“Shit, no. You’re fuck out of luck there, sonny. They’re terrified you’ll be a death-in-service payout waiting to happen. And given recent events—”
“Shut up, Jackson.”
“—well, one payment down, another looking likely, the kitty’s bare. So no.”
“I said shut up.”
“Yeah, but I’m not your boss any more, remember? So you can’t make me.”
River buried his head in his hands. “For fuck’s sake.”
Cramming the remainder of his supper into his mouth, Lamb crumpled the greaseproof paper into a mess the size of a cricket ball. There being no wastebasket handy, he lobbed it in the direction of Catherine, who, to the surprise of the assembled company, caught it neatly, following which, to the surprise of nobody, she tucked it into her handbag for later disposal. Lamb, meanwhile, lit a cigarette with less stage business than usual.
Shirley said, “So now we all don’t know why River’s here. What about the rest of us? Or are we not gunna find that out either?”
Her tone was detached, Lech noted; a speak-your-weight monotone. As if she were coming down. Their recent clash notwithstanding, Lech didn’t dislike Shirley; had days when he was quite fond of her, once he’d managed to quell all memory of their more accident-prone outings. Her drug-taking was a problem, as was her tendency to regard any given straw as the last available, but her heart was, if not necessarily in the right place, at least somewhere in that vicinity, like a kitchen utensil not actually lost, but not in its proper drawer. So seeing her now, stuffing leaking out of her, it was as if someone had taken a broomstick to a scarecrow. His heart didn’t break, obviously, but he hoped the next person he punched wasn’t her. Slough House had taken enough of a beating already.
Lamb was watching the shuffling man now, with the interest a carrion bird might take in a failing woodland creature, and ignored Shirley’s input. Instead he said, “You’ve seen her?” He was talking to River still.
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“She might pull through.”
“Might,” Lamb repeated. “Someone’s a riverboat gambler.”
“It’s Bart’s. They’re not casting spells and crossing their fingers. She’s got a good chance of making it. That’s what they . . . reckon.”
Lech said, “Shirley asked you a question. We all want to hear the answer. Why are we here? I was on my way home.”
Catherine shook her head, perhaps a warning to Lech to tread carefully. But it was River who answered.
“Because he has a plan,” he said.
“Oh, great. Another plan. Last time somebody had one of those, there were two more of us listening to it.”
Lamb said, “Any more griping, you might find yourself over this wall and into that water. Which, I say water, is ninety per cent goose shit. You’ll come out of it smelling like a French deli.”
“Still be an improvement on your coat,” Lech said, or wanted to. He rubbed his cheek instead, feeling familiar knobbly scar tissue under the stubble.
Roddy Ho looked up and around at the assembled company. The look on his face was familiar: He often wore it when making the transition from his screens to the real world. The kind you might see on a zoo animal, when its attention switched from its swing set, its plants, its own feet, and took in the staring humans. “Thirty-seven,” he said.
This made sense to Lamb, if no one else. “Well, that should be a piece of piss,” he said.
Ho nodded and went back to his screen.
River said, “Are you teaching him to count now? No, forget it. I don’t care what you’re doing. I don’t even want to be here.”
But he gave no sign of departure.
Lamb said, “Yeah, sorry to interrupt your crowded schedule of doing sod all.” The man across the way had reached a corner and paused, holding himself upright with one hand to the bricks. “Any of you had the Met knocking doors down?”
“Nope.”
“Just the Dogs, then. Hand-picked by Taverner. Who’s painting the walls her own colour.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the official story of what went down won’t bear any resemblance to the clusterfuck it actually was. Which means she can’t just photocopy the paperwork from last time you lot tied your collective balls to a locomotive, but that’s her problem. Ours is, we don’t know what the official story will be, but you can bet your sorry arses you’ll come out of it looking like the sad fuckwits you are. Only actually culpable, rather than just fucking morons.”
“So why aren’t we chained up in a basement?” Shirley asked.
“In working hours? You should be so lucky. But from Taverner’s point of view, probably because she’s looking at too many loose ends. Principally, Judd.”
“He’s got something on her,” she said.
“Something big enough that she wants him dead,” added River.
“To be fair, we’ve all been there. But yeah, he’s her problem. Whatever story she comes up with, she’s got to lock it in place before he decides to detonate the firecracker he shoved up her arse last year.”
“Do you know what it is?”
Lamb’s gaze rested heavily on River. “No.”
River said, “So why hasn’t Judd, uh, lit his firecracker already?”
“Either he’s biding his time or he’s formulating demands.” Lamb tapped a finger against his cigarette, and sparks scattered. “It was the crumblies did for our two, right?”
“Al Hawke shot Ash. Daisy stabbed Louisa.” River touched his throat. “But Hawke was aiming for Judd, who’d just shouldered Daisy to the ground. And Daisy probably thought she was saving Hawke, because Louisa jumped him.” He closed his eyes briefly. Then said, “They were there for the same reason as us, to stop their friend committing murder.”
“Shame any of you bothered. But it doesn’t matter who pulled whose trigger, this is Taverner’s fuck-up. Anyone else, she’d be toast. But this is Taverner. She could wander into a fairy tale and come back out with hi-def footage of Goldilocks going down on Daddy Bear, so who knows what leverage she’s got on Number Ten’s latest sock monkey. And if she walks on this, anyone with a clue about what happened last night is in her sights. And you all know how that story ends.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Diplomacy.” He put a cigarette behind his ear, a backup in case the one in his mouth disappointed him. “We bring our principals together and have them talk through their differences. And reach a conclusion that satisfies all parties.”
“Principals?”
“Taverner and Judd.”
Shirley said, “What, get them to kiss and make out?”
“Up,” said Catherine.
Lamb said, “You know me. If I can’t bring a little sweetness and light into the world, I go to bed unhappy.”
River and Lech exchanged a look. “Are you having a stroke too?” River asked.
“You have a better idea?”
“How do you plan to get them together?” Lech said. “Given that Judd knows Taverner just tried to have him whacked.”
“Yeah, that’s where the diplomacy comes in.”
“Sounds like that’s where hostage taking comes in.”
Lamb said, “Well, you could always decide you’re happy with the way things have worked out. Or do you want me to count heads again and come up two short?”
Shirley said, “When did talking things over solve anything?”
“It’s your negative attitude that’s holding you back in life, you know. Well, that and being a short-arse with a bad haircut.”
River shook his head and leaned over the wall to study the water below. Little of it was visible beneath its shroud of algae, though a duck was unzipping a trail behind it, zigzagging slowly from one side to the other.