was worried Bachelor was going to ask if he could move in—“just for a day or two, until I get a new place sorted.” He’d been guilt-tripped before into letting Bachelor sleep on the sofa, which was how come Bachelor had ended up looking after Lech while he sweated out the virus, a circumstance pretty certain to be mentioned when the favour was asked. So Lech would have to say yes, and a few days would turn into a fortnight, and he’d end up growing old in the company of John Bachelor, spending his evenings in dismal pubs, his weekends counting loose change, his Christmases watching The Great Escape. Simplest thing would be to let Bachelor finish framing his request, then just leave his door keys on the table and take a header through the window. Probably why Bachelor had chosen the upstairs bar. This sort of thing must happen to him a lot.
“Fever Tree, anyway.” Bachelor was winding down. “Wouldn’t have thought that a selling point these days.”
Lech dragged himself into the conversation, almost. “I think it’s . . . Never mind.”
“How are you?”
“Fine, John. Just fine.”
“No, uh, relapses, nothing like that?”
“Like I said. Fine.”
Though the truth was, being with Bachelor tended to bring the worst of it back; not so much the painful breathing—that sensation of being slowly vacuum-packed—as the fear that this was how it would all end: in a rented flat, furnished to nobody’s liking; his companion a broken-down spook whose career made Lech’s own look like a Martini advert. Would his life unfold before his eyes? The choice between death and reliving Slough House was a little close to call. And then he was past the point of deliberation, and in his fevered dreams Slough House figured largely, its rooms, its manky staircase, all swollen out of proportion, as if he were wandering through the internal organs of some giant, diseased beast. Lech had never known whether to trust the feeling of having a recurring dream, whether you actually slipped in and out of the same narrative, or whether it was one of the brain’s little tricks; that hoary old contrivance déjà vu endowing never-before encountered scenes with the artificial familiarity of a shopping centre or a Vin Diesel movie. But this time, he was sure, his dream-state had been the same each time, as if every trip to a waking surface had left the gates open behind him. He’d find himself in bed, his head on a pillow, a glass tipped to his lips—Drink this—and for a moment he’d be here in the world. And then he’d sink back to those engorged offices with their frightening colour scheme. From overhead came thumping, as if a trapped lizard were beating its huge tail against a boulder. A summons, Lech knew, but not one he wanted to answer.
Long story short, after a while he got better.
The things that didn’t kill you made you stronger, apparently, though that was a lie; truth was, too many things left you still alive but broken and disturbed, and it was better not to experience them. But he’d experienced this. And what he’d wondered since was how bad he’d have had to become before Bachelor sought medical help, or would the older man have just kept tipping water into him until he stopped swallowing, then hunkered down in the flat until bailiffs turned up? He knew, from drunken conversations, that something similar had happened before. But Lech wasn’t proud of such thoughts; even less so when he recalled the look on Bachelor’s face when he’d said I think I’ve got it. Instead of fear or alarm, he’d read there only concern.