“Which came from where?”
“On that particular occasion, sir, I rather think they’d have come from Reading.”
Of course they bloody would. Jackson Lamb sighed, and reached for his cigarettes.
“You can’t smoke in here, sir.”
Lamb tucked one behind his ear. “When’s the next Reading train?”
“Five minutes, sir.”
Grunting his thanks, Lamb turned for the barriers.
“Sir?”
He looked back.
Gaze fixed on Lamb’s lapel, the weasel made a rustly sign with finger and thumb.
“What?”
“I thought you were going to …”
“Give you a tip?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Here’s a good one.” Lamb tapped his nose with a finger. “If you’ve got a complaint, there’s a helpline number on the posters.”
Then he wandered onto the platform, and waited for his train.
Back on Aldersgate Street, the two new horses in the first-floor office were sizing each other up. They’d arrived a month back, within the same fortnight; both exiled from Regent’s Park, the Service’s heart and moral high-ground. Slough House, which was not its real name—it didn’t have a real name—was openly acknowledged to be a dumping ground: assignment here was generally temporary, because those assigned here usually quit before long. That was the point of sending them: to light a sign above their heads, reading EXIT. Slow horses, they were called. Slough House/slow horse. A wordplay based on a joke whose origins were almost forgotten.
These two—who have names now; their names are Marcus Longridge and Shirley Dander—had known each other by sight in their previous incarnations, but department culture kept a firm grip on Regent’s Park, and Ops and Comms were different fish, and swam in different circles. So now, in the way of newbies everywhere, they were as suspicious of each other as of the more established residents. Stilclass="underline" the Service world was relatively small, and stories often circled it twice before smoke from the wreckage subsided. So Marcus Longridge (mid-forties, black, south-London born of Caribbean parents) knew what had propelled Shirley Dander from Regent’s Park’s Communications sector, and Dander, who was in her twenties and vaguely Mediterranean-looking (Scottish great-grandmother, nearby POW camp, Italian internee on day release) had heard rumours about Longridge’s meltdown-related counselling sessions, but neither had spoken to the other of this, or indeed of much else yet. Their days had been filled with the minutiae of office co-living, and a slow-burn loss of hope.
It was Marcus who made the first move, and this was a single word: “So.”
It was late morning. London weather was undergoing a schizoid attack: sudden shafts of sunlight, highlighting the grimy windowglass; sudden flurries of rain, failing to do much to clean it.
“So what?”
“So here we are.”
Shirley Dander was waiting for her computer to reboot. Again. It was running face-recognition software, comparing glimpses snatched from CCTV coverage at troop-withdrawal rallies with photofit images of suspected jihadists; that is, jihadists suspected of existing; jihadists who had code names and everything, but might have been rumoured into being by inept Intelligence work. While the program was two years out-of-date it wasn’t as out of date as her PC, which resented the demands placed upon it, and had made this known three times so far this morning.
Without looking up, she said, “Is this a chat-up?”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
“Because that would not be wise.”
“I’ve heard.”
“Well then.”
For almost a minute that was that. Shirley could feel her watch ticking; could feel through the desk’s surface the computer struggling to return to life. Two pairs of feet tracked downstairs. Harper and Guy. She wondered where they were off to.
“So given that it’s not a chat-up, is it okay if we talk?”
“About what?”
“Anything.”
Now she gave him a hard stare.
Marcus Longridge shrugged. “Like it or not, we’re sharing. It wouldn’t hurt if we said more than shut the door.”
“I’ve never told you to shut the door.”
“Or whatever.”
“Actually I prefer it open. Feels less like a prison cell.”
“That’s good,” said Marcus. “See, we’ve got a discussion going. Spent much time in prison?”
“I’m not in the mood, okay?”
He shrugged. “Okay. But there’s six and something hours of the working day left. And twenty years of the working life. We could spend it in silence if you’d rather, but one of us’ll go mad and the other’ll go crazy.” He bent back to his computer.
Downstairs, the back door slammed. Shirley’s screen swam bluely into life, thought about it, and crashed again. Now conversation had been attempted, its absence screamed like a fire alarm. Her wristwatch pulsed. There was nothing she could do about it; the words had to be said.
“Speak for yourself.”
He said, “About?”
“Twenty years of working life.”
“Right.”
“More like forty in my case.”
Marcus nodded. It didn’t show on his face, but he felt triumph.
He knew a beginning when he heard one.
In Reading, Jackson Lamb had tracked down the station manager, for whose benefit he adopted a fussy, donnish air. It wasn’t hard to believe Lamb an academic: shoulders dusted with dandruff; green V-neck stained by misjudged mouthfuls of takeaway; frayed shirtcuffs poking from overcoat sleeves. He was overweight, from sitting around in libraries probably, and his thinning dirty-blond hair was brushed back over his head. The stubble on his cheeks sang of laziness, not cool. He’d been said to resemble Timothy Spall, with worse teeth.
The station manager directed him to the company which supplied replacement buses, and ten minutes later Lamb was doing fussy academic again; this time with a bottom note of grief. “My brother,” he said.
“Oh. Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
Lamb waved a forgiving hand.
“No, that’s awful. I’m really sorry.”
“We hadn’t spoken in years.”
“Well, that makes it worse, doesn’t it?”
Lamb, who had no opinion, gave assent. “It does. It does.” His eyes clouded as he recalled an imaginary infant episode in which two brothers enjoyed a moment of absolute fraternal loyalty, little knowing that the years to come would drive a wedge between them; that they would not speak during middle age; which would come to a halt for one of them on a bus in dark Oxfordshire, where he would succumb to …
“Heart attack, was it?”
Unable to speak, Lamb nodded.
The depot manager shook his head sadly. It was a bad business. And not much of an advert, a customer dying on a unit; though then again, it wasn’t as if liability lay with the company. Apart from anything else, the corpse hadn’t been in possession of a valid ticket.
“I wondered …”
“Yes?”
“Which bus was it? Is it here now?”
There were four coaches in the yard; another two in the sheds, and as it happened, the depot manager knew precisely which one had unintentionally doubled as a hearse, and it was parked not ten yards away.
“Only I’d like to sit in it a moment,” Lamb said. “Where he sat. You know?”
“I’m not sure what …”
“It’s not that I believe in a life force, precisely,” Lamb explained, a tremor in his voice. “But I’m not positive I don’t believe in it, do you see what I mean?”
“Of course. Of course.”