Joe Country

When his buzzer buzzed, breaking sleep, River assumed it was a malfunction. His buzzer never buzzed. Buzzers were for friends he didn’t have; maybe bringing a bottle, or asking if he fancied a walk. For a life in which he’d throw sticks for dogs and wear a loosely-knotted scarf, like in a movie montage. But before he could get his head any further round that, his buzzer buzzed again.

There was little noise outside. This would have been worth celebrating, any other time: there was a nightclub nearby, and the quietest moments River enjoyed after dark were in those brief interludes that followed someone getting stabbed, or a bottle being smashed. Here, though, was the lull between the last Uber and the first delivery truck, a respite he generally observed by sleeping through it. Whoever this was better have a good excuse.

He wore jogging bottoms, and a grey T-shirt. Bare feet. Frigid floor.

The spy who walked round in the cold.

Through his intercom he could hear someone waiting by the building’s entrance. “It’s six o’clock in the morning,” he told them.

“It’s Emma Flyte.”

He hadn’t expected that. Mind you, he hadn’t expected anything: that was more or less the definition of surprise.

“Mind if I come in?”

“I didn’t think you lot asked.”

“You might not have heard. I’m no longer at the Park.”

“Oh, right, yeah.” He shook his head: still half-asleep. “I knew that.”

“So . . .”

He pushed the button that unlocked the building.

She appeared at the top of the stairs moments later, and walked through the door he was holding without looking impressed. River couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t impressed himself, and his standards were doubtless lower than hers. The flat, a one-bed, was shabbily decorated, and scored low on ambience and everything else, not to mention being further east than he imagined she usually ventured, though as soon as he caught that thought he corrected himself: Emma Flyte was ex-Met. She might look like a model, but she’d walked a beat. Had dragged villains from grubbier dwellings than this.

It was easy to fall into the trap of underestimating beautiful women. And best to avoid doing so while wearing jogging bottoms.

While he was thinking all this, she’d taken control of the room. “Louisa’s gone off the radar,” she said.

“Louisa’s gone on leave,” he told her. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Service jargon. But she filled in a form and everything.”

“Thanks, I knew that. And probably wouldn’t be here if that’s what I’d meant. Nice as your place is.”

“My cleaner’s not been well.”

“Looks like your cleaner got old and died. Possibly of shock when decimal currency came in. But like I say, not what I’m here for. Louisa called me yesterday, asking for a favour. She promised to check in later. She didn’t.”

River nodded, mostly to get circulation going in his head. “Okay. I—do you want coffee?”

“Do you have any?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Then let’s pretend you didn’t bother asking. Did she tell you where she was going?”

“She didn’t tell me anything. She just waved goodbye on her way out. What favour did she ask?”

“She wanted me to run a trace.”

“Car? Phone?”

“Fitbit,” Emma said.

“. . . Yeah, okay. Not sure I’ve come across that before, but . . .”

“But you’re basically wearing a GPS.”

“So it can be done, I get that. But you’re no longer at the Park. You just said.”

“Top marks, paying attention. No, I’m not. I didn’t run this through the Hub. Point of fact, I got your colleague onto it.”

“. . . Ho?”

“Ho.”

“You asked Roddy Ho a favour?”

“You don’t think he’d do me one?”

“I think he’d roll over and waggle his legs in the air. I just wouldn’t have thought that was something you’d want to see.”

Emma said, “Louisa said she needed it done. Can we move on? The Fitbit belongs to one Lucas Harper. That name ring bells?”

“Harper?”

“Lucas.”

“Min Harper was a colleague,” River said slowly. “He and Louisa were . . . together.”

“Were?”

“He died.”

“Okay . . . And Lucas?”

“Min had children,” said River. “Lucas might be one of them. Where did he turn out to be?”

“Pegsea,” said Emma. “Pembrokeshire.”

“That’s in Wales.”

“I believe so.”

“And you told Louisa this, and then she went dark?”

“That’s right, you like a bit of jargon. No, it didn’t happen that quickly. After I spoke to her, she drove off to Wales. Then later she asked for an update, and I got Roddy—”

“Ho.”

“—to confirm the location. I passed that on to Louisa too, the map reference, so she could find Lucas. And the last thing she said was—”

“That she’d call back.”

“Once she’d found him. But she didn’t. And I’ve called her a dozen times. Goes straight to voicemail.”

River rubbed his eyes. Most of the night he’d lain awake, thinking about his father: what Frank was up to, why he’d reappeared. What move he might make next. Yesterday, while—it turned out—Louisa had been driving to Wales, he’d gone to Stevenage, to examine the Travelodge Frank had checked into. Nothing. No clues, no tracks. The best he’d managed was a list of number plates: all the cars that had registered there that week. He’d not given Louisa a thought, beyond the disgruntlement he’d felt at her taking off, just when it looked like they might see action.

“Cartwright?”

“I’m thinking.”

“I can tell that requires your total attention. But is there any chance you could speed it up?”

He made a decision. “What’s it doing outside?”

“Getting ready to snow. In fact, it’s only just marginally warmer out there than it is in here. How much detail do you want?”

“Keep your hair on. I was wondering what to wear.”

“You’re planning on getting up? That’s good.”

He said, “Louisa’s had her moments. She might have met someone in a pub and forgotten she said she’d call. But . . .”

“But?”

“But not if she was on a job. Especially not if the job involved Min.”

“Yes, I wondered about that. So I woke Ho an hour ago, and got him to run another trace.”

River waited.

Emma said, “The Fitbit’s not moved in the last few hours. Nor has Louisa’s phone. And they’re both in the same place. Which appears to be a roadside ditch.”

The current head of Tricks and Toys—the Park’s gadget section, which also oversaw tech issues; like a High Street phone outlet had merged with a party shop—was a forty-something redheaded black woman named Terrance. Richard Pynne was confident the red hair was a chemical intervention, and pretty sure Terrance couldn’t be her first name, but that was what everyone called her, and though he made a mental note after each encounter to check her personnel file, had never followed through. T&T, anyway, he kept at broomstick’s length ever since he’d queried the timekeeping of a junior glitch-monkey—the guy was arriving twenty to thirty minutes late on a daily basis: there was leeway, and then there was taking the piss—and that same afternoon found his Oyster card inexplicably fundless. Sometimes you were outgunned. But his long-term plan was to wait for the next round of development appraisals, then shaft the little bastard with a poison-tipped memo.

But right this minute, bright and early Friday morning, he was in a corridor, and here was Terrance buttonholing him.

“I’ve finished with the rogue laptop.”

It took Pynne a moment to work out which laptop she meant.

“And?”

“And my report’s in your inbox.”

“You couldn’t give me the bullet points?”

She could, she did, and like every IT professional everywhere, ensured it was unlikely he’d grasp her meaning first time round. By the third dumbed-down repetition, though, he thought they were, if not on the same page, somewhere in the same chapter.

He said, “So what I’m understanding here, what I’m taking away is, you can’t categorically state, one hundred percent, that the material found on the hard drive was downloaded by the certified user.”

“That’s right.”

Which punched a hole in the case against Lech Wicinski. It wasn’t just his laptop they were talking about, it was his culpability.

“And if it were introduced by a third party, there’s no way of knowing who.”

“Except it would have to be a savvy operator. The protection on our gear’s world standard,” Terrance said. “Bypassing it’s a lot more complicated than dicking with someone’s Oyster card.”

Pynne thought, on the whole, he’d let that one go.

“So not just a potential bad actor. A potential state bad actor?”

“Would be my guess.”

“And would you have a shortlist? Who’d have the, ah, chops to pull this off?”

She said, “China, India, for sure. The Russians, probably.”

“Americans?”

“Nah.”

He said, “What about the Germans?”

“Hmm. Possibly.”

“. . . Thanks.”

“But I’m not saying for definite it happened that way. Twenty percent chance, maximum.”

“Okay.”

“Which is still way too big to let pass. I’m going to have to go for a rebuild on the firewall. Which will require an overspend.”

“Okay,” he said again. “Thanks. But listen. When you’re applying for the funding, don’t mention this in your business case. It’s highly classified. Highly.”

“Right,” Terrance said. “So I’ve got to apply for funds to patch a possible hole in our firewall which I’m not allowed to mention when applying for the funds.”

Pynne allowed that it wasn’t ideal.

“Nah,” she said. “Regent’s Park. Business as usual.”

She went on her way.

Pynne returned to his office, and deleted the email she’d sent him.

Two hours later River was on his fourth coffee: this one supposedly a double-shot Americano, though he’d had more kick from a cough drop. He was at a counter pressed up against a café window, the stool too high for comfort: he had to sit sideways, because his knees wouldn’t fit. Shirley Dander didn’t have the same difficulty, on account of having, as she put it, a lower centre of gravity: lot of syllables for shortarse, he remembered thinking first time he’d heard that. He’d called her once Emma Flyte had left, not because she was top of the list of people he’d call in an emergency, but because he had no such list. He was going to have to do something constructive about his life soon, but at the moment was too busy negotiating his way through it.

Shirley’s demands were predictable enough: a cappuccino and a sausage sandwich, the latter so lathered in ketchup, she looked like an extra from a zombie movie two bites in. That was for turning up. Getting her to listen to what Flyte had said was more of a struggle.

“So she’s missing.”

“Yes.”

“In Wales.”

“Yes.”

“What the fuck’s she doing in Wales? It’s just sheep and windmills.”

River, who wasn’t certain about the windmills, said, “She was looking for someone.”

“Someone Welsh?”

“Someone specific. Min Harper’s son, in fact.”

“Min Harper?”

“Uh-huh.”

Shirley thought about that for a moment.

Outside, the first few flakes of London snow were drifting down. By the time the third or fourth one hit the ground, buses would be returning to their depots.

“Flyte told you this?”

“Yes.”

“She’s seriously hot.”

“And reliable.”

Shirley considered this. “I don’t necessarily need them reliable,” she said. “But I do like them hot.”

“She says Louisa’s phone hasn’t moved in however long it’s been. Twelve hours? She’s worried.”

“Maybe Louisa’s asleep.”

“She said she’d check in with Emma.”

“Maybe she forgot.”

“And she’s not picking up calls. And Flyte reckoned her phone might be in a ditch.”

“How could she tell?”

“Roddy tracked its coordinates.”

“Can you be that accurate? To, like, the nearest inch?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because it doesn’t sound likely to me. Maybe they’re just accurate to the nearest motel. In which case probably Louisa’s found this kid, and is road-testing him for his old man’s sake.”

“You’re kind of sick, you know that?”

In response, Shirley banged on the window.

The café was on the other side of the road and a little way down from Slough House, between a hardware store and a Costcutters, and until recently had been vacant for six months, prior to which it had been an almost identical café but with different-coloured chairs. Its sole attraction for the slow horses was its proximity, which was the reason J.K. Coe was walking past now, garbed in his usual hoodie despite the cold, his head invisible, his hands jammed into pockets. When Shirley thumped the window he started. River only imagined, but it wasn’t that big a leap, Coe’s fist appearing with a blade in its grip. Coe was a sleeping dog: if you were going to startle him, River thought, it was as well to have a pane of glass in between.

Meanwhile Coe had stopped in his tracks and was staring at them.

“Do you think he recognises us?” River said, his lips barely moving.

Shirley gestured to Coe to join them. “Being a psycho doesn’t make him a bad person,” she said.

“No,” agreed River. “It’s being a bad person makes him that.”

Coe entered like someone expecting a hostile welcome.

Shirley said, “Louisa’s gone missing in Wales. Are you getting coffee? Can you get me another?”

Coe looked at River. “Wales?”

“If you’re at the channel, look up and left,” River explained.

Coe ignored that. “It’s snowing.”

“I noticed.”

“It’s snowing worse in Wales.”

Shirley and River shared a look. “I think,” Shirley said slowly, “I think he might mean that everyone in Wales right now has technically gone missing. On account of the snow.”

Coe shrugged.

“That’s good input, thanks,” said River.

Coe shrugged again.

“I was talking to Shirley.”

They watched as Coe left the café and continued on his way to Slough House.

“Sometimes I think he’s just plain weird,” Shirley said. “And at other times I totally get him.”

“Well he’s fuck all use either way,” said River.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wales’ll be, like, closed by now.”

“I know.”

“And Frank’s out there somewhere. We’re just waiting to find out where.”

River didn’t answer. Yes, Frank was out there somewhere, posing as a Canadian, or had been. But his hire car had dropped off the map, and he’d have a new ID by now. Given the run of the Hub they’d pinpoint his whereabouts in hours, but with the resources at their disposal River might as well be on Slough House’s roof, using a kitchen roll holder as a telescope.

And meanwhile Louisa was missing. And Louisa was his friend.

Unless she was just on a jolly, and had lost her phone.

“Flyte admitted it might not be an actual ditch,” he said. “I think she just wanted me to treat it like an emergency.”

“Well, if Louisa has been in a freezing ditch all night, the emergency part’s probably over by now,” said Shirley.

“Thanks.”

“Hey, she’s your friend. She’s always been arsey with me.”

“What if it were Marcus?”

“He’d have been a lot easier to find in the snow,” Shirley conceded.

Seems River wasn’t the only one spending too long in Lamb’s company.

They finished their coffees and walked to Slough House, the weather gathering pace: nothing lying yet, the ground still eating it up, but give it time, give it time. He’d speak to Lamb, he decided. If Lamb thought a joe was in peril—

And then Coe was approaching, emerging from the alley round back of Slough House.

“Wales,” he said.

“What about it?” said Shirley.

“Those plates from Stevenage.” He was talking to River. “I ran them through ANPR.”

“And one of them’s now in Wales,” said River.

“Two of them,” said Coe, but River was already gone.

The walkway round Regent’s Park’s rooftop was narrow, and cradled by the overhanging tiles of a steeply angled roof on one side and an eight-inch wall on the other. A route allowing for maintenance work, it had never been intended for casual use, but the view it offered meant that most of the Park’s regulars made the occasional foray up here, a tradition memorialised by the innumerable cigarette ends trodden underfoot. Diana Taverner led the way from the access door to the building’s north-east corner and paused by a squat turret, an outlet of some sort, from whose wire grille a metallic odour drifted. Snow was starting to pattern the tiles. Between a gutter and the overhang, a spider was tuning its web.

Behind her, Oliver Nash said, “Is this really necessary?”

“I like it up here,” Taverner said, not looking round. “Reminds me what’s at stake.”

“A very London-centric attitude, if you don’t mind my saying so.” He was hanging back as much as he could without it looking like he was doing so.

They weren’t that high, but they were high enough. There were few soft landings in the city. The view was metal and glass, weeping concrete, a distant splash of golden stone. From where she stood, Taverner could read the date carved into the brow of the building opposite: 1893. Many older constructions carried such badges. Newer ones didn’t, as if less sure of their place in history, or the future. Buildings are more vulnerable than they used to be. One of the reasons she was here.

“Diana?”

“Would you rather go back down?”

His every feature screaming Yes, Oliver Nash shook his head. “Let’s get on with whatever game you’re playing, shall we? Before we both freeze our balls off.”

“Nicely put.” She turned. “I want to trigger the Fugue Protocol.”

“. . . I see.”

It rather seemed he didn’t.

“Oliver?”

“The Fugue Protocol. And that’s, um, that’s . . .” He stopped. “You’ll have to forgive me.”

“Of course.”

“I’m normally on top of my brief.”

“Yes.”

“It’s just that there’s such an awful lot of—”

“We have wi-fi, Oliver. If you want to verify your standing orders, go right ahead.”

“Thank you.”

With a show of reluctance, he produced his phone. Diana watched while he called up the Service intranet, entered his code, and burrowed into his office’s backstory: duties and expectations, liabilities, known unknowns. His appointment, unlike hers, had not arrived ballasted by a decade’s preparation.

“The Fugue Protocol,” he said at length. “Yes, I remember now.”

Funny how you always remember right at the end, a little voice squeaked inside her.

“A home-soil operation, with no oversight.”

“That’s correct.”

“You want to go under the bridge.”

“There. Anyone would take you for a lifer.”

“There’s no need to mock.”

“Just lightening the mood. Are you up to speed with the implications?”

He was still squinting at his phone, its text a little undernourished for close reading. “And you don’t wish to provide a reason why.”

“That would be the nub, yes.”

Nash pursed his lips. “Somewhat unorthodox, don’t you think?”

“It’s precisely orthodox. That’s why it’s a protocol. With a specific procedure attached.”

“Designed for extreme levels of emergency,” he said. “For use in conditions of extreme secrecy. So in the wrong hands—forgive me. In the wrong circumstances, a tool for any manner of black mischief.”

“I’m in this post because I’m trusted, Oliver. This is one of those moments when you have to rely on that trust, and let go of the tiller.”

He looked out over London’s rooftops, perhaps seeing in their boxed and fluted shapes, their haphazard geometry, the same thing she had seen a moment ago. The very modern problem cities shared: that they were always left out in the open.

“I trust you. What I’m less . . . sanguine about is the current state of the coffers. No oversight means an uncontrolled spend. And we are not currently in a position where I’m comfortable with that.”

“The whole point of the Fugue Protocol is that it supersedes such considerations.”

“Not to mention bypassing the steering committee. And the Minister. Which is the reason you’re seeking to trigger it, am I right? No oversight. That’s the key here.”

“The protocol exists for a very good reason.”

“As do its safeguards.” He was looking at his phone again, scrolling through the standing instructions. “Misuse carries severe penalties, Diana.”

“Yes, thank you. I’m aware of that.”

“And yet, it says here, I have to say this out loud. Wilful and deliberate misinformation—wilful and deliberate, that’s a tautology, yes? No matter. Wilful and deliberate misinformation in response to the listed questions could result in prosecution. Being First Desk won’t help you.”

“If I weren’t First Desk, I couldn’t trigger the protocol. It’s a bespoke arrangement.”

“Yes, well. Are you sure you want to do this?”

I’m standing on a roof on a January morning, she wanted to say. How serious do you need me to get? But she simply nodded, and waited for him to find the pertinent section of text.

He did so.

“One. Is there a clear and present danger—that’s an American phrase, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “Really, I’m not sure we should be borrowing—oh, never mind. Not the issue.” He cleared his throat. “Is there a clear and present danger, or has a credible threat been made, to the government and/or its constituent parts, by which I can only presume is meant persons holding offices of state?”

“No.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Really? I was rather expecting you to say yes there.”

“There are further questions, Oliver.”

“Oh. Right. Yes.” He glanced about, as if expecting a prompt from the wings, then raised his phone to his eyeline again. “Two. Is there a clear or present danger, or has a credible threat been made, against the person of Her Majesty and/or any member of the royal household, most particularly, but not limited to, immediate family members?”

She said, “Define threat.”

“That’s not an answer. We both know what threat means. Danger to life and limb.”

“I’d have thought a greater latitude was implied.”

The height, the cold, the falling snow: all of these things sharpened Nash’s tone. “Diana. Are you in possession of information suggesting that an attempt may be made on the life or liberty of a member of the royal family? A yes or no answer is required.”

“. . . No.”

“You don’t sound certain.”

“I’m alert to the severe penalties you mentioned. What if the danger were reputational?”

He eyed her suspiciously. “That would be a political matter.”

“A political threat.”

“Which falls outside the bounds of the protocol. Your office is apolitical, Diana. You know that.”

“Of course.”

“Is this the reason you initiated this charade? You believe there’s been some kind of non-physical threat to a member of the royal household?”

She thought for a moment, then nodded.

“If you have information regarding anything of the kind, any political shenanigans, it’s your duty to bring it to Committee. I shouldn’t have to remind you of this.”

“And I shouldn’t need to remind you that sources need protection, and that the Committee has been known to leak.”

“Not while I’ve been Chair, it hasn’t.”

“Forgive me, Oliver. But my memory goes back further than the last six months. If I bring my concerns to the Committee, they’ll require verification, and that will mean giving up my source. Which is not acceptable.”

“I can’t authorise you to go free range.”

“Pity.”

“And there’s no sense in me reading the rest of these questions out, is there? I’m not authorising the protocol on those grounds, and you have no other grounds to offer. Is that correct?”

She nodded.

“I can’t help thinking there’s something going on here, Diana.”

“It’s the Secret Service, Oliver. There’s always something going on.”

“I’ll have to minute this.”

“Of course.”

“And it’s going to look a little . . . sensationalist of you. If you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Do what you have to do.”

“I’m going in now.”

“Good idea.”

She let Nash lead the way back, but paused before following him onto the staircase. Behind her London yawned, then hunched its shoulders. The snow was falling harder, and the sky was iron grey.

The morning had grown old before its time.

And before long, the afternoon was giving up the ghost.

“Let me drive,” Shirley said.

“We’re taking shifts, remember?”

“But you’re going so slowly!”

“We’re in a traffic jam,” River pointed out.

There were three of them. J.K. Coe was in the shotgun seat, staring out of the passenger window. Shirley was behind River, and gripping his headrest: he could feel her tension.

“If you’re not gunna get a move on,” she said, “at least play some music.”

But every radio station so far she’d vetoed on grounds of being lame. And the only CD he could find was called Metal for Muthas, and he’d sooner gouge his own eyes out.

“It’s like travelling with a teenager,” he said.

“Is not!”

River glanced sideways, but Coe was wired into his iPod, and might as well have been back in Slough House.

The M4 was at a standstill not twenty miles clear of Hillingdon: a lorry had shed its load across the westbound lanes. Radio reports hadn’t specified what this was, but River was guessing quick-drying cement. No fatalities, apparently, which Shirley did not take well. Causing her inconvenience should be a capital offence.

Even on the motorway, snow was starting to lie. The country to either side was disappearing under its cloak: a landscape of lumpy fields and pissed-off cattle.

This wasn’t what an emergency dash was supposed to look like.

Back at Slough House, he’d gone straight to Lamb’s room, the others in his wake. Lamb was at his desk, shoeless, his electric heater pumping out an exhausted warmth that filled the air with the smell of fried dust.

“Louisa’s in Wales. I’m going after her.”

“Did I wake up in a fucking romcom?” said Lamb.

“I think she’s in danger.”

“Because that would explain the snow,” continued Lamb. “And the lack of black faces.” He slid a hand inside his shirt. “Come to think of it, did I wake up in Wales?”

“What makes you think she’s in danger?” Catherine said, arriving from her own room.

River said, “Coe traced two of the cars from the Travelodge where Harkness and his crew stayed. Both crossed the Severn Bridge Wednesday evening.”

“So. Some people drove from Stevenage to Wales,” Catherine said.

“Same time Louisa heads there?”

“Coincidences happen.”

“What’s she doing in Wales, anyway?” Lamb asked. “I assumed she was on the shag. Has she seriously been through everyone closer than that?”

“She’s looking for Min Harper’s kid.”

For once, Lamb said nothing.

River said, “Tell me it’s a coincidence that Harkness and his crew are exactly where Louisa went.”

“Well,” Catherine said. “The same country. If it was even them.”

“Wales, though. It’s not a huge place.”

“It’s exactly the size it is, isn’t it?” Shirley said. “Reports are always saying something’s “an area the size of Wales.” And that’s exactly the size Wales is.”

This was met with a short silence.

Lamb said, “And to think I had you down as incapable of coherent thought.”

Roderick Ho had appeared. “Louisa’s phone hasn’t moved all night. When Emma was at my place, she was asking.”

“. . . Emma Flyte?”

“Yeah. She was at my place.”

Shirley put her head in her hands.

Lamb said, “So Louisa’s looking for Harper’s boy in Wales, and you think Frank and his crew are after Louisa. There’s a slight flaw in this.”

“Which is?”

“That you’re an idiot. If Frank was after Louisa, what stopped him taking her at the funeral? Your Wile E. Coyote impersonation? No, if Frank and his crew are in Wales, it’s not Louisa they’re after. So unless it’s a coincidence, like Madame Guillotine here says, it must be Harper’s boy.” He paused. “And I don’t believe in coincidence.”

River said, “Why would they want Lucas Harper?”

“Well, if he’s anything like his old man, because he’s lost something that belongs to them. On the other hand, let’s assume for the moment there’s stuff going on we don’t know about. That’ll be harder for me than for you, but the least you can do is make an effort.”

He produced a cigarette from inside his shirt, and plugged it into his mouth.

“And it would explain what Frank was doing at the funeral,” he went on. “He wasn’t there to see you. He was there to check out Louisa. He must have known she was looking for the kid.”

Catherine said, “How?”

“Golly, good question. Oh hang on, I know. We’re fucking spooks.” He lit his cigarette. “If I was after the boy, I’d have kept tabs on his mother. Tapped her phone. Presumably she got in touch with Louisa?”

“Don’t know,” River said.

“Big surprise. So once that’s happened, first thing Harkness does is put a tag on Louisa, to make sure she doesn’t fuck up his plans. That would involve having her picture, which is why he was at the funeral. Stop me if I’m going too fast.”

“And Louisa found the boy,” said Coe. “Or knows where to look.”

“See? Norman Bates is keeping up.”

Ho said, “I found the boy through his Fitbit. Emma asked me to.”

“She’s almost certainly after your body,” Lamb said. “Probably needs a draught excluder.” He blew out smoke. “Okay, sounds like you’re off to Wales. How do you plan to get there?”

“My car’s off the road,” Shirley said quickly.

“And I haven’t got one,” said River.

Everyone looked at Coe.

“Mine’s at home. An hour away.”

Everyone looked at Ho.

Ho said, “I don’t want to go to Wales.”

“We don’t want you to come,” Shirley explained.

“But we’re going to need your car keys,” said River.

Lamb said to Coe, “Try not to kill anyone.”

Coe shrugged.

“On our side, I mean.”

“Why do you need my car keys?” Ho asked suspiciously.

When they’d all clattered out of the office, Catherine said, “And this is wise?”

“Said the drunk with the wine cellar in her living room.”

“If Louisa’s in trouble, we need to call the Park. Or the police. Ho said her phone’s not moved all night.”

“Neither did mine,” said Lamb. “And I was alive last time I checked.”

“Did you ask for a second opinion?”

He ignored that. “We’ve been over this. The Park can’t be trusted where Harkness is concerned because its fingerprints are all over his lunatic fucking misdeeds. And I’m not watching him walk away again.”

“But you’re not going to Wales yourself.”

“Christ no. I’m on a crusade, not a one-star mini-break.”

“And what if Louisa’s already dead?”

Lamb became absent for a moment, as if a light had winked off. It winked back on again. “She’s probably okay. Going dark’s protocol in joe country.”

But he stamped on the floor, to summon River back upstairs.

Catherine raised an eyebrow.

“What kind of boss would I be,” he said, “if I despatched the office junior without a going-away present?”

“A normal one?” she suggested, and just avoided colliding with River as she vanished back into her own room.

That going-away present was in River’s pocket now, weighing his jacket down.

Traffic shunted forwards, and came to a halt again. The lane heading back to London was moving freely, if with wariness; the snow was drawing black lines on the road where tyres had cut through it. It occurred to River that the lanes up ahead, the far side of the spilled load, might be inches thick by now. But we’ll plough that furrow when we come to it.

“Yellow car,” said Shirley.

“What?”

But she didn’t explain.

And the snow kept falling.

On a normal day London was bright and busy, full of open spaces and well-lit squares. But it was also trap streets and ghost stations; a spook realm below the real. Think of the city as a coded text beneath an innocent page, thought Richard Pynne; a hidden string of silent letters, spelling out missing words. Every footfall on every paving stone tapped out meaning few could read.

Pynne had never wanted to be a joe, preferring to view the world from a desk, confident that these desks would become bigger, their views more panoramic, as his career skyrocketed. But it couldn’t be denied that moments like this carried excitement; a pleasure that was necessarily furtive, borderline sexual. It helped that it was Hannah he was on his way to see, and that the meeting was unlogged—at the Park, he’d diarised the hour as UPB, urgent personal business; standard code for dentist or clap clinic. For now he was wrapped in a legend, and London was enemy ground.

Ground slowly whitening under a soft wet blanket of snow.

He waited behind Embankment Station, and when he saw her approaching ostentatiously checked his watch; not to show her she was late, but to indicate to anyone watching that they were an ordinary couple, and she was late.

“You got here.”

She looked amused. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t have?”

“No. None. I only meant . . .” What he’d meant was lost before he’d said it. He looked around: nobody in sight. Nobody important. A man fussing about with a sheet of cardboard. Two young women, hand in hand. He said to Hannah, “Would you like to get coffee?”

“I don’t have time. You said it was important?”

“It’s about Peter.”

Peter Kahlmann, her BND handler. The man who thought he was running a German spy in the British Civil Service.

“What about him?”

“Has he . . . said anything lately?”

“Has he said anything? What does that mean?”

“Has anything unusual happened?”

“No, Richard. Nothing unusual has happened.”

“So no security worries? He hasn’t asked if anyone’s been . . . checking up on him?”

“You’ve asked me this before.”

“And now I’m asking you again.”

“And the answer’s the same, no, nothing. He’s a tired old man, that’s all. I’m his last job. He just wants to take my reports, which are full of useless rubbish as you know, because you write them, and then go back to his nice warm flat and listen to Radio 3. As far as he’s aware I’m someone’s idea of a prank, a tiny little mole in Whitehall, beaming back gossipy bullshit. That’s all.”

Instead of, thought Richard, a tiny little mole in the Bundesnachrichtendienst, beaming back snippets of tradecraft.

Hannah eyed him kindly. “What’s the matter? Really?”

“It’s probably nothing.”

“But not actually nothing.”

“No . . .” She was his joe, he was her handler, and there were no secrets between joe and handler. Or at least, not where a joe’s safety was concerned. That was sacred text: a handler protected his joe.

He said, “It’s just that something happened. Back at the Park. An analyst ran Kahlmann’s name through several databases.”

“You told me that. Why is it important? Analysts analyse things. It’s what they do.”

“But not long after, this particular analyst, well . . . he was compromised.”

“Because he was checking up on Peter Kahlmann?”

“. . . I don’t know. It’s possible.”

“So you think that the BND value me so highly that they’d nobble anyone who probes too close?”

