London Rules

2

IN SOME PARTS OF the world dawn arrives with rosy fingers, to smooth away the creases left by night. But on Aldersgate Street, in the London borough of Finsbury, it comes wearing safe-cracker’s gloves, so as not to leave prints on windowsills and doorknobs; it squints through keyholes, sizes up locks, and generally cases the joint ahead of approaching day. Dawn specialises in unswept corners and undusted surfaces, in the nooks and chambers day rarely sees, because day is all business appointments and things being in the right place, while its younger sister’s role is to creep about in the breaking gloom, never sure of what it might find there. It’s one thing casting light on a subject. It’s another expecting it to shine.

So when dawn reaches Slough House – a scruffy building whose ground floor is divided between an ailing Chinese restaurant and a desperate newsagent’s, and whose front door, made filthy by time and weather, never opens – it enters by the burglar’s route, via the rooftops opposite, and its first port of call is Jackson Lamb’s office, this being on the uppermost storey. Here it finds its only working rival a standard lamp atop a pile of telephone directories, which have so long served this purpose they have moulded together, their damp covers bonding in involuntary alliance. The room is cramped and furtive, like a kennel, and its overpowering theme is neglect. Psychopaths are said to decorate their walls with crazy writing, the loops and whorls of their infinite equations an attempt at cracking the code their life is hostage to. Lamb prefers his walls to do their own talking, and they have cooperated to the extent that the cracks in their plasterwork, their mildew stains, have here and there conspired to produce something that might amount to an actual script – a scrawled observation, perhaps – but all too quickly any sense these marks contain blurs and fades, as if they were something a moving finger had writ before deciding, contrary to the wisdom of ages, to rub out again.

Lamb’s is not a room to linger in, and dawn, anyway, never tarries long. In the office opposite, it finds less to disturb it. Here order has prevailed, and there is a quiet efficiency about the way in which folders have been stacked, their edges squared off in alignment with the desktop, and the ribbons binding them tied in bows of equal length; about the emptiness of the wastepaper basket, and the dust-free surfaces of the well-mannered shelves. There is a stillness here out of keeping with Slough House, and if one were to seesaw between these two rooms, the bossman’s lair and Catherine Standish’s bolthole, a balance might be found that could bring peace to the premises, though one would imagine it would be short-lived.

As is dawn’s presence in Catherine’s room, for time is hurrying on. On the next level down is a kitchen. Dawn’s favourite meal is breakfast, which is sometimes mostly gin, but either way it would find little to sustain it here, the cupboards falling very much on Scrooge’s end of the Dickensian curve, far removed from Pickwickian excess. The cupboards contain no tins of biscuits, no jars of preserves, no emergency chocolate, and no bowls of fruit or packets of crispbread mar the counter’s surface; just odds and ends of plastic cutlery, a few chipped mugs, and a surprisingly new-looking kettle. True, there is a fridge, but all it holds are two cans of energy drink, both stickered ‘Roddy Ho’, each of which rubric has had the words ‘is a twat’ added, in different hands, and an uncontested tub of hummus, which is either mint-flavoured or has some other reason for being green. About the appliance hangs an odour best described as delayed decay. Luckily, dawn has no sense of smell.

Having briefly swept through the two offices on this floor – nondescript rooms whose colour schemes can only be found in ancient swatches, their pages so faded, everything has subsided into shades of yellow and grey – and taken care to skirt the dark patch beneath the radiator, where some manner of rusty leakage has occurred, it finds itself back on the staircase, which is old and rackety, dawn the only thing capable of using it without making a sound – apart, that is, from Jackson Lamb, who when he feels like it can wander Slough House as silently as a newly conjured wraith, if rather more corpulent. At other times Lamb prefers the direct approach, and attacks the stairs with the noise that a bear pushing a wheelbarrow might make, if the wheelbarrow was full of tin cans, and the bear drunk.

More watchful ghost than drunken bear, dawn arrives in the final two offices and finds little to distinguish them from those on the floor above, apart, perhaps, from the slightly stuccoed texture of the paintwork behind one desk, as if a fresh coat has been applied before the wall has been properly cleaned, and some lumpy matter has been left clinging to the plasterwork: best not to dwell on what this might be. For the rest, this office has the same air of frustrated ambition as its companions, and to one as sensitive as light-fingered dawn it contains, too, a memory of violence, and perhaps the promise of more to come. But dawn understands that promises are easily broken – dawn knows all about breaking – and the possibility delays it not one jot. On it goes, down the final set of stairs, and somehow passes through the back door without recourse to the shove this usually requires, the door being famously resistant to casual use. In the dank little yard behind Slough House dawn pauses, aware that its time is nearly up, and enjoys these last cool moments. Once upon a time it might have heard a horse making its way up the street; more recently, the happy hum of a milk float would have whiled away its final minute. But today there is only the scream of an ambulance, late for an appointment, and by the time its banshee howl has ceased bouncing off walls and buildings dawn has disappeared, and here in its place is the day itself, which, once within Slough House’s grasp, turns out to be far from the embodiment of industry and occupation it threatened to be. Instead – like the day before it, and the one before that – it is just another slothful interlude to be clock-watched out of existence, and knowing full well that none of the inhabitants can do anything to hasten its departure, it takes its own sweet time about setting up shop. Casually, smugly, unbothered by doubt or duty, it divides itself between Slough House’s offices, and then, like a lazy cat, settles in the warmest corners to doze, while nothing much happens around it.

Roddy Ho, Roddy Ho, riding through the glen.

(Just another earworm.)

Roddy Ho, Roddy Ho, manliest of men.

There are those who regard Roderick Ho as a one-trick wonder; a king of the keyboard jungle, sure, but less adept in other areas of life, such as making friends, being reasonable, and ironing T-shirts. But they haven’t seen him in action. They haven’t seen him on the prowl.

Lunchtime, just off Aldersgate Street. The ugly concrete towers of the Barbican to the right; a hardly more beautiful housing estate to the left. But it’s a killing box, this uncelebrated patch of London; it’s a blink-and-you’re-eaten battlefield. You get one chance only to claim your scalp, and Roddy Ho’s prey could be anywhere.

He knew damn well it was close.

So he moved, pantherlike, between parked cars; he hovered by a placard celebrating some municipal triumph or other. In his ear, driven like a fencepost by the pounding of his iPod, an overexcited forty-something screeched tenderly of his plan to kill and eat his girlfriend. On Roddy’s chin, the beard he’d grown last winter; rather more expertly sculpted now, because he’d learned the hard way not to use kitchen scissors. On Roddy’s head – new development – a baseball cap. Image matters, Roddy knew that. Brand matters. You want Joe Public to recognise your avatar, your avatar had to make a statement. In his own personal opinion, he’d nailed that angle. Neat little goatee and a baseball cap: originality plus style. Roderick Ho was the complete package, the way Brad Pitt used to be, before the unpleasantness.

(Gap in the market there, come to think of it. He’d have to have a word with Kim, his girlfriend, about coining a nom de celeb.

Koddy.

Rim …?

Nah. Needs work.)

But he’d deal with that later, because right now it was time to activate the lure module; get this creature into the open and bring that sucker down. This required force, timing and use of weapons: his core skills in a nutshell … Whoever came up with Pokémon GO must have had Roderick Ho on their muse’s speed-dial. The name even rhymed, man – it was like he was born to poke. Gimme that stardust, he thought. Gimme that lovely stardust, and watch the Rodster shine.

All reflex, sinew and concentration, Ho shimmered through the lunchtime air like the coolest of cats, the baddest of asses, the daddy of all dudes; hot on the trail of an enemy that didn’t exist.

A little way down the road, an enemy that did turned the ignition, and pulled away from the kerb.

That morning, on her way to the Tube, Catherine Standish had dropped in at the newsagent’s for a Guardian. Behind the counter a steel blind had been drawn to hide the array of cigarette packets, lest a stray glimpse prove a gateway to early death, while to her left, on the topmost row of the rack, the few pornographic magazines to survive into the digital age were sealed inside plastic covers, to nullify their impact on concupiscent minds. All this careful protection, she thought, shielding us from impulses deemed harmful, but right there by the door was a shelf of wine on special offer, any two bottles for nine pounds, and up by the counter was a range of spirits all cheerfully marked two quid down, none of them a brand to delight the palate, but any of them enough to render the most uptight connoisseur pig-drunk and open to offers.

She bought her newspaper, nodded her thanks, and returned to the street.

One journey later, she remembered it was her turn to pick up milk for the office – no huge feat of memory; it was always her turn to pick up milk – and dropped into the shop next to Slough House, where the milk was in the fridge alongside cans of beer and lager, and ready-mixed tins of G&T. That’s twice without trying, she thought, that she could have bought a ticket to the underworld before her day was off the ground. Most occasions of sin required a little effort. But the recovering alcoholic could coast along in neutral, and the temptations would come to her.

There was nothing unusual about this. It was just the surface tension; the everyday gauntlet the dry drunk runs. Come lunchtime, the lure of the dark side behind her, Catherine was absorbed in the day’s work: writing up the department’s bi-annual accounts, which included justification for ‘irregular expenses’. Slough House had had a lot of these this year: broken doors, carpet cleaning; all the making-good an armed incursion demands. Most of the repairs had been sloppily done, which neither surprised nor bothered Catherine much: she had long ago grown used to the second-class status the slow horses enjoyed. What worried her more was the long-term damage to the horses themselves. Shirley Dander was unnervingly calm; the kind of calm Catherine imagined icebergs were, just before they ploughed into ocean liners. River Cartwright was bottling things up too, more than usual. And as for J. K. Coe, Catherine recognised a hand grenade when she saw one. And she didn’t think his pin was fitted too tight.

Roddy Ho was the same as ever, of course, but that was more of a burden than a comfort.

It was a good job Louisa Guy was relatively sane.

Stacks of paper in front of her, their edges neatly though not quite neurotically aligned, Catherine waded through the day’s work, adjusting figures where Lamb’s entries overshot the inaccurate to become manifestly corrupt, and replacing his justifications (‘because I fucking say so’) with her own more diplomatic phrasing. When the time came to leave for home, all those temptations would parade in front of her again. But if daily exposure to Jackson Lamb had taught her anything, it was not to fret about life’s peripheral challenges.

He had a way of providing more than enough to worry about, up front and centre.

Shirley Dander had sixty-two days.

Sixty-two drug-free days.

Count ’em …

Somebody might: Shirley didn’t. Sixty-two was just a number, same as sixty-one had been, and if she happened to be keeping track that was only because the days had all happened in the obvious order, very very slowly. Mornings she ticked off the minutes, and afternoons counted down seconds, and at least once a day found herself staring at the walls, particularly the one behind what had been Marcus’s desk. Last time she’d seen Marcus, he’d been leaning against that wall, his chair tilted at a ridiculous angle. It had been painted over since. A bad job had been made of it.

And here was Shirley’s solution to that: think about something else.

It was lunchtime; bright and warm. Shirley was heading back to Slough House for an afternoon of enforced inertia, after which she’d schlep on over to Shoreditch for the last of her AFMs … Eight months of anger fucking management sessions, and this evening she’d officially be declared anger free. It had been hinted she might even get a badge. That could be a problem – if anyone stuck a badge on her, they’d be carrying their teeth home in a hankie – but luckily, what she had in her pocket gave her something to focus on; to carry her through any dodgy moments which might result in the court-ordered programme being extended.

A neat little wrap of the best cocaine the postcode had to offer; her treat to herself for finishing the course.

Sixty-two might just be a number, but it was as high as Shirley had any intention of going.

Being straight had had the effect of turning her settings down a notch, and the world had been flatter lately, greyer, easier to get along with. Which helped with the whole AFM thing, but was starting to piss her off. Last week she’d had a cold caller, some crap about mis-sold insurance, and Shirley hadn’t even told him to fuck himself. This didn’t feel like attitude adjustment so much as it did surrender. So here was the plan: get through this one last day, suffer being patted on the head by the counsellor – whom Shirley intended to follow home one night and kill – then hit the clubs, get properly wasted, and learn to live again. Sixty-two days was long enough, and proved for a fact what she’d always maintained as a theory: that she could give it up any time she wanted.

Besides, Marcus was long gone. It wasn’t like he’d be getting in her face about it.

But don’t think about Marcus.

So there she was, heading past the estate towards Aldersgate Street, coke in her pocket, mind on the evening to come, when she saw two things five yards in front of her, both behaving strangely.

One was Roderick Ho, who was performing some kind of ballet, with a mobile phone for a partner.

The other was an approaching silver Honda, turning left where there was no left to turn.

Then mounting the pavement and heading straight for Ho.

So here’s the thing, thought Louisa Guy. If I’d wanted to be a librarian, I’d have been a librarian. I’d have gone to library school, taken library exams, and saved up enough library stamps to buy a library uniform. Whatever they do, I’d have done it: by the book. And of all the librarians in the near vicinity, I’d have been far and away the librarianest; the kind of librarian other librarians sing songs about, gathered around their library fires.

But what I wouldn’t have done was join the intelligence service. Because that would have been fucking ridiculous.

Yet here I am.

Here she was.

Here being Slough House, where what she was doing was scrolling through library loan statistics, determining who had borrowed certain titles in the course of the last few years. Books like Islam Expects and The Meaning of Jihad. And if anyone had actually written How to Wage War on a Civilian Population, that would have made the list too.

‘Is it really likely,’ she’d said, on being handed the project, ‘that compiling a list of people who’ve borrowed particular library books is going to help us find fledgling terrorists?’

‘Put like that,’ Lamb had said, ‘the odds are probably a million to one.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you this for nothing. I’m bloody glad I’m not you.’

‘Thanks. But why do they even stock these books, if they’re so dangerous?’

‘It’s political correctness gone mad,’ agreed Lamb sadly. ‘I’m rabidly anti-censorship, as you know. But some books just need burning.’

So did some bosses. She’d been working on this list, which involved cross-checking Public Lending Right statistics against individual county library databases, for three months. It now stretched not quite halfway down a single sheet of A4, and she’d reached Buckinghamshire in her alphabetical list of counties. Thank Christ she didn’t have to cover the whole of the UK, because that would have taken even an actual librarian years.

Not the whole of it, no. Just England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

‘Fuck Scotland,’ Lamb had explained. ‘They want to go it alone, they can go it alone.’

Her only ally in her never-ending task was the government, which was doing its bit by closing down as many libraries as possible.

In the War Against Terror, you take all the help you can get.

Louisa giggled to herself, because sometimes you had to, or else you’d go mad. Unless the giggling was proof you’d already gone mad. J. K. Coe might know, not so much because of his so-called expertise in Psychological Evaluation, but because he was a borderline nutter himself. All fun and games in Slough House.

She pushed away from her desk and stood to stretch. Lately she’d been spending more time at the gym, and the result was increasing restlessness when tethered to her computer. Through the window, Aldersgate Street was its usual unpromising medley of pissed-off traffic and people in a hurry. Nobody ever wandered through this bit of London; it was simply a staging post on the way somewhere else. Unless you were a stalled spook, of course, in which case it was journey’s end.

God, she was bored.

And then, as if to console her, the world threw a minor distraction her way: from not far off came a screech and a bump; the sound of a car making contact.

She wondered what that was about.

Hi Tina

Just a quick note to let you know how things are going here in Devon – not great, to be honest. I’ve been told I’m being laid off at the end of the month because the boss’s sister’s son needs a job, so someone has to make way for the little bastard. Thanks a bunch, right?

But it’s not all bad because the gaffer knows he owes me one, and has set me up with one of his contacts for a six-month gig in – get this – Albania! But it’s a cushy number, doing the wiring on three new hotel builds, and it’ll be cheap living so I’ll

Coe stopped mid-sentence and stared through the window at the Barbican opposite. It was an Orwellian nightmare of a complex, a concrete monstrosity, but credit where it was due: like Ronnie and Reggie Kray before it, the Barbican had overcome the drawback of being a brutal piece of shit to achieve iconic status. But that was London Rules for you: force others to take you on your own terms. And if they didn’t like it, stay in their face until they did.

Jackson Lamb, for instance. Except, on second thoughts, no: Lamb didn’t give a toss whose terms you took him on. He carried on regardless. He just was.

