A drive led down to the main road. There was another gate there, set between a handsome pair of stone posts, and looking at it was like gazing down a tunnel, the way the trees composed an arch, and he thought that during the summer it must make an impressive sight, the trees in leaf, the drive washed clean of mud. But it wouldn’t any longer look like much from the opposite end: the big gates, the trees, the drive, and all of it ending in wrack and ruin. He wondered how long the house had been here, and whether its loss would cut a hole in the village’s life the way the bomb in Westacres had in London. And then he turned to make his way back through the wood, and a man stepped out of the trees holding a long single-barrelled gun which he brought to his shoulder in one smooth movement, and then fired, and River’s heart stopped.
Emma Flyte said, “There’s nothing to worry about. It’s a routine precaution.”
“But I haven’t done anything—”
“No one’s suggesting that you have.”
They were in what appeared to be an ordinary sitting room: a sofa, chairs, shelving, a TV. But any room you’re taken to, rather than enter of your own free will, carries the whiff of the cell. They were not far from Brixton market, a fifteen-minute journey, but that quarter of an hour had rattled Giti Rahman’s world.
“In that case, what am I doing here?”
“Awaiting instructions,” Emma said flatly. “If you need anything, there’s an intercom. I’d advise you not to overuse it. Mr. Dempsey’s patience is not infinite.”
Anyone who knew Mr. Dempsey, the Dog assigned to this particular chore, would have agreed that patience was not his forte.
“And the windows are reinforced. I wouldn’t recommend you attempt an exit.”
“I’m hardly James Bond.”
“No. If you were, we’d shoot you.” Her reaction made Emma regret that a little. “A joke, Ms. Rahman.”
“It probably sounded funnier in your head.”
Couldn’t argue with that.
She locked the door behind her. In the kitchen Dempsey was going through cupboards; had found teabags and a vintage packet of biscuits.
“Call me if she gives trouble.”
Dempsey said, “Trouble? I’m more worried she’ll wet herself.”
Out in the car, Emma sat thinking. Diana Taverner was a slippery lady, and anything with her fingerprints on was likely to be wiped clean before official examination. That the warrant for Giti Rahman’s collection had been signed by Claude Whelan could be discounted. Acquiring other people’s signatures was no doubt among Lady Di’s talents.
Then again, these people were safeguarding national security, and her role was to ease their passage. So Giti Rahman—innocent, guilty, or just in the way—was no longer her concern. David Cartwright, on the other hand, was a task in hand.
She called Devon Welles, whom she’d left in charge at the Cartwright house.
“Anything?”
“. . . Not really.”
“Tell.”
“It was nothing. A car went past, slowed down, as if someone was trying to get a look through the window.”
“Nosy neighbour?”
“Could be. And there’s a woodentop on the door, which is always exciting.”
“But you got a plate anyway,” she said.
She liked Welles. He was another ex-copper, with all the right reactions.
“A partial.”
“Run it. Any ID on the body yet?”
“No. Except who it’s not.”
“Except—?”
“The blood’s not a match for Cartwright’s grandson.”
“Ah.” She thought a bit. “Well, that narrows it down by one, I suppose. And means we have two missing persons. Better start with the grandson’s associates.”
“He’s really called River?”
“So Jackson Lamb assured me. Speaking of whom . . . ”
“He mis-identified the stiff.”
“The body’s a mess,” Emma said. “No face to speak of. Still, though.”
“An ‘I don’t know’ would have done the job,” Welles finished.
“So maybe Lamb’s playing his own game. Christ, don’t you miss the Met sometimes? At least all the crap was honest crap.”
“Graft, drugs and hookers,” Welles agreed. “This lot, you just can’t trust.”
“So if Lamb wanted us to think young Cartwright’s dead, maybe there’s other stuff he’s keeping quiet. Like where Cartwright actually is. Both of them.”
“Lamb’s from that losers’ place, right?”
“Slough House.”
“You think the Cartwrights are there?”
“Too obvious. These are spooks, even if they’re Vauxhall Conference.” She paused. “Do they still have a Vauxhall Conference?”
“You’re asking a cricket fan,” Welles said. “So what do you reckon? Check out his colleagues?”
“Also too obvious.” She thought a moment. “But let’s look at Lamb’s contacts. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Call over, she started the car and pulled away with a squeal of rubber. Not the recommended practice when departing a safe house, but sometimes, chatting to a fellow ex-copper, the old instincts took over.
The rabbit looked unscathed, apart from being dead.
River’s heart started again.
“Good shot,” he said.
The man raised an eyebrow.
“ça, ç’etait formidable,” River improvised.
The man held his free hand flat and wiggled it side to side.
Comme çi, comme ça, thought River, and decided that if he were capable of reading French mime, his language skills weren’t as tragic as he’d been made to feel.
His new companion wore a waterproof jacket with capacious-looking pockets, from one of which he produced a length of string. Leaning his shotgun against a tree, he tied the rabbit’s back legs together, secured the string to his belt, then slung the corpse over his shoulder. Most dead things look smaller, but this remained an impressive piece of meat. With the thought, a hunger pang struck River. The sky growled too, a thundery echo.
“Anglais?” the man asked suddenly, his voice higher, lighter, than River might have expected. He was dark, with rook-black hair and angular features, all of which suggested something guttural. Not this soft cadence.
“Yes,” he said.
“You look for someone?”
“The people here.”
“Gone. All gone.” The man snapped his fingers, pouf, just like that. They were here and then were gone, in a puff of smoke, except the smoke had been a cloud: a thick black mass of it, pouring upwards through the trees.
And downwards through the trees now came the first fat spats of heavier rain.
The man tugged his collar up, and recovered his shotgun. Then looked at River’s inadequate jacket and shoes.
“You’re to be get wet,” he said.
“I am to be that, yes,” River agreed.
“Come.”
And the man led the way through the wood; not along the track River had followed, but set to an invisible course he seemed to know well, avoiding every root that River stumbled over, and every hole in the ground that sought out River’s feet.
Patrice pulled into a layby, and spread a map against the windscreen. He knew precisely where he was—wouldn’t dream of setting foot on hostile land without memorising routes—but it provided an excuse for remaining stationary while he gave thought to what he’d learned.
A police presence round the target’s house.
Which was to be expected. Bertrand would have made it look like an old-man accident, but even an old-man accident would require official scrutiny given the old man in question. Except that there had been no confirmation, parcel delivered, nor even its obverse, nobody at home. Will attempt redelivery.