‘Keeping busy?’ he asked.
‘You know.’
Meaning he didn’t. And wasn’t allowed to.
‘I’m not after classified, Nick. I’m asking how things are.’
Duffy tilted his head to the bar below. ‘Far end. Check it out.’
He’d been followed, was Moody’s first thought. His second was: Oh. Okay. At the far end of the bar sat two women whose skirts, combined, would have made a decent lens cloth.
One was wearing red underwear.
Duffy was waiting.
He said, ‘Jesus, you’re kidding, aren’t you?’
‘Feeling old?’
‘I didn’t ask you out on the pull.’
‘Why is that not a surprise?’
‘And if I had, I wouldn’t trawl this place. Not without penicillin.’
‘You’re a laugh a minute, Jed.’ As if testing this assertion, Duffy checked his watch, then took a long steady pull on his pint.
So Moody cut to the chase. ‘You have much to do with Taverner?’
Duffy realigned his beer mat, and set his glass upon it.
‘Is she approachable?’
Duffy said, ‘You want to talk approachable? That blonde’s sending out smoke signals.’
‘Nick.’
‘You really want to do this?’
And that was it, before they’d even started. Six words, and Duffy had told him he might as well shut up now.
‘I just need a chance, Nick. One small chance. I won’t screw up again.’
‘I hardly ever see her, Jed.’
‘You get ten times as close as I do.’
‘Whatever you want from her—’
‘I don’t want from her—’
‘—it’s not going to happen.’
Moody stopped flat.
Duffy went on: ‘After that mess last year, they needed someone to throw to the wolves. Sam Chapman handed his hat in, and that was a start, but they wanted an unwilling victim. That would be you.’
‘But they didn’t kick me out.’
‘You reckon you’re in?’
Moody didn’t reply.
Duffy, because it was his job, put the boot in. ‘Slough House is not in, Jed. Regent’s Park, that’s the centre of the world. The Dogs—well, you know. We roam the passageways. Sniff whoever we like. We make sure everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and nobody’s doing what they’re not. And if they’re not, we bite them. That’s why they call us the Dogs.’
Throughout this, he kept his voice light and breezy. Anyone watching would think he was telling a joke.
‘Whereas over at Slough House, you get to—what is it you get to do again, Jed? You get to frighten people if they lurk at the bus stop too long. You make sure nobody steals any paper clips. You hang around the coffee machine listening to the other screw-ups. And that. Is. It.’
Moody said nothing.
Duffy said, ‘Nobody followed me. I know that, because I’m the one says who follows who. And nobody followed you, because nobody cares. Trust me. Nobody’s keeping an eye on you, Jed. The boss made a mark on a piece of paper, and forgot you ever lived. End of story.’
Moody said nothing.
‘And if that’s still bothering you, try another line of work. When cops get the boot, they pick up security jobs. Given that any thought, Jed? You’d get a uniform and everything. Nice view of a car park. Move on with your life.’
‘I wasn’t given the boot.’
‘No, but they figured you’d quit. Have you not worked that out yet?’
Moody scowled and reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, before contemporary reality kicked in. When was the last time he’d enjoyed a smoke in a pub? Then again, when was the last time he’d had a drink with a colleague, and joked about the job? Or the last time he’d felt okay about being Jed Moody? Inside his pocket, his hand curled into a fist. He loosened it, stretched his fingers, laid both hands on the table in front of him.
‘He’s up to something,’ he said.
‘Who is?’
‘Jackson Lamb.’
Duffy said, ‘Last time Jackson Lamb stirred himself to do anything more strenuous than break wind, Geoffrey Boycott was opening for England.’
‘He sent Sid Baker on an op.’
‘Right.’
‘A real one.’
‘Jed, we know, okay? We know. You think Lamb farts without permission?’ He raised his glass to his lips again, but it was empty. He put it down. ‘I’ve got to go. Early meeting in the morning. You know how it is.’
‘Something to do with a journo.’ Moody tried to keep desperation out of his voice. To keep it on a level Duffy would understand: that if an op was being run from Slough House, Moody should be part of it. Christ knows, he had more experience than the rest of them put together. Sid Baker was barely out of a training bra, Cartwright had melted King’s Cross, Ho was a webhead, and the others were fucking fridge magnets. Moody alone had kicked down doors in earnest. And don’t tell him it wasn’t about kicking down doors. He knew it wasn’t about kicking down doors. But when you were running an op you wanted someone who could kick down doors, because sooner or later that’s what it would be about after all.
Duffy said, ‘Jed, a word of advice. Jackson Lamb’s got the authority of a lollipop lady. You’re three rungs below that. We know what Baker was doing, and only a rank amateur would call it an op. It was an errand. Get the difference? An errand. You think we’d trust him with anything bigger?’
Before he’d finished speaking he was getting to his feet.
‘I’ll put one behind the bar. No hard feelings, okay? If anything comes up, I’ll let you know. But nothing’s going to come up.’
Moody watched as Duffy vanished down the stairs then reappeared in the bar below, gave money to the barman, pointed a thumb in Moody’s direction. The barman glanced up, nodded, and fed the till.
On his way out Duffy paused by the short-skirted blonde. Whatever he said caused her to open her eyes wide and give a little scream of laughter. Before Duffy left she was huddling up, passing his words on to her friend. A little ripple of friendly filth; just another hit-and-run on a weekday evening.
Jed Moody drained his pint and leant back in his seat. Okay, you son of a bitch, he thought. You know everything, I know nothing. And I’m stuck in the wilderness while you’re having early meetings and deciding who follows who. I got the shitty stick. You got the whole of the moon.
But if you’re so clever, how come you think Sid Baker’s a man?
He didn’t bother collecting the pint Duffy had paid for. It was a small victory, but they added up.
Years ago—and he wouldn’t thank you for reminding him—Roderick Ho had worked out what his Service nickname would be. More than that, he’d settled on his possible responses first time it was used. Yeah, make my day, he’d say. Or Feeling lucky, punk? That’s what you said when people called you Clint.
Roderick Ho = Westward Ho = Eastward Ho = Clint.
But nobody had ever called him Clint. Perhaps political correctness wouldn’t allow them to make the oriental elision from Westward to Eastwood.
Or perhaps he was giving them too much credit. Perhaps they’d never heard of Westward Ho!