Or he could just beat himself to death with a hole punch.
Gathering one up, pumping it like a stress reliever, he crossed to the window whose gold-tooled lettering spelled ww henderson, solicitor and commissioner for oaths for the benefit of those on the street who wondered what poor fools toiled away in here. An oath or two had been uttered in these parts, that was true. The hole punch clacked in his hand. He heard the downstairs door open then close, and thought, Catherine, then: no. She comes up the stairs like a ghost. Lamb could too when he felt like it, but this morning he was his usual bothersome presence: navigating the staircase with the grace of a hippopotamus steering a wheelbarrow. He thumped past River’s office, then into his own room overhead; the precursor, usually, to a one-man-band performance: the farting, cursing, furniture-rattling overture to the day. River returned to his desk, where his pile of passport applications had grown while his back was turned. It wasn’t going anywhere, and until it did, neither was he. But he hadn’t done more than pluck the topmost sheet off the pile before it occurred to him that the expected overhead symphony hadn’t occurred; that what he was listening to now was that kind of silence that descends before a tree comes crashing down . . . He stood. When the thumping started, he was already halfway out of the door.
Lamb eyed his crew—some say “team”; he preferred “minions”—with a malevolent eye, the other being scrunched shut against the smoke from his cigarette. The blinds were drawn as usual, but sunlight had found a little leverage, and was currently painting stripes on the wall, and across the heads and shoulders of said minions, who were bunched like suspects in an old-fashioned film.
In the same hand that held his cigarette Lamb was wielding a Danish pastry, and he waved it now in their general direction. “You know, seeing you all together, it reminds me why I come into work every morning.”
Golden crumbs and blue-grey smoke flew in opposite directions.
“It’s ’cause I’ve a cockroach infestation at home.”
“Can’t think why,” murmured River.
“It’s rude to mutter. If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s bad manners.” Lamb bit off some pastry and continued, mouth full, “Christ, it’s like being in a zombie movie. You lot need to perk yourselves up. Where’s Standish?”
“Haven’t seen her,” Ho offered.
“I didn’t ask if you’d seen her. I asked where she is. She’s usually here before me.”
“But not always.”
“Thanks. Next time I forget what ‘usually’ means, I’ll know who to ask.”
“Bathroom?” Shirley suggested.
“Must be the world’s longest dump she’s taking,” Lamb grumbled. “And I speak as an expert.”
“None of us doubt that.”
“Maybe she has a domestic emergency,” Marcus said.
“Like what? Her bookshelves got out of alphabetical order?”
River said, “It’s always possible she has a life you don’t know about.”
“Like you, you mean? How is your old pal Spider?”
Meaning Spider Webb, “injured in the course of duty” according to the official report—“injured in the course of being a dickhead, more like” (Lamb)—and still on life support; unlikely ever to make a full recovery, or even regain consciousness. River had visited him a number of times, though how Jackson Lamb knew that was one of those things that made Lamb Lamb: you didn’t know how he managed it, but you wished he wouldn’t.
Knowing an answer was expected, River said: “He’s hooked up to about seven different machines. Nobody’s expecting him to wake up anytime soon.”
“Have they tried switching him off then switching him on again?”
“I’ll ask.”
Lamb displayed yellowing teeth and said, “Has anyone actually checked the bog?”
“She’s not in there.”
Louisa said, “She’s probably got a doctor’s appointment. Or something.”
“She seemed all right yesterday.”
“Sometimes people need to see doctors. They don’t actually have to be visibly injured.”
“This is the Secret Service,” said Lamb. “Not frigging Woman’s Hour. And besides, she should have called in.”
“It might be on the chart,” Ho suggested.
“There’s a chart?”
“On her wall.”
Lamb stared at him.
“It says when people are absent—”
“Yeah, I’d worked that out, mastermind. I’m wondering why you’re still here. Go and check it.”
Ho left.
“Why the big concern?” River said. “Maybe her train’s buggered. Happens all the time.”
“Yeah, because she was last late when, exactly?”
But Lamb wasn’t looking at them when he said this. He’d glanced instead at his mobile, which was on the desk in front of him.
She tried to get in touch, River thought. And Lamb ignored her call.
My God. Is he feeling guilt?
Lamb killed his cigarette end in yesterday’s half-full teacup.
“Besides,” he said. “It’s not like her to disappear.”
“‘Disappear’ is a bit strong,” said Shirley.
“Really? What would you call it?”
“. . . Not being here?”
“And what would happen if we all did that? What would it be like if I was just not here all of a sudden?”
Shirley seemed about to speak, but changed her mind.
“It would be like Hamlet without the prince,” River suggested.
“Precisely,” Lamb said. “Or Waiting for Godot without Godot.”
Nobody touched that one.
Ho returned.
“Well?” said Lamb.
“It’s not on the chart.”
“And that took you five minutes? An idiot would have been back in half the time.”
“Yeah, that’s because—”
Everyone waited.
Ho slumped.
“Pop it on a postcard,” Lamb said. “No hurry.”
He glared round the room.
“Any more bright ideas?”
The phone in River’s pocket vibrated, and he sent up a prayer of thanks it was on silent.
“Maybe she left a note on somebody’s desk,” he said.
“When?”
“She might have got here first and had to leave in a rush. I’ll go check.”
He slipped out of the room.
“Anyone notice a note on their desk?” Lamb asked the rest of them.
“We might have mentioned it,” Marcus said.
Lamb’s lip curled. “Well, thank you, action man. Good to know you’ve not lost your edge.”
Louisa said, “Can we go get on with our jobs now?”
“You’re very eager. Discovered a taste for paper-shuffling, have we?”
“Well, it’s pointless and boring. But at least we can do it in silence.”
“My my. I’m starting to think we should go on one of those team-bonding courses. Though maybe we should wait till your mother hen’s back in the coop. What was that?”
None of them had heard anything.
“That was the back door. Standish!”
He bellowed this loudly enough, and unexpectedly enough, that Shirley actually felt her bladder release, just a tiny bit. But there was no reply from downstairs, and no Catherine Standish appeared.