“Well now. Once we’ve established the unfitness of an office holder, it would be a dereliction of duty not to do something about it.”
He carried her crockery to the table and carefully arranged the empty cups and used saucers in as efficient a tableau as possible. Then he returned to his chair and sat once more, smiling pleasantly.
She said, “Have you any idea how many times over the past half century the Service has been asked to consider doing what you’re suggesting?”
He pretended to give it some thought. “I would guess at least once during each administration. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The important thing is that we both know whose team we’re on.”
“I see.”
An important thing perhaps, but promises of future cooperation were easily given. If the worst that happened here and now was that she be allowed back to the Park to lick her wounds, Ingrid Tearney would count the day a victory. But she knew as well as she knew her own mind that, having manoeuvred her into a corner where she could hardly fail but to indicate surrender, Judd would take it one step further and demonstrate his power. Victory, she had once heard someone say, was about ensuring your opponent never again put head to pillow without thinking with hatred on your face. Tearney, who had never married, had thought this over the top, but had little difficulty accepting it as one of Judd’s credos.
It was of small consolation, in such circumstances, to be proved right almost immediately.
Peter Judd picked up a small metal implement from the table by his chair—a cigar-cutter, or some equally ridiculous tool—and examined it with an air of absent-mindedness. For such a dedicated politician, it really was a beginner’s tell.
He said, “This Slough House place. Amusing name. I gather it’s a decrepit set of offices near the Barbican.”
She nodded.
“Somewhere you can send the rejects.”
“It’s not always politic to fire people.”
“Isn’t it? Can’t say I’ve ever found that a problem.”
It was true that he’d never seemed to worry about lawsuits, whether relating to employment or paternity issues.
“And that’s where this Cartwright chap was assigned.”
She saw little point in replying when it was clear he knew the answer.
Judd sighed to himself as if enjoying a private little moment of pleasure, and replaced the metal tool on the table where it belonged.
“Well, it’s obviously unfit for purpose if its aim was to retrain the morons,” he said. “So let’s close it down.”
“Slough House?”
“Yes,” he said. “Close it down. Today.”
Jackson Lamb didn’t believe in omens. When he got a feeling in his gut, it was generally because of some mistreatment he’d subjected said gut to, though frankly the thing was so inured to his lifestyle, he’d probably have to pour weed-poison into it to provoke a serious reaction. Nevertheless, he didn’t like the way the day was shaping up. Cartwright getting arrested at the Park was a serious fuck-up, even for the boy wonder; Lamb didn’t doubt Lady Di had meant every word when she’d said they could kiss him goodbye. And while he could contemplate a future without River Cartwright in it with a degree of equanimity, Catherine Standish would have plenty to say on the subject if she ever turned up. And Lamb had learned long ago not to piss off whoever made your morning tea.
If she turned up . . . His gut aside, facts were starting to accumulate. The odds on Cartwright doing something monumentally stupid on any given morning were evens; the chances of Catherine Standish going AWOL were lower. That the two things had happened at the same time meant there was a connection, and if Lamb had to place a bet, he’d put it on cause and effect. Cartwright had learned something about Standish’s disappearance that had set him haring off to the Park where he’d hit a brick wall, full tilt.
Time for an older, wiser mind to take charge.
He farted, and settled into Catherine’s chair.
Lamb didn’t often come into this office. The rest of Slough House he prowled at will, poking into nooks and late-night corners, but Standish’s office he left alone. If it contained anything she genuinely didn’t want him to find, he probably wouldn’t find it without causing structural damage. And by the time he was drunk enough to find this prospect appealing, he was usually beyond putting a plan into action.
The desk was neatly organised, which was no surprise. Front and centre was a pile of reports that should, by rights, have been on Lamb’s own desk when he’d arrived this morning; by now, he’d have pawed them out of their pristine state, and spilled enough of one beverage or another onto them, in lieu of actually reading the damn things, to warrant their being reprinted before they were shuffled into secure folders and shipped off to the Park. The knowledge that they’d receive equally scant attention there had never prevented Standish from rendering them as professional-looking as possible. It was one of the ways Lamb could tell she didn’t have sex any more.
He picked up the reports, weighed them reflectively as if gauging the intelligence they contained, then dropped them into the wastebasket. “Prioritise,” he murmured to himself. Then he stood and moved around the small office.
A faint smell of blossom lingered in the air, or had done until quite recently. The culprit wasn’t hard to find: a small muslin bag hanging from the window frame. Lamb tugged at it gently between thumb and forefinger, but not gently enough not to snap the thread it hung from. Letting it fall, he continued his circuit. Two sets of filing cabinets. A coat stand from which a linen tote bag dangled, alongside an umbrella. All of it like a Disneyfied version of his own office: smaller translating into cosier; neater into cleaner. Well, cleaner into cleaner too, to be honest. She’d been here as recently as last night, but already the room was subsiding into a museum piece. He had the strange sensation that, given another twenty-four hours, everything would be laced with cobweb.
Get a grip . . .
There was no point turning the office over, because he already knew there were no clues here. Standish had called him twice after leaving last night, indicating that whatever had happened happened after she left Slough House . . . Still, he went through her desk anyway, on principle. The spare keys to her flat were missing, which gave him a moment’s pause before he remembered Louisa Guy had checked her place out. There was nothing else of interest except, in the bottom drawer, a bottle-shaped object wrapped in tissue paper so old it crinkled to his touch. He pulled it free. The Macallan. Seal unbroken. After studying it a moment he rebundled it, and stuffed it back in the drawer.
He looked up to find Louisa leaning on the door frame.
“What?”
“Looking for something?”
“If I was, I’d have found it by now.”
He fell back into Standish’s chair, which registered its discomfort with a sharp twang.
Louisa said, “You don’t think she’s drunk somewhere.”
“No.”
“You’re sure.”
Instead of replying, Lamb fumbled in his jacket pocket and produced a cigarette. He lit it eyes closed, and wheezily inhaled.
“What did they say at the Park? About River?”
“He’s under arrest. Something about an attempt to steal a file. You can go clean his desk out if you want.”
“Didn’t take long, did it?” Louisa said. “Catherine goes off reservation, and we’re one down not twenty-four hours later. I’d give us till the end of the week.”
“‘Us’?”
“Slough House.”
Lamb chuckled.
“You don’t think we’re a team?”
“I think you’re collateral damage,” said Lamb.
“And yet here you are, looking for clues. What was the file River was trying to steal?”