“I really did want a lecture on Park processes. Can you explain their time sheets now?”
“All I’m saying, she might not have known she didn’t get through. She could have dumped her phone and gone dark without the Park knowing about it.”
Lamb said, “That’s exactly the kind of arsehole outcome I’ve got used to.”
Behind him, there was traffic noise; the aquarium swoosh of a big car passing.
“You’re outside?” said River. He hadn’t meant to sound surprised, but, well, Lamb? Outside?
“Visiting an old friend.”
River wasn’t sure which was the less likely scenario: that Lamb had an old friend, or that he might ever make a new one. “My battery’s nearly done,” he said. “I’ll call when I can. Any news from there?”
He wasn’t sure why he asked, except that something had to have happened, if Lamb had left his room.
“Wicinski cut himself shaving. Or someone did.”
Whatever that was about, River didn’t have the battery power to pursue it. “Hanging up now,” he said, and disconnected.
Five minutes later, the snow deeper here than on the road, he was on the coastal path.
“Just a fox,” Louisa said, back at the shed.
Emma, less concerned about local wildlife than the general situation, said, “You should have been out of here the first night. Stolen a car.”
“The roads were shit. You couldn’t see two feet in front of you. Besides, I was exhausted. And they didn’t have guns then.” She rubbed her arm. It was hurting still, and she was tired and thirsty. Some nut-based energy bars, carrots and a pack of raisins yesterday, and not much sleep. “I thought they were local thugs, paid to throw a scare around. That was before Lucas told me what he’d seen. Who he’d seen.”
Emma said, “A prince of the bloody realm. Thanks so much for involving me in this.”
“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him I hit with the wrench,” said Louisa. “If that makes you feel better.”
“I doubt he even knows about this. He’s probably known nothing about anything his whole life, except that every so often he has a problem, and someone makes it go away. But on the whole, he probably doesn’t get to hear about the problem.”
“You think he’s why we’ve had no response from the Park?”
“If anyone was coming they’d be here, weather or not. And it wouldn’t have taken two minutes to find you, given the cottage was on Harper’s contact list. So yes, I imagine he’s the reason why.”
“We’re on our own, then.”
“Looks like. Unless your Lamb gets his act together.”
Which had been known to happen, thought Louisa.
She said, “What do you think happened to the girl?”
“I expect they paid her off.”
“At least they didn’t kill her.”
“If they had, Lucas would never have got off that roof,” Emma said. “They’d have sanitised the area. Look, there were three of them that first night, right? And they were waiting for Lucas to walk into their arms. So maybe three is all there is.”
“There’ll be someone directing operations.”
“Four, then. Still not enough to cover everywhere.”
“What are you thinking?”
“What I’ve thought from the start. Police. Judd might have been Home Secretary once, but a town this size, this far from London? I doubt he could fix a parking ticket.”
“You want us to walk up to the front door?”
“Maybe not all three of us.”
“It’s bang in the middle of town. It’s a risk.”
“Which goes both ways. What are they going to do? Gun me down in the High Street?”
“‘Me’?”
“They had a look at you when you were Wonder Womaning them with your monkey wrench. Only one of them saw me. And not for long.”
“I’m not sure I like this.”
“Which bit especially? Hiding in the wood, not having food, or men with guns?”
It was true that there wasn’t much upside.
“You’re noticeable, though,” Louisa said. “A three-word description would do it.”
Emma had already produced an elastic band from her coat pocket; her hair was tied back before Louisa finished speaking.
“Maybe I should rub mud into it,” said Louisa.
“In your dreams.”
“Then maybe,” said Louisa, “we should swap coats.”
What Shirley needed was snowshoes.
No: what she needed was a yacht, moored somewhere far away.
But all she had was one small twist of speed, for an emergency.
Truth was, she’d had six emergencies since yesterday but no privacy, and while she had few qualms about getting into it with River Cartwright (“Excuse me? Weekend?”), she wasn’t a hundred percent confident of J.K. Coe’s reaction. A thing about psychopaths: you couldn’t tell which side of an issue they’d come down. Little bit of discretion there, then. One of her overlooked virtues, her opinion.
She paused, removed a glove with her teeth, and rummaged in her back pocket, at last producing a cellophane wrap with barely anything in it. The rough equivalent of what, a double espresso? . . . Not long back, she’d tried experimenting with drugs. The experiment had been to see how long she could go without using them, and, having established to her satisfaction that the answer was “Quite long enough, thanks,” had gone back to doing whatever she wanted, whenever she liked.
And it wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t like she answered to anyone, except Jackson Lamb, and he gave no kinds of fuck. Marcus, sure, would have had objections. Marcus wouldn’t approve of her taking speed, not on an op. True, this felt more like a misguided office outing, but still, he’d have had a point . . . She missed Marcus. So perhaps she should honour his memory by keeping the speed until this was over, and she almost certainly would have done so, had she not already taken it while engaged in mental debate. But it showed, anyway, that she was capable of moral disputation. Another overlooked virtue. She was practically a saint.
New-found energy buzzing, Shirley crested the hill and found more whiteness: a sky bigger than London’s, and not shy about it. And on the downward slope to her left, a darker shape, behind snow-draped trees. A pitched roof.
You’ll come to a wood. There are buildings just beyond it.
And that was what she’d found, only instead of driving up the lane, she’d parked early and walked. The kind of thing that could pass as a tactic, if you were describing it to someone else. You want to get the drop on someone, you don’t approach their front door on foot. You find an alternative route.
Shirley Dander, she thought. Queen of fucking everything.
Let’s see what’s going on round there.
Snowshoeless, she made her way towards the trees.
The first ‘shed’ turned out to be a gun emplacement: a brick shelter half-buried underground, with narrow slits facing the sea, and littered with crushed cans, crisp packets, crumpled silver foil, and sooty embers; with mulled odours of urine, beer and tobacco. Hard to say whether it had been used as living quarters or party space. Either way, it didn’t say much for the local amenities.
River emerged to a now-familiar canvas: the sky, the sea, the cliffside and fields, all varying shades of white.
Despite the weather, he wasn’t the first here this morning. Snow was kicked up in front of him. Maybe the woman he’d seen in her car, with her comedian of a dog . . . Something underfoot rolled and he went down on one knee in the snow, like a pilgrim. It would be so easy—so easy to miss your step, and pitch headlong into a short future. Looking for someone else was tricky when looking where you were going demanded your full attention.