‘Fuck off,’ said Reece.
‘Now that’s disappointing. I was hoping for “Follow the yellow brick road”.’
And then he was gone.
Reece crossed to the window, and watched him heading down the street, trailing smoke. His high-vis vest lay on the floor, a camouflage accessory no longer required. Reece wondered where he’d stolen it from, in that brief interval after leaving Old Miles’s; wondered if he’d left a genuine yellow vest wearer in a similar heap somewhere, then decided he didn’t care. Andrey would have thought it a detail worth worrying over, but Andy had been a writer. And look where that had got him.
Though maybe the fat bastard had been right. Maybe being dead was just the next thing that had happened to Andy in his short, all senses, life.
In a sudden spurt of anger, he kicked out at the nearest pile of books. Homespun bookmarks flew, snippets of Andrey’s tadpole writing on them: useless clues – Reece couldn’t decipher half, and the rest were in Russian. But it didn’t matter. Nothing he did could bring Andy back, and his best attempt so far, snagging a real-life spook from Andy’s favourite hang-out, had only resulted in a string of insults and a sitting room stinking of smoke. Everybody was a bastard. That included Andy and, probably, himself.
After a while he collected the books and set them in a pile again. The bookmarks would never find their way back to their rightful pages, so he just gathered them together and tucked them inside the top volume. Maybe, tonight, he’d set something in motion he’d never get to hear about. It was more likely, though, that all he’d done was afford half an hour’s amusement to a fat spy.
He put the empty bottles in the recycling box and the scarred yellow vest in the bin.
Then he went to bed.
4
THE KITCHEN AT SLOUGH House had been fitted in the late seventies, and had undergone renovation since, inasmuch as a calendar had been hung there in 2010. That had been taken down, but the nail used to fix it in place remained, now graced by a tea towel, which had previously dangled from the one drawer knob that didn’t come away in the hand. This new assignment sometimes allowed the towel to nearly dry out, not that it was used much, but it did tend to absorb available moisture. The room’s other main advantage was that it was of a size that could almost accommodate two people without argument erupting, provided neither one was Roddy Ho.
Who, sniffing suspiciously, said, ‘What’s that supposed to be?’
‘Focaccia.’
‘It’s got bits on it.’
‘It’s supposed to. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one before. You eat enough pizza.’
‘Pizza’s round.’
‘You’re aware that being round is not a food group?’ The bread Lech Wicinski had made the previous evening nestled in silver foil on the battle-scarred kitchen counter. ‘Try some. It won’t kill you.’
‘I don’t want to get crumbs on my shirt.’
Lech eyed the garment in question: a green, paisley-swirled specimen Ho had buttoned to the throat. ‘Crumbs might improve it.’
Louisa joined them, bearing an empty mug. She looked at Ho, then at Lech, then at the bread, then at Lech again. ‘You made that?’
‘Yes.’
‘What, with like flour and stuff?’
‘Flour, yes. And also stuff.’
She nodded, though not in a way that indicated she was up to speed yet. ‘And then what? Did you drop it?’
‘Christ, what is this? I made some bread, I didn’t finish it all. So I brought the rest in. Where’s the problem?’
‘It’s just, that doesn’t happen much round here.’
‘Which? The baking or the bringing it in?’
‘All of it,’ said Louisa. ‘Including the part about not finishing it yourself.’ She emptied the kettle into the sink and refilled it, a process Ho watched without comprehension. ‘Fresh water?’ she said. ‘For coffee?’ Then back to Lech: ‘If you’re planning on starting a bake-off, I’ll tell you now, it’ll end badly.’
‘If I start a bake-off,’ said Lech, ‘it’ll be to decide which of you lot to chuck in an oven.’
‘Why bake stuff anyway?’ asked Ho. ‘It’s available in shops. Duh.’
‘I hate to say this,’ said Louisa, ‘but the shirt has a point.’
‘So you’re not a cook either.’
‘Me? I can barely defrost.’
‘What’s wrong with my shirt?’ asked Ho.
‘It looks like a frog threw up on you.’
‘It’s Italian designed.’
‘So’s the bread,’ said Lech. ‘But it was made by a Pole in the East End.’
Catherine had appeared in the doorway. ‘What are you all doing?’
‘Are you our prefect now?’ Louisa asked. ‘Is this one of those age-flip things, and I’ve woken up back in school?’
‘We should all be so lucky.’
‘Anyway, the boiling kettle should be a clue,’ Louisa added.
‘I didn’t so much mean what are you doing as why aren’t you doing it upstairs? Team meeting, remember? Nine sharp.’
‘I didn’t think he was here yet.’
‘He’s not,’ said Catherine. ‘But when did that stop him expecting everyone else to be on time? Focaccia looks good, by the way.’
‘Thanks,’ said Lech.
‘But you do realise you’ll never hear the end of it.’
Louisa poured her coffee while Ho tried to read the label on his own collar without undoing buttons. Lech rewrapped the bread and looked like he was regretting various decisions, going at least as far back as bringing the bread in, and possibly extending to choice of career and not staying in Australia, where he’d holidayed in ninety-six.
‘I didn’t mean anything, by the way,’ Louisa said. ‘That crack about being back in school.’
He rolled his eyes, but she was out of the door, and didn’t notice.
Upstairs, Shirley was already in place. There were no visitor’s chairs in Lamb’s office, or none he liked anyone to sit on – the one technically so designated currently nursed a pyramid of sauce-stained Wagamama hotboxes – but one particular standing space was deemed more desirable than others, it being thought to fall within Lamb’s blind spot. The warier among them didn’t believe Lamb had a blind spot, and suspected some slow-burning mind-fuck, but Shirley was playing the odds, and had positioned herself to the left of the door, nearest the corkboard on which brittle scraps of paper had long ago been pinned, presumably by Lamb, presumably for a reason. She didn’t speak when Louisa, Lech and Roddy trooped in, and was possibly asleep, though upright. River arrived last. He didn’t speak either, but in contrast to Shirley looked like sleep was a stranger, or an enemy.
Louisa tried to catch his eye, but he wasn’t having it. This wasn’t especially unusual, but there was an energy to him, a voltage, which was. Slough House didn’t recharge batteries, it sapped power. It’s as if there were negative ley lines, special coordinates where forceless fields met, sucking all spirit from whoever stood there, and Slough House was slap bang on that junction. Whatever had River twitching, it wasn’t the prospect of a day at work.
A door banged; not the one from the yard, but the toilet on the floor below. So Lamb had floated in and up several flights of stairs without fluttering a cobweb on the way. It was unnerving to picture him doing this, like imagining a tapir playing hopscotch. The smell of stale cigarettes entered the room a moment before him, and the slow horses made way for it, then Lamb, by shuffling to either side. He arrived among them shaking his head in wonderment. ‘What a dump.’