“I value you.”

“Glad to hear it. But if I was valuable to them, they’d not have given me to Kahlmann in the first place. They’d have assigned someone of a higher calibre. Someone keen to do a proper job.” She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “I’m small fry, I know that. I don’t have esteem issues, don’t worry.”

And that was the truth of it, he thought with relief. As far as the BND was concerned, Hannah was a little fish, a sleeper who might never wake, but merely murmur messages from the edge of slumber. Pillow talk from Whitehall’s dormitory—gossipy bullshit, like she said. Not someone the BND would risk a diplomatic incident to protect. Which meant Snow White would remain his and his alone: their secret meetings, their familiar haunts, their special relationship. Kahlmann was a nobody, which meant that Lech Wicinski’s fall from grace was his own guilty problem, nothing more.

This was good, because at the disciplinary hearing earlier, back in the Park, he’d given Di Taverner a truncated version of T&T’s report on Wicinski’s laptop.

“The material can’t have been planted remotely.”

“Is that a hundred percent?”

“. . . As good as.”

Nash, who spent half his life in the Park these days, had made his standard harrumphing noise. “So then. Matter resolved.”

Taverner said, “I’ll speak to HR. Have his papers drawn up. And a report filed with the Met, obviously.”

Which had alarmed Pynne, but not as much as it did Nash.

“No, I’m not sure that’s wise.” His mouth twisted: nasty taste. “It’s a touchy subject down the corridor, viewing pornography at work. Ended a promising career, let’s not forget. One of the PM’s closest allies.”

“Well she should choose her allies more carefully. Sticky fingers aren’t a good look anywhere. Round the Cabinet table, they’re a positive embarrassment.”

“Be that as it may, public awareness that a member of the security services was watching porn, illegal porn, when he should have been safeguarding the national interests, well. It’s a lose/lose situation. No, it’s best if the police are kept out of this.”

“Which will strengthen his hand,” said Pynne.

“Leaving aside the somewhat unsavoury image that brings to mind,” said Lady Di, “care to elucidate?”

“If we sack him but don’t inform the police,” said Pynne, “he’ll know we’re frightened of the publicity. So he might go public himself. Claim innocence.”

“Whereas if we keep him where he is,” said Nash, “he’ll stay quiet. For fear we’ll inform the Met if he misbehaves.”

“Fine,” said Lady Di. “He’s a slow horse. Thank you, Richard.”

So all was well. Maybe he’d finessed it, but it was the right outcome.

He said to Hannah, “You’re right. Forgive me. I worry about you, that’s all.”

“There’s no need, Richard. Really. We’re good.”

His pilfered hour was up. Without quite planning to, he leaned and kissed her cheek.

She smiled and squeezed his arm. “See you soon.”

He headed into the station. When he looked back she was still standing there, waving at him. He waved back, and disappeared from sight.

Then Hannah walked round to the Embankment, and into the small park behind the Savoy, where Peter Kahlmann—real name, Martin Kreutzmer—was waiting with a bouquet of roses.

“Peter!”

“I like to spoil you.”

And he did. In flagrant contravention of every espionage protocol she’d ever read about, or seen in films, Peter would show up at undercover trysts bearing boxes of chocolates, or abduct her as she left work, and whisk her off to a West End show: best seats in the house. If the Peter Kahlmann she described to Richard Pynne was a worn-out salaryman, the reality was a favourite uncle, the one who’d got down on all fours and pretended to be a bear. The risk was, someone would notice he really was a bear after all. Because if Regent’s Park discovered that Kahlmann was actually Martin Kreutzmer, then what had been assumed to be a minor fun-and-games op would have been escalated to Serious Business, for Martin was a name on Spook Street, and anything he was invested in demanded a closer look.

Yet here he was, handing out roses in the snow.

“They import them from Africa.”

“They’re lovely. The perfect accessory for a clandestine meeting.”

“Everyone will assume I’m a dirty old man,” he said, taking her arm. “They’ll write their own story, and pay no attention to who we really are.”

They walked through the park, collars up against the cold.

“So,” he said. “What did Young Lochinvar want?”

“He’s still worried about that analyst,” said Hannah. “The one who ran your cover name.”

“A development?”

“I don’t think so. He’s a worrier, that’s all.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” he assured her.

She told him all she’d gleaned from Pynne lately: about Diana Taverner, and her struggle to keep hold of the Service’s steering wheel.

“They have so many committees,” she said. “So many meetings. And the budget’s tight. Richard thinks she’s worried control will be taken away from her, and vested in a board. She’s spent years waiting to take over, he says. And now they’re looking to change the whole power structure.”

“But she’s a survivor.”

“You know her?”

“I know the type. When the game stops going their way, they change the game. She’s waiting for her moment, that’s all.”

Hannah said, “I think Richard knew this analyst.”

“Were they friends?”

“I don’t think he has friends.”

“Apart from you,” said Martin.

That made her laugh.

They parted on a lane leading up to the Strand, Hannah cradling the flowers as if they were an infant. Like any fond lover Martin Kreutzmer walked backwards the first few steps, extending his farewell, but his smile faded once he’d turned. On the Strand he headed left, for Trafalgar Square, where a murmuration of tourists, undeterred by the cold, weaved around one another in constant motion. Martin liked the pointless busyness of it. He found it conducive to thought.

He had assumed that the analyst, whose name Hannah had wheedled from Pynne over cocktails, had been sufficiently spiked; exiled to MI5’s equivalent of Robben Island, where he’d spend the rest of his career wondering what just happened. Now, it seemed more was required. If Lech Wicinski continued to fuss, and Pynne looked beyond his own infatuation with Hannah, the operation would fall apart, and with it, Martin’s career. It wouldn’t just be his loss of a promising agent, and the glimpses into life at Regent’s Park her handler leaked. It would be the favours Martin had called in to compromise Wicinski: persuading a colleague to corrupt the analyst’s laptop had been well outside his remit. But it had been for Hannah’s sake, he reminded himself. Hannah was his joe. And a handler protected his joe.

Maybe, too, he should curb his own natural excesses. This wasn’t, after all, just fun and games. Time to bring Hannah into the adult world: no more roses, no more outings.

As for Wicinski, his days of roses were also over. Because let’s face it: Martin Kreutzmer had already crossed one boundary. Be foolish not to cross another if that was what it took.

It was a pity, really. Lech Wicinski had only been doing his job. Still: that was life in joe country. Martin patted his pockets, remembered he didn’t smoke, and waded into the tourist pack, swiftly becoming invisible.

The key safe was a small plastic box, the size of a cigarette packet, fastened to the outside wall at ankle height. To remove the key, you brushed it clean of snow, then clicked open the lid and keyed a code on a rackety plastic numberboard. Or, if you didn’t have the code, you raised your booted foot and brought it down hard, removing safe and contents in one ugly crunch. Then scrabbled about in the snow before finding the key half a yard away. Picked it up with trembling fingers. Slotted it into the cottage door on the third attempt.

That’s if you were Lucas Harper.

Downstairs was kitchen and living room combined, with a wood-burning stove; upstairs was a bathroom and two bedrooms. It was as familiar to him as his own home; he’d been staying here with his family since a toddler, year in, year out. The family was smaller now, of course. Last night, after the handover had gone wrong—what should have been a straightforward swap: their money, his promise of silence—after the flurry of violence that ensued, and the hours spent hiding in darkness, this was the sanctuary that came to mind. Not in use this week, thank god . . . The world was a scarier place than he’d known. He could be lying dead, face down in the snow.

Late afternoon. Friday? He’d barely slept, hadn’t turned a light on. When a car rolled past he’d dropped to the floor, made himself tiny in the darkness. Like the toddler he’d once been, in this same holiday cottage.

The car had struggled round the inclined corner and faded. But Lucas had stayed hidden for five minutes before climbing back onto the sofa.

Your money’s right here. But you’re going to have to come closer.

He’d been clear on the phone. The money was to be left at the crossroads, chosen because it was just a mark on a map, a few trees and a signpost. There’d be no contact of any kind. He wasn’t an idiot. His dad had been a spy.

I need to hear you say the words. That you’ll never tell anyone what you saw that night.

What he’d seen had been a chance to secure a future. To make some cash.

The man had been short, but bulky; dark-skinned. European-looking and -sounding, though Lucas couldn’t put a country to it. His hair had a corkscrew curl, his chin was thickly stubbled, and when he’d stepped from the trees it was as if he’d just appeared, fully formed; a wood-sprite out of Lord of the Rings. Lucas had been watching the copse for an hour, and had seen no movement. Not until the man had wanted to be seen. That knowledge seemed to form in his gut; a knot of fear that sprang as suddenly into being as the man himself.

Who wasn’t, Lucas noted, carrying a rucksack. Lucas had specified a rucksack—what easier way to carry fifty grand?

Come on, Lucas. Don’t make this harder than it has to be, hey?

That was when he’d known he was in trouble.

Lucas drew his knees up and rested his forehead. The temperature was dropping by the minute, but he didn’t dare turn the heating on. The boiler made a whooshing sound on ignition, then rumbled steadily. The neighbours might notice, and come to investigate . . .

He’d used a payphone to make the deal; had disguised his voice. They shouldn’t have his name—if they’d found out who he was, it wasn’t so they could congratulate him while handing over the money. No, it meant they had no intention of paying him . . . All of that, crashing through his mind as soon as the man called him Lucas.

His hands were gripping his calves now, and he could feel the muscles taut beneath the skin. Last night, those muscles had melted . . . Adrenalin should have given him wings: that was the evolutionary code. In fear for his life, he should have moved like a gazelle. Instead he had struggled on legs heavy as tree trunks, while the man hadn’t even bothered to give chase. When Lucas glanced back he was still by the signpost, a grin on his face.

And way behind him, beyond the next hill, an approaching glow, as if a rocket were launching.

Lucas had tried to run, but the snow wouldn’t let him, sent him sprawling after three steps. Before he’d regained his feet the car broached the crest of the road, headlights on full, and then it was heading into the dip, pausing at the crossroads to collect the man, and then on the move again, up the rise, gaining on Lucas without even trying. The snowy road lit up and noise flooded his head, the engine’s roar, and the crunching of snow beneath wheels. They meant to run him down. He’d be like one of those rabbits you found by the roadside, clipped by traffic: almost intact but for one comical section, cartooned flat. He’d be a punctuation mark in the snow. When the woman appeared from nowhere, reaching out from the ditch, he’d thought this was how it happened: that the last moment of your life involved being snatched clear of it. But when he hit the ground and the car screamed past, he knew he was alive.

The car stopped, and the man from the crossroads peeled out, came running back.

The woman rose and swung her arm just as he arrived. Whatever she was holding hit his head with an organic-sounding whump.

She turned back to Lucas. “Run.”

He didn’t need encouragement.

The road ahead was blocked by the car, so he ran back down to the crossroads, finding it easier now, his limbs adjusting to this new reality. At the signpost he’d turn right: there was a footpath, leading into woods. With enough of a start, he’d find a hiding place there. These thoughts fell into place like a puzzle solving itself. All he need do was keep moving . . . He dared a look behind. The lit-up car was an island in the darkness, around which shadows danced, one of them the woman who’d just saved him. Something flashed in her hand. As Lucas watched she swung out again but missed her target and slipped in the snow. Before she could reach her feet—

All thought fled as a shape appeared at the living room window.

Lucas froze in place. The shadow hovered, and pressed itself against the glass. When it moved Lucas rolled onto the carpet, then crawled to the door. He crouched beneath the diamond-shaped glass in its upper half, an ear pressed to the wood, while someone shifted on the doorstep, snow creaking beneath their weight. The key safe, he thought. Its absence had left a mark on the outside wall. If you knew what you were looking at, it was a neon sign screaming Trespassers.

He clenched every muscle in his body, and when the doorbell rang he was ready for it, and managed not to yelp.

But the whisper behind him almost made him jump out of his skin.

“Don’t.”

And then a hand was clamped across his mouth.

In the car, things were not going well.

“Where are we?” Shirley asked, having just woken up.

“We’re in Wales.”

“Yeah, mastermind. I can see that.” (There was no way she could see that.) “I meant where exactly?”

They were on the B4298, and it didn’t help her mood being told.

“So . . .” She tailed off.

“So are we nearly there yet?” River prompted.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you wanted to.”

“We can’t go much further,” Coe said.

“It’ll be fine.”

“No it won’t. It’s snowing, I’ve twice lost traction. Visibility’s a yard and a half. We’re going to end up in a ditch.”

“Whose idea was this?”

“I didn’t notice you coming up with a better one,” River said. “So . . . Not going much further. What would that mean?”

Coe said, “Stopping.”

It had been slow going even once they’d passed the jackknifed lorry. The canyons carved by preceding cars should have made their passage simpler, but in fact had them skidding on compressed snow. Shirley’s turn at the wheel had been particularly lively, accompanied by an uninterrupted stream of invective, directed mostly, but not exclusively, at other road users. River had wondered whether she’d dipped into a pocket stash when their attention was elsewhere, but decided that if she had, the invective would have been less inventive. Coke had a way of making its adherents imagine themselves masters of the universe, while robbing them of original thought.

“Yeah, mastermind,” she said now. “It would mean stopping.”

But Coe had a point. The snow was falling as thickly as ever, with a thoroughness bordering on the sociopathic. Around them, traffic had eased to almost nothing, either because of the smaller roads they’d turned onto, or because not everybody, Shirley’s commentary notwithstanding, was a fucking idiot. And here they were on a B-road which might as well have been way further down the alphabet: bare empty fields either side.

River peered at the map on his knee with a key-ring torch. “I meant in terms of shelter.”

“I’m hungry,” said Shirley.

Coe muttered something under his breath.

River said, “Did we pass a turning a little way back? On the right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, so if we’re where I think we are, we’re about halfway between the two nearest towns.”

“What’s that in miles?”

“About four either way.”

“Crap on a cupcake,” Shirley said. “Four miles? We can’t stop here.”

A sudden light dazzled all three: a dip in the road, and a monstrous truck heading the opposite way. Without slowing it blasted past, rocking them in their tracks, leaving the car shaking like a rabbit in a predator’s wake.

“Christ!” said Coe.

“Fuck!” said River.

“Is there a McDonald’s nearby?” said Shirley.

When his heart was back to normal, River said, “They don’t mark them on the map yet. But I’m pretty confident there isn’t.”

“Did anyone bring food?”

“You’ve eaten it all.”

“Have you checked the glove box?”

“I’m not going into Ho’s glove box,” River said. “Not without protection.”

“Just open it. There might be chocolate.”

So he opened it and there were, in fact, gloves in there. But nothing else.

“He probably thinks it’s a law,” Shirley said.

Coe said, “Here’s a layby.”

“We’re not seriously stopping?”

They seriously were.

Coe killed the engine. “We were going three miles an hour,” he said. “We’re nearly doing more than that now.”

They weren’t alone, though it took a moment to register this. Another car a few yards in front; a bigger shape in front of that, which would be a lorry. The lack of streetlights, and the falling snow, cast everything in otherworldly shapes, and the only immediate noise was each other: rustling in winter clothing.

Beyond that, just the muffled sound of a smothered world.

River had a single bar on his phone.

He stepped out, struck by the extra effort everything took in the snow. Partly the cold, partly the differences in depth and distance that the covering provided.

Lamb answered on the first ring.

“Let me guess. You’re lost.”

“We know where we are,” said River. “We just can’t see any of it.”

“Every time I think I’ve plumbed the depths of your cackhandedness, you go ahead and surprise me.” River heard a striking match. “Still got your going-away present?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Shoot yourself in the head. Then Shirley. Then the mad monk.”

“Definitely the order I’d choose,” River said. “Has Louisa called?”

Lamb hesitated. “No.”

“Because we can’t get closer. Not tonight.”

“How far away are you?”

“Best guess, four miles.”

“You can’t walk it?”

“Not in this.”

He heard an inhalation. Lamb could hold a lungful longer than anyone he’d known. In any other context, it might show how healthy he was.

Lamb said, “Either she was dead before you set off, or she just went dark. So there’s only a fifty percent chance things are any different now.”

Which comforted River as much as statistics ever did. “I’m wondering if we’re doing the right thing. Whether we should have alerted the Park.”

“Last time Harkness went on a rampage, they swept up after him. For all we know, he’s still on their tab.”

“Yes, but—”

“Yes but nothing.” Lamb exhaled, and River could almost smell his smoky breath. “Cats don’t care, the tooth fairy takes backhanders from dentists, and the Park does not have your best interests at heart. Sorry to crush your illusions.”

“I still think we might have made the wrong play.”

“Which is why you’re the one freezing your knackers off, while I’m dickbraining your efforts from a cosy chair,” said Lamb. “That’s like masterminding,” he added, “but with idiots. And oh, yeah, Ho was asking how his car is.”

“We let Shirley drive,” River said. “How does he think it is?”

He pretended he’d lost the signal, but stood for another moment in the freezing cold before climbing back into the car. It had been his choice to come, he reminded himself. Not the first time that a decision made in an angry moment had felt less sensible when the mercury dropped. Which he could live with, mostly, except this time it was Louisa who might end up paying the bill. Or might already have done. And he was four miles distant from knowing which.

The snow was maybe tapering off, but that might be wishful thinking.

Frank said, “So, that went well.”

“She hit Cyril with a monkey wrench.”

“Did I ask for details? I needed a kid in a ditch. Three of you and a car, and you couldn’t manage that much.”

Anton had thought: Yeah, and where were you?, but didn’t think it wise to say it out loud.

Fact was, they’d focused on the wrong target. When the woman appeared, she’d made it clear she was dangerous by dropping Cyril. That got their attention. The kid, meanwhile, had legged it. It had been dark: no streetlights. Two minutes’ start, and it was like the night had swallowed him whole. Following footprints in the snow sounded easy enough, but this was pitch black, and soon they were in a wood. They weren’t fucking Apaches.

And while that was going on, Frank the Legend had been nowhere, so Anton wasn’t thrilled to hear him explain how they’d screwed up.

They were back in the barn. Would still be out there, ploughing on, but Cyril had keeled over, complaining about flashing lights, of which there weren’t any. Lars, team medic, had held up fingers. Cyril proved good at spotting when the answer was three, but he might have been guessing. People usually held up three fingers: Anton had no clue why.

Frank said, “If I’d known you needed help, I’d have come along. But I figured you were professional enough to deal with a teenager.”

Anton said, “Yes, and you want to be careful messing about in the snow, your age.”

“You say something?”

“If we’d had guns, it would have been over before the woman arrived.”

Frank said, “Yeah, but it would have made the whole accidental death scenario less plausible.”

And how plausible is it looking now, Anton wondered.

Frank said, “Fuck it. It is what it is. So okay, boots on. Weather like this, there’s a chance the kid hasn’t cleared the area yet. If he’s gone to ground, he’ll have headed somewhere familiar. That gives us three possibles.” He pulled a page from a tiny red notebook, tore it in two, and passed one half to Lars, the other to Anton. “He worked for a firm called Paul’s Pantry, owner one Paul Ronson. Lars, check it out. And the place where he stayed with his family. Anton, that’s you. And Cyril . . . Have a fucking lie down. You look like a local.”

“He could be back in London by now. Or at a police station.”

“Saying what? That some people he tried to blackmail didn’t like it? No, he’s a kid and he’ll do what kids do. He’ll hide under the bed and hope we’ve gone away.”

“Staging an accident,” Lars said, “is a lot more complicated after last night.”

“Which is why, for one day only, I’m Father Christmas.” Frank walked through the open barn door, into the snow flurry. His car was a smooth-angled sculpture already. He destroyed the effect by opening the boot and pulling out a black holdall, from which he produced two handguns: Sig Sauers. One he handed to Anton; the other to Lars.

“What about me?” said Cyril.

“You made the naughty list. State you’re in, I wouldn’t trust you with an electric toothbrush,” said Frank. “Stay here. And try not to get hit by any more wrenches.”

Anton did what he always did when handed a gun: he checked its load and its moving parts. Lars did the same. The sound made the barn a war zone, briefly.

“Spare magazines?”

“You’re in Wales, for god’s sake. Unless they’ve weaponised sheep, you’re already outgunning everyone you’ll meet.”

“Farmers have guns,” Lars pointed out.

“So avoid farmers.”

“What are your plans?” Anton said. “If you don’t mind us asking.”

“I’ll check out Caerwyss Hall,” said Frank. “Which is the other place we know the kid’s familiar with. That all right with you?”

Anton shrugged.

“Okay, let’s roll. If we’re going to go noisy, you’ll need to clear the decks afterward. So torch this place when we’re done. Capisce?”

“We’ll manage.”

“Try not to screw up this time.”

With Frank gone, they slipped into German.

“We have one car,” said Lars.

“I know. I’ve counted it.”

“So—”

“So we drive into town, park, and do the rest on foot. Meet back at the car afterwards. Shall I write that down?”

“You’re the same kind of prick he is.”

“But thirty years younger,” said Anton. “Imagine my future.” He looked at Cyril. “You all right on your own? You want a night-light?”

“If you find the woman,” said Cyril, still blurring his words, “bring her back here. I’ve a tool of my own to knock her round with.”

“If we find the woman, we’ll waste her,” said Anton, meaning it. His balls still ached from her knee. “And you can save your tool for a rainy day.”

He tucked the gun into his belt, beneath his coat. Lars did likewise.

When they left the barn Cyril was trying to light the stove, but kept breaking matches.

It didn’t look like torching the place was going to be an issue.

Louisa removed her hand from Lucas’s mouth, slipped past him, and pressed her eye to the peephole.

On the doorstep stood Emma Flyte.

She opened the door, pulled Emma in and closed it again. “They sent you?”

Emma unbuttoned her coat and shook her head vigorously. Droplets flew. “Nice to see you too.”

“Emma!”

“Nobody sent me. I came looking for your phone.”

“But how—”

“Trains,” said Emma patiently. “They’re still running. Or were. And only taking twice as long as usual.” She looked at Lucas. “You’re Lucas Harper, right?”

The boy nodded, unable to speak.

“Well, looks like she found you.” She turned back to Louisa. “You were meant to call.”

“You came all this way because I didn’t phone?”

“A lot of cases, that would be passive-aggressive behaviour,” Emma admitted. “But, you know. Our line of work.” She was surveying the open-plan room. Lights off, no heating. An attempt at vacancy. “You’re hiding.”

“Could we move away from the windows?”

Which proved Emma’s point.

She followed Louisa into the room. It was warmer than outside, but you needed a stopwatch.

Louisa was nursing her left arm. Lucas Harper had scratches across his cheek.

“What happened?”

“Like you said. I found him.”

“I am still here, you know!”

Both women looked at Lucas.

Emma said, “This is going to work best if only one of you tells it.”

“Who are you?”

“A friend of the woman who hurt her arm helping you.” She turned back to Louisa. “Is that broken?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Accident?”

“Well, I think he planned to break it. So in that sense, yes.”

“I sometimes wonder if Lamb gives you all lessons in smart-arsery. How bad does it hurt?”

Louisa said, “It’s still in its socket. I might have damaged a tendon.”

Because when she’d slipped in the snow, the second man—not the one she’d copped with the wrench—had dropped and straddled her. Nine times out of ten that would have been it, but with her free hand she’d scooped snow and mashed it into his face, making him rear back; making him, more crucially, open his legs wide enough for her to ram her knee into his crotch. Ten times out of ten, that was always it. Then he was sprawled in the snow and she was scrambling for the wrench, her fingers just making contact when the third man, who’d been driving, leaped on her from behind, pulling her arm back almost to breaking point. Instead of resisting she’d rolled with it, using his momentum against him, and suddenly he was on his back, Louisa on top, and she raised her head and butted his face. He let go of her arm and she pulled free, tasting blood, her legs not wanting to work, though she forced them. Then she was heading down the dark road, haring after Lucas.

“We were out all night,” she said. “Hiding in the wood.”

“Where you ditched your phone.”

“And Lucas’s Fitbit. I wasn’t taking chances.”

“And yet here you are.” Emma looked at the boy. “You okay?”

He nodded.

“Glad to hear it. How much trouble are you in?”

“It’s not my fault.”

“It never is.” She turned back to Louisa. “Where’s your car?”

“They slashed the tyres.”

“Yeah, well, probably doesn’t matter. The roads are a mess. But get your coats on anyway. Where’s the nearest police station?”

“We can’t go to the police,” said Lucas.

“He’s right,” Louisa said. “Besides, I called it in. The Park will respond.”

“Well, they’re taking their time. And meanwhile, we can’t stay here. Because it was the first place I came looking.”

“Yeah, how did you—”

“I used to be a cop, remember?”

“And they let you keep your crystal ball?”

“Cartwright told me who Min Harper was. So I had Devon access his personnel file. Turns out he called the Park from here once, so the address was on his contact list. That took me literally three minutes. Even the guy you clocked with a wrench probably isn’t going to take much longer. So, like I say . . .”

“Except they don’t know who Lucas is.”

“You’re sure about that?”

Lucas said, “He knew my name. The guy at the crossroads.”

Louisa said, “You told them who you were?”

“No.”

“But they found out anyway. Christ . . . We shouldn’t be here.”

“As I said.”

Louisa was already grabbing her coat from the back of a chair.

“It’s dark,” Lucas said. “And we don’t have a car. Where are we going?”

He looked, thought Emma, about twelve.

She said, “They’re not looking for three of us. We’ll check into a hotel, a B&B, whatever, and make a plan.” She looked at Louisa. “Which will involve telling me exactly what’s going on.”

Before Louisa could reply, a fist ploughed through the diamond-shaped window in the front door.

He didn’t have to be here, Lech Wicinski reminded himself. He could be in a hotel. There was, come to think of it, one down the road; a strangely modern building in which he suspected guests were crammed into capsules overnight, like corpses in cold lockers. But that would be better than this. At the back of a cupboard he’d found a blanket, which looked like it might have been a picnic accessory between the wars, and was slumped in his chair like a pensioner on a promenade, blanket draped over him. And still he was cold and uncomfortable; and still he stayed, because making for a hotel would involve human intercourse, and Lech would rather wake up dead tomorrow than make small talk now. For the moment, Slough House was his refuge. Which, like any other, had its price.

“You look like a slug in a kaftan.”

Lamb, leaving. But finding time to look in as he made his way downstairs.

Lech said, “Just finishing some stuff up.”

Lamb snorted. “Well, if it gets too cold . . .”

Tell me how to work the boiler, thought Lech. Please.

“. . . You’ll fucking freeze.”

And then he was gone. Lech expected to hear him on the stairs, whose response to any tread was an irritated didgeridoo solo, but he might as well have dematerialised once out of sight.

Except for the sound of the back door closing; a double-thunk exacerbated by the chill air it passed through to reach his ears.

So now he was alone.

He called Sara again, but was blocked. Thought about dialling from the landline, but realised the futility of that: this wasn’t a technical fault to be worked around. Not like she’d be relieved he’d got through. He closed his eyes and let weariness wash over him, while outside, the snow did what various bands of homicidal lunatics had failed to do over the years, and brought London to a halt. Come morning, the city’s boots would have tracked through every virgin inch, churning white to grey and yellow and black, but for now peace had fallen, as if the city were forgetting all the nervous accidents that went into its daily recreation of itself. Only the occasional car passed along Aldersgate Street, though the nearby traffic lights continued their unflappable sequence, tinting the window panes red, amber and green. Under their hypnotic spell Lech dozed, his exhausted brain mimicking London’s hibernation. When he woke, the office was colder, but nothing else had changed. Though he realised he might be hungry.

That would make sense: he hadn’t eaten in forever. And didn’t want to now, or at least, didn’t want to undergo the brute mechanics of it—the shovelling into his system of edible products—still less the various exchanges such a transaction might require: Will sir be dining alone? Sir will be ending his life with the cutlery if he’s forced to answer that.

But there was a row of miserable shops over the road, and they would be open. There was an equation of despair in which retail outlets find their level, and the worse the fare on offer—the fly-raddled kebabs, the chicken wings on the turn—the more likely that a miserable clientele would require twenty-four-hour access. He would cross the road, buy food, come back, eat, sleep. The sooner he did this, the more time would pass.

So he stood, let the blanket drop to the floor, and went down the stairs. The door into the backyard jammed. Lech had to lean on it heavily, and felt it scrape as it gave way. And then he was outside, in the snow; some flakes still falling, but just as an afterthought. All damage done, he thought. It didn’t look like damage—even the battered green wheelie-bin had assumed a kind of mammalian grace under its soft covering, and was the shape of a landed whale—but damage was what it was; a slow battering ram that, once it receded, would leave splintered wood and crumbled tarmac in its wake. Which suited Lech’s mood. His stomach growled. He opened the door to the alleyway, stepped through it, and a fist slammed into his face, turning the white world black. He staggered, felt his heel catch on something, and fell into the snow.

And caught the briefest flash of light on a blade as his attacker stepped into the yard, pulling the door closed behind him.

Emma dived for the door before the intruding hand could find the latch, slamming the chain into place almost before the coloured glass splinters hit the floor. But not fast enough to avoid being grabbed by her coat, and pulled hard against the woodwork.

Louisa jumped towards her, but Emma shouted “Back door! Now!”

Lucas was already on his way; Louisa hesitated, but only half a beat.

“Open it,” said a voice.

Emma fumbled for the latch, but only to fix it into the locked position.

“Now!”

She pulled back as abruptly as she could, and threw herself to her left. The grip didn’t weaken, but she slipped her arms from her sleeves as she fell, and the hand was left holding her coat, which dropped to the floor as the figure receded. Next moment the door shook as a foot slammed against it. There was a soft, slumping noise as snow fell from the roof; then another plaster-crumbling thud when the figure kicked again.

It was a holiday cottage, not a safe house. A few more like that, there’d be broken wood on the carpet.

Emma snatched up her coat and ran.

