As for the voice of support, Louisa recalled that Jaffrey was famous for recruiting his staff from the ranks of ex-offenders, which meant, if this were a movie, that he’d turn out to be running a crime syndicate under cover of a political campaign. Then again, if this were a movie, Louisa’s shades wouldn’t be six years out of style.
Shirley said, ‘What are the chances Coe’s right about this?’
‘Not high.’
‘How not high?’
‘Really not high.’ Louisa pulled out to overtake some middle-lane hog who was dawdling along at seventy-five. ‘I mean, okay, the whole watering hole thing, maybe he’s on to something. But if you mean, is a terror gang about to try and whack Zafar Jaffrey, I can’t really see that happening, no.’
‘So why are we here?’
‘Gets us out of the office.’
Shirley turned to give a little wave to the overtaken driver, then blew a bubble with the gum and let it pop. ‘If he’s as clever as everyone says he is, how come he’s a fucking idiot?’
‘Who, Coe? I don’t think he is a fucking idiot.’
‘He barely ever says a word.’
‘Not a sign of idiocy,’ Louisa said pointedly, though that barb didn’t land.
‘Plus he’s a psycho.’
‘Well, yeah. He is that.’
‘I bet his phone’s smarter than he is.’
‘Everyone’s phone is smarter than they are.’
‘I bet his has a more exciting sex life.’
‘Is he gay, do you reckon?’
‘I don’t want to think about Coe’s dick.’
‘I’m not asking you to think about—’
‘Yeah, you’re asking me to speculate where he likes putting it. And I don’t want to think about that.’
Louisa said, ‘You’re the one who brought it up.’ She raised a finger from the wheel and pointed it at the opposite lane of traffic. ‘Yellow car.’
‘I don’t want to play that any more.’
Like an eight-year-old, Louisa mentally amended. It was like being trapped with an eight-year-old.
Maybe she’d have been better off partnering with Coe – she’d certainly have had a quieter journey – but, yes, he was kind of psycho. This didn’t mean his overall analysis of the situation was off. The whole destabilising project sounded barking enough to ring true to Louisa, and that was enough to make this journey worthwhile – she hadn’t been kidding about getting out of the office. Because sooner or later, Ho was going to tell the boys and girls at Regent’s Park that he’d handed over a Service document to some bad actors, who were using it as a blueprint to a murder spree, and then hellfire was going to rain down. Best to be elsewhere when that happened: let Lamb soak it up on his own.
And even if nothing happened in Birmingham, this didn’t make the journey a waste of time. She’d screwed up last night. Ho could have been killed, and, whatever anyone felt about Ho, Slough House had seen enough death. Besides, if Ho had been whacked, what would that say about her own abilities? She’d been there to protect him. So today she was going the extra mile: call it penance. Also, she’d closed River down when he’d suggested Shirley was missing Marcus, and she felt bad about that too. Maybe it was time to start probing. Maybe, instead of bouncing off each other like spinning tops, she and Shirley could do each other some good.
So she said, ‘You never talk about Marcus.’
Shirley proved her point by not replying.
‘I know what it’s like to lose someone close.’
‘And when you talk about them, do they come back?’
It was Louisa’s turn not to say anything.
Shirley said, ‘How long has this gum been in there anyway?’
‘Longer than the sunglasses.’
Shirley spat it into her hand. Then her face brightened. ‘Yellow car.’
‘I thought you didn’t want to play any more.’
‘No,’ said Shirley. ‘I just didn’t want to lose.’
Are we nearly there yet? wondered Louisa.
A sign told her: fifteen miles.
See? We are on the same page after all.
When a police officer, Emma Flyte had never fallen into the trap of thinking cops and villains two sides of a coin, closer in outlook than a civilian could understand. She preferred to hold to a more fundamental verity: that villains were arseholes who needed locking up, and cops were the folk to do it.
Here on Spook Street, the option of arresting the bad guys wasn’t open to her.
If it had been, Jackson Lamb would have been on her list. She didn’t care that he used to be a joe – didn’t buy into that whole romantic notion of the bruised survivor of an undercover war – and wasn’t impressed by his apparent determination to bully or alienate everyone around him. She simply thought him a bastard, and the best way of dealing with bastards was to cut them off at the knees. And even Lamb himself, deluded ringmaster that he was, would have to agree that over the last hour or so, he’d provided her with a sharp enough axe to do just that.
Emma pulled back her hair, tied it with an elastic band. Anything less utilitarian – even the most basic of scrunchies – and she’d get sideways looks from male colleagues, who seemed to think any hint of decoration meant she was playing the gender card. That these same men wore ear studs and sleeve tattoos didn’t figure in their calculations … She was in her car, though hadn’t yet turned the key. Hadn’t yet figured out her next move.
She hoped it hadn’t showed, back in Slough House, but rage was sluicing through her body. Being cuffed like a prisoner; fed tea from a cup in someone else’s hands – what she really wanted was to bang heads together; corral the slow horses and have each of them hobbled. Boiled down into glue.
But …
But she didn’t much care for the bigger picture either.
The Standish woman was right: Claude Whelan had his hands full, and wouldn’t appreciate the mess she’d made of locking down Slough House. And Taverner would be less than no help: she’d happily accept any ammunition that could be used against Lamb, but she wasn’t the type to waste ammo, and if she could bring down Emma with the same round, she’d do precisely that. Emma had disappointed Taverner by failing to nail her colours to Taverner’s mast, and Diana had a robust approach to alliances, one which refused to accept the notion of a neutral. If you weren’t for her, you were fair game.
Besides. There was always the possibility Lamb was right. And whatever she’d said back there about Waterproof, about how the old ways no longer applied in Regent’s Park, she had the feeling that if the Abbotsfield killings turned out part of a cataclysmic self-inflicted wound, then anyone who knew about it would soon wish they didn’t.
She drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel. The day was packing its bags and tidying up; would be drawing the curtains before long. Whatever she was going to do, she’d better get on with it.
There was a phrase she’d heard bandied about: London Rules. Rule one was cover your arse …
What she really hated about reaching this conclusion was knowing Lamb would expect her to do just that.
Thank God she had at least one ally in this dog-eat-dog universe. Before starting the car, she reached for her phone, and called Devon.
Catherine said, ‘Happy now?’
‘You know me. Like Pollyeffinganna on Christmas morning.’
‘I’m guessing Santa brought you mostly coal,’ she said.
They were in his office. Outside, the afternoon was dying; in here, it could have been any time from 1972 onwards. Lamb had poured himself a medium-huge glass of whisky; had poured one for Catherine, too, which he did sometimes. Perhaps he wanted her to drink from it. Perhaps he just wanted to watch her resisting. So much of his life seemed to consist of testing other people’s limits. Presumably he’d grown bored testing his own.