Tina, though, wasn’t, or wouldn’t be much longer. Tina wasn’t her real name anyway. J. K. Coe just found it easier to compose these letters if they had an actual name attached; for the same reason, he always signed them Dan. Dan – whoever he was – was a deep-cover spook who’d moled into whichever group of activists was currently deemed too extreme for comfort (animal rights, eco-troublemakers, The Archers’ fanbase); while Tina – whoever she was – was someone he’d befriended in the course of doing so. There was always a Tina. Back when Coe had been in Psych Eval, he’d made a study of Tinas of both genders; joes in the field were warned not to develop emotional attachments in the group under investigation, but they always did. You couldn’t betray someone efficiently if you didn’t love them first. So when the op was over, and Dan was coming back to the surface, there had to be letters; a long goodbye played out over months. First Dan moved out of the area, a fair distance off but not unvisitable. He’d keep in touch sporadically, then get a better offer and move abroad. The letters or emails would falter, then stop. And soon Dan would be forgotten, by everyone but Tina, who’d keep his letters in a shoebox under her bed, and Google-earth Albania after her third glass of Chardonnay. Rather than, for example, dragging him into court for screwing her under false pretences. Nobody wanted to go through that again.

But, of course, joes don’t write the letters themselves. That was a job for spooks like J. K. Coe, whiling away the days in Slough House. And lucky to be doing so, to be honest. Most people who’d shot to death a handcuffed man might have expected retribution. Luckily, Coe had done so at the fag-end of a series of events so painfully compromising to the intelligence services as a whole that – as Lamb had observed – it had put the ‘us’ in ‘clusterfuck’, leaving Regent’s Park with little choice but to lay a huge carpet over everything and sweep Slough House under it. The slow horses were used to that, of course. In fact, if they weren’t already slow horses, they’d be dust bunnies instead.

Coe cracked his knuckles, and added the words be able to save a bit to his letter. Yeah, right; Dan would save a bit, then meet an Albanian girl, and – long story short – never come home. Meanwhile, the actual Dan would be undercover again, on a different op, and the ball would be rolling in a new direction. On Spook Street, things never stayed still. Unless you were in Slough House, that is. But there was a major difference between J. K. Coe and the other slow horses, and it was this: he had no desire to be where the action was. If he could sit here typing all day and never have to say a word to anyone, that would suit him fine. Because his life was approaching an even keel. The dreams were ebbing away at last, and the panic attacks had tapered off. He no longer found himself obsessively fingering an imaginary keyboard, echoing Keith Jarrett’s improvised piano solos. Things were bearable, and might just stay that way provided nothing happened.

He hoped like hell nothing would happen.

The car smeared Roderick Ho like ketchup across the concrete apron; broke him like a plastic doll across its bonnet, so all that was holding him together was his clothes. This happened so fast Shirley saw it before it took place. Which was as well for Ho, because she had time to prevent it.

She covered five yards with the speed of a greased pig, yelling Ho’s name, though he didn’t turn round – he had his back to the car and his iPod jammed into his ears; was squinting through his smartphone, and looked, basically, like a dumb tourist who’d been ripped off twice already: once by someone selling hats, and a second time by someone giving away beards. When Shirley hit him waist-high, he was apparently taking a photo of bugger-all. But he never got the chance. Shirley’s weight sent him crashing to the ground half a moment before the car ploughed past: went careering across the pedestrianised area, bounced off a low brick wall bordering a garden display, then screeched to a halt. Burnt rubber reached Shirley’s nose. Ho was squawking; his phone was in pieces. The car moved again, but instead of heading back for them it circled the brick enclosure, turned left onto the road, swerved round the barrier, and went east.

Shirley watched it disappear, too late to catch its plate, or even clock the number of occupants. Soon she’d feel the impact of her leap in most of her bones, but for the moment she just replayed it in her head from a third-party viewpoint: a graceful, gazelle-like swoop; life-saving moment and poetry in motion at once. Marcus would have been proud, she thought.

Dead proud.

Beneath her, Roddy yelled, ‘You stupid cow!’

The internet was full of whispers.

No, River Cartwright thought. Scratch that.

The internet was screaming its head off, as usual.

He was on a Marylebone-bound train, returning to London after having taken the morning off: care leave, he’d claimed it, though Lamb preferred ‘bloody liberty’.

‘We’re not the social services.’

‘We’re not Sports Direct either,’ Catherine Standish had pointed out. ‘If River needs the morning off, he needs it.’

‘And who’s gonna pick up his workload in the meantime?’

River hadn’t done a stroke of work in three weeks, but didn’t think this a viable line of defence. ‘It’ll get done,’ he promised.

And Lamb had grunted, and that was that.

So he’d taken off in the pre-breakfast rush, battling against the commuter tide; heading for Skylarks, the care home where the O.B. now resided; not precisely a Service-run facility – the Service had long since outsourced any such frivolities – but one which placed a higher priority on security than most places of its type.

The Old Bastard, River’s grandfather, had wandered off down the twilit corridors of his own mind, only occasionally emerging into the here and now, whereupon he’d sniff the air like an elderly badger and look pained, though whether this was due to a brief awareness that his grasp on reality had crumbled, or to that grasp’s momentary return, River couldn’t guess. After a lifetime hoarding secrets the old spook had lost himself among them, and no longer knew which truths he was concealing, which lies he was casting abroad. He and his late wife, Rose, had raised River, their only grandchild. Sitting with him in Skylarks’ garden, a blanket covering the old man’s knees, an iron curtain shrouding half his history, River felt adrift. He had followed the O.B.’s footsteps into the Secret Service, and if his own path had been forcibly rerouted, there’d been comfort in the knowledge that the old man had at least mapped the same territory. But now he was orphaned. The footsteps he’d followed were wandering in circles, and when they faltered at last, they’d be nowhere specific. Every spook’s dream was to throw off all pursuers, and know himself unwatched. The O.B. was fast approaching that space: somewhere unknowable, unvisited, untagged by hostile eyes.

It had been a warm morning, bright sunshine casting shadows on the lawn. The house was at the end of a valley, and River could see hills rising in the distance, and tame clouds puffing across a paintbox sky. A train was briefly visible between two stretches of woodland, but its engines were no more than a polite murmur, barely bothering the air. River could smell mown grass, and something else he couldn’t put a name to. If forced to guess, he’d say it was the absence of traffic.

He sat on one of three white plastic chairs arranged around a white plastic table, from the centre of which a parasol jutted upwards. The third chair was vacant. There were two other similar sets of furniture, one unused, the other occupied by an elderly couple. A younger woman was there, addressing them in what River imagined was an efficient tone. He couldn’t actually hear her. His grandfather was talking loudly, blocking out all other conversation.

‘That would have been August fifty-two,’ he was saying. ‘The fifteenth, if I’m not mistaken. A Tuesday. Round about four o’clock in the afternoon.’

The O.B.’s memory was self-sharpening these days. It prided itself on providing minute detail, even if that detail bore only coincidental resemblance to reality.

‘And when the call came in, it was Joe himself on the line.’

‘… Joe?’

‘Stalin, my boy. You’re not dropping off on me, are you?’

River wasn’t dropping off on him.

He thought: this is where life on Spook Street leads. Not long ago the old man’s past had come barking from the shadows and taken large bites out of the present. If this were common knowledge, there would be many howling for retribution. River should be among them, really. But if his own murky beginnings had turned out to be the result of the O.B.’s tampering with the lives of others, they remained his own beginnings. You couldn’t argue yourself out of existence. Besides, there was no way of taking his grandfather to task for past sins now those sins had melted into fictions. The previous week, River had heard a story the old man had never told before, involving more gunfire than usual, and an elaborate series of codenames in notebooks. Ten minutes on Google later revealed that the O.B. had been relaying the plot of Where Eagles Dare.

When the old man’s tale wound itself into silence, River said, ‘Do you have everything you need, Grandad?’

‘Why should I need anything? Eh?’

‘No reason. I just thought you might like something from …’

He tailed off. Something from home. But home was dangerous territory, a subject best avoided. The old man had never been a joe; always a desk man. It had been his job to send agents into the unknown, and run them from what others might think a safe distance. But here he was now, alone in joe country, his cover blown, his home untenable. There was no safe ground. Only this mansion house in a quiet landscape, where the nurses had enough discretion to know that some tales were best ignored.

On the train heading back into London, River shifted in his seat and scrolled down the page of search results. Nice to know that a spook career granted him this privilege: if he wanted to know what was going on, he could surf the web, like any other bastard. And the internet was screaming. The hunt for the Abbotsfield killers continued with no concrete results, though the attack had been claimed by so-called Islamic State. At a late-night session in Parliament the previous evening, Dennis Gimball had lambasted the security services, proclaiming Claude Whelan, Regent’s Park’s First Desk, unfit for purpose; had sailed this close to suggesting that he was, in fact, an IS sympathiser. That this was barking mad was a side issue: recent years had seen a recalibration of political lunacy, and even the mainstream media had to pretend to take Gimball seriously, just in case. Meanwhile, there were twelve dead in Abbotsfield, and a tiny village had become a geopolitical byword. There’d be a lot more debate, a lot more hand-wringing, before this slipped away from the front pages. Unless something else happened soon, of course.

Nearly there. River closed his laptop. The O.B. would be dozing again by now; enjoying a cat’s afternoon in the sun. Time had rolled round on him, that was all. River was his grandfather’s handler now.

Sooner or later, all the sins of the past fell into the keeping of the present.

‘You stupid cow!’

He’d been thrown sideways and the noise in his head had exploded: manic guitars cut off mid-wail; locomotive drums killed mid-beat. The sudden silence was deafening. It was like he’d been unplugged.

And his prey was nowhere to be seen, obviously. His smartphone was in pieces, its casing a hop-skip-jump away.

It was Shirley Dander who’d leaped on him, evidently unable to control her passion.

She crawled off and pretended to be watching a car disappear along the road. Roddy sat up and brushed at the sleeves of his still new leather jacket. He’d had to deal with workplace harassment before: first Louisa Guy, now this. But at least Louisa remained the right side of her last shaggable day, while Shirley Dander, far as the Rodster was concerned, hadn’t seen her first yet.

‘What the hell was that for?’

‘That was me saving your arse,’ she said, without looking round.

His arse. One-track mind.

‘I nearly had it, you know!’ Pointless explaining the intricacies of a quest to her: the nearest she’d come to appreciating the complexities of gaming was being mistaken for a troll. Still, though, she ought to be made to realise just what a prize she’d cost him, all for the sake of a quick grope. ‘A bulbasaur! You know how rare that is?’

It was plain she didn’t.

‘The fuck,’ she asked, ‘are you talking about?’

He scrambled to his feet.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s pretend you just wanted to sabotage my hunt. That’s all Kim needs to know, anyway.’

‘… Huh?’

‘My girlfriend,’ he explained, so she’d know where she stood.

‘Did you get a plate for that car?’

‘What car?’

‘The one that just tried to run you over.’

‘That’s a good story too,’ Roddy said. ‘But let’s stick with mine. It’s less complicated. Fewer follow-up questions.’

And having delivered this lesson in tradecraft, he collected the pieces of his phone and headed back to Slough House.

Where the day is well established now, and dawn a forgotten intruder. When River returns to take up post at his desk – his current task being so mind-crushingly dull, so balls-achingly unlikely to result in useful data, that he can barely remember what it is even while doing it – all the slow horses are back in the stable, and the hum of collective ennui is almost audible. Up in his attic room, Jackson Lamb scrapes the last sporkful of chicken fried rice from a foil dish, then tosses the container into a corner dark enough that it need never trouble his conscience again, should such a creature come calling, while two floors below Shirley Dander’s face is scrunched into a thoughtful scowl as she replays in her mind the sequence of events that led to her flattening Roderick Ho: always a happy outcome, of course, but had she really prevented a car doing the same? Or had it just been another of London’s penis-propelled drivers, whose every excursion onto the capital’s roads morphs into a demolition derby? Maybe she should share the question with someone. Catherine Standish, she decides. Louisa Guy too, perhaps. Louisa might be an iron-clad bitch at times, but at least she doesn’t think with a dick. Some days, you take what you can.

Later, Lamb will host one of his occasional departmental meetings, its main purpose to ensure the ongoing discontent of all involved, but for now Slough House is what passes for peaceful, the grousing and grumbling of its denizens remaining mainly internal. The clocks that each of the crew separately watches dawdle through their paces on Slough House time, this being slower by some fifty per cent than in most other places, while, like the O.B. in distant Berkshire, the day catnaps the afternoon away.

Elsewhere, mind, it’s scurrying around like a demented gremlin.

3

THERE WAS A STORY doing the rounds that the list of questions traditionally asked of head injury victims, to check for concussion – what’s the date, where do you live, who’s the Prime Minister? – had had to be amended in light of the current incumbent’s tenure, as the widespread disbelief that he was still in office was producing a rash of false positives. Which might explain, thought Claude Whelan, why he insisted on being addressed as PM.

But like all his ilk the man was dangerous when cornered, and one thing politics was never short of was corners.

‘You know the biggest threat Parliament faces?’ he asked Whelan now.

‘A cyber—’

‘No, that’s the biggest threat the country faces. The biggest threat Parliament faces is democracy. It’s been a necessary evil for centuries, and for the most part we’ve been able to use it to our advantage. But one fucking referendum later and it’s like someone gave a loaded gun to a drunk toddler.’ He was holding a newspaper, folded open to Dodie Gimball’s column. ‘Read this yet?’

Whelan had.

The PM quoted from it anyway: ‘“Who are we to turn to for protection? Yes, we have our security services, but they are ‘services’ only in the sense that a bull ‘services’ a cow. In other words, dear readers, a cock-up of the first magnitude.”’

Whelan said, ‘I’m not entirely sure that works. She goes from plural to—’

‘Yes yes yes, we’ll get the grammar police onto her first thing. Do they have actual powers of arrest, do you think? Or will they just hang her from the nearest participle?’

Whelan nodded his appreciation. He was a short man with a high forehead and a pleasant manner, the latter a surprise given his years among the intelligence service’s back-room boys, a fraternity not known for its social skills. His ascent to the top rank had been unexpected, and largely due to his not having been involved in the crimes and misdemeanours which had resulted in the desk being vacant in the first place. Having clean hands was an unusual criterion for the role, but his predecessor’s shenanigans had ensured that, on this occasion at least, it was politic.

It did mean, though, that his experience of actual politics was on the thin side. His required learning curve, as Second Desk Diana Taverner had pointed out, was steeper than a West End bar bill.

Now he said, ‘Twelve people died. However indelicately she phrases it, it comes under the heading fair comment.’

‘Fair comment would be laying the blame with the homicidal cretins who committed the murders. No, Gimball has her own agenda. You’re aware of who she is?’

‘I know who her husband is.’

‘Well then,’ said the PM. ‘Well then,’ and slapped the newspaper against his thigh, or tried to. There wasn’t really room for the manoeuvre.

They were in what was best described as a cubbyhole, though was informally known as an incubator. Number 10 was a warren, as if an architect had been collecting corridors and decided to use them all up at once. Offices of state aside, every room in the building seemed an excuse to include a bit of extra space between itself and the next one along, in most of which, at any given time, a plot was being hatched. Hence ‘incubator’. They were ideal for the purpose, as they were only really big enough for two people at a time and thus reduced the amount of political fear that could be generated, political fear being the fear that the blame for something bad might fall on someone present.

The meeting they’d just come from, discussing the events in Derbyshire, had triggered an awful lot of this.

‘And the bastard wants my job,’ the PM continued.

‘He certainly gives every indication that he’d enjoy running the country,’ Whelan agreed. ‘But, Prime Minister, with all due respect, he’s his party’s sole MP. What possible threat could he represent?’

‘He’s indicated that he might be willing to rejoin the party.’

‘… Ah.’

‘Yes, bloody ah. And not indicated to me, you understand. To various … sympathetic ears. Which includes half of those in my own damn Cabinet.’

It didn’t much matter whether this meant the entire Cabinet had offered one sympathetic ear apiece, or half the Cabinet both. Either way, the PM was beleaguered: the referendum voting the UK out of the European Union meant he had to steer a course he’d openly campaigned against, whatever his private views on the subject, and only the lack of a strong contender within the party – the most obvious candidates having been brought low by a frenzy of backstabbing, treachery and double-dealing on a scale not seen since the Spice Girls’ reunion – had allowed him to hang on to power this long. But if Dennis Gimball had indicated that he might be tempted back into a fold he’d left ‘with supreme reluctance’ some years previously, in order to join a one-issue party spearheading the Brexit campaign, a whole new ball game was in the offing. And few believed the PM’s balls would see him through the current game, let alone a new one. Apart from anything else, he had a terrorist atrocity to deal with.

But all Whelan found himself able to say was, ‘Rejoining? That’s not terribly likely, surely.’

