Cigarette notwithstanding, Lamb appeared to be chewing. Maybe it was his tongue. He said, “You realise what that would mean?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Uh-huh you do, or uh-huh, you’re making a noise so I’ll spell out what it means and you’ll pretend you knew all along?”
“They bagged him. They force-fed him alcohol. They let him go,” Catherine said. “There was no point to it at all, except that he get a look at them. So that one day they could swish a coat in his path, and he’d trot after it like a trained poodle.”
“Jesus.” Lamb breathed out grey air. “I’m not sure what disturbs me more. The thought that someone’s got a twenty-year plan, or the fact that you’d already worked that out.”
“Popov took a British spy off the streets twenty years ago with no motive except to use him as an alarm bell when the time was right.”
“Popov never existed,” Lamb reminded her.
“But whoever made him up did. And apparently this was part of his plan. Along with the cicadas. A sleeper cell.”
Lamb said, “Any plan a Soviet spook came up with two decades back is long past its sell-by date.”
“So maybe it’s not the same plan. Maybe it’s been adapted. But either way, it’s in play. This isn’t you chasing ghosts from your past any more. It’s a ghost from your past jumping up and down, shouting ‘look at me!’ ”
“And why’s that?”
“I haven’t a clue. But it demands a more coherent response than just letting River Cartwright off the leash. Chernitsky went to Upshott for a reason, and the only logical reason is that that’s where this network’s ringleader is. And whoever that is, you can bet your life they already know River’s not who he’s pretending to be.”
Lamb said thoughtfully, “Or I could bet River’s life. Which would be safer for me and more convenient.”
“It’s not a joke. I’ve been checking up on the names in River’s reports. None of them scream ‘Soviet agent’. But then, if any of them did, they’d not have successfully buried themselves all this time.”
“Are you still talking to me, or just thinking aloud?” Lamb took a final drag on his cigarette and dropped the stub into a coffee cup. “Bow was killed, yes. Sad, but shit happens. And the point of killing him was to lay a trail. Whatever that’s about, it’s not to set up River Cartwright. Someone wants one of us there for a reason. Sooner or later, probably sooner, we’ll find out who and why.”
“So we do nothing? That’s your plan?”
“Oh, don’t worry. There’s plenty to chew on in the meantime. The name Rebecca Mitchell ring a bell?”
“She’s the driver who ran down Min.”
“Yeah. Well, him being drunk and her a woman, it’s no surprise the Dogs signed off on it. But they shouldn’t have.” Pulling Bad Sam’s envelope from his pocket, he tossed it onto the desk. “They looked at her last ten years, during which she’s been a squeaky clean lady, if you leave aside her killing one of my team. Which they shouldn’t have done. What they should have done was to take her entire life and shake it in a high wind.”
“And find what?”
“And find she used to be a different kind of squeaky altogether. Back in the nineties she was bumping uglies with all sorts, and had a particular yen for your romantic Slav. Spent six months sharing a flat with a pair of charmers from Vladivostok, who set her up in her catering business before they buggered off. Though of course,” he added, “that’s just circumstantial, and she might be Snow White. What do you think?”
Catherine, who rarely stooped to profanity, swore.
“Indeed. Me also.” Lamb picked up the coffee cup, raised it to his lips, then noticed it was an ashtray. “As if I didn’t have enough to be getting on with, it turns out whatever these shady Russian bastards of Spider Webb’s are up to, it’s dodgy enough to get Harper killed.” He put the cup back down. “Just one thing after another, isn’t it?”
They returned the Russians to the hotel, then headed for the tube. Marcus suggested cabbing it; Louisa gestured at the traffic, which was sclerotic. She had a hidden agenda: in a taxi, she’d have little choice but to suffer Marcus’s conversation. On the tube, he’d be more likely to give it a rest. That was the theory. But as they headed into the underground he said, “What do you make of him?”
“Pashkin?”
“Who else?”
She said, “He’s the job,” and slapped her Oyster card on the platen. The gates opened and she slipped through.
One step behind her, Marcus said, “He’s a gangster.”
Webb had said as much. One-time Mafia. But these days he was establishment, or rich enough to pass, and she didn’t know how it worked in Russia, but in London, once you were rich, being a gangster was a minor offence, on a par with wearing a tie for a club you didn’t belong to.
“Nice suit, nice manners, and his English is better than mine. And he owns an oil company. But he’s a gangster.”
At the top of the escalators a poster warned of disruption to services during tomorrow’s rally. Being anti-bank, chances were the rally would be well attended and turn ugly.
She said, “Maybe. But Webb says we treat him like royalty, so that’s what we do.”
“Meaning what, we pimp him an underage masseuse? Or suck his dick for a wrap of coke?”
“Those probably weren’t the royals Webb was thinking of,” she said.
On the train Louisa closed her eyes. Part of her brain was juggling logistics: the rally would be a factor. You couldn’t dump a quarter million pissed-off citizens into the mix without complicating things. But these thoughts were an alibi, parading through her consciousness just in case anyone had developed a mind-reading machine. By tomorrow, details like their route to the Needle were going to be as useful as Christmas crackers.
Marcus Longridge was talking again. “Louisa?”
She opened her eyes.
“Our stop.”
“I know,” she told him, but he was giving her a quizzical look anyway. All the way up from platform to street, he was a step or two behind her. His attention took the form of a heat spot, back of her neck.
Forget about that. Forget about tomorrow. Tomorrow wasn’t going to happen.
Tonight was.
When River stepped into the pub, it was to greetings from two separate tables. He thought: you could spend years propping up the bar at your London local, and they wouldn’t know what name to put on the wreath. But maybe that was just him. Maybe the River who made friends easily was the one pretending to be someone else. He returned all greetings, and stopped at the Butterfields’ table: Stephen and Meg. Neither needed a drink. Kelly was at the bar, polishing a glass on a teatowel.
“How nice to see you,” she said.
Playing with him, definitely, but that was okay.
He ordered a mineral water, and she raised a mild eyebrow. “Celebrating?” While she fetched it, he felt a twinge he hoped wasn’t his conscience. If he’d met Kelly anywhere, he’d have done his best to end up exactly where he’d been that afternoon. So why was he certain that if she discovered he wasn’t who he claimed to be, she’d chop off his—
“Pickled eggs?”
“… Sorry?”
“Would you like a pickled egg with that? They’re a popular local delicacy.”
Carefully enunciated, as if inviting comparison with other local delicacies he might have recently enjoyed.
“Tempting, but I’ll give it a miss,” he said. “Flying club not in tonight?”