On the other hand, since learning what had driven father and daughter apart, he was less inclined to blame his mother. Things had happened to Isobel that had been part of a game she hadn’t known she’d been drafted into. She had lost her heart, and borne a son, to Frank Harkness, an American spook, though “lost her heart” was a kind way of phrasing it. In reality Harkness had stolen it, then traded it back to David Cartwright for various favours. Had he not done so, River’s life would have taken a very different course—he’d have been a soldier in another man’s army—so he supposed he couldn’t complain that things had worked out as they had, but he was aware that the bargain had been a foul one, and Isobel’s heart had not been returned intact. Certainly it never opened in her father’s direction again. It probably explained why River himself had always felt his mother’s absence, even on those occasions when she was present. Like now, approaching the O.B.’s grave.
It was next to Rose’s, of course, on whom the earth had settled. They stopped beside it, and Isobel placed the lily on the headstone.
“A lily for Rose,” she said, and again River had the feeling he was an audience for a rehearsed moment.
While she stood contemplating her mother’s resting place, or planning her next gesture, River looked into the hole that would soon accommodate his grandfather. The O.B. had filled the space a father might have done in River’s life, while his actual father pursued a mad crusade. That venture had come to an end now, or River assumed it had. But with Frank, who knew? He was out in the world somewhere, and pretty certainly hadn’t hung up his sword and shield. Though whatever use he was putting them to was probably confined to the shadows.
He looked at his mother, who was dabbing her eyes with a tissue, and tossed a mental coin: benefit of the doubt.
“Are you okay?”
“Oh . . . I’ll be fine.”
“He loved you, you know. They both did.”
“I never had cause to doubt my mother’s love.”
Which sounded like it had been put through translation software. But again: benefit of the doubt.
His mother had taken hold of his arm again, and he led her away, along the path to its far corner, where it curved and headed back towards the front. But she paused there and reached into her bag, from which she produced cigarettes and a lighter.
“You’re still doing that?”
“You’re my son, not my GP.”
“And what does your GP have to say about it?”
Isobel lit a cigarette, and watched smoke float into the branches overhead. “I’m sure I can’t imagine.”
From where they were standing they could see past the body of the chapel to the drive, where a limo was pulling up. River supposed he should be there to greet arrivals, but wasn’t sure of the protocol. When you buried a grandfather, people queued to shake your hand. Did the same hold true when you buried a spy? Or was that an occasion for furtive glances, mumbled code? Whatever the case, River abandoned all thought of it when he saw who was emerging from the limo: Lady Di Taverner, newly appointed First Desk, and the woman responsible for his exile to Slough House.
Down the road, a man sat in a car. His hazard lights were flashing, as if to indicate a temporary, unwilled stop, and he was talking on his phone, or seemed to be. His lips were moving; the phone was near his mouth. Even so, his presence earned a tap on the window.
He flipped a switch, and the glass rolled down.
“Can I ask if you’re going to be long, sir?”
This from a handy-looking gent in an overcoat. The man said, “’Scuse one sec,” into his phone, securing it between chin and shoulder while he produced an ID card which he flashed at the intruder with something between a squint and a smile: You’re just doing your job, mate, we both know that. The newcomer took the card, studied it a moment, and handed it back with a nod. As he walked back the way he’d come, the car window hummed upwards again.
Out loud, the man in the car said, “And don’t you just feel like you’ve had a narrow escape, buddy? One of you Dogs gets a long hard look at a CIA pass, the next words you hear are usually ‘black, two sugars.’”
This might have earned a chuckle if there’d been anyone on the other end of the phone.
He carried on chatting to nobody while a limo pulled onto the chapel’s drive: long, black, funeral issue, fuck knows why. You might as well turn up in a clown car, have everyone tumble out in a heap. Make no difference to the dead. But instead, from the back of this limo emerged a woman; from the far side, a man.
That the American could identify both should have been a problem, but the people it should have been a problem for were happy with a squint and a smile and a fake ID. The pair from the limo disappeared from view. Another car was arriving; there’d be a fleet of the damn things soon. He wondered how many of their occupants felt genuine stirrings of sorrow. Let’s face it, an ancient spook like David Cartwright, if people had the nerve to offer the tribute he deserved, as many would be taking a leak on his coffin as removing their hats. You didn’t end a life on Spook Street without more enemies than friends; not if you’d done things properly. On the other hand, Cartwright was a legend, and it’s always sad when legends die. It underlines the fact that shit like death can happen to anyone.
Place was a security nightmare, though—they called it The Spooks’ Chapel, which summed it up: why didn’t they pitch a neon sign out front? He’d just watched the Park’s First Desk arrive, followed by Oliver Nash, Head of the Limitations Committee, who, okay, wasn’t going to sell tickets on his own, but if you were in the know—if you knew who pulled the levers on this secret train they rode—you’d definitely want to target, if you were a bad actor. One well-timed intervention and you could take out the whole of the Service’s top tier, and much of its dead wood, without pausing between breaths. But then, that was the trouble with England—with Britain—it was so in love with its myths and legends, it couldn’t see what a ball and chain they were. No, if you wanted to stay ahead of the bad guys, you had to cut history loose. That was his considered opinion. He had memories—who didn’t?—but his baggage was all carry-on; he could walk away from any identity he’d ever had without a backward glance. He certainly wouldn’t hang around to bury his dead. And if he did, he wouldn’t bury them in a tourist attraction. “The Spooks’ Chapel.” You might as well print pamphlets.
Some of this he said out loud, into the dead phone, and if anyone was watching they’d note his animation and assume he was talking to someone he could pull rank on: an underling or a girlfriend, not a boss or a wife. And maybe, thinking he was CIA, they’d assume he was here to pay his respects to a one-time hero of a rival Service, because they were all in this together, even if only one of them was going into a hole today. So yeah, that’s what they’d think; that he was representing the Company, and he’d hang up his call and dip his head when they carried the coffin inside.
But he wasn’t here to pay respects.
He was here collecting faces.
And this, anyway, solved River’s protocol problem: if they stood right where they were they could watch arrivals without having to worry about whom to acknowledge, whom to discreetly ignore. Lady Di, for instance, and the tubby man she’d come with: what Lamb would call a suit, by which Lamb meant it was only the pinstripes holding him upright. Whoever he was, Lady Di was a difficulty. Responsible for River’s exile, because though—on paper—he’d crashed King’s Cross, a messed-up training exercise of a kind no junior spook could walk away from, the mess-up hadn’t been of his making but hers. History now, but it still churned River to see her.