‘There’s nobody here.’
‘Doesn’t seem to be.’
Doeshn’t sheem to be.
In the light, both looked washed out.
They turned back to the other office, where they could now see something leaning against the wall. It was Lamb’s corkboard, the one on which he pinned his money-off tokens.
‘Do you think—?’
Did they think it had fallen off the wall?
Movement behind them broadcast itself a moment before Min was struck.
Only a moment, but long enough for him to move, so the punch scraped his ear only, throwing him off balance but not to the floor—their assailant was clad in black; wore a balaclava; carried a small gun he wasn’t using. He’d sprung from the shadows in Catherine’s room; must have been hiding in her cupboard. His second blow caught Louisa in the chest and she gasped in pain.
Min launched himself at the stranger’s legs, and the pair of them went crashing down the stairs.
Hobbs was asleep in the plastic chair, or looked asleep. A faint smear of dribble glistened on his chin. River paused to retrieve Service card and car keys from his pocket, then followed.
Upstairs, two policemen were talking to the charge nurse, who was examining a clipboard. Lamb led River past them without a sideways glance as the nurse shook his head and pointed the cops towards the reception desk.
Outside it was dark, and starting to rain again. River’s car, which he’d left slantwise in an ambulance space, was gone. He wondered if Sid was gone too. There’d been urgency about the way those doctors, those nurses, had trolleyed her off. Perhaps they’d not heard the same factoid he had. They certainly hadn’t said Nah, head wound. They always look bad.
‘Stay with the programme, Cartwright.’
‘Where now?’
The words were cotton wool, sucking moisture from his mouth and leaving him tired and sick.
‘Anywhere but here.’
‘My car’s gone.’
‘Shut up.’
So now he was tracking Lamb across the short-stay car park; all those vehicles that hadn’t expected to be here tonight, and whose owners were inside the building behind him. He shut out the possible injuries that had brought them here, knife fights, random muggings, dicks stuck in vacuum hoses; blanked out too the picture of Sid on an operating table, her head invaded by a bullet. Or had it only plucked at her on its way past? He hadn’t been able to tell. There’d been so much blood.
‘For fuck’s sake, Cartwright.’
Two police cars were parked nearby. Neither was occupied.
Lamb drove a boxy-looking Japanese car. River didn’t care. He got in, sat back, waited for Lamb to start up. That didn’t happen.
River closed his eyes. Then opened them to a rain-flecked windscreen, each drop of water holding a tiny bulb of orange light.
Lamb said, ‘So you got locked up.’
‘Pending,’ River said. ‘Pending … whatever.’
‘And your ID’s flashing lights and blowing whistles from here to Regent’s Park. Have you any clue what you’re doing?’
‘I had to get her here.’
‘You called the ambulance. It was necessary to follow it?’ ‘She might have died. Might be dead now, for all I know.’
Lamb said, ‘She’s still on the table. Bullet took a chunk out of her head.’
River couldn’t look at him.
‘They say she might live.’
Thank Christ for that. He thought about the tussle on the pavement; that sudden sound. Phut. And then there’d been blood, and Sid was down, and the blood had been black on the pavement. Robert Hobden was nowhere to be seen. As for the man in black, he was halfway down the road before River had got to his knees, frightened to touch Sid, frightened to move her, unable to assess the damage. It had taken him three goes to ring for an ambulance. His fingers felt like thumbs, his thumbs like bananas.
‘On the other hand, she might not. And even if she does, she might end up with the life choices of a carrot. So on the whole, not a great night’s work.’ He reached out and clicked his fingers an inch from River’s face. ‘Wake up. This is important.’
River turned to face him. In the dim light, Jackson Lamb resembled something pegged on top of a bonfire. His eyes were madly red, as if already tortured by smoke. His jowls were whiskery. He’d been drinking.
‘Who was it?’
They tumbled in a noisy mess of arms and legs to the next landing. Louisa followed in a rush; two bounds bringing her level. Min was on the floor, the man in black draped over him like a duvet. Louisa grabbed, twisted, and encountered less resistance than she might have expected.
Like a beanbag. Like a broken scarecrow.
‘Jesus, are you—’
‘Where did the gun go? Where did it go?’
The gun was in the corner.
While Min scrambled to his feet, the man in black flopped like a beached pike, like a burst binbag.
‘Is he dead?’
He looked dead. He looked like he’d landed on his head, and bent his neck to a stupid angle.
‘I hope he’s fucking dead.’
Min collected the gun, bones clicking as he bent. He’d be aches and pains in the morning. He hadn’t taken a dive down a flight of stairs since, well, ever. And it wasn’t an experience he planned to repeat soon, except …
Except it felt good, for a moment, standing here. A vanquished intruder at his feet, a gun in his hand. Louisa gazing at him, unfeigned admiration in her eyes.
Well, that was stretching it. Louisa was looking at the stranger, not at him.
‘… Is he dead?’
They both hoped he was dead, though neither knew what he was doing here. This was Slough House, and anyone who knew about it knew it wasn’t worth raiding. But this guy had turned up armed, in a balaclava.
Armed, but he’d hidden from them.
‘No pulse.’
‘Looks like a broken neck.’
Why would a man with a gun hide from a couple armed with a paperweight and a stapler?
‘Let’s see who the bastard is.’
‘Who was it?’ Lamb asked.
‘He was kitted out. Combat gear, balac—’
‘Yeah, I guessed. But did you recognize him?’
River said, ‘I was meant to think he was one of ours. One of the achievers. But there was something not right. Even apart from him being on his own.’
‘What sort of something?’
‘Something—I don’t know …’
‘For fuck’s sake, Cartwright—’
‘Shut up!’ River closed his eyes again, relived those frantic moments. The guy who’d shot Sid was halfway down the road before River had got to his knees … It had taken him three goes to ring for an ambulance. No, that wasn’t it, it was before then, the something, whatever it was. What was it?
He said, ‘He never said a word.’
Neither did Lamb.
River said, ‘All the way through it. Not one squeak.’
‘So?’
River said, ‘He was worried I’d recognize his voice.’
Lamb waited.
River said, ‘I think it was Jed Moody.’
Louisa peeled the balaclava from the man’s head.
From Min’s vantage point the uncovered face was upside down, but he knew who he was looking at.
‘Shit.’
‘Yeah …’
They weren’t even supposed to be here.
They were going to have to get their stories straight.
The rain was stopping when Lamb pulled out of the car park. River stared straight ahead, through the m-shape the wipers’ last sweep had left, and didn’t need to ask where they were headed. They were going to Slough House. Where else?
There was blood on his shirt. There was blood on his mind.