The back door led into a garden, one raked so sharply that steps ascended to the lawn. Ahead of her, Louisa was scaling a seven-foot wall that Lucas, presumably, had already vaulted: Louisa’s injury slowed her down, but before Emma reached her she was over too: her white ski-jacket making her seem an escaping snowman. The wall was brick and bulging with age. Emma threw her coat over, found what passed for a foothold and propelled herself upward, hauling herself onto the wall’s upper edge before risking a backwards glance. A man was emerging from the cottage, pointing a gun. She’d dropped onto the other side before he fired. If he fired. She heard nothing. Then again, her head was full of snow; she’d landed face down, flat on the ground.

When she looked up, everyone around her was dead.

Shirley had disappeared behind the hedge bordering the layby, having a piss River hoped, but possibly snorting coke. Coe had remained behind the steering wheel, giving a good impression of a man who didn’t care where he was. But he wasn’t dressed for the weather, and if River had been in the business of giving a toss, he’d have been mildly concerned for Coe’s welfare: it wasn’t going to get warmer soon.

On the other hand, his own clothing didn’t match the conditions. His jacket was little more than an anorak.

And this was just another of the drawbacks of being a slow horse. The sort of thing his grandfather would have warned him about, once: that their enforced inertia, the mind-mushing sameness of their days, meant that any hint of action and they leaped at it, and damn the consequences . . . Frank would be laughing, he thought. If Frank could see him now he’d shake his head, laugh, and look for another river to drop him into. So it would be best to make sure Frank didn’t see him; that the first Frank knew of his presence was when he felt River’s hands round his neck . . .

Jesus. Was that what he intended? To kill his father?

A ripple ran through Coe, as if River had wandered across his grave en route to Frank’s. Then the door opened, and Shirley was back.

“I checked out the hostiles,” she said. “Car’s empty. But the lorry’s not. It’s got a nice warm cabin, quite roomy. And there’s a man eating hot food and watching TV.”

“How roomy?”

“Bigger than my flat. I told him there were three of us here.”

“And?”

“And he asked if any of us were women,” Shirley said.

“Did you let him live?”

“I’m going back later, to stuff him in his microwave.”

Coe opened his eyes. “I’ll check the boot.”

“Maybe Ho keeps his spare pizzas in there,” Shirley said hopefully, but when Coe returned all he had was a large cardboard box, which had once contained a plasma screen and now held only sheets of filmy-grey packaging.

“Bedding?” River asked.

Coe shrugged.

“We’d better huddle,” River said.

“No way am I fucking huddling,” said Shirley.

“Fine. Freeze to death.”

“I would genuinely prefer that.”

“Can we have your coat, then? Since you’re going to freeze anyway.”

“Fuck off.”

River and Coe looked at each other, it dawning on both that any huddling was going to be an all-male affair.

“I don’t like being touched,” Coe said at last.

“Huddling isn’t touching. It’s . . . survival.”

They rearranged themselves, Shirley in the front, slamming the door loud enough that nobody was in doubt as to her state of mind. Coe hovered in the snow a moment, handing the sheets of packing foam to River before tearing the cardboard box along one seam to open it out. When he got back in he arranged this over them: a stiff, graceless blanket laid over the spongy wrappings.

“Where’s mine?” Shirley asked.

“It’s for huddlers only.”

“Bastards.”

“Your choice.”

After a minute’s thought, much of it audible, Shirley got out and climbed back in next to River. “Lamb finds out about this, he’ll shit,” she said. “Loudly and often.” She twisted sideways. “And that better be a gun in your pocket.”

River didn’t reply.

“Jesus . . . You’ve got a gun in your pocket?”

“Lamb gave it to me.”

“That is so fucking . . . He never gives me anything!”

“Possibly he thinks you’re a little excitable.”

“He probably meant us to share.”

“I’m pretty certain that was the last thing on his mind.”

Shirley said, “Yeah, well, if you have any big psychological block about shooting your father, I’ve got dibs.”

“We have to find him first.”

Coe said, “We should get some sleep.”

They fell quiet, if you didn’t count Shirley’s stomach.

J.K. Coe remained awake, though, his head against the glass. The world outside had vanished, and he liked this—the absence of everything, as if all feeling and event had been subtracted from existence. Here on this side of the door, he had River Cartwright’s sleeping form slumped against his shoulder; they were jammed thigh to thigh, and he could feel River’s pulse, a steady echo of his own. And just beyond River Shirley Dander, who, in sleep, seemed to pump out warmth, as if the fires that burned within her never rested. Coe could sympathise, though he wasn’t sure it was heat his own demons thrived on. He thought they preferred the cold.

He closed his eyes at last, and summoned up the sound of a piano; a tune so fragile, it could wander trackless through the snow. He wasn’t clear that this was sleep, but it was near enough that his breathing became regular, and whatever gremlin stalked his thoughts ceased its fidgeting and let him be.

They were woken hours later by a snow plough lumbering past.

When Emma looked up, everyone around her was dead.

“Christ . . .”

And then Louisa was there too, using her good arm to help haul her to her feet among the gravestones.

“This way.”

Because there was only one route: through the churchyard to the gates.

Lucas was ahead, though he had stopped to look back, unsure what to do next. And behind them, the other side of the wall she’d just cleared, was a man with a gun.

She was breathing okay, despite the rough landing; felt clear-headed, despite these mad few minutes. And her cop instincts were kicking in, undamaged by her years as Top Dog. Whatever was going on here, the boy was at its centre.

She pulled free of Louisa. “Go.”

“Be careful.”

Emma nodded, but Louisa was already off, running in a crouch, as if fearful of snipers.

A pair of black-gloved hands appeared on top of the wall, and Emma dropped behind a gravestone. Scuff marks in the snow should have betrayed her: in the daylight they’d be a neon arrow. But there wasn’t even any moon; just a faint silvery hint behind the clouds. And if he was moving fast enough—

He was.

Was almost past her before she was ready, oblivious to the tracks on the path. There was no gun in sight; he must have tucked it in a holster, but that was an observation made in movement. Already, she’d uncoiled like a jack from its box, using the headstone to propel her as if kicking off in a pool, but even then only just caught his leg below the knee. Enough to send him sprawling, but his heel clipped her forehead as he fell, causing lights to go on suddenly. She pulled back before his foot could catch her again, this time deliberately, and was upright first. If he hadn’t been reaching for his gun he’d have tipped her over while she stood one-legged, but that crucial second was all it took for her to bring her other foot down on him, a sudden memory—where did this come from?—of a brick crashing into her riot-shield one hot day in Tottenham. That same feeling of resistance. This time, Emma was the brick. He rolled with the blow, and wherever his gun was it was going to take close personal contact to relieve him of it, and she didn’t think she’d broken him quite. Better to quit while she was ahead. All of this had taken moments, like an edgy edit in an action film. Louisa and Lucas had disappeared through the gate. She took off after them, shrugging herself into her black coat, which swirled behind her like a vampire’s cloak; the drops of blood on the snow crumbs from an interrupted feast.

The first task of snow is to make everything new; its second, to make the same scene creak with age. By early Saturday morning London’s snow was loosening its grip, sliding from rooftops with the noise the wind makes catching a parachute. On the roads gritters had left rusty scattershot patterns in their wake, and grey lumps had formed where tyres had pulverised drifts. Noises, too, were returning to normal, the streets’ acoustics adjusting themselves. Every footfall was helping return the city’s streets to their unadorned state, while yesterday’s snowflakes learned the lesson London offers all who settle there: that while all are unique, most appear identical, both before and after being trodden on.

Catherine Standish noticed all these things, and none of them, on her way to Slough House. They were background music, winter’s tune, and she’d heard it before. On the tube people appeared chirpier, in the manner of those who’d survived an unexpected seizure, but these too she blanked out. There weren’t many of them anyway. It was early; it was a weekend. She wouldn’t be heading to work herself if half of Slough House weren’t in joe country. Most of the night she’d lain awake, wondering whether her own wobble—her months’ long teeter on the lip of sobriety—had foreshadowed a greater tumble, and she’d arrive at work to find each office shrouded in black crêpe, the house disintegrating. She wasn’t one for omens, but Lamb appeared to think bills were falling due. And if he wasn’t always as right about things as he thought he was, there were times when his bullish nature guaranteed the outcomes he expected, as though the world knew better than to thwart him when his blood was up.

The image arrested her. Her last sight of Lamb’s blood had been on a mottled handkerchief on his desk top, the souvenir of a coughing fit.

A chest infection. That’s what he’d said. He was taking antibiotics. Catherine thought about that for a while, then thought about Lamb at a doctor’s surgery, and scratched the image immediately. Thought about him talking to a Service quack, and scratched that too. Thought, instead, about him self-diagnosing and acquiring under-the-counter meds from a contact in a pub: that ticked the right boxes. He’d been smoking himself into the grave for as long as she’d known him—it was basically a race between the fags and the booze—and maybe he was right, maybe this was an infection, and drugs would clear it up, but you never knew. It should not be possible to live like Jackson Lamb and avoid consequence. But that was a thing about life: it had been known to favour bastards.

In the alley behind Slough House, footprints led in both directions. Sometimes people wandered round in the dark, looking for somewhere to relieve themselves, or to indulge a brief tremble. Catherine was no prude—how could she be, with her history?—but hoped she’d never cemented a temporary friendship between bins. That was the thing about the past, though. You could never tell what your previous selves had been capable of. Brushing away speculation, brushing snow from its handle, she pushed open the wooden door into the backyard. London always led to this. You passed through its streets in all kinds of weather, but always ended up in this dismal cramped yard, the glum odour of failure seeping from its walls. Or you did if you were Catherine Standish. Another cheerful note to start the day on, and her heart skipped a beat as something groaned.

She let her bag drop, but not before reaching into it for her tightly-rolled umbrella. Ridiculous, yes, but once before she’d been snatched from a London street, and not letting that happen twice was high on her list of absolutes. But when she turned there was nobody; just the memory of her own breath hanging like a forgetful ghost, unsure where it should be.

The groan repeated itself.

Her heart was back to normal, and an observer would have assumed she was calm. This was her strength; that in most situations, she swiftly adjusted to her mean, which was that, since the majority of bad things that were going to happen to her lay in her past, there was no great call to fear the present. Besides, the groan was a groan, which meant this bad thing had happened to someone else. And it was coming from the bin; the green wheelie bin whose covering of snow was less thick than on the upturned bucket, whose presence in the yard had always been a mystery. So the bin had been opened since the snow began, and given that the chances of a slow horse emptying an office bin unbadgered were on the thin side, this hadn’t happened for the purposes of rubbish disposal—and why was she running through all this in her mind? There was somebody in the bin, and they sounded injured. Either a derelict had wandered in looking for shelter, or a random stranger had dropped from a helicopter, or—

Or whatever.

She flung the lid back with difficulty, and peered in, and found him nestled in the rubbish like a Sumatran rat, among takeaway cartons and throwaway cups, and damp newspapers that should have been recycled, and cigarette cartons that should never have been bought. His eyes, wide open, looked through her to the sky. Sweet Jesus. He’d been caught in a trap left in someone else’s bin, and behind the filth she could make out jagged graffiti on his face.

Once more, she was not alone. Someone had stepped into the yard behind her.

Catherine didn’t need to turn. A tinny leakage filled the air, as if bad music were dribbling from someone’s ears, or the headphones meant to install it.

“Roderick,” she said.

“. . . Huh?”

“Roderick,” she repeated, turning and clapping her hands to rid them of snow. “What happy timing. Perhaps you’d help Mr. Wicinski out of the bin.”

And then, when Roddy looked like he was having trouble putting those words together, Catherine poked him sharply on the shoulder. “That wasn’t a suggestion. Do it now.”

So Roddy, with no great panache, gave it a go.

The happy news the snow plough left was that the road was largely cleared.

There was, however, a downside.

“It tried to fucking bury us,” said an outraged Shirley.

“Maybe if you keep swearing, the snow’ll melt off,” River suggested. He and Coe were scraping the plough’s leavings from Ho’s car using the cardboard sheets that had seen service as bedding. “In which case, you know. Carry on. Don’t lend a hand or anything.”

“I’m busy,” she snarled.

The plough was long gone, and its driver too far away to hear the words “muff-sucking cum-bucket”, even if they’d have meant much to him, or indeed, anyone but Shirley. Whose voice in the still morning air had the clarity of a church bell, though you’d be more likely to respond to an invitation to prayer from a dalek.

The lorry driver stuck his head out of his window. “Can you keep it down? I’m trying to shave.”

Shirley turned her gorgon-face on. “I’ve two words for you, so listen carefully. Fuck. Right. Off.”

“. . . That’s three words.”

“You’re not listening, you’re counting. Don’t make me come over there.”

The man’s head withdrew.

River sighed.

“Don’t you start,” she warned him. She looked back in the direction of the parked lorry. “And he’d better have jam in that fucking cabin. Because if he speaks again, he is toast.”

Job done, Coe had cast his cardboard sheet aside and was studying his phone, which River assumed meant he was working on a problem. This turned out to be geographical.

“Louisa’s phone is this side of Pegsea,” he said.

“How do you know?” growled Shirley.

Coe stared at her. “Because I have the coordinates,” he said at last. “And a map.”

“. . . Okay. Jesus. Just checking.”

“So what are we waiting for?” said River, climbing back into the car.

They were waiting for Coe to finish plotting his course, which he did in silence, standing in the cold.

Shirley was scrumpling up the foam sheeting. “Last night must be the most action Ho’s back seat’s ever seen,” she said.

“It’s the most I’ve seen in a while,” River admitted.

“You’d better not have been doing anything while I was asleep,” said Shirley. “Because if you did, and I find out, you’re a dead man.”

“Trust me,” River said. “Even if I had a list, you wouldn’t be on it.”

Coe got into the driver’s seat.

“And that goes double for him,” said Shirley. “You messed with him in the night, he’ll be pissed. And he hasn’t killed anyone in ages.”

“Far as you know,” Coe said.

“. . . Was that a joke?”

“I don’t do jokes.”

“Could we get a move on?”

Coe started the car. “I have a plan,” he said.

Coming from anyone else that would be reassuring, but like Shirley said, Coe hadn’t killed anyone in a while, and it wasn’t clear to River that that wasn’t simple lack of opportunity. Last time he’d found himself in a village setting Coe had face-painted a pavement. The face belonged to a terrorist, true, but it had been an over-the-top reaction that didn’t say much for the man’s mental handbrake. And here they were out of town again. It was possible, River reflected, that Coe followed the rock-star-on-tour guideline, and thought nothing counted outside the M25. In which case, it was as well the only gun they had was in River’s pocket.

“Gunna tell us what it is?” Shirley asked.

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“Because if we find Louisa’s body, it’s moot,” said Coe, and put the car into gear.

The ploughed road was rocky going, but at least they were on the move once more.

As they left the lorry driver waved a two-fingered salute, but River decided not to mention this to Shirley.

There were better ways of waking, but at least this was waking . . . The man last night had had a gun. That’s what Emma had said, and she was all kinds of reliable, being a former cop, a former Dog, and a woman who took no shit. So the man last night had had a gun, which indicated intent: had he caught them, they’d not be waking at all. Louisa had already known that finding Lucas had led her into dangerous water, but she’d hoped it reasonably shallow. How wrong could you get?

Emma had left the man in the churchyard, and the three of them had run through the town, crossing the deserted main road and heading towards the estuary: no plan involved. The air was heavy with unreality. Snow had made everything strange, casting the town back centuries, and everyone had taken shelter—everyone bar a cat on a wall, its hateful eyes glinting.

There were footpaths by the estuary, with enough tree cover to be free from snow. A sign by an open gate warned of possible flooding, but this seemed more acceptable than an armed man. Who wasn’t on their trail yet—behind them was only the cat, now a black shape in the middle of the road, picking its way townward with slow, exaggerated steps. And then they were among the trees, and the road might as well have been miles away; a distant glow from an alien settlement.

A car chose that moment to chug slowly along the High Street, its engine a reminder of a different age, which hadn’t yet come to pass.

They were still running, Lucas in front, Emma at the rear; deliberately, Louisa knew. She was in good shape, could have outrun either, but this was Emma being a cop again, taking others under her wing. Which irritated Louisa, but not as much as the memory of Emma telling her to run, and Louisa doing just that. Not waiting to help. Not bringing the bad guy down together. Just running, as if she were afraid the two of them acting in concert would be less effective than Emma solo. As if she were afraid.

But she hadn’t been afraid last night, she reminded herself. She’d taken on a carful of bad actors, armed with only a wrench.

By the water’s edge, just visible through the trees, were boats; dim heaps in the darkness which might have lain there years. Lucas was sprinting ahead—and then wasn’t; dropped from sight as if down a hole, which was more or less what had happened.

When she reached him he was already scrambling to his feet, but something in his eyes made her turn away, knowing he’d not want her to see him sob.

Emma arrived.

“Any sign?” Louisa asked.

“I think we left him in the town.”

But it wasn’t a big town, and there weren’t many places the three of them could be.

“What should we do?” said Lucas.

He was very young suddenly; a twelve-year-old, too small for his boots. Mud on his face.

“Police,” said Emma.

Louisa touched her elbow. “No. Trust me.”

“Yeah, I tried that. And look where we are.”

Lucas said, “What’s that?” and pointed into the trees.

That was a shed some yards off the path, so nestled in darkness, it looked like one more shadow among many; the kind of place, in a fairytale, that would house a cobbler or troublesome elf. This one, when Louisa forced the door—a padlock hanging from a hasp that had lost two screws—turned out to contain a stack of traffic bollards and collapsible signs warning of men working ahead. Presumably this was a seasonal activity: it didn’t look like men had worked anywhere near here since the clocks went back.

“Is this wise?” Emma asked.

“What’s your better idea?”

Police, Emma’s look repeated, but she didn’t say it out loud.

They gathered inside, and it didn’t get bigger, but once Louisa had shifted the signs, there was room to sit on the floor. Lucas, clearly, needed this—fear had carried him this far, but the fall had knocked the flight out of him, and all he wanted now was to be in the dark, unseen.

“It’s okay,” she told him. “It’s going to be okay.”

He didn’t answer.

Emma said, “Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It might be okay. But given I’ve no idea what’s going on, I’m not handing out guarantees.”

“Thanks,” Louisa said. “He needed to hear that.”

“I’m cool,” Lucas said, without sounding it.

She was reminded of Min, and it was sudden and painful.

There was a window, but it was half-obscured by a stack of poles whose function Louisa couldn’t guess at. And it was cobwebbed and filthy, and they were surrounded by trees . . . In the gloom, they were vague shapes, Lucas cross-legged on the floor, Louisa half-kneeling by his side. Emma standing. What little light there was reflected off her hair. It was like sharing a cupboard with a guardian angel. Outside, all seemed quiet; a thought that hadn’t finished forming when something scratched at the window.

“Jesus!”

“It’s a branch,” Emma said, a heartbeat later. “Tapping on the pane.”

Even the trees wanted to come inside. That’s what kind of night it was.

“Are we safe here?” Lucas asked.

Before Emma could respond with the truth, Louisa said, “We’ll be fine for a while.”

“How many of them?” Emma said.

“Last night, three. I put one of them down. He’ll have got up again by now.”

“Three’s not many,” said Emma, half to herself. “Maybe you’re right. We’ll be fine for a while.” And then she had looked down at Lucas. “So. Let’s start with why three men want to kill you.”

. . . That had been last night. It was morning now, and Louisa had woken, which was good news; had fallen asleep in half the space she needed, which wasn’t. Beside her, Lucas slept. Emma was nowhere. Louisa got to her feet, feeling like an origami figure being unfolded, and reached for the door. It was light outside; a thin, watery light that made her want to say gruel. Emma was there. In her long dark coat, her blonde hair loose, she looked like she’d stepped from a trailer, ready for her close-up. And this was after a night in a shed. It wasn’t like Louisa was jealous, but seriously? Fuck.

Emma said, “Get some sleep?”

“A bit. Got a signal?”

“Don’t know. Haven’t got a phone.”

“. . . You what?”

Emma said, “It must have fallen out of my pocket. Probably when I tossed my coat over that wall.”

“Ah, shit.” Louisa looked up the footpath towards town. “Like it or not, you’re a slow horse now. Any signs of life?”

“A dogwalker twenty minutes ago. Are you okay? You’re moving like a crash dummy.”

“I’m too old to sleep in a shed,” Louisa said. “Or too young. One or the other.”

Emma nodded. “What Lucas said. Did his story change since he first told you?”

“Not so I noticed. I think he’s telling the truth.”

“Yeah, well. The whole men with guns bit does add weight.”

Lucas had been staying in a B&B further up the coast, he’d told them. Had thought it wise to be in the area a few days before the arranged handover, “to check things out.”

He’d looked so much like Min, saying that. And if Min had indeed said that, the first thing Louisa would have done was come up with a contingency plan.

“And what was the result of this . . . ‘checking out’?” Emma asked.

Lucas, miserably, said, “I thought it would all be okay.”

“You wanted money for your silence,” Emma had said. “For not telling anyone what you saw.”

Lucas had nodded.

“Okay then. Tell us what you saw.”

So he had.

What Anton had this morning was a sore fucking face.

“You know what’s good for that?” Lars had asked.

Lars. Team medic.

“Not getting stomped on.”

Ha-de-fucking-ha.

Second night running they’d been out in the open, chasing their tails. The kid could be anywhere, but Anton didn’t think so. He thought they were both still in the area, waiting for a clear shot at an exit. The county might as well have locked its doors and put the empties out. The trains weren’t running, and the roads were a joke.

“Besides, she’s Park. A joe in the field survives hostile contact, he calls it in and digs a hole. She, in this case. And waits for back-up.”

“Which is who stomped your face, right?”

Anton had spent the night with a mouthful of snow, anaesthetising himself. But while stomping his face might look like back-up, it hadn’t felt like back-up, if he could get Lars to appreciate the difference.

“She wasn’t armed,” he said.

“Just as well.”

“Yeah yeah yeah. If she’d come from the Park, she’d have come strapped on.”

Lars wasn’t buying. “On a home visit? It’s Wales, not Ukraine.”

“Could be High Street Kensington,” Anton assured him. “In response to a joe sending up a flare, the Park would send guns. Not a blonde.”

He hadn’t always worked the grey area—eight years in the BND after six in the military, and one thing you learned on Spook Strasse was, folk drove on different sides, but the highway code stayed the same. The Americans wore fake smiles and the Russians rubber gloves, but the processes for taking care of your own were pretty much fixed across all divides.

“She’s not their exit route, in other words,” he said. “Just an added complication.”

They were a mile outside the village, not far from Caerwyss Hall; the car pulled onto a verge. Driving was slow, like learning to ice skate. The fields all around were smooth plains, and the trees against the morning skyline looked like Christmas decorations. Snow, though. Soft and fluffy on the outside, but ruthless as a shark. It was the fucking Disney Corp by other means.

“Two chicks,” Lars grumbled. “What is this? Charlie’s Angels?”

Anton hoped not. Charlie had three.

“Women have a natural advantage,” he said. “First contact, you tend to pull your punches.”

“It’s working so far.”

“Second time round, it’s a different story.” Anton’s knuckles clicked in the cold still air. The gun in his jacket was a reassuring weight.

“You’re sure then,” Lars said. “They’re still in the area.”

Anton was, for all the reasons he’d just said.

“Just as well,” said Lars. “Because here comes Frank. You can repeat all that to him.”

The Fugue Protocol, thought Lady Di.

She was in her office, Saturday morning. Some jobs don’t respect private life.

The Fugue Protocol: it was a back-door process, dependent on the cooperation of whoever was chairing Limitations. So there’d never been a hope in hell it would be approved, Oliver Nash being far too circumspect to license anything which might cause increased laundry bills round the Cabinet table. Even Oliver, though, had had his antennae up. I can’t help thinking there’s something going on here, Diana . . .

It’s the Secret Service, Oliver. There’s always something going on.

No Fugue, then, but that was fine, because all she’d wanted was her minuted application, so that once the cat hit the fan, spraying blood and fur on the walls, she’d be able to say See? I could have stopped this. It didn’t take genius to work out that Frank Harkness’s presence was part of the deal Peter Judd had warned her about—that he was here to squash whatever had happened at Caerwyss Hall—and nor was it a secret that Lamb was gunning for him. Which he might think he was doing below the radar, but for all Lamb’s street smarts, he was behind the techno curve. It was one thing setting his social retard onto pulling up CCTV records; quite another to expect this to happen unobserved. That particular shit was out of the bag: Diana knew damn well the slow horses had been tracking Harkness’s footprint since his arrival in Southampton, and given their generally poor impulse control, they’d no doubt be haring after him first chance they got. He had, after all, left blood on their carpet last time round.

So yes, things could get messy, and when that happened, whatever you were trying to cover up generally became headline fodder, which in this case meant the Duke’s name being spattered across world headlines. Again. Not in the UK, obviously, where most editors tugged their foreskins when the Palace required, but damage would be done: nothing pissed the public off more than privilege caught with its pants down, and nothing pissed off Lady Di’s own lords and masters more than a pissed-off electorate.

And as with any corporate behemoth, shit cascaded downwards:

The Service isn’t in good odour at present. Too many missteps, too few triumphs. . .

But let’s see how Downing Street enjoyed a scandal that could easily have been avoided.

I applied for Fugue. I could have handled this. But I was turned down.

And then, maybe then, they’d start to listen when she outlined what the Service needed if it were to prosper and protect this increasingly isolated island state.

She stood, left her office, walked the Hub. This was her routine: to make sure the boys and girls—they were always girls, always boys; it was the local language—knew that whatever happened, she was available. There was chatter coming in from Russian sources; a whisper of a potential hack on a High Street bank. Which might mean it was going to happen, or might mean somebody somewhere was bored, or might mean something entirely different was in the wind, and she was being encouraged to look the wrong way. . .

Josie stopped her. “You wanted to know if anything untoward came in from Pembrokeshire way?”

She made it sound like the Wild West.

“Tell me.”

“We got a coded message Thursday night, from a civilian mobile. But the recording stayed stored. Didn’t hit the screen until this morning.”

She handed Taverner a printout: a go-dark notice. One that decoded to Hostile contact.

“Why the delay?”

“Because the ID doesn’t match any existing protocol. Whoever it’s from, it’s not one of ours.”

“Have you checked the number?”

“I was just about to.”

“Don’t bother,” said Taverner, folding the printout. “Someone’s playing cowboys and indians without permission, that’s all. You can file it under forget. Thanks, Josie.”

There was always the possibility, she supposed, resuming her circuit, that Lamb’s crew might pack the mess away without drawing attention to themselves, or to whatever shenanigans had prompted the blackmail effort. On the other hand, if they were sending up distress signals, it didn’t seem things were going their way. And you could usually rely on the slow horses to make a bad situation worse. . .

What she needed, as she’d told Nash more than once, was a root-and-branch overhaul of operational practices.

She was prepared for a certain amount of collateral damage in order for that to happen.

Slough House was absorbing another memory.

The man looked sick, thought Roddy Ho.

And not in a good way.

Handy job the Rodster had been there to hoik him from that wheelie-bin, because no way would he have made it out on his own. So Standish had held the lid while Roddy stood on an upturned bucket and reached down to grab Wicinski’s arms. You could tell he wasn’t dead—the groaning was a clue—but he wasn’t cooperating, and frankly the RodMan would as soon have left him where he was, but he kept on reaching, and Wicinski kept not cooperating, and the upturned bucket wasn’t all that stable, and probably, if you weren’t an expert, it might have looked like Roddy fell into the bin himself. Fact was, though, he’d worked out that this was the most efficient way of getting the job done. It was all about leverage, in the end.

That was when Lamb turned up.

“Trump on a treadmill.”

His head appeared over the lip of the bin like the sun over the horizon.

“There are better places to learn how to swim.”

Roddy would have capped that, but he had something in his mouth he was eager to dispose of.

And then Lamb had reached in, exactly the way Roddy had done, except he grabbed Wicinski by the arms and hauled him up and out before throwing him over one shoulder.

Unseen, Catherine Standish had said, “Careful.”

“I am being careful. This is me being fucking careful.”

Roddy had risen to unsteady feet on a floor of unsteady rubbish in time to see Jackson Lamb disappearing inside Slough House, carrying Lech Wicinski like a rolled-up carpet.

The door didn’t even stick. Maybe, just this once, it didn’t dare.

Roddy had followed five minutes later, once he’d got out of the bin. In his office he found Wicinski laid on the floor, because sitting in a chair was outside his range, like expecting a bowl of jelly to change a lightbulb. He looked shocking. Not just the filth he was caked in but the blood filming his face, which Standish was dabbing at with a damp cloth. It wasn’t a laughing matter—apart from anything else, it was making a mess of the carpet—but still, it was a bit funny, because whatever had happened to Wicinski had happened a lot. Anyone tried to jump the RodMan in that fashion, they’d better have a hard-on for hospital food.

Lamb was in Roddy’s chair, using Roddy’s keyboard as an ashtray. The sleeves of his overcoat were wet, and across one shoulder was a smear of something someone hadn’t thought worth eating.

He said, “I left you in the bin. Can’t you take a hint?”

Bantz, thought Roddy.

Then Catherine said, “Oh, lord above . . .”

“What?”

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Lamb was answering a prayer or asking a question.

But Catherine said it again, “Oh, god, no,” still on her knees by Wicinski, dabbing at his face, then squeezing the cloth into a bowl. The run-off was foul; Wicinski’s face a little whiter, though there were marks that weren’t coming off; that looked like they’d been scored into his cheeks . . .

Lamb squashed his cigarette into Roddy’s desk, and rose.

Catherine looked directly up at him. “They’ve written on him.”

And she’d got that right, Roddy thought. They’d scribbled on the man with a razor. All across his cheeks, as if they were using him as a memo pad: a brief reminder to themselves, and the whole of the rest of the world.

P-A-E on one side.

D-O on the other.

Can’t even fucking spell, Roddy thought.

The snow lay unruffled on the field, as far as they could tell.

“She might be under all that,” Shirley said. “It might not have snowed until after.”

After what, River didn’t ask.

Shirley elaborated anyway. “What I’m saying, her phone might still be in her pocket.”

