‘My Dennis was a great man! His life will be celebrated—’
‘And accompanied by photos which will be less than flattering, Dodie. You know the kind I mean.’
Beside them, on the road into London, traffic hissed its displeasure.
‘So here we are,’ said Dodie. ‘My husband dead a few hours, and already you’re back with your nasty threats. Do you know how many people share the same … tastes as Dennis? Do you really think it matters?’
‘I don’t, as it happens. Not one bit. But the people who read your column do, Dodie. Even those who read it wearing their wives’ underwear. You’ll have heard all this from Claude Whelan already. It doesn’t matter how innocent it is, it doesn’t matter that nobody gets hurt, or that it’s nobody else’s business. There’s only one slant a newspaper like yours is going to take on it, and that’s to splash it as a sordid little secret. You know the difference between a dead pervert and a live one? A dead one can’t sue.’
‘My husband was not—’
‘So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to publish the story you were planning on Zafar Jaffrey. You can even let it be known that Dennis was intending to reveal that same story in his speech tonight. What you will omit from that narrative is any mention of Secret Service involvement. Are you clear on that?’
She wasn’t.
The blue lights were still looping, ahead and behind. Their wash turned her visitor’s face different colours: indigo, then purple, then sudden, ghostly white. It occurred to Dodie that, ten minutes ago, she’d thought the police cars there to protect her. Now, it seemed, their purpose had always been to deliver her to another tormentor, whose own mission it was to confuse. She was already nostalgic for simple grief; for the time spent alone in the car.
She said, ‘But the whole point of Whelan’s visit was to warn us off Zafar Jaffrey,’ and even to her own ears, her voice sounded lifeless.
‘Things change,’ Taverner told her. ‘Alliances shift. And you’d be advised to bear that in mind, Dodie. For some reason, you seem to think we’re the enemy. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re not perfect, sure. Sometimes, things get past us. But the rest of the time – all the rest of the times – we’re there, doing our job.’
She turned and observed the passing traffic for a while, as if conscious that this too was under her protection. Then turned back to Dodie.
‘Nothing can bring your husband back, Mrs Gimball. But if you want him to be remembered as a hero, we can help that happen. In due course. And his little embarrassments don’t ever have to see the light of day.’
She opened the car door.
‘I’m going now. Again, I’m sorry for your loss. But if you want your husband’s legacy to be one he’d have been proud of, you’ll remember what I said and omit any mention of Service involvement. I’m sure we understand each other.’
She left. Alone again, Dodie focused once more on the string of red tail lights on the road ahead, breezing into the city. She barely noticed when the driver got back in, and the little procession recommenced its journey.
13
DAWN HAD COME ONCE more, and slipped in unnoticed. In Slough House she was met with the unfamiliar spectacle of living, waking humans; most of whom, true, might have been mistaken for some other kind. River Cartwright and J. K. Coe both had their eyes shut, though in Coe’s case this reflected an effort at memory: he was trying to recall the exact shape of an emotion, the precise geometry of a particular moment, when he had fired three bullets into the chest of a manacled man. River, meanwhile, was screening horrors on his eyelids: the never-ending tumble of a lethal can of paint; its repeated collision with a human head. Both men were seated, both on the floor; in fact, of all those present, only Louisa Guy was upright, her back ramrod straight against the wall, her right leg raised level. She held this position for a full thirty seconds, then lowered that leg and raised the other. Through crocodile eyes Jackson Lamb watched her, his mind busy with other things.
Shirley Dander was also on the floor, curled into a ball, but she wasn’t sleeping either; she was adding another day to her tally, and wondering where this numerical sequence would end. An hour earlier Catherine Standish had laid a coat across her, which had given her a tremor. Being tucked in didn’t really figure in her lifestyle. Catherine, mother-henning done, had settled in an office chair, on the opposite side of the desk from where Lamb was sprawled; a configuration replicated from Lamb’s own office, as if they remained engaged in the same dance, regardless of location. She seemed alert and unruffled, her hair tied back in its usual manner; her dress as uncreased as if she’d put it on an hour ago. Lamb had fetched his bottle from upstairs, and it stood, a nearly empty sentry, on the desk in front of him. But there was only one glass there – his – and Catherine’s eyes never lingered on it or the bottle itself.
They were in Roderick Ho’s office, though Ho himself, of course, was elsewhere. Of those in the room, only two gave any thought to this, and one of those was Catherine.
From across the hall she could hear a low murmur, which had started as a singular flow, Emma Flyte’s voice, with the occasional interjection. Now there was a mumbled counterpoint, hesitant at first, a drip from a faulty tap, which had since become more regular; a steady trickle which would, in time, fill any vessel provided. This was what happened when you opened up: there was no stopping what you’d started. It was one of the reasons Catherine was wary of AA meetings.
Now she thought of that poor girl’s face, her nose a mess, her eyes black and swollen; and then of the TV footage from Abbotsfield, the Derbyshire fastness which guns had undone, in part because of that girl’s actions. It was odd she could feel sympathy for the one in spite of the other. Or that even now she worried about Roddy Ho, when really they should have banded together ages back, and dangled him from a window. Made him realise there were hard facts beyond the bubble of his own ego; among them, the nearest pavement.
Lamb stirred. ‘Isn’t this cosy?’
‘I’d have made her talk by now,’ said Shirley, her voice muffled by her own arm.
‘You’d have made her scream. There’s a difference.’
Louisa said, ‘What if she doesn’t know anything?’
‘Well if she’s that fucking ignorant she can join the team,’ said Lamb.
Catherine turned on her iPad and flicked through news channels. All were burning up the same story: the death of Dennis Gimball in an alleyway in Slough. Speculation ranged from assassination by Remainers – as unlikely a theory as it was inevitable – to a conspiracy hatched in Downing Street. The latter, admittedly, wasn’t getting coverage on the mainstream sites, but was popular with idiots on social media. Then again, idiots on social media had dictated world events of late, and were clearly on a roll.
Elsewhere, there were follow-ups on Abbotsfield; a Home Office spokesperson saying that investigations were continuing, arrests would be made. The lack of concrete detail was explained by the need not to compromise ongoing operations; a need that most readers understood would be jettisoned as soon as concrete details became available. Meanwhile, a service for civilian casualties of war, re-dedicated as a memorial for Abbotsfield, would be held that afternoon at Westminster Abbey, attended by the younger princes, the PM, and everyone with a desire to have their tears recorded for posterity. A less star-spangled, somewhat hijacked service would take place in Abbotsfield itself. She found a shaky little video from the village: its church; a weathered cemetery; the multicoloured dullness of stained glass viewed from the wrong side. The lychgate was draped with wreaths and the small offerings the living consecrate to the dead – toys and ribbons, flowers, photographs. Catherine wasn’t sure how she felt about this. On the other hand, it wasn’t her grief.