There were no answers handy.
A single lightbulb lit the cellar. It dangled, shadeless, three feet or so above him, and he became aware of it now mostly because it went out. For a few seconds, its glow hung in the air, and then it too went wherever ghosts go in the dark.
He thought he’d felt panic before, but that was nothing to what he felt now.
For the next moments he was entirely inside his own head, and it was the scariest place he’d been. Unspeakable horrors hid there, feeding on childhood nightmares. A clock struck, but not a real one. It was a clock he’d woken to once aged three or four, that had kept him awake the rest of the night, terrified that its tick-tick-ticking was the approach of a spindly-legged beast. That if he slept, it would have him.
But he’d never be three or four again. Calling for his parents would have no effect. It was dark, but he’d been in the dark before. He was frightened but—
He was frightened but alive, and angry, and this might be a trick; a rag-week stunt pulled by the cooler kids on campus.
Angry. That was the thing to hold on to. He was angry.
‘Okay, guys,’ he said out loud. ‘You’ve had your fun. But I’m tired of pretending to be scared.’
There was a tremor in his voice, but not much of one. Considering.
‘Guys? I said I’m tired of pretending.’
It was a prank. A Big Brother-influenced routine he’d been made the butt of.
‘Guys? You’re pretty cool, okay. You think. But you know what?’
He couldn’t see his own tied hands as he raised them to the level of his face, and extended both middle fingers.
‘Sit and spin, guys. Sit. And. Spin.’
And then he set the chair on its feet once more, and sat, hoping that his shoulders didn’t betray how ragged his breathing was.
It was important that he get himself under control.
The thing to do was not lose his head.
Chapter 4
Earlier that evening, River had joined the commuter shuffle from London Bridge; by eight, he’d been on the outskirts of Tonbridge. A phone call on the move had been the only notice he gave, but there was no sense he’d caught the O.B. on the hop: supper was a pasta bake, and a big salad that hadn’t come from a bag.
‘You were wondering if you’d find me with a tin of beans in front of the telly.’
‘Never.’
‘I’m all right, you know, River. At my age, you’re either alone or dead. Either way, you get used to it.’
River’s grandmother had died four years ago. Now the Old Bastard, as River’s mother called him, rattled around the four-bedroomed house on his own.
‘He should sell the place, darling,’ she’d said to River on one of her vanishingly rare visitations. ‘Get himself a nice little bungalow. Or move into one of those residential complexes.’
‘I can see him going for that.’
‘It’s not all daytime TV and abuse these day. They have,’ and she’d waved her hand airily; her standard semaphore for trivial detail, ‘regulations.’
‘They could have Commandments,’ River told her. ‘It wouldn’t tear him from his garden. Is it his money you’re after?’
‘No, darling. I just want him to be unhappy.’
That might have been a joke.
After they’d eaten, River and his grandfather retreated to the study, the room where spirits were drunk. Protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, the O.B. clung to the pattern his wife had designed for their lives.
Glenmorangie in hand, firelight dancing in the corners, River had asked, ‘Do you know Robert Hobden?’
‘That toad? What’s your interest?’
He’d tried to sound bored, but a glint in his eye betrayed him.
River said, ‘Casual. My interest in him’s casual.’
‘He’s a spent force.’
‘We specialize in them. At Slough House.’
His grandfather studied him over the top of his spectacles. The ability to do this was a fine argument for wearing glasses. ‘They won’t keep you there forever, you know.’
‘I was given the impression they might,’ River said.
‘That’s the point. If you knew it was only for six months, it wouldn’t hurt.’
It had already been more than six months, but they both knew that, so River said nothing.
‘You do your time. Whatever grunt work Jackson Lamb throws your way. Then you head back to Regent’s Park, sins forgiven. Fresh start.’
‘What was Lamb’s sin?’
The O.B. pretended not to hear. ‘Hobden was a star in his day. His time on the Telegraph especially. He was their crime reporter, and did a series on the drug trade in Manchester which opened a lot of eyes. Up until then drugs were an American problem, most people thought. He was the real deal all right.’
‘I didn’t know he’d been a reporter. I thought he was a columnist.’
‘Eventually. Back then, most of them had been reporters. These days, all you need is a media studies degree and an uncle on staff. But don’t get me started on how degraded that profession’s become.’
‘Good idea,’ River said. ‘I’m only here for the evening.’
‘You’re welcome to stay.’
‘Better not. Wasn’t he a member of the Communist Party?’
‘Probably.’
‘That didn’t raise eyebrows?’
‘Things aren’t always black and white, River. A wise man once said he wouldn’t trust anyone who hadn’t been a radical in his youth, and Communism was the radicalism of choice back then. What’s wrong with your hand?’
‘Kitchen mishap.’
‘Playing with fire.’ His expression changed. ‘A hand up?’
River helped him to his feet. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Damn waterworks,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever get old, River.’
He shuffled out. A moment later, the door to the downstairs bathroom closed.
River sat, his chair’s leather soft as a diary’s binding. The study ticked pleasantly as he swirled the liquid in his glass.
The O.B. had spent his working life in the service of his country, at a time when the battle lines were drawn less crookedly than now, but the first time River had seen him he’d been on his knees at a flowerbed, and couldn’t have looked less like a fighter in secret wars. He wore an umpire’s hat not broad enough to keep the sweat from trickling down his brow, and his face shone like a cheese. At River’s approach, he rocked back on his haunches, trowel in hand, speechless. River, seven years old, had arrived a quarter of an hour earlier, deposited by his mother and the man currently keeping his mother company. They’d left him on the doorstep with careless kisses and a curt nod respectively. Until that morning, he hadn’t known he’d had grandparents.
‘They’ll be delighted to have you,’ his mother had told him, throwing random articles of his clothing into a suitcase.
‘Why? They don’t even know who I am!’
‘Don’t be silly. I’ve sent them photographs.’
‘When? When did you ever—?’
‘River. I’ve told you. Mummy has to go away. It’s important. You want Mummy to be happy, don’t you?’
He didn’t answer. He didn’t want Mummy to be happy. He wanted Mummy to be there. That was important.
‘Well then. It won’t be for long. And when I come back—well.’ She dropped a badly folded shirt into the case and turned to him. ‘Maybe I’ll have a surprise for you.’
‘I don’t want a surprise!’
‘Not even a new daddy?’
‘I hate him,’ River said, ‘and I hate you too.’
They were the last words he’d say to her for two years.
His grandmother had been first shocked, then kind, and fussed over him in the kitchen. As soon as her back was turned, he’d slipped out the back door to flee, but here was this man on his knees by a flowerbed; who for the longest time said nothing, but whose silence held River rooted. And in his memory, they at length had the following conversation, though in truth it might have happened at a different time, or possibly never, and was simply one of those episodes the mind constructs to retrospectively explain events that would otherwise remain haphazard.