River leapt a ruined fragment of wall and landed on a strew of broken tiles. And then he was sprawling on the ground as furious noises crashed nearby, and he had to crawl for the shelter of the tree—the nearest thing to safety he could currently imagine. He closed his eyes, made himself small as possible. Way over his head, the night sky fizzed and boiled with angry lights.
Jesus wept, he thought, with that part of his mind not screaming in terror. Of all the nights to pick, he’d chosen one when the range was in use …
Another explosion took his breath away, and he thought no more.
Tonight, he’d be breaking hearts.
This was new territory. Roderick Ho wasn’t without experience in the gentle art of trashing stuff: he’d wrecked credit ratings, disassembled CVs, altered Facebook statuses and cancelled standing orders. He had systematically dismantled the offshore tax arrangements of a couple of old school chums—who’s the dweeb now, dickheads?—and once had broken an arm—she’d been six; he’d been eight; it was almost certainly an accident. But hearts, no, he’d broken no hearts yet. Tonight would put that right.
Roddy had first met Shana—let’s be precise; first encountered Shana—on Aldersgate Street: they were heading for their respective offices, and she’d barely noticed him. Welclass="underline" “barely” might not be the word. “Not” might be the word. But he’d noticed her, enough that the second time they passed he was half-looking out for her, and on the third was actually waiting for her, though nowhere she’d see him. He’d tailed her to her office, which turned out to be a temping agency near Smithfield. Back at Slough House, it hadn’t proved much of a stretch to take a peek at its intranet, check out staff listings, and there she was: beaming photo and all. Shana Bellman. After that, it was a hop-and-a-skip to Facebook where, among other things, Roddy found Shana to be a workout addict, so next up was a wander round the membership files of the local gyms. The third one he tried, he found her address. Couple of hours later they were best friends, which is to say that Roddy Ho now knew everything there was to know about Shana, up to and including the name of her boyfriend.
Which is where the heartbreak came in. The boyfriend had to go.
He smiled at her image, a wistful smile acknowledging the pain that precedes happiness, and downsized her photo into the tab at the foot of his screen. Then flexed his fingers, making a satisfying crack. Down to business.
And it’s going to work like this. Shana’s boyfriend is going to strike up a friendship with a couple of skanks on an internet chatsite, a conversation which is going to move from inappropriate to downright graphic within the space of half a dozen exchanges, at which point, with the kind of fat-finger error it’s almost impossible not to see as willed, as if the cheating bastard actually wants to be caught, he’s going to accidentally copy Shana in on the entire thread. And sayonara, boyfriend.
After that, it was gravy. Tomorrow morning—make it the day after; let the dust settle—all Roddy would have to do, passing Shana on her way to Smithfield, would be to make some friendly observation; Hey beautiful, why so sad? And then, Hey, men are jerks. Tell me about it. And then, after she’d gratefully been taken to dinner or a movie or whatever, Hey baby, you want to take this in your—
“Roddy?”
“Crawk!”
Catherine Standish made less noise than a draught. “I hate to bother you when you’ve got your hands full,” she said. “But there’s something I need you to do.”
If he stood dead centre of his sitting room, Spider Webb was exactly three paces from the nearest piece of furniture, which itself sat in open space—this was his sofa, which was long enough to lie full-length on, with wiggle room on either end. After another couple of paces, you reached the wall, against which you could lean back and spread your arms wide without meeting obstruction. And while you were doing this you could feast your eyes on the view, which Spider kept behind big glass doors giving onto his balcony: treetops and sky; the trees organised in a neat row because they lined a canal, along which quiet narrowboats glided, decked out in royal reds and greens. Beat that, he thought. This was a catch-all phrase, applicable to whoever happened to be handy, but in Spider Webb’s personal lexicon, it had a specific target.
Beat that, River Cartwright.
River Cartwright occupied a one-bedroom flat in the East End. His view was a row of lock-up garages, and there were three pubs and two clubs within chucking-up distance, which meant that even once River had negotiated his way through chavs, tarts, drunks and meth-heads, he’d still get no sleep for the racket they’d make till it was time to roll home for their giros. Which neatly underlined the way things were: River Cartwright was a fucking loser, while James Webb was scaling heights like Spider-Man’s smarter brother.
It might have been different. Time was they’d been friendly. They’d undergone training together, were going to be the next bright lights of the Service, but this was what happened: Spider had been compelled to become instrumental in River’s downgrading to slow horse; and subsequently, many long months later, River had demonstrated his poor-fucking-loser status by smashing Webb in the face with a loaded gun.
Still, that had only hurt for a while. A long while, true, but the facts remained: Spider lived in this apartment, worked in Regent’s Park, and was on Diana Taverner’s daily-contact list, while River sweated out interminable days in Slough House, followed by noisy nights in the arse-end of the city. The best man had won.
Now the best man was meeting Arkady Pashkin in London’s smartest new building in the morning, and if all went as planned, he’d be recruiting the most important asset the Service had seen in twenty years. A possible future leader of Russia in Regent’s Park’s pocket, and all it would cost Webb was promises.
After that, Lady Di’s daily-contact list would look like small beer. Besides, anyone forming a long-term alliance with Taverner was going to end up being Nick Clegged. Snuggling up to Ingrid Tearney was the better bet. Side-by-side with Tearney, he’d be seen as first-anointed. And for all the modernising policies the Service tipped its hat at, that counted for a lot.
Everything to play for, then, and he’d done everything right too—from the moment Pashkin had made contact Webb had played it like the high stakes game it was. And luck had been with him. Roger Barrowby’s security audit had played into his hands, giving him the perfect alibi to outsource security details to Slough House, whose drones would follow orders without their activities registering on the Park’s books. Even the location had been swiftly arranged: Pashkin had asked for the Needle, and it had taken Webb just three days to secure it. The suite’s lease-holder was a high-end trading consultancy, currently brokering an arms deal between a UK firm and an African republic, and only too happy to cooperate with an MI5 agent. The date, chosen to fit with Pashkin’s commitments, had been manageable too. Webb ran his tongue round mostly new teeth, a tangible reminder of River Cartwright’s assault. All the details had fallen into place. If it weren’t for Min Harper’s death, it would have been textbook.