‘Our ten minutes is ticking away. And I don’t think our friend is likely to offer much leeway.’
‘Someone came for Roderick Ho the other night,’ Lamb said. He tucked his cigarette behind an ear. ‘He’s the one does my internet and stuff. And when I say “came for”, I mean, with guns.’
‘I presume they didn’t actually succeed.’
‘He was lucky enough to have the right pagan deity onside.’
‘Fortunate for him,’ said Molly. ‘But from what I’ve heard of your Mr Ho, you don’t require a shortlist of suspects as much as the electoral roll.’
‘There is that,’ said Lamb. ‘But as it happens, we know who it was. The same homicidal cretins who shot up that Derbyshire village.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Molly. ‘Stepped into something nasty, did he?’
‘And been treading it round on his shoe ever since. Course, he’s the last to notice.’
‘Where is he now?’
Lamb pointed floorwards.
‘But you don’t want to wait until they’ve finished wringing him out.’
‘He gave someone something. We know that much. The Watering Hole paper, Coe’s calling it.’
‘Mr Coe? I remember him. Pleasant young man.’
‘Yeah, he’s had a personality transplant since. Anyway, it’s a postwar planning document, some nonsense about destabilising a third world state, or developing nation, or whatever we call them now. Tinpot hellholes?’
‘I’m not sure that’s the PC term, but I think I know what you’re getting at. Where’s this paper come from?’
‘This is Ho we’re talking about. He snatched it out of the ether.’
‘Well, there you go. If it’s been digitised, it won’t be here. The point of putting records on the Beast is so they’re not taking up space elsewhere. The original will have long since been shredded.’
The Beast was Molly’s collective name for the assortment of databases the Service operated. She barely hid the hope that one day the whole vast edifice would crumble into spiralised landfill, leaving her realm the Service’s sole bank of reliable memory.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Lamb. ‘Except.’ He scratched an ear, found a cigarette there, stared at it for a moment, then put it back. ‘Except I think there’s more than one version. The original was ancient, like I said. But at some point or other it was picked up and dusted off, which is how it ended up on a database. Might not have been put into play, but it was certainly on an agenda at least once in recent decades.’
‘So you’re thinking the original might still exist, because the one your boy snatched from the Beast was an updated version.’ She grimaced, and her nose twitched. ‘Could be,’ she said at last. ‘Especially if whoever updated it didn’t want it known they’d copied someone else’s homework.’
‘Excellent,’ said Lamb. ‘Couldn’t find it for me, could you?’
‘Well, of course. I mean, I’ve nothing better to do.’
‘That crew who shot up Abbotsfield? They’re using this thing as a blueprint.’
‘Oh dear,’ Molly said.
‘So, you know. A bit of legwork’d be appreciated.’
She sucked in breath, but after a moment in which detonation seemed possible she exhaled again, blinked slowly, and shook her head. ‘You just can’t help yourself, can you, Jackson?’
‘Well, be fair,’ he said. ‘You’re a sitting target.’
Someone appeared in the doorway, and they both turned, expecting Welles.
But it was Emma Flyte.
‘You are seriously starting to piss me off,’ she told Lamb.
Nobody was going anywhere, but that didn’t mean they had to stay where they were. Louisa, Shirley and Catherine departed to their own offices while awaiting Lamb’s return, each contemplating the possible blowback that might be – would be – was definitely heading Slough House’s way. For Shirley this meant taking the twist of coke from her pocket, picturing the rush she’d get were she to take it, and trying to find a compelling reason for not doing so. The only one she could summon was that if she took it now she couldn’t take it later, when she might have greater need. As for Louisa, she’d gone online; at first dipping into various dodgy forums, looking for Abbotsfield chatter, but ultimately giving this up and shopping for boots instead. She found a promising pair, maybe a little pointy-toed – she’d heard it said boots can’t be too pointy, but never by anyone she completely trusted – but hovered over the Buy Now button so long it started to feel like she’d contracted retail paralysis, a condition she’d always thought gender-specific. Christ, it was only money. She clicked, and enjoyed a brief endorphin release. Upstairs, Catherine was tidying places that were already tidy. Her office was like a chamber of her own mind: everything was where it ought to be, but keeping it so required constant vigilance. Across the landing was Lamb’s room, its door lazily ajar; in Lamb’s desk drawer was a bottle of whisky, and with no conscious effort – as if it were marked with a pencil – Catherine could recall exactly the level at which its contents stood. It was as if she were perpetually geared up for departure, and always knew where her nearest exit was. In case of emergency, grab glass. Or no, forget the glass; go straight for the bottle.
Still in their own room, River and Coe were picking at the evening’s scab.
‘I thought you dumped your phone out the car window.’
Coe said, ‘You only have one phone? Seriously?’
‘You keep the spare for dramatic gestures, right?’
River was remembering Coe tossing the phone at Louisa: You want to call the police? Go right ahead. Remembering the gesture, perhaps, because it was preferable to dwelling on the consequences had Louisa done precisely that.
He said, ‘The entire country is focused on an alleyway in Slough. Do you really think they’re not going to work out what happened there? Someone will have seen us. Even if there’s no CCTV, someone will have seen us. Ho’s car’ll be on camera entering and leaving town.’
‘Along with hundreds of others,’ said Coe. ‘Besides, there was a genuine bad guy there, remember? We were trying to protect Gimball.’
‘And a damn fine job we did.’
‘Stop bitching. He’ll be on camera too, and he won’t have the advantage of being a member of the Service. We were there to protect Gimball. He was there to hurt him.’
‘He might have his own story to tell though, mightn’t he?’
‘Yeah, well,’ said Coe. ‘That depends on whether he gets to tell it.’
‘… Are you serious?’
‘He looked like a player. Let’s face it, he was giving you trouble. So when a SWAT team comes through his door, what are the odds he’ll put up a fight?’ Coe made a facial shrug, mostly using his eyebrows. It was as much expression as River had ever seen him wearing, and meant, in this instance, Game Over.
‘There’ll be an investigation,’ he said. ‘Even if they arrest tattoo guy’s corpse, they won’t just leave it at that. They’ll piece things together.’
‘How long have you been doing this? There’ll be an official version of events. That’s what happens. And what really went down, if it’s inconvenient, will be buried.’
‘Yeah, but we’re not inconvenient,’ said River. ‘We’re Slough House. We’re pretty much made to measure, if they’re looking to hang someone. Not to mention,’ he added, ‘that you really did kill him. You know? So it’s not even a fit-up.’
‘We’re Service,’ said Coe. ‘Slough House or not. This gets public, it’ll go global in a heartbeat. Half the world will believe we were following orders. The other half’ll know it for a fact.’
‘You keep saying “we”,’ said River.
‘There’s a reason for that.’