‘Not likely? Have you been paying attention? Not likely is the new normal. He’s got a wife writing a twice-weekly column that amounts to a press release for the sack-the-PM brigade, and when he’s ready to make the jump he’ll expect to be warming his arse on my seat within two months. And this new-found taste for democracy’ – which he made sound like a synonym for paedophilia – ‘means he’ll have fifty-two per cent of the population scattering rose petals at his feet while he does. And it’s not just me they’ve got in their sights, either. The main reason he’s appointed himself scourge of the Secret Service, ably abetted by his tabloid totty, is that I’ve given you my full backing. One hundred per cent confidence, remember? An actual hundred, rather than a hundred and ten, or even, God forbid, a hundred and twenty, which I like to think speaks to the absolute fucking sincerity of the gamble I’m taking here. What I’m saying, Claude, is, we stand and fall together. So I’m going to ask you again, without my oh-so-honourable chums taking notes on your answer, how close are you to rounding up these trigger-happy bastards? Because if we don’t see closure on this soon, the second highest-profile casualty is going to be you. Maybe they’ll stick our heads on adjacent spikes. Won’t that be cosy?’

It occurred to Whelan that if the PM showed half as much fervour when addressing the nation as he did when contemplating his job security, he wouldn’t be regarded as such a lightweight.

Whelan said, ‘I held nothing back from the report I just delivered. Arrests aren’t imminent, but they will take place. As for guarantees that another attack of the kind can’t happen, I’m not able to give that. Whoever these people are—’

‘ISIS,’ the PM spat.

‘Well, they’ve claimed credit, yes. But whoever the individuals are, they’re currently under the radar. They could be anywhere, and they could be planning anything. We’re not in a position to deliver certainties. But I’d repeat that I don’t think door-to-door searches in areas with a high Muslim population would be useful at this stage.’

‘Well, that’s where we differ. Because anything to show that we’re actually doing something would, I feel, be useful at this stage.’

‘I understand that, Prime Minister, but I’d urge caution. Provoking resistance from the radicalised segments of the community would be playing into their hands.’

It was an argument Whelan had made three times already that morning, and he was prepared to make it again but was distracted by an alteration in the offstage atmosphere. The background noise from the nearest corridor, the hum people make when they want everyone else to know they’re busy, had subsided over the last ten seconds, to be replaced by the lesser but far more ominous sound of the same people reading news alerts on their phones.

‘What’s that?’ he said.

‘I don’t hear anything,’ the PM said.

‘Nor I,’ said Whelan. ‘That’s what worries me.’

They emerged as someone was turning up the volume on a rolling news channel, which was screening amateur footage of a violent aftermath.

There was blood, there was panic, there was debris.

Closure, it appeared, wasn’t happening any time soon.

‘It’s been brought to my attention that you arsewipes are not happy bunnies.’

This was Jackson Lamb. The arsewipes were his team.

‘So I’ve convened this meeting so you can air your grievances.’

‘Well—’ River began.

‘Sorry, did I say “you”? I meant me.’

They were in Lamb’s office, which had the advantage, for Lamb, that he didn’t have to move anywhere, and the disadvantage, for everyone else, that it was Lamb’s office. Lamb smoked in his office, and drank, and ate, and there were those who suspected that if he kept a bucket there, he’d never leave. Not that its attractions were obvious. On the other hand, bears’ caves weren’t famously well appointed either, and bears seemed to like them fine.

‘Did one of you jokers put a whoopee cushion on my chair, by the way? No? Well in that case I’ve just farted.’ Lamb leaned back and beamed proudly. ‘Okay, you’re all uptight because there’s a national emergency, and somewhere at the back of your tiny little minds you’re remembering you joined the security services. That rings bells, yes? The bright shiny building at Regent’s Park?’

‘Jackson,’ Catherine said.

‘It gives me no pleasure to have to say this, but keep your fucking mouth shut while I’m talking, Standish. It’s only polite.’

‘Always happy to have you mind my manners, but do we really need to hear the lecture?’

‘Oh, I think it’ll be good for morale, don’t you? Besides, the new boy can’t have heard it more than once. I’d hate him to feel he was missing out. What was your name again?’

‘Coe,’ said J. K. Coe, who’d been there a year.

‘Coe. You’re the one gets panic attacks, right? Behind you! Just kidding.’

Catherine put her head in her hands.

Lamb lit a cigarette and said, ‘Where was I? Oh yeah. Now, I’m a stickler for political correctness, as you know, but whoever decided we’re all equal needs punching. If we were, you wouldn’t be in Slough House touching your toes when I tell you, while the cool kids over at Regent’s Park are saving the world. Except for parts of Derbyshire, obviously.’ He inhaled, and let smoke drift from his mouth, his nostrils, possibly his ears, while he continued: ‘And if we let you help them out, you’d doubtless end up doing the only thing you’ve ever proved yourself good at, which is making a bad situation worse. Any comments so far?’

‘Well—’ River began.

‘That was rhetorical, Cartwright. If I really thought you were going to speak, I’d leave the room first.’

‘Every manhunt needs backup,’ Louisa said. ‘CCTV checks, vehicle backgrounds, all the stuff we’re used to. You don’t think the Park would appreciate our help?’

‘Make an educated guess.’

‘… Yes?’

‘I said educated,’ said Lamb. ‘That guess left school at fifteen for a job at Asda.’

‘I just thought—’

‘Yeah, well, you don’t get paid to think. Which is just as fucking well in your case.’ Lamb shifted in his chair and shoved his free hand down his trousers. Scratching commenced. ‘Now. As I was saying before everyone decided this was an open forum, there’s a lot going on, and you’re not part of it. So let’s fuck off back to our desks, shall we? Devil finds work for idle wankers, and all that.’

‘Hands.’

‘Yeah, hands, sorry. Word association.’

They trooped out, or half of them did. Lamb leaned back, eyes closed, his hand still down his trousers, and pretended not to notice that Shirley, Louisa and Catherine remained in the room. Chances are he’d have kept this up all day, but Catherine was having none of it.

‘Are you done? Or have you not started yet?’

He opened an eye. ‘Why, are you running a meter?’

‘Shirley has something to tell you.’

‘Oh, fuck.’

‘I think you mean, “What is it, Dander?”’

‘Yeah, that’s probably what I meant,’ said Lamb. ‘But my autocorrect kicked in.’ He withdrew his hand and opened his other eye. ‘What is it, Dander?’

‘Someone tried to run Ho over.’

‘Just now?’

‘At lunchtime. In the street.’ Shirley paused then added, for clarity’s sake, ‘With a car.’

‘Maybe they mistook him for a squirrel. I’ve talked to him about that beard.’

‘It was deliberate.’

‘Well, I’d hate to think of Ho being run over accidentally. It would be robbing the rest of us of a moment’s pleasure. Where did this happen?’

‘Fann Street.’

‘And the three of you witnessed it?’

‘Just me,’ said Shirley.

‘So what are you two, her backing singers?’

Catherine said, ‘If someone targets one of us, it means we’re all at risk. Potentially.’

‘And Slough House has been under attack before,’ said Louisa.

‘You don’t have to remind me,’ said Lamb. ‘It’s muggins here had to delegate the paperwork last time. What sort of car?’

‘A Honda. Silver.’

‘Any identifying characteristics? Like, oh, I don’t know, a number plate?’

‘I was too busy rescuing Ho to get it.’

‘If it happens again, you might want to re-prioritise. What did it do, swerve at him?’

‘It mounted the kerb.’

‘Huh.’

Catherine said, ‘There’s no cameras there. Hit or miss, they got clean away.’

‘Leaving the scene of an accident doesn’t make whoever it was an assassin. Your average citizen would sooner pay tax than make a statement to the cops. Anyone lean out of the window, shouting “I’ll get you next time”?’

Shirley shook her head.

‘Well then, let’s assume it was a tourist. An unexpected sighting of Roderick Ho would alarm almost anyone, and you know what foreigners are like. Excitable. And rubbish drivers. Why didn’t Ho bring this up himself, anyway? Not usually a shrinking violet, is he? More like poison ivy.’

‘He didn’t notice,’ Shirley said.

Lamb stared at her for a moment or two, then nodded. ‘Yeah, okay. I can see that happening.’

Louisa said, ‘Silver Honda. It headed east. We can find it.’

‘And offer it another go? I like your thinking. But me, I’d be more inclined to stick than twist. Ho survives a second attempt on his life, he’ll start to think he’s special. In which case I might have to kill him myself.’

‘Are you going to take this seriously?’ said Catherine.

‘I’m glad you ask. No, I’m not. Dander, you’re not the best eyewitness in the world, what with being a coked-up idiot with anger management issues, so I don’t think I’m going to be allocating our puny resources on your say-so. Of course, if any of you think I’m making a managerial misstep here, you’re more than welcome to piss off. I don’t want to close down your options or anything.’

‘So we just forget it happened?’ said Catherine.

He sighed. ‘I’m not playing devil’s avocado here. It was almost certainly nothing. Our Roderick, as I’m sure you know, spends half his time fucking up the credit ratings of people who nick his seat on the Tube. Sooner or later he’ll try that on with someone who works out what happened. So yes, he might well end up a smear on a pavement one day, and it’ll be a huge loss to the Kleenex corporation, but meantime let’s not get our knickers in a twist about a badly executed three-point turn.’ He bared his awful teeth in a wide-mouthed grin. ‘Now, I’m an ardent feminist, as you know. But haven’t you girls got better things to worry your little heads about?’

They filed out. Before leaving, Catherine turned. ‘Advocate,’ she said. ‘By the way.’

‘Up your bum,’ said Lamb. ‘As it happens.’

‘Fourteen dead,’ Diana Taverner said. ‘And more to follow.’

‘Any CCTV?’

‘Nothing of immediate use. Too chaotic. We’ll pass it to the sight and sound crew, see what they come up with. And there’ll be citizen journalist stuff, we’ll gather that in too. Christ on a bike, though. Who’d do something like this?’

Whelan raised an eyebrow.

‘Yes, okay, we know who’d do this,’ she said. ‘But why? Random carnage is one thing. But this is like something from Batman.’

Whelan had returned from Number 10 with prime ministerial outrage echoing in his ears. On the journey back the car had halted momentarily outside a TV showroom, and exactly the way it happened in movies – God, he hated it when that happened – every screen on display was showing the same footage he was watching now: blood and debris and – thankfully muted by distance – the awful screams of the dying. His phone had rung while he’d been stranded there: Claire. His wife. Was he watching this? Yes, he was watching this. She hoped he’d do something, hoped he’d bring this to an end. So much violence, so much horror.

There’d been violence and horror at Abbotsfield too, but she hadn’t called him in the middle of the day to say so. Her shock and disgust had awaited his return, in the small hours. But this – no. This couldn’t wait. She had to tell him now.

He had assured her that all that could be done would be done. That those responsible would swing, though of course not really. But this was the acceptable language of vengeance. You visited your angry fantasies upon the guilty, but in the end settled for whatever the courts handed down.

Now he said, ‘You think it’s the same crew?’

‘Different approach,’ said Lady Di. ‘Different target. Different kind of attack altogether.’

‘I can see that. Everyone can see that. But still. Do you think it’s the same crew?’

She said, ‘If it is, we’re in trouble. Because there’s no way of knowing what they might do next. Random, erratic acts of slaughter don’t make for an MO, which leaves a hole in any profile we build up. Whoever did this used a single pipe bomb. It could as easily be a lone wolf, a disgruntled teenager. But yes, it could be part of a larger campaign, with the differences deliberately built in, to throw up a smokescreen. We’ll know more when the forensics come through.’

Or when someone claims responsibility, Whelan thought.

The footage ended and he folded the laptop shut. Di Taverner walked back round the front of the desk. She didn’t sit. Prowling was more her style: one-to-ones often meant watching her pace a room like a cat mapping out its territory. Which all of this would be, if she had her way. Claude Whelan’s role as First Desk often seemed like a balancing act, and Lady Di – one of a number of so-called equals, all termed Second Desk – was waiting for his fall, not to be ready to catch him, but to be sure that when he hit the ground he never got back on his feet.

Which was why she was his usual sounding board when shit hit the fan. At least when she was there in front of him, he could be sure she wasn’t behind his back.

Besides, she had a wealth of experience of shit hitting fans. In her time, she’d lobbed more of the stuff around than a teenage chimpanzee.

He watched her pace for a while, then said, ‘What do we know about Dennis Gimball?’

He meant, of course, what did Di Taverner know about Gimball that wasn’t already in the public sphere, which itself was a fair amount. While a party backbencher, Gimball’s few forays into the wider public consciousness had revolved around incidents in pubs and speeding offences, but he’d blossomed into celebrity once he found his USP: cheerleading the campaign to get the country out of the European Union and back into the 1950s. Spearheading this crusade had involved leaving the party, a departure he undertook with an oft-mentioned ‘great reluctance’ but few inhibitions about making bitter personal attacks on former colleagues, whose responses in kind he cited as evidence of their unworthiness for public office. With his tendency towards maroon blazers, slip-on shoes and petulant on-camera outbursts he made for an unlikely media star, and having him step centre stage had been, one sketch writer commented, like watching a Disney cartoon in which Goofy took the leading role: at once both unexpected and disappointing. What should have been a cameo became a career, and the whole thing went on for what felt like decades, and when it was over there was more than one bewildered voter who wondered if the referendum hadn’t swung Gimball’s way in the hope that victory would guarantee his silence on all future topics. So far, this wasn’t working out.

‘Well,’ said Lady Di. ‘I think we can safely say he’s found the new flag he was looking for.’

‘Critic-in-chief of the security services, you mean.’

‘I doubt it’s a matter of keenly held principle so much as a convenient handle on public attention,’ she said. ‘If that’s any comfort.’

‘Anything we know that he’d rather we didn’t?’

She gave him an approving look. ‘You’re coming on, Claude. Six months ago, you’d have been shocked at the very thought.’

Whelan adjusted the photo of his wife on his desk, then adjusted it back to the way it had been. ‘Adapt and survive,’ he said.

‘I’ll check his file. See if there’s any peccadillos worth airing. Hard to believe he’d have managed to keep anything under wraps, though. His wife makes Amy Schumer look like a model of discretion.’ She paused. ‘That was a cultural reference, Claude. I’ll make sure you get a memo.’

He smiled faintly. ‘Didn’t she once write a column describing refugees as earwigs?’

‘Which is exactly what she was fed during a reality TV show soon afterwards. Not often you see karma actually landing a punch.’

‘Did she say what they taste like?’

‘Somalians,’ said Lady Di. ‘You have to hand it to her. She doesn’t go out of her way to make friends.’

But as was often the case with columnists, the more contempt they expressed for those unlike themselves, the more popular they became. Or more talked about, anyway, which they deemed the same thing. A kill list of people actually harmful to the national well-being, thought Whelan, would vastly differ from the official one used in the bunkers where they steered the drones.

Lady Di said, ‘But we’re just the stick she’s beating the PM with. Once he expressed his absolute confidence in us, in you, we became the enemy. It’s a zero-sum game, remember. If the PM gave a speech in praise of lollipop ladies, Gimball would declare them enemies of the state. And Dodie would devote her next three columns to recounting how many traffic accidents they’ve caused.’

Most things Claude Whelan knew about the treacherous nature of those who sought power he’d learned from Diana Taverner, but rarely because she spelled it out like this. Mostly, he just observed her behaviour.

He said, ‘So what does that make Zafar Jaffrey? Our enemy’s enemy?’

‘You’re asking because we’re interested? Or because the PM wants to know?’

It was because the PM wanted to know. Earlier, before the meeting at which Whelan had been invited to address the Cabinet, the PM had taken him aside. Jaffrey. He’s squeaky clean, yes? Because I’m hearing rumours.

‘She’s been putting the boot into him too,’ said Whelan. ‘His picture appears on her page any time she’s referring to Islamist extremism. You don’t need a psychology degree to join the dots.’

‘Well, he’s black,’ said Lady Di. ‘They don’t actually use the words “send ’em back”, but I think it’s safe to say the Gimballs aren’t about to endorse a rainbow coalition.’ She paused. ‘Jaffrey’s been poked at by everyone from us to the transport police, and I expect the Girl Guides have had a go too. Nobody’s caught him making suicide belts in his basement yet.’

‘Any dubious connections?’

‘He’s a politician. They all share platforms with dodgy customers one time or other, because dodgy customers make it their business to share platforms with pols. But if he was into anything seriously muddy, it would have shown up by now. Let’s face it, he’s in his forties, he’s got a dick. If he was the type to fall for a honey-trap, he’d have done so already.’

‘No buts?’

‘There are always buts,’ said Lady Di. ‘We’ve been fooled before.’

‘Then let’s take another look,’ Whelan said. ‘Just in case he’s trodden somewhere he shouldn’t since last time we checked.’

She regarded him with a face so innocent of calculation, it was clear her brain was in overdrive. ‘Any particular reason? I mean, it’s a busy time for us to be re-marking our own homework.’

But Westminster, Whelan reflected, wasn’t the only zero-sum game in town. He had no intention of letting Diana Taverner know all the angles. At any given moment she had enough of her own in play to make a polyhedron.

