Butler wasn’t quite the word for Seb, Peter Judd’s erstwhile fixer, fiend and legbreaker, but it was true that he hadn’t been seen for a while.
‘But what the altogether fuck’s he playing at now? Sponsoring a hit, okay, that puts you in his pocket, and I’m sure he’s enjoying having you wiggle around there.’
‘I’m not in his pocket.’
‘Tell that to his stiffy. But feeding the opposition my crew, what’s that about? It’s as carefully planned as a Trump tweet. There’s no sense playing both ends against the middle when you’re the one in the middle.’
Diana said, ‘It’s not Judd.’
‘Then who?’
She said, ‘White and Loy were old news. They’re off the books. And even the books have been off the books since I wiped Slough House. Which means the details this GRU team have, if that’s who they are, came from Molly Doran’s archive.’
‘Thanks. I’d got that far.’
‘And Judd hasn’t had access to the archive.’
‘And you’re gunna tell me who has.’
‘One of the angels – one of the backers – his name’s Damien Cantor. Media playboy, grew up on the internet and graduated from YouTube with honours. He—’
‘I don’t give a shit about his CV.’
‘But maybe you’ve noticed Channel Go? That’s his baby.’
‘His baby? What’d he do, screw a shopping channel?’
Diana said, ‘Judd wanted Cantor on board because he’s got money, a ton of it. And what floats his boat is influence. He wants to be setting the agenda, not just reporting it, because that’s how it is these days. You own a news channel, it’s like putting a deposit down on a government.’
‘Another Murdoch Mini-Me, eh? Paint my fucking wagon.’
‘He’s also a narcissist and a show-off. Essentially, a PM-in-waiting. So he couldn’t resist letting me know he’d put one over on me.’
Lamb gave an impressed whistle. ‘Have to get up early in the afternoon to manage that.’
‘Fuck you, Jackson. Give me one of those.’ She meant a cigarette, but realised too late what she’d let herself in for: Lamb removed the one inserted between his lips and passed it to her. After the briefest of hesitations, she accepted. He produced another from behind his ear and lit both. Once that was accomplished, she said, ‘He told me one of his ex-security staff had signed on with the Park. When I ran his name, I found he’d had a run-in with Molly. Lurking in her stacks. Not something she approves of.’
‘Yeah. She really puts her foot down when that happens.’
‘You’ll like this, then. He called her a crip.’
Instead of responding, Lamb stared across the canal, at one of the houseboats moored opposite. A flickering behind its curtains suggested candlelight within, or perhaps a TV, or an iPad. Anything, really.
She said, ‘Tommo Doyle’s his name. And he could have photographed the Slough House file while he was in the archive. On Cantor’s instructions, I mean. Because Cantor knew about Slough House. Judd told him.’
‘Told him what, precisely?’
‘That the department existed, that I’d wiped your records, that I was using your crew for target practice. It must have given him the idea you were a sellable commodity.’
‘And there’s nothing a rich man likes better than knowing something’s for sale.’
‘There were already rumours the Kremlin’s furious about Kazan, and looking to take revenge. Ready to declare war on our equivalent of their murder squad. Except we don’t have a murder squad, which left them punching shadows.’ Diana paused. ‘Cantor’s not interested in ideology. But he wants to be a player, and these are the boys who stole the White House. If he offered them a viable outlet for their anger, who knows what he’ll get in return?’
‘Yeah, and he starts feeding tigers their breakfast, who does he think they’ll eat for lunch?’ said Lamb. ‘The stupid fucker. And that’s why my old crew are falling off ladders and burning to death. You’d think the GRU would have noticed our team list is written in faded ink on yellow paper.’
‘Why would they care? They just have to be seen doing it. By us. By Rasnokov. By the Gay Hussar himself. Welcome to the fake news world, Jackson. You’ve been hiding in Slough House too long. Things have got nasty out here.’
‘They always were,’ said Lamb.
Words smeared across River’s mind in the moments afterwards, each syllable flat as a fly on a windscreen, its shape still apparent amidst the mess:
Shit
No
Sid
But while it was happening there were no words, only movement. River’s brain became a blank, while his hands and feet did his thinking: slamming the brakes on, going into a skid so loud, so total, he had no choice but to go with it, turning the wheel so the car spun as it approached collision, like a cartoon animal trying to avoid the inevitable, pulled one way while its legs tried to go the other. The windscreen filled with light and just as suddenly emptied: there was a tooth-grinding scream of metal on metal, and directions scattered and reassembled themselves in a different order. He was no longer moving. The car he’d nearly hit was parked sideways across the narrow lane. And River was still facing it, so one of them had managed a 180-degree turn. He suspected it had been him.
He’d done a parachute drop once, overseen by the military. Low opening, they called it: pulling the cord at the last possible moment. River still remembered his feet hitting the ground; it was a memory stored in most of his bones, including those in his ears and thumbs. This was similar. There was also an old joke here somewhere. The good news is, your airbag works.
River buried his face for a moment in the soft mass, then tore it from its casing. It deflated with a Lamb-like noise.
‘You bloody maniac!’
The other driver was standing next to his door.
‘Sorry,’ River mouthed.
‘I’m calling the police. I’m calling the police. You bloody—’
‘Sorry.’
‘—bloody stupid maniac.’
River nodded, because it was the least he could do. He was a bloody bloody stupid maniac: pointless to argue the toss. Or to waste more time. He tried to recreate his sudden turnaround, which proved a lot more complicated when done consciously, with an angry man providing the chorus. But it got done and then he was away again, still driving too fast down a narrow dark lane, but conscious of something having shifted inside him shortly before he didn’t crash; some realisation he’d arrived at, the way you might put your hand inside a crowded wardrobe, and pull out exactly the thing you hadn’t known you were looking for.
The end turned out to be a clearing by the side of the road; a small parking space among trees, from which, Sid guessed, a footpath would lead somewhere picturesque, or interesting, or historical. She was not in the mood for any of these things. But it didn’t seem likely that her preferences would count for much.
‘Nearly there,’ said Jim, as Jane parked in the far corner.
What now? Sid asked, then realised she’d done so without making any noise. She cleared her throat. ‘What now?’
‘Nothing to be alarmed about.’
‘No. But what?’
Jane spoke for the first time in a while. ‘There’s a lake through the trees. Well, a large pond. Looks nice on the map.’
‘Area of natural beauty,’ said Jim. ‘One of those phrases you hear.’
‘We’ll take a look, shall we?’
There’s a word for questions that don’t require an answer.
Sid provided one anyway. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’
Jim laughed. ‘You’ve come this far. What’s a hundred yards more?’
‘It’s dark.’