‘You know Lamb’s expecting the next batch of safe-house possibles by five?’ Catherine said.
The list River was compiling, of properties which might potentially be utilised as hideaways by non-friendlies. It was intended to cover the entire country, a codicil River always spelled out word by word when reminding himself what his job consisted of.
The. Entire. Country.
‘And he’ll have it,’ he said. ‘Just taking a little downtime with my colleagues. Always a morale booster.’
‘Careful,’ said Catherine. ‘If Lamb takes it into his head to appoint a morale officer, it’ll make all our lives miserable.’
She left.
Louisa studied Ho’s blank screens. ‘Probably just as well,’ she said. ‘Not sure how you’d go about finding a pair of anonymous doorknockers.’
Ho rolled his eyes.
‘I thought you said not to play him,’ said River.
‘You were playing him,’ said Louisa. ‘I’m just signalling his limitations.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Ho. His fingers danced, and the screens came back to life. ‘Street name?’
River recited the postcode and date Sid had given him.
‘Watch the magic happen.’
River and Louisa shared a glance.
‘I’d as soon go boil the kettle,’ Louisa said.
In the kitchen, River moodily opened cupboard doors and closed them again. An ancient bag of sugar, turned to stone; damp coffee filters. He collected the broken-off handle of a ceramic mug from an otherwise empty shelf and twirled it in his fingers. ‘Do you ever wonder what you’d have ended up doing?’ he said. ‘I mean, if you’d just said fuck it when they offered you Slough House?’
‘Oh, please.’ Louisa was rinsing her cafetière. ‘You do realise it’s not about you?’ she said. ‘Sid being alive, I mean?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means she’s not just a chapter in your life story. It would be an idea not to forget that.’
‘You’re supposed to be an intelligence officer. Not an agony column.’
‘No one said I can’t be both.’ An idea struck her. River saw this happen: she paused, the wet cafetière in her hands. ‘Sid thinks she’s being targeted.’
‘I know. I told you that.’
‘Yeah, but so are we. Right? And she was a slow horse, or used to be. Did you know that Kay died?’
‘Kay? Kay White?’
‘Remember her?’
‘She’s the one never shut up,’ said River. ‘How did she die? She can’t have been that old.’
‘Fell off a ladder, Catherine said. Something like that, anyway. Some kind of accident. Easy to fake.’
River looked at the broken handle in his palm, then tossed it into the sink. It made a scattering noise. ‘So what, you think they’re not just stalking us, these Park trainees? You think they’re knocking us off? That doesn’t sound likely. And besides, Kay’s not been one of us for years …’
His voice trailed away.
‘Nor has Sid,’ Louisa supplied.
They shared a look.
‘What do you think?’
River said, ‘It’s out there. Way out there.’
‘Yeah, but. A lot of the things that happen round here are.’
‘The Park, though. Taverner? She’d not authorise anything like that.’
One of Lamb’s saws came to mind, though. All kinds of outlandish shit goes on.
‘We should take this upstairs.’
‘No,’ said River. ‘I promised her I wouldn’t.’
‘Promised who?’ Roderick Ho had appeared in the doorway.
‘Nobody,’ said River. ‘What’d you find?’
Ho ignored him, and spoke to Louisa. ‘Told you I could do it.’
‘Actually,’ said Louisa, ‘you didn’t. Not in words.’
‘Same difference.’ He slid past River and opened the fridge, where half a pizza sat, still in its box. He wormed it out, but left the box where it was. ‘Seven tweeters in that postcode,’ he said, closing the fridge door. ‘Two mentioned people knocking on the door the morning you said.’
‘It was me said it,’ River put in helpfully. ‘If that matters.’
It didn’t seem to. ‘One said they were from the Latter Day Church of Heaven, and the other from the Latter Day Church of Christ the Redeemer. There’s no such places. So the dudes weren’t righteous, doesn’t look like.’
‘Is English your second language or your third?’
Ho scowled.
From upstairs came a familiar thump: Jackson Lamb wanting attention.
River said, ‘He wants your download on Lady Di. What’s that about?’
‘It’s below your pay grade,’ said Ho, cramming his pizza into his mouth before heading up the stairs.
‘Oh, happy day,’ said Louisa. ‘I want him to keep saying that forever.’
River said, ‘So they weren’t missionaries.’
‘Wouldn’t appear so.’
‘Which means Sid was right. They were looking for her.’
‘Possibly.’ The kitchen had filled with the smell of fresh coffee, and for a moment Slough House was transformed. ‘So it’s like I said before. You need to take this upstairs.’
‘The same upstairs using us as practice dummies?’
‘I meant Lamb.’
River said, ‘If we’ve been wiped, how come these guys know who to come looking for? If that’s what’s happening?’
She stared. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting Lamb has anything to do with it?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Except Sid’s in danger.’
‘And you plan to get all Jason Statham on it.’
‘Tell Catherine I’ve been taken sick, would you? Must have been something I saw Ho eat.’
Before he could leave, she said, ‘River?’
‘What?’
‘I don’t want to lose anyone else.’
‘When did the Stath ever get lost?’
‘Well, he’s made some pretty iffy career choices,’ Louisa said, but River was gone.
Afternoons dragged, but this one was reaching its apex now; tipping into evening. This happened differently than up north, where Sid had spent the last few years; differently, too, from the way it happened in cities, where you could measure sunlight’s decline against the buildings. Here there were trees that ought to perform the same function, but they were too variable to rely on, too prone to arbitrary movement, and seemed as if they might be capable of pushing the day on as their moods took them, ushering in the dusk with their gently waving limbs.
They were best watched from upstairs. Sid had told River she stayed in the study, but that wasn’t true. Obviously, she had to use the bathroom, and while these were brief furtive visits, tarried over no longer than necessary to get the job done, there were also times, like now, when she’d climb the stairs to the master bedroom, which had a view of the lane that wound through the trees. This was surprisingly well maintained, given its negligible importance. Eventually it joined forces with a larger road, which in turn fed into a motorway, which in turn became London. All these miles distant, that was a barely imaginable turbulence. Here, in rural stillness, there was a house next door, separated by a generous strip of garden and a bossy hedge; that aside, the next dwelling was a hundred yards down the lane. Before reaching it, you could cut off along a footpath, which took you to the village. She knew all this from a map she’d found in the study. There were other footpaths, dotted lines; you could tear along them, and rip the countryside to shreds. Scatter the pieces like leaves in a wind.
Tonight, anxiety had drawn her upstairs. Being alone all day skewed her emotional thermostat. The continual silence oppressed her, yet any unexpected noise – a passing lorry, passing voices – would have her crouching against a wall, waiting for it to subside. And then she’d find herself stroking the rift in her skull, wondering how much of her identity, of Sidonie Baker, had been carved away by that bullet’s passage. She had never been one to cower against walls. That was something the bullet had left her with; a whole new character trait, conjured out of pain and confusion.