River said, “Why would they want Lucas Harper?”
“Well, if he’s anything like his old man, because he’s lost something that belongs to them. On the other hand, let’s assume for the moment there’s stuff going on we don’t know about. That’ll be harder for me than for you, but the least you can do is make an effort.”
He produced a cigarette from inside his shirt, and plugged it into his mouth.
“And it would explain what Frank was doing at the funeral,” he went on. “He wasn’t there to see you. He was there to check out Louisa. He must have known she was looking for the kid.”
Catherine said, “How?”
“Golly, good question. Oh hang on, I know. We’re fucking spooks.” He lit his cigarette. “If I was after the boy, I’d have kept tabs on his mother. Tapped her phone. Presumably she got in touch with Louisa?”
“Don’t know,” River said.
“Big surprise. So once that’s happened, first thing Harkness does is put a tag on Louisa, to make sure she doesn’t fuck up his plans. That would involve having her picture, which is why he was at the funeral. Stop me if I’m going too fast.”
“And Louisa found the boy,” said Coe. “Or knows where to look.”
“See? Norman Bates is keeping up.”
Ho said, “I found the boy through his Fitbit. Emma asked me to.”
“She’s almost certainly after your body,” Lamb said. “Probably needs a draught excluder.” He blew out smoke. “Okay, sounds like you’re off to Wales. How do you plan to get there?”
“My car’s off the road,” Shirley said quickly.
“And I haven’t got one,” said River.
Everyone looked at Coe.
“Mine’s at home. An hour away.”
Everyone looked at Ho.
Ho said, “I don’t want to go to Wales.”
“We don’t want you to come,” Shirley explained.
“But we’re going to need your car keys,” said River.
Lamb said to Coe, “Try not to kill anyone.”
Coe shrugged.
“On our side, I mean.”
“Why do you need my car keys?” Ho asked suspiciously.
When they’d all clattered out of the office, Catherine said, “And this is wise?”
“Said the drunk with the wine cellar in her living room.”
“If Louisa’s in trouble, we need to call the Park. Or the police. Ho said her phone’s not moved all night.”
“Neither did mine,” said Lamb. “And I was alive last time I checked.”
“Did you ask for a second opinion?”
He ignored that. “We’ve been over this. The Park can’t be trusted where Harkness is concerned because its fingerprints are all over his lunatic fucking misdeeds. And I’m not watching him walk away again.”
“But you’re not going to Wales yourself.”
“Christ no. I’m on a crusade, not a one-star mini-break.”
“And what if Louisa’s already dead?”
Lamb became absent for a moment, as if a light had winked off. It winked back on again. “She’s probably okay. Going dark’s protocol in joe country.”
But he stamped on the floor, to summon River back upstairs.
Catherine raised an eyebrow.
“What kind of boss would I be,” he said, “if I despatched the office junior without a going-away present?”
“A normal one?” she suggested, and just avoided colliding with River as she vanished back into her own room.
That going-away present was in River’s pocket now, weighing his jacket down.
Traffic shunted forwards, and came to a halt again. The lane heading back to London was moving freely, if with wariness; the snow was drawing black lines on the road where tyres had cut through it. It occurred to River that the lanes up ahead, the far side of the spilled load, might be inches thick by now. But we’ll plough that furrow when we come to it.
“Yellow car,” said Shirley.
“What?”
But she didn’t explain.
And the snow kept falling.
On a normal day London was bright and busy, full of open spaces and well-lit squares. But it was also trap streets and ghost stations; a spook realm below the real. Think of the city as a coded text beneath an innocent page, thought Richard Pynne; a hidden string of silent letters, spelling out missing words. Every footfall on every paving stone tapped out meaning few could read.
Pynne had never wanted to be a joe, preferring to view the world from a desk, confident that these desks would become bigger, their views more panoramic, as his career skyrocketed. But it couldn’t be denied that moments like this carried excitement; a pleasure that was necessarily furtive, borderline sexual. It helped that it was Hannah he was on his way to see, and that the meeting was unlogged—at the Park, he’d diarised the hour as UPB, urgent personal business; standard code for dentist or clap clinic. For now he was wrapped in a legend, and London was enemy ground.
Ground slowly whitening under a soft wet blanket of snow.
He waited behind Embankment Station, and when he saw her approaching ostentatiously checked his watch; not to show her she was late, but to indicate to anyone watching that they were an ordinary couple, and she was late.
“You got here.”
She looked amused. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t have?”
“No. None. I only meant . . .” What he’d meant was lost before he’d said it. He looked around: nobody in sight. Nobody important. A man fussing about with a sheet of cardboard. Two young women, hand in hand. He said to Hannah, “Would you like to get coffee?”
“I don’t have time. You said it was important?”
“It’s about Peter.”
Peter Kahlmann, her BND handler. The man who thought he was running a German spy in the British Civil Service.
“What about him?”
“Has he . . . said anything lately?”
“Has he said anything? What does that mean?”
“Has anything unusual happened?”
“No, Richard. Nothing unusual has happened.”
“So no security worries? He hasn’t asked if anyone’s been . . . checking up on him?”
“You’ve asked me this before.”
“And now I’m asking you again.”
“And the answer’s the same, no, nothing. He’s a tired old man, that’s all. I’m his last job. He just wants to take my reports, which are full of useless rubbish as you know, because you write them, and then go back to his nice warm flat and listen to Radio 3. As far as he’s aware I’m someone’s idea of a prank, a tiny little mole in Whitehall, beaming back gossipy bullshit. That’s all.”
Instead of, thought Richard, a tiny little mole in the Bundesnachrichtendienst, beaming back snippets of tradecraft.
Hannah eyed him kindly. “What’s the matter? Really?”
“It’s probably nothing.”
“But not actually nothing.”
“No . . .” She was his joe, he was her handler, and there were no secrets between joe and handler. Or at least, not where a joe’s safety was concerned. That was sacred text: a handler protected his joe.
He said, “It’s just that something happened. Back at the Park. An analyst ran Kahlmann’s name through several databases.”
“You told me that. Why is it important? Analysts analyse things. It’s what they do.”
“But not long after, this particular analyst, well . . . he was compromised.”
“Because he was checking up on Peter Kahlmann?”
“. . . I don’t know. It’s possible.”
“So you think that the BND value me so highly that they’d nobble anyone who probes too close?”