Catherine said, ‘Just for once, could we try not polluting the air?’
He stared at her as if she’d just invoked an impossible creature, like a unicorn, or a secret vegan. ‘And how would that help?’
‘We’d all breathe more easily.’
‘Help me, I meant.’
‘You don’t seem surprised Sid’s alive,’ Louisa said.
Lamb had conjured a cigarette from nowhere, but tucked it behind his ear. ‘I’m more surprised some of you are. She was the only one of you smart enough to look both ways crossing the road.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Mention it. Of course, she’s also stupid enough to turn to Cartwright for assistance. Bit like seeking Prince Andrew’s advice on choosing your friends.’
‘Editorialising aside,’ Catherine said, ‘do you have a next move planned? Because if all we’re going to do is lie low, we might as well sort out sleeping arrangements.’
‘Happy to share with anyone,’ said Lamb, raising a buttock and farting long and loud.
Ho said, ‘Three rooms, six of us. We should probably pair off.’
‘In your dreams,’ Louisa told him.
Lech said, ‘There’s a team of GRU killers out there knocking off slow horses past and present. Maybe that’s what we should be focusing on.’
‘Hashtag-face has a point,’ Lamb conceded. ‘Anyone care to contribute? And remember, there’s no such thing as a bad idea.’ He retrieved the cigarette from his ear. ‘Just the time-wasting fuckwit who offers one.’
Shirley said, ‘How many of them are there?’
‘How many clowns fit in a car?’
‘GRU crews operate in pairs, don’t they?’ Catherine said. ‘And these attacks have been spaced out. First Kay. Then Struan, a couple of weeks later.’
‘If there was more than one pair, they could have done them at the same time,’ said Louisa. ‘And given us less warning.’
‘I didn’t know these people,’ said Lech.
‘Yeah,’ said Louisa. ‘But let’s pretend we care.’
‘No, I’m making a point. They were before my time. And there’s no record of me being in Slough House anyway. Because Taverner had us wiped at the same time I joined.’
‘Before my time too,’ said Shirley.
‘So you want to know who’s gone dark?’ Lech said. ‘Me and Shirley. Because if they’re using out-of-date records, they’ve no idea we exist.’
‘And that’s what comes of supportive leadership,’ said Lamb. ‘Anyone would think you were strategic thinkers, instead of a bunch of useless no-hopers.’ He levered himself off his perch. ‘Our Moscow murderers are operating from Molly’s file, which doesn’t include Butch and Sunglasses here. So yeah, we have the advantage that they care even less about you than the rest of us do. Of course, that only stays an advantage until you both go to prison for mugging a tourist.’
‘Seriously, he was not a tourist!’
‘He was hanging around in a public toilet,’ Shirley said. ‘Probably cottaging.’
‘Which would make it a hate crime,’ Lamb said sorrowfully. ‘And time’s up on that sort of thing.’
‘So how do you propose playing this advantage?’ Catherine asked. ‘And please don’t say you’re sending Lech and Shirley out against a pair of trained hitmen.’
‘Be a good way of using them up, wouldn’t it?’ said Lamb. ‘But no, that wasn’t my first thought. My first thought was—’
‘River and Sid,’ said Louisa.
‘My first thought was, there must be a takeaway round here somewhere. But I suppose, once they’ve snuck out and got me some food, they can go round up the missing.’
Louisa said, ‘You can borrow my car. So long as Shirley doesn’t drive it.’
‘What’s wrong with my driving?’
‘Your lack of basic motoring skills.’
‘I’ll need drink, too,’ Lamb said. ‘And a lighter.’
Louisa scribbled the O.B.’s address down, and explained to Lech where her car was, while Shirley fidgeted. Roddy had returned to his laptop. Catherine watched all this with the sudden sense that it was beyond familiar. Even Lech, the relative newcomer, slotted in: his obvious damage plain to see; the other stuff bubbling inside him, looking for an outlet. She remembered J. K. Coe, and the direction his long-buried trauma had sent him, and thought It doesn’t help – putting them all together in one place, fastening them up in Slough House, didn’t help. It just provided them with the opportunity to nurture old bad habits, or foster new ones. But it was a little late to make that observation. Lech was taking the keys from Louisa, Shirley all but tugging at his coat hem. ‘Don’t mug any strangers,’ Lamb advised as they left, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.
‘Sneaked, by the way,’ she said.
‘… What now?’
‘It’s “sneaked”. Snuck’s not proper English.’
‘Do I look like I give a feaked?’ said Lamb.
They settled down to wait.
Don’t leave your kill in the open. He couldn’t remember whether that was Bond, Bourne or The Lion King, but it seemed a rule, so they’d half-carried, half-dragged Jane’s body back to her car. The track seemed twice as long as it had been, and the night twice as noisy, and when a vehicle slowed on the road beyond the trees both their hearts moved up a gear, pounding in unison. Halfway there Sid felclass="underline" she was fine, she was okay. She clearly wasn’t. So River hoisted the body onto his back, and staggered the rest of the way solo. Getting a corpse into a boot looked easy in a movie, but Jane’s sodden clothing got twisted on the locking mechanism. She’d gone waxy to the touch, and looked foreign in a way she hadn’t while alive, as if the role she’d been playing had drifted away in the water. This was the kind of thought it would be best not to share. He got the clothing untangled at last, and the body slumped like a bag of vegetables. Death was a savage bastard, robbing both giver and given of grace.
Jim – that was what Sid called him – was just a shell. The letter opener embedded in his jaw took a while to lever free.
‘We should put him in the boot too.’
Except Jane was occupying most of it, and the effort required to fold her more compactly was beyond them. So he just freed Jim from his seat belt, and let the body collapse to the floor.
‘It’s a bit obvious.’
Sid’s voice was a faraway niggle.
‘Can’t be helped. And nobody will see it while the car’s moving. I’ll take this one, you take mine. You okay to drive?’
But she wasn’t.
‘We need to get back to the house. I’ll call Lamb, he’ll talk to the Park. They’ll deal with it. But we can’t leave them here. Anyone might come.’
And probably would, given time, but it made no difference. Sid’s hands were trembling madly. They couldn’t have handled cutlery, let alone a steering wheel.
‘Okay,’ River said. Plan B: he’d let the Park know where the bodies were. But even before he could look for his phone he remembered Catherine’s text, the one events had erased from his mind.
Blake’s grave. Now.
‘Shit.’
Sid said, ‘Oh. Is something the matter?’
‘Very funny … We’ve gone dark.’
‘We?’
‘Slough House. Probably something to do with this pair.’
Another car was approaching, its headlights grazing the trees. Sid flinched but the car didn’t slow. The darkness it left behind it seemed heavier for its passage.
‘Okay,’ said River again. ‘We leave them here. Get home. I’ll contact Lamb from there.’
Once they weren’t standing next to a vehicle whose passengers were dead.