“It was already snowing when she went quiet,” said River. “So there’d be tracks across the field.”

“Not necessarily. It’s snowed more since.”

But there’d be bumps and ridges, thought River. Wouldn’t there? If Louisa was somewhere in that field, or in the ditch that ran alongside it, traces of her passage would be visible; a coded message scribbled on the landscape.

He said, “The plough’s been past, so there’s no clues on the road.”

They all knew that anyway, but he needed to be saying something. In case it was true, and Louisa was out in that field somewhere, lying quietly beneath the snow.

“What’s that?” asked Coe.

He was looking ahead, at where the road crested against the skyline.

They drove on to where the parked car sat on a verge, half-buried by the plough’s passing.

“Louisa’s,” said Shirley.

River was already on the roadside, scraping snow from the parked car’s windows; tenting his hand to peer in. “It’s empty.”

Shirley had joined him, and went round back to open the boot. “Tell you what,” she said. “She keeps a monkey wrench in here usually. It’s not there now.”

River had a shrewd idea how Shirley knew about the wrench, and what use she might have put it to in the past. He tried the driver’s door, and found it unlocked. But the car was still empty, and there were no scrawled messages, no clues, to be seen.

Shirley slipped under his outstretched arm and popped open the glovebox. A pair of sunglasses dropped out. “When did they make it illegal to carry chocolate?” she grumbled.

“We know Louisa was here,” he said. “We know she dumped her phone nearby, next to the Fitbit she was looking for. But if she was under all that snow, there’d be traces of it happening. I think she got rid of it on purpose. She was going dark.”

“Which is protocol,” said J.K. Coe, “after hostile contact.”

“And she’s got her monkey wrench with her,” said Shirley. “Which means the hostiles might have suffered some contact themselves.”

And if one of those hostiles was Frank Harkness, River hoped the wrench had left a trough in his head. But he couldn’t see it happening: Frank was too cagey to be caught offguard by a blunt instrument. Though maybe all he meant was, he’d come off second-best to Frank himself, and in some hollow corner of his soul, didn’t want to believe Louisa was capable of doing better.

Shit.

He shut the car door. It was freezing to the touch; rather like himself. A night in a car and no breakfast. Who could blame him for his thoughts?

“You said you had a plan,” he said to Coe. “Care to share it with the rest of us?”

“Not a plan as such.”

“But anything’s better than nothing, right?”

Shirley said, “Does it involve food?”

“Shut up, will you, Shirl?”

“Shut up yourself.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Coe. “We could fight.”

“. . . Maybe later,” Shirley conceded.

“Your plan,” said River.

Coe waggled his phone. “Map of the area.”

“And?”

“If she’s gone dark, she’ll have looked for shelter. Uninhabited shelter. There are farm buildings marked on here. Barns.”

“Louisa?” said Shirley. “In a barn?”

“Well, I can’t see her building a treehouse,” River said. “You got a better idea?”

“Coming here wasn’t a great one to start with,” Shirley said. “I’m giving up on ideas for the time being.”

“We’ll need to split up,” Coe said.

“Dibs on the wheels,” said Shirley.

River said to Coe, “I’ll take Louisa’s.”

“With four flats?”

Jesus, right. He hadn’t noticed for the snow.

“Okay then,” he said again. “So two of us are walking. Where are these barns?”

Coe turned his phone to face them. Its screen showed white, with a tracery of grey lines, and could as easily have been a photograph of their surroundings as a map.

“Yeah, I’m gunna need more instructions,” said Shirley.

River took a closer look, and said, “This the kind of thing you mean?” He pointed at an oblong shape tucked into the corner of a larger oblong shape. A dwelling in a field, which odds on was a barn.

“Uh-huh.”

He tweaked the picture, made it smaller. The coastline appeared.

“I’ll take that direction.”

Coe nodded, then turned to Shirley.

“Whatever.”

“Okay. Go back the way we came, then take the first left. You’ll come to a wood. There are buildings just beyond it.”

“Sounds like a farm.”

“Might be.”

“Will there be dogs?”

“Dogs are a bit like fast-food restaurants,” Coe said. “Most maps haven’t got round to including them yet.”

“I thought you didn’t do jokes,” Shirley reminded him. Then she said, “You know what bothers me?”

Though both men, having spent a day in her uninterrupted company, had worked up a comprehensive list of things that bothered Shirley, neither volunteered a probable top ten.

“What bothers me is how come she never called it in. I thought that’s what you did after what you just said. Hostile contact. You call it in before you go dark.”

It had been bothering River too.

If it worried J.K. Coe, he hid it well. “We’re going that way,” he said, pointing down the road. “We split at the next junction.”

River looked at Shirley, who was climbing into Ho’s car. “Be careful.”

“Is that ‘be careful’ as in ‘here, why don’t you take the gun’?”

“No,” said River.

The two men set off down the road on foot, while Shirley executed a four-hundred-point turn. It was snowing again by the time she was headed in the right direction.

So here came Frank, and yes, he made Anton repeat everything he’d just said. And then stood gazing across the landscape: at the little town not far below, blinking into light, and the estuary beyond, on which boats were now bobbing on the rising tide. Earlier, they’d lain on the snow-dusted silt like discarded toys. The whole country, come to that, had the air of a forgotten nursery.

He said, “So they haven’t skipped the area yet.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so because thinking so means you’ve screwed up, and screwing up means you don’t get paid.”

“Hey, we’re here, on the ground. We get paid.”

“Yeah, take it to a fucking tribunal. Two nights they’ve been hiding up a tree. You’re supposed to be good at this.”

“There’s a lot of countryside,” said Lars. “And there are only two of us.”

“Where’s Cyril?”

Cyril was still back at the barn. Concussion or not, he was having a laugh.

Frank shook his head. He’d been up all night too, scouting the woods around Caerwyss Hall, holding to the notion that a spooked kid trying to lose himself would head for familiar territory. His own original plan had been simpler: give the kid the cash, and tag the bag. That way they could pick him up soon as they liked. But the decision hadn’t been his to make. That was the trouble with the rich: they looked to stay that way by keeping both hands on their money. Or maybe they just didn’t trust Frank to bring it back afterwards.

It was snowing again. If you stared directly up at the sky, it was like watching a cathedral collapse very slowly.

He said, “Well, if they’d gone to the cops, we’d know about it by now. There’d have been activity. So they’re staying dark, and back-up’s not in a hurry to get here. I haven’t heard any choppers, have you?” They hadn’t. “Like I said, this is Slough House. Maybe the Park figures it’s cheaper to cut ’em loose, save the cost of a pension down the line. But if the cavalry don’t turn up soon they’re gonna figure that out for themselves. That’s when they’ll make their run.”

Anton glanced at Lars, but Lars was paying close attention.

Frank went on, “You lost them in the town last night. They’re not gonna try and head out of town on a footpath, not in this weather. The road only goes two ways. It heads towards the coast, which is basically a dead end, or it heads back towards civilisation. They’ll figure we’ve got that one blocked.”

“The three of us?”

“Oh, pardon me, did you fill in a questionnaire? Because how else would they know how many of us there are?”

Anton didn’t answer.

Frank said, “So let’s try being methodical. You’re on the lam, there’s snow everywhere, you’re up to your fucking eyeballs. Where you gonna hide?”

“Find an empty house.”

“But you get spotted breaking in, that’s like sending up a flare. And you clearly don’t want the cops out, or else that’s where you’d have gone in the first place.”

“Needle in a fuckin’ haystack,” Anton said.

“And you know how to find one of those?”

“Burn the haystack,” Anton muttered.

Frank said, “There’s boats on the estuary. And boats mean boathouses. And there are barns. You found one, right? How hard can it be? They’ve spent last night holed up in a handy barn, and once the roads loosen up, and traffic starts moving, they’ll make tracks. We need to find them before that happens.”

“We need more men.”

“Yeah, and who’s gonna pay them? So stop whining and look at barns and boats. Start from the pickup point and work inland. I’ll do the same, heading towards the coast. Lars, do the estuary. Call in every hour. And call Cyril, tell him to get off his fucking sickbed. That all okay with you?” He was looking at Anton. “Or you got a better plan?”

Anton said, “Let’s just do it, shall we?”

They got back into their cars, Frank waiting a moment until the others had headed off down the road. He could do without Anton’s bitching, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to it. In his previous life—an independent—he’d worked with the same guys for years, guys whose thinking he’d known as well as his own. That was then. Now, he was hired to do jobs and given the men to go with them; men with military backgrounds for the most part, and prison history often as not; and men like Anton, who’d done covert work too, on the blunter side. Doorkickers, not strategists, but that didn’t stop them thinking they should be the ones giving orders. And sooner or later he’d meet one who’d do more than just shake his tree, but it wasn’t going to be Anton. They both knew that.

Still, it would be best not to turn his back too often. Spooks, when you got down to it, couldn’t be trusted. Frank should know.

He drove slowly down the lane, past fields that were white, and growing whiter.

“There’s stables out back of the Hall,” Lucas had told them. This had been in the shed the night before. Cobwebbed patchy dark, with every movement magnified in the gloom, becoming a nest of spiders, or an inquisitive rat. “I went there for a smoke sometimes.”

“A doobie?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, if you’re like sixty.”

Sitting on the roof; legs dangling down. Not an approved Health and Safety seating posture, but then again, smoking dope in general didn’t make many H&S lists.

It had been just before New Year; a party at Caerwyss Hall. A corporate event catered by Paul’s Pantry, the outfit run by a friend of Lucas’s mother’s—both women caught the inverted commas round friend. The corporate client was a PR firm called Bullingdon Fopp, whose CEO was one Peter Judd, a bigtime political player once, and still regarded by some as a Lost Leader. Fair enough in Louisa’s view, if where you wanted to be led was a mash-up of The Handmaid’s Tale and It’s a Knockout.

“We were supposed to be off the premises, but I didn’t want to go back to the cottage. There was just mum and Andrew. It was boring.”

This was before the snow rolled in, and the cold was the damp, bronchial kind, where everything seems to be breathing out: plant life, telegraph poles, garden furniture. The moon was a well-kept secret. The single bulb above the door of the kit-room opposite was the only illumination, and it cast everything as an etching from a storybook: all the detail Lucas could see, shapes and curves and corners, became wavy grey lines the harder he looked at them.

That might have been the dope, of course. It was a lot stronger now than when Louisa had last drawn a toke.

He’d been thinking about America, he told them. He wanted to go to America. A road trip. See for real what he’d seen in the movies. But it took money. Everything took money, even uni. And it wasn’t like dope was free.

In the telling he’d forgotten they were there, and had slipped into the cadence of the stoned.

From his vantage point, Lucas had had a clear view of the cobbled yard below. There was a gleaming new Land Rover at one end, its mud splashes looking like decals: an expensive bit of rough. That had been the weekend’s theme, all these rich men pretending they were handy, and even as he’d had the thought he heard voices. A lot of voices.

“So I killed the spliff and moved back. Didn’t want them to see me.”

Because nobody was supposed to be there after dinner. The staff had cleared the dishes; the bottles were lined up on the sideboard. The rich had the run of the property. Whatever games they played, that was their business.

Or pleasure. Whispers in the kitchen suggested girls were bused in after dark.

He said, “I couldn’t see what was going on, but there was a lot of laughing and talking. And then it got lighter. There was a spotlight on the Land Rover roof, and they’d turned it on.”

There’d been the sound of something being dragged across cobbles.

Someone whistled the Lone Ranger tune, and everybody laughed.

“And then it went quiet.”

A tense quiet. The crowd had become an audience.

“And then a whirring noise, and a thunk. And everyone cheered.”

Good shot, sir!

Lucas had crawled to the edge, and looked down. There were maybe ten of them below, all men. And they’d set a target on a tripod at one end of the yard, and someone had fired what looked like a crossbow, and the thunk had been the bolt biting its mark: not a bullseye—anything but—but a solid pounding into the outer red ring.

“Good shot?” Emma wondered aloud.

So Lucas told them who had fired it.

“Oh, sweet Jesus . . .”

Not just a bunch of rich businessmen fooling with dangerous toys when drunk, but a bunch of rich businessmen with a royal playmate. Even this late in history, it changed the settings.

Lucas had said, “They carried on for half an hour or so, and then it got too cold so they went inside.”

“And that was it?”

No. That wasn’t it.

When it was quiet he’d fired up again and lay a while longer. He was on a Greyhound bus in his mind, zipping past endless fields of wheat. Middle of nowhere.

That was when they’d come back with the girl.

There was nothing you could do, Catherine had thought, to make these offices worse. The threadbare carpets, worn in patches, revealed a floor which did not inspire confidence, and the walls bulged inwards in places, as if planning to obliterate all they contained. Paintwork blurred into various stains daubed in accident or anger—coffee splashes, curry sauces—and corners were black with mould. Even the air: even the air felt like it had come in here to hide. No, this was as bad as things got. A flamethrower would only improve matters.

But it turned out she’d been wrong. You could make things worse. You could dump a damaged body between two desks, and have it lie on the floor, its head on a lifeless cushion. You could look down on a man whose face had been used to sharpen a blade.

PAEDO.

There’d been no charge, no trial. Just punishment. And now this.

Hard to refute the statement your own face made.

She said, “You need medical attention.”

“No.”

“I’ll get you a cab. I’ll come with you. If you don’t get those cuts seen to—”

“No.”

“—they’ll scar.”

He looked at her, his dark face darker than ever.

“You can’t live with that carved into your cheeks.”

“I’m not going to a hospital. Not looking like this.”

“Not a hospital then,” she said. “Lamb will know someone.”

“No.”

Two different kinds of pain, meeting head-on. A crash no part of him was going to walk away from.

“I’ll leave you to think about it. But think hard. If you’ve a chance of getting those cuts to heal, you have to act soon.”

And how had this come to pass, she wondered, leaving him. At what point had she become Slough House’s conscience? Guiding the slow horses towards their better choices, when her own lately had been courting disaster?

The morning was wearing on. The only word from Wales was an occasional call from River: no sign of Louisa, though her car had turned up. Lamb had relayed this without comment. Louisa’s car, abandoned, meant nothing. Perhaps she’d just grown sick of it, and left it by the side of the road.

We’re spies, Standish. All kinds of outlandish shit goes on.

Lamb was drinking, which was early even for him. The only other concession he’d made to being indoors was taking his shoes off. His feet were on his desk and he was scowling at the wall so hard Catherine felt sorry for it. Imagine absorbing Lamb’s moods, day after day. Then again, where did that leave her?

She said, “He won’t get it seen to.”

“Surprise me again.”

“He’ll carry those marks forever if he doesn’t do something.”

Without looking at her Lamb said, “He’s not gunna let anyone see them. It’d be like turning up at a christening holding a dildo. Everyone’ll assume the worst.”

“So what’s his alternative?”

Lamb said, “Nothing you want to dwell on.”

“You think he really did it?”

“Not anymore.”

“What’s made you change your mind?”

“I haven’t.”

She said, “Someone should record you for training purposes. How not to have a conversation.” She sat. “The words ‘not anymore’ suggest a change of attitude.”

“Yeah, well, in this case they mean I hadn’t given it any thought till now.”

“He arrives with paperwork saying he’s been viewing child pornography, and you hadn’t given it a thought?”

“You’re all fuck-ups, Standish. The manner of your fuck-uppery’s irrelevant.” He was holding a lit cigarette. How did that happen? “Far as Wicinski was concerned, the bit that worried me was him using his office laptop. I mean, I work with idiots. But that’s Olympic standard.”

“So you weren’t bothered what he was here for,” she said. “Didn’t stop you goading him.”

He looked offended. “Course not. You think I’m made of stone?”

“And now you’ve decided he’s innocent.”

“Because anytime anybody really, really wants me to believe something, I turn it upside down and rattle it hard.” He raised his teacup to his lips. Talisker, Catherine knew. And give him credit, he wasn’t hiding the fact. He simply hadn’t been bothered to hunt down a glass. “The only people who know about Mr. Solidarnosc’s supposed tastes in wank-matter are here or at the Park. Or they’re a third party who fitted him up. And given Coe’s not on the premises, I’m focusing on options two and three.”

“Why would the Park crucify an innocent man?”

“Why would the Park ever do anything? But I’ll tell you what last night’s carve-a-Pole was all about. Someone’s sending a message.”

“What message?”

“Oh, do keep up,” said Lamb. “The message was ‘paedo.’ What do you want, pictures?”

“But—”

“But fuck,” said Lamb. “If you can remember what that’s like.” He stabbed his cigarette to death on the nearest surface. “Whoever did it wants everyone to focus on what Wicinski supposedly did. And not on whatever it was he actually did that made them fit him up in the first place.”

“So not the Park, then.”

“Not the Park,” said Lamb. “Because if they wanted him out of the picture, he’d be gone. No, they sent him here because they thought he did what they told us he did. So whoever fucked him up in the first place must be pretty good. I mean, I’m told those laptops are bastards to hack. They have passwords and everything.”

“So not the Park,” Catherine repeated. “And yet they knew where to come looking for him.”

“I keep forgetting you have a brain. Though in my defence, you don’t use it often.”

“It could have been a colleague. Someone who believed he was looking at child porn.” She’d believed it herself, hadn’t she? “It’s the kind of thing that gets people riled.”

“Villagers with pitchforks. Or sink-estate morons. But a trained professional would have just broken his legs. No, the whole physical graffiti thing’s misdirection.” He drained his teacup. “Feel free to tell him that. Might cheer him up.”

“How come he was here, anyway?”

“He’s been sleeping in the office.”

She should have known that. Time was, nothing happened in Slough House she didn’t have an inkling of.

“Why?”

Lamb said, “Because his girlfriend kicked him out. Turns out she didn’t like sharing her bed with a kiddy fiddler.”

“So she knew too.”

Lamb said, “Yeah, but I can’t see her jumping him in the dark. A woman scorned, and all that. She’d have done it in the High Street with a TV crew watching.”

“And how did she find out? I get the impression Lech’s not one for baring his soul.”

Lamb said, “She had a phone call.”

Catherine stared.

He said, “What?”

“You bastard.”

Another cigarette appeared. Another flame flared.

“You told his fiancée? You couldn’t let him work things out for himself?”

“Not a lot to work out, Standish. I mean, there were only two ways she could go with the information. And the clever money was always gunna be on her flipping her wig.” His cigarette tip burned brightly. “No one’s that broad-minded.”

“But why tell her? Good god, what made it your—”

“Ho traced him. He’s been meeting someone from the Park. Which I assume means he’s been keeping them up to speed with what we’re doing, which, if you’ll recall, I very specifically didn’t want happening. And I don’t like repeating myself.”

“So you screwed him over.”

“No, I reminded him whose side he’s on.”

“By removing his sole support.”

“He doesn’t have to like it,” Lamb said. “He just has to know it’s the way things are.”

Catherine didn’t know what to say. A man downstairs had had his life, now his face, dismantled.

“I’ve got joes in the field,” he said. “If Wicinski was running his mouth off, he was putting them at risk.”

“I think that’s a first,” she said.

“What is?”

“You, justifying your actions.”

“It’s Spook Street, not Sesame Street. If he was scared of getting hurt, he should have stuck with his roots and been a plumber.”

“He’s an analyst. I doubt he knew he was signing up for the front line.”

“That’s why they have small print. So crybabies can’t say they weren’t warned.”

“Jesus wept!” She shook her head. “Every time I think you’ve scraped the barrel . . .”

He opened his desk drawer and found his Talisker.

She said, “You’ve got joes in the field because somebody messed with your stuff. Isn’t that what you said the other night? Frank Harkness stamped dog dirt into your carpets and walked away, and that’s been burning you up ever since.”

“Are you charging for this? Because I never pay for therapy unless it includes a handjob.”

She said, “Just because this is all you’ve got doesn’t make it worth destroying people’s lives for.”

“Then what does?”

“You should call the kids in before someone else gets hurt. As soon as they’ve found Louisa.” She stood. “And not everyone who lives on a council estate is a moron.”

“I deal in broad strokes. From where I’m sitting, everyone’s a moron.”

Before leaving, she turned to look at him once more. He was pouring out whisky, his measure defined by the limits of the teacup. She couldn’t see his eyes. Didn’t want to.

“And think about this, too,” she said. “Lech’s one of yours now. And someone just messed with him. What are you going to do about that?”

She didn’t wait for a reply.

Her own office was shrouded in gloom, its skylight muffled by snow. But she didn’t turn the light on. Instead she sat, much as Lamb always did, in the dark, and wondered what grief was heading their way next.

One of the men said, “Smell that?”

“. . .What?”

“Someone’s been smoking a joint.”

The spliff was a straw-thin corpse in Lucas’s hand, but its odour had drifted out, and sunk to the cobbles below.

“. . . Don’t worry, my friend. We’ll find you one later.”

A girl’s voice next. “Where’s the thing?”

“She wants to see your thing.”

“Show her your thing.”

“Trust me, she’s seen it. Up close and personal, isn’t that right, my darling?”

The girl’s laughter had a brittle edge. “No, the thing.”

“Here we go, darling.”

There were sounds Lucas couldn’t identify, mechanical and clunky.

As carefully as he could, he peeped over the edge of the roof.

The spotlight was on again, illuminating the target, but there were fewer people than before. Something else had changed too—they were drunker, more manic. A coked-up energy floating free.

There was only one girl. She was slight, and despite the cold wore an abbreviated silvery dress, flashing like a glitterball in the headlights. She’d been handed the crossbow, and it looked huge in her arms. How old was she, anyway? His age? The men were far older and uniformly dressed in evening wear. There were five of them, and they watched the girl in a hungry way: fifty, he said, when Louisa asked. Or sixty. Balding men, or grey-templed.

She almost dropped the weapon, but managed to get it level. One of the men stood behind her, a hand on her waist. He was whispering into her ear.

When she loosed the bolt it went wild, careening into the dark.

The men collapsed in laughter.

She stamped her foot, but was laughing too. “I wasn’t ready!”

The crossbow was lifted from her hands, and another bolt fitted.

“Just pretend you’re pointing a finger.”

She wasn’t pretending hard enough. The second bolt, too, was swallowed by the night.

This time, the crossbow wasn’t handed back to her.

Someone had lit a cigar, and its smoke rose skyward.

“Okay, chicken,” another man said. “Your turn . . .”

She was laughing along with them when they took her across to the target.

Again, that whistling . . . The Lone Ranger. No, the William Tell Overture, Lucas remembered.

And then he thought, Shit, no . . .

The same thing must have occurred to the girl, because her laughter stopped as if a tap had been turned off.

“What are you doing?”

“Just a little fun. Nothing to worry about.”

“He’s a great shot. Like a magician.”

“But what are you doing?”

“A bit of fun. You like a bit of fun, don’t you?”

“No, please don’t do that—”

Lucas couldn’t see what was happening.

“—no please don’t, you’re hurting me—”

“Of course we’re not.”

Her scream was cut short.

When the men moved away, he could see that they’d fastened her to the struts of the target with belts, and had stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth. As soon as they were clear she threw herself to the ground, taking the target with her, trapping herself like a tortoise. Most of the men laughed. One returned and lifted her to her feet, set her so she was leaning against the target once more. Lucas couldn’t hear what he said: just a word or two, carried upwards with the cigar smoke.

Careful . . . very still.

When he backed away, the girl remained upright.

Her short dress shimmered in the spotlight’s glare.

One of the men had disappeared into the dark, in the direction of the house, and for a moment Lucas thought he’d gone for help, to fetch a grown-up, but when he reappeared he was holding, what, a fucking pumpkin? A pumpkin, pilfered from the kitchen. While the others watched, laughing, he put it on the girl’s head.

It fell off.

“Tell her to stop shaking!”

Lucas couldn’t hear what he said to the girl, but whatever it was, he said it with a hand on her chin, looking straight into her eyes.

When he replaced the pumpkin on her head, it fell off.

Someone left the group, wandered into the shadows of the barn. He re-emerged with a roll of tape in his hands, holding it like a trophy. There were cheers, and more laughter, which continued as the pumpkin was strapped onto the girl’s head. She was shaking, and it slipped to one side, and when the nearest of the men returned and set it straight again, he tapped her on the cheek with three fingers—not a slap exactly; more a warning.

“I should have done something,” Lucas said.

Louisa said, “It wouldn’t have gone well. There were five of them. And they were drunk.”

But Emma had said nothing.

In the darkness of the shed, with some night-creature rustling around outside, the boy had continued his story.

Lars, as instructed, had headed down to the estuary. Snow was falling, and as he crossed the main road through town he saw no one. Twenty minutes earlier he’d passed the woman’s car, which he’d disabled the other night, and while kicked-up snow showed someone had been checking it out, there was no Police Aware sticker on the windscreen. Right now, nobody was aware of anything much. People were sticking to their firesides, their TV screens. The shops were shuttered, and schools were closed. He’d heard that on the radio, which had also advised him to remain indoors unless his journey was absolutely necessary.

Which it kind of was.

It should have been an in-and-out job; had been sold to him as such. He hadn’t been given background, which was fine: if that stuff mattered, it wouldn’t be in the background, and besides, all stories were the same in the end. This particular version, someone had seen something he shouldn’t, and wanted paying to keep quiet about it. Fine if what he’d seen had been the neighbour kissing the milkman, and what he’d wanted was a little of the same; less fine if the mark was in the arms business, and the tag was fifty grand. Because there was a strict policy in that line of work: you did not allow anybody to take one bite from your apple. Because one bite led to two, and two bites later the whole fucking tree was gone. No, some orchards were best left alone, because they were owned by people who knew people like Frank Harkness, who in turn knew people like Lars. And people like Lars, he’d be first to admit, didn’t care whose apples they were safeguarding, as long as the money was right.

Add to that the bruised cheek from where the woman had headbutted him that first night, and what you had was what the movies called a situation. One which, if it hadn’t been for the fucking snow, would be over already.

Instead, another woman had turned up: a blonde in a long dark coat who was also handy, apparently. The whole thing was beyond a joke.

He reached the bottom of the road that bisected what passed for a High Street and it became a tree-shrouded dirt lane, a wooden gate effecting a boundary between the two, next to a signpost suggesting occasional flooding. Trees covered the track towards the estuary, so the snow became a whisper rather than a shout, a series of grace notes nestled in tree joints. The ground was muddy, offering a smorgasbord of prints, both boot and animal. Maybe a boy scout would have studied this longer. Lars just walked on, eyes peeled.

The first woman had been wearing a white ski jacket, which would have little camo-value here. The blonde, though, was dressed in black, and if she knew what she was doing, might get close.

But this was farming country. Gunshots wouldn’t startle the locals; especially gunshots muffled by snow-covered trees.

He walked on, sticking to the track.

Somewhere up ahead, he heard voices.

It could have been worse. The girl could have been killed.

The bolt had sliced flesh from her arm, spraying a theatrical gout of blood into the air—Lucas had stumbled telling this part, as if the description were beyond him, though the memory was fixed; the blood black in the spotlight’s gleam, the pattering as it hit the ground. Girl and target collapsed, the girl screaming through the gag. The pumpkin came loose, and rolled into shadow. And the excited buzz the men had been sharing climaxed in a two-second silence, while drunken coked-up brains assessed damage and formed contingency plans.

Then the man who’d fired the bow laughed, a werewolf bark, and the others joined in.

Five minutes later, the weeping girl had been led away.

His story over, Lucas had subsided into silence.

And here, now, in the morning, Emma said, “Any normal kid would have gone to the police.”

“Think about the people he saw,” said Louisa. “A royal, for god’s sake. And Judd used to be Home Secretary. In charge of the police, remember? And—what was that?”

Both became still.

The noise had come from down the track; a soft padding on a path littered with twigs and dead leaves.

Emma put her hand on Louisa’s elbow, but Louisa shook her head. Two short jabs of the finger: one towards Emma, the other to the shed. Stay here. Watch the boy.

Then she stepped off through the trees.

The door opened.

He’d been lying on the floor in Shirley Dander’s room, into which grey light fizzled from a sky with the clarity of a stained tablecloth. The carpet smelled of dust and ancient spillage. It was Slough House in close-up, worn and mouldy, and if he lay long enough he’d seep into its fabric; become another spore in its culture of damaged mediocrity. Thoughts he put on hold as the opening of the door was followed by a heavy incoming tread.

Lamb said, “You still alive?”

Lech said nothing.

Lamb kicked him, not gently.

“Fuck you!”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Lamb threw himself into a chair, as if the chair had done him some great disservice in the past, and was suddenly smoking. Had a bottle too, which must have been in his overcoat pocket. Two glasses appeared from another pocket, and he poured a small measure into one and pushed it in Lech’s direction.

The other, he filled halfway to the brim.

“That’s quite the barcode you’ve been given.”

Lech said nothing.

Lamb sighed. “If I have to kick you every time I want a reply, my foot’ll be black and fucking blue before we’re done. Now get off the floor and drink that.”

He didn’t want a drink, but suddenly he did. And nobody else was offering.

There was a visitor’s chair this side of Dander’s desk, which was a mystery all of its own—visitors weren’t a thing round here—but came in handy as a means of hauling himself up. When he lowered himself into it, Lamb was staring at him with an expression which, in anyone else, he’d take for contempt. But Lech had come to suspect that Lamb’s default expressions—boredom, dislike, irritation—were a series of masks, not so much intended to disguise the way he felt as to make you think he felt anything at all. So he sneered back, feeling his cheeks split under the cotton wool padding Catherine had taped to them. “What’s this, then? Pastoral care?”

“Which would make you what? A sheep?” Lamb pretended to think about that. “Dumb, defenceless, and leaking a trail of shit. Sounds about right. Drink your medicine.”

Lech reached for the glass. Even as its contents scorched to his stomach, he remembered not having eaten since yesterday lunchtime; his late-night excursion in search of food having ended in pain and darkness.

“Jesus, go easy. I’ve only half a bottle left.”

But when Lech slapped the glass back down on the desk, Lamb refilled it with the precise same single measure.

“You had a meet with someone from the Park,” he said, before Lech could take another drink.

“. . . How do you know?”

