She says, “And whatever it is, it’ll be causing ructions now.”
Lamb considers this. “Probably spoilt a few evenings round Westminster way,” he concedes.
Among them that of the Prime Minister, who has been called from his dining table, swiftly briefed, and is now cloistered with his Security Minister, Dominic Belwether, who already knows as much or more than the PM, but nevertheless has to listen to him rehearse the following: “So. We have a former Home Secretary shot dead by a gun belonging to First Desk, in First Desk’s home. The gun was found in her safe, which is electronically sealed—not like a burglar could have put his hands on it, even if a burglar could have got into the house, which has a state-of-the-art security system. And we don’t even want to mention motive. I presume you’ve received the same email I did?”
The email which Peter Judd had timed to transmit at 10 p.m., containing details of his dealings with Diana Taverner.
Belwether nods.
“Any truth in it?”
“It’s not public knowledge, but insider chat says Judd received backing from Chinese sources,” says Belwether. “Start-up capital for his public relations firm, and other funds since.”
“State sources?”
“Officially, no. For what that’s worth. And whether any of it ever went Taverner’s way, we don’t know, but it’s possible. As for the suggestion that she used such funding to finance an assassination on Russian soil, well. That will require . . . investigation.”
“But your thoughts?”
“There have been rumours.”
“Christ.”
“And then there’s last night’s events, which we’ve kept out of the papers, but clearly Taverner knew about. If she didn’t in fact orchestrate them.”
The PM says, “Christ,” again. Then: “How many people know about that?”
“One fewer now.”
“Yes, thank you, Dominic, levity is what I need. Are we seriously looking at charging First Desk with murder? It would be a bloodbath.”
“We’re a long way off a murder charge. But she’ll be the focal part of the investigation.”
“And there’s no chance we’re looking at suicide?”
After all, there have, in recent years, been bodies found in fastened luggage, in shallow graves, in securely knotted bondage, all of which have been determined to be inventively pursued suicides; proof, if proof were needed, that even at the outer reaches of despair, the mind can be curiously resourceful as to how it might find peace.
Belwether, reading his boss’s mind, pauses. “Nothing is off the table yet. I mean, the gun in the safe is a nifty trick for a corpse to pull off. But until it’s been established that that was the weapon that killed him . . .”
“The thing is,” the PM says, after a further interval of reflection, “it would be highly undesirable should an investigation of First Desk’s . . . activities reveal anything that might damage our government.”
“This government?” Belwether pauses. “We haven’t done anything yet. Have we?”
Anything wrong, he presumably means.
Instead of answering directly, the PM asks, “Where is she now?”
“Paddington Green.”
“Do we know if she was carrying . . . anything of interest?”
“Such as?”
The PM says, “A microcassette tape.”
“Not,” says Belwether, “as far as I’m aware.”
The PM says nothing.
“Of course,” Belwether continues, “we’ve not reached the stage where she’ll have been asked to surrender articles in her possession.”
“Quite.”
There is a topic being left unaddressed, and Belwether is starting to feel his way around its edges, like a man sizing up a hedge, clippers in hand. To such a man, the existence of an article like a microcassette tape, contents unknown, might represent a challenge: Is this to be incorporated into the topiary, or clipped away, bagged and despatched? Soon enough, he feels, the answer will make itself known.
The PM says, “More immediately, we need someone reliable behind First Desk tomorrow morning. Someone who can pick up the reins without frightening the horses. Any obvious candidates?”
“There’s Oliver Nash, he’d do as a locum. Currently chair of Limitations. He knows what’s what, but . . .”
“Not one of us?”
“Oh, he’s one of us, as far as that goes. He’s just not particularly impressive, unless there’s an inter-Service pie-eating competition scheduled. Other than that, well. There’s always Claude Whelan.”
“Isn’t he soiled goods?”
“He was an FUR, yes,”—and here, at the PM’s raised eyebrow, Belwether elaborates: “fuck-up resignation—but that was kept off-book. So he’s clean hands as far as the records show.”
