But Harper had died because he’d been drunk, and that was an end of it. There was nothing to suggest any last-minute snags, so all Webb had to do was get his head down and sleep the sleep of the just, full of the easy dreams and anticipations of success that would seem to River Cartwright like memories from another life.
So that’s what he’d do now. Soon. In a bit.
Meanwhile, Spider Webb stood gazing round his bright well-appointed apartment, congratulating himself on his charmed existence, and hoping nothing would fuck it up for him now.
From her office, Shirley watched Catherine Standish enter Ho’s office and close the door behind her. Something going on. And this was the pattern: when Shirley could be useful, some crap job was dumped on her. The rest of the time she was out in the cold.
Even Marcus Longridge was more wired in than her. Longridge had stepped into Min Harper’s shoes, at least as far as the job went. Where Louisa Guy was concerned, Shirley doubted he’d be taking up Harper’s slack any time soon. Louisa had turned into a wraith since Harper’s death, as if actively prolonging some symbiotic relationship: he was dead, so she was a ghost. But still, she was out there, on a live job, while Shirley was stuck peeping over her monitor at someone else’s closed door.
She’d found Mr. B—found him twice. Tracked him to Upshott and nailed him at Gatwick too, which was like following a minnow through a shoal. But she didn’t know what those triumphs amounted to, because no one was telling her squat.
It was late, and she should have been on her way hours ago, but she didn’t want to go home. She wanted to know what was going on.
Shirley knew enough about stealthy movement not to fart about trying to move quietly. She strode into the hall and put her ear to Ho’s door. And now she could make out a murmur. How it translated into English, she wasn’t sure: Catherine was speaking softly, and Ho filled the gaps by remaining silent. The only distinct sound was a creak. A very slight creak. Trouble was, it came from behind her.
Slowly, she turned.
Jackson Lamb, on the next landing up, gazed down at her like a wolf who’d just separated a sheep from its flock.
Back across the park they walked. The traffic maintained an insectile buzz, and up above airliners circled, stacked on the Heathrow approach. Arkady Pashkin held her by the arm. Louisa’s bag was lighter now. When it banged her hip, she felt only the usual baggage: mobile, lipstick, purse. But her heart was thumping wildly.
Pashkin pointed out the shapes of trees; how streetlights dancing behind quivering leaves made it seem a ghost was passing. He sounded very Russian saying this. When a motorbike fired up his grip tightened briefly, though he made no comment; and a short while later he tightened it again, as if to underline that he had been unperturbed by the sudden explosion, that it had coincided with his decision to squeeze her arm.
She said, “It must be late,” and her voice sounded as if she were at the far end of a hall of mirrors.
They rejoined the pavement. Black cabs thundered past, their flow interrupted by the occasional bus. Through tinted windows, faces gazed at London’s brilliant parade.
Pashkin said, or maybe repeated, “Are you quite well, Louisa?”
Was she? She felt like she’d been doped.
“You’re cold.” And he draped his jacket over her shoulders like a gentleman in a story, the kind you didn’t encounter any more, unless they were trying to impress you because they planned to get you naked.
They arrived at his hotel’s territory; a broad sweep of pavement lined with terracotta pots, and she stopped, feeling the tug of his arm for a moment before he too halted.
His face was polite puzzlement.
“I ought to go,” she said. “There’s a lot to do tomorrow.”
“A swift nightcap?”
She wondered in how many languages he could say that.
“Not the best time.” She shrugged his jacket off, and as he reached for it his eyes grew colder, as if he were re-evaluating the night’s conversation and concluding that he’d made no basic errors; that this unsatisfactory conclusion was due to her having supplied incorrect data. “I’m sorry.”
He made a slight bow. “Of course.”
I had planned to come upstairs. He wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that, this man with more money than the queen. I had planned to come upstairs, have a nightcap, fuck you if necessary. Anything to get you into a state where I could truss you like a Sunday goose and force answers from you. Like: what did Min find out that meant he had to die?
“I’ll get you a taxi.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “This is not over,” she promised, but luckily he had no notion as to what she meant.
In the taxi, she told the driver to let her out round the corner. He sighed theatrically, but stopped when he caught her expression. Only a minute after she’d left it, the evening air struck her like a new thing, tasting dark and bitter. The taxi pulled away. Footsteps approached. Louisa didn’t turn.
“You saw sense.”
“I had no choice, did I? Not once you’d taken my gear.”
Christ: she sounded like a petulant schoolgirl.
Maybe Marcus agreed. “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t answer your phone,” he said. “I could have let you give it your best shot. But it would have been a good way to get seriously damaged. Or dead.”
Louisa didn’t reply. She felt used up. Ready to crawl under the covers, and hope daylight never came.
Nearby traffic thundered along Park Lane, while up in the dark skies aircraft ploughed through clouds, their tail-lights bright as rubies.
“Tube’s this way,” said Marcus.
Shana was a memory. Her boyfriend was reprieved. The pair could spend another night in their fools’ paradise, because Roddy Ho had other fish to fry.
… One day he was going to sit Catherine Standish down and explain to her exactly why he didn’t have to do everything she said. It would be a short conversation which would doubtless end with her in tears, and he was already looking forward to it as he loaded the names she’d given him onto his computer and started doing everything she’d said.
And because he was who he was, the digital tasks in front of Roderick Ho bloomed, and eclipsed the resentment boiling inside him. Catherine slipped into his rearview then vanished, and the list of names became the next level of the online game he was constantly playing.
As ever, he played to win.
Lamb said, “She was listening outside when you were talking to Ho.”
“And I was inside when you caught her doing that,” Catherine said. “So how come I didn’t hear you disembowelling her?”
“Oh, she had an excuse.”
Catherine waited.
Lamb said, “She wanted to hear what you were talking about.”
“That would cover it,” Catherine agreed. “You think she’s Lady Di’s plant?”
“Don’t you?”
“She’s not the only possibility.”
“So you assume it’s Lockridge. What are you, Standish, racist?”
“No, I—”
“That’s even worse than thinking it’s the dyke,” Lamb said.
“I’m so glad we’ve got you to grade our discrimination issues.”
“Ho’s looking at the Upshott menagerie?”
She was used to him switching topics. “I’ve got as far as I can on my own. There are plenty of candidates, no obvious suspects.”
“Would’ve been quicker to use him in the first place.”
“I wasn’t supposed to be doing this in the first place,” she pointed out. “Has River checked in?”
“Earlier today.”
“He okay?”
“Why wouldn’t he be? Whatever’s going on, it’s not a big plot to assassinate Cartwright.”