“Let’s pretend I’m a spy. A pub off Great Portland Street. Who?”

Lech said, “His name’s Pynne. Richard Pynne.”

“Good mate?”

“Not even.”

“Glad to hear it, given how quickly you gave him up. What were you offering?”

“How do you mean?”

“You want a ticket home. You idiots always think you’re special, and if you ask nicely enough the Park’ll spread its legs. But you need to offer something first. Flowers, chocolates, sexy underwear. I’m just wondering how cheap you are.”

Lech said, “I offered him nothing.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?”

He shrugged, reached for his glass, and drained it. Not so burny, the second time. That was how life worked: after a while, you got used to anything.

Lamb’s glass was empty too.

Lech reached for the Talisker, and Lamb made no attempt to stop him. He poured a single measure into his own glass, then waggled the bottle in Lamb’s direction.

Lamb pushed his glass closer.

Starting to pour, Lech said, “I don’t care what you believe, you fat fuck. I offered him nothing.” He kept pouring. “I was looking for information, not giving it away.” The whisky reached the brim of Lamb’s glass, but Lech didn’t let that stop him. It streamed down the sides, pooled on the desk, ran in rivulets for the edge. “Hoping to find out who put me in this shithole.” He shook the last drip from the bottle, and tossed it into a corner. “That clear enough?”

Lamb kept his eyes fixed on Lech’s as he reached for his glass, and lofted it daintily between finger and thumb without spilling a drop.

“And how did that work out?” he said.

“He knew fuck-all.”

“Told you fuck-all, you mean. There’s a difference. Because he’s back at the Park and you’re stuck in this shithole, looking like a half-arsed invisible man.” Lamb moved his head nearer the raised glass and—still without taking his eyes off Lech—tipped the whisky into his mouth. He barely appeared to swallow, but something happened, because the glass was empty, and his other hand was steering his cigarette to his lips. He inhaled, then leaned closer. “Speaking of which, let’s have a look.”

“At what?”

“What do you think?” The words came out as separate blocks of smoke. He scribbled them away with a wave of his hand. “Let’s pretend I’m looking for clues. You know, the assailant was left handed. Has an interest in classical calligraphy. That kind of thing.”

“You’re a bastard, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. But they said that about Sherlock Holmes.”

Lech stared at him.

Lamb said, “Why do you care? Standish says you won’t get it seen to. So you’ll have to get used to being stared at.” He squashed his cigarette out on the inside of his empty glass, then lobbed it into the same corner Lech had thrown the bottle into. “Living artwork like yourself.”

“I—”

“Just take the fucking plasters off.”

Slowly, carefully, Lech did so.

Lamb lit another cigarette, and for a full minute after Lech had peeled the second plaster away said nothing. His cigarette tip glowed and faded, glowed again. The painkillers Catherine had given Lech were doing their job, but his cheeks pulsed in time to that cigarette. He imagined the letters burning scarlet, like hot coals glimpsed beneath ash.

“Probably wise not to get stitches,” Lamb said at last. “You’d have a face like a fucking sampler. What did you ask Richard Pynne?”

Lech said, “I ran a name, Peter Kahlmann. That’s the only thing I can think of, the only thing I did before all this happened.”

“And it tripped a wire?”

“It was flagged.”

“Off-limits, then. Seems harsh, though, doesn’t it? Take your life apart for a breach of protocol.” Lamb shook his head, as though bemused by the cruelties of fate, and stood. He was still wearing his coat. Lech wasn’t sure he’d ever seen him take it off. “How’s your insurance?”

Lech didn’t reply.

“Because I doubt your work bennies’ll cover plastic surgery.” Lamb jammed his hands in his pockets. “You owe me a bottle of Talisker. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m kidding. But here. In case a third way occurs to you. Other than stitches or surgery.” He pulled something from his pocket and put it on the desk. “I’ll want it back, mind.”

He left the room and headed downstairs rather than up.

After a while, Lech reached for Lamb’s gift and weighed it in his hand. Heavier than it looked. Good quality. A real old-school implement, in fact, with a handle that might be silver.

When he unfolded it, the razor’s blade glinted meanly in the pallid light.

Somewhere under a pile of snow—in a wood, in a field, by a stile—was the monkey-wrench she’d used to clock one of the bad actors that first night. She’d have liked it now. Women carrying blunt instruments were taken more seriously. It was the #MeToo equivalent of wearing plastic-framed glasses, but without the hipster connotations.

At the time, though, it had been weighing her down, and flight had been her major concern.

She moved through the trees as quietly as she could, but underfoot was a mess of twigs and leaves; the same carpet that had given away the enemy presence—it was always enemy presence; that was the rule. In joe country, any stranger was a hostile.

Emma had disappeared from view already. The shed was a blocky dark presence in a thicket; a casual glance, and you wouldn’t know it was there. But it wasn’t the casual glance that worried her; it was the expert appraisal. The noise came again—a rustle, but one with deliberate pace to it; a measured rustle, not a careless breeze. A rustler who had paused to measure his impact on the surroundings.

Louisa waited. The estuary lay behind, a hundred yards or so; the tide was in, and had filled the basin with a shiny grey light that glimmered between trees. Every other direction was shades of brown and white. The sound that had alarmed her came from the path, she thought, but it was hard to tell.

It happened again: a low-down noise. Someone easing forward, but keeping low, close to the ground.

What mattered, she thought, was that she lead them away from Lucas.

She had to assume he had a gun, and with that thought dropped to one knee, and groped around for rustic weaponry. No club-shaped sticks appeared. No handy brick-sized rocks. A few loose stones was all. She took them anyway, thinking David and Goliath. This jacket, white and puffy: would it stop a bullet? Wouldn’t even slow one down. But best not to think about that.

One stone, smooth and brilliant, she kept in her hand. The others she slipped into her pocket.

When she reached the track she fell to a crouch. The path stretched for a hundred yards before veering left; in the other direction, the way they’d come last night, the sightline was no more than twenty. The ground was rough and pitted, and there was an odd stretch, tramline straight, three inches wide, where snow lay. An oddity caused by the shape of the overhead trees, she assumed, not wanting to pay attention to quirks of nature; wanting to focus on that rustling sound which came again now, to her left. Her grip on the stones tightened. Whoever was approaching didn’t sound loud enough to be a person, which meant they were a person trying not to sound loud; a person who knew where to place their feet. She could all but see him, fading into sight like a professional, his gun in a two-fisted grip. Her jacket might as well have had gold and red circles imprinted upon it. And then the fox came trotting round the corner, its movement a bare rustle in the morning light; the scrappy bundle in its mouth a living thing until two minutes ago. It barely glanced at her as it passed. Some dangers were more noteworthy than others.

Louisa breathed out, shook her head, and went back to rejoin Emma.

The voices belonged to a man, a woman. The woman was leaning against a tree and the man was up in her face. It didn’t look pretty but that was okay: he wasn’t looking for pretty, or its opposite. Neither of these people mattered. They were, though, in his way.

He made to head past, but the man spoke.

“What you looking at?”

Lars raised his hands in polite surrender. “Just out for a walk.”

“Yeah, well walk somewhere else, all right?”

Lars looked at the woman. She didn’t seem surprised at her companion’s belligerence. Wearied by it, if anything.

He said, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen my friends? Two women? One wearing white, the other black? And a teenage boy?”

The man stepped away from the woman. “Am I here spying on women? Is that what you’re asking?”

“It wasn’t what I was asking, no.”

“Just as bloody well, right? Because I’m minding my own business, okay? Which is what you should be doing too.”

“Yes, fine. Okay.”

“You foreign? You sound foreign?”

“Well,” said Lars. “I’m not from round here. That’s true.”

“Maybe that’s why you don’t speak fucking English. Because I told you to piss off out of it, but you’re still here. So what you plan to do about that?”

“I plan to piss off now,” said Lars.

“Glad to hear it.”

“And I’m sorry about your nose.”

“What you mean, you’re sorry about my—”

Lars broke the man’s nose with as little movement as possible, though the man more than made up for Lars’s economy by going into a jig, accompanying himself with a high-pitched squeal. Throughout all this, the woman, to her credit, gave only a single yelp, which Lars decided to interpret as appreciative. He beckoned her closer. “Make sure he keeps his head up,” he said. “Here.” He guided the woman’s hand so it was tilting the man’s chin. “Like this, okay?”

She nodded, mutely.

“And tell him not to be such a dick, yes?”

Though it was possible the man had figured this out for himself in the last ten seconds.

He walked on down the path and then stopped and turned. The woman had let go of her boyfriend’s head and was holding her mobile in trembling hands. He sighed, went back, took it from her and hurled it into the woods. Then he set off back down the track at a steady jog, alert for the two women, the boy, and anywhere they might be hiding.

Someone had hung an air-freshener above the frosted window, which had been painted shut years ago. Catherine Standish, he expected. Hard to know whether to admire her persistence, or scorn the futility of her gestures. Presumably she was responsible, too, for the bottle of bleach next to the toilet, and the clean handtowel on a rail by the sink. But there’d been nothing she could do about the lime-scale scarring on the sink itself, and the mirror screwed into the wall was a battle-flecked mess. He was coming to recognise the process: you could resist all you liked its mildewed embrace, but Slough House would eat your best efforts in the end, its inch-by-inch victory as metronomic as the dripping of that tap.

Lech looked in the mirror. He’d barely use this to shave in, its surface was so pitted and green. But even here, his new wounds lit the room; the letters rearranging themselves in the absurd logic of reflection, but still legible, unmistakable; trumpeting their meaning the way sense jumps out of those wordsearch puzzles. PAEDO. He might as well be hoisting a flag.

He thought: How could he walk into a casualty ward, a doctor’s surgery, and ask for help with this? It’s not true. It isn’t true. He’d be begging for belief, in exactly the same way he’d be begging for belief if it were true. Didn’t doctors report stuff like this to the police? Jesus . . . His hands were fists. Even he wanted to batter his face into fragments. As if, by smashing his reflection, he could destroy what was written there; erase the lie destroying his life.

And it hurt. It hurt like hell.

From his pocket, he retrieved the razor Lamb had given him. Silver handle, with a fleur-de-lys design. Something from another age: like pocket watches and fountain pens. Lamb himself clearly didn’t use it: his jaw was a stubbly mess. But he kept a tool like this: what did that tell you? Having asked the question, Lech supplied the obvious answer. Who fucking cared? This wasn’t about Lamb.

The letters glowed scarlet in the mirror. They were radioactive. Toxic spill.

He opened the razor, and stared at the blade.

Maybe if he just never shaved again. His beard was thick and, left untamed, would cover his face like knotweed. It would drive people crazy, trying to read the letters through the undergrowth . . . But if he chose that path, he might as well pick out a bus shelter to bed down in. Stuff his possessions into carrier bags.

Already his throat was crawling with stubble. But it was such a puny defence, wasn’t it? A blade like this, you could slice your way through it, stubble and throat, adam’s apple, in seconds.

Give Lamb this: the fat bastard knew what he was talking about.

In case a third way occurs to you. Other than stitches or surgery.

He could not live with this word carved into his cheeks.

Lech lifted the razor and did what he had to do.

The thing about someone else’s car was, it was automatically an all-terrain vehicle.

That went double when it was Ho’s.

Shirley was glad to be alone after a day and a half in company. J.K. Coe was okay, because he could go hours without speaking, and was interesting on account of being on the freaky side. River Cartwright, though, was seven blends of vanilla. When she was bored at work, which was most of the time, she replayed Bourne or Bond scenes, with Cartwright bringing his own special talents to the role. Like the bit in The Spy Who Loved Me, when Bond skis over a cliff, and drops for what feels like forever before his Union-Jack parachute opens. Cartwright would drop forever too, before his lunch came flying out of a wrongly-packed bag. Bit cruel, but hell: it was the Secret Service, not Secret Santa. Lamb had explained that when making them work late Christmas Eve.

With this on her mind, she almost didn’t see the turn-off until too late. The usual markers had been obliterated, but the fenceposts whose tips punctuated the snow broke rhythm abruptly, leaving a gap, so she swung Ho’s newly branded ATV ninety degrees onto an upward-inclined lane which hadn’t been used since the first snow fell, judging by the lack of tracks. Or that was the plan. Fucking Ho’s car, though: as reliable as its owner. Instead of following the lane upwards it basically ploughed into a snowdrift, and if it hadn’t been for the airbag she’d have cracked her head on the windscreen.

There was a possibility, too, that she’d just driven into a ditch.

She sat for five minutes then wrestled her way free, which was an adventure in itself. The snow came past her knees, and the air was biting cold. Her footwear was sturdy—Shirley was a Doc Martens girl—and her jeans were actual proper jeans, without stupid designer rips, but her anorak’s skin was plucked and pitted from a recent encounter outside a nightclub, when a stuccoed wall had been used as a vertical mattress . . . She wondered about going through Ho’s boot, maybe hoisting an accident triangle on the road, or planting it on the car roof like a birthday candle, but in the end settled for sending the Metal for Muthas cd flying across the snow-covered field like a frisbee, before slamming the door shut.

This might not be the right lane, or even a lane at all, but she was on it now. Might as well follow the incline to the crest, and see if she could spot Coe’s farm buildings from up there.

So off she plodded, a short dark figure on a big white canvas, leaving a trail behind her that was slowly swallowed as snow continued to fall.

J.K. Coe was cold, but preferred it that way. Warm was sleepy; warm was soft. Warm lost you focus, then bad things happened. He still remembered the person he’d once been, who had returned home after a normal day to find himself a sudden prisoner, fastened to a chair in a plastic-clad room, while a naked man threatened to unzip him with a carving knife. His worst moment, one that hadn’t actually happened, was hearing the wet slap of his organs hitting the floor. That’s what you could expect when warm and comfortable. In the cold, he was sharp as a blade. And his hand dropped to his pocket with the word, reminding him of the short sweet knife it carried.

He checked the map on his phone. Dotted lines and blank white spaces: for once, the diagram matched the reality, which was open spaces with a faint grid laid over it; wire strung between fence posts, marking boundaries. Leafless trees like holocaust sculptures. Behind him, on the main road and coastward-bound, a small figure that was River Cartwright. Cartwright, Coe thought, had twofold motivation today. Find his friend, and find Frank Harkness. Well, “find.” He wanted to kill Harkness. He didn’t know whether Cartwright realised that himself yet, but it was clear as daylight to Coe.

Not that he cared. There’d been a time when he’d have resisted leaving Slough House. Would have clung to his desk: staring at a screen, out of a window—didn’t matter. Time was what you were up against, and J.K. Coe had a strategy: you just coasted through it—ignored its bumps, all the wayward topography it hurled at you in the shape of other people, random events, bad memory. You kept your gaze blank, paid as little attention as was compatible with functioning, and the world moved on. Sooner or later, you got to the end of the day. Then you could manage the dark for a while, breathe slowly, and prepare for it all to start again.

But he’d come to realise that surrender was also an option. If you went along with whatever was expected—got in the car; marched where you were pointed—time passed just as quickly. It didn’t matter, in the end, whether Coe was at his desk in Slough House or on an all-but-invisible track leading to a barn on a snowy Welsh hillside. Just so long as he wasn’t strapped to a kitchen chair, waiting for the splash as his innards met a plastic-wrapped surface.

He stopped, shook his head. The image cleared.

Then he stamped his feet. Cold was good; cold kept you sharp. But his feet weren’t getting the message.

Next time he looked back, Cartwright had disappeared.

Snow was drifting down; not a blizzard, but one of those unstoppable forces that would end up carrying off walls and bridges. In time, its cold began to feel like a different kind of warmth. That couldn’t be a good thing, he decided, as he cut through a copse to find, when he emerged on the other side, a barn.

It sat in the corner of a field, as its skeleton outline on his phone suggested. Its reality was more solid than that empty box, but there wasn’t much in it: even from a distance, J.K. Coe could see holes in its roof. It was a fundamental rule of construction: left to itself, any building will strive to become its base elements once more; in this case, wood and nails. Slow horses knew this. Slough House was a constant reminder that neglect was one of the few things you didn’t have to work at to achieve an impeccably high standard.

He had all those thoughts, and this one too: that there was a man leaning against the barn’s outer wall, watching his approach.

A mile to the coast? Call it a mile.

A mile then, but it felt like three.

River’s legs were aching long before he saw the first sign, Coastal Path, and an arrow indicating he should keep right on. And if he walked far enough, he might hit cartoon gravity; the kind where you don’t start falling until you notice you’ve run out of ground. He wondered how high the path was, how far the drop to the sea, and whether the landing would be onto rocks or water. And if the latter, how long you could be expected to last after impact, in temperatures like this. So many different ways to die arising from the same mistake. That could almost be a mission statement. If not for the Service as a whole, at least for Slough House.

The only vehicle he’d seen had been a car lumbering past in the opposite direction. Its driver, an elderly female, had stared at him but maintained her lumpy pace. The dog peering out of her rear window had laughed at River walking in the snow.

He wondered where Louisa was. The slashed tyres were a good sign. They’d not have disabled her car if they’d already disabled Louisa. So at some point, at least, she’d been active and evading the enemy.

Somewhat unexpectedly he had a signal, so he called Lamb.

“Found her yet?”

“Wales is quite big, it turns out.”

Lamb said, “Yeah, I’ve problems of my own. Are you still in a layby or have you got off your collective arses yet?”

“We found where she dumped her phone.”

“But not the phone itself.”

“We didn’t pack a JCB. It looks like she tossed it. That or . . .” He trailed off.

Lamb said, “I’m not a fucking infant. If she’s lying dead in a field, she’s been there a while, that’s what you’re saying?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, let’s hope not. If I’ve lost a joe while she’s on leave, I’ll never hear the end of it.” River heard the clicking of a lighter, and the sandpaper rasp of a cigarette being lit. Then Lamb said, “You’ve mentioned the snow. Any signs of wolves?”

“Wolves? It’s Wales, not . . . Mongolia.”

“’Cause I’m wondering if that’s what you’ve been chucked to. If Guy went dark, she’d have called it in first, and the Park would have responded. In which case you should be knee-deep in back-up by now. Alpha-types, unlike you and your loser colleagues.”

River said, “I’ve only had a signal about half the time. And if she rang the distress number, she wouldn’t get a human response. It goes to a recording.”

“I really did want a lecture on Park processes. Can you explain their time sheets now?”

“All I’m saying, she might not have known she didn’t get through. She could have dumped her phone and gone dark without the Park knowing about it.”

Lamb said, “That’s exactly the kind of arsehole outcome I’ve got used to.”

Behind him, there was traffic noise; the aquarium swoosh of a big car passing.

“You’re outside?” said River. He hadn’t meant to sound surprised, but, well, Lamb? Outside?

“Visiting an old friend.”

River wasn’t sure which was the less likely scenario: that Lamb had an old friend, or that he might ever make a new one. “My battery’s nearly done,” he said. “I’ll call when I can. Any news from there?”

He wasn’t sure why he asked, except that something had to have happened, if Lamb had left his room.

“Wicinski cut himself shaving. Or someone did.”

Whatever that was about, River didn’t have the battery power to pursue it. “Hanging up now,” he said, and disconnected.

Five minutes later, the snow deeper here than on the road, he was on the coastal path.

“Just a fox,” Louisa said, back at the shed.

Emma, less concerned about local wildlife than the general situation, said, “You should have been out of here the first night. Stolen a car.”

“The roads were shit. You couldn’t see two feet in front of you. Besides, I was exhausted. And they didn’t have guns then.” She rubbed her arm. It was hurting still, and she was tired and thirsty. Some nut-based energy bars, carrots and a pack of raisins yesterday, and not much sleep. “I thought they were local thugs, paid to throw a scare around. That was before Lucas told me what he’d seen. Who he’d seen.”

Emma said, “A prince of the bloody realm. Thanks so much for involving me in this.”

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him I hit with the wrench,” said Louisa. “If that makes you feel better.”

“I doubt he even knows about this. He’s probably known nothing about anything his whole life, except that every so often he has a problem, and someone makes it go away. But on the whole, he probably doesn’t get to hear about the problem.”

“You think he’s why we’ve had no response from the Park?”

“If anyone was coming they’d be here, weather or not. And it wouldn’t have taken two minutes to find you, given the cottage was on Harper’s contact list. So yes, I imagine he’s the reason why.”

“We’re on our own, then.”

“Looks like. Unless your Lamb gets his act together.”

Which had been known to happen, thought Louisa.

She said, “What do you think happened to the girl?”

“I expect they paid her off.”

“At least they didn’t kill her.”

“If they had, Lucas would never have got off that roof,” Emma said. “They’d have sanitised the area. Look, there were three of them that first night, right? And they were waiting for Lucas to walk into their arms. So maybe three is all there is.”

“There’ll be someone directing operations.”

“Four, then. Still not enough to cover everywhere.”

“What are you thinking?”

“What I’ve thought from the start. Police. Judd might have been Home Secretary once, but a town this size, this far from London? I doubt he could fix a parking ticket.”

“You want us to walk up to the front door?”

“Maybe not all three of us.”

“It’s bang in the middle of town. It’s a risk.”

“Which goes both ways. What are they going to do? Gun me down in the High Street?”

“‘Me’?”

“They had a look at you when you were Wonder Womaning them with your monkey wrench. Only one of them saw me. And not for long.”

“I’m not sure I like this.”

“Which bit especially? Hiding in the wood, not having food, or men with guns?”

It was true that there wasn’t much upside.

“You’re noticeable, though,” Louisa said. “A three-word description would do it.”

Emma had already produced an elastic band from her coat pocket; her hair was tied back before Louisa finished speaking.

“Maybe I should rub mud into it,” said Louisa.

“In your dreams.”

“Then maybe,” said Louisa, “we should swap coats.”

What Shirley needed was snowshoes.

No: what she needed was a yacht, moored somewhere far away.

But all she had was one small twist of speed, for an emergency.

Truth was, she’d had six emergencies since yesterday but no privacy, and while she had few qualms about getting into it with River Cartwright (“Excuse me? Weekend?”), she wasn’t a hundred percent confident of J.K. Coe’s reaction. A thing about psychopaths: you couldn’t tell which side of an issue they’d come down. Little bit of discretion there, then. One of her overlooked virtues, her opinion.

She paused, removed a glove with her teeth, and rummaged in her back pocket, at last producing a cellophane wrap with barely anything in it. The rough equivalent of what, a double espresso? . . . Not long back, she’d tried experimenting with drugs. The experiment had been to see how long she could go without using them, and, having established to her satisfaction that the answer was “Quite long enough, thanks,” had gone back to doing whatever she wanted, whenever she liked.

And it wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t like she answered to anyone, except Jackson Lamb, and he gave no kinds of fuck. Marcus, sure, would have had objections. Marcus wouldn’t approve of her taking speed, not on an op. True, this felt more like a misguided office outing, but still, he’d have had a point . . . She missed Marcus. So perhaps she should honour his memory by keeping the speed until this was over, and she almost certainly would have done so, had she not already taken it while engaged in mental debate. But it showed, anyway, that she was capable of moral disputation. Another overlooked virtue. She was practically a saint.

New-found energy buzzing, Shirley crested the hill and found more whiteness: a sky bigger than London’s, and not shy about it. And on the downward slope to her left, a darker shape, behind snow-draped trees. A pitched roof.

You’ll come to a wood. There are buildings just beyond it.

And that was what she’d found, only instead of driving up the lane, she’d parked early and walked. The kind of thing that could pass as a tactic, if you were describing it to someone else. You want to get the drop on someone, you don’t approach their front door on foot. You find an alternative route.

Shirley Dander, she thought. Queen of fucking everything.

Let’s see what’s going on round there.

Snowshoeless, she made her way towards the trees.

The first ‘shed’ turned out to be a gun emplacement: a brick shelter half-buried underground, with narrow slits facing the sea, and littered with crushed cans, crisp packets, crumpled silver foil, and sooty embers; with mulled odours of urine, beer and tobacco. Hard to say whether it had been used as living quarters or party space. Either way, it didn’t say much for the local amenities.

River emerged to a now-familiar canvas: the sky, the sea, the cliffside and fields, all varying shades of white.

Despite the weather, he wasn’t the first here this morning. Snow was kicked up in front of him. Maybe the woman he’d seen in her car, with her comedian of a dog . . . Something underfoot rolled and he went down on one knee in the snow, like a pilgrim. It would be so easy—so easy to miss your step, and pitch headlong into a short future. Looking for someone else was tricky when looking where you were going demanded your full attention.

Louisa wouldn’t have come this way unless she had no choice. The path dipped and dawdled, and even in fair weather must have been hard going where it negotiated the ragged edge. And if you fell, to answer his earlier question, you wouldn’t drop straight into the sea; you’d bounce off the sloping face then land on a rocky outcrop far below. River didn’t want to guess how far. Didn’t actually want to be this close to the edge while he speculated. Pretty clearly, though, whatever hostile contact she’d encountered, there were ways and means out here of disposing of bodies.

On the other hand, this was Louisa. If an encounter with her involved someone going over a cliff, you couldn’t rule out it being the hostile. Not entirely.

He brought back to mind the map on Coe’s phone. The gun emplacement had been the first marked construction on this path, the next being a few hundred yards further on. After that there was a hike of maybe a mile to the lighthouse. He had no plans to walk that far, not along a path little more than a suggestion. But the next outbuilding, he’d take a look at.

And then the figure appeared, coming River’s way; moving at a lick suggesting it didn’t find the ground problematic. And familiar enough to warrant River checking the reassuring weight in his pocket.

The figure came to a halt five yards away.

It pulled the hood of its parka down.

“So you found me,” said Frank.

“Hi,” said Coe.

He wondered if that syllable sounded as false in the air as it did in his head. He was not someone who said Hi to strangers. One look should tell anyone that much.

It earned a response, though: “Hello.”

“I think I’m lost.”

“So do I,” said the man.

He was dressed like a soldier—combat boots, khaki trousers, a belt packed with Action-Man accessories, and fingerless gloves: okay, a bit hipsterish for the military, but probably an advantage when it came to triggerwork. Annex C material, then—legit/ grey area/ downright nasty—but even as Coe fed in the details, the soldier’s frosting of teenage acne had given him away. He was one of those whose face Coe’s program had recognised, coming through Southampton’s ferry terminal. Cyril Dupont.

Coe had a good memory for names, for faces. An attribute which would have been a boon in his career, if his career hadn’t terminated in trauma and after-shock.

The soldier said, “Where were you heading?”

“Pegsea.”

“That’s back the way you’ve come.”

“Oh. Right.”

His accent was what Coe would have expected: French, but with an American slant. Annex C, he guessed, put you on the kind of career plan where languages were thrown together like socks in a tumble dryer.

He was talking again. “You’re not much of a traveller, are you?”

“What makes you say that?”

The soldier made a vague gesture, head to toe. “You’re not dressed for the weather.”

“I don’t feel the cold.”

“You won’t feel your fucking toes in five minutes. Your boots. They’re ridiculous.”

Coe looked down at his boots. They looked wet, true, with that salty residue boots get when you wander in the snow too long. But ridiculous was a bit strong.

Then again, the soldier’s footwear was serious. Boots you could walk the mouth of hell with, frozen over or not.

He wasn’t here for macho fashion tips, though. “I’m looking for a friend.”

“Well you’re shit out of luck. Because I don’t want to be your friend, and there’s nobody else here.”

He sounded woozy, thought Coe. As if he’d walked into a wall, going faster than average. His boots might be combat-ready, but Coe wouldn’t have put money on him being able to lace them without help. Which was useful information, because this man knew Coe wasn’t a tourist. Sometime soon, that was going to have to be acknowledged.

Coe couldn’t see far into the barn, and there might have been any number of others in there, huddled quiet as mice, or their corpses stacked like firewood.

Best all round would be if he left now and regrouped with the others, but that option had been removed from the table. There was no way this guy was going to let Coe walk away, ridiculous boots or not.

The real question was whether he had a gun.

Well, thought Coe, maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. The answer wouldn’t be long in coming. And some moments you just arrived at, he supposed. His desk in Slough House seemed very far away. But sitting there would be another route to the same destination in the long run.

He rubbed a cheek grown numb in the cold and said, “You’re Cyril, right?”

“I’m not wearing that scuzzy thing,” Emma Flyte had said, and meant it. A white puffa jacket, visibly torn at the breast, and overdue a launder. “Why would you think I would?”

“Because they’re looking for a blonde in a dark overcoat.”

Emma wasn’t convinced a swap would help, though conceded that her disinclination to wear white came into it.

Whatever: more important things.

She left Louisa at the shed and headed towards the town, creaky at the joints. She hadn’t slept more than ten minutes, and was reminded of her early days in the Met, when a shift-change would skew her rhythms. But that hadn’t killed her. Then again, she hadn’t been evading armed men, or not often. The track wasn’t wide, and she kept to the middle to avoid snagging on upright brambles. To her left, through the trees, she caught glimpses of the estuary, slowly blanketing under snow. And then the track swung through a thicker patch of trees, and she lost it.

The road wasn’t far. Five minutes? But she hadn’t encountered anyone yet, the snow keeping people indoors.

She’d need to find someone, though; ask where the police station was, unless she got lucky, and it was bang in the middle of the High Street. Failing that, she could revisit the graveyard and retrieve her mobile. Even if the Park had thrown a towel over the birdcage, Devon Welles would take her calls . . . That’s what it had come to, she reminded herself. Jobless, out of favour, and relying on Mates’ Rules for back-up. Something Louisa had said came to mind.

Like it or not, you’re a slow horse now.

Yes, well. We’ll see about that.

A man rounded the corner ten yards ahead, coming her way.

One of the bad guys.

She kept walking, because the alternative was to turn and run, or plough through the undergrowth and end up draped across a bush like so much laundry. Besides, this one hadn’t laid eyes on her before; would be working from whatever description the man she’d put down last night had fed him, but already his eyes were narrowing, and it might just be that he had a thing for blondes, or he might be computing information. Either way, it was best to derail him.

She slapped her hand on her thigh and whistled so loudly he flinched.

“Seen my dog?”

