There were noises off: bodies arriving downstairs. The Dogs, Lamb assumed. Come to take Ho to the Park, and nail the rest of them down. He heard Standish open her door and emerge onto the landing. ‘What’s going on?’ she called.
‘There you go,’ said Lady Di. ‘Keen investigative mind at work.’
Roderick Ho would have been pleased, though unsurprised, to learn that he was the reason Kim’s heart was beating faster.
When she’d got home last night, the taxi having dropped her two streets away – in her line of work, it was best to keep her address quiet – she’d sat up late watching The Walking Dead and drinking vodka mixed, at first, with cranberry juice, and when that ran out, with more vodka. Sleep had come suddenly, without warning, and she’d woken with drool bonding her to her pillow and a thumping heart. Things had gone bad. Or were about to. Sometimes these feelings were misaddressed, emotional mail meant for someone else, but they were always worth acting on. The worst-case scenario was the one you planned for.
So she showered and dressed in three minutes, and grabbed her emergency kit from the wardrobe: passport, both savings books and two grand in cash, plus a change of clothing and the bare minimum of warpaint, all bundled inside a getaway bag. Nothing else in her room mattered. The rent was by the month; her housemates temporary friends. She’d leave them a note – an invented emergency – and walk out of their lives forever. Or run. Her heart hadn’t slowed yet, and if it wasn’t the organ you placed the most trust in, it was certainly the one you wanted to keep doing its job.
Roderick Ho, she thought. The reason her heart was in warning mode was Roderick Ho.
Make it quick? He’s harmless.
They were only going to work him over, they’d said, but she hadn’t really believed it. Which meant, her beating heart whispered, that making herself scarce was the wise next move.
Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she left the room and was on the landing when the doorbell rang.
She froze.
But why worry? It was mid-morning, in one of the world’s biggest cities. There were postmen and people peddling religion; there were meter readers; there were pollsters who wanted to know what you thought about things you’d never thought about. The shape behind the mottled glass in the front door could have been any one of these. When she altered position, light slid across the blurred outline of a face, as if it were being scribbled upon.
The doorbell rang again.
There was a back way, through the tiny garden, over the fence; an escape route, except one that meant going down the stairs, making her briefly visible to whoever was at the door. Who was rattling the handle now, and meter readers didn’t do that. They just pushed a card through the slot. Kim backed away from the landing and re-entered her bedroom. Its window gave onto the garden, a drop about twice her own height. There came a splintery whisper from downstairs, as if a metal lever had been inserted into a gap too small for it. The window was a sash and was locked; a screw device that only took seconds if you weren’t panicked by intruders. Kim’s fingers leaked fear, and kept slipping. The splintery sound became a crack. The window-lock gave, and its rod fell into her hand. There were footsteps on the stairs, and her heart battered her ribs as she pulled the window up and tossed her bag out. She would follow it. It would take a second. Less. But her top caught on something as she bent to lever herself through the gap: lives have hung on less. Threads, promises.
When she turned, he was in the room with her, his gun pointing directly at her face.
Emma Flyte didn’t seem too enamoured of Slough House. She wasn’t actually running her finger over surfaces and tutting, but that might have been because she was trying to avoid touching anything. ‘I’m familiar with the phrase “office culture”,’ she’d said, on looking round. ‘But yours appears to involve actual spores.’
River wouldn’t have minded, but he’d cleaned up just last week. Or thought about cleaning up, he now remembered. A plan he’d ultimately rejected in favour of doing sod all.
Flyte had chosen his office in which to assemble them because Lamb’s room barely had space enough to roll your eyes. Lamb, pouting like an emperor in exile, had commandeered River’s desk, and was currently rearranging its clutter with his feet. But at least he’d kept his shoes on. River was leaning against a filing cabinet, his instinct being to keep everyone in sight, while Coe was at his own desk, acting, as usual, as if he were alone. Catherine had pulled a chair against the wall and sat calmly, a folded newspaper in her lap, and Louisa and Shirley were either side of the window, like mismatched candlesticks. Ho, of course, had been hustled away by Dogs and Lady Di, so wasn’t there. That’s all of us, thought River.
Shirley had glowered at both him and Louisa that morning, but her heart hadn’t been in it, mostly because she’d wanted to tell them that she’d been right and they’d been wrong. Somewhere around two in the morning, there’d been broken glass all over Ho’s street. A body had come through a window, and been spirited away. It all sounded like the kind of thing slow horses daydreamed about while fiddling with spreadsheets – action, excitement, other people getting hurt. Though Shirley’s vagueness with the details suggested she hadn’t covered herself in glory.
‘So Lamb was there all the time?’ Louisa asked.
‘Go out with Kim, go home to Jackson Lamb,’ said Shirley. ‘Ho’s priorities are seriously fucked.’
Afterwards there’d been police followed by, in short order, the Dogs. It had been, Shirley said, a travelling circus, and nobody had a clue what was going on.
Situation normal, then.
Flyte, who had positioned herself by the door, was casting an eye over the assembled company. River’s previous encounter with her had involved his head coming into violent contact with hers, and the fact that this was accidental probably didn’t console her as much as it did him. At the time she’d suffered bad bruising, but the damage had left no permanent trace. If Kim was an eight and a half, possibly a nine, Emma Flyte was a ten, possibly an eleven.
What she was focusing on now was Coe, who was fixing buds in his ears.
‘What’s that?’
He didn’t respond.
Lamb said, ‘He’s a bit stand-offish. Try punching him in the face.’
‘Coe,’ Louisa said. ‘Someone wants a word.’
Coe looked at Flyte.
‘What’s that?’ she repeated.
‘iPod.’
‘Put it away.’
‘Why?’
Emma Flyte said, ‘Do I look like I’m here to answer questions? This is a lockdown. No comms.’
‘It’s an iPod,’ Coe repeated.
‘I don’t care.’
Catherine said, ‘You’re familiar with Slough House’s brief, I assume?’
‘I’ve had that pleasure.’
‘Then you’ll know that some of us have … issues.’
‘What’s your point, Ms Standish?’
‘Just that listening to music has the effect of calming Mr Coe down. He’s subject to panic attacks, you see.’
‘And what happens if he doesn’t listen to music?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Catherine said. ‘We’ve never prevented him before.’
‘But he carries a knife,’ Shirley put in.
Flyte looked at Coe. He was thin, white and wearing a hoodie that had bunched around his shoulders: if you were looking for someone to play Bowie on an off-day, he’d not be a bad start. When he had first arrived in Slough House, River recalled, J. K. Coe had been tense as a fist. If he’d loosened up a bit since, he’d become no friendlier.
‘Do you always talk about him as if he weren’t here?’ Flyte asked.
‘Yes.’