“What are you up to, Jackson?”
He was all innocence and airy gesture: Him? He didn’t even have to speak. Just wave his cigarette about a bit.
“Katinsky’s strictly from the shallow end,” Taverner said. “A cipher clerk, with no information we didn’t already have from other, better informed sources. We only hung onto him in case we needed swaps. Are you seriously telling me you’re developing an interest?”
“You’ve looked him up, then.”
“I get word you’ve been rousting nobodies from the Dark Ages, of course I looked him up. This is because he mentioned Alexander Popov, isn’t it? Jesus, Jackson, are you so bored you’re digging up myths? Whatever operation Moscow was thinking of running way back when, it’s as relevant now as a cassette tape. We won that war, and we’re too busy losing the next one to have a rematch. Go back to Slough House, and give thanks you’re not in the firing line any more.”
“Like you, you mean?”
“You think it’s easy, Second Desk? Okay, it might not be life behind the Wall. But try doing my job with both hands tied, and you’ll find out what stress feels like, I guarantee it.”
She stared at him, underlining how serious she was, but he held it easily enough, and wasn’t bothered about letting her see the smile itching onto his lips. Lamb had done both field and desk, and he knew which had you gasping awake at the slightest noise in the dark. But he’d yet to meet a suit who didn’t think themselves a samurai.
Taverner looked away. A pair of joggers panting down the opposite towpath broke apart for a woman pushing a pram. Only once the pair had jogged on, and the pram was approaching the incline up to the bridge, did she continue. “Tearney’s on the warpath,” she said.
Lamb said, “Being on the warpath’s Tearney’s job description. If she wasn’t rattling a sabre, them down the corridor would think she wasn’t up to it.”
“Maybe she isn’t.”
Lamb ran five fat fingers through hair that needed a rinse. “I hope you’re not about to wax political. Because, and I can’t stress this enough, I don’t give a flying fuck who’s stabbing who in the back at the Park.”
But Taverner was venting, and not about to interrupt herself. “Leonard Bradley wasn’t just her rabbi, he was also her Westminster mole. Now she doesn’t have any allies down the corridor, as you put it, and you know how jumpy she gets. So she doesn’t want any boats rocked or any strings plucked. In fact, she doesn’t want anything happening at all, good or bad. Bring her the next Bin Laden’s head on a plate, she’d be worried where the plate came from, in case someone claimed it on expenses.”
“She’s gunna love this, then.”
“Love what?”
“I’m planning an op.”
Taverner waited for the punchline.
“Is that you being quietly impressed?”
“No, this is me not believing my ears. Were you listening to a word I said?”
“Not really. I was just waiting for you to finish.” He flicked his cigarette end into the water, and a duck changed course to investigate it. “Popov was a myth, Katinsky’s a nobody, and Dickie Bow was a part-time spook long ago. But now he’s a full-time corpse, and on the phone he was carrying when he died, there’s an unsent text message. One word. Cicadas. The same word Katinsky heard in relation to a plot dreamt up by the non-existent Alexander Popov. Tell me that’s not worth checking out.”
“A dying message? Are you serious?”
“Oh yes.”
Taverner shook her head. “You know, out of your whole crew, I really didn’t think you’d crack up first.”
“Keeps you on your toes, doesn’t it?”
“Lamb, there’s no way Tearney’s going to stand for Slough House going live. Not with the Park in economic lockdown. And not any other time either.”
“Good job I’ve got you then, isn’t it?” Lamb said. “What with your inability to refuse me anything.”
Slough House on an April afternoon: the promise of spring on the streets occasionally broken by the farting of traffic, but still, it was there. Min could glimpse it in the sunlight glinting off the Barbican Towers’ windows, and hear it in the occasional burst of song, for the students from the nearby drama school were invulnerable to embarrassment, and would happily perform while walking to the tube.
All aches and pains from the cycle-dash, he felt good anyway. A couple of years stuck behind a do-nothing desk, but he could turn it on when he needed to. He’d proved that this morning.
For the moment, though, he was back at that do-nothing desk, completing a do-nothing task: cataloguing parking tickets issued near likely terrorist targets, in case a suicide bomber’s research included checking out the facilities first, by car, without bothering to top up the meter. Min was nearly through February without a single plate coming up twice, while Louisa, immersed in an equally tedious task, hadn’t spoken for a while.
Thumb-twiddling time.
There was a theory, of course, that they were given these jobs for a reason, and the reason was that they’d grow so mind-achingly bored they’d quit, saving the Service the hassle of bringing their employment to an end, with its attendant risk of being taken to tribunal. It was a good job, thought Min, that he had a morning’s real work behind him, and the prospect of more to come. A dosshouse off the Edgware Road. Piotr and Kyril holed up there, waiting for their boss to show: it wouldn’t hurt to know more about that pair. Their habits, their hangouts. Something to give Min an edge, if it turned out he needed an edge. You could never have too much information, unless it was about parking tickets.
It was quiet upstairs. Lamb had disappeared after listening to Shirley Dander’s report on how she’d tracked down Mr. B; or that’s what Min assumed she’d been reporting.
He said, “I wonder what Shirley turned up.”
“Hmm?”
“Shirley. I wonder if she found the bald guy.”
“Oh.”
Not a lot of interest there, then.
A bus trundled past the window, its top deck empty.
“Lamb seemed keen on it, that’s all,” he said. “Like it was personal.”
“Just a whim, knowing him.”
“And I doubt River was happy Shirley got to go out and play.”
He couldn’t help the smile that went with that. He was remembering the speed with which he’d whipped down Old Street. And of River sitting at his desk while this was happening.
Louisa was watching him.
“What?”
She shook her head and returned to her work.
Another bus went past, this one full. How did that happen, exactly?
Min tapped a pencil against his thumbnail. “Maybe she screwed up, do you think? I mean, she didn’t have a lot to go on.”
“Whatever.”
“And she was Comms, wasn’t she? Shirley. You think she has much field-time?”
And now Louisa was looking at him again. Quite hard, in fact. “What’s with the mention-itis?”
“What?”
“You want to know how Shirley got on, go chat her up. Best of luck.”
“I don’t want to chat her up.”
“Not what it sounds like.”
“I’m wondering if she did okay, that’s all. We’re supposed to be on the same team, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, right. Maybe you should give her some pointers. After your morning’s adventure.”
“Maybe I should. It’s not like I did so badly.”
“You could show her the ropes.”
“Yes.”
“Steer her right.”
“Yes.”
“Spank her when she’s naughty.” Louisa said.