“What kind?” he asked, closing the gap between them, but before she could invent a breed his fist slammed into her cheek.

Emma’s head filled with static.

The ground was harder than it looked.

Frank said, “So you found me.”

“Looks like.”

“Not that I made it difficult. A hire car? I mean, Jesus, son. Did you wonder why I didn’t just get hold of a biplane and drag a banner behind me?”

River said, “Every time I get one up on you, you make it sound like that was your plan all along.”

“It’s called parenting.”

Even in the snow, the whitewashed backdrop of the coastal sky, River could see Frank’s grin; his American teeth just another shade of white.

He gestured in the direction Frank had come. “Louisa’s not back there, then,” he said. “In whatever it is. A shed?”

“A byre, I think they call it.”

“Whatever, you’re still looking for her. And the boy.”

“Unless I left them dead. You want to go check?”

River shook his head. “If you’d killed them, you’d not come back the same way. Bad tradecraft.”

“Ah, that’s adorable. Listening to words like that in your mouth, it makes up for everything I missed when you were a kid. Like hearing you go brrm brrm when you played with a car.”

River ended up in the Thames last time Frank got him mad. Probably best not to get riled now.

He said, “I thought you had principles. Stupid, misguided, lunatic principles, but still. But now you’re a hired gun, right? The kid Louisa was looking for, you’re looking for him too. What did he see?”

Frank laughed. “What he saw, River, he was asking fifty grand to keep quiet about. You think I’m gonna tell you for free?”

“So that’s your job. You’re saving someone fifty thousand pounds.”

“Jesus, listen to yourself. I cost more than that, son. I’m not saving anyone anything. Except the trouble of doing this themselves.” He crossed his gloved hands across his chest and slapped himself, scattering snowflakes. “Don’t ever let anyone take a piece of what’s yours, because they’ll always come back for the rest. Basic rule of business.”

“And that’s what you are now? A businessman?”

“Means to an end. I’m still fighting the good fight, River. It’s just, I have to fight a lot of bad ones too, to pay the bills. We’re not all on the government tit.”

He moved a step closer saying this.

River sighed, and pulled out the gun Lamb had given him.

Frank did his best to look shocked. “Seriously?”

“Whatever you’re holding, take it out very carefully and toss it over the edge.”

“There are seals down there. You want to give them a loaded weapon?”

“If it makes you feel better, leave the safety on.”

Frank grinned again, wider than before. Then he unzipped his parka a notch, and slipped a hand inside.

He let it stay there longer than River was comfortable with.

“Frank,” he said, “let’s be clear about something. If I have to shoot you dead, I’m willing to do that.”

“We need to talk about your boundaries, son.” But he withdrew the hand, and with it what looked to River like a Glock, a match to his own. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Frank lofted the gun to his left, and it disappeared over the cliff edge. River didn’t hear a splash, but hadn’t expected to.

It was a long way down.

Frank said, “Your mother’s looking well, by the way.”

“Leave her out of this.”

“That’s the trouble with this family. Lack of communication. Never did tell you I was sorry about the old man, did I?”

“You’re not.”

“Yeah, that’s the reason I didn’t tell you. You talk to me about principles? One day you should take a long hard look at what your grandpa got up to. That’ll complete your education in a hurry.”

He came another step closer.

“Near enough,” said River.

“You planning on shooting me?”

“I haven’t ruled it out.”

“So that’s your back-up. What’s plan A look like?”

“You come back with me to London.”

“What, to ‘answer charges’?”

River said, “Last time you showed up, I lost a colleague.”

“I know about your colleagues, son. You should be thanking me.”

“Stop calling me that.”

Frank shrugged. “I can stop. Doesn’t alter the facts, River—and by the way, ‘River’? I just want you to know I had nothing to do with that. I’d have called you Jack, or Steve. But anyway, River? We’re getting to the point where we have to make choices. Because I’m not going back to London with you, and I’m not gonna let you shoot me. So, you know. Crunch time.”

“How many people do you have?”

“You think I’m gonna tell you that?”

River fired. The bullet churned snow an inch from Frank Harkness’s foot: to tell the truth, River hadn’t been sure he’d miss. But at this stage in his growth and personal development, he wasn’t bothered if he shot a few of his father’s toes off.

“Jesus Christ!”

But he sounded impressed.

River said, “How many?”

“Three,” said Frank. “Happy now?”

“Where?”

“Two down by the estuary and one right behind you.”

River fired again.

“Will you stop doing that?”

Truth was, he wasn’t sure. Now he’d started shooting at his father’s feet, the temptation was to move up to his knees.

Frank said, “I have three guys. You already know that, I’m sure. And none of them will walk up to you with open arms, like I just did. Now, can I ask you something? How much is the rent on that shitty flat you’re in? On the shitty side of London?”

“What?”

“Simple question, son. You’re busting your nut for a job that’s given up on you. You earn fuck-all and you’re going nowhere. I told you that a year ago, and you’re still at it, doing the scut-work and living off crumbs. I’m surprised your mother hasn’t had words with you, tell the truth.”

River said, “And yet, I’m the one pointing the gun.”

“Ah, shit, the only reason Lamb’s let you off the leash is ’cause he wants a piece of me, right? Otherwise you’d be back in your kennel, filling out forms, and going home to a fucking hovel. You’re never going back to the Park, River. Has that penny not dropped? You’re never going back, and you’re always going to be earning shit money doing brain-numbing work. Unless you open your eyes and start grabbing some opportunities.”

“What, like hunting down children?”

“I won’t lie to you. Some jobs stink worse than others. But you want to make the world a safer place, right? Because you’re not doing that in Slough House. All that’s for is keeping a few idiots off the streets. And you’re better than that, we both know it.”

River said, “You’re offering me a job? Are you out of your fucking mind? The reason I’m here is to keep you from doing what you’ve been paid to do. To murder a kid, remember?”

“One job out of many. Couple months back, I got to take some really bad actors off the board, and I mean really bad. And those guys won’t be wiring any bombs again, you can trust me on that. So sure, every so often, I have to get my hands dirty. But not all that dirty. This kid, he’s just looking for an easy score. He’s hardly an angel.”

“Okay, great. Let’s find him and shoot him in the head.”

“Come on. I’d never make you do anything you’re not comfortable with. And besides, all this, it’s a means to an end, son. All I’m after is some stake money. Get back to my real job.”

“Which is making the world a safer place.”

“And not doing it from a shitty flat on the shitty side of London.” Frank shrugged. “The money’s out of this world. Just saying.”

River gave this some thought, was disconcerted to discover that the idea of earning serious money wasn’t entirely unwelcome, and eased his conscience by shooting Frank in the foot. Or in the boot anyway, taking the tip of his Quechua off. Frank needed a cobbler more than a doctor, but still: the look on his face made River rich for a second.

He said, “That was my final answer, if you were wondering.”

“That’s a shame. Because it was my final offer.” Frank balanced on one foot for a moment, while he examined the damage. There was no blood River could see, which would have made it an excellent shot had he been as scrupulous in intent as in execution. As it was, blind lucky was probably the phrase.

Frank planted his foot on the ground once more, and looked to his left again. “Long way down,” he said.

Then he made his move.

Shirley had slipped through the trees, negotiated a stile half submerged in a snowdrift, and was now round back of the barn, if barn was what it was. She’d had in mind a wooden structure, and this was brick; but that aside, it ticked the right boxes, smelling bad and being nowhere. There were voices, too; a low mumbling exchange whose words she couldn’t make out. Didn’t sound like Louisa, but Louisa, if Shirley were honest, had never been top of her search list. If Frank Harkness were in the area, that was different. Harkness hadn’t actually pulled the trigger on Marcus, but he’d aimed and loaded the gun. And Shirley didn’t have a gun herself, but if Harkness was using this would-be barn as a hideout, she wasn’t going to let him walk away.

Somewhere inside her, a voice, not unlike Marcus’s, was pointing out what a bad idea this was.

And given time, she’d have listened. That was the thing about Marcus: he could be convincing, when he wasn’t pouring his life savings into the nearest fruit machine. And he knew a thing or two about action, having spent the upward-trajectory part of his career kicking down doors and shouting threats. So he’d have thought twice about wandering into a potential combat zone with nothing in his hands except that tingly feeling you get when your fingers are freezing.

On the other hand, consider the source. Marcus was dead, which, if it didn’t nullify every opinion he’d ever had, made him easier to ignore.

At least find a stick.

She looked around. No sticks as such, but the stile had a loose plank, which she made looser without much difficulty. If it was a little unwieldy in her hands—too short, too thick—imagine how much more so it would be in your face. That was a rejoinder to Marcus, who’d just sighed, unless it had been the wind in the trees. The voices inside the barn had continued uninterrupted. Just a quiet burble, as if a strategy were being discussed, or orders delivered. And meanwhile snow was falling, and here she was, on her own, with a chunk of wood in her hand. The sensible thing would be to stay hidden until whoever it was emerged, and if it were the Annex C team, as identified by J.K. Coe, to track them from a distance until she was able to reconnect with the others.

And not, for example, try to get the drop on them before they realised she was here.

Because that would be a good way to get killed. One Shirley; at least two bad guys. Not impossible odds, but unlikely to attract the clever money. On the other hand she still had accelerants surfing through her veins, and even without that stimulus, recognised the moment for what it was; one of those that never failed to light her candle. Brief bulletins from her past flashed to mind: capsizing a klieg light onto a parked van; firing a volley of bullets into a derelict building. Standing with her back to a church door while a crowd pressed forward, nearly crushing her to death. Anything could have happened to her by now. Those were only some of the things that had. And you never knew what was coming next.

And besides, a blaze of glory would do her fine. It wasn’t like there’d be universal grief if she never came back. A few Hoxton bartenders would miss her, along with some coke-dealing bouncers, but Shirley had been sharing her bed with an unslept-in space for too long, and there’d be no one waiting up for her key in the door. And anyway: shut up. Frank Harkness might be a badass, but Shirley was no girl guide. And there were times when an inability to manage anger had an upside.

Okay, Marcus, she whispered. Partner. Let’s see how much dust we kick up this time.

Stubby length of wood in her hand, Shirley edged round the barn towards the front.

The ground had been harder than it looked, but she was off it now. She’d been expecting a kick in the ribs but he’d been relatively gentle, if you didn’t count the punch in the head. Instead he’d produced a gun and crouched next to her, barreling it into her neck. From a distance, you’d assume she’d tripped and he was offering aid.

“Where’s the kid?”

Emma shook her head.

“We both know how this goes. You don’t want to tell me, and I don’t want to hurt you. But at least one of those things will happen. Let’s not make it both.”

She thought that was pretty good for what sounded like a second language.

Her hands were pressed against the cold earth. She tried to grasp a handful, because every weapon counts, but it was too hard, too compact.

He said, “Let’s try this. You decided to split up. You were going for help? So I know they’re back there, the way you came. Take me to them. This can all be over really fast.”

She shook her head.

He said, “It’s only the boy we’re after. I don’t even have to kill him. Just convince him he made a mistake in pretending he saw something, whatever it was. You want to hear something funny? I don’t even know what. Not my business.”

It would all have sounded a lot more reasonable without the gun poking into her neck.

“What do you say?”

She shook her head.

He sighed, and dropped the relatively gentle approach, banging the side of her head with the weapon so that Emma saw flashes: lightning brightening the trees, as if an angel were passing. But the light faded, and no heavenly messenger arrived. Pity. A flaming sword would have been nice.

“I can keep this up for longer than you,” he said. “Nobody’s coming. Don’t kid yourself about that. The place is deserted.”

Emma’s mouth had filled for some reason. Head trauma. Side effect. Little phrases, mostly relevant. She wanted to spit, but had to swallow. It didn’t taste like blood.

“One more time. Where is he?”

It was probably worth being hit again.

In the event, it didn’t feel like it.

The way Anton saw it, the clock wasn’t so much running as sprinting—if they didn’t find the kid soon, it wouldn’t be a matter of keeping him quiet so much as buying his memoirs in paperback.

One kid, two women. It shouldn’t have turned into Stalingrad.

He was in his second barn, and finding no sign of recent habitation. The first had been occupied, but only by a local woman and some of her cows: she’d been perturbed to see him, but not because he was a strange man on a violent mission; rather because it was snowing and he looked lost. Did he need feeding? For a moment, the possibility of a different life had floated before Anton, as if a doorway had appeared in the snow: he could step through it and enter a different existence. But none of that was really in the cards, so he just said something about needing to get back, and crossed that barn off his list.

And now he was in this one, and it didn’t look so different except for being empty. It contained an animal smell, though, as if it too had recently sheltered cows. He wondered where they were now. And then reached for his phone to check in with Lars, but stopped halfway.

A noise outside, round back.

He eased his gun free instead, and stood with his back to the wall by the side of the open doors.

Louisa said, “Okay, time to go.”

Lucas stood in the doorway of the shed, and looked out on the world as if it had just got bigger.

“Aren’t we waiting here?”

It seemed safe to him because they’d spent hours here. Anywhere you slept unharmed became sanctuary. But if the men looking for them had any kind of plan, it would involve checking places off a list, and they’d only be looking in those places they hadn’t searched yet. Louisa could have told him this, but didn’t think it would help. What Lucas needed was instructions; the knowledge that somebody else was in charge.

“No. We’ll go further along the estuary. If they come this way, it’ll most likely be from the other direction.”

From the town, she thought. The way Emma had gone.

“Maybe there’ll be people there,” he said.

There might, but Louisa had the feeling civilian cover wouldn’t offer much protection. Just a larger set of targets.

“Come on.”

She was shivering—they both were—but decided that was a good sign. If they weren’t, it would mean they’d grown numb. Numb wasn’t good. Creaky wasn’t great, but she could live with it. Or hoped to have the opportunity to do so.

Hunger, that was the big thing.

She scooped snow from a low branch in passing and ate or drank it, making each individual tooth in her head complain, but at least she wouldn’t die of thirst.

“That’s kind of disgusting,” Lucas said.

“. . . Seriously? All that’s happened these last few days, and me eating snow is disgusting?”

“Trying to keep my standards up,” he muttered, reminding her unbearably of Min.

The pair reached the track and checked both ways. No one in sight.

Coat flapping round her knees, Louisa led the way.

A bird’s eye view would have offered this: two dark figures scrambling on a carpet many shades of white.

The bird wouldn’t have been interested, though. The bird wouldn’t have been out in this weather.

Frank had moved faster than River expected, even given previous experience. And he had moved slower than he should have done, which Frank might have been banking on; that some bone-deep instinct would stay his finger. Most boys didn’t shoot their fathers. Most fathers, too, wouldn’t have known to feint before lunging; River’s bullet tugged at Frank’s sleeve before spending itself harmlessly over the sea, and then River was on his back, Frank on top of him, pinning his gun arm down, forearm across his throat, and trying to push his knee up into River’s crotch.

“Let go of the gun, kid.”

“Fuck . . . you.”

With his left fist he tried to batter Frank’s head, but couldn’t get a direct shot: the arm across his throat was blocking his shoulder too, weakening his punches. Frank smiled through them, or bared his teeth anyway; absorbing the damage. Watch and learn, son. The unspoken words were on his breath.

“Be easier on both of us . . .”

River’s vision was fading to black; dark spots exploding into other, smaller spots. He should have shot Frank while he had the chance. It might not be what the O.B. would have done, but his mother wouldn’t have batted an eye.

He moved his lips. Mouthed words.

“I can’t hear you . . .”

He tried again.

“Still can’t hear you.”

He tried again:

“. . . Dad . . .”

Frank moved closer, to catch River’s drift.

River bit his ear.

For moments there was crazy confusion: he could breathe again, but was breathing in blood. And then he was rolling, but not quite free; each locked in the other’s embrace, and at last River got something like a decent punch in, and felt his father’s cheek beneath his fist, and then felt something else: a swift and sudden moment of release.

A bird’s eye view would have offered this: two dark figures scrambling on a carpet many shades of white.

And then only one.

Without admitting he was Cyril, the soldier shifted his weight one foot to the other, and tilted his chin. He scanned the path behind Coe, checking for reinforcements. Then said, “Didn’t figure you were a walker.”

“I’m on my own,” said Coe. “Anyone in the barn?”

Cyril shook his head slowly.

“But you’ve seen them.”

Cyril said, “You’re with the woman? She caught me a good one with a fucking monkey wrench.”

“I wish I’d seen that.”

Cyril pointed to a mark on his temple, more black than blue. “That right there. I was slurring words the rest of the night.”

“You still are, a bit.”

“I should get my head seen to.”

Coe nodded.

“But you know what it’s like, out in the field.”

“I’m not really a field man,” Coe admitted.

“The boss said something, Slough House? That you lot?”

Coe nodded.

“Said you were a bunch of rejects.”

“That’s harsh. But fair. And you’re a mercenary, right?”

Cyril shrugged. “It’s a living.”

“Pay well?”

“Yeah, it’s good. But sometimes there’s months between jobs, you know? You have to budget.”

“Hard to get a mortgage,” Coe suggested.

“Well, I move around a lot, anyway.”

“Still, it’s an investment. Thought about buy-to-let?”

“I’m a mercenary. Not a pirate.”

This was a good point.

“Anyway,” said Cyril. “You wouldn’t want to live where my sort of work is.” He looked around. “Here’s not bad, mind. You like the countryside?”

Coe shrugged.

Cyril said, “You should give it a try, man. Air’s a lot better, know what I’m saying?”

“There’s shit everywhere, though,” Coe said. “And I gather they have diversity issues.”

“No, that’s true.”

They stood for a while, gazing out across snow-laden fields; pretty much everything white—barring Cyril—as far as the eye could see. A bird of prey was hovering, one black smudge, and just for a second Coe wondered what that was like—to balance on the wind, and track your prey from an aerial distance. Drop on it from a direction it barely knew existed.

A lot to be said for an ending you couldn’t see coming.

He said, “Just out of interest, what did the boy do? That made it necessary for you lot to come after him, I mean?”

Cyril said, “We don’t get a prospectus, man.”

“Right.”

“It’s just a job.”

“Right.”

A gust of wind had snowflakes dancing in front of Coe’s eyes.

“I’m not saying that makes me blameless or anything.”

Coe didn’t have an answer for that.

They stood a short while longer, each lost in thought, but that obviously couldn’t last forever.

“Well,” Cyril said at last. “We should probably get on with it.”

He sounded genuinely sorry.

“Guess so,” said Coe.

His hand dropped to his pocket for his blade.

“Where?”

Emma Flyte’s thoughts were rattling round her head, loosened by the last two blows.

“Won’t ask again . . .”

There was something of the war zone about it. A forest track, if a tame one. Snow falling, if British snow. And this man versed in brutality; in regarding others as damage waiting to happen.

“. . . Shed,” she said.

They’d have gone by now. That was the plan. Emma would head back to town; Louisa and Lucas would move further along the estuary.

“Where?”

She pointed.

The man hauled her to her feet, while what people called stars buzzed at the outskirts of her vision. She’d been punched before: it was never good. This felt worse.

He grabbed her by the collar, turned her round. Force-marched her back the way she’d come.

Emma could feel his gun in her back; a harsh metal reminder of where power lay.

But Louisa and Lucas would be gone by now, she thought again. And the morning was moving on: even here, there’d be people appearing. Walking dogs, taking exercise. Even here, even in the snow.

Not that people would help. Not civilians; unarmed innocents.

“How far?”

She shook her head: didn’t know. Time was elastic after you were thumped in the head. Minutes twisted round each other, and hid in each other’s pockets.

In her pockets.

Stones.

There were stones in her pockets, which she didn’t remember putting there. But of course, they weren’t her pockets.

Maybe we should swap coats.

“I’m not wearing that scuzzy thing,” Emma had said, and meant it. A white puffa jacket, visibly torn at the breast, and overdue a launder. Not her usual look.

On the other hand, Louisa had had a point . . .

“Come on. Faster.”

Emma moved faster, but stumbled deliberately and fell to her knees. Let him think she was already finished.

Instead of hauling her up this time, he took a step backwards.

“Do that again, I’ll assume you’re faking. Is that what you want?”

What she wanted was a moment—half a moment—where his attention was elsewhere.

“I fell,” she said thickly. Her voice was not her own. “That’s all.”

“On your feet.”

Something slumped to the ground a few yards behind them, but he didn’t even blink.

Snow, dropping from high branches in response to a gust of wind.

Climbing to her feet, she slipped a stone from her jacket pocket. In her hand it felt seamless, egg-shaped, brilliant. One of nature’s pointless perfections, smoothed by time.

It wasn’t the weapon she’d choose to face an armed man with, but in the absence of anything else, it was a comfort.

“Let’s go.”

She’d expected a prod from his gun, but he was keeping his distance now.

Emma started walking, her legs genuinely wobbly. Partly because of the blows she’d taken, but partly, too, for fear. This man’s job was to eliminate witnesses. He might have been sent here for Lucas, but his brief had expanded now.

She thought about last night, and the moment in the graveyard. Bringing her pursuer down, and the bare second she’d spent wondering whether to go for his gun. She’d decided it was too dangerous: pity. It would have been good to have it now.

Instead of this stone, so smooth, so feeble.

In real life, Goliath crushed David every time.

But don’t think of that.

One half moment where his attention was elsewhere . . .

“It’s just up ahead,” she said.

And then the man’s phone rang.

The stubby length of wood in her hand, Shirley edged her way round the barn. Still there came that murmur of voices, like something heard on the edge of sleep, or a rumour of distant weather.

Something slipped into her eye, and she blinked it away. A snowflake.

It was odd to be here, but that was okay. It was odd to be anywhere, really. You just got used to some places faster than others. Like any slow horse, Shirley hated Slough House, but had grown accustomed to it too. You had to accept that you belonged somewhere, and it wasn’t up to you where that was. Memories weren’t optional, any more than fate. Marcus had died in Slough House and it was possible she’d die here, on a snow-blown Welsh hillside, checking out a bloody barn. Of course, she could just duck and cover, wait until the danger, if that’s even what it was, passed along, but if hiding were in her blood she’d not be here in the first place. Things were what they were. And she couldn’t be different now.

Her blood was tickling in her veins. Partly the speed doing its job; partly the knowledge that she was out here on the edge.

Capsizing a klieg light onto a parked van.

Firing bullets into a derelict building. . .

Moments when she knew she was alive, largely because people around her were trying to change that.

The voices stopped.

Perhaps they’d heard her. Hard to move silently through packed snow, so perhaps they’d heard her, which meant Shirley had to sacrifice stealth for speed, because once you thought someone might be sneaking up on you, you didn’t forget about it in a hurry, and they’d be ready for her, another two seconds they’d be swords drawn. So she ran, as best she could, carting the lump of wood two-handed like a rifle, and Marcus would be proud of her if he could see her now; Marcus would think she was a bloody idiot, but still, he’d be proud of her, taking the fight to the enemy; who was, it turned out, a young woman in a donkey jacket and wellies, reaching up for a transistor radio on a hook; the look on her face one of amusement rather than alarm, as if energetic strangers were part of her morning round. In the darkness behind her Shirley could make out the heavy shape of animals, fed and resting among straw; warmth radiating from them in industrial waves.

The young woman shook her head. “Look at you, where did you spring from? You must be freezing!”

Shirley couldn’t speak, but found herself nodding.

“Cat got your tongue? You’re another lost one, aren’t you? My second this morning.”

She dropped the transistor into her jacket pocket.

“Well, I’m all finished here. And you look like you could do with a slice of toast, am I right?”

Well, Shirley reflected, if this wasn’t death, it might at least be heaven.

“You are,” she said. “I’m starving.”

“Come on, then.”

Shirley tossed the lump of wood aside, and followed her saviour.

It didn’t, in the end, take half a moment.

“What?” the man said into his phone and Emma moved; her fist, clamped round the stone, heading towards his face; her elbow angled to knock his gun arm aside in the same movement. Muscle memory suggested she’d done this before; wearing sweats, on a padded mat. A risky move, but they were the only kind available; he wasn’t going to let her go, not now she’d had contact with Lucas. I don’t even have to kill him he’d said, but not in the expectation she’d believe him. Simply because some things always got said; some lies needed the light.

Punch him in the face.

Knock his gun arm aside.

Some of this happened, but not enough.

No special noise was involved; Emma heard not much more than a cough. That, and the overhead branches sawing each other in the wind, and the soft whumps their burdens of snow made when they laid them down. The sound winter sunlight makes when it passes through dead leaves.

And then nothing.

She supposed she’d get used to wearing Emma’s coat sooner or later; probably around the time Emma wanted it back.

Unless Emma fell in love with Louisa’s own white puffa, of course. Never too late to change your image.

Lucas was pulling ahead; not quite walking fast, more like running slowly. Which presupposed that safety lay ahead, whereas all Louisa was confident of was that danger lay behind.

“Lucas . . .”

“What?”

“Let’s take it easy.”

In case they had to make a sudden reversal. In case they found themselves walking into the other half of a pincer movement.

She wasn’t sure how much more she could manage. Her safe, secure little flat felt a long way away; its bed and fridge like details from a fairytale.

Way behind her, out of sight along the wooded track, she thought she heard something: a snapping branch, a breaking limb.

And then they were in daylight; ahead of them the estuary, broadening as it greeted the sea, and to their left a steep hill, lumpily white, up which there must be a footpath, because Louisa could make out a stile at the bottom, underneath a signpost loafed with snow. That would lead up to the coastal path. Descending the hill now, trudging carefully, was a bundled-up figure using a stick. And ahead of them was a building; a pub, its wooden sign flapping in the wind. A single car had been there some time, judging by its rich crop of snow. The pub wouldn’t be open, but the car suggested there might be someone inside. And Louisa would pay way over the odds for a sandwich, a cup of coffee.

Beyond the pub, on the far side of a low harbour wall, was an expanse of shingle, daubed with seaweed and torn bits of netting. Slushy-looking snow formed turrets at intervals, but mostly the shingle was just wet . . . More stones, Louisa thought, remembering those she’d slipped into her jacket pocket earlier. A little surprise for Emma, there.

A couple stood on the beach, throwing a ball for a spaniel just this side of hysteria. Its ears flapped like a loose-fitting cap.

“Can we go in there?” Lucas asked. He meant the pub.

“Hope so.”

They reached a gate which marked the end of the estuary path. It was hooked to its fence by a loop of tired red rope, and as Louisa released it she looked again at the figure making its way down the cliff path. Hard to tell how far away, with the snow. The usual reference points had been whitened out. But something about the way he moved was familiar; the shape of his body, or his outline . . . It was River Cartwright, she realised. River, descending to the shore. How the hell had he got there? Though the answer was immediate and fully formed: he’d come looking, once she’d gone dark. A thrill of gratitude washed through her, along with a wave of affection for River stronger than she’d known before, and she’d have run towards him if Lucas weren’t here; would, at least, have waved her arms above her head in greeting, had she not changed her mind in that same moment: the man was too broad in the shoulders to be River, unless he was just bulked out by the parka he was wearing, but no, he wasn’t; he was familiar, and River-like, but he wasn’t River.

He was Frank Harkness.

She said to Lucas, “We need to go back the way we came.”

“. . . Why? What’s happened?”

“Don’t make it obvious. Let’s just look at our watches, then turn round and head back.”

“It’s that man, isn’t it?”

“Don’t look at him, Lucas. Don’t draw attention.”

“But we’d be safe in the pub!”

They wouldn’t. Not if it was Frank Harkness.

Louisa made a show of looking at her wrist and shaking her head; a small pantomime probably illegible from where Harkness was, even if he were studying them and not watching his own footsteps. But it had to be done, just as she had to tap Lucas on the shoulder, and point back the way they’d come. She let the red loop drop around the fencepost again, and the pair turned and walked back towards the wooded estuary path. They’d wait until they were sheltered by trees before picking up their pace, putting as much distance between themselves and Harkness as they could.

Which meant moving towards whatever might be coming the other way.

Lars stepped out from the trees and glanced back. Covered with snow and leaves and loose branches, the woman’s body still looked like what it was: a woman’s body, covered with snow and leaves and loose branches. Shit.

But it was done. The choice was to carry on the way she’d been leading him and see if he could find this shed, or admit the job had just gone to hell and regroup, leave. Harkness wouldn’t be happy, but that didn’t mean he’d disagree. Sometimes, you cut your losses.

He looked at his phone, to see whose call had caused this mess, and rang back, talking as he walked.

Anton said, “It’s a waste of fucking time. They could be anywhere.”

“I found the woman. The second one.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Lars, his flat delivery filling in gaps.

It occurred to him he’d already made his choice: he was walking back towards the town. Away from the body.

Regroup; leave.

“What about the kid?”

“I think we’ve missed the moment.”

Up ahead, he could hear noises, a group of people it sounded like, and he remembered the couple he’d encountered earlier.

Great stuff.

“We might have a problem,” he told Anton, and rang off.

He’d found a stick, an actual walking stick, hung by its crook from a kissing gate, just before the footpath made its descent to the shore. How in hell, he wondered, did you forget your walking stick halfway to wherever you were going? Some kind of senior moment, he supposed, but hey: a stick would be damn handy, heading down to the shingled beach. There were signs warning you not to use the path in dangerous weather, and this counted, but if Frank Harkness had paid attention to warning signs, he’d either not have lived this long or be somewhere else entirely. One of those options betrayed some loose logic, but he was probably due a senior moment himself round about now.

Damn River . . .

He suspected half his left lobe was gone, but he’d done what he could with a handful of snow, and it was no longer bleeding. His parka was dark enough that you couldn’t see the gore. And his toes were sticking out of his boot, but he’d wadded up a handkerchief and patched the damage: all in all he looked a mess, but only when you got too close. In Frank’s experience that described about half the population, so he wasn’t too worried about it.

