Last night, three drinks down, CC had offered a toast: that its subject roast in hell.
“Dougie Malone, the nastiest bastard who ever walked the earth. Who helped bring about the arrest of thirty-four terrorists bent on wreaking carnage both sides of the Irish Sea, thereby saving the lives of innocent civilians—and when he wasn’t doing that, damn his hide, was running his own little nutting squad with our help and protection, whose victims we could have forewarned, or offered escape routes.”
His glass trembled.
“So here’s to the numbers game, played for the greater good. And here’s to the nameless heroes who put Malone down. But most of all, here’s to Dougie dead. May our Pitchfork even now be tossed on a bigger one, and the devil himself be giggling at the sight.”
He downed his whiskey. Daisy had started working on hers before he was halfway through. Avril and Al, though, held their hands.
It was Al that CC focused on. “Come on, Alastair. Empty your glass.”
“I’ll not drink to another man’s death.”
“Not even Malone’s? Can you think of a man deserved it more?”
“Leave him be,” said Avril.
“What is this, a mutiny? An uprising?”
“No more than you deserve. Jesus, what were you thinking? What have you done? We’ll wind up in a pit of sorrows.”
“Not if we’re careful.”
“And I’ll not see Daisy back in a dark place.”
“I can speak for myself,” Daisy said.
“Of course. I didn’t mean to—”
“And I’ve said we should do it.”
“But Avvy’s right,” Al said. “Sorry, love. But this is a door better left closed. There’s no knowing what’ll come crawling through it.”
Our own past lives, thought Avril. Our own misdeeds.
“I don’t care,” said Daisy. “CC’s right. They owe us.”
She glanced around, causing Avril to do likewise. At that moment the safe house stood for all of their dwellings; its doors too near their opposite walls, its ceilings too near the floors. When you walked up its stairs, you had to tuck your elbows in. This was what they’d been left with; any greater ambitions they might have had had been packed into storage long ago. It was true—the Park owed them. But collecting on that debt could bring all their roofs crashing down.
CC said, “I was careful. I used a newly created email address on a public, anonymous computer. The Service can track it to source, but all they’ll find is ‘guest user.’ We’re secure.”
“You sent a copy of the tape?”
“An extract. Enough that First Desk will know what it is.” He had recorded several minutes’ worth onto his phone and attached the file to his email, he told them, proud of his expertise.
In the absence of other comfort, they’d drunk to that.
Light was busy in the room now, and traffic amassing its battalions. Daisy was sleeping, or pretending well enough. Avril slipped out of bed and shuffled her feet into unlaced trainers. The morning might be packed with more than the usual amount of regret, but it had to be got through, same as always.
“Guess what?” Shirley asked.
“No,” said Louisa, and carried on past the kitchen, up the stairs, into her office. Everything there reminded her of yesterday, and foreshadowed tomorrow. Hanging her bag on her chair, she booted her desktop up—how many people in London, slow horses not included, still used desktops? Maybe eight. Shirley entered without knocking. “I said no.”
Shirley closed the door. “Lamb’s got Roddy hacking Doctor Desk’s emails.”
“I don’t do cryptic crosswords and I haven’t had coffee yet. Bugger off and annoy someone else.”
“Julian Tanner, that’s his real name.”
“Is whose real name? No, forget it. Bugger off.”
“Doctor Desk’s.”
Doctor Desk was the ex officio nickname of whoever was holding Regent’s Park’s stethoscope.
Louisa had more than enough to be getting on with. First and least was her actual job: Lamb’s latest attempt to see if the human head might explode when subjected to too much useless information. Prison was known to radicalise younger inmates; no one was holding the headlines over that insight. What interested Lamb was the number of anti-radicalisation groups that had consequently sprung into being, their attentions focused on incarcerated youth, offering support, alternatives, help upon release—anything to divert them from the path to extremism.
“Sounds a good idea,” she’d said.
“Yeah, the thing about good ideas? There’s always some fucker’ll bend them out of shape.”
Because—his view—if you had an interest in recruiting halfway-radicalised hotheads, getting the prison system to identify them for you sounded like a shortcut. Or maybe that’s just your twisted outlook, she’d wanted to say, but why bother? You’d have more luck talking Lamb into changing his shirt than his opinion. Especially when clinging to it meant him keeping on doing nothing, and someone else pulling a whole new wagonload of mind-currying paperwork.
So that was the job in hand—due diligence checks on almost certainly legitimate social enterprises—while a more pressing concern was running through last night’s conversation with Devon Welles. The door’s open. Good to know.
Meanwhile her actual door was closed, and Shirley leaning against it. “You think there’s something wrong with him?”
“With Lamb?”
“Yeah.”
“How long have you got?”
There was a muffled knock, and Shirley edged aside. “Okay if I come in?” Lech said, coming in, then noticed Shirley. “Or am I interrupting?”
“No it isn’t. But no, you’re not.”
“That’s actually ruder to me than it is to you,” Shirley explained to Lech, “because I was already here.”
“Would you both get lost? I have work to do.”
“Lamb’s got Roddy hacking Doctor Desk’s emails,” Shirley said.
“You think there’s something wrong with him?” Lech asked, hanging his bag on the nearest chair.
Louisa closed her eyes and counted to three. Nothing changed. “Why would Lamb wanting Doctor Desk’s emails mean there’s anything wrong with him?” she asked wearily.
“Because that’s how he operates,” said Shirley.
“It is how he operates,” Lech confirmed.
“If you want to crash in my room, the least you can do is not agree with Shirley.”
Ash appeared. “Is this a meeting?”
“No.”
“Then how come you’re . . . meeting?”
“It happened by accident,” Louisa said. “And it’s over. All of you, out. I’ve a phone call to make.”
There was grumbling but also exodus, an Old Testament coupling. She’d thought she was about to call Devon, but it turned out she was wrong. River answered on the third ring. “Louisa.”
“How’s the patient?”
“I’m . . . okay. Thanks.”
“Had your all-clear yet?”
Which would come from Doctor Desk. If Lamb was hijacking the medic’s email traffic, the verdict on River was the probable cause. Not that Lamb would care, but he’d want to be first to know.
“Not yet. But it’ll be okay. I’m fine.”
The flatness of his tone suggested otherwise.
It occurred to Louisa, not for the first time, that River might be her oldest friend. Partly this was due to the emotional downsizing Slough House required—if you didn’t shutter your horizons, the view would drive you mad—but not only that. There might have been something there, once, and its ghost lingered. “No,” she said. “You’re bothered. Want to talk about it?”