‘Call it housekeeping,’ he said. ‘Use the Dogs, if you want. They’re not tied up with Abbotsfield, or this latest thing. I’m sure they’ll welcome the distraction.’

Lady Di nodded. ‘As you wish, Claude.’

‘Oh, another thing. There’s a service at the Abbey, day after tomorrow. For civilian casualties of war? In the light of recent events, it’ll act as a memorial. There’ll be high-profile attendance, so we’ll need to run the usual checks.’

‘And meanwhile we’ll keep seeing if we can track down the Abbotsfield killers, yes?’

Sometimes it was worth letting Lady Di have the last word, if only to guarantee that the conversation was over. He nodded curtly and watched her leave the room; then, alone, reached out and let his fingers dally a moment on Claire’s photograph, accessing her calm fortitude, her moral certainty. Bring this to an end, he thought. It would be nice if things were that simple.

In the kitchen Louisa stopped to make a cup of tea, because any time spent not looking at lists of library users was a small victory in life’s long battle. Shirley was on her heels, a little close for comfort. Shirley, thought Louisa, was not quite as manic these past few weeks as formerly. Which some people might take as a good sign, but which Louisa thought more a distant early warning.

Without preamble, Shirley said: ‘Whose side are you on?’

‘I’m going to have to say Daenerys Targaryen,’ Louisa said, without looking round. ‘It’s not so much the dragons, more the whole freeing the slaves bit. Though the dragons do get your attention, don’t they?’

‘Because I know what I saw,’ Shirley went on. ‘And that was definitely an attempted hit.’

It didn’t look like there’d be an early exit from this encounter. Suppressing a sigh, Louisa filled the kettle. ‘Want a cup?’ This was, she thought, the first time she’d asked Shirley if she wanted tea in however long it was they’d worked together, and was oddly relieved when Shirley ignored the offer.

‘I just wish I’d got the plate.’

‘Might have helped clarify the situation,’ Louisa agreed.

‘Hey, you weren’t there. It happened pretty fast.’

‘It wasn’t a criticism,’ Louisa said, though it had been. Shirley was pretty swift when it came to a lot of things: taking offence, changing her mood, eating a doughnut. Gathering data, it turned out, not so much.

‘Anyway, it was a hit. Whoever it was would have stolen the car. All we’d find would be a burnt-out wreck in the middle of nowhere. Plate wouldn’t help.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Lot of fucking use, talking to you.’

And that was the old Shirley right there, but what was different was she didn’t storm out of the kitchen after saying it, and start a lot of door-banging and equipment abuse. Louisa knew she’d been attending anger management classes, but this was her first clue that they were actually working. Which she’d have thought required whatever the female equivalent of chemical castration was, but there you go. The miracles of counselling.

‘Thing is,’ she said, since Shirley was still hovering, ‘I can’t get too excited either way.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, on the one hand Lamb’s probably right. What are the chances Ho’s on a kill list? I mean, a professional one. Obviously anyone who knows him wants him dead.’ She fished a teabag from a battered tin. ‘And on the other hand, if he’s wrong and Ho gets whacked, well, I’m not sure there’s a downside.’

‘Unless Ho’s been targeted because of what he is,’ said Shirley. ‘One of us.’

‘Ho’s a lot of things,’ Louisa said. ‘But “one of us” is not the first that springs to mind.’

‘You know what I mean. It’s funny, sure, because it’s happening to Ho, and he’s such a tit he doesn’t even know it. But what if whoever’s after him thinks it’d be simpler to plant a bomb in the building? Or storm in with a shotgun? Have you forgotten what happened last time?’

Louisa said nothing. Last time Slough House ended up in the crosshairs, it was Marcus who’d paid the price. And if she and Shirley had anything in common apart from pariah status, it was that they’d both cared for Marcus.

The kettle boiled, pluming steam into the small room. She brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and poured hot water into her mug. Shirley still wasn’t going anywhere, and Louisa was starting to feel a tug of compassion for her. When Min Harper had died, Louisa had had nobody to talk to. Marcus and Shirley hadn’t been lovers, but they’d been the closest thing to partners Slough House had to offer. The grief Louisa had felt, Shirley was going through now. Not the same – no two feelings were ever the same – but close enough that Louisa could almost reach out, almost touch it.

But once you started breaking down those walls, there was no telling what might come crawling through.

She looked in the fridge, found the milk. Added maybe half a teaspoon of it to her cup. Funny how you always stuck by your own rules of tea-making, even when the bag you were using was full of flavoured dust, and the water tasted tinny.

Shirley said, ‘So what I was wondering,’ then stopped.

Louisa waited. ‘What?’

‘… Nah. Forget it.’

‘Shirley. What?’

‘Maybe I’ll keep an eye on him a bit. Ho.’

‘You’re gonna watch Ho’s back?’

‘Well. Yeah.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Just in case. Case it happens again, you know?’

Jesus.

‘And that’s what you were wondering?’ Louisa said. ‘Whether I think that’s a good idea?’

‘I was wondering if you wanted to help,’ Shirley mumbled.

‘Spend my free time watching Roderick Ho,’ said Louisa. Just releasing that thought tainted the air, like a fart in a crowded lift.

‘Just for a day or two. Not long.’

Louisa sipped her tea and decided it would have tasted a whole lot better if, instead of adding half a teaspoon of milk, she’d gone and hidden in her office until Shirley had left the building.

‘You’re basically going behind Lamb’s back, you know that, right?’

‘You have an objection?’

‘Well, not a moral one,’ said Louisa. ‘I just wouldn’t want to be you when he finds out.’

‘What makes you think he’ll find out?’

‘Experience.’ She remembered the shunt and crash she’d heard earlier. It wasn’t that she didn’t think something had happened, involving a car. She just didn’t think what happened had been what Shirley thought had happened. ‘Look, Shirley.’ And she didn’t feel great about saying this, but said it anyway: ‘I get it that you’re worried. I just don’t think you need be. What happened last time, Marcus and everything, that was bad, sure. But that was just us getting caught up in bigger events. Nobody’s targeting us. Why would they?’

‘You think I’m a flake,’ said Shirley. ‘A cokehead flake.’

Well, yeah, basically.

‘No,’ said Louisa. ‘It’s not that.’

‘Yes it is. So fuck you anyway.’

But she said it quietly, and didn’t look close to grabbing the teaspoon and attempting to gouge Louisa’s eye out. So again Louisa thought: this anger management course seems to be working. Who knew?

‘Yeah, okay,’ she agreed. ‘Fuck me.’

She carried her rubbish tea out into the hallway, but before she could enter her office, River called from his.

‘Louisa? Come see this.’

He was watching something on YouTube, it looked like; some amateur video, anyway. J. K. Coe was at the other desk, and didn’t look up when Louisa entered. That was par for the course. He spent most of the time on Planet Coe: must be lonely up there, but at least the air was breathable, or he’d have choked to death by now. But what was River looking at?

‘Holy Christ,’ she said.

‘It was posted about forty minutes ago.’

The video showed a blurry mass of people running from what must have been an explosion of some sort. Whatever it had been, it had happened on the other side of a glass pane, which was now spattered and mottled with blood and what looked like fur or maybe feathers.

‘Who … what was it? What died there?’

‘Penguins,’ said River. ‘Some bastard lobbed a pipe bomb into the penguin enclosure at Dobsey Park. That’s near Chester. Fourteen of the little buggers died. Most of the rest will too, probably.’

The bomb had landed in the pool, and half the colony had dived in after it. Curious little beasts, penguins, and now half of them were dead.

‘Do they know who …’

‘Not yet.’ River switched browser. The BBC front page was scant on facts but had a screenshot from someone’s iPhone of the carnage, which looked like a butcher’s backroom. Bits of penguin here and there. What looked like an intact flipper. Penguins were funny on land, ballet dancers underwater, but mostly mince once you applied brute physics.

Shirley had joined them. Her face squashed in horror. ‘God. That’s fucking horrible.’

‘“The Watering Hole”,’ River read. ‘That’s what they called the penguin enclosure. Sounds more like somewhere for elephants and gazelles and things, doesn’t it?’ he asked, displaying more zoological knowledge than Louisa was aware he possessed.

J. K. Coe looked up from his desk and stared at them for a moment. Then his gaze clouded over, and he looked out of the window instead.

Louisa felt bad. Twelve dead in Abbotsfield, and now this. She looked at Shirley, whose expression had set into one of sorrowful disgust. It was spooky really, inasmuch as the Shirley she was used to would have been punching holes in the wall by now. Not that she was especially fond of penguins, as far as Louisa was aware, but any opportunity to kick off was usually seized upon.

Before she could stop herself, she said, ‘Shirley reckons we should keep an eye on Ho.’

‘What, watch his back?’

‘That kind of thing.’

‘After hours?’

‘The only harm he’ll come to here is from us.’

‘You know he goes clubbing, don’t you?’

‘I figured.’

‘With, I can only assume, like-minded people. People like Ho.’ He paused. ‘We’ll want hazmat suits.’

Shirley said, ‘That means you’re game?’

‘Nothing better to do,’ River said. He looked at Louisa. ‘You too, yeah?’

Louisa shrugged. ‘Okay, why not? Count me in.’

4

WHEN THE QUESTION AROSE, which it often did in interviews, Dodie Gimball had her answer down pat: ‘Oh, make no mistake. It’s Dennis wears the trousers in our house.’ And this was mostly true, but what she never added was that he also, on occasion, wore a rather over-engineered red cocktail dress he’d bought her for her fortieth, along with various items of her lingerie that he was scrupulous about replacing when accidents happened. It was a harmless peccadillo – in her dating years Dodie had exclusively enjoyed beaux from public school, so hadn’t batted an eye when Dennis’s little foible came to light. At least he had no interest in putting on a wetsuit and having her walk on him in stilettos, which not one but two old Harrovians had suggested as an after-hours treat. (They’d been in the same year.) And say what you like about the system, it did grace its pupils with a smattering of the classics, a bulging address book and a knowledge of which fork to use. State education was for chemists and the grubbier sort of poet. Though she was still a trifle miffed that Dennis had chosen her fortieth birthday gift with his own pleasure in mind.

Anyway, that little item had been ticked off the Gimball agenda last week, so wouldn’t arise again for a while. What they were discussing now, in the sitting room of their Chelsea apartment, fell into the realm of their joint professional interests rather than their more-or-less shared leisure pursuits.

‘And you’re sure the information is accurate. That this man …’

‘Barrett.’

‘That this man Barrett knows what he’s talking about.’

These weren’t questions, and even if they had been, Dodie had answered them twice already. But that was Dennis’s way: when he was processing information, he liked to have it run past him a number of times. And when he got on his hind legs and spouted it for the benefit of the public, there’d be no glancing at notes or scrambling for the right word. There’d be confidence and the ring of truth. Even – especially – when the material was fabricated.

She said, ‘He’s done work for the paper in the past, and we’ve never had to retract anything. He used to be a policeman, I think. Or gives that impression. Either way, he’s our go-to chap for the back-door stuff. You know, following people around. Listening. All in the public interest, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘And he’s been keeping an eye on Zafar Jaffrey’s bagman.’

Zafar Jaffrey: the PM’s favourite Muslim, in the running for mayor of the West Midlands, and exactly the spokesman his community needed, being decent, reasonable, moderate and humane; the first to condemn extremism, and the first to defend his fellow Muslims from Islamophobic abuse. That was the official line, and even Dodie admitted he looked good on TV, but surely there was a point beyond which you needn’t go when opening doors to those of other faiths – was it so wrong to add ‘races’ there? – and that point had been reached when you were handing over the keys to the house. Besides, there was the issue of his brother. Not one he’d ever tried to conceal, true – that would have been a non-starter – but even public acknowledgement didn’t lance the boil: the fact was, Jaffrey’s younger brother had gone marching off to Syria, where he’d died waging jihad. A terrorist, in fact. On a par with those who’d gunned down innocents right here in moderate Britain.

Dennis closed his eyes and recited: ‘The bagman. A thirty-something ex-con called Tyson Bowman, whose CV includes two stretches for assault. Nasty piece of work. Claims to have found Allah inside and now adheres to the straight and narrow, but has one of those face tattoos, like a tribal marking?’

‘Best not say “tribal”, darling.’

‘Suppose not. Anyway, most of Jaffrey’s staff have records. That’s his thing. Rehabilitation.’ He sniffed: lefty nonsense. ‘Jaffrey’s not going to deny he has criminal connections.’

‘Jaffrey’s not going to be there to confirm or deny anything, so don’t mention the policy and simply highlight the fact that Bowman’s done time. Anyway. Our man Barrett has film of Bowman visiting a frightfully seedy little place near St Paul’s, a stationer’s shop apparently, though that’s just … Do they call it a “front”? The proprietor is one Reginald Blaine, though he goes by “Dancer”. And this Dancer creature has underworld connections, Barrett says. He’s rumoured to supply guns, and he specialises in creating false IDs.’

‘So how come he’s at large?’

‘Because, my darling, the world is mostly grey areas. If the man is a source of useful information to the authorities, then no doubt he’s given a certain amount of latitude. But none of that is our concern. What matters is, one, that he deals in guns and fake paperwork, and two, that Jaffrey’s man had dealings with him.’

‘But not Jaffrey himself.’

‘Of course not Jaffrey himself. That’s precisely why—’

‘—he has a bagman,’ Dennis finished.

They were a team. This was how they did things.

His wife’s glass was empty, so he refilled it: a rather amusing claret from one of those wine warehouses on the outskirts of town. Never did harm to be seen shopping where ordinary people did, provided they were the right kind of ordinary.

‘And we’re sure a public meeting is the place to air this information? The House might be safer.’

‘Yes, but we’re not hiding behind the Mother of Parliaments’ skirts,’ said Dodie. ‘We’re taking our sword of truth and getting out there and defending the people.’

He raised his glass to her, in appreciation of her pronouns.

‘Besides,’ she continued, ‘it’s verifiable fact. The story will appear in my column the following morning, with accompanying photographic evidence. Jaffrey’s not going to sue. Because if he does, we’ll bury him.’

Dennis switched roles; no longer testing the content of his upcoming speech but rehearsing it, feeling its weight. ‘There are no innocent explanations for wanting fake identities. And the fact that Jaffrey—’

‘Or his bagman.’

‘—or his underling has been making contact with a known supplier of fake identities within forty-eight hours of the Abbotsfield outrage surely speaks for itself.’

‘“Demands explanation” might be better.’

‘Surely demands explanation,’ Dennis amended. ‘Is it expecting too much of the Prime Minister that he require such explanation from his associate forthwith?’

‘Unnecessary,’ Dodie said. ‘Everybody else will join those dots, trust me. And even if they don’t, I’ll do it for them in my column. Meanwhile, the PM will be reeling from your announcement that, after full and careful consideration as to where and how you might best serve your country—’

‘In these difficult times,’ Dennis said.

‘—in these difficult times, you have decided to rejoin the party whose aspirations and ideals have always been closest to your heart, and on whose backbenches you will gladly toil alongside those whom you have always counted your closest friends.’

‘Actually, dreadful little tykes, this current intake,’ he said.

‘Though not as bad as our own shower.’

This was true. The party that Gimball had joined might only have had a single issue at its core, but a single issue was enough to sow division among the uncomplicated minds of its activists, for whom a punch-up in a car park passed for debate. There would doubtless be hysteria at his defection – or redefection – but it would be a three-day whirlwind.

He raised his glass to her again. They were awfully jolly, these strategy sessions. A model of cooperative planning. ‘I wonder how the PM’ll react,’ he said.

‘Oh, he’ll mime slaughtering a fatted calf and try not to show he’s soiling himself. He’s just got through announcing that Jaffrey has his full support, and after my article the other day—’

‘Servicing a cow, ha ha! Very good!’

‘—he had no choice but to wave the flag for the MI5 chief, what’s his name? That common little man.’

‘Claude Whelan.’

‘So the PM’s tame Muslim celebrity turns out to be what we’re not allowed to say is usually found lurking in a woodpile, and the man responsible for establishing said Muslim’s credentials has fallen down on the job. The PM does rather seem to be lacking in judgement, doesn’t he?’

‘Almost as if a replacement were called for.’

‘And who better than the hero of the referendum? Darling, happy endings are so rare in politics. This one will be celebrated for years.’

Like other newspaper columnists, like other politicians, they genuinely thought themselves beloved.

Dennis Gimball finished his wine and stood and stretched. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That’s all marvellous. And now perhaps I’ll just … take a stroll. Fetch a newspaper.’

‘Darling if you’re seen smoking, it’ll be headline news. You very publicly gave up, remember?’

‘It wasn’t front page of the manifesto, though.’

‘That was funny the first time, dear, but don’t ever say it again. If you’re going to smoke, do it in the garden. And make sure nobody’s watching.’

Sometimes, she thought, it was like having a child.

