“You know where he was before he arrived at the . . . hanging gardens?”
“Lamb? No.”
“He went to see Devon Welles.”
“We met him,” said Shirley.
“He used to be a Dog,” said Lech.
“More than that. He used to be the Dog in charge of Taverner’s home security.”
“Ah,” said Lech. “You think he’s actually going to burn down her house?”
“He can barely light a cigarette without someone finding him a lighter,” said Shirley.
“Yes, but that’s the thing about Lamb,” said Catherine. “When he wants a thing done, he can always get someone to do it for him.”
“Which in this case is River and Roddy,” said Lech.
“Yeah,” said Shirley. “What could go wrong?”
Here’s a funny thing: If you put on a high-vis jacket, you became invisible. It was one of those what-do-you-call-’ems: a parasite, paraglide, paradox. Roddy, who had funny bones, could have got a whole set out of this if he had a mind to—he’d watched enough Netflix specials to know how it was done—but right now he had other eggs to fry: two cameras to render inoperative, and it was fast creeping up on eight o’clock. Notting Hill was aflurry with pedestrian life, plus the usual amount of traffic; everywhere you looked there were people in motion, and not one of them paying attention to a neon-jacketed bod hefting a tyre jack, because those very details made him look like a working man, someone on his way to attend to something; one of the unsung heroes of the city, whose daily grind kept London’s wheels turning. A closer look would have dispelled that impression, sure—this was Roddy Ho, not some semi-schooled muppet who couldn’t get a proper job—but to anyone with their mind on other things, a man in a high-vis jacket, even a Roddy Ho in a high-vis jacket, was perinatal, perineal, peripheral to events. Roddy could climb a lamppost unseen, he could smash-and-grab a jeweller’s unnoticed, let alone take out a camera. He was the invisible man, without the bandages. He’d even dispensed with the one protecting his tattoo: The hummingbird was ready to fly.
“Are the Village People a thing again?” someone asked in passing.
Roddy checked his watch: 7:55.
The first camera was fixed to the top of a gatepost, there to monitor tradesmen, religious nuts and charity bandits entering the apartment block it belonged to, but would inevitably catch passing vehicles. Maybe seven feet off the ground, which would have worried lesser mortals, but Roddy was on a mission, and this didn’t look any harder than your average slam dunk—he’d never actually played basketball, but college kids played it in the States, so how hard could it be?
His breathing was a trial, though. His heart was beating fast.
He stopped on the pavement, knelt and laid the jack aside while he fiddled with a shoelace, or that’s what it would look like to the civilian suckers. Obviously his laces didn’t need tying: Where are we, dude, 2009? But he needed a moment. The thing about Roddy Ho—one of the things: he was a man of many facets—but one of the things about Roddy, he moved among people who didn’t see below the surface. To the slow horses, he was the RodMan, the Rodinator; give him a task, it was good as done. His presence was like money in the bank; anything they needed, he could provide. King of the keyboard, prince of the city, boss of the boulevards. But in reality, man, he had his moments. He was tender like that. He had a vulnerable side. All confidence on the outside, because he’d never failed yet, but that didn’t mean he was arrogant . . . They talked about imposter syndrome, and fact was, Roddy had that in spades—constantly aware there were others out there who’d love to take his place: to walk in his shoes and wear his shades. And that could get you down, brother. Sister, that could wear you out.
Good job he was invisible right now, because if these folk round here could see him, it would break their ordinary hearts.
But the hummingbird knows. And this particular hummingbird knew it had a job to do: for Louisa, for Ash, for all Roddy’s fallen. Smash the camera, blind the streets, and let Lamb’s plan unfold. What are we waiting for? We are waiting for . . . now.
He grabbed the jack and leaped into the air from a crouching start. Sheer poetry. Didn’t quite rhyme, though, in the sense that while his swing of the jack did cause damage, breaking a chunk of sandstone from the gatepost, it didn’t make contact with the camera, which remained intact and watchful, its little red eye undimmed. Roddy hit the ground splay-legged, and couldn’t prevent an oath escaping as pain shot through both ankles:
“Skywalker on a bike!”
And here’s another funny thing: The invisibility that a high-vis jacket bestows only goes so far.
The car had picked up pace, and they were moving at what passed for speed in central London. Judd was mostly watching River Cartwright’s reflection, and it was giving little away. But Welles’s words were fresh in mind: Sort the situation out. Or wait for her to try again. The last thing he needed was to spend the rest of forever looking over his shoulder, so Welles had a point: He needed to sort this out. So he’d sit here and let Cartwright deliver him to Taverner’s place, where he’d enumerate the advantages of the status quo, and while doing that he’d decide whether or not to throw her to the wolves. If she was all regrets and misunderstandings, he’d know she was plotting a second move; if she was icy calm and unapologetic, he’d know she’d altered course. Either way, he’d kick things off with a warning. In olden days, when life crawled by in black and white, he’d have lodged a letter with his solicitor, to be opened in the event of his death; less histrionically, in the here and now, an email detailed enough to fuck Diana over would be despatched to various parties at 10 p.m., if he didn’t cancel it first. That should fetch a little focus.
Meanwhile, it was important to remember that he was Peter fucking Judd, and last night had been an anomaly. The things that happened around him that he wasn’t in charge of were things like who was getting coffee, and where was the nearest dry cleaners. Stuff the little folk dealt with. So a not insignificant item on today’s agenda would be an assurance that when the official history of last night’s misadventure was written, sealed in a box file and buried in a cabinet deep in the bowels of the Park, it would reflect the courage he’d shown under fire. It was important to curate such records sensitively—if he’d wanted history to be an accurate depiction of events, particularly those he was involved in, he wouldn’t have led a life in politics. He’d have been, I don’t know, a fucking teacher or something.
On the pavements now were unmistakable signs of recent disturbance: people shaking heads, bewildered, laughing. Some damage had been done to a gatepost. A policeman was talking to a group of those selfsame little folk whose career path it was to either smooth Judd’s way in life or applaud him from a distance, and then they turned the corner and it was all forgotten. Cartwright said something indistinct, but he was talking to his satnav, and then he was pulling to a halt. Judd had only been here once before—some half-remembered social event; Diana hosted them about as often as pandas mated—but he recognised it well enough: the door an anonymous black, the frontage severe.
He said, “I just go in, do I?”
“Door’s open,” Cartwright said.
He could see that from where he was sitting: a sliver of liminal light around its frame.
Judd undid his seatbelt. “If you’re expecting a tip—”
“Don’t take sweeties from strangers?” River suggested.
“There’s a boy.”
He got out, slipped between two parked cars and stepped onto the pavement. Before he’d got that far, Cartwright was moving on.