Before Louisa could reply, a fist ploughed through the diamond-shaped window in the front door.
He didn’t have to be here, Lech Wicinski reminded himself. He could be in a hotel. There was, come to think of it, one down the road; a strangely modern building in which he suspected guests were crammed into capsules overnight, like corpses in cold lockers. But that would be better than this. At the back of a cupboard he’d found a blanket, which looked like it might have been a picnic accessory between the wars, and was slumped in his chair like a pensioner on a promenade, blanket draped over him. And still he was cold and uncomfortable; and still he stayed, because making for a hotel would involve human intercourse, and Lech would rather wake up dead tomorrow than make small talk now. For the moment, Slough House was his refuge. Which, like any other, had its price.
“You look like a slug in a kaftan.”
Lamb, leaving. But finding time to look in as he made his way downstairs.
Lech said, “Just finishing some stuff up.”
Lamb snorted. “Well, if it gets too cold . . .”
Tell me how to work the boiler, thought Lech. Please.
“. . . You’ll fucking freeze.”
And then he was gone. Lech expected to hear him on the stairs, whose response to any tread was an irritated didgeridoo solo, but he might as well have dematerialised once out of sight.
Except for the sound of the back door closing; a double-thunk exacerbated by the chill air it passed through to reach his ears.
So now he was alone.
He called Sara again, but was blocked. Thought about dialling from the landline, but realised the futility of that: this wasn’t a technical fault to be worked around. Not like she’d be relieved he’d got through. He closed his eyes and let weariness wash over him, while outside, the snow did what various bands of homicidal lunatics had failed to do over the years, and brought London to a halt. Come morning, the city’s boots would have tracked through every virgin inch, churning white to grey and yellow and black, but for now peace had fallen, as if the city were forgetting all the nervous accidents that went into its daily recreation of itself. Only the occasional car passed along Aldersgate Street, though the nearby traffic lights continued their unflappable sequence, tinting the window panes red, amber and green. Under their hypnotic spell Lech dozed, his exhausted brain mimicking London’s hibernation. When he woke, the office was colder, but nothing else had changed. Though he realised he might be hungry.
That would make sense: he hadn’t eaten in forever. And didn’t want to now, or at least, didn’t want to undergo the brute mechanics of it—the shovelling into his system of edible products—still less the various exchanges such a transaction might require: Will sir be dining alone? Sir will be ending his life with the cutlery if he’s forced to answer that.
But there was a row of miserable shops over the road, and they would be open. There was an equation of despair in which retail outlets find their level, and the worse the fare on offer—the fly-raddled kebabs, the chicken wings on the turn—the more likely that a miserable clientele would require twenty-four-hour access. He would cross the road, buy food, come back, eat, sleep. The sooner he did this, the more time would pass.
So he stood, let the blanket drop to the floor, and went down the stairs. The door into the backyard jammed. Lech had to lean on it heavily, and felt it scrape as it gave way. And then he was outside, in the snow; some flakes still falling, but just as an afterthought. All damage done, he thought. It didn’t look like damage—even the battered green wheelie-bin had assumed a kind of mammalian grace under its soft covering, and was the shape of a landed whale—but damage was what it was; a slow battering ram that, once it receded, would leave splintered wood and crumbled tarmac in its wake. Which suited Lech’s mood. His stomach growled. He opened the door to the alleyway, stepped through it, and a fist slammed into his face, turning the white world black. He staggered, felt his heel catch on something, and fell into the snow.
And caught the briefest flash of light on a blade as his attacker stepped into the yard, pulling the door closed behind him.
Emma dived for the door before the intruding hand could find the latch, slamming the chain into place almost before the coloured glass splinters hit the floor. But not fast enough to avoid being grabbed by her coat, and pulled hard against the woodwork.
Louisa jumped towards her, but Emma shouted “Back door! Now!”
Lucas was already on his way; Louisa hesitated, but only half a beat.
“Open it,” said a voice.
Emma fumbled for the latch, but only to fix it into the locked position.
“Now!”
She pulled back as abruptly as she could, and threw herself to her left. The grip didn’t weaken, but she slipped her arms from her sleeves as she fell, and the hand was left holding her coat, which dropped to the floor as the figure receded. Next moment the door shook as a foot slammed against it. There was a soft, slumping noise as snow fell from the roof; then another plaster-crumbling thud when the figure kicked again.
It was a holiday cottage, not a safe house. A few more like that, there’d be broken wood on the carpet.
Emma snatched up her coat and ran.
The back door led into a garden, one raked so sharply that steps ascended to the lawn. Ahead of her, Louisa was scaling a seven-foot wall that Lucas, presumably, had already vaulted: Louisa’s injury slowed her down, but before Emma reached her she was over too: her white ski-jacket making her seem an escaping snowman. The wall was brick and bulging with age. Emma threw her coat over, found what passed for a foothold and propelled herself upward, hauling herself onto the wall’s upper edge before risking a backwards glance. A man was emerging from the cottage, pointing a gun. She’d dropped onto the other side before he fired. If he fired. She heard nothing. Then again, her head was full of snow; she’d landed face down, flat on the ground.
When she looked up, everyone around her was dead.
Shirley had disappeared behind the hedge bordering the layby, having a piss River hoped, but possibly snorting coke. Coe had remained behind the steering wheel, giving a good impression of a man who didn’t care where he was. But he wasn’t dressed for the weather, and if River had been in the business of giving a toss, he’d have been mildly concerned for Coe’s welfare: it wasn’t going to get warmer soon.
On the other hand, his own clothing didn’t match the conditions. His jacket was little more than an anorak.
And this was just another of the drawbacks of being a slow horse. The sort of thing his grandfather would have warned him about, once: that their enforced inertia, the mind-mushing sameness of their days, meant that any hint of action and they leaped at it, and damn the consequences . . . Frank would be laughing, he thought. If Frank could see him now he’d shake his head, laugh, and look for another river to drop him into. So it would be best to make sure Frank didn’t see him; that the first Frank knew of his presence was when he felt River’s hands round his neck . . .
Jesus. Was that what he intended? To kill his father?
A ripple ran through Coe, as if River had wandered across his grave en route to Frank’s. Then the door opened, and Shirley was back.
“I checked out the hostiles,” she said. “Car’s empty. But the lorry’s not. It’s got a nice warm cabin, quite roomy. And there’s a man eating hot food and watching TV.”
“How roomy?”
“Bigger than my flat. I told him there were three of us here.”
“And?”
“And he asked if any of us were women,” Shirley said.
“Did you let him live?”