While he was in the garden she scrolled through her calendar, checking the details of the following evening’s public meeting, back in the constituency. Keeping it local was deliberate. Dennis’s strength lay in the way he tolerated ordinary people, pretending he was no more important than they were, and at this stage of his career he would rely on that more than ever. When he made his announcement, he would do it to his home crowd, in front of home cameras. His supporters would feel they were part of the moment, and the ensuing wave of good feeling would carry him through the next few months. Meanwhile, that same wave would send the PM onto the rocks. An amiable idiot whose amiability was wearing thin, the PM’s idiocy was growing more apparent by the day; he’d surrounded himself with his familiars to the point where a Cabinet meeting resembled his sixth form common room, and he had no idea of the resentment this was generating. The tide was turning, though, and he’d soon be high and dry.

This was jolly good stuff, by the way. She should jot down notes – wave of feeling, onto the rocks, turning of the tide …

Dodie finished her drink and turned to the next item on her agenda: what to wear for the event. Something sober, something serious, something not too flashy but oozing class. Which, truth to tell, that red cocktail dress never had. It wouldn’t do to let Dennis know that, though. Even the best-matched couples need their secrets.

After five, the stairs in Slough House only went in one direction. That was the general rule, anyway. Shirley’s final AFM was at six, and it wouldn’t take her half an hour on foot to get there, which was just one of the many annoying things about having her anger managed: if she had to spend time kicking something, her heels wouldn’t be her first choice. Besides, she wanted to get on with the evening’s main business: tailing Roddy Ho, and seeing what reptiles crawled in his wake. Was so intent on that, in fact, that the wrap of coke in her pocket kept slipping her mind.

And then, as is the way with such things, slipping back into it again.

Maybe she should take it now? Start the evening with a buzz: give herself an edge. She’d never taken coke before an AFM, except for once or twice, and what the hell: she’d survived the course, right? Had only had it extended once, or maybe twice … Actually, maybe coking up wasn’t the best idea.

Kicking her heels in her office, then. Extending the stupid day’s work another thirty stupid minutes, knowing all the while that River Cartwright and Louisa Guy were already on the job: her job. Just her luck if she missed the action altogether. Worst-case scenario: Ho got whacked in an interesting way, and she wasn’t there to see. She’d never hear the end of it. And here she still was, another twenty-eight minutes to go, and all alone in Slough House, except for …

Lamb and Catherine.

There was something else on her mind – had been for a while – and the right moment for dealing with it had never come up, largely because such a moment quite likely didn’t exist. But now would be a good time to establish that, one way or the other. Because it was either that or sit here counting minutes, to add to her tally of days …

Fuck it.

Shirley got up, left the office, took the stairs in the wrong direction.

‘How come Ho lives in a house?’ River said.

‘What were you were expecting? An upturned pizza box?’

‘You know what I mean.’

She knew what he meant.

He meant Ho lived in a house. A house. Not a flat, not a bedsit; an actual London property, with a front door and a roof and everything in between. River himself lived in a one-bedroomed flat in the East End, with a view of a row of lock-ups, fist-fighting drunks a regular lullaby, and rent getting steeper by the quarter. Louisa owned her own place – also a flat – but it was miles out of town; was part of London the same way its airports were. But Ho, apparently, lived in a house: not in the cleanest area of the capital, nor its brightest, but still. A fucking house.

‘Bank of Mum and Dad,’ said Louisa.

‘Has to be. And with a weird … what would you call that?’

‘A feature.’

Which looked like an upstairs conservatory: a room whose outer wall was mostly glass, and through the gaps in whose curtains the pair could see stacks of electronica, which they guessed were either for playing music with or wandering the web on. It was currently lit, and Ho – or someone – was pacing the floor within.

‘I think I remember him telling me about that,’ she said.

‘Ho talked to you about his house?’

‘I think.’

‘You listened?’

She said, ‘I’m a spy, remember?’

They were in Louisa’s car, and were, well, spying. To help with this, both were eating burgers out of polystyrene containers, and were sharing a portion of cheesy potato wedges, after a prolonged bout of negotiation (‘You don’t need to put salt on. They put salt on them already. They do.’) the stress of which probably undid the good that forgoing half a portion of cheesy potato wedges did. Ho had been home an hour, and they had already agreed that if he stayed in all night and nothing happened, they were going to toss Shirley from a bridge first thing in the morning.

The car was swampy with food odours. Louisa wound the window down to let some of them escape.

‘Speaking of houses.’

This was River.

She said, ‘Yeah?’

‘I went to the house the other day.’

‘Your grandad’s?’

River nodded.

‘Must be strange, him not being there.’

‘I think it’s the first time I’d ever been alone in the place. That can’t really be true. But it felt like it.’

It had been like stepping into someone else’s past. The books on the shelves, the coats on the rack, the wellingtons by the back door. It had been a decade since River moved away, and there’d be remnants of his presence, sure; chips on the skirting board, boxes in the attic, the odd shelf of teenage reading. But the house was the O.B.’s now, and before then had been the O.B. and Rose’s, River’s grandmother. Walking through it, he had felt himself a stranger, as if someone had curated a museum of his grandparents but forgotten to apply the labels. He had found himself touching objects, trying to place them in a chronology he had only ever known a small part of.

‘What’ll happen to it?’

‘Happen to it?’

Louisa looked away, then looked back. ‘He’s not going to live forever, River.’

‘No, I know. I know.’

‘So are you his sole heir?’

‘My mother’s his next of kin.’

‘But is he likely to leave it to her?’

‘I don’t know. No. Probably not.’

‘Well then.’

‘It’s not like I’m just waiting for him—’

‘I know.’

‘—to die, I’m not—’

‘I know.’

‘—counting the days. Yeah, I’ll probably inherit. And yes, it’ll come in handy. God knows, London’s pricey. But I’d rather have him around, if it’s all the same to you. Even now. When he’s away with the fairies half the time.’

‘I know,’ said Louisa.

Between his fingers, his styrofoam container screamed like a clubbed seal. Or like one of those murdered penguins: a mad target. Did it even count as terrorism when no mammals were killed?

‘Here he comes,’ Louisa said.

Ho was leaving his house, stepping straight into an Uber.

‘Game on,’ she murmured, and took off in its wake.

Lamb was coiled like a spring, if you meant one of those springs on a rusted old bedstead. He was semi-sprawled on his chair, eyes closed, one foot on his desk, a cigarette burning to death in his right hand. Through a gap in his unbuttoned shirt Shirley could see his stomach rise and fall. The smoke from his cigarette was a blue-grey spiral, but broke into rags when it hit the ceiling.

Still daylight outside, barely evening yet, but Lamb punched his own clock, and won on a technical knockout. In his room it was forever the dead zone; the same time it always was when you woke with a start, heart racing, and all your problems waiting by the bed. Shirley was half minded to turn tail and use the stairs the way they were intended: down and out. But she’d already missed that window.

‘If you’re after a rise,’ he said, still with his eyes closed, ‘just think of me as Santa Claus.’

‘… You’re giving me a rise?’

‘I’m saying ho ho ho.’

‘I’m not after a rise.’

‘Holiday? Answer’s the same.’

‘Marcus had a gun,’ Shirley told him.

This caused one eye to open. ‘Okay,’ he admitted. ‘That wasn’t going to be my next guess.’

‘Can I have it?’

‘Yeah, why not? It’s on a shelf back there.’ Lamb indicated a corner with a blunt head movement. ‘Help yourself.’

‘… You’re kidding, aren’t you?’

‘Course I’m fucking kidding. I don’t read all the management shit, but I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to arm staff just ’cause they’re bored. That’s the main reason British Home Stores failed.’

‘I’m not bored.’

‘You’re not? Sounds to me like a criticism of my leadership style.’

‘I’m bored,’ Shirley amended, ‘but that’s not why I want Marcus’s gun.’

‘If you need a paperweight, steal a stapler. Everyone else does.’

‘The Park has an armoury.’

‘The Park has a spa and a gym too. It even has a crèche, can you believe it? If you were keen on employee benefits, you should have borne that in mind before fucking your career up.’ He moved his foot from the desk, dislodging some probably unimportant papers in the process, and leaned forward to kill his cigarette in a teacup. ‘Telling you that counts as pastoral care, by the way. There’s a feedback form somewhere, if you can be bothered.’

‘If the shit hits the fan again,’ Shirley said, ‘I don’t want to be left hiding behind a door that’s mostly cardboard. When that mad spook stormed the place, we were fighting him off with a kettle and a chair.’

‘Dander, I’d hate you to get the idea that I give even the smallest of fucks about this, but you’re a junkie with a short fuse. Putting you in charge of a loaded gun would be like giving a three-year-old a box of matches. It might make for an entertaining ten minutes, but I’d have HR on my back before you can say “fuck me, smells like bacon”. Besides, I hate to harp on about the paperwork. But Standish has me signing fifteen forms a day as it is.’ He held his hand up in front of him, and grimaced sadly. ‘I’m think I’m developing repetitive strain injury.’

‘Nobody would know,’ she said. ‘Marcus shouldn’t have had it in the first place. It’s not even legal.’

Lamb affected shock. ‘You mean, if he’d been caught with it, he could have been charged with a criminal offence?’

‘Yep.’

‘Dodged a bullet there, didn’t he? Shame he didn’t make a habit of it.’

For what might have been half a minute she stared at him, but he’d adopted his most benign expression – post-coital warthog, or thereabouts – and gave every indication of being prepared to hold it until his final trump. And given Lamb’s capacity for farting, which was paradoxically bottomless, that could be a long time coming.

Anger fucking management. Her session should be a doddle after this little chat.

‘What happens if we get attacked again?’ she said by way of farewell.

‘The kettle got replaced, didn’t it?’ Lamb said, closing his eyes once more. ‘Go quietly on the stairs please. Some of us are of a sensitive disposition.’

Over at the Park, meanwhile, orders were filtering down the great chain of being.

Jaffrey’s squeaky clean, yes?, the PM had asked Claude Whelan. Because I’m hearing rumours.

‘First Desk wants to be sure that Zafar Jaffrey is … reliable,’ Lady Di now told Emma Flyte.

Nobody’s reliable, Flyte thought. This is politics, not DIY.

But all she said was, ‘How soon does he want to know?’

‘Ten minutes ago,’ said Lady Di. ‘Why are you still here?’

There was bad blood between them, if not as bad as there might have been. Both, for instance, were still standing. But Emma Flyte, being cursed with exceptional beauty, was used to hostility from both genders, though it was usually delivered in disguise. In some ways, Lady Di’s frank dislike was refreshing. And besides, Flyte had Claude Whelan’s support, so here she still was: Head Dog, which meant chief of the Service’s internal police, a branch of Five which had historically morphed, now and again, into a private squad administering to the merciless whims of one First Desk or other, but under Flyte’s leadership had become what it had originally been meant to be, or at least be seen to be: an impartial department dedicated to the purging of unacceptable in-house activity. Hunting out naughty spies, basically. Flyte’s usual intractability on this point was the main bone of contention between herself and Taverner, but here and now, she was prepared to allow the margins to grow misty. Nothing to do with a quid pro quo for Whelan’s backing, but a tacit acceptance that when the Park was under the hammer, everyone did what was needed. And since Abbotsfield, the Park was under the hammer.

Besides, Lady Di – ever the professional – never let her animosity show unless it was absolutely necessary, or she felt like it.

So Flyte simply said: ‘Just planning my next move, sir,’ and headed off to set things in motion, which first off involved getting Devon Welles to access the available background and bring her up to speed.

Devon, like herself, was former Job: real police, which meant he knew when to follow orders, when not to bother, and where the nearest pub was. In this instance, it took him forty minutes to pull together the threads the Service had wrapped around Zafar Jaffrey to date: two full-scale vettings and a handful of once-overs.

‘A lot for a middleweight pol,’ she observed.

‘It would be a lot for a middleweight white-bread pol,’ Welles corrected. ‘But outside the London mayor, Jaffrey’s the highest-profile Muslim player in the country. And each vetting preceded a public handshake with the PM. Who is not the type to be seen cuddling up to anyone dangerous.’

‘Are you allowed to say “white-bread” to me?’

‘I’m pretty sure you just asked for a black coffee in my hearing.’

They were in the canteen, which was where a lot of meetings took place that either weren’t private at all, or were so private they wanted to appear not to be.

Welles said, ‘The scanners were run over the whole family three years back, when his brother went off to Syria, and again when he announced his candidacy for mayor. He came through with, well, nobody ever has flying colours. But clean in every way you’d want him to be. Family’s middle class but he’s got the common touch, v. good on TV – did that interview, you probably saw it, where he cried on screen talking about how he and his family had failed his brother, how it was imperative that other Muslim families in the UK did not fail their sons. After that he sat on a few committees, made the right noises on Question Time, got himself appointed a special adviser to the PM. And here we are.’

‘Tell me about his brother.’

‘Karim. Quite a bit younger, twelve years, that area. He was radicalised without anyone noticing. Bad internet connections, mostly – that sounds like a techie problem, but you know what I mean. He got involved in a couple of forums that’ve since been shut down. First the family knew about it, he was posting a video from Syria. And the last thing they knew, a couple of months later, he was playing gooseberry in someone else’s date with a drone. Syria’s one place where you really don’t want to go celebrity spotting, isn’t it?’

‘I’ll scrub it from my bucket list. What about entourage?’

‘Jaffrey does a lot of work with radicalised youngsters – recovering radicals, that is. Gets them speaking in schools, writing blogs, doing podcasts. And he recruits his staff from their number. So what we’ve got is a lot of vetting reports with more hedges than Hampton Court maze. That’s just a quick overview, obviously. But still …’

‘Nobody’s putting their career on the line to guarantee they’re all spotless.’

‘That’s about the size of it.’ Welles paused. ‘Plus, I just had a word with a former contact. A print reptile.’

She said, ‘You spoke to a journo?’

‘When the digital revolution’s won, we’ll all be speaking to them on a daily basis. “Yes, I will have fries with that.” Meanwhile, they have their uses. And this one works on Dodie Gimball’s paper. It seems Gimball’s filed a piece claiming Jaffrey has links to an, ah, unsavoury individual dealing with guns and fake paperwork. Dodie’s done the sums, and come up with terrorism. In fact, she’s drawing a direct connection between Jaffrey and the group responsible for the Derbyshire killings.’

Flyte said, ‘Oh – kay. Ten minutes after I’m handed a brief to make sure our man’s a white-hat, it turns out he’s in the frame for a mass murder.’

‘More like an hour,’ Welles said. ‘And are you allowed to say white-hat?’

‘Even we haven’t tagged those responsible for Derbyshire. How the hell would Gimball know?’

‘Doesn’t matter. She’s got some dirt and is about to throw it, that’s all. She’s married to Dennis, the anti-Europe MP. Probably has an agenda we don’t know about.’

‘Everybody does,’ grumbled Flyte. She finished her coffee and stood. ‘Thanks, Dev. But keep digging.’

‘Will do.’

She left in search of Lady Di.

Catherine put the kettle on and, while waiting, scrubbed at a stain on the kitchen counter. There was always something. Not long ago, she’d imagined herself out of Slough House for good, and the life she’d led during those few months had been serviceable enough: evenings had followed afternoons had followed mornings, and during none of them had she drank. But they weighed heavy. There are worse things an alcoholic can have on her hands than time, but not many. Her flat was a model of order; virtually a caricature. In order to spend time tidying, she had to mess things up first. Here in Slough House, mess came as standard. So yes, there was always something.

But not all stains scrubbed away. Some while back there’d been three deaths inside Slough House, which even Lamb allowed was pretty high for a mid-week afternoon. They’d lost a colleague, and a former spook, and a captive had been shot dead too. Catherine was perhaps the only one to mourn this final death. It wasn’t so much the loss of life as the manner of its taking: J. K. Coe had committed murder, and Catherine believed that such actions had consequences. This was nothing to do with religion or spiritual awareness, just her hard-won knowledge that bad things followed bad. Circles were traditionally vicious. Catherine suspected other shapes had teeth too, but better PR.

She finished scrubbing, made two cups of tea, and carried both, along with the dishcloth, up to Lamb’s room.

He stirred. ‘Did I accidentally establish an open-door policy? Because if so, I didn’t mean my door. I meant everyone else’s.’

Catherine put the two cups on his desk, removed a single sock, a comb missing so many teeth it needed dentures and an empty sandwich carton from the chair on the visitors’ side, and wiped it with the dishcloth. Then she sat.

‘It’s like a royal visitation,’ he grumbled. ‘If your arse is so particular, why’s it attached to you? What are you after, anyway? As if I didn’t know.’

‘Someone tried to run Roddy over.’

‘Yeah. You might have missed the bit where we had a meeting earlier? That was covered under Any Other Business.’

