‘And who better than the hero of the referendum? Darling, happy endings are so rare in politics. This one will be celebrated for years.’
Like other newspaper columnists, like other politicians, they genuinely thought themselves beloved.
Dennis Gimball finished his wine and stood and stretched. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That’s all marvellous. And now perhaps I’ll just … take a stroll. Fetch a newspaper.’
‘Darling if you’re seen smoking, it’ll be headline news. You very publicly gave up, remember?’
‘It wasn’t front page of the manifesto, though.’
‘That was funny the first time, dear, but don’t ever say it again. If you’re going to smoke, do it in the garden. And make sure nobody’s watching.’
Sometimes, she thought, it was like having a child.
While he was in the garden she scrolled through her calendar, checking the details of the following evening’s public meeting, back in the constituency. Keeping it local was deliberate. Dennis’s strength lay in the way he tolerated ordinary people, pretending he was no more important than they were, and at this stage of his career he would rely on that more than ever. When he made his announcement, he would do it to his home crowd, in front of home cameras. His supporters would feel they were part of the moment, and the ensuing wave of good feeling would carry him through the next few months. Meanwhile, that same wave would send the PM onto the rocks. An amiable idiot whose amiability was wearing thin, the PM’s idiocy was growing more apparent by the day; he’d surrounded himself with his familiars to the point where a Cabinet meeting resembled his sixth form common room, and he had no idea of the resentment this was generating. The tide was turning, though, and he’d soon be high and dry.
This was jolly good stuff, by the way. She should jot down notes – wave of feeling, onto the rocks, turning of the tide …
Dodie finished her drink and turned to the next item on her agenda: what to wear for the event. Something sober, something serious, something not too flashy but oozing class. Which, truth to tell, that red cocktail dress never had. It wouldn’t do to let Dennis know that, though. Even the best-matched couples need their secrets.
After five, the stairs in Slough House only went in one direction. That was the general rule, anyway. Shirley’s final AFM was at six, and it wouldn’t take her half an hour on foot to get there, which was just one of the many annoying things about having her anger managed: if she had to spend time kicking something, her heels wouldn’t be her first choice. Besides, she wanted to get on with the evening’s main business: tailing Roddy Ho, and seeing what reptiles crawled in his wake. Was so intent on that, in fact, that the wrap of coke in her pocket kept slipping her mind.
And then, as is the way with such things, slipping back into it again.
Maybe she should take it now? Start the evening with a buzz: give herself an edge. She’d never taken coke before an AFM, except for once or twice, and what the helclass="underline" she’d survived the course, right? Had only had it extended once, or maybe twice … Actually, maybe coking up wasn’t the best idea.
Kicking her heels in her office, then. Extending the stupid day’s work another thirty stupid minutes, knowing all the while that River Cartwright and Louisa Guy were already on the job: her job. Just her luck if she missed the action altogether. Worst-case scenario: Ho got whacked in an interesting way, and she wasn’t there to see. She’d never hear the end of it. And here she still was, another twenty-eight minutes to go, and all alone in Slough House, except for …
Lamb and Catherine.
There was something else on her mind – had been for a while – and the right moment for dealing with it had never come up, largely because such a moment quite likely didn’t exist. But now would be a good time to establish that, one way or the other. Because it was either that or sit here counting minutes, to add to her tally of days …
Fuck it.
Shirley got up, left the office, took the stairs in the wrong direction.
‘How come Ho lives in a house?’ River said.
‘What were you were expecting? An upturned pizza box?’
‘You know what I mean.’
She knew what he meant.
He meant Ho lived in a house. A house. Not a flat, not a bedsit; an actual London property, with a front door and a roof and everything in between. River himself lived in a one-bedroomed flat in the East End, with a view of a row of lock-ups, fist-fighting drunks a regular lullaby, and rent getting steeper by the quarter. Louisa owned her own place – also a flat – but it was miles out of town; was part of London the same way its airports were. But Ho, apparently, lived in a house: not in the cleanest area of the capital, nor its brightest, but still. A fucking house.
‘Bank of Mum and Dad,’ said Louisa.
‘Has to be. And with a weird … what would you call that?’
‘A feature.’
Which looked like an upstairs conservatory: a room whose outer wall was mostly glass, and through the gaps in whose curtains the pair could see stacks of electronica, which they guessed were either for playing music with or wandering the web on. It was currently lit, and Ho – or someone – was pacing the floor within.
‘I think I remember him telling me about that,’ she said.
‘Ho talked to you about his house?’
‘I think.’
‘You listened?’
She said, ‘I’m a spy, remember?’
They were in Louisa’s car, and were, well, spying. To help with this, both were eating burgers out of polystyrene containers, and were sharing a portion of cheesy potato wedges, after a prolonged bout of negotiation (‘You don’t need to put salt on. They put salt on them already. They do.’) the stress of which probably undid the good that forgoing half a portion of cheesy potato wedges did. Ho had been home an hour, and they had already agreed that if he stayed in all night and nothing happened, they were going to toss Shirley from a bridge first thing in the morning.
The car was swampy with food odours. Louisa wound the window down to let some of them escape.
‘Speaking of houses.’
This was River.
She said, ‘Yeah?’
‘I went to the house the other day.’
‘Your grandad’s?’
River nodded.
‘Must be strange, him not being there.’
‘I think it’s the first time I’d ever been alone in the place. That can’t really be true. But it felt like it.’
It had been like stepping into someone else’s past. The books on the shelves, the coats on the rack, the wellingtons by the back door. It had been a decade since River moved away, and there’d be remnants of his presence, sure; chips on the skirting board, boxes in the attic, the odd shelf of teenage reading. But the house was the O.B.’s now, and before then had been the O.B. and Rose’s, River’s grandmother. Walking through it, he had felt himself a stranger, as if someone had curated a museum of his grandparents but forgotten to apply the labels. He had found himself touching objects, trying to place them in a chronology he had only ever known a small part of.
‘What’ll happen to it?’
‘Happen to it?’
Louisa looked away, then looked back. ‘He’s not going to live forever, River.’
‘No, I know. I know.’
‘So are you his sole heir?’
‘My mother’s his next of kin.’
‘But is he likely to leave it to her?’
‘I don’t know. No. Probably not.’
‘Well then.’
‘It’s not like I’m just waiting for him—’
‘I know.’
‘—to die, I’m not—’
‘I know.’
‘—counting the days. Yeah, I’ll probably inherit. And yes, it’ll come in handy. God knows, London’s pricey. But I’d rather have him around, if it’s all the same to you. Even now. When he’s away with the fairies half the time.’