We’re going to cut your head off.
That’s what the voice had said.
We’re going to show it on the web.
That’s what it said.
You fucking Paki.
Hassan wept.
Chapter 6
The dreadful pub across the road served food of sorts, and its sprawl promised undisturbed nooks. River’s lunch break was early enough to qualify as a late breakfast, but Slough House was absorbed by the morning’s news, and he didn’t suppose anyone would notice. He needed to do something which didn’t involve paperwork; he wanted a taste of what Spider Webb might be doing. He booted up his laptop and plugged in the memory stick. This was technically a criminal act, but River was pissed off. There are always moments in a young man’s life when that seems reason enough.
Ten minutes later, it seemed a lot less than that.
The bacon baguette he’d ordered sat ignored; the coffee was undrinkable filth. Cup to one side, plate to the other, laptop in the middle, he was working through the files Sid had stolen from Hobden. Except she couldn’t have, River decided. She couldn’t have, unless—
‘What you doing?’
River couldn’t have looked more guilty if he’d been caught with kiddie porn.
‘Working,’ he said.
Sid Baker sat down opposite. ‘We have an office for that.’
‘I was hungry.’
‘So I see.’ She eyed his untouched baguette.
‘What do you want, Sid?’
‘I thought you might be getting drunk.’
‘And?’
‘And I didn’t think that was a clever move.’
Closing the laptop, he said, ‘What’s happening?’
‘Ho says it’s a loop.’
‘I didn’t spot that.’
‘You’re not Ho. He says it’s running at thirty-something minutes, seven or eight.’
‘Not live, then.’
‘But this morning. Because of—’
‘Because of the newspaper, yeah, I got that. What about a location?’
‘Ho says not. They’ve bounced the transmission off PCs stretching halfway round the globe. By the time you’ve traced the next in the chain, it’s thirty machines ahead of you. This is Ho, mind. GCHQ might have a better shot.’
‘Too complicated to be a hoax?’
Sid said, ‘Until we know who the kid is, and who’s got him, nobody’s ruling anything out. But with the whole world watching, we’ve got to treat it as real.’
He leant back. ‘That was rousing. We?’
She flushed. ‘You know what I mean. And none of that answers my question, anyway. What are you doing here?’
‘Missing a pep-talk, apparently.’
‘Do you ever give a straight answer?’
‘Do you?’
‘Try me.’
‘How much research did you do on Hobden?’
Her eyes changed. ‘Not much.’
‘But enough to find out where he has breakfast.’
‘That’s not tricky, River.’
‘You don’t usually call me River.’
‘I don’t usually call anyone River. It’s not an everyday name.’
‘Blame my mother. She had a hippy phase. Did Lamb tell you to keep the job quiet?’
‘No, he told me to blog it. It’s on bloody stupid questions, dot gov, dot UK. My go. How much do you know about Hobden?’
‘Hotshot reporter back in the day. Firebrand leftie, moved right as he got older. Ended up doing why-oh-why columns for the little-England press, explaining why the country’s problems are all down to immigration, the welfare state and some bloke called Roy Jenkins.’
‘Labour Home Secretary in the sixties,’ Sid said sweetly.
‘History GCSE?’
‘Google.’
‘Fair enough. Anyway, it’s all standard retired-colonel stuff, except he had a few national newspapers to sound off in. The occasional pitch on Question Time.’
‘Beats holding forth at the vicar’s garden party,’ she said. ‘So that’s Robert Hobden, then. Angry young man to irritated old fogey in twenty years.’
‘A common trajectory.’
‘Except his was more severe than most. And when it turned out he was a fully paid-up member of the British Patriotic Party, that was his career shot to pieces.’
‘The nation’s last defence, as their website has it.’
‘Made up of those who thought the BNP had gone soft.’
River found he was enjoying this. ‘And who weren’t going to let a newfangled thing like political correctness get in the way of the old-time virtues.’
‘The direct approach, I think they called it,’ Sid said.
‘Paki-bashing is what they called it,’ River said.
‘You’d have thought he’d try to keep that quiet.’
‘Hard to do when the membership list turns up on the internet.’
And now they shared a smile.
River said, ‘And that was the end of an almost-glorious career.’ He remembered his grandfather’s words. ‘Not because of his beliefs. But because there are some beliefs you’re supposed to keep under wraps if you don’t want to be excommunicated.’
All of this from an hour’s web-research, on getting home last night.
‘Did the Service really leak the list?’
River shrugged. ‘Probably. Didn’t Lamb give any hint?’
‘I’m not supposed to discuss it.’
‘You’re not supposed to be in the pub.’
‘He gave no hint. No.’
‘You’d say that anyway.’
‘I’m sure that must be frustrating for you. You know, this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had?’
A record they’d broken twice today.
‘Did you really read Ashenden?’ he asked.
‘As in, the whole thing?’
‘That answers that.’
‘I do pub quizzes. I know the titles of a lot of books I’ve never read.’ Her focus shifted to his laptop. ‘What are you doing, anyway? Still on those transcripts?’
Before he could answer she’d reached out and turned the computer, opening its screen. The page of numbers he’d been staring at stared right back at her.
‘Pie,’ she said.
‘You’ll have to ask at the bar.’
‘Funny ha ha. Pi.’
‘I know.’
She scrolled down. ‘To what looks like a million places.’
‘I know.’
He turned the laptop back round, and closed the file. There were fifteen on the memory stick, and he’d only opened seven, but all contained nothing but pi. To what looked like a million places.
He’d bet his uneaten bacon sandwich that the remaining eight were the same.
Sid was waiting. She raised an eyebrow.
‘What?’
‘So what are you doing? Memorizing it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’
He folded the laptop shut.
‘Do you usually spend your lunchtimes in the pub?’ she asked.
‘Only when I want privacy.’
She shook her head. ‘Pub stands for public. Clue’s in the name.’ She checked her watch. ‘Well, you’re still among the living. I’d better get back.’
‘Did you really copy Hobden’s files?’
It was something the O.B. had told him. A lot of questions go unanswered because nobody thinks to ask.