‘And you said it never happened.’

‘I pointed out that Dander’s a coked-up idiot,’ he said. ‘A subtle difference, I know. But subtlety’s always been my strong point.’

He farted, and reached for his tea.

‘Can you actually do that at will?’ Catherine asked, despite herself.

‘Do what?’

‘… Never mind. So you believe her. Despite her issues.’

The slurping noise he made would not have disgraced a pig.

‘And yet you let her think you didn’t.’

‘Jesus, Standish.’ He opened his desk drawer. She knew what was coming, and here it was: a bottle of Talisker. He opened it and poured about a week’s worth into his cup. ‘Complete the following, would you? Upon receiving information of a credible threat to an agent …’

Light dawned.

‘… Okay.’

‘Yeah, that’s not the exact wording.’

She could see no way out of this. ‘A report of same must immediately be made to local station head (Ops).’

‘I could actually hear the brackets there,’ he said. ‘And what’s our local station, remind me?’

‘Regent’s Park.’

‘Regent’s Park. So Service Standing Rule number whatever it is—’

‘Twenty-seven (three).’

‘Thank you. Demands that a full report of this morning’s events be made to Lady Di Taverner, who will doubtless copy Claude Whelan in. For a supposedly secret service, there’s a lot of stuff happens in triplicate.’ Lamb took a healthy gulp of what had been tea. ‘Ah, that’s better. Luckily, Service Standing Rule twenty-seven three is superseded by London Rules, rule one. Which is …?’

He cupped a hand behind a monstrous ear.

London Rules were written down nowhere, but everyone knew rule one.

‘Cover your arse.’

‘Precisely.’ He belched, proudly. ‘Because you may not have noticed, but Slough House isn’t exactly in Regent’s Park’s wank bank. In fact, there are those who’d happily tie us in a sack and drop us in the Thames.’ He shook his head at the thought of being unpopular, produced a cigarette from somewhere, and lit it. ‘So any time they get an opportunity to start writing memos about us, it’s in our interests to squash such opportunity before it comes to fruition. Do stop me if I’m going too fast.’

‘Your turn of speed is always impressive,’ she said. For someone your size, she meant. She waved away smoke. ‘Have you ever thought about quitting? You might live longer.’

‘Why would I want to do that?’

‘Good point. So what you’re saying is, whatever’s put Roddy in someone’s crosshairs has also put us in Regent’s Park’s firing line.’

‘But only if they find out about it.’

‘What do you think Roddy’s done? Or seen?’

‘Christ knows. Downloaded the Archbishop of Canterbury’s porn stash? Whatever it is, I doubt he knows he’s done it. There’s something about him, what’s the word I’m looking for?’

‘… Otherworldly?’

‘Fuckwitted. Too fuckwitted to know when he’s stepped in someone else’s shit. Then starts treading it everywhere.’

‘He’s left for the evening,’ Catherine said.

‘I know. I felt the average IQ rise.’

‘What happens if they take another pass at him?’

‘If this morning’s attempt is anything to go by, it’ll end up on one of those video blooper programmes. It’s a good job they’re not on our side. If they were, they’d be assigned here.’

‘So we do nothing?’

‘Well, I personally don’t plan to do much. But if you think our little gang of Jason Stillborns’ll pass up the chance to mount their own private op, you’ve forgotten what testosterone smells like. I’ve already had Dander in here wanting to know if she can have a gun.’

‘You didn’t give her one!’

‘I was tempted. She was on her way to an anger management class. Imagine her turning up armed.’ His eyes glazed over while the headlines wrote themselves. Then he leaned across and knocked ash from his cigarette into Catherine’s cup. ‘Ta.’

‘I can’t help feeling our lives would be much easier if we could trust the Park,’ she said.

‘Well, I’m not on our Claude’s Christmas list, on account of my knowing about him putting his dick where he shouldn’t. That’s the same Claude whose rock-solid marriage is the stuff of Service legend.’ He leered. ‘He regards his wife as a saint, I gather. Which means she only gets down on her knees when in church, if you catch my drift.’

‘It would be hard not to.’

Something in her word choice triggered a response, but before Lamb could get it out a burst of coughing overtook him – a great heaving earthquake of a fit, heavy enough to rattle not only his own body, but some of those he’d buried. The desk trembled. Catherine watched, wordlessly, and it occurred to her to wonder what she’d do if he died, which didn’t, at that moment, seem out of the question. He could die right there in front of her eyes. Well, a cold voice deep within her suggested – the same voice that kept her from dropping a bottle of wine into her basket during her weekly shop – well: she’d had a boss die on her before. She wasn’t collecting the set or anything, but she supposed she’d get through it if this one died too.

But her natural instincts took over. She returned to her own office and came back with a clean glass, a bottle of water and a box of tissues. She poured him some water, handed him the tissues. He grabbed a handful and buried his face in them, and then, when the heaving started to subside, poured the water in one seamless dazzle down his throat.

Before he’d finished mopping himself, she said, ‘When was the last time you had a check-up?’

‘There’s an annual medical. You know that.’

‘Yes. And when was the last time you took it?’

‘It was a coughing fit. It’s passed.’

‘You smoke too much. You drink too much. I doubt you sleep at night so much as pass out. Do you ever exercise? Don’t even answer that.’

‘My body is a temple,’ said Lamb.

‘Interesting viewpoint,’ Catherine said. ‘So what does that make your lifestyle choices? The Taliban?’

He grunted.

She stood again. ‘So where are we? Something’s going on, we don’t know what, but at least one of us is bang in the middle of it. And meanwhile the country’s on red alert. Does any of this seem familiar to you?’

‘My whole life feels like a repeat most days.’

‘It’s going to feel like a series finale if you don’t start taking some exercise.’ She left him there, and went to put her coat on.

Lamb sat in the dark and poured another drink.

And after a while, lit another cigarette.

5

THE CLUB COULDN’T HAVE been Ho’s choice, they decided, because instead of a soundtrack that was to the brain what the cider press was to an apple, it had a back-to-schooldays vibe going on. They were in a mezzanine booth with a view of the dance floor; a view, too, of Roddy Ho, part of a group on the far side of the open space. He hadn’t seen them, being busy with his companions, plus he was wearing sunglasses. This had nearly tipped the balance in favour of abandoning him to possible death, but River had argued that this wouldn’t be fair on Shirley.

‘Since when have you given a toss what Shirley thinks?’

He shrugged.

The club was in Stockwell. After being dropped at its door, Ho had marched up and down the pavement for forty-seven minutes, texting. Louisa had circled the block a few times, but he hadn’t clocked her; she’d dropped River at a nearby junction, where he’d have been spotted easily if Roddy had shown even the mildest interest in his surroundings. If I wanted to kill you, River thought, you’d be dead already. But this probably wasn’t true: there’d been many previous occasions on which River had wanted to kill Roderick Ho, and his innate sense of not wanting to go to prison had always held him back.

Eventually another taxi had arrived and disgorged about sixteen people, one of them a young, attractive, possibly Chinese woman, who suffered Roddy to kiss her on the cheek, and briefly held his hand while he paid first the taxi fare, then the entrance fee at the club. By the time River and Louisa had regrouped and made their own way inside, the gang had found a table and were waiting for Roddy to return from the bar, to which he had to make three trips. This kept him busy enough that he didn’t see them coming in, though the shades couldn’t have helped.

‘You reckon that’s the fabled girlfriend?’ Louisa asked.

‘Her name’s Kim.’

‘Actually, yes, he may have mentioned that. You think he ordered her off the internet?’

‘I’d guess he made her in his basement, except she looks too well put together.’

Because they were on an op they were drinking mineral water, or would have been, but it cost so much they decided to have beer instead: if they were going to be scalped, they might as well feel some benefit. River had texted Shirley to say where they were. She hadn’t replied, but that didn’t surprise them: Shirley could be pissed off for days after an AFM.

‘Though she’s been less … disruptive lately,’ River said. ‘More muted.’

‘I think she’s off the marching powder.’

‘She misses Marcus.’

Louisa didn’t want that conversation. She looked around. ‘Do this often?’

‘Clubbing? Please.’

She eyed him critically. ‘You brush up okay. Or might do. I’ve never actually seen it happen.’

‘We’re supposed to be on surveillance.’

‘We’re supposed to be in a nightclub. Chatting, drinking, whatever. There’s a girl over there giving you the eye, by the way.’

He turned to see.

‘Gotcha.’

‘Thanks. You think somebody’s gonna try and whack Ho?’

‘Not in here, probably. Or not a professional. A punter might.’

‘He seems to have plenty of friends.’

‘He’s buying plenty of drinks. There’s a difference.’

Kim, if that’s who she was, was now dancing with one of the other boys in the group, and Ho was watching them, a tight smile on his face.

Louisa said, ‘Ah, that’s sad, never mind.’

‘Why would anyone want to blow up a pool full of penguins?’

She’d been wondering that too. ‘The Watering Hole,’ she said. ‘That’s what it was called.’

‘You think it was some madman?’

‘Can’t think of a sane motive.’

‘Maybe there’s a link with Abbotsfield.’

Louisa couldn’t see how. ‘Unless something just infects the air. Some kind of bloodlust, where you don’t even care what it is that’s bleeding.’

Shirley was suddenly there. ‘Did you get me a beer?’

‘No,’ Louisa explained. ‘Because we didn’t know when you’d get here, and we didn’t feel like buying you a drink.’

Shirley squeezed onto the banquette, where she could share the view. She took in Ho – still oblivious to their presence – and the direction of his gaze. ‘Who’s the cock candy?’

‘That would be Kim.’

‘Ho is dicking that? Someone’s being scammed.’

‘How was the AFM?’ River asked.

‘Over.’

‘Maybe you could celebrate by getting a round in,’ Louisa suggested.

‘I’m a girl. Girls don’t buy drinks in nightclubs.’

They both looked at River.

‘Oh, great.’

‘We won’t let anyone kill him while you’re gone.’

‘Don’t do me any favours.’

He went to fetch more beers, and by the time he got back Louisa was telling Shirley her idea for a TV show, which would open with a view of Tom Hiddleston walking down a long, long corridor, shot from behind.

River waited. ‘Then what?’ he asked at last.

But the women had misted over, and didn’t hear him.

Eventually Kim stopped dancing and sat next to Ho. The view became restricted, with the dance floor fully occupied, and the music grew louder, battling with the aggregated noise of mating rituals. River watched these with the air of a man trying to remember a long-discarded habit.

‘Taking notes?’ Louisa asked.

‘When women touch their hair it’s a sign of sexual attraction, right?’

‘Can be. But some men just make women feel like they’ve got nits.’

Shirley said, ‘He’s leaving.’

He’d played it cool. Chicks like Kim, his girlfriend, they kept you on your toes: knowing you were alpha, they felt compelled to grade the other males too. He’d seen a documentary on the subject. It was about turtles, but same difference. He’d had a laugh with the other guys anyway, and bought a few drinks, and now he was heading home in a taxi, Kim right next to him – going back to his place – and once she’d finished texting she’d probably snuggle up, get them both in the mood. Not that he needed help. Fact was, he was in the mood anytime Kim was near, though the stresses of her job – she worked in retail – meant she was usually too fatigued or headachey. But still. Here she was.

The Rodster getting into gear now. This was going to be oh so smooth.

‘Who you texting, babes?’

‘… Huh?’

‘Who you texting?’

A streetlight they were passing under caught her face in its glow.

‘… No one.’

They were about ten minutes from home. The driver glanced in the rear-view and his gaze met Roddy’s. Yeah, thought Roddy. You wish. He put a hand on Kim’s shoulder and felt her tense. Excitement. You and me both, babes. He started planning the order of events: bit of mood music, a celebratory drink. He had a bottle of fizz in the fridge for exactly this situation. It wasn’t vintage, or hadn’t been when he bought it, but it would hit the spot.

Roddy Ho, Roddy Ho, riding through the glen …

Bring it on.

Louisa kept the taxi in view the whole journey. It wasn’t the hardest tail job in the world, particularly as it was going back the way they’d come earlier. Getting their collective heads round what they’d seen, Roderick Ho heading home in a taxi with a woman, was a trickier business.

‘What the hellfuck is going on?’ Shirley asked.

‘Roddy’s taking a girl home,’ River said, in a stunned tone.

‘I know. That’s why I’m asking. He’s a brand ambassador for twattery. How come he’s pulled?’

‘We knew he had a girlfriend,’ Louisa said. ‘He’s mentioned it a couple of times.’

‘Yeah,’ objected Shirley. ‘But I didn’t think she actually existed. Let alone looked like that.’

A brief poll they’d taken had Kim an eight and a half, possibly a nine.

‘Did you see her skin? It’s fucking flawless.’

‘Are you switching sides again?’ asked River. ‘You were mooning about Tom Hiddleston’s bum an hour ago.’

Shirley didn’t dignify that with a response. It was up to Louisa to explain: ‘Tom Hiddleston’s bum transcends gender preference.’

River said, ‘Anyway, maybe we’re missing the point. Maybe she’s the one trying to kill Ho. In which case, going home with him is part of her plan.’

‘I so want that to be true,’ said Shirley.

‘Why wait so long?’ Louisa said. ‘They’ve been going out for months. If I was Roddy Ho’s girlfriend, I’d have killed him long before now.’

‘Maybe she’s been using him for something.’

Shirley gave a low, unhappy moan.

‘Christ,’ said River. ‘Not that. I meant using him for the only thing he’s good at.’

‘Hacking,’ said Louisa.

‘So it is a scam,’ Shirley said, brightening.

‘Makes more sense than the alternative,’ said River. ‘Which is that Ho does, in actual fact, have a girlfriend who looks like that.’

‘Well if he does, I wish I hadn’t saved his life.’

‘Nearly there,’ said Louisa. ‘Taxi’s slowing down.’

‘Here we go, babes,’ said Ho, paying the fare.

‘Actually, Roddy, could you bung an extra twenty on?’

‘… I … Twenty? A tip’s a tip, but—’

‘No, I need him to take me home, that’s all.’ Kim smiled. ‘Tomorrow’s a big day for me. Huge. I need a night’s sleep. Twenty should cover it. But make it twenty-five, yeah?’

‘… I … Yeah, babes. Sure. But I thought …’

‘What did you think, Roddy?’

‘… Nothing, babes.’

He fumbled for more notes while Kim told the driver where she needed to go. When she’d finished, she put a hand under Ho’s chin and drew his face close to hers. ‘You were so damn … sexy back there, Roddy. When you were watching me dance. I swear, I was wet.’

‘… Ngh …’

She kissed him long and hard, then gave him a little push. ‘Go on. Meter’s running.’

He stepped out of the taxi like a man emerging from a train wreck, then looked back when she called his name:

‘Roddy?’

‘Yeah, babes?’

‘Goodbye.’

‘… G’night, Kim.’

The taxi stayed where it was while Roddy, after a brief struggle, removed his keys from his trouser pocket, and Kim waved at him until he was through his front door.

Then it pulled away.

‘There is a God,’ said Shirley, watching this from Louisa’s car, a little way up the street.

In the taxi, Kim tapped on the dividing glass and said to the driver, ‘Actually, I need to go somewhere else,’ and gave him a new address. Then she took her phone out again, and instead of texting made a call.

‘He’s home,’ she said. ‘Alone, yes.’

She seemed about to end it there, but changed her mind.

‘And listen … make it quick? He’s harmless.’

She put her phone in her bag, and let the taxi carry her off.

‘So now what?’ said Louisa.

‘He’s home. Nobody tried to kill him. I vote we call it a night,’ said River, stifling a yawn.

‘Lightweight,’ said Shirley.

‘No, he’s right,’ said Louisa. ‘What else do we do? Sit and watch Ho’s front door?’

‘Just because he’s back doesn’t mean he’s safe,’ Shirley said, with a taut note in her voice that hadn’t been there earlier.

‘But nothing we’ve seen suggests he’s in any danger, either.’

‘Someone tried to whack him this morning.’

‘We remember.’

‘If I hadn’t been there, he’d be dead.’

‘That doesn’t mean you’re responsible for him from now on,’ River said. ‘That only happens in films.’

‘Besides,’ said Louisa, ‘he pretty clearly didn’t notice it himself.’

‘It fucking happened.’

‘Yeah, okay, but—’

‘No, not fucking okay. It happened. And until we know why—’

‘Shirley—’

‘—then it could still happen again. And if it happens to him, it could happen to any one of us.’

‘That’s not strictly—’

‘Fuck off, Cartwright.’

‘Okay.’

Louisa said, ‘Shirley, you have a point. Sure. But three of us, in one car? Is that any way to run a surveillance?’

‘You’re trying to get me out of your car?’

‘I’m saying we can’t take shifts if we’re all crammed in here. There’s no chance of any of us getting any sleep. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t intend to be awake all night.’

