The bedside clock blinked at her. Nine forty-two. Nine forty-two? Jesus.
At Slough House, after giving Jackson Lamb her report, Shirley had suffered a cocaine crash. These were not unfamiliar, but generally planned for, and came with a duvet, a tray of brownies and a DVD of Friends. When you were heading for a hard landing, an office with an inquisitive colleague was not the place to be.
“Good morning, was it?”
Marcus Longridge would not have believed the effort her grunt of reply required.
But the man would not give up. “Enjoy your trip?”
This time she managed to shrug. “Country. I can take it or leave it.”
“More a beach girl?”
“Less of the ‘girl’.”
In front of her, the virtual coalface once more. One brief taste of the outside world and she was matching faces again, like trying to play snap without a twinned pair in the deck. She’d told Lamb she’d been up all night, that tracking down Mr. B had been what she’d done instead of sleeping, but all that earned her was a toothy snarl. “You’ll be looking forward to home-time then, won’t you?” he’d said.
Marcus was still watching. “I need food,” he said. “You want anything?”
A dark room, a quiet bed, the temporary absence of life.
“Shirley?”
“Maybe a Twix.”
“Be right back.”
When he’d gone, Shirley crossed to the window. After a moment, Marcus had appeared on the street below. Instinctively she’d drawn back, but he hadn’t looked upwards; just crossed the road, heading for the row of shops. As he walked, he held his mobile to his ear.
Paranoia came with the territory. Every hangover she’d ever known—beer, tequila, cocaine, sex—had left her furtive and hunted. But even allowing for that, she’d been certain she was the subject of that phonecall.
Back in the here and now, she groaned softly. This did nothing to change the quality of the light, the pulsing of her skull, or the black pit that opened every time she closed her eyes.
Nine forty-five, winked her clock. She could stay where she was for another ten hours, and maybe that would make her all right again.
Maybe …
She gave it five minutes; then got up, dressed, and headed out into the evening.
Kyril had vanished once more. When Min turned the corner to discover this he swore under his breath, tasting beer again: but still. It wasn’t the end of the world. It suggested that the target had reached his destination.
Doss-house had been his first thought when he’d heard that the taxi had dropped them on the Edgware Road. He wasn’t wrong. These buildings were tall and imposing-looking, but their glory days were long gone, and regeneration hadn’t taken off yet: banks of doorbells showed they were multi-occupancy, and the blankets and newspapers taped across windows betrayed the low-paid status of their inhabitants.
You and me both, mate, thought Min. Then a hand like a rock gripped his shoulder, and something cold and blunt and steel pressed into his neck.
“You’re following me, I think, yes?”
Min said, “I—what? What you talking about—”
“Mr. Harper. I think you’re following me. Yes?” The steel thing pressed harder.
“I just—”
“You just what?”
Just need a moment to think up a story, thought Min.
The steel thing pressed harder.
“So now you know what?” Kyril said. “Now you find out what happens to Department of Energy guys who get too nosy, know what I mean?”
Lamb opened a drawer and produced a second glass, chipped and dusty, into which he poured a careful measure of Talisker he then placed within Catherine’s reach. Then he refilled his own glass, with a measure a little less careful.
“Chin chin,” he said.
Catherine didn’t respond. Nor did she glance at her glass.
“The Swindon fusebox was sabotaged, yes. You really think I’d go plodding about the shires without making sure it was necessary? The trains were scuppered about the same time our friend Mr. B was laying a trail for Dickie Bow.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t lay a trail down a well-kept pavement. You make the hunter work.”
“He wanted Bow to follow him.”
Lamb put his glass down to give her a slow handclap.
“And wanted you to do the same,” she said. “You found something on his body, didn’t you?”
“On the bus. His phone. With an unsent text.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Keyed in his dying moments?”
“Keyed by Mr. B, more like. There was a scrum when people realised he was dead. Mr. B would have been part of it, keying the message, shoving the phone between the cushions.”
“What was the message?”
“One word,” said Lamb. “ ‘Cicadas’.”
“Which evidently means something.”
“To me, yes. Shouldn’t have meant anything to Bow, though. Another reason I know it’s a fake.”
“And the untraceable poison?”
“Ten a penny. Most untraceable poisons aren’t actually untraceable, but you have to find them before they fade away. A clapped-out wino has a heart attack, most post mortems’ll just read heart attack.” He made a magician’s gesture with his hands. “Pouf. End of. But there’ll have been a puncture wound somewhere. Easy enough to prick someone in a crowd.”
Catherine said, “Hardly foolproof, is it? What are the chances you’d have checked between the cushions for Bow’s phone?”
“Someone would’ve. You don’t off a spook, even a clapped-out nobody like Bow, without making waves. Didn’t used to, anyway. Seems Regent’s Park’s got better things to do these days.” He reached for his glass. “Someone ought to let them know. You never leave your corpses by the pool.”
“I’ll circulate a memo.”
“Besides, if I hadn’t found that clue, there’d have been another. All the way up to Mr. B giving a taxi driver a bollocking for taking him to the wrong place. That’d not be forgotten in a hurry, would it?” Lamb curled a lip. “The cabbie’s a trip wire. He’d have been on the phone the moment Shirley left him.”
“Meaning he knows we’re following his lead.”
“Like good little bloodhounds.”
“Is that wise?”
“What’s wise got to do with it? We either follow his trail or forget about it. And that’s not an option, because whoever’s behind this is old school. Takes an old school spook to know a street rat like Bow would take his bait in the first place. Whoever’s pulling the strings is playing Moscow Rules. Regent’s Park might be too busy to think that’s worth following up, but I don’t.”
“Are you going to say his name or am I?”
“Say what?”
“Alexander Popov,” said Catherine Standish.
The room was small, and the window open. It was cold, but stilclass="underline" a bead of sweat dislodged itself from Min’s hair and trickled down his neck. The eyes of the other two men never left his. There was always the possibility he was faster than both, but deep in his gut he knew that that was slim beyond reckoning: either one, on their own, and he might have been in with a chance, but the pair together made for formidable opposition. Once, his reflexes might have been up to this. But he was growing older every moment, and had been drinking earlier, and—
A fist slammed on the table.
Three shots …
Min was fast, but fast didn’t cut it. Maybe anywhere else in London, he’d have been fine, but here and now in this room he was toast.
The third shot, he spilt most of. Piotr and Kyril were already leaning back, empty glasses lined up, roaring.