Snow was easing off but lay in abundance everywhere, and the natural dips and crevices underfoot were rendered smooth and wholesome by its blanket. On the beach below a couple were throwing a ball for their idiot dog, and emerging from the woodland alongside the estuary was another couple: a woman in a long dark coat and a young man, walking quickly, the boy throwing frequent glances over his shoulder. Harkness stopped, leaned on his stick and couldn’t help a smile. Sometimes, you didn’t need to go hunting. Sometimes you just had to drop anchor and wait with open arms. Louisa Guy was wearing a long dark coat, as if she were headed for another funeral. Yeah, well, life’s little ironies. He began walking again, each careful step probed beforehand with the walking stick.

He didn’t want any more accidents.

She thought Lucas might be near the end of his rope.

Which was fair enough; she was damn near down to her fingernails herself.

Frank Harkness was behind them. With any luck, somewhere ahead, Emma Flyte would be returning, accompanied by police.

But how a couple of unarmed Welsh bobbies would stack up against Harkness, she didn’t want to think about.

Their brief excursion into the outer air had been bewildering, bright and light. Back under the wooded canopy, everything felt damp and soul-sapping.

She was hungrier than she could remember ever being. Lucas—a teenager—must have felt worse.

And frightened.

“Who was he? Did you recognise him?”

“I’m just being careful. We can wait back here for Emma.”

“What if she doesn’t come back?”

“She’ll come back.”

Of that much, Louisa was sure. Whatever else was going on, Emma would do what she’d said she’d do.

Lucas didn’t answer, or not in words. But the noise he made was half whimper, half growl, like a dog that’s not yet been kicked once too often.

Louisa felt a pain tear up her side: a cramp. Oh god, not now. “I need to slow down,” she told him. “Give me a minute.”

“You’re the one who said to hurry!”

He was dancing up and down on the spot.

She took a deep breath, looked around. They’d already come past last night’s shed, hidden among the trees. Maybe half a mile further to town? She didn’t know. Distances were boomeranging in her mind; she’d spent days in strange country, and was losing her perspective.

“Come on!”

“Lucas,” she said. “Calm down. Take it easy.”

“They have guns!”

But it was no longer the middle of the night; no longer deserted. There was nobody in sight, but day was staking its claim. There’d been a couple down by the shore; Emma had seen a dogwalker earlier. The track was empty in both directions, but still: it held the possibility of people in a way that it hadn’t during the hours of darkness.

But she wasn’t sure that made total sense. No way was she going to try it out on Lucas.

Who had moved on a few yards. “Come on!”

Yes.

She moved on, but stopped again almost immediately, and looked to her right.

There, beneath a thick cluster of bushes.

It looked like a patch of snow, but how would snow work its way that deep, with all this overhead cover?

“Oh, fucking hell, what is it now?”

She said, “Stay there.”

“What are you—?”

But she tuned him out.

There were patches of snow either side of the track. There were occasional packets and parcels at head height and above, on top of bushes and nestling in the crooks of tree branches, but not in a lump on the ground, pulled almost out of sight of the path. Which meant it wasn’t snow. A shiver ran through Louisa despite the coat she wore—Emma’s coat—despite the competing sources of warmth: tension. Adrenalin. Fear. What might have been snow, but wasn’t, was her own white ski jacket. That information reached her in a sneaky, underhand way, taking root in her brain before her eyes had finished processing.

Tucked further out of sight, the earth scuffed up to cover blonde hair, was the body.

She’d thought she heard something: a snapping branch, a breaking limb.

A suppressed gunshot.

Emma’s eyes were open, but all life had fled.

Louisa heard movement behind her, and turned to find Lucas at her shoulder, wide-eyed with horror.

“Don’t look,” she said, but it was too late. And she might anyway have been talking to herself: don’t look, don’t see. Don’t know that you’ll be remembering this forever.

But Lucas had fled.

There were five of them; the original couple plus three more, all male, and looking for trouble in a way Lars was familiar with. You came off worst in a scuffle—couldn’t call it a fight—and first thing you did was round up a posse, plan a rematch with the odds on your side, as if that would make for a fairer result. Though it would, in fact, depend on the posse. Lars didn’t think this bunch would give him trouble.

There was Broken Nose himself, of course, who was basically used goods. The woman was there partly because he’d dragged her along, though essentially because of bad choices she’d made earlier in life. And there were three others, dressed for snow, but not enough to disguise their fatboy bodies: people civilians would make room for in a crowded bar, but who to Lars were a casualty ward logbook awaiting transcription: busted knee joints, fractured skulls, pulverised testicles. He even worked out the order he’d take them in. Broken Nose he’d save for last, and snap at least one of his arms.

But he didn’t do any of that. He’d stepped off the track when he’d heard them coming; had cut off his call with Anton and disappeared among the trees. Lars was good at this. He could stand next to a pair of oaks, and within a minute become part of the woodwork. That’s what it felt like, anyway. And if it wasn’t literally true, it was true enough to evade a bunch of fired-up village boys, who went stomping past without detecting his presence.

Once they were gone he rejoined the track and headed for town at a sprint. There was no telling whether those bozos would find the body—he hadn’t hidden it well, but nor had he erected a neon sign—but somebody would before long, and it would be wise to be on the road by then.

It didn’t look like they’d be taking home a pay packet, but there were worse fates.

He called Anton on the move, and told him to head back to the barn.

Then he rang Cyril.

Louisa went after Lucas.

There was nothing she could do for Emma, a voice inside her head offered; nothing that couldn’t be done just as well later. The voice meant well, but should fuck off.

Emma’s open eyes, Emma’s blonde hair. Emma’s chest wound, ensuring nobody would be swapping coats with her again.

But crying was for amateurs. Slow horse or not, Louisa was a pro, and losing Lucas now would mean Emma had died for nothing.

The kid had taken off like he had wings.

He’d headed towards town, which was good in one way, bad in another. Making for the coast would have put him in Harkness’s path. But the fact that they hadn’t met anyone coming towards them meant that whoever killed Emma had gone back that way too. So Lucas’s biggest danger was he’d overtake the man looking for him, and given his speed, you couldn’t rule it out.

None of which made for a comforting soundtrack as she ran along the path, its uneven surface sending dangerous messages up her legs, through her knees, every time her feet hit the ground.

Emma’s open eyes, Emma’s blonde hair.

Emma’s chest wound, ensuring nobody would be swapping coats with her again . . .

Her cramp was back, threatening to split her in two. Heart included.

But nothing hurt like guilt.

And now there were voices ahead, round a bend in the path.

She should have slowed and taken stock, or so the voice in her head remarked, but by the time she heard it she was already rounding the corner: there were five of them, four men and a woman, and they were straggled across the path as if formation had just been broken. By, for example—

“Did a boy just run past?”

“Is he with you? The little bastard—”

Louisa ran on.

Anton called Cyril too, but Cyril wasn’t answering.

The slack bastard might be taking another nap, but Anton, pocketing his phone, didn’t think so. Sometimes things didn’t just happen, they all happened at once. We might have a problem Lars had said, and problems bred like fucking mice. So maybe Cyril had run into one too . . .

So torch the barn.

All kinds of evidence there, if anyone got forensic about it.

The second place he’d checked out had been a wash: empty of life bar a loose plank creaking in the wind round back. Now he was walking down the middle of the road, not far from the crossroads where all this should have ended the first night, and there was still no traffic, except for an electric blue Ford Kia—that was definitely the name—which had ploughed into a ditch, and stuck out against the white background like a hitchhiker’s thumb. Tracks led from the accident up the snow-covered field, but there was no one in sight.

Not his problem.

They’d torch their own car too. Frank would have a back-up plan in place; if not, there was an escape and evasion kit taped behind the cistern in the Battersea flat of an ex-girlfriend of Anton’s. If he couldn’t make it that far, it was high time he found another line of business anyway.

And this looked like Lars now, in that very car; half a mile away, approaching the road from the town turn-off. He was making painfully slow progress, mimicking a camel’s rickety rhythm over the humped and pitted snow, but even so, he’d get back to the barn before Anton.

Good. That meant he could make a start on the clean-up.

And find out what happened to Cyril.

It was a scene from the Middle Ages, or a Swedish film.

Snow everywhere, and a body on the ground.

It lay in front of the barn doors, blood pooled around its head, as if someone had dropped a can of paint on it from a height, which was farcically unlikely. Its throat was as open as the barn behind it, and some doors, having been opened, can’t be closed. There was nothing to do but step through them. Ultimately, that’s what this one had done, though he appeared to have thrashed about on the threshold, unwilling to depart.

One of the Annex C characters, thought River Cartwright. Anton, Lars and Cyril. He couldn’t remember their full names. But one of them.

Not far away, sitting in the snow with his back against a tree, was J.K. Coe.

River went to join him.

When Frank had gone over the cliff, River had lain breathing heavily for maybe a minute, staring at an empty sky; a huge grey vault of untouchable space. He could still feel Frank’s grip on his upper arms, and was unsure of the sequence that had thrown him free. At last, though, he’d got up and approached the cliff edge. When he’d looked over, there’d been no sign of Frank. The drop wasn’t sheer, which didn’t mean Frank hadn’t ended in the water way below, and didn’t mean he wasn’t spread-eagled on the rocks, camouflaged by his parka. Alternatively, River supposed, he could be clinging on somewhere invisibly, or making his way, handhold by handhold, back up the steep drop, like a family-sized Tom Cruise. If so, River supposed he’d be seeing him again before long. Frank wasn’t one for a quiet exit.

He’d hunted about a bit, recovered his gun, and decided to head back inland, find Coe and Shirley. If Louisa and young Harper were hiding out along the coastal path, Frank would have found them. And if he’d found them, he’d have let River know: the man had been incapable of not making speeches. So this was another dead end. He’d walked back along the path, rejoined the road, and navigated his way to the turning Coe had taken; towards the first of the barns he’d identified on his map.

And here he was.

He sat next to Coe, and neither spoke for a long while, until River at last said, “Okay.” Then said it again, breathing it out slowly, making it a paragraph.

“O—kaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy . . .”

Then he closed J.K. Coe’s sightless eyes with his palm.

From a distance, Coe had looked peaceful, as if he were taking a rest after combat, his hands folded across his stomach. Up close, he had clearly been holding his stomach in. The knife—the other man’s knife, River guessed—lay on the ground beside him, staining the snow, and if an expert might have been able to choreograph the moments preceding this tableau, it was enough for River to know that Coe had won the battle, having made his way to this tree once the fighting was done. Though even a partisan view would have to admit that, long term, you’d have to call it a draw.

“I’m sorry,” he told his dead colleague, then went through his pockets, removing Coe’s ID and phone. Unlike River’s this still had some charge in it.

As if his looting had triggered an alarm, a phone in the other body’s pocket chose that moment to ring.

Emma was dead.

When Lucas arrived at the gate marking the end of the estuary footpath, instead of heading straight up to the High Street he veered left, along a lane skirting the town’s southern edge which a signpost warned led nowhere. He left a broad, scattered mess behind him in the shape of frightened tracks in the snow, but there was nothing he could do about that.

Emma was dead.

He’d explored this town a million times, on boring holidays. Had arrived every year hoping some major refurbishment had taken place—an amusement arcade, a multiplex, an international athletics stadium—and hunting for them had left him familiar with the tiny sidestreets, all the rubbish business premises. There was a garage along here; not a city-type garage, with a car showroom attached, but an oily little yard where a man in overalls tinkered with bits. His mum had brought the Skoda here once to have a tickling cough in its engine cured: the car had been left out on the lane for her to collect, its keys balanced out of sight on its onside rear wheel.

Emma was dead.

There was no escaping the rhythm of the thought: it was there in the heavy tread of his feet on packed snow, in the pounding of blood in his ears. Emma was dead. Lucas had met her for the first time just the previous night, but that had been long enough to cause her death, because that was the short brutal truth of it: Emma would still be alive if not for Lucas.

And Lucas, too, might be dead soon, because whoever was looking for him was out here somewhere in the snow.

There was a row of cars outside the closed-for-weather garage. Lucas wasn’t a great driver, technically wasn’t a driver at all, but he’d learned more failing two tests than most people learned passing one, and he could identify a rear onside wheel no trouble. He looked round before checking the first car. The lane curved, so he couldn’t see the footpath gate, but nobody had appeared from that direction, and he could see nobody watching from the back windows of the few houses.

The snow was deeper here, as was usual in unregarded spaces. It had gathered almost as high as the wheel arch; still, the keys were there, first time of trying. Perhaps there was something to be said for small-town life; for its reliable beat. Still nobody in sight. If Lucas could get the car to start, if he could drive it as far as the road leading up to the High Street: things would get easier. It was a more occupied area. It stood to reason the road surfaces would be clearer, have more traction; that there’d be fewer murderers around. He cleared the windscreen with his arm, and caused a minor avalanche opening the car door. No alarms went off. He dropped the keys, scrabbled about, picked them up, and managed to insert one into the ignition. It trembled a little, but did the job: Emma was dead but the motor was alive. Now what? Now he urged the car into motion, and nearly killed it leaving its parking space.

Most of the tracks headed up into town: the sane, the obvious direction. The alternative was a no-through lane, its lack of access heralded by a traffic sign on the corner. A single set of tracks led that way, presumably belonging to someone from one of the few houses.

Still, Louisa hesitated.

Lucas knew the town, knew its shortcuts and footpaths. Maybe there was a way round here; a cutting between houses that led . . .

Led where? Fucking Narnia? Any shortcuts led straight to the High Street, so on she went, up the hill, all her muscles aching now, and her cheeks numb with frozen tears.

When Lars arrived at the barn, his arse felt like he’d been taming a kangaroo, not driving a car, but that thought vanished before he’d jerked to a halt. Cyril lay out in front of the barn, and had either drowned in his own blood or marinated himself in it before giving up the ghost. Lars remembered Frank not giving him a gun: You made the naughty list. Try not to get hit by any more wrenches. Something sharper than a wrench had done this. Anything blunter would have taken ages.

There was another body too, under a tree. This one looked relatively peaceful, but equally dead. The chances of it being an innocent passerby who’d got into it with Cyril over illicit barn usage were not high. The average rambler wouldn’t have given even a concussed Cyril trouble. Lars went through the body’s pockets, and found no phone, no ID, which more or less proved he was spook. A citizen generally had a wallet, and always a phone.

Snow was mashed up everywhere, and the place looked like a polar bear’s picnic spot. Lars scanned for recent presence, but couldn’t tell one set of bootprints from another. A whole bunch led round back of the barn, but they’d all been taking dumps round there. Aside from that, everything came up or down the main track to the road.

But he didn’t have time to work it all through. He’d left one corpse behind already, and there were pissed-off locals stomping round the area. . .

Lars had made worse exits from nastier places, but that didn’t mean he could afford to hang around now. Pull the bodies into the barn and burn the place; the car too. It would be on search-lists soon. Couldn’t be too careful.

He was dragging Cyril across the snow when Anton arrived.

The handkerchief he’d field-repaired his boot with was soaked through, and he’d lost all feeling in his toes. The part of his brain that kept a running tally was worrying at this: his head was going to look lopsided with half an ear missing, but losing toes was way more significant if he didn’t want to walk with a limp evermore.

But another part of his brain, the part in charge of telling him to man the fuck up, was calculating how much of a lead his quarry had.

Frank was approaching the end of the estuary path; could see the road leading up to the High Street. It was smothered in snow, the cars lining one side comically behatted and bewigged, but there were figures carrying buckets, liberally strewing sand over the road surface. The town was coming alive. He’d already passed a group of locals on the path through the trees; they’d eyed him suspiciously but he’d replied with the hard stare, and no fuss had been made. But his presence had been noted. And would be again once he stepped onto the streets.

Had to be done, though.

He came through the gate, still using the walking stick he’d found earlier, still not admitting to himself how useful it was—he was too old to be scrambling up cliffsides; that was a job for young men and fools—and rested for a moment just short of the right-angled corner where the road dwindled into a lane. And that’s where he was when the car went past, bucking and slewing across the snow-packed surface like a drunk on a skateboard, with Lucas Harper at the wheel.

When the corpse’s phone rang, River had taken cover. Standard practice: if you were heading back to base, you let whoever was guarding know you were on your way, in case they got jumpy. Being jumpy was no longer in this guy’s future, but whoever was calling didn’t know that. There were bootprints leading round back of the barn and he followed them rather than make new ones, and though it quickly became obvious what the space had been used for, he had no time to find a better spot: the dead man’s phone rang again, and stopped, and a minute later a car made its laborious way up the snowed-on track.

Within the frozen smell of excrement River crouched, listening to an engine idle and cough and then stop altogether. Heard a car door open then shut. Imagined bitter breathing and angry eyes as whoever it was found his dead colleague, then J.K. Coe, under a tree, his insides partly out.

Whatever had haunted Coe these past years, he was safe from it now.

River eased the gun from his pocket.

Whoever it was stopped moving, as if weighing up options. River approved of the strategy—size up the situation before committing yourself—even if he’d be the first to admit it wasn’t one he generally adopted himself. He wanted to check the gun, see how many rounds he had left, but it would make too much noise: every snap, every wiggle, would magnify in the cold country air. Just holding it was noisy. And he could barely slip a finger through the trigger guard, but didn’t want to remove his glove yet, in case his hand froze before he needed it . . . And then more noise from out front: the guy had formulated a plan, which, by the sound of it, involved dragging the dead inside the barn.

He was halfway through this task when he was joined by someone else, arriving on foot.

One of them was Lars, he gathered from the greeting. J.K. Coe had identified them by name: Lars and Anton and Cyril. So Lars was upright, and either Anton or Cyril was dead. And Frank, of course, had gone over a cliff, but River would have been happier if it had been two cliffs. Frank wasn’t the kind to die quietly, and he’d barely made a sound when he’d dropped out of sight.

There were more sounds from inside now, mutterings in German, and noises of dragging and splashing. And then the car started up, and he assumed they were off, and thought: Okay, this is it. He checked his gun under cover of the engine: one round left. They’d be in the front seats, so he’d shoot the driver, bluff the passenger onto the ground. That depended on him arriving at the front end of the car before they left, so—

They drove the car into the barn and killed the engine.

River stopped moving.

Splashing noises, he thought.

He could hear the men going out front again, the stamping of boots, a murmur of speech.

The fizzing of matches.

I really shouldn’t be here, he thought.

Then the barn exploded.

Louisa reached the High Street, looked left, looked right, and saw no Lucas. She wondered if he’d returned to the cottage—a wounded animal move. Go back to what smelled familiar. He’d be hiding in that cupboard under the stairs, or under a duvet in a corner of the bedroom, or—

Or none of those places, because here he came, jackrabbiting up the street in a tortured car.

And behind him, on the pavement, Frank Harkness.

Others, too, because Lucas was making a splash. If he’d driven before, he hadn’t done so through snow, and was making the job of it you’d expect. The car wasn’t so much moving forward as undergoing a series of irregular detonations, and if the road hadn’t been gritted by staff from the nearby Healthcare Centre, would have either stalled completely or flipped by now. But whatever you called it, progress of a sort was being made, and Lucas hit a sudden spurt as he reached the turn-off to the Centre’s car park, where the snow was flattened through use, and approached the junction with the High Street at twenty miles an hour.

She saw Frank Harkness see her, and even at this distance—he was a hundred yards down the road—could tell there was something wrong with the shape of his head, but it wasn’t slowing him down. Here he came.

The people strewing grit had stopped to watch Lucas’s erratic performance, and one of them dropped a shovel and raised an angry fist—the car’s owner?

Beyond them, way down the bottom of the road, a woman had appeared through the gate to the estuary footpath. She was shouting, waving, summoning help, and Louisa thought Emma—Emma’s body had been found.

Lucas reached the High Street junction and ploughed straight on into a craft shop window.

Way off in the distance, maybe a mile out of town, a thin black plume of smoke spiralled skywards.

Much nearer than that, uniformed police officers were emerging from their station along the road.

Louisa was first to the crashed car, but only just. Onlookers had formed a cordon round the shop front almost before she’d checked that Lucas, though dazed, appeared unhurt.

One of the police officers approached, while the other pair went haring down the road towards the shouting woman, and the wood where Emma’s body lay.

Frank Harkness halted on the opposite pavement. He looked up the road, down the road, then focused on the tumult round the car. To Louisa’s eye, he was calculating odds.

Specifically, now, he was looking straight at Louisa.

The police officer was asking Lucas if he was okay, asking the assembled onlookers to move back, but Louisa ignored her and remained where she was, on the pavement next to the driver’s door, on a carpet of broken glass and snow.

She was wearing dead Emma’s coat, of course, and tapped its breast pocket slowly, never breaking eye contact with Frank.

I’m armed, she was lying. Don’t even think about it.

He stared at her for a full quarter minute, while all around the small crowd pulsed and wobbled. A siren was starting up somewhere: she guessed an ambulance.

And eventually Frank nodded, a minor tip of the head, then walked off down the road, his walking stick carried level with the pavement: a pointless accessory.

Louisa breathed out at last, and stepped away from the car.

“Explosion” was an exaggeration, but still: there’d been petrol involved, and plenty of timber.

While the barn burned, River lay in the snow against a hummock, feeling his back grow colder, his front warmer, and knowing that the two bad actors, Lars and whoever, were heading along the footpath to the coast. One bullet wasn’t going to be enough, not out in the open. And somewhere in the flames in front of him, or in the black angry smoke roiling into the sky, J.K. Coe was taking leave of the planet.

If they’d packed up and left the scene, it meant their job was done. Which meant Louisa and the boy, Min Harper’s kid, were presumably ticked boxes by now; their lives scored off the register.

He didn’t want to think about Louisa being dead.

For once, just once, he’d like an op that didn’t turn into some catastrophic clusterfuck.

He used Coe’s phone, because his own was out of charge, and called Shirley.

“Where the hell are you?”

“Who the hell wants to know?”

“It’s me. River.”

“Why’ve you got Coe’s phone?”

River said nothing.

Shirley said, “Shit.”

“Where are you?” he said again.

“Heading back to the main road,” she said, her voice quieter than normal. “There’s a fire up on the hill.”

“That’ll be me.”

The flames were still biting chunks out of the morning when he reached the road to find Shirley approaching on foot. Which didn’t bode well for Roddy Ho’s car, but, never high on River’s list of priorities, Ho’s vehicular welfare was even less a concern than usual right now.

Shirley was holding something wrapped in kitchen foil.

“What happened to Coe?”

River gestured with his head back up the hillside, to the burning barn.

She looked that way, and he couldn’t read the expression on her face. Sometimes, Shirley Dander was an ABC. The rest, she was lost in translation.

She said, “Did you find Harkness?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And?”

River shrugged.

“What about Louisa?”

“Don’t know yet.”

Shirley said, “Well. She might be okay.” Then she handed him the foil package. “Here. I got you this.”

“What is it?”

“Sausage sandwich.”

It was warm to the touch.

He said, “You only brought one? What was Coe going to eat?”

She didn’t reply, and he thought, yeah, right. She’d brought it for Coe.

After a while he rang Lamb, and gave him the story.

Martin Kreutzmer liked to read The Guardian, because it kept him in touch with that strain of self-lacerating smugness which hoped to inherit the earth, but would have no clue what to do with it. Peter Kahlmann, on the other hand—his primary cover—was a Daily Mail man through and through, locked in a constant tussle between resentment and prurience, and calling it victory either way. So it was the Mail that Martin—Peter—was reading in Fischer’s, looking for a story that wasn’t there. This was the most interesting kind. When a story was on the front pages you looked for the holes in the headlines, hoping for a glimpse of the truth they covered up. When the story dropped from view altogether, you wondered what diplomatic origami had been at work, folding the paper so it vanished between the creases.

So: a few days ago there’d been some drug-related killings in Pembrokeshire, which was in Wales—bodies in a burned-out barn, a dead woman in a wood. But the speed with which the story had evaporated made Martin suspect Spook Street activity; either an undercover frolic gone enthusiastically wrong, or something deeper. Wales wasn’t uncivilised, if you took a charitable view, but the dangerous edge of things was always closer than it looked. Martin had worked undercover, and like anyone who’d done time wearing the opposition’s coat he still woke sweating some nights, undone by the fear that he’d betrayed himself in some tiny way. You could be in your own home, your own bed, but there were bandit eyes on you always, and they never blinked, never looked away. After a while, you forgot that other people didn’t know this.

He shook his head to clear these thoughts, and was back in Fischer’s, on the foothills of Marylebone High Street, the Mail a rolled-up truncheon next to him; his lunch freshly delivered to the table.

“Some things few people get to witness, and most of them wish they hadn’t. Like jazz dancing. Or the pope’s sex face.”

A large man in a dirty overcoat had appeared out of nowhere.

“Or Martin Kreutzmer eating a salad.”

He dropped heavily into the seat opposite Martin, and fixed him with a malevolent glare.

Martin navigated a forkful of greenery into his mouth, and didn’t speak until he was ready. “Jackson Lamb,” he said at last. “It’s been a long time. Though not quite long enough.”

The waiter arrived. “Can I—”

“No.”

“We’re fine,” said Martin. “Thank you.” The waiter left, and he said, “There’s something different about you. Wait—I know. You got fat and old.”

“And you had a stroke.”

Martin nodded pleasantly, like a man doing ‘relaxed’ in charades. Only three people knew he’d had a stroke, or that was what he’d thought two seconds ago. It had been a minor thing, a slight tug on the curtain, but enough for a glimpse, if not of what lay beyond, at least of the fact that there was a beyond, and it wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe that’s why he’d been taking such relish in running Hannah Weiss. But it was also the reason he’d slowed down taking some of life’s corners.

“Which’ll be why you joined the salad-tossers.”

“It’s not a strict diet,” said Martin, who’d been known to order the schnitzel. “But I’m watching my cholesterol.”

“I can’t imagine what that’s like,” Lamb said. “Losing control of your bodily functions.”

He farted, presumably to demonstrate total dominance over his own.

An elderly couple two tables away stared in horror.

Martin Kreutzmer laid knife and fork aside. “Is this what passes for covert activities these days? No wonder they put you out to grass.”

“Is that what they did to me? I’ve been wondering.”

He reached across and plucked a crouton from Martin’s plate, examined it in what might have been curiosity, then put it back.

“Because it still feels like the Wild West some days. Especially when a bandit’s been branding my cattle.”

Martin used his fork to manoeuvre the crouton Lamb had been fondling, and the greenery it nestled among, to the side of his plate.

He hadn’t laid eyes on Lamb since Berlin, early ’90s, where Lamb had enjoyed all sorts of reputations, each of them circling one fixed point: you didn’t fuck with his joes. Years had gone by, a lot of water pissed into from different bridges, but Lamb had the look of a man whose fixed points stayed where he’d put them. And Martin, yes, had branded one of Lamb’s cattle. The fact that he’d done it to keep his own joe safe would melt no ice. Nor did he have to be aware of Lamb’s reputation to see the violence currently churning below his surface. “Current mood,” as the kids said: “fuck off and die.”

He said, “I always thought you’d end up running the Park. If they didn’t stick your head on a pike, that is.”

“They’re still sharpening the blade. And you’re changing the subject.”

“I haven’t crossed your borders, old man. Wherever those borders happen to be.” He speared a ribbon of cucumber with his fork. “I’m out of the game. Maybe you hadn’t heard.”

“You? Retired?” Lamb reached for another crouton, and this time put it in his mouth. “I’ve read more convincing lies on the side of a bus.”

“Maybe not entirely retired. But a mentoring capacity, you know?”

“‘Mentoring’? I have no fucking clue what that means.”

“No, well, there’d be little point in you trying to pass your skills on, Jackson. For a start, nobody’s sure what they are. And for another, they don’t mesh with current values, do they?”

Lamb spat the crouton into his hand. “For somebody who reckons they’re out of the game, you sound a lot like someone keeping score. Here, do you want this back? I’ve hardly touched it.”

Martin indicated a napkin, neatly folded beside an unused place setting. Lamb placed the soggy crouton on top of it.

“All things considered,” he said, “I’d sooner have a stroke.”

“A popular opinion, I’m sure. How did you find me, by the way? And don’t say Regent’s Park pointed a finger. The Park these days, it’s a kindergarten. Our generation could march past in full colours, they’d think we were an outing from a care home.”

“Speak for yourself. I walk past Regent’s Park, alarms go off.”

“It’s the same all over, mind. Broadcasting, light entertainment, even the clergy. It’s like we handed the world to the young.”

“Well,” said Lamb. “They’re cheaper, and they don’t rape the help as often. But hark at me interrupting. Please, continue talking shite.”

“I was simply making the point that being a dinosaur has its advantages. I’ve got used to not being recognised.”

“So you fell into a habit,” said Lamb. “Congratufuckinlations. That the sort of thing you teach your mentalists?”

“I think you mean mentees. But you make your point. You didn’t wander in here by chance.”

“Didn’t have to. An old friend marked your card a long time ago. And she never throws cards away.”

Understanding dawned. “Molly Doran,” said Martin. “How is she?”

“Well, her legs haven’t grown back, if that’s what you were wondering.”

“It happened in Berlin, didn’t it? Her accident. If that’s what it was.” Martin reached for his glass of water. “And she’s still at the Park. I didn’t know that.”

“They keep her in the basement.” A cigarette had appeared from somewhere, and Lamb was using it as a prop, balancing it on one finger; staring at its filter rather than looking at Martin. “And she owes me some favours. So I took her the name Peter Kahlmann, which is one that Lech Wicinski mentioned, and what do you know? Up you pop like a teenager’s dick. Because you’ve used the name before.” He let the cigarette drop into his palm. “That was careless.”

“Once only,” said Martin. “In ’93, it was. Visiting DC.” He shook his head. “She must have quite some database.”

“If by that you mean brain, yeah. Having fewer extremities helps. Less distance for the blood to travel. So Wicinski pins a tail on your old cover, and suddenly his laptop turns into a seventies DJ’s to-do list, which means nobody cares about what else he might have been looking at. And when he reaches out to have his findings double-checked, someone uses his face for needlework practice. You know what that sounds like to me, Martin?” He opened his palm. The cigarette had vanished. “It sounds to me like someone wanted to keep the focus away from the name Peter Kahlmann. In case anyone found out it was actually you.”

