‘Tell me about his brother.’
‘Karim. Quite a bit younger, twelve years, that area. He was radicalised without anyone noticing. Bad internet connections, mostly – that sounds like a techie problem, but you know what I mean. He got involved in a couple of forums that’ve since been shut down. First the family knew about it, he was posting a video from Syria. And the last thing they knew, a couple of months later, he was playing gooseberry in someone else’s date with a drone. Syria’s one place where you really don’t want to go celebrity spotting, isn’t it?’
‘I’ll scrub it from my bucket list. What about entourage?’
‘Jaffrey does a lot of work with radicalised youngsters – recovering radicals, that is. Gets them speaking in schools, writing blogs, doing podcasts. And he recruits his staff from their number. So what we’ve got is a lot of vetting reports with more hedges than Hampton Court maze. That’s just a quick overview, obviously. But still …’
‘Nobody’s putting their career on the line to guarantee they’re all spotless.’
‘That’s about the size of it.’ Welles paused. ‘Plus, I just had a word with a former contact. A print reptile.’
She said, ‘You spoke to a journo?’
‘When the digital revolution’s won, we’ll all be speaking to them on a daily basis. “Yes, I will have fries with that.” Meanwhile, they have their uses. And this one works on Dodie Gimball’s paper. It seems Gimball’s filed a piece claiming Jaffrey has links to an, ah, unsavoury individual dealing with guns and fake paperwork. Dodie’s done the sums, and come up with terrorism. In fact, she’s drawing a direct connection between Jaffrey and the group responsible for the Derbyshire killings.’
Flyte said, ‘Oh – kay. Ten minutes after I’m handed a brief to make sure our man’s a white-hat, it turns out he’s in the frame for a mass murder.’
‘More like an hour,’ Welles said. ‘And are you allowed to say white-hat?’
‘Even we haven’t tagged those responsible for Derbyshire. How the hell would Gimball know?’
‘Doesn’t matter. She’s got some dirt and is about to throw it, that’s all. She’s married to Dennis, the anti-Europe MP. Probably has an agenda we don’t know about.’
‘Everybody does,’ grumbled Flyte. She finished her coffee and stood. ‘Thanks, Dev. But keep digging.’
‘Will do.’
She left in search of Lady Di.
Catherine put the kettle on and, while waiting, scrubbed at a stain on the kitchen counter. There was always something. Not long ago, she’d imagined herself out of Slough House for good, and the life she’d led during those few months had been serviceable enough: evenings had followed afternoons had followed mornings, and during none of them had she drank. But they weighed heavy. There are worse things an alcoholic can have on her hands than time, but not many. Her flat was a model of order; virtually a caricature. In order to spend time tidying, she had to mess things up first. Here in Slough House, mess came as standard. So yes, there was always something.
But not all stains scrubbed away. Some while back there’d been three deaths inside Slough House, which even Lamb allowed was pretty high for a mid-week afternoon. They’d lost a colleague, and a former spook, and a captive had been shot dead too. Catherine was perhaps the only one to mourn this final death. It wasn’t so much the loss of life as the manner of its taking: J. K. Coe had committed murder, and Catherine believed that such actions had consequences. This was nothing to do with religion or spiritual awareness, just her hard-won knowledge that bad things followed bad. Circles were traditionally vicious. Catherine suspected other shapes had teeth too, but better PR.
She finished scrubbing, made two cups of tea, and carried both, along with the dishcloth, up to Lamb’s room.
He stirred. ‘Did I accidentally establish an open-door policy? Because if so, I didn’t mean my door. I meant everyone else’s.’
Catherine put the two cups on his desk, removed a single sock, a comb missing so many teeth it needed dentures and an empty sandwich carton from the chair on the visitors’ side, and wiped it with the dishcloth. Then she sat.
‘It’s like a royal visitation,’ he grumbled. ‘If your arse is so particular, why’s it attached to you? What are you after, anyway? As if I didn’t know.’
‘Someone tried to run Roddy over.’
‘Yeah. You might have missed the bit where we had a meeting earlier? That was covered under Any Other Business.’
‘And you said it never happened.’
‘I pointed out that Dander’s a coked-up idiot,’ he said. ‘A subtle difference, I know. But subtlety’s always been my strong point.’
He farted, and reached for his tea.
‘Can you actually do that at will?’ Catherine asked, despite herself.
‘Do what?’
‘… Never mind. So you believe her. Despite her issues.’
The slurping noise he made would not have disgraced a pig.
‘And yet you let her think you didn’t.’
‘Jesus, Standish.’ He opened his desk drawer. She knew what was coming, and here it was: a bottle of Talisker. He opened it and poured about a week’s worth into his cup. ‘Complete the following, would you? Upon receiving information of a credible threat to an agent …’
Light dawned.
‘… Okay.’
‘Yeah, that’s not the exact wording.’
She could see no way out of this. ‘A report of same must immediately be made to local station head (Ops).’
‘I could actually hear the brackets there,’ he said. ‘And what’s our local station, remind me?’
‘Regent’s Park.’
‘Regent’s Park. So Service Standing Rule number whatever it is—’
‘Twenty-seven (three).’
‘Thank you. Demands that a full report of this morning’s events be made to Lady Di Taverner, who will doubtless copy Claude Whelan in. For a supposedly secret service, there’s a lot of stuff happens in triplicate.’ Lamb took a healthy gulp of what had been tea. ‘Ah, that’s better. Luckily, Service Standing Rule twenty-seven three is superseded by London Rules, rule one. Which is …?’
He cupped a hand behind a monstrous ear.
London Rules were written down nowhere, but everyone knew rule one.
‘Cover your arse.’
‘Precisely.’ He belched, proudly. ‘Because you may not have noticed, but Slough House isn’t exactly in Regent’s Park’s wank bank. In fact, there are those who’d happily tie us in a sack and drop us in the Thames.’ He shook his head at the thought of being unpopular, produced a cigarette from somewhere, and lit it. ‘So any time they get an opportunity to start writing memos about us, it’s in our interests to squash such opportunity before it comes to fruition. Do stop me if I’m going too fast.’
‘Your turn of speed is always impressive,’ she said. For someone your size, she meant. She waved away smoke. ‘Have you ever thought about quitting? You might live longer.’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘Good point. So what you’re saying is, whatever’s put Roddy in someone’s crosshairs has also put us in Regent’s Park’s firing line.’