‘Didn’t look like a junkie thief.’
‘We didn’t mean to kill him, though.’
‘Yeah,’ said Lamb. ‘It’s all very well being sorry now, isn’t it?’
‘What’s in the envelope?’ River asked.
‘You still here?’
‘He took that from your office, didn’t he? What’s in it?’
‘The blueprints,’ Lamb said.
‘The what?’
‘The secret plans.’ Lamb shrugged. ‘The microfilm. Whatever.’ He’d found something else: Moody’s black-wrapped form hid more pockets than a magician’s. ‘Son of a bitch,’ he said again, only this time with less venom; almost with admiration.
‘What’s that?’
For a moment, it seemed Lamb was about to secrete what he’d found in the folds of his overcoat. But he held it up to the light instead: a brief strand of black wire, the length of a straightened paperclip, with a split-lentil head.
‘A bug?’
‘He bugged your office?’
‘Or maybe,’ River said, ‘he was on his way to bug your office.’
‘After the evening he’d had, I doubt tapping my office was top of his list,’ Lamb said. ‘No, he was cleaning up. Prior to getting out.’ He hadn’t finished his body-search yet. ‘Two mobiles? Jed Jed Jed. I’m surprised you had enough friends to carry one.’
‘Who’s he been talking to?’
‘Thank God you’re here. Would I have thought of that?’ A mobile in each hand, Lamb pressed buttons with each thumb; surprisingly dextrous for a self-proclaimed Luddite. ‘Now that’s strange,’ he said, in a tone indicating that it wasn’t. ‘This one’s barely used. Just one incoming call.’
River wanted to say ‘Ring back,’ and only the cast-iron knowledge that Lamb wanted him to say it too kept his tongue in harness.
Still sitting, Min and Louisa kept their own counsel.
After a moment’s thought, Lamb pressed a few more buttons, and raised the mobile to his ear.
It was answered almost immediately.
Lamb said, ‘I’m afraid he can’t come to the phone right now.’
And then he said, ‘We need to talk.’
Chapter 10
Down a quiet street in Islington—its front doors perched atop flights of stone steps; some with pillars standing sentry; some with Tiffany windows above—Robert Hobden walked, raincoat flapping in the night wind. It was after midnight. Some of the houses were dressed in darkness; from others, light peeped behind thick curtains; and Hobden could imagine the chink of cutlery, and of glasses meeting together in toasts. Halfway down the street, he found the house he was after.
There were lights on. Again, he caught an imaginary murmur from a successful dinner party: by now, they’d be on to the brandy. But that didn’t matter: lights or not, he’d still be ringing the bell—leaning on it, in fact, until the door opened. This took less than a minute.
‘Yes?’
It was a sleek man speaking, dark hair brushed back from a high forehead. He had piercing brown eyes which were focused on Hobden. Dark suit, white shirt. Butler? Perhaps. It didn’t matter.
‘Is Mr Judd in?’
‘It’s very late, sir.’
‘Funnily enough,’ Hobden said, ‘I knew that. Is he in?’
‘Who shall I say, sir?’
‘Hobden. Robert Hobden.’
The door closed.
Hobden turned and faced the street. The houses opposite seemed to tilt towards his gaze; the effect of their height, and the overhead clouds scudding against a velvet backdrop. His heartbeat was curiously steady. Not long ago he’d come as close to death as he’d ever been, and yet a calm had settled upon him. Or maybe he was calm because he’d come close to death, and so was unlikely to do so again tonight. A matter of statistics.
He didn’t know for sure the intruder had meant to kill him. It had been confused—one moment he’d been pacing the room, waiting for a phone call that wouldn’t come; the next there’d been a black-masked stranger demanding his laptop in an urgent whisper. He must have picked his way through the door. It was all noise and fear, the man waving a gun, and then another intrusion, another stranger, and then somehow they were all outside and there was blood on the pavement and—
Hobden had run. He didn’t know who’d been shot, and didn’t care. He’d run. How long since he’d done that? Back when he’d had urgent places to be, he’d have taken a taxi. So before long his lungs felt fit to burst, but still he’d pounded away, feet slapping pavement like wide flat fish, the juddering shock reverberating up to his teeth. Round one corner, then another. He’d been living in London’s armpit for longer than he cared think about: still, he was lost within minutes. Didn’t dare look back. Couldn’t tell where his own footfalls stopped and another’s might start; two loops of sound interlocking like Olympic circles.
At last, heaving, he’d come to a crumpled halt in a shop doorway where the usual city smells lurked: dirt and spoilt fat and cigarette ends, and always, always, the smell of winos’ piss. Only then had he established that nobody was following. There were only the late-night London ghosts, who came out when the citizens were tucked up in bed, and anyone still on the streets was fair game.
‘Got a light, mate?’
He’d surprised himself with the ferocity of his reply: ‘Just fuck off, all right? Just fuck off!’
You could say this for the mad, at night; they recognized the madder. The man had slunk away, and Hobden had recovered his breath—filled his lungs with that obnoxious stew of smells—and moved on.
He couldn’t go back to his flat. Not now; maybe never. This was an oddly cheering thought. Wherever he went, he wasn’t going back there.
And in fact, there weren’t many places he could go. Everyone needs somewhere where the doors will always open. Hobden didn’t have one—the doors in his life had slammed shut when his name appeared on that list; when, for the first time ever, he’d shuddered to see his name in the papers, no longer the smoothly provocative but the rawly unacceptable—but still, still, there were letterboxes he could whisper through. Favours people owed him. Back then, when the storm was raging, Hobden had kept his mouth shut. There were some who thought this meant he valued their survival over his own. None had made the simple connection: that if they’d been made to suffer the same ostracism he endured, their cause would have been set back years.
Nothing to do with racism, whatever the liberal elite pretended. Nothing to do with hate, or repulsion at the sight of difference. Everything to do with character, and the need for national identity to assert itself. Instead of lying down and accepting this unworkable multiculturalism; this recipe for disaster …
But he hadn’t had time to rehearse unanswerable arguments. He’d needed sanctuary. He’d also needed to get his message across: and if Peter Judd wasn’t going to answer his phone calls, then Peter Judd was going to have to answer his door.
Though Peter Judd, of course, didn’t answer his own door. Certainly not at this time of night, and probably not at any other.
The door opened, and the sleek character reappeared. ‘Mr Judd is not available.’
The absence of sir carried its own echo.
But Hobden had no qualms about blocking the door with his foot. ‘In that case, tell Mr Judd he might have to make himself available first thing in the morning. The red-tops like their front pages laid out by lunchtime. Gives them time to organize the important stuff. You know, girly shots. Gossip columns.’
His foot withdrew, and the door closed.
He thought: Who do these people think I am? Do they think I’ll lie on my back, waggle all four legs in the air, while they pretend I’m some stray they never invited home?