In the alley behind Slough House, footprints led in both directions. Sometimes people wandered round in the dark, looking for somewhere to relieve themselves, or to indulge a brief tremble. Catherine was no prude—how could she be, with her history?—but hoped she’d never cemented a temporary friendship between bins. That was the thing about the past, though. You could never tell what your previous selves had been capable of. Brushing away speculation, brushing snow from its handle, she pushed open the wooden door into the backyard. London always led to this. You passed through its streets in all kinds of weather, but always ended up in this dismal cramped yard, the glum odour of failure seeping from its walls. Or you did if you were Catherine Standish. Another cheerful note to start the day on, and her heart skipped a beat as something groaned.
She let her bag drop, but not before reaching into it for her tightly-rolled umbrella. Ridiculous, yes, but once before she’d been snatched from a London street, and not letting that happen twice was high on her list of absolutes. But when she turned there was nobody; just the memory of her own breath hanging like a forgetful ghost, unsure where it should be.
The groan repeated itself.
Her heart was back to normal, and an observer would have assumed she was calm. This was her strength; that in most situations, she swiftly adjusted to her mean, which was that, since the majority of bad things that were going to happen to her lay in her past, there was no great call to fear the present. Besides, the groan was a groan, which meant this bad thing had happened to someone else. And it was coming from the bin; the green wheelie bin whose covering of snow was less thick than on the upturned bucket, whose presence in the yard had always been a mystery. So the bin had been opened since the snow began, and given that the chances of a slow horse emptying an office bin unbadgered were on the thin side, this hadn’t happened for the purposes of rubbish disposal—and why was she running through all this in her mind? There was somebody in the bin, and they sounded injured. Either a derelict had wandered in looking for shelter, or a random stranger had dropped from a helicopter, or—
Or whatever.
She flung the lid back with difficulty, and peered in, and found him nestled in the rubbish like a Sumatran rat, among takeaway cartons and throwaway cups, and damp newspapers that should have been recycled, and cigarette cartons that should never have been bought. His eyes, wide open, looked through her to the sky. Sweet Jesus. He’d been caught in a trap left in someone else’s bin, and behind the filth she could make out jagged graffiti on his face.
Once more, she was not alone. Someone had stepped into the yard behind her.
Catherine didn’t need to turn. A tinny leakage filled the air, as if bad music were dribbling from someone’s ears, or the headphones meant to install it.
“Roderick,” she said.
“. . . Huh?”
“Roderick,” she repeated, turning and clapping her hands to rid them of snow. “What happy timing. Perhaps you’d help Mr. Wicinski out of the bin.”
And then, when Roddy looked like he was having trouble putting those words together, Catherine poked him sharply on the shoulder. “That wasn’t a suggestion. Do it now.”
So Roddy, with no great panache, gave it a go.
The happy news the snow plough left was that the road was largely cleared.
There was, however, a downside.
“It tried to fucking bury us,” said an outraged Shirley.
“Maybe if you keep swearing, the snow’ll melt off,” River suggested. He and Coe were scraping the plough’s leavings from Ho’s car using the cardboard sheets that had seen service as bedding. “In which case, you know. Carry on. Don’t lend a hand or anything.”
“I’m busy,” she snarled.
The plough was long gone, and its driver too far away to hear the words “muff-sucking cum-bucket”, even if they’d have meant much to him, or indeed, anyone but Shirley. Whose voice in the still morning air had the clarity of a church bell, though you’d be more likely to respond to an invitation to prayer from a dalek.
The lorry driver stuck his head out of his window. “Can you keep it down? I’m trying to shave.”
Shirley turned her gorgon-face on. “I’ve two words for you, so listen carefully. Fuck. Right. Off.”
“. . . That’s three words.”
“You’re not listening, you’re counting. Don’t make me come over there.”
The man’s head withdrew.
River sighed.
“Don’t you start,” she warned him. She looked back in the direction of the parked lorry. “And he’d better have jam in that fucking cabin. Because if he speaks again, he is toast.”
Job done, Coe had cast his cardboard sheet aside and was studying his phone, which River assumed meant he was working on a problem. This turned out to be geographical.
“Louisa’s phone is this side of Pegsea,” he said.
“How do you know?” growled Shirley.
Coe stared at her. “Because I have the coordinates,” he said at last. “And a map.”
“. . . Okay. Jesus. Just checking.”
“So what are we waiting for?” said River, climbing back into the car.
They were waiting for Coe to finish plotting his course, which he did in silence, standing in the cold.
Shirley was scrumpling up the foam sheeting. “Last night must be the most action Ho’s back seat’s ever seen,” she said.
“It’s the most I’ve seen in a while,” River admitted.
“You’d better not have been doing anything while I was asleep,” said Shirley. “Because if you did, and I find out, you’re a dead man.”
“Trust me,” River said. “Even if I had a list, you wouldn’t be on it.”
Coe got into the driver’s seat.
“And that goes double for him,” said Shirley. “You messed with him in the night, he’ll be pissed. And he hasn’t killed anyone in ages.”
“Far as you know,” Coe said.
“. . . Was that a joke?”
“I don’t do jokes.”
“Could we get a move on?”
Coe started the car. “I have a plan,” he said.
Coming from anyone else that would be reassuring, but like Shirley said, Coe hadn’t killed anyone in a while, and it wasn’t clear to River that that wasn’t simple lack of opportunity. Last time he’d found himself in a village setting Coe had face-painted a pavement. The face belonged to a terrorist, true, but it had been an over-the-top reaction that didn’t say much for the man’s mental handbrake. And here they were out of town again. It was possible, River reflected, that Coe followed the rock-star-on-tour guideline, and thought nothing counted outside the M25. In which case, it was as well the only gun they had was in River’s pocket.
“Gunna tell us what it is?” Shirley asked.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because if we find Louisa’s body, it’s moot,” said Coe, and put the car into gear.
The ploughed road was rocky going, but at least they were on the move once more.
As they left the lorry driver waved a two-fingered salute, but River decided not to mention this to Shirley.