‘Seize control of the media,’ said Lamb. He seemed to be pouting, his lower jaw thrust forward. Could mean anything from deep thought to imminent flatulence.
Shirley sat up. The left shoulder of her sweatshirt was spattered with blood from her torn ear, a spattering which her attempts at rinsing the top without first removing it had made substantially worse. The ear wasn’t pretty either. There had been no sticking plasters of the appropriate size in the first aid box, and by the time Catherine had trimmed an over-large one down to size, Shirley had self-medicated with a length of Sellotape. This had clogged the bleeding right enough, but gave Shirley the appearance of a mended doll.
She said, ‘TV. That’s their next target. Shepherd’s Bush or wherever. Where’s Sky?’
For a brief confused moment, Catherine thought Shirley had just asked where the sky was. More worryingly, she’d found it a reasonable question.
‘They’re not going to attempt to take control of a television company,’ said Louisa. ‘I mean, seriously?’
‘Why not?’ River asked.
‘Because they couldn’t even plant a bomb on a train successfully. Which, let’s face it, isn’t much more difficult than forgetting an umbrella.’
‘Somebody wandered into Dobsey Park and blew up a lot of penguins,’ River reminded her.
‘Yeah, penguins. Hard target or what?’
‘Okay, but they got in, they got out, they weren’t caught.’
‘It’s not a maximum-security prison, it’s a zoo. You buy a ticket. TV studios have checkpoints, they have guards, you need passes. You need to know what you’re doing. This bunch have tripped over their own dicks twice.’
‘Three times,’ said Shirley.
‘Whatever, they’re hardly the A-Team. Shooting up a village full of pensioners, that’s one thing. But what they’re best at is falling through windows.’
‘Well, okay, maybe not TV,’ River said.
‘Newspaper? Same story,’ Louisa said. ‘You don’t just waltz into a newspaper office unchallenged. In fact, you especially don’t waltz into—’
‘Radio?’ said River.
‘They could hang a few DJs,’ Shirley suggested.
‘—a newspaper office.’
Devon Welles said, ‘Is this brainstorming? I’ve often wondered what it looked like.’
‘Seize. The. Media,’ said Lamb again, and they all looked at him. ‘Where does that mention a building?’
J. K. Coe said, ‘The original plan—’
‘The Watering Hole paper,’ River offered.
‘—was predicated on a developing nation state.’ He spoke slowly, as if reading from notes. ‘Pre-satellite. Pre-internet. One where there’d only be a single TV channel. A single radio station. So seizing control of the media would be a straightforward business.’
‘You could do it with a couple of machine guns,’ said Shirley.
‘That was more or less my point.’
‘But it’s not so simple in Big London, right? Different rules.’
Coe rubbed his chin, and opened the scratch Kim had given him.
Welles, despite himself, was drawn in. ‘Remind me how they attempted to bring down the transport infrastructure?’
‘With a dud bomb,’ said Shirley.
‘On a train,’ said Welles. ‘That’s the key point. They put a bomb on a train.’
Louisa said, ‘Ri – ight.’
‘A dud bomb,’ Shirley repeated. ‘We’ve established they’re screw-ups. How is the small print helping?’
‘Doesn’t matter that it was a dud,’ Louisa said. ‘It matters that it was a train.’
‘Because blowing up a train, even with a bomb that works, is just blowing up a train,’ said Welles. ‘It’s not bringing down infrastructure. Get it?’
‘They’re ticking boxes,’ said Louisa. ‘Good thinking.’
‘Oh God, she’s in heat,’ said Lamb.
‘So they’re gonna blow up a TV set?’ said Shirley. ‘Set fire to a newspaper?’
River said, ‘Not the media. A media event.’
The door opened, and Emma Flyte came in.
‘Did she talk?’ Welles asked.
‘She talked,’ said Emma.
Claude Whelan tugged a loose thread on his shirt collar, then wished he hadn’t. Sometimes, when you pulled at things, all you did was make them worse.
Oh God, he thought. Way too early in the day for symbolism.
In a different world, he’d done what he’d intended yesterday evening: had left work, gone home, suppered with Claire. Some nights they shared the same bed, but not often, and always chastely. Was it any wonder … but no point going down that road. He loved his wife. Had phoned her at midnight, to tell her he wouldn’t be home; that things were moving, that he was on top of them. He’d had an image of young Josie while saying that: an image of being on top of her while she was moving. Was that his fault? He supposed it depended who you asked.
She had returned to him with her rundown on Dancer Blaine:
‘A small-time fixer, sir. Fake IDs, sometimes safe houses, the occasional used firearm. But mostly it’s IDs.’
‘And he reports back to us?’
‘Not on everything, or we’d have hauled him from the river by now. But he’s been helpful.’
She had a sheaf of printouts: a rough tally suggested Blaine had helped put away a dozen bad actors, none of them marquee names, and through it all had been allowed to continue his dreary little enterprise hard by St Paul’s. A little fish, Whelan had thought, leafing through the pages. One we throw back. Surely there’s an argument for feeding him into a waste disposal unit instead? Because let’s face it, the big fish are still out there. Sparing the little ones never changes that.
But it was late and things were sour, and you couldn’t change the rules once the game was under way. He was pretty sure that was one of Lady Di’s diktats.
‘Sir?’
He must have been staring at the pages too long.
‘Was there anything else you want?’
God, no, she hadn’t said that. Hadn’t said anything like it.
She returned to the hub. Everyone was working late; the perspective had altered now they knew they were no longer looking at Islamist extremism. The net they’d thrown had too wide a mesh. ISIS had claimed responsibility, true, but stop all the clocks: a death-worshipping bunch of medieval fascists had taken time off from beheading hostages to tell porkies. And if he said that out loud, he’d be the one in trouble: ‘porkies’ was a no-no … No wonder he was exhausted. Watching the world go mad was a tiring business.
Di Taverner had come into his office, and was staring. ‘Are you feeling all right?’
‘Sorry.’ He had run a hand through his hair, thinking, even as he did so, that it was a dramatic gesture more than a grooming need. ‘Things have happened.’
‘They never stop.’
This was true. Was it yesterday he’d been charged with ensuring Zafar Jaffrey was squeaky clean? And he’d fulfilled that mission by determining the exact opposite, which meant the PM wouldn’t be happy. On the other hand, the PM’s days were numbered, Jaffrey’s lack of squeaky-cleanliness being one more nail in what was starting to appear an over-engineered coffin.
‘Your presence at the Gimballs’ yesterday officially didn’t occur,’ Lady Di told him. She’d removed her raincoat and hung it over the back of his visitor’s chair. She didn’t sit, but didn’t pace either, preferring to remain upright with one hand lightly on the chairback, as if posing for a magazine shoot.