‘So … So what are you suggesting?’

‘That we need a plan,’ Louisa said. ‘And here it is. We take shifts. The best surveillance point’s that bus stop on the corner. Bound to be night buses on this route, so waiting won’t look suspicious. First relief’s at two, then five. The others kip in the car. Okay?’

‘Here in the road?’

‘No. I’ll park further down, past the shops. Won’t be so conspicuous.’

Shirley said, ‘We gonna draw straws or what?’

‘I’m moving the car. No offence, but nobody else drives this baby. And River’s had two beers, so he’ll be useless until he’s had some kip. So …’

‘So I’m first up.’

‘Well, this whole thing was your idea.’

Shirley scowled. ‘You’d better not be late.’

Contrary to most approved covert surveillance techniques, she allowed the door to slam behind her when she got out.

Louisa said, ‘No, really. Happy to help,’ and waited until Shirley was halfway to the bus stop before starting the engine.

‘You were trying to get her out of your car, weren’t you?’ River said.

‘Yeah. Fuck her. I’m going to bed. Want a lift?’

‘Please.’

They left.

Roderick Ho let himself into his house, turned the hall lamp on, then leaned against the wall. ‘Yeah, course, babes,’ he murmured. Big day tomorrow. Need your beauty sleep. Best not come in, because you’d not get much of that in the Rodster’s bed.

You rock my world. He’d said that to her a time or two. You rock my world. Chicks liked it when you quoted poetry; it made them feel special. And Kim deserved to feel special, but still, he wished she’d stay the night once in a while. Because he wasn’t ashamed to admit this, but he actually, you know, loved the girl. His days of playing the field were over. But he wished she’d stay the night after another evening of letting him pay for taxis and clubs and drinks and taxis.

Still, though. Getting out there, being seen, everyone knowing Kim was with him: yeah.

Roddy Ho, Roddy Ho, manliest of men …

That was the tune on everybody’s lips.

He dumped his jacket on a chair, headed into the kitchen and scored an energy drink from the fridge. Not the common choice for a nightcap, but that was how he rolled. He’d have energy sleep, dreaming energy dreams. Wake full of energy visions. He sent a quick text to Kim – You don’t need beauty sleep, babes: she’d work out what that meant – put both his phones on to charge, and headed up the stairs. Some nights he sat for a while in what the estate agent had called his mid-storey conservatory, an upper room with a mostly glass wall where the previous owner had grown flowers or herbs or shit, but which Roddy used as a den: computers, sound system, high-def screen. Maybe a few tunes before bed, he thought. Sit in his comfy chair and grab a few melodies: he liked big-ass guitar sounds this time of night. Above him a floorboard squeaked. He rose two more steps then stopped, listened. The floorboard squeaked again.

There was someone in his house.

No night bus used this stop, it turned out, so anyone standing here was going to look pretty conspicuous pretty soon, Shirley thought. And then: those fuckers have driven away, haven’t they? To be certain she’d have to walk all the way to the shops, and if it turned out they were there after all it would look like she didn’t trust them, which would piss them off, so as soon as she walked back here again, they would, in fact, drive away. It was what Shirley would have done.

Fuck it.

In her pocket was the wrap of coke, and now would be the perfect time. Keep her sharp, keep her vigilant. But though her hand strayed there and fondled its comfortable shape, that was as far as she went for the moment. Soon it would be midnight, one day sliding into the next, and then she’d have sixty-three days. It was still just a number, but a bigger number than the one she had now. Did that matter? Not really. But just because something didn’t matter wasn’t a reason for not taking notice of it. If it didn’t matter, then it wouldn’t matter if it actually happened, either. The number reaching sixty-three, that is.

She shivered, the day’s warmth having dissipated. If Marcus were here he’d be grumbling about how he could be in bed, though they both knew he wouldn’t be in bed; he’d be in front of an online casino, in the never-ending bid to recoup yesterday’s losses. She shook her head. Some losses stayed lost. Her mind drifted back to the morning: the car mounting the pavement, and her own instant reaction. She hadn’t been wrong. Someone had tried to kill Roderick Ho. That was why she was here: not because it was imperative that Ho remained unkilled, but because this was real, and it was happening, and it was something to do.

Her hand still in her pocket, she wandered down the road. Ho’s house was easy to keep an eye on: it had that big window, glass wall almost, on the first floor. The kind of thing estate agents creamed over, but anyone with sense just thought: what the fuck? There was little point in adding features to London houses. If you wanted to increase the value of a property, you only had to wait five minutes. Meanwhile, Ho was home, but hadn’t turned lights on. The others were probably right: nothing suggested he was in danger. But it was her own time she was wasting – well, and theirs – and she’d look an idiot if she cashed out now.

After eleven. Twenty-five minutes until the numbers rolled over. The wrap in her fingers was warm to the touch, but she’d leave it intact for now. Maybe later, if she started to fade. But right now, all was quiet.

His first thought was, she’s come back. Had only been teasing: he’d go into his den and there she’d be, down to her underwear already. Surprise! It was for just such an eventuality that he’d given her a key … But that didn’t work, or only for a moment. Kim was heading home in a taxi, fully clothed. There was no way for her to be upstairs. Whoever it was, it didn’t seem likely that ramRodding was on their mind.

And then he thought: all that stuff that Dander was going on about this morning, when she’d ruined his Pokémon moment. The car she’d said tried to take him out. Had that been for real?

He was on the staircase, two steps from the landing, and frozen in the moment. On and up or back and down? If he turned and headed down, whoever was up there would know. And they’d be behind and above him, which wasn’t where you wanted an enemy to be.

Where you wanted an enemy to be was a long way away.

Roderick Ho lived a rich, full life. Admired by all who knew him, envied by all the men; and if he weren’t committed to Kim, he’d be up to his neck in hopeful women every night of the week. So a player, definitely, and one who could handle himself – his Pokémon agility underlined that – not to mention an active agent of the security services: he was basically born for situations like this. So how come his knees were turning to water, and he couldn’t move from this stair?

Seconds passed. There was no more creaking from above, as if whoever it was had also frozen in place, and was waiting for Roddy to appear. If they were an enemy, they’d be armed. Nobody broke into a place intending harm without carrying the tools for the job. And if it were a friend … His reasoning broke down. The only person who had a key was Kim, and she’d never used it.

Stay or go?

Fight or flight?

His hands curled into fists.

Whoever was up there, they were hiding in the dark. That would be because they knew about Roddy, knew his reputation, knew they needed darkness and surprise. Well, they’d already lost one of those, and didn’t even know it yet. Roddy knew they were there. He also knew his house the way a cat knows its whiskers. He could glide through its rooms like a phantom on a skateboard while an intruder would blunder haplessly into unexpected doors and furniture. It would be the work of a moment to assert his dominance. This guy, whoever he was, had better be prepared to rue the day. Roddy was coming for him. He took a step up, caught his foot on the riser, and fell flat on his face.

Which wasn’t great, but the momentum was there now, the decision taken. Roddy had to move, and move fast. Scrambling to his feet, he launched himself up the remaining stairs and burst into the darkened room like a lightning bolt, adrenalin flooding his system: his hands now chopping machines, ready to slam into an opponent’s throat; his feet deadly weapons, aching to kick and bruise and kill. He snarled, a low deadly sound. His teeth were bared. Victory was his for the taking.

From a corner of the room Lamb said, ‘Not now, Cato.’

‘Standish has been on at me to get more healthy, so I’ve had a little detox. Found some sparkling water in your fridge. Knew you wouldn’t mind.’

‘… That’s champagne.’

‘Is it? Thought it tasted funny.’

Lamb scowled at the treacherous beverage.

‘… Er … Why are you here?’

‘Just checking to see if you’re dead.’ Lamb belched, paused, then belched again, more loudly. ‘No need to thank me. But if you want to ring out for a pizza, it wouldn’t go amiss.’

‘There might be some in the fridge.’

‘Yeah, there was, but I fancy a hot one.’

He had dragged a chair into the corner and taken his shoes off, though he still had his coat on. Bits of left-over pizza were scattered on and around his frame, and the champagne bottle dangled loosely from his hand.

‘So. Anyone try to kill you or anything?’

‘… No.’

‘Pity. Would have been nice to get this sorted, one way or the other.’ Lamb stood suddenly – he was capable of sudden movement when least expected – and peered through the big window. What he saw out there provoked what might have been a chuckle, if it wasn’t another belch. He turned back to Ho. ‘And there was no one tailing you?’

‘I’m pretty sure I’d have noticed,’ Ho said, allowing himself a quiet, professional smile.

‘So either you’re getting worse or your colleagues are getting better. Fuck me, that’s a puzzler.’

‘Why do I need protecting?’

Lamb shrugged. ‘I’m not convinced myself. That you’re worth protecting, I mean. But someone’s clearly got it in for you. I mean, look at the facts. Dander saw someone try to run you over, and you seem to have a girlfriend. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but something’s going on.’

‘… I don’t get it.’

Lamb turned and clapped Ho on the shoulder. The younger man nearly buckled under the weight. ‘We should get that sewn onto a sampler for you. Save a lot of chat. Now, where’s the bed? This champagne of yours has made me right sleepy.’

‘… Bed?’

‘Yeah, it’s starting to look like you’re too tight to stand your boss a pizza. And some of us have offices to run in the morning.’

‘I thought you were here to keep guard.’

‘Christ no. What gave you that idea? I’m here to make sure somebody else is.’ He nodded towards the window. ‘Give her a sword and a helmet, she’d look like a brave little hobbit. Now, I’ll give you five minutes to change your sheets. And I’m busting for a piss. Where’s the nearest basin?’

Ho pointed towards the landing, numbly.

‘I’ll have a fry-up in the morning,’ Lamb said, heading in that direction. ‘But no beans. They play havoc with my constitution.’ He farted on exit, to illustrate the problem.

Ho moved to the window and looked out. A hobbit? He couldn’t see anyone. He rubbed his eyes, but that didn’t help. And Lamb, here, at this hour? For half a moment he constructed a world in which Lamb had got word to Kim, warning her to keep clear of the house tonight, and this made things a little happier, but unfortunately didn’t make sense. Maybe it was true, though. Maybe he was on somebody’s list. He stepped back from the window abruptly, in case there was a nightscope trained on him, and felt his foot crack the fragile neck of the discarded champagne bottle. It was starting to feel like things were not going entirely his way.

He wondered if he had clean sheets.

When two rolled round and rolled away again, and nobody came to relieve her, Shirley had a brief moment during which she rained imaginary hellfire down on Louisa and River, and then thought: sod it. Being here was her idea. She could either man the fuck up or head the hell home. And home had its own issues, being haunted this time of night by memories of her ex. Might as well be standing at a bus stop, cold and hungry, keeping a watch over a colleague she had no particular interest in keeping alive. It wasn’t, anyway, the need to save Ho that was keeping her here. It was that she hadn’t been able to save Marcus.

And again she felt the wrap of cocaine in her pocket, and the needle-sharp suggestion it was making to her fingers: take me.

Yes, okay.

But not quite yet.

Something moved.

It was a man, briefly caught by a streetlight, walking towards her on the opposite side of the road. Shirley was cloistered in shadow and didn’t think herself visible. Even so she held her breath as the figure reached Ho’s front door and let itself in using a key.

Ho has a housemate?

Not possible. It couldn’t be possible to share a house with Roderick Ho.

She was already moving towards the door, though the figure had closed it behind him. The house remained in darkness, quiet as a nunnery, but damage required no noise; he might emerge in seconds, leaving silent carnage in his wake.

Lamb should have let me have the gun.

Though actually, it’s not entirely clear how useful it would be right now.

She reached the front door and stood for a moment. She had a set of skeleton keys she’d inherited from Marcus, but not with her. Kick it in?

Yeah, right. And break a leg.

But there was a ground-floor window, and she had a fist. She shrugged her jacket off, rolled it round her right hand and drew her arm back to punch through the glass.

Inside, somebody screamed.

There was someone in his house.

Hadn’t he already had that thought? If so, he was having it again:

There was someone in his house.

Roderick Ho was lying on a makeshift bed of clothes and cushions and wondering why his ear was bleeding. Broken glass, it turned out. Maybe he should have swept that broken bottle up before settling down to sleep. But while reaching for a box of tissues, which for strategic reasons he kept handy at night, he felt the air shift, or a noise being stifled; something, anyway, to indicate a foreign presence on the stairs. Lamb. But why would Lamb be on the stairs when he was already in Ho’s bedroom?

Ho was trying to remember what else he had in his fridge worth stealing when a dark figure entered the room, heading towards him in a crouch, the way Roddy himself moved in his ninja dreams.

He felt like a Pokémon character, about to be bagged and boxed.

‘Kim?’ he said hopefully.

A light went on. The room went white. The figure turned and faced the nightmare in the doorway: Jackson Lamb, teeth bared, naked belly pendulous over a grubby pair of boxers.

And a plastic blue bottle in his hands.

‘Evening, sunshine,’ said Lamb, and squirted bleach in the stranger’s face.

The man dropped whatever he was holding, and screamed.

Lamb swung a hammer-like fist into his chest.

The man staggered backwards, tripped over Roddy’s still-recumbent form, and fell through the big glass window onto the street below.

When Shirley punched the glass a figure crashed to the pavement, as if she’d won a prize at a fairground attraction. She tried to turn, but her rolled-up jacket snagged on the broken window, and before she could tug free a car pulled up. Glass was falling like slivers of frozen rain, and through the large jagged hole it had left the bull-like figure of Lamb appeared, apparently naked, unless she was having a mental episode.

Lamb?

At Ho’s?

Naked?

… Whatever.

She wrenched loose, aware she was ruining her jacket, and turned in time to see a black shape being hauled into a silver car. At the same time someone leaned through the passenger window and pointed something at her. While she dropped behind the nearest car bits of wall flaked from Roddy Ho’s house, and chips flew from his door. Shirley could feel the pavement against her cheek, smell the filth in the gutter. A car door slammed, and the vehicle moved. When she risked a look she saw something bounce off its roof – a blue plastic bottle? – but it was gone a moment later, a diminishing wraith amid the fuzzy glows that hang around lamp posts at two in the morning. She shook her head and rubbed her cheek, feeling the latter beginning to swell. Another chunk of glass fell loose, and shattered on the ground.

When she looked up, Lamb was scowling down at her, his bare chest and shoulders carpeted with greying curls.

‘Ten out of ten for attendance,’ he said. ‘But nul fucking points for getting the job done.’

Then he withdrew, leaving shards of the night still falling from the sky.

6

IT BEGAN TO RAIN that morning, about the time London was coming to life; a series of showers that rolled across the city, reminding its inhabitants that summer wasn’t a promise, merely an occasional treat. The skies loomed grey and heavy, and buildings sulked beneath their weight. On the streets traffic played its wet-weather soundtrack, a symphony of hissing and slurring against a whispered backbeat of wipers, and in Slough House there was a muted atmosphere, because rain on office windows is a sad and lonely affair, and life in Slough House was hardly a barrel of laughs to begin with.

The car that pulled up on Aldersgate Street was black, as befitted the general mood, and sleekly rejoined the flow as soon as Diana Taverner alighted. She ignored its departure, as she had its driver throughout their shared journey; stared instead at Slough House’s front door, which was also black, or had been – was now faded, and almost green around the edges – and shook her head. Any lesser reason than planting a bomb under Jackson Lamb’s backside, she’d not come within a mile of the place. Up above, on a second-storey window, the words W. W. Henderson, Solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths were etched in gold paint; a long-forgotten cover story or simply the relic of a previous tenant: she had no idea which. Only now, as she stood before the door, did she remember that this was itself a cover; a barricade masquerading as an entrance. She imagined its key tucked away in a drawer of Lamb’s desk; imagined, too, that if the door were ever opened, the building would crumble like a betrayed network. Her collar was up, but she had no umbrella. How long was she supposed to stand here, waiting for Slough House to welcome her in? But that wouldn’t happen, and there was, she now recalled, an alleyway to her right, a door set into a wall, a backyard. These she found with no difficulty. The building’s back door, though, required effort, as if it preferred that she remain out in the rain. When it gave way at last, opening onto a staircase, it did so with a squeal like a distressed cat. The staircase smelled of mould and dashed hopes. One of its bulbs had died, and the other buzzed a bluebottle serenade.

Someone appeared on the next landing, a short broad figure that might have been of either sex. It seemed about to challenge her, but then, evidently realising who she was, retreated back into its room. Which displayed good sense, Lady Di conceded, but didn’t inspire confidence as to the security of the premises.

Onwards and upwards. The staircase grew no cleaner or brighter, and all the office doors were closed.

