It wasn’t surprising that he’d lost track of the time; allowing his CD changer to keep on pumping music. What was surprising was that his online reverie shimmered at all, and that he noticed something vying for his attention. There was someone at the door. They’d possibly been there for a while.
Jesus, thought Ho. Wasn’t a man allowed any peace? He hated it when others failed to show consideration. Shutting the music off, he went down to find out who was disturbing him.
Louisa Guy had a headache coming on, maybe caused by her proximity to the dead. Two deaths tonight. Both colleagues, even if Alan Black had lost that role long before he’d lost his head. She’d smelt the blood before stepping into the kitchen; had known she was about to see something disgusting. But she’d assumed it would be the hostage, Hassan. And instead there he was, there was his head, Alan Black. A man she’d not given a thought to since she’d last laid eyes on him. Hadn’t given him a thought before then, to be frank.
Seeing him, the air had gone out of her. Everything became slow. But she’d kept her grip—kept her head—hadn’t thrown up like Cartwright. She almost wished she had. She wondered what it said about her, that she could see something like that and not throw up … Cartwright’s unexpected vulnerability made her readjust her opinion of him. Fact was, she’d avoided most of her colleagues, except, lately, Min Harper. Fact was, the same held true for all of them. They’d been thrown together by fate and poor judgement, and had never operated as a team before. It was somewhat ironic that they were just starting to do so now the team was significantly smaller.
And now she was in the dark again, this time in Ho’s back garden. She wondered how come Ho had a garden when everyone she knew lived in shoeboxes. But there was no point wondering why bastards prosper. Min at her side, she advanced towards Ho’s back door, forcing herself not to grind her teeth as she did so. There were lights on, and she could hear music. Funny how Ho could be careful in some ways and damn stupid in others. The lengths he’d gone to to keep his head below the parapet, and here he was winding the neighbours up with unnecessary noise after dark.
She and Min looked at each other, and shrugged at the same time.
Louisa reached out and banged on Ho’s door.
‘What?’
Surly guy, scrawnily built, early twenties, wearing a Che tee-shirt and a pair of Hawaiian shorts.
Any of the above was enough to earn him Dan Hobbs’s lasting enmity, but worst of all was the fact that he wasn’t Roderick Ho.
‘I’m looking for Ho,’ Hobbs said.
‘You’re looking for what?’
‘Roderick Ho.’
‘Your ho’s not here, man. It’s like four in the morning. You out your fucking mind, ringing people’s bells?’
The door swung shut, or would have done, if Hobbs’s foot hadn’t been in the way. Hobbs was mentally verifying information, and affirming what he knew: that he hadn’t screwed up; that this was the address Duffy had given him, confirmed by the Queens of the Database. The surly guy opened the door wide again, his expression suggesting that he was about to remonstrate. It was a cheque he never got to cash. Hobbs punched him once, a short jab in the throat. With a civilian you could phone first, tell them you were about to hit them, and it wouldn’t help them any. Hobbs closed the door, stepped over the man, and went looking for Ho.
What felt like a long time ago, back when he was first feeling his way round the Service systems, Roderick Ho had gone into his personnel records and changed his address. If he’d been asked why, he wouldn’t have understood the question. He did it for the same reason he never gave his real name when taking out a loyalty card: because you never gave a stranger the inside track. Look at Simon Dean. Bloody vanity plate. He might as well be handing out cards with the word Tosser printed above his bank details. To be fair, any number plate would have worked as well, but why make life easy for the other side? And as far as Roderick Ho was concerned, everybody was the other side until proved otherwise.
So how come Min Harper and Louisa Guy were in his back yard?
‘… What?’
‘Do you always play your music this time of night?’
‘Neighbours are students. Who cares?’ Ho scratched his head. He wore the same clothes he’d worn when he’d left Slough House ten hours previously, though his sweater was now dusted with tortilla crumbs. As for these two, he couldn’t remember what they’d been wearing then, but they didn’t look like they’d slept since. Ho didn’t do well with people, on account of not liking them, but even he could tell this pair were different tonight. For a start, they were a pair. He’d have asked what was up, but he had a more important question first.
‘How did you find me?’
‘Why? Were you hiding?’
He said it again. ‘How?’
‘Lamb told us.’
‘Fucking Lamb,’ said Ho.
‘I don’t like him.’
‘I’m not sure he likes you. But he sent us to get you.’
‘So here we are.’
Ho shook his head. He was wondering how Lamb had known he’d altered his records, let alone knew where he lived. And with that thought came another, even more disturbing. What Lamb knew about the digital world could be wrapped inside a pixel. There was no way he’d unpeeled Ho’s secrets the honourable way: using a computer. Which suggested the horrible possibility that there were other ways of dismantling a life, and that maybe being a digital warrior didn’t bestow invulnerability.
But Ho didn’t want to live in a world where that was possible. Didn’t want to believe it could happen. So he shook his head again, to dislodge the notion and send it fluttering into the night air, which was rapidly becoming the early morning air.
Then said, ‘I’ll get my laptop.’
Duffy said, ‘What?’
‘He’s not here.’
‘So where is he?’
Hobbs said, ‘I don’t know.’
There was a moment’s silence, during which Dan Hobbs could hear the remains of his career blowing like a tumble-weed down the corridors of Regent’s Park.
Then Duffy hung up on him.
Chapter 14
He had never visited her flat, nor wasted time wondering what it might be like, so was neither surprised nor reassured by its appearance: an art deco block in St John’s Wood, its edges rounded off, its windows metal-framed. Orwell had lived nearby, and had probably stolen local details when constructing his fascist future, but this particular block seemed ordinary enough in the early morning, with its shared entrance and its buzzer system that blinked continuously. Only the sign promising CCTV coverage hinted at Big Brother’s world, but signs were cheaper than the actual thing. The UK might be the most surveilled society in the world, but that was on the public purse, and building management companies generally preferred the cheaper option of hanging a fake camera. It took Jackson Lamb a minute to get through the lock, which was of more recent vintage than the building, but not by a huge amount. His feet would have clicked on the tiled surface of the lobby if he’d let them. Only one of the doors he passed on the ground floor showed a light underneath.
Lamb took the stairs: quieter, more reliable, than a lift. Such caution was second nature. It was like pulling on an old coat. Moscow rules, he’d decided when meeting Diana Taverner by the canal. She was nominally on his side—nominally his boss—but she’d been playing a dirty game, so Moscow rules it was. And now her game was all over the place, scattered like a Scrabble board, so it was London rules instead.
If Moscow rules meant watch your back, London rules meant cover your arse. Moscow rules had been written on the streets, but London rules were devised in the corridors of Westminster, and the short version read: someone always pays. Make sure it isn’t you. Nobody knew that better than Jackson Lamb. And nobody played it better than Di Taverner.