“Tell me what happened.”
“There were certain things I needed. A project I had to get off the ground. If I kept away from Isobel, your grandfather would . . . smooth the way. Allow certain things to become possible.”
“Les Arbres,” River said.
“How much do you know about that?”
It might have been an enquiry at a dinner party.
“You ran some kind of commune there,” River said. “And burned it to the ground the same day you sent your boy out to kill my grandfather.” He ran a hand through his hair, and it came away sopping wet. “Which smells like cover-up to me. This project of yours went badly wrong, didn’t it?”
“There’ve been mistakes,” Frank said. “I’d be the first to admit that. But nothing we can’t get right next time.”
“And you tried to bury it by killing my grandfather!”
“And I’m sorry. That was the wrong approach. I get that now.”
“The wrong approach? What the hell are you, a fucking self-help guru? You sent your own son—who died, by the way. Your son died.”
Frank said, “He knew the risks.”
“And that’s all you’ve got to say? That he knew the risks?”
“You think I’m not screaming inside? I’m hurting, River. Believe me, I am. But Bertrand was . . . there was a mission, and it’s still going on, and when you’re out in the field you lock the hurt inside. There’ll be time for that later.” He paused. “For both of us.”
Not going there, thought River. Not going there. But part of him went there anyway, joining dots and filling in corners. His half-brother . . . More than a passing resemblance. No wonder he thought he’d get away with turning up at the O.B.’s house, pretending to be River. No wonder River had been able to use his passport.
And River had obliterated that face, in the name of operational expediency.
But not going there.
“What’s the mission?” he said.
Frank smiled a crooked smile. “Right now?” he said. “Right now, River, the mission is you.”
The gunplay on Pentonville Road had sent further tremors through the city, making the old and the vulnerable nervous, but adding a sweet edge to the nightlife of the young. This wild-west frisson had its upside. Just like in frontier towns, the risk of sudden death was greater, but your chances of getting laid were similarly enhanced.
Patrice recognised this in scenes glimpsed through windows as he made his way though the heart of London. Social interaction had been tightened a notch. People were smiling more brightly, their laughter strung a note higher, everything more brittle. Which was useful. A group was emerging from a bar, armed with umbrellas and busy with laughter. He fell in among them, his expression breaking easily into companionship. “I couldn’t hitch shelter as far as the next tube, could I? I have got so wet today!”
“’Course you can, darlin’.”
“Hey, a little less of the darlin’s, you!”
“Take no notice of him.”
An umbrella shifted on its axis, and he was offered its protection.
“That’s great,” said Patrice. “Thanks.”
“It’s not just the rain you’ve gotta watch out for,” somebody slurred. “Mad people out there waving guns about.”
They moved in tortoise formation, past the pair of policemen on the corner who were peeled and alert for suspicious pairings.
“Evening, officers.”
“Keep the streets safe!”
Patrice smiled and nodded with the rest of them, and slipped free at the next corner. Two of the girls invited him to stay with the party—there was always a party—but he had a gun in his pocket, and a destination. And an instruction from Frank, who had been giving him instructions since he was a toddler, and who had ensured, way back then, that there was no question of Patrice not carrying them out.
“An address,” Frank had said, out of earshot of the young spook who’d been pretending to be Adam Lockhead. He’d recited it slowly. Aldersgate Street.
Patrice knew not to ask why. Frank let him know anyway.
“It’s where he’s stationed,” he’d said, indicating the young spook. “And that department doesn’t run to safe houses.”
“So Chapman might be there,” Patrice guessed.
“And the old man too. You know what to do.”
Patrice did, but Frank told him anyway.
“Kill them all. Call me when you’re done.”
Patrice nodded.
He was heading past Smithfield Market now, all shuttered up against the evening.
Aldersgate Street was minutes away.
Back in Slough House, Shirley was reliving her near-death experience.
“He’s a fucking psycho,” she said happily.
“And this is fun because . . . ?”
“Keeps life interesting. Hey, what if we get him annoyed at Ho? Roddy’d shit himself if the Mad Monk pulled that knife trick on him.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t so much a knife trick,” Marcus pointed out, “as just a knife.”
They were in their office, the overhead bulbs growing starker as the darkness outside solidified, and the more Shirley replayed the YouTube videos—and there were two now, another Citizen Journalist having uploaded footage—the surer she became that it was River caught on camera. Which was cool. The last time the slow horses had found themselves on a war footing had been the most fun she’d had since being kicked out of yoga class for starting a fight. If this turned out to be Slough House business, she might get to punch some heads. At the very least, this would give her something to talk about at her next Anger Management session.
Besides, there was nobody waiting at home. Not that she wanted to run through that sorry scenario again, even in the privacy of her own head.
She said, “I’m going to make a cup of tea. Want one?”
But Marcus only grunted.
Ho was in his diving bell, gazing at the world at the bottom of the sea.
That’s what it felt like, anyway.
After fetching the ice for Chapman’s knee—and Jeez, it was painful the way old folks crumbled: Ho was broad-minded, it was one of the things Kim, his girlfriend, most admired about him, but seriously, old people made him feel ill—he’d returned to his machines. He planned to stay late; there was stuff he preferred to do from a Service computer. It was kind of a dare—a task he’d been set. A quest, even. A quest, and the prize was his lady’s hand. Though after four dates, and the amount of money he’d shelled out, her hand was the least he was owed.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t into him. Roddy Ho didn’t fool easy, and Mama Internet had taught him well. When a chick was really into you, there were ways you could tell, and one of the ways you could tell was when she said “I’m really into you,” saying it low and breathy into his ear, friendly as a kitten, her leg brushing across the front of his trousers.
So yeah, she was into him. It was just that so far, at evening’s end, she’d had an important reason for getting home alone, a sick flatmate or a need to be up very very early next day, “but soon, Roddy, soon,” which was a phrase he’d hugged to himself like a hot-water bottle once he’d got home alone himself. Soon. He liked the sound of that. And if completing a quest made soon come sooner, then he was up for it. That was definitely the right phrase.
So anyway: his task. What had happened, the evening before, Kim, his girlfriend, had been asking him how he did what he did; how he hacked in and out of other people’s networks, big and small. He’d had to laugh. “Hacking,” he’d explained, implied slicing and chopping, like using a machete to move through a jungle. But when he did it—“When Roddy Ho does it, babes”—ghosting was the word you were after, because he left no tracks, and nobody knew he’d been there.