“It’s not complicated. You do something for me, and I clear young River’s path back. Which might not be what you want, and it’s nothing I give two damns about, but it’s what he’s desperate for and we both know it.”
“Back to Regent’s Park?”
“Christ, no. To Slough House. Where he belongs.”
“Like I say. A total pleasure.”
This time, she got a few yards.
“Wait.”
She waited.
“You’re very sure of yourself.”
“You’re the one wanted to meet.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m offering blank cheques.”
“Suit yourself.”
Another yard. Then Taverner said:
“He’ll have to have training wheels fitted. And unlearn everything Lamb’s taught him.”
This time, Sid turned. Her smile as she approached the bench might have looked sweet, to anyone but Taverner.
“Keep talking,” she said.
“This is fucked.”
Which was Al speaking. Avril didn’t necessarily approve of the phrasing, but she couldn’t argue with his assessment.
“It is what it is,” she said. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to say these days?”
“Yes,” he said. “But what it is is, it’s fucked.”
Having risen late, they were showered, dressed, hungover. CC had spent the night but was up and out now, gathering provisions; even so, the pair were huddled in the backyard, a tiny breathing space for potted plants and a bin, so they could formulate a plan, or lament its absence, without Daisy overhearing. If the muffled conversation of the pipes scaling the wall was a guide, she was currently in the bathroom.
Avril’s head was clanging too—her body regretting the Bushmills. She said, “Maybe the Park will do the right thing. There’s always a first time. And we could all do with some extra income. CC’s not wrong about that.”
“I’m not a charity case,” Al said.
None of them were. That wasn’t her point. Poverty came in different sizes, and it wasn’t like they were using food banks, but she, at least, was browsing the Reduced to Clear shelf when there was no one around to notice. They weren’t poor the way poor people were poor, but they were poor the way middle-class people were, and that felt poor enough—four former agents, a fistful of medals between them, none of which could be displayed in public, and their joint assets wouldn’t pay a deposit on a flat in central London. With their degrees they could have gone into banking, politics, industry, and it was bolted-on they’d be looking at a twilight spent in second homes on the coast, the odd cruise, instead of shivering each time inflation took a bite from their pensions. None of which made CC’s plan more sensible. But it gave her—gave all of them—a vested interest in its outcome.
Besides, it was happening. If she retained anything of her training, it was to bend to the inevitable rather than break herself against it.
Al said, “We all love the old idiot, but this is dangerous, not the quirky caper he seems to think. From what I’ve heard, Diana Taverner’s ruthless. You think she’ll stand for a half-arsed blackmail attempt?”
“But there are four of us, as he pointed out. Safety in numbers.”
“Or a buy-one-get-three-free tragedy. If we’re all in the same car that goes off the same cliff . . .”
Then it’s not a string of coincidental deaths. Just one sorry accident.
She said, “First Desk won’t sanction mass wet work just to avoid headlines. It’s not the seventies any more.”
“Doesn’t have to be. CC thinks he’s running an op, that he’s got his old crew back together, but we don’t work like that any more. Christ, I need a piss break on a supermarket shop. Can you see the four of us scamming the Park? And then there’s Daisy.”
Yes, there was Daisy. Who had suffered most in the aftermath of Pitchfork; who had quit the Park within a year, an extended leave of absence—medical reasons—becoming permanent. She’d then dropped off the map, and to Avril’s eternal shame it had been months before she noticed, so weighed down had she been by her own baggage. Coming to terms with the human cost behind a supposedly successful operation; learning to live with the nights during which Dougie Malone’s face, words, acts, hovered like a mobile over her sleepless head. Ever since, the knowledge that Daisy had spent that time lost inside the ever-diminishing circles of her despair had added to the baggage: all those unanswered calls she had allowed herself to forget about, the ignored emails put down to Daisy being in one of her moods. It had taken Al to bring her to her senses. She’s moved out of her flat, he’d told her. I don’t know where she is. And all the reasons she’d given herself for Daisy’s silence had melted.
Her first port of call had been the Park. We have a duty of care, she had said. Daisy’s one of ours.
Not any more she isn’t, came the reply.
“. . . Avvy?”
“I’m thinking.”
A noise from the front door was CC returning from the shops. Lack of noise from the pipes was Daisy, no longer in the bathroom.
She said, “Remember what they used to tell us before we headed into joe country? Nine times out of ten, nothing happens. Odds are, this will be one of those times. The Park’ll think CC’s a crank and ignore him. We wait it out a few days, then go home. Everything back to normal.”
“I can only admire your optimism.”
“And Al? Two words. Incontinence pants.”
“Not living that down, am I?”
“Not while I draw breath.”
They went back inside, leaving the plants to plot amongst themselves.
Taverner said, “Someone’s trying to extort money from the Park.”
It took Sid a moment to catch on to this, as if a lifeline had been thrown which went wide, and her arms were still flailing about. “What?”
“Extortion. You know, give us all your money or we’ll hoist dirty washing up your flagpole.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I certainly can. You think it’s the first time this has happened?”
“Hardly. But why tell me? What are the Dogs for, if not to sic on trespassers?”
The Dogs: the Service’s police force, ostensibly to keep personnel on the straight and narrow, but all too often used to nip their ankles to remind them who was boss.
Taverner said, “That thing about using a sledgehammer on a nutcase? I wouldn’t want to be accused of going in heavy on a pensioner. No, this can be defused with tact and sensitivity.”
Which suggested that Taverner wouldn’t be doing it herself. “And you want me as your go-between?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“But the last time ended well.” She couldn’t stop herself rubbing her head, feeling the groove, like a dancer who can’t resist the beat.
“Don’t underestimate yourself. Just because you screwed up once doesn’t mean you’ll do it again.”
“I didn’t screw up, I got shot. There’s a difference.”
“If you say so. Doesn’t look a huge one from the gallery.” Taverner raised fingers to her lips, as if expecting a cigarette to materialise, then seemed to realise what she was doing. She lowered her hand. “But that’s by the by. You’re empathetic, you get on well with people. I know this. It’s in your file.”
“I’m touched.”
“So in the absence of any other candidate, you’ll do.”
Sid said, “You said pensioner. You know who’s doing this?”
“I know who he is.”
“He told you?”
“That would be lax, wouldn’t it? No, the demand came through anonymously on an email account set up for the purpose. On a public access computer in a public library.”
“Which was traceable.”