Because God knows, River thought bitterly, he was weary of the invisible kind.
Pushing thoughts of severed heads aside, he resumed his journey. Another two minutes, and he found his turning: on the left-hand side was a three-storey brick-built block, its matching window frames and guttering marking it out as association housing. Maybe twenty yards ahead, double-parked outside what could easily be Kay’s address, was the car that had hooted him three minutes ago: lights on, engine running. A figure hulked behind the wheel. River reversed into a space, and disconnected the ignition wires. Got out and walked back to the main road. Turned the corner, dropped to one knee and peered back round, just as a man brought Kay White out of her home and loaded her into the waiting car.
She was neither cuffed nor roughly handled. The man was guiding her by the elbow, but it could have been taken as support if you didn’t know what you were watching. He settled her into the back seat, and got in after her. The car moved off. The moments during which River could have done anything to stop any of this had been over before he got here, and he wasn’t sure what use he’d have made of them anyway. The last time he’d tried an intervention, Sid had wound up lying in the street.
The car reached the next junction, turned, and was gone.
River returned to the Austin, and stole it all over again.
Struan Loy’s night had started promisingly. He’d had a date, his first in three years, and had planned it like an attempt at Everest, the base camps being wine bar, Italian restaurant and her place. Base one had proved a tremendous success, inasmuch as she had turned up; base two less impressive, as she’d left halfway through, and base three remained whereabouts unknown. Loy had returned home to an unmade bed and three hours’ sleep, interrupted by the arrival of Nick Duffy.
Now he sat blinking in harsh underground light. The room was padded, its walls covered with a black synthetic material which smelled of bleach. A table dead centre had a straight-backed chair on either side, one of them bolted to the floor. This was the one on which Loy had been told to sit.
‘So,’ he said to Diana Taverner. ‘What’s up?’
He was aiming for a carefree delivery, with about as much success as Gordon Brown.
‘Why should anything be up, Struan?’
‘Because I’ve been brought here in the middle of the night.’
And certainly looked like he’d dressed in the dark, thought Taverner.
‘Nick Duffy brought you here because I asked him to,’ she said. ‘We’re downstairs because I don’t want anyone to know you’re here. And we’re not having this chat because you’ve done anything wrong. We’re having it because I’m reasonably sure you haven’t.’
She leant just enough on reasonably for him to pick it up.
He said, ‘I’m glad to hear it.’
Taverner said nothing.
‘Because I’m pretty sure I haven’t done anything.’
‘Pretty sure?’
‘A turn of phrase.’
She said nothing.
‘I mean, I know I haven’t done anything.’
She said nothing.
‘Or not since, you know.’
‘Not since that e-mail suggesting that your boss and mine, Ingrid Tearney, was an Al Qaeda plant.’
He said, ‘It was the outfit she wore on Question Time, you know, that desert-gown thing …’
She said nothing.
‘It was a joke.’
‘And we have a sense of humour. Otherwise you’d not have seen the light of day since.’
Loy blinked.
She said, ‘Only kidding.’
He nodded uncertainly, as if receiving his first glimpse of how unfunny jokes could be.
Diana Taverner glanced at her watch, not caring he knew it. He only had one chance to climb on board. This wasn’t a decision he could mull over, and get back to her in the morning.
‘So now you’re in Slough House,’ she said. ‘How’s that working out?’
‘Well, you know …’
‘How’s that working out?’
‘Not so great.’
‘But you haven’t quit.’
‘No. Well …’
She waited.
‘Not sure what I’d do otherwise, to be honest.’
‘And you’re still wondering whether you’ll ever be let back upstairs.’
‘Upstairs?’
‘The Park. Do you want to hear something really funny, Struan? Do you want to hear how many people have made the journey back from Slough House to Regent’s Park?’
He blinked. He already knew the answer to that. Everyone knew the answer to that.
She told him anyway. ‘None. It’s never happened.’
He blinked again.
She said, ‘Of course, that doesn’t mean it never will.
Nothing’s impossible.’
This time he didn’t blink. In his eyes, she saw wheels starting to turn; possibilities sliding into place like tabs into slots.
He didn’t speak, but he shifted in his chair. Leant forward, as if this was a conversation he was sharing, rather than an interrogation he was subject to.
She said, ‘Have you noticed anything unusual at Slough House lately?’
‘No,’ he said, with absolute certainty.
She said nothing.
‘I don’t think so,’ he added.
She checked her watch again.
‘What sort of unusual thing?’
‘Activity. Activity above and beyond the normal course of events.’
He thought about it. While he was doing so, Diana Taverner reached for her bag, which she’d hung on the back of her chair. From it she produced a black-and-white photograph, three inches by five, which she placed on the table between them. Turned it so it was facing Loy. ‘Recognize him?’
‘It’s Alan Black.’
‘Your former colleague.’
‘Yes.’
‘Seen him recently?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘You haven’t seen him lately in Jackson Lamb’s company?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that presents us with a problem.’
She sat back and waited.
‘A problem,’ he said at last.
‘Yes. A problem,’ she agreed. ‘Tell me, Struan. How would you like to be part of the solution?’
In Struan Loy’s eyes, wheels turned again.
‘Should we go round the back?’
‘Can we get round the back?’
‘There might be an alley.’
Min Harper and Louisa Guy were at Ho’s place; had pulled into the last available space moments before another car had arrived, slowed, then headed on down the street and parked. The pair watched without speaking while a man emerged.
They were in Balham, a stone’s throw from the railway line. Brixton, where they’d stopped for Struan Loy, had been a washout: he was either not at home or had died in his sleep. Like all the slow horses, Loy lived alone. That seemed a stark statistic, and it was odd that it hadn’t occurred to Min Harper before. He didn’t know whether Loy was single from choice or circumstance; divorced, separated or what. It seemed unsatisfactory, this ignorance about his colleagues, and he’d thought about raising the subject with Louisa, but she was driving. All the alcohol they’d put away earlier, it seemed a good idea to let her concentrate on that. Come to think of it, there was other stuff they should be discussing, but that too had better wait. From out of nowhere, they were on an op. How had that happened?
‘So …’
The man they’d been watching slipped out of sight.