At the time, Lamb had been in transition; making the jump from foreign holidays—as the joes all called them—to tending the home fires. This was in that blissful break when the world seemed a safer place, between the end of the cold war and about ten minutes later. And she’d known he’d spent time behind the Curtain. You couldn’t know a detail like that without it colouring your expectations. You didn’t expect glamour, but you understood the bravery involved.
So he was unexpected, this overweight, dishevelled man who’d stumbled into her office an hour and twenty minutes late, hungover, or still drunk. Partner was in another meeting by then, and if he’d been surprised by Lamb’s no-show he hid it well. When he turns up, give him coffee. So she’d given Lamb coffee and put him in the visitor’s chair, which he’d occupied the way a sloth occupies a branch. He’d fallen asleep, or pretended to. Every time she looked his eyes were closed and a bubble was forming at his lips, but stilclass="underline" she felt watched all the time he was there.
A couple of years later, the world was upside down. Partner was dead; Slough House was up and running; and Jackson Lamb was king.
And for some reason, Catherine Standish was beside him. Lamb had asked for her specifically, she discovered, but he never gave her one hint why. And she’d never asked him. If he’d had designs on her, he was years too late; there’d been a time when she’d have slept with him without giving it much thought, or remembering it afterwards, but since drying out she’d been more particular, and had slept with precisely no one. And if that ever changed, it wasn’t going to be for Jackson Lamb.
But now here he was, and there was something about him that hadn’t been there before. Anger, perhaps, but anger with the brakes on; held in check by the same impotence that curbed everyone else in Slough House. Lamb had spent the best part of his working life behind enemy lines, and now here the enemy was, and there was bugger all Lamb could do but sit and watch. Weirdly, this had the effect of making Catherine want to say something comforting. Something like: ‘We’ll get them.’
We’ll get them. People were saying this in offices up and down the country; in pubs, in classrooms, on street corners. Can’t happen here. We’ll get them; and by we they all meant the same thing: those in jobs like her own and Jackson Lamb’s; those who worked, one way or the other, for the security services. Those who didn’t allow things like this to happen, even if they generally didn’t succeed in stopping it until the fifty-eighth minute. And it occurred to Catherine that if anyone thinking these thoughts ever got a look around Slough House, they might re-evaluate their position sharpish. That kid in the cellar? Doesn’t have a prayer.
So she backed away from the door and returned to her room, her report still tucked under her arm.
Chapter 8
There wasn’t much of a moon, but that hardly mattered. River was opposite Robert Hobden’s flat again. Less than forty-eight hours ago rain had been falling in torrents, and River had been on the pavement, stealing shelter from an overhanging window. Tonight it wasn’t raining, and he was in the car—if a warden came, he’d move. From behind Hobden’s curtain, a thin light shone. Every so often, a shadow fell across it. Hobden was a prowler, unable to sit still for long. Much as River hated to admit anything in common with him, they shared that much. Neither could rest quietly in their own skin for long.
And now River almost jumped out of his: what the—
Just a tap on the glass, but he hadn’t seen anyone approaching.
Whoever it was bent, and peered into the car.
‘River?’ she mouthed.
Jesus, he thought. Sid Baker.
He opened the door. She slid inside, pulled it shut, then shook her head free of her hood. She was carrying a pair of take-out coffees.
‘Sid? What the hell are you doing?’
‘I could ask you the same thing.’
‘Have you been following me?’
‘You’d better hope not, hadn’t you?’ She handed him one of the coffees, and he was helpless to do anything but accept it. Peeling the polystyrene lid from her own released a gust of steam. ‘Because that would mean I’d tracked you halfway across London without you noticing.’ She blew softly on the liquid’s surface, and the steam flurried. ‘On foot. Which would make me pretty special.’
Opening his own cup involved splashing hot coffee on to his thighs. She handed him a napkin. He fumbled with it, trying to mop himself dry without spilling more. ‘So what, you guessed I’d be here?’
‘It wasn’t that difficult.’
Great, he thought. Nothing like being transparent. ‘And you thought I might want company?’
‘I can honestly say I’ve never thought that, no.’ She looked past him. ‘Which one’s Hobden?’
River pointed.
‘And he’s alone?’
‘Far as I know. So why are you here?’
She said, ‘Look. You’re probably wrong. If Hobden’s got anything to do with Hassan—’
‘They’ve released his name?’
‘Not officially. But Five have got it, and Ho picked it up a couple of hours ago. That boy’s slick. It’s a good job he’s working for us.’
‘So who is he?’
‘Hassan Ahmed. Ho’s probably got his shoe size by now, but that’s all he had when I left. Anyway, if Hobden’s involved, he’d hardly still be loose. Five would have brought him in.’
River said, ‘That had occurred to me.’
‘And?’
He shrugged. ‘I know he’s up to something.’
‘That stuff you were looking at in the pub. Ready to tell me what that was about?’
He might as well. It wasn’t like he could convince her he wasn’t up to anything. ‘They were Hobden’s,’ he said. ‘The files you stole the other day.’
‘They were what?’
He told her what he’d done, as briefly as he could. When he’d finished, Sid was silent for a full minute. He was glad about that. She could easily have launched into a catalogue of exactly what an idiot he was; explained that theft of government property was one thing, and theft of classified information another. Even if that information turned out to be useless. He didn’t need to know any of that. And nor did she mention that merely hearing what he’d told her put her in the same situation as him. If River wound up in the dock, she’d be by his side. Unless she left the car now. And called the Dogs.
Instead, when the minute was up, she said, ‘So what’s with pi? Code?’
‘I don’t think so. I think his back-up’s a dummy. I think he’s the kind of paranoid who expects someone to lift his files, and wants to be sure they don’t get anything. No, more than that. Wants them to know he was expecting it. He wants to have the last laugh.’
River remembered something else: that Hobden used copies of Searchlight, the anti-fascist newspaper, to wrap his kitchen leavings in; an up-yours to anyone who rifled his dustbins. You think he’s calling us Nazis? he’d asked Lamb. Well, yes, Lamb had said. Obviously. Obviously he’s calling us Nazis.
‘Well, you can’t say he’s wrong,’ said Sid. ‘I mean, I lifted his files. You went through his rubbish.’
‘And that list didn’t get on the web by accident,’ River said. ‘Let’s face it, the Service screwed him good and proper.’
‘And his revenge involves setting up some kid for execution? You know what kind of backlash there’ll be if it actually happens?’
‘I can imagine.’ His coffee was still too hot. He placed the cup on the dashboard. ‘Islamic communities taking to the streets. Oh, there’ll be plenty of sympathy from the liberal left, why wouldn’t there be? An innocent kid killed on camera. But it won’t just be demonstrators waving placards and demanding respect. It’ll be about revenge. There’ll be stabbings and God knows what. You name it.’