It was far from ideal, but the whole evening had been like that. When he got behind the wheel he realised his own hands were trembling too, the hands he’d used to hold a woman’s head underwater. Until she died. He started to say something, but stopped. Wasn’t sure what it would have been.
‘River?’
‘That knife belonged to Beria,’ he said.
‘… Knife?’
‘The one you took from the study.’
‘Oh.’
‘My grandfather paid a lot of money for it.’
‘… Who’s Beria?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Tell you later.’
His headlights picked out the killers’ car when he turned them on. But you’d have to be standing close, peering through the window, to make out the body within; you’d have to open the boot to find the second. He started up and left the scene, heading for the O.B.’s.
In a different car with the same destination, Shirley had opened the glove compartment. ‘Hey, Sunglasses! Lamb called us Butch and Sunglasses.’
‘Yeah, I think you were meant to be – forget it.’
She put them on. They covered half her face. ‘Do I look like J-Lo?’
More like Jeff Goldblum, Lech thought. In The Fly.
They’d eaten on the move, after having delivered a metric ton of Indian takeaway to the mews house. In keeping with Louisa’s restriction, Lech had refused to countenance Shirley’s offer of driving ‘just until we’re clear of the city’, because, her opinion, ‘it’ll be quicker that way’. For one thing, he pointed out, she was way over the limit. And for another thing, there didn’t need to be another thing. Because she was way over the limit. He still wasn’t sure his argument had hit home, but the fact that he held the keys, not her, was the clincher.
The O.B.’s house was outside Tonbridge, Kent. The rain had moved west, and rush hour was over; all in all, there were worse ways of spending an evening, were it not for the company, and his awareness of impending doom.
Still with the shades on, Shirley said, ‘How much trouble do you think we’re in?’
‘Well, we mugged someone in a toilet and the whole world seems to know about it. So quite a lot.’
‘At least we didn’t kill him.’
‘The fact that you see that as an upside worries me.’
‘It’ll be all right.’
She sounded confident.
Lech said, ‘Gut feeling? Or do you know something I don’t?’
‘We’re Slough House, not Park. Lamb’d sack us if he felt like it, wouldn’t need a reason. But he won’t let Taverner.’
‘Yeah, one small thing? Taverner’s his boss.’
Shirley just laughed.
She toyed with the sunglasses, letting them dangle from her ears, cupping her chin. ‘What’s it like?’
‘What’s what like?’
Shirley waggled her fingers in front of her eyes, like a celebrity signposting fake tears. ‘Having your face mashed up.’
‘Empowering. You should try it.’
‘Do you wish you hadn’t?’
He’d hit rock bottom the day Lamb had handed him the razor. In case a third way occurs to you. Other than stitches or surgery. The latter was out of his salary bracket, and stitches would have left his face looking like a sampler made from a tabloid headline. So what did that leave, wrapping bandages round his head like the invisible man? Actually, that might have worked. But no way was he going into this with Shirley, so he just grunted, and concentrated on overtaking the sixteen-wheeler in front. Spray misted the windscreen. ‘You didn’t know this Sid woman, then?’
‘Nah. She was dead before I started.’
‘Or not.’
Shirley shrugged. ‘She was shot in the head. She might still be alive, but I doubt she’s the person she was.’
Lot of that about, thought Lech. He said, ‘You think Lamb’ll go to bat for us, then?’
He could hear her alcohol intake in her laughter. ‘Lamb with a bat in his hand. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near.’
Lech felt much the same about Shirley and any blunt object. Sharp ones, he’d done as much damage to himself as anyone was likely to.
She said, ‘But Taverner was taking the piss, wiping Slough House. So yeah, I think he’ll nobble her. Not ’cause he wants to keep us. Just to stop her taking us away.’
He thought: And this is the world I move in now. Where decisions are based, not on the greatest good or the most just cause, but simply on fucking up the opposition, even if the opposition’s your own side.
Rifling through the glove compartment again, Shirley had found some chewing gum. ‘Do you ever get déjà vu?’
‘I feel like I’m about to.’
‘We should check the boot,’ she said. ‘See if Louisa bought a new monkey wrench.’ And when Lech raised his eyebrows, said, ‘You never know.’
At the third time of trying, the dump bin went through the window, and the resulting scatter of glass was accompanied by a roar of approval from the Yellow Vests, as if the windowpane had been all that was hemming them in. En masse they swept onto the road, causing traffic, which had been grumpily processing past, to come to a halt; a line of buses and taxis, taxis and buses, soon blocked both Oxford and Regent streets, while cycle-drawn hansoms took to the pavements. From a distance it might have seemed like a celebration in progress – Victory Over Europe Day, perhaps – but in the immediate area, a violent undercurrent was palpable. One broken window wasn’t such a mess, in the scheme of things. But it seemed like a start.
Oddly, a TV crew had been in place throughout, though Yellow Vest gatherings were barely newsworthy these days; were just another street hazard, like wobbly paving slabs or charity muggers. But Channel Go had sent a van earlier in the evening, and its crew were on the street, filming the commotion. From the cab window Judd watched them weaving through the crowd with interest, not least because one of them had just the kind of legs he admired: long, and attached to a woman.
Noise rose and fell, like a wave breaking over silt.
‘Meter’s still ticking, guv,’ the driver said.
‘I’m immensely glad that you reminded me of that. But it’s of no importance, I assure you.’
‘Your money.’
‘And soon to be yours.’
This promise gladdened the driver’s heart, or at least loosened his tongue. ‘Interested in these jokers, are you? The Yellow Vests?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Yeah, no, I say jokers, but they’ve got a point. It’s the voice of the people, you get down to it. I mean, it’s been a joke, hannit? These last few years? A flippin’ circus. It gets you wondering, who are the government to tell us what to do?’
‘A strikingly acute question. And now, I have a favour to ask.’
‘Anything you say, guv.’
‘Stop talking. And step outside for five minutes. I’m about to take a meeting.’
Which commenced twenty seconds later, when Desmond Flint joined him.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ he asked, climbing into the cab.
‘I know,’ Judd beamed. ‘Almost as if your people had a mind of their own.’
‘I mean – this wasn’t … A peaceful gathering. That was my instruction.’ He closed the door. ‘But this, this … The police are lining up on Oxford Street. This’ll make us look like criminals.’
‘As so often happens when laws are broken,’ said Judd. ‘But do stop worrying. Here.’
He handed Flint a silver flask. Flint took it, uncomprehending.
Judd said, ‘The Home Secretary is unlikely to order the police to move in without the PM’s say-so. And since he has a way of being hard to find when decisions are called for, we have a little time.’
‘This was deliberate. A troublemaker. None of my doing. This is the work of one of those, what did you call them? An Asian something?’