“And he’ll step up?”
“I’ll call him now.” And Belwether stands, apparently about to leave the room and do just that, but once on his feet he hesitates. “Sir?”
Which is an indication of serious intent: They are on first-name terms, these two.
The PM nods.
Belwether says, “With regard to the Taverner issue. Are you familiar at all with the term ‘Waterproof’?”
And their conversation progresses, in an increasingly circumlocutory manner, while back in Slough House Lamb produces a cigarette from the recesses of his coat and slots it between his lips. He pats himself down, as if in imitation of a border guard performing a perfunctory body search, and when this fails to produce satisfaction looks directly at Catherine, who returns his gaze with one of her own: steady but unforthcoming. Lamb sighs, removes the cigarette from his mouth and holds the end to the bulb of the Anglepoise lamp perched on a pile of phone directories next to his desk. Soon, the cigarette begins to smoulder, filling the room with a more than usually unpleasant aroma.
Catherine shakes her head wearily. “Don’t you ever consider those around you?” she asks.
“Constantly,” says Lamb. “How to make the bastards suffer, mostly.”
“You must be so proud.” She watches, but the process is evidently going to take time, if indeed it ever achieves fruition. “I spoke to Molly earlier. She has a fan club on the hub.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard her stand-up routine has them falling off their chairs.”
She pauses. “All done? No more legless jokes? Fine. She has her fans, and they keep her in the loop. And apparently Al Hawke and Daisy Wessex are off radar. They might as well have turned to smoke.”
“Well, it’s easier for old joes to disappear. They’re not welded to their mobile phones.”
“You’re not surprised.”
“All old joes have had an exit plan. Flight fund, passports, a destination in mind. Because all old joes know the sky can fall on your head.”
“I thought they were broke.”
“A flight fund’s not a nest egg. You use it for one thing only.” He removes the cigarette from the bulb and examines it. The end has blackened and is giving off smoke, but isn’t precisely alight. He takes a drag anyway. His nostrils flare, but the cigarette refuses to go live.
It’s a long time since I’ve had anywhere to walk to, he’d said, but that doesn’t mean he has no flight fund. She wonders what life awaits Lamb once he’s left this one behind. Bee-keeping, beachcombing, barfly?
She says, “So they’re gone.”
“Not yet. They’ll be holed up in an attic, waiting for their moment. When the heat dies down.”
It strikes Catherine that there was never much heat to begin with, given the shroud the Park has dropped on events, a thought not dissimilar to one Avril Potts is entertaining in Oxford. Her journey has been circuitous, involving several changes of train; an observer would think her a batty traveller, unsure of her destination, had the erratic route not established beyond doubt that there was no such observer. Alternative forms of surveillance remain possible, but she can do no more than her best. She has walked from the station, along the towpath, aware of the opportunities this offered—a push, a smothered splash, a head held under the water—but has reached the safe house undrowned and unhindered, and is currently observing it from the bus stop opposite. It has been through a minor war; the front door has been mistreated, and is swathed in police bunting, the bee-coloured tape that indicates official interest. But that interest is, for the moment, in abeyance. The door has been padlocked shut, a level of security that would delay Al or Daisy for twenty seconds or so, and as she watches, she sees—she thinks she sees—movement behind the upstairs window. Once a place of safety is blown, erase it from your mind. A rule that’s second nature to any joe, as is the one about ignoring the rules, because they’re what cause the trouble in the first place. With nowhere else to go, this place of safety might well beckon them, Avril thinks. Somewhere to lay their heads until a plan takes shape. The last place they were known to be is the last place they ought to be found, and it is possible that the upstairs movement is a draught teasing the curtain, but still, she will wait before crossing the road and putting the matter beyond doubt, for she would sooner have these last moments of uncertainty than know for sure that she will never see her friends again; know that their joint story has reached its end, and that all that is left to her now is the sense of loss that comes with looking back, the sense of loss that comes with looking forward. A bus pulls up, and the driver looks at her expectantly, but Avril waves it away. The bus departs and leaves her standing there.