“Tell that fucker to get out here.”
“Yes, my friend—who’s a civilian, by the way—he’s sorry about what happened back there. He’s just had some bad news. He’s still processing it. So you can’t blame him for overreacting.”
“Nobody’s blaming anyone for anything,” said the older Dog. “It’s just that some of us are going to put the rest of us on the ground.”
“I can tell you’re upset. But before this gets out of hand, could you please call the Park? They’ll tell you, this is all a misunderstanding.”
“Can’t get a signal,” the younger Dog said.
His phone rang.
“Can’t hear a fucking thing, either. Being punched in the face does that to you.”
River was getting out of the car now too. One day she’d suggest a course of action, he’d take her advice, and then they’d both sprout wings or something. Meanwhile they were in a field with a couple of trained thugs he’d recently sucker-punched, and she doubted they’d remember she’d been otherwise occupied at the time. Or it wouldn’t matter. Men didn’t like women seeing them bested in a fight.
The younger one tucked his phone away. “You want to try that again?” he said to River. “This time while I’m ready?”
River looked at the older Dog. “Fair warning. If he starts singing ‘I’m Just Ken,’ this’ll get ugly.”
“You’re very funny. Let me guess what you do for an encore. Spit teeth?”
“Jesus Christ!” said Louisa. She looked at River. “This is a good use of your time? I thought you were worried about Sid.” And then at the Dogs. “And you two, what the actual fuck? You’re supposed to be upholding, I dunno, law and order? Maintaining standards of conduct among Park operatives? Because you’re not exactly an advert for the Service, are you? Getting ready to beat up a civilian because he got a lucky punch in.”
“She wasn’t paying attention,” said River. “Or she’d know that was a class uppercut.”
The older one was shaking his head. “No it wasn’t,” he said. “This is an uppercut.” He demonstrated with his right fist. “What you did, you just flailed about, basically.” He did this too, making it look like he was shaking out a duster. “She’s right. It was a lucky punch.”
“Seriously, does he look like someone I’d need to be lucky to punch? He’s actively—”
“Fuck you!”
“—begging for it.”
The young Dog advanced on River, who dropped, scooped up a clod of earth and tossed it at him. He caught it neatly, then froze to the spot.
“See?” River said to the older Dog. “He’s standing there like a crash-test dummy. I could ring for an Uber before hitting him. Or organise a mortgage. He’d just wait for me to finish.”
The older Dog was shaking his head. “I don’t train them,” he said. “There’s a rota. We’re partnered randomly.”
“I feel your pain.”
“I still plan to kick your head in.”
“In case it matters,” Louisa said, “I haven’t gone anywhere. Also, I’m cammed up.” She tapped her sunflower brooch. “So smile. Everyone’s up in the cloud, and how delighted are your bosses gunna be when they take a look at this?”
The two men exchanged a glance.
“And you know where bad Dogs go, don’t you?” River said.
“That’s the difference between you and me,” the younger Dog said. “I was offered the choice between Slough House and cleaning shit off blankets, I’d take the blanket any day.”
“Well, we all find our level.”
The Dog took a step forward, but his companion put a restraining hand on his arm. At the same time, his phone rang. He answered without taking his eyes off River. “Yeah. Okay. Okay. Understood.” He finished the call with his hand still on the other man’s sleeve, but it was to River he spoke. “To be continued.”
“Definitely,” the other Dog said.
“Let’s make an appointment,” River said. “Put it in your calendar, ring it in red. It’ll still come as a surprise when I punch your lights out.”
“Get in the car, you,” Louisa told him. To the Dogs, she said, “Let’s write this off to experience, yeah? Trust me, he’ll have walked into a lamp-post before the day’s out. Save you slapping him.”
Neither man replied. Both returned to their car.
River said, “How many Dogs does it take to change a light bulb? Answer, no one asks a Dog to change a light bulb.”
“Are you finished?”
“Because they’re too fucking stupid. I’m finished now.” He pointed to her sunflower brooch. “Is that really a camera?”
“Now who’s fucking stupid? And what was that about? You’re Jack Reacher suddenly? Jesus. You’re lucky you’re not being scraped off a shovel.”
“Yeah, well, they decided not to mess with me, didn’t they? Us, I mean.”
“Because they were called off. Lamb’s work, probably. And not because he hates the thought of you getting hurt. It’s because I told him Sid was missing. You know what he’s like when a joe’s in trouble.”
His face crumpled.
“She is in trouble, isn’t she?” Louisa said.
“She might be dead,” said River.
I’m dead, thought Sid.
Brand new iPhone, not a scratch. Cherry-red cover, because why not? A present from River, and for some while now—up to and including yesterday—any time River saw Sid on her phone, he’d make indirect, or sometimes direct, reference to that fact. And now she’d lost it . . . I’m dead.
Then again: Been there, done that. At least this time she wasn’t bleeding from a head wound on a pavement in the rain.
When Daisy had attacked her, the sweet old lady had been holding a blade, and knew how to work it. The sharp end had been pressed to Sid’s throat, and the sweet old lady was saying words. Sid had been too shocked to hear them. This is it. This is all there is. And then the blade was gone and she was being helped to her feet, and other, more intelligible words were on offer, like Sorry and Are you hurt? and Can you stand?
She could and did, but was almost immediately swept off her feet again, this time by a wave of anger large enough that she might find herself in a tree later, miles inland. But first she locked sights on Daisy, who was no longer holding a blade and appeared unperturbed by her actions. “Try that again and I will slap the snot out of you.”
The bigger man stepped forward. “That’s enough.”
“You too.” Sid was blazing. The night the Russians took her she had thrust a stiletto upwards through a man’s jaw, so the question of what she would do in such circumstances had forever been resolved. If this sweet old lady attacked her again, Sid would turn her lights out.
Maybe something of this was written on her face, because the big man said, “Lay a hand on Daisy, I’ll shoot you.”
“Al!” This had been the other woman, who turned out to be called Avril.
Charles Cornell Stamoran was checking Sid’s tote bag, possibly for weapons. He removed the envelope Taverner had given her. “This is for me?”
She nodded.
He unsealed it and looked inside, without revealing its contents to the others. No one seemed surprised. A moment passed. Then he said to Sid, “Sit down. Avvy, you drove here?”
“We came by train.”
“Good. Now we clean house. Al, keep an eye on her. And no one’s shooting anyone.”
“Like no one’ll trace your email, right?”
“We’ll do post-mortems later.”
So there Sid had sat, while the team cleaned house—obviously a team, used to such removals. The way they split tasks without conferring. The way they didn’t talk while doing them.