Martin laid his knife and fork together on his plate, in the accepted semaphore for completion. He said, “Sometimes we play nasty. Even the youngsters have to find that out.”

“Nice that there’s a moral attached. He’s got a face like a walking Parental Guidance sticker. Or did have, I should say.”

Martin paused. “What happened to him?”

“He finished the job you started,” said Lamb. “You like this place?”

“It has a pleasing pre-war feel.”

“Yeah. It opened in 2014. Are you ready for the bill or what? This thing’s not gunna smoke itself.”

On the street there was slush in the gutters, but the snow had mostly disappeared. Lamb lit his cigarette before they were out of the door. He took up a lot of pavement space, but Martin Kreutzmer, well versed in body language, could read between his lines: Lamb was deliberately moving large; making it implausible, to the casual observer, that he might ever move in any other fashion.

The churchyard opposite, a lunchtime haven for office workers, was empty because of the cold and the damp. As they circled it, Lamb halfway through his smoke already, Martin said, “I had heard about Slough House, but I hadn’t realised it would be so . . . insalubrious.”

“Uh-huh,” said Lamb. “It’s kind of grubby too.”

“Not the crowning glory I’d have expected, a career like yours.”

“Is this you making a pitch, Martin? Because you’ve all the panache of a schoolboy virgin.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like you’re taking me to the Park. So I wondered if you had some other kind of deal in mind.”

He hoped so, certainly.

You don’t fuck with Lamb’s joes.

“Besides, I’ve been reading fairy stories in the paper. Bodies burned in barns, that sort of thing. I suspect the Park has other things on its mind than whatever a semi-retired spook has been doing, even if he’s been doing it in London.”

That, anyway—or something like it—was what he’d planned to say, but he’d barely reached the word barn before he had another stroke. All feeling left him momentarily, and then came back again, focused on one small spot below his left lower rib. Lamb was holding him upright and lowering him onto one of the empty benches. A taxi sounded its horn, angry at some pedestrian infraction. Birds scattered. He managed to suck air into his lungs, and his vision cleared.

Lamb said, “You may have touched a sore spot there.”

It was implausible that he might move in ways that weren’t large and clumsy. But appearances were deceptive. It opened in 2014. The point Lamb had been making.

Lamb said, “You were burning a barn too, weren’t you, Martin? In a manner of speaking. To destroy evidence, or distract attention. Which is itself evidence, because it means you’re up to something and you don’t want anybody to know what it is. And you’re not worried about the Park. Bunch of kindergarteners, right? No, you’re worried what they’d say back home, which means you’ve gone over the edges, and when they discover what a bad boy you’ve been, well, your future might start looking as insalubrious as mine.”

He could feel the dampness of the bench seeping into his bones.

“They don’t even know about the stroke, do they? But they’ll find out.”

He thought about the sheer pleasure he’d taken in running Hannah.

“And then you’ll get to know what being out to grass feels like.”

The pain had subsided to a burnt-out filament. He said, “It’s nothing, Lamb. You’d laugh if I told you. It’s fun and games, that’s all.”

“I don’t care what it is. But you’ve run up a bill, and I’m calling it in.”

“I’m sorry about your joe. But I didn’t kill him.”

“It would be best if you didn’t talk about my joes right now.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to get a message to someone. He used to be on your books.”

“My books?”

“The BND’s. I don’t really care whose fucking books they are, Martin, I just need to know you can still reach them from the shelf.”

“I carry weight, Jackson. More than you do, judging by your address.”

“We’ll talk about my problems once we’ve established whose bitch you are. You going to be my messenger boy? Or do I burn your playhouse down?”

Martin said, “I do that, and you bury this whole conversation? Me being Kahlmann? Running an op in London?”

“I don’t give a fuck what you’re up to.”

“Doesn’t that count as treason?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“It sounds like I’m getting off lightly.”

“You haven’t heard the message yet,” said Lamb.

“These events in Wales,” said Peter Judd.

“For the record,” Diana Taverner told him, “I’m not aware of any events having taken place in Wales. Or anywhere else.”

That morning had seen an ill-tempered Oversight meeting, during which Diana’s delivery of her planned showstopper—I applied for Fugue. I could have handled this. But I was turned down—failed to receive a standing ovation; Oliver Nash, in fact, going so far as to hint that her attempt to initiate the protocol had been made in bad faith, with precisely this result in mind: a potentially headline-grabbing car-wreck caused by someone else’s driving. Her intention being, he only just refrained from saying, to bolster her own case for a bigger, sturdier vehicle. But however it was spun, the deaths of two Service personnel—one recently resigned—and a known Annex-C mercenary, in Wales, made the Park look out of control, which hardly burnished the reputation of the woman supposedly at the wheel. The curious relish with which Nash kept repeating ‘in Wales’ suggested that he considered this an added aggravation, which might have tempted Diana to suggest that it was, if anything, a mitigating factor, had she not registered in time the presence of one Llewellyn Jones, a former Home Office minister who could usually be relied upon to be comatose by the ten-minute mark, but whose eyes had unglazed at the mention of his homeland as if a rugby squad had burst into the room bearing daffodils.

“In that case,” Judd said, “you’ll be pleased to hear that they didn’t happen anyway.”

She already knew this. The dead were still dead, of course, but that was a detail: one was a Slough House operative, so to all intents and purposes had been declared surplus to requirements, and if Emma Flyte’s name had caused raised eyebrows around the Committee table, the abruptness of her resignation, which Diana had allowed to be known was due to personal problems, allowed speculation to wander freely. Besides, Flyte had been known for her startlingly good looks. This lent credibility to her involvement in violent altercation, the potential for an unhappy ending being a recognised tax on female beauty. As for the merc, his obsequies boiled down to a red line through an entry on a database, and nobody was going to lose sleep over that.

For housekeeping purposes, the deaths had been ascribed to drug-related warfare between rival gangs, which sounded enough like a bad TV drama to satisfy most sections of the media.

So whatever had happened already hadn’t happened, but it was nice to have confirmation, so she simply said, “I’m pleased to hear it. Care to elucidate?”, elucidating being one of Judd’s preferred modes of discourse, there being, somehow, a lubricated quality to it.

He was happy to do so.

She drank her coffee while he talked. They were in a café off Fleet Street, at Judd’s suggestion—he wanted somewhere with no danger of journalists being present. London was damp and unlovely, but last week’s snow was a dim memory she’d already heard referred to as fake weather. Now, there was talk of continued drizzle and bitter winds for days to come, which surprised Di Taverner not one whit. There was always a bitter wind blowing from somewhere. If the weather didn’t supply it, you could rely on Whitehall. Meanwhile, Judd was explaining that his clients—those whose company had hosted the party at Caerwyss Hall—were content to draw a veil over the sorry episode. The savage eradication of problems might be their preferred business strategy, but western democracies weren’t really their playground of choice. What should have been the discreet despatch of a troublesome snoop might easily have become a local bloodbath: brushable under the carpet most places their products were regular bestsellers, but rather more noticeable where there were more second homes than secondhand cars.

“Besides,” said Judd, “he rang again.”

“The boy?”

“Sounded as if he were reading off an idiot board. It seems he’s experienced a complete, he called it ‘memory-wipe,’ of all and any events taking place over the New Year. Probably due to an overindulgence in whatever he was smoking at the time. Apologised quite fulsomely. Quite restores one’s faith in the younger generation, the whole drug-taking, blackmailing, body-burning episode aside.”

“So he’s gone home with his tail between his legs and that’s it?”

“Sometimes, we have to accept that wrongdoers walk away unpunished,” offered the man who’d solicited at least one murder, to Diana’s certain knowledge.

Others would face consequences. Slough House needed looking at, Nash had made clear that morning. Whatever one of their operatives had been doing away from his desk, let alone in a knife fight with a mercenary in a snowy field, demanded investigation: the department was supposed to be a holding cell for incompetents, he reminded her, not a halfway house for would-be Tarzans.

She didn’t tell him she already had plans for Slough House. Or that they’d been put in operation the day she took over First Desk.

The rest of the morning’s meeting had been equally frustrating. Diana had expected her revelation that a civil servant working within the Brexit Office had been working for the BND to be met with shock and umbrage, and a concomitant level of gratitude for the Service’s diligence in unmasking her. Instead, there was an air of resigned acceptance that Brexit had thrown up yet another source of embarrassment. Much of the business of government for the preceding two years had been to find a scapegoat for the ongoing catastrophe; blaming at least part of the mess on German interference was, on the face of it, attractive, but wouldn’t play well with the public, who might with some justification wonder why a foreign agent had been appointed to the office in the first place.

“And she was being run in-country?”

This from Archibald Manners, Parliamentary appointee to the Committee, and long-time Park-watcher.

“By one Martin Kreutzmer,” she said. “Something of an old hand.”

“Molly Doran’s work, by any chance?”

Diana had allowed that this was so, skipping over Jackson Lamb’s role in the proceedings, which, anyway, hadn’t weighed more than a two-minute phone call. You know how your tame lab rats are supposed to keep tabs on foreign talent? Remind me, does that include feeding them Service gossip on a silver fucking tray like this was Downton fucking Abbey? His follow-up suggestion—that she spend a minute or two ascertaining exactly who the fuck Peter fucking Kahlmann was, the better to feed him his own fucking arse before dropping him off the nearest fucking tower block—quickly became an unsanitised instruction to Richard Pynne, who’d morphed into Richard fucking Pynne in the time it took him to reach her office. Peter fucking Kahlmann, it turned out, was a cover for Martin fucking Kreutzmer, which, if they’d known from the drop, would have made Operation fucking Goldilocks a non-starter. Little Hannah Weiss, their fledgling double, was in fact a triple, a revelation which led, in turn, to the further discovery that Diana Taverner didn’t always have to press a button to cause the glass walls of her office to frost over. Sometimes she could do it through sheer force of rage.

Anyway. The Committee didn’t have to hear about that.

And if Lamb thought this little offering made up for leaving bodies strewn about the Welsh countryside in his futile attempt to have Frank Harkness skinned alive, he was going to be disabused in pretty short order.

“I sense that I don’t have your full attention.”

She blinked. “Peter. I’ve had a busy morning. I’ve a busy afternoon ahead. Followed by a busy evening. I’m glad to hear we’ve had a promise from a psychotic weapons merchant that they’re no longer intent on sending armed talent to murder a British citizen, but that having been settled, was there anything else?”

“I rather wanted to discuss the state of the world.”

“. . . Seriously?”

“And how it affects your current role.”

It occurred to her that the café offered no table service. There were no young things in skirts to flirt with, no opportunity to dispense leering largesse. It was no more PJ’s natural habitat than a Time’s Up march. Perhaps he was serious after all.

He said, “I was listening to the wireless the other evening.”

“It’s just the two of us. You can say podcast.”

“One of those discussion programmes the BBC likes to think of as balanced, in that it had a left-leaning liberal debating current affairs with a right-leaning liberal. Long story short, can you guess what they concluded?”

“That things will turn out all right in the end?”

“A predictably smug affair. People have lost faith in government, we were told. Here, in Europe, in the States. But this is simply a correction, the same way the market regulates itself. Democracy hiccupped, that’s all. Next time round we’ll do better, and our common future will no longer be in the small, incapable hands it currently rests in. I’m quoting, obviously. It was tedious, dinner-party stuff.”

“But thanks for sharing.”

“And yet it touched on the issue I wanted to raise. This being, the current rift between the White House and the federal agencies.”

“Fascinating.” She looked at her watch. “And yet of no remote relevance.”

“Which mirrors the growing divide between our own government and your Service.”

She sighed. “If all you’re doing is polishing your next blog, you’ll be sorry you wasted my time.”

“The PM turned down your request for a root-and-branch overhaul of operational practices.” He raised a hand to forestall her response. “Don’t bother denying it. We both know the PM’s a tormented creature. Like one of those soft toys lorry drivers fix to their radiator grilles. That expression she wears, it’s terror at all the oncoming vehicles.”

“Picturesque, I’m sure.”

“And once she’s gone, who knows, maybe the next PM will be more amenable to your requests. But what about the one after that? And the one after that?”

“Running out of patience.”

“Whoever’s in government, whichever party it happens to be, and however lacking in leadership skills and a basic grasp of reality, they’re the ones pulling your Service’s strings. This despite the fact that no government we’ve seen over the past ten years has been capable of making the decisions necessary to protect our nation. Take Salisbury. A clear-cut case, evidence stacked a mile high, the guilty party visible for all to see. And yet nothing happens.”

“It’s how democracy works.”

“And it’s window dressing. The Cabinet can spend its days talking about high speed trains or garden bridges and that’s fine. But it’s not equipped to determine the best way of safeguarding national security because those particular parameters change at dizzying speed. It’s an area best left to the professionals. To those who’ve been engaged with the task on a daily basis their whole careers.”

She said, “In principle, I wouldn’t disagree. But you mentioned a basic grasp on reality, and you’ve clearly lost your own. Even if the government were to grant the Service autonomy—which it wouldn’t do in a thousand years—that would demand a far greater injection of funds than my own rather more modest proposal required. And that, as you pointed out, was rejected on grounds of cost.”

Peter Judd said, “And yet—leaving that issue aside for the moment—suppose the Service were able to achieve, let’s call it a self-sufficient status. Wouldn’t that be preferable to the present situation?”

“Effectively, you’re talking about a coup.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. A coup would be the seizing of power. What I’m talking about is the preservation of the power structure as it is. Democratically elected governments, the rule of law, all the rest of it. Except . . .”

“Except with an independent secret service.”

“Acting in the interests of the nation. The best interests, because it alone has a full understanding of where the current sources of danger lie, and the best way of dealing with them. And is thus able to make decisions that the government of the day is not equipped to make, and almost certainly doesn’t want to have to. Either because of weak leadership or the keen desire to avoid taking morally questionable positions. Which, as we both know, are frequently the positions one needs to take to prevent harm befalling the innocent.”

“No government would accept that.”

“The government,” said Peter Judd, “wouldn’t have to know.”

“This is insane.”

“Let’s step back a little. Full autonomy, yes, is out of the question. But what if you had the resources to operate as required, in situations of critical need, without requiring government approval? Which, as we’ve established, means government funding? In other words, what if your Service’s necessary activities weren’t constantly hampered by the need for political acquiescence?”

Put another way, she thought, what if the Fugue Protocol was on the table any time she wanted?

She said, “Even supposing this daydream were a good idea, where do you imagine the funding would come from. Private enterprise?”

He said nothing.

“Oh, you must be joking!”

“Why?”

“Where would you like me to start?”

“You have to think about the bigger picture. This would be a logical development. Look at the private contractors you already use. Look at the security firms mopping up after foreign adventures. Halliburton. Blackwater. What I’m suggesting is simply the next step on a course that’s already plotted.”

“There’s a leap between that and privatising the intelligence services!”

“We’re not talking about privatisation. Simply an injection of necessary funding from sources with a huge vested interest in national security. They don’t want to be hacked, they don’t want to be bombed, and they don’t want those things to happen anywhere in the cities in which they operate. Now, they have the resources to safeguard their own operations, up to a point, but you have the infrastructure, the legislative authority, the national scope, to tackle those threats at the point of origin. What you don’t have is the investment you need, or, with the way things are looking in Europe, support from reliable allies. I’m offering a credible alternative to what we both know is a potentially dire situation. One, I might add, which any sensible government would be looking to implement of its own accord.”

“Even if—Peter. What you’re suggesting, it couldn’t be made to work.”

“Of course it could. As a staged process. We prove this can be effective in specific, singular instances, and then present it to government as a working model. And trust me, government will listen. The partners I have in mind have their own spheres of influence, and I’m including the political in that. They’d be bringing that to the table too. Not to mention myself, obviously.”

“Because you’d be a part of this.”

“Nothing’s set in stone. But you’d require a broker to liaise between the Service and its backers. A conduit, if you will.”

They were sitting in a café off Fleet Street, she reminded herself. This bizarre conversation was taking place in the real world. This morning she’d had a brusque reminder that her position was subject to the oversight and control of others; reminded, too, that allies were also rivals, and trust in as short a supply as money. But this wasn’t the answer. She repeated this internally, in case she hadn’t heard it the first time: This. Wasn’t. The answer.

She said, “You’re not an elected MP. You’re a former Home Secretary. In the public view, that’s a little below being a former Blue Peter presenter.”

“The public aren’t involved, except inasmuch as they’d be beneficiaries. We’re talking about a higher good here, Diana.”

“And you’re the one who defines what that higher good is?”

“I’m sure we can find common ground. The higher good’s a plateau, not a peak.”

It was insane. It couldn’t work.

She’d need to hear a lot more detail before she could be persuaded that it was even worth laughing at.

Diana Taverner said, “It’s always interesting chatting with you, Peter. I never know whether to send a thank you note or a SWAT team afterwards.”

“You’ll think about this.”

It wasn’t a question.

She left the café without another word. The pavements were damp, the air swimmy with exhaust. Through a gap in the buildings she could see St. Paul’s, its elegant bulb a reminder that some things endured.

You’ll think about this.

She walked back to Regent’s Park more slowly than usual.

No more snow had fallen. A thin grey rain, instead, swept the city, and the drains swam with excess run-off, and mains burst with dull predictability. One of these was not far from Slough House, and made a lagoon of a junction, in lieu of fixing which a team of council-liveried characters had erected a roadblock of sandbags and bollards, ensuring that traffic was reduced to a single-lane nightmare, before going off on their summer holidays.

Catherine Standish avoided getting her feet wet by taking the long way round: up the Barbican ramp and over the footbridge. She wore sensible shoes, because who but a fool would wear otherwise on a Monday morning, but had no desire to dampen them unnecessarily. There were inches you could give which, once surrendered, were never won back. Over the weekend, she had emptied each and every one of her bottles into her bath; had kept the shower running while pinkened water swirled round the plughole and was sucked into oblivion, like a memory disappearing inside its own fading details. There were reasons why her sobriety had nearly ended, but those reasons, in the end, were inches best held onto. Her life was not what she might have wanted it to be, but that was no reason for destroying what it was. Or at least, that was how the measurement currently stood, and for this she was grateful.

In her room she raised the blind, and allowed the new week’s watery light to filter in. J.K. Coe had been dead for nine days, and life in Slough House was adjusting to its new mean; his absence did not make things quieter, since he’d often gone days without saying a word, but new ghosts cast pale shadows, and now and again she caught stray glimpses at the corners of her vision. She had not known him well, and it wasn’t so much that she missed him as that she wished she’d never known him at all. Loss is easier to bear when it’s truly felt. When it’s a kneejerk reaction, it reflects badly on all concerned.

Still, though, she caught glimpses.

Roderick Ho arrived, and Louisa, and River; separately, noisily, unhappily. Louisa, she knew, blamed herself for the recent deaths; River was angry that Frank Harkness had slipped away. Ho was pissed off about his car. The fourth arrival was Lech Wicinski: Catherine was not yet attuned to his movements, but she heard him enter Ho’s office, heard their lack of greeting. Shirley was last to turn up. And now we are full. Well, except for the obvious. Catherine was reformatting River’s latest report on potential hostile safe-house locations, because in addition to being of no obvious worth, it was presented in a variety of fonts, sizes, even colours, a dead giveaway of the cut-and-paste methodology of its compilation. Next time, she thought. Next time. Probably. But for now she gave it a professional veneer, printed it out, slipped it inside a manila folder, and when she passed into Lamb’s room to leave it on his desk nearly dropped it in fright: he was sitting in the dark, a toad-shape in shadow, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. His eyes were dark wet stones.

She said, “I didn’t hear you come in,” and heard her own heartbeat in her voice.

He grunted.

There was an empty bottle in front of him, but not his usual Talisker, nor even his usual spirit of choice: it was vodka, or so she assumed. Clear glass, anyway, with Cyrillic script on a red and white label. Yes, vodka. Probably his version of detoxing. By all appearances he’d spent the interval since she’d last seen him drinking: he was oily-faced, red-eyed, and now she was through the door, she could smell the stale days hanging off him. A scrunched pyramid of used tissues on the floor suggested he’d endured one of his coughing fits. He’d been here all night.

She said, “Come to inspire the troops?”

“Someone’s got to be the counterweight. They look to you for guidance, they’ll end up hanging round off-licences dressed like Looby Loo.”

A match appeared in his hand, and flared. When he dipped his head to meet it, the light riffed off his hair, briefly haloing him.

“We lost someone,” she said. “Emma Flyte, too. She was a good woman. They’d still be alive if you hadn’t gone after Harkness.”

“Which you warned me against.”

“Don’t imagine I wasn’t about to remind you.”

“No, you’re good at that. Others do the dirty work, you just shoulder the burden.”

“You sent them out against a bunch of professionals. We’re lucky any of them came back.”

“Louisa was on her own. On her fucking holidays. You think I should have let her deal with Harkness herself?”

“You weren’t thinking about her, you were thinking about settling a score. How did that work out?”

“Well, he’s dead,” said Lamb. “I consider that a result.”

His smoke drifted towards her, and she wafted it away as if it were another bad idea.

She said, “That’s not what Louisa said. And she was last to see him.”

Lamb pushed a newspaper across his desk, The Times, folded open to foreign news.

Poitiers. Body found. Driving seat, parked car.

Single bullet wound to head.

It was barely a paragraph. Associated Press. She imagined, ridiculously, a journo in a raincoat, a press card tucked into his hatband. A camera with a bowl-shaped flash.

She said, “You’ve been to Poitiers?”

“Do I fucking look like I’ve been to Poitiers?”

He looked like he’d been down a well.

“So . . .”

Lamb said, “I pulled a trigger.”

“Whose trigger?”

“Man named Martin Kreutzmer.” He breathed smoke. “He’s a BND player. Semi-retired, he says, but running an agent here in the Brexit office, would you believe? Almost like they don’t believe we can fuck that one up by ourselves.”

“Imagine.”

“The Park thought she was ours, and that we had a warm body inside the BND. Reality was the other way round. And when Kreutzmer’s cover name turned up on a search Wicinski ran, Kreutzmer got to hear because the mole’s Park handler told her about it.” He paused. “Do you want to hear that again? It’s not that complicated, but it’s so fucking comical it bears repetition.”

Catherine said, “And Kreutzmer planted the porn on Lech’s laptop. To discredit him.”

“But not by himself. He called in favours to get it done, which was a breach of BND protocols. So when Wicinski looked like he was starting to pull at loose threads, Kreutzmer hit him again, hard. To cover his own arse, not just to protect his joe.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Well, Molly Doran told me Kreutzmer was involved. But Kreutzmer himself told me the rest.”

“Because you can be persuasive.”

“And because I had him over a fucking barrel. He wasn’t worried about the Park putting him on a plane. He was worried about being fired once it landed.”

Catherine was still standing. She lowered herself into a chair. The only light crawled in through the open office door, and Lamb’s face looked like a candleless pumpkin: its holes and hollows lacking any internal flame.

She said, “And he shot Harkness? Assuming that’s who got shot.”

“Harkness was playing with hired talent. And a thing about hired talent? There’s always someone’ll pay better.”

“You bought them.”

“Not with money. One of his crew, a rat called Anton Moser, remember? Coe identified him.”

She nodded.

Lamb said, “The mad monk had his moments. It turns out Moser used to bang heads for the BND. Molly has a file. They got rid of him when the heads he banged got too scrambled to debrief. There’s such a thing as being too good at your job.”

“Apparently.”

“So he went freelance, and you know what they say about freelance work. There’s nobody handing out gold clocks at the end of it.” Lamb ground his cigarette out on his battle-scarred desk. “So I had Kreutzmer send Moser a message. Let him know there’d be a welcome in the homeland if he did this little favour. A return to the fold.”

“So he murdered Harkness for the chance of a pension?”

“Wait’ll you’re down to your last tin of sardines, see how you feel about it then. Plus, Harkness was a legend, don’t forget. If you’re in the business of collecting scalps, that’s a nice one to have. Front and centre of the old CV.”

She looked at the paragraph again, and filled in its blanks. A final debrief after the aborted contract in Wales. Payday, even: would they still have been paid, despite the way things had gone? Another bugbear of the freelance life. Whatever the reason, Harkness and Moser in a car, and Moser pulling the trigger; a trigger Lamb had primed, here in London. She had to remind herself, maybe for the millionth time, that this was the world she lived in; that Spook Street wasn’t all boring reports in manila folders. That joe country lay just around the corner.

“And what did you promise Kreutzmer for this?” she asked.

“A free pass.”

“He’s running an agent in London, and you gave him a free pass?”

“I said I promised him one. I never said I gave him one.” He’d found another cigarette somewhere. “And once he’d done his bit”—he gestured towards the newspaper—“I called Taverner, let her know there’s a mole within spitting distance of Number Ten. Bet that went down well with the Oversights.”

“Not to mention Kreutzmer.”

“Fuck him. He branded my cattle. That used to be a hanging offence.”

He lit his cigarette.

“He’ll be back in Munich by now. His joe’ll be at the Park. And whoever they had handling her this end, well, if we’re really unlucky, he’ll end up downstairs. Maybe I’ll make him share a room with Wicinski. What do you reckon?”

“I reckon,” said Catherine, laying a quiet stress on the word, “that we lost someone. Emma Flyte too. And she was a good woman.”

She still had River’s report tucked under her arm, and she laid it on the desk now and left the office, closing the door behind her, leaving Lamb cloistered in his dark.

And meanwhile, on the floor below, River Cartwright is on the phone—unaccountably, uncharacteristically, he wants to hear his mother’s voice; wants to hear her talk about his grandfather, whom he is missing. But whatever he wants her to say, he wants her to say it unprompted, and this does not happen. Instead, he suffers the usual flow of self-involved detail—of lunches enjoyed and conversations won—and all the while his gaze remains on the empty desk by the window, where J.K. Coe once sat. The window has been newly bespattered by birdshit, and he wonders briefly whether Coe would have done anything about this—opened the window and cleaned it off with a rag—before realising how obvious the answer is. Later, River will drop into Louisa’s Guy’s office on some pretext or other, and will ask “You okay?” to which Louisa will reply “Yeah, sure,” not without meaning it exactly; more without addressing the question’s undertones. She too has been working the phone; has spoken to Lucas Harper, to Lucas’s mother, to Devon Welles, who worked closely with Emma. All these conversations were numb, it seems to her now; an odd adjective for a spoken exchange, but one that fits. And she feels a blank space in her life, where a friendship might have been. She and River will chat a little longer, and they will either agree to have a drink after work or not, depending. If they do, it will not go well. But for the moment, River listens to his mother on the phone, his gaze on the empty desk by the window, where J.K. Coe once sat.

Directly underneath which, on the floor below, sits Shirley Dander, who is currently waiting for her screen to unfreeze, an outcome she knows will remain deferred until she unplugs her computer altogether, then replugs it, and boots up. But for the time being she can sit doing nothing with an alibi for inactivity in front of her, and will continue to do this for as long as humanly possible: through the rest of the morning, for sure; the afternoon too, if possible; the rest of the week, the whole grey year, forever. Something Lamb once said keeps coming to mind—You lot keep your heads down, do what you’re told, and quietly die of boredom, and everyone’s happy as an Oxfam worker at a sex party. But start making waves and there are shitstorms waiting to happen—and she now appreciates its wisdom. For a few moments, behind a barn on a snowy Welsh hillside, she had thought she was ready to make a brilliant departure from life; to avenge Marcus, or die trying. But in reality, it was just another moment in an ongoing series. She isn’t ready to die. Wasn’t really ready then. And she misses J.K. Coe, because this is something she might have been able to talk to him about, something he might have listened to. But at least her frozen screen isn’t going anywhere, and provides a kind of constancy as she sits; her thoughts a flickering menace; her monitor a ponderous slab of light.

Which would invoke in Roderick Ho amused contempt: frozen screen, shit. Freeze a screen in front of the HotRod, you’d see serious melt going on. But then, Roderick Ho is a professional surrounded by amateurs, whose inability to perform the most mundane of tasks—cruise the web, drop hot beats, remain alive—would be a constant downer, were he the type to nurse disappointments. As it is, he has even risen above the callous disregard with which the others treated his car, though this, it’s true, is largely because he might as easily have sunk beneath it for all the notice anyone would take. But while they sit in their various bruised moods, reflecting on their latest failures, Roddy is delving once more into Service records. His researches into Lech Wicinski have yet to be completed: the mysterious wiping of his Service history remains unexplained. Wicinski himself, it has to be said, has also been heavily redacted. This morning he arrived unbandaged, and for the first time Roddy saw that his cheeks are now a furious cross-hatching of fresh cuts, new razorings, that have served to obliterate the word carved underneath them. How this happened, and who might be responsible, is a profound mystery to Roddy, but not one he plans to lose sleep over. Instead, he continues quarrying for evidence of Wicinski’s past sins, and while he’s about it, takes another peek at the dismal records of some of his colleagues. And this is what he’s doing when he makes his discovery.

Outside, London sulks. If cities sleep with their lights on, afraid of the dark, they treat the sunlit hours with suspicion, and cast shadows where they can. Many of these fall on Slough House, where they’re welcomed as natural camouflage, and having made their way through the dirty windows form a kind of ground mist on the stairs, through which Roddy Ho wades now, fizzing and bubbling with the news he bears, all the way up to Jackson Lamb’s room. It’s late morning, and the day is one of smudged margins and ill-defined activities, one thing bleeding into another, the way memories spawn forebodings, but Lamb’s stillness is a constant at least, and he remains utterly motionless, barely breathing even, as Roddy explains that all of them, not just Wicinski, but all of them—Roddy Ho, Catherine Standish, River Cartwright, Shirley Dander, Louisa Guy, Jackson Lamb, and all their dead colleagues—all have been wiped from Regent’s Park’s memory, their histories erased, their pasts blanked out, their Service records expunged. By the time Ho stops talking Catherine is a mute angel at his shoulder, and the others are crowding the landing. They have all heard enough to grasp the gist: their pasts, good and bad, have been cancelled, it seems. What this portends for their future is unclear, and they wait to hear Jackson Lamb’s verdict.

But Lamb, in his monstrous calm, says nothing.