On the top floor she paused. She knew, though the available doors offered no clues, which would lead to Jackson Lamb: its lower panels were punctuated by toe-cap impressions, the pedal signature of one whose preferred method of entry is the abrupt. She should knock, but wouldn’t. But before her hand had reached the handle, a gravelly tone sounded from inside: ‘Well don’t just stand there.’

She opened the door, and went in.

It was a dark room, cramped, its only window veiled by a venetian blind. A lamp sat on a wobbly-looking pile of thick books, and the shadows it cast didn’t reach the far corners, as if whatever lay back there was best left undisturbed. A print in a smeary-glassed frame was of a bridge somewhere in Europe, while a cork noticeboard, hung lopsidedly, was mostly buried beneath a collage of brittle yellow clippings. And in the air, beneath the taint of stale tobacco smoke, a tang of something older, something furious and unreconciled. Though that was probably just her imagination.

With no great hopes of it working, she flicked the light switch next to the door. All this triggered was a grunt from Jackson Lamb.

So she removed her coat and shook it. Droplets scattered, little rain dances picked up briefly by lamplight. There was a hook on the door, and she hung the coat there, then ran both hands through her shoulder-length curls. She turned to face Lamb. ‘I’m wet,’ she said.

‘Nice to see you too,’ said Lamb. ‘But let’s not get carried away.’ He eyed her critically. ‘You look like all your birthdays came at once.’

‘I look happy to you?’

‘No, old. Am I the only one round here speaks English?’

She didn’t smile. ‘Old, how kind. And busy too, what with the country being on high alert. Yet here I am, slogging across London to discover precisely what manner of shit you’re pulling now. Roderick Ho? I thought you kept him in a cage, like a gerbil.’

Lamb gave it some thought. ‘That’s pitching it a little high. He’s more like a verruca. You’re never entirely sure how you ended up with one, but they’re a bugger to get rid of.’

‘But we both know he can make a line of computer code sit up and beg. So what the fuck’s he been up to, Jackson? There was a knife at the scene, bullet holes in his walls, and broken glass all over his neighbourhood. And the Met were less than impressed with your witness statement. A domestic?’

‘I thought it best not to air the dirty laundry in front of the help. Especially Ho’s dirty laundry. Trust me, you don’t want to know.’ He waved a hand at the visitor’s chair. ‘It’s fine, it was wiped down yesterday.’

‘What with?’

‘Suit yourself.’

Taverner remained standing, hands resting on the back of the chair. ‘Playing the national security card for the cops is one thing, Jackson, even though we both know your clearance is just marginally higher than Thomas the Tank Engine’s. But acting dumb for the Park’s another story.’

‘I’m not sure you’re allowed to say dumb any more. It offends the vocally impaired. Or idiots. I can’t remember which.’

‘I’m not in the mood.’

‘Yeah, I caught that vibe.’

‘You were there, at Ho’s house, at whatever time in the morning it was. Which means you knew there was something going on. But didn’t report it. Service Standing Order whatever the hell it is—’

‘Twenty-seven three,’ Lamb said.

‘If you say so.’

‘The three’s in brackets.’

‘I don’t care if it’s in fucking Sanskrit, it’s there for a reason. If you knew there was a hit on one of your team, the protocol’s clear. You report it upwards. In this case, to me.’

‘Ordinarily, I would have. But there were special circumstances.’

‘Which were?’

‘I couldn’t be arsed.’

She drummed her fingers against the chair briefly, then stopped. Not letting Lamb see your annoyance was a primary objective of any encounter with him. A bit like not letting a shark notice your blood in the water. ‘That’s not a special circumstance, Jackson,’ she assured him. ‘That’s your prevailing condition. And this time, it might just prove terminal.’

‘If you want to go to the mats, Diana, you let me know. Because I have so much dirt on you, I’ve started an allotment.’

‘I’m sure that’ll be a distraction in your forced retirement, but it certainly won’t save you. Not this time.’

He leaned back heavily in his chair and swung both feet onto his desk. ‘If I’m gonna be threatened I’m getting comfortable. You mind if I loosen my trousers?’

‘I’d prefer it if you changed them occasionally. Look. I’m aware there are … incidents in the past—’

Lamb ticked some of them off. ‘Attempted murder. Kidnapping. And I’m pretty sure treason’s in there somewhere.’

‘—which might allow you a certain amount of leverage when it comes to negotiating your position. But we’re way past that here. So before you start stroking yourself, there’s a couple of details you might want to consider.’

‘Always like to get the details straight before I start.’

‘The Met reported a burnt-out car two miles from the scene. No body in it, so maybe whoever took a high-dive through your boy’s window survived the fall. Or maybe his pals just took his corpse somewhere else, in which case I’m sure he’ll turn up in due course.’

Lamb yawned, and put his hand back down his trousers. ‘So somebody’s either dead or they’re not. This is high-class investigative work.’

‘And the bullets found at the scene have been subjected to forensic examination.’

‘Don’t stop. Nearly there.’

‘The weapon they came from’s a match for one used at Abbotsfield.’

Lamb froze.

‘Fuck,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Taverner. ‘For once, I think we agree.’

Zafar Jaffrey had to stop three times on his way to the Dewdrop café: twice to accept good wishes from members of the community; once to buy a Big Issue and to discuss with its seller the problems faced by the nearby homeless shelter, where younger clients were being targeted by drug dealers. Jaffrey took notes and did a lot of nodding. He was handsome, clean-shaven, his hair just straggly enough to show independence of spirit, and when off-camera favoured jeans and open-necked shirts; a light bomber jacket today, despite Ed Timms’s warning.

‘Really, Zaf, you can’t be too careful.’

‘So I can’t wear a bomber jacket. Are you serious?’

‘It’s a gift to the Dodie Gimballs of this world.’

But whatever he wore, whatever he said, the Dodie Gimballs of this world would attack him for it; a series of hostile discourtesies for which the Dodie Gimballs of the next would answer. Besides, he liked the jacket. He thought it took a couple of years off; pushed him the right side of forty.

Now, to the Big Issue seller – ‘It’s Macca, right?’ – he delivered promises of action, of investigation, and he’d already made one follow-up phone call before arriving at the Dewdrop; pushing through the door with a shoulder, hand raised in greeting to Tyson, who sat with a bucket-sized mug in front of him, his tattoo oddly out of synch with his formal wear: white shirt, grey suit, mathematically precise knot in a red tie. Face ink aside, he looked more the politician than Jaffrey himself, though that was, admittedly, a big aside.

His phone was back in his pocket. Tyson Bowman stood as he approached, and they hugged briefly, a one-armed embrace – ‘Tyson.’ ‘Boss.’ – then sat at opposite sides of the small table, its cloth the ubiquitous red-and-white squares pattern; its ornament a cutlery holder into which sachets of ketchup and brown sauce had also been stuffed. He remembered bringing Karim here, back in the day; his younger brother not yet the aspiring martyr, but already, in Zafar’s twenty-twenty hindsight, distancing himself from what had been, until then, the everyday: people drinking tea and sharing jokes, living ordinary, godless lives. Zafar felt then what he still felt now. That there were better ways of achieving your goals than wrapping yourself in a Semtex vest.

Be that as it may, Karim’s story was not yet over. And the country he’d grown to despise remained in desperate need of betterment.

Zafar said, ‘No problems, then?’

Tyson shook his head.

‘When will it all be ready?’

‘Couple of days.’ He rubbed two fingers against his thumb. ‘On payment.’

Close up, the aspiring pol disappeared. It wasn’t that Tyson looked a thug – though he’d been anointed as such during his first two assault hearings – and it wasn’t that he looked an aspiring terrorist, though having been radicalised during his second prison term, he’d served a third for possession of extremist literature. Nor was it the colour of his skin, the close-shaven head, or even, particularly, the face tattoo – a usually reliable hallmark of forthcoming violence. No, thought Zafar; it was the attitude bottled within that package; one suggesting that social interaction of any kind was unwelcome. Except with Zafar Jaffrey, who had reached out a helping hand when Tyson Bowman had been jobless, homeless and friendless. Zafar alone put a light in Bowman’s eyes; one he should, he knew, feel guilt at exploiting.

The waitress was hovering, pad at the ready. ‘Morning, Mr Jaffrey.’

‘Angela,’ he said. ‘Radiant as ever.’

‘You said that yesterday, Mr Jaffrey. You want to watch that. People’ll think you’re not sincere.’

He reached a hand out and touched hers. ‘People can think what they like, Angela. You’ll always be radiant to me.’

And now she smiled, and her sixty-something years fell away. ‘Will you still come here for breakfast when you’re mayor?’

‘While you’re serving, yes. But just coffee this morning, thank you.’

When she’d gone, he gave his full attention to Tyson. His bagman: a word not quite rinsed of its shadier connotations. But Tyson did, after all, carry bags on occasion.

His coffee arrived, and they talked of changes to the day’s schedule: one meeting cancelled, another brought forward. A five-minute slot on local radio would now happen in a van, not the studio, saving everyone concerned, van driver apart, thirty minutes. Each day was busier than the previous, but then the election was in three weeks. Jaffrey was an independent candidate, and though he had ‘disappointed’ the prime minister by refusing to adopt the party’s mantle – despite having been appointed to two select committees in recent years – the pair remained ‘close personal friends’, the PM’s oft-used tactic, when he couldn’t get popular figures to endorse him, being to endorse them instead, and hope something rubbed off. Jaffrey accepted this unsought chumminess in the same way he did the Opposition leader’s frequently mentioned ‘respect’: in politics, ticking the no-publicity box was not an option. Besides, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, neither of those worthies were deluded enough to imagine their own candidate had a snowball’s chance in hell: unless the polls were even more disastrously askew than last time, or the time before that, at the end of the month Zafar Jaffrey would assume the mayoralty of the West Midlands.

Of course, there were those – the Gimballs their standard-bearers, but by no means their only champions – who believed that the election of another Muslim mayor would be one step nearer sharia law. So far, their brickbats had bounced away: there remained, at least in so far as local politics was concerned, a resistance to dogwhistle racism, which was how most observers interpreted attempts to paint Jaffrey an Islamist sympathiser. Every time Dodie Gimball illustrated an article about him with a photo of a bombed-out bus, he enjoyed a bounce in the polls. But he had no illusions about the outcome should Tyson’s recent activities become public knowledge. He’d go from persecuted minority to certified terrorist before you could say Operation Trojan Horse.

Tyson, too, would come under the hammer. Easy enough for Zaf himself to say: Well. Won’t be the first time.

His mobile rang, rupturing the moment. Ed Timms, his press flack.

‘Chief, I’m hearing rumblings.’

He said, ‘You want to share them?’

‘Word is, Dodie Gimball has some high explosives set to go off in tomorrow’s column. After Dennis has his own firework display this evening.’

‘Could you maybe turn the colour down a notch? I find facts easier to process than images.’

‘Tonight, Dennis Gimball is giving a constituency speech in which he’s going to claim you have terrorist connections. And this will be followed up by his missus in her column tomorrow. Accompanied by art, as they say. They have pictures, Zaf. I don’t know what of, but you know what they say about pictures. They prove something happened, and once we’re at that stage, it doesn’t much matter what.’

And this was how swiftly it happened; how quickly a situation burst from the realm of the potential into the here and now.

‘Where’s this speech happening?’ he said.

‘On Gimball’s home turf. Slough.’

‘Okay, Ed. It’s just more bluster. Let’s not sweat it yet.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Later, Ed.’

He disconnected.

Tyson raised an eyebrow, alert to Jaffrey’s possible requirements. ‘Something need fixing, boss?’

‘Possibly. One or two things.’

Tyson said, ‘Whatever you want, boss. You know that. Doesn’t make any difference to me.’

Zafar reached out and they shared a handclasp. It was true, he thought; it genuinely didn’t matter to Tyson what Zafar asked him to do: he was happy to do it. And the thought made him sad and glad at the same time; gave him hope for the future, but removed it altogether.

It was just like everybody said. Politics was the art of compromise.

Lamb had found a cigarette about his person and, in a rare bout of chivalry, had come up with a spare to go with it. He lit his own before lighting Taverner’s. Manners were manners, but no point getting carried away.

‘According to the BBC,’ he said, ‘which I accept means according to whatever’s trending on Twitter, the Abbotsfield killings were ISIS.’

‘That’s the assumption we’re working on.’

‘Which would make the attempt on Ho ISIS too. And frankly, that buggers belief.’

‘Beggars.’

‘Sorry. Freudian slit.’ He inhaled deeply. ‘Apart from anything else, they don’t do plots, do they? They do parking a bomb in a marketplace, or driving into a village and shooting everyone in sight. But they don’t do plots.’

‘They hit specific targets. They’ve done that before.’

‘High profile, yeah. But they don’t whack seventh-tier desk jockeys under cover of darkness.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘If this turns out to be one of your games, Diana, I can’t begin to express how disappointed I’ll be.’

She looked around for somewhere to tap her ash, then gave in to the office ambience and knocked it onto the carpet. ‘Games?’

‘It’s not escaped my memory that someone tried to kill me in this very room not long ago. We’ve never discussed that properly, have we?’

Every so often, when you were gazing into the fetid swamp of Lamb’s personality, a fin broke the surface.

Taverner said, ‘Let’s stick with the evils of the day, shall we? What shape is Ho in?’

‘He’s got a cut on his ear.’

‘Bullet wound?’

‘Poor housekeeping.’

‘Nobody else damaged?’

‘Dander was there. She had to hit the deck sharpish. But one of the advantages of being built like a football is, you learn to take a kicking.’

‘Everyone on the premises now?’

‘I don’t take a fucking register, Diana.’

‘I thought you did.’

‘Well, yeah, okay, I do. But that’s just to annoy them, not for official purposes.’

‘So …’

‘So everyone’s here, yes.’

‘Good. Because as of now you’re in lockdown.’

Lamb rolled his eyes.

‘I’m serious. No phones, no internet, and nobody leaves. Ho’s coming back to the Park. Whatever shit he’s stepped in, we need to examine his shoes. Meanwhile, the rest of you are in detention. With debriefing to follow.’

Lamb said, ‘Okay, why not? I’ll keep ’em in order. We can play murder in the dark while we wait for you lot to clear your schedules.’

Taverner laughed then stopped. ‘Oh, sorry, were you serious? When I want a fox to guard a hen house, you’ll be top of my list. But meanwhile, I’ll have Flyte babysit. You’ve met our Emma?’

‘The thought of her has gladdened many a long night.’

‘Careful. Some of us are used to you. Others might bring charges. Get your crew organised, why don’t you? I’m surprised Standish isn’t already here.’

‘Do you know, I’m not sure she likes you all that much.’

‘I’m not sure she likes you, either. And yet you keep her on. Have you ever told her why?’

Lamb gave her a long hard look, but Diana Taverner sat on committees; Diana Taverner chaired meetings. If long hard looks could make her crumble, she’d have been dust long ago.

At last he said, ‘She knows her old boss was a traitor, if that’s what you mean.’

‘And does she know he tried to implicate her in his treachery? That she was his cut-out, all set for framing?’

‘She’s probably worked that out.’

‘And that you put the bullet in his brain? Or does she still think he did that himself?’

Lamb didn’t reply.

She said, ‘Be fun to be a fly on the wall when she finds out.’

‘What makes you think she will?’

‘Christ, Lamb. Of all the secrets you’ve ever kept, which one screams to be heard the loudest?’

There were noises off: bodies arriving downstairs. The Dogs, Lamb assumed. Come to take Ho to the Park, and nail the rest of them down. He heard Standish open her door and emerge onto the landing. ‘What’s going on?’ she called.

‘There you go,’ said Lady Di. ‘Keen investigative mind at work.’

Roderick Ho would have been pleased, though unsurprised, to learn that he was the reason Kim’s heart was beating faster.

When she’d got home last night, the taxi having dropped her two streets away – in her line of work, it was best to keep her address quiet – she’d sat up late watching The Walking Dead and drinking vodka mixed, at first, with cranberry juice, and when that ran out, with more vodka. Sleep had come suddenly, without warning, and she’d woken with drool bonding her to her pillow and a thumping heart. Things had gone bad. Or were about to. Sometimes these feelings were misaddressed, emotional mail meant for someone else, but they were always worth acting on. The worst-case scenario was the one you planned for.

So she showered and dressed in three minutes, and grabbed her emergency kit from the wardrobe: passport, both savings books and two grand in cash, plus a change of clothing and the bare minimum of warpaint, all bundled inside a getaway bag. Nothing else in her room mattered. The rent was by the month; her housemates temporary friends. She’d leave them a note – an invented emergency – and walk out of their lives forever. Or run. Her heart hadn’t slowed yet, and if it wasn’t the organ you placed the most trust in, it was certainly the one you wanted to keep doing its job.

Roderick Ho, she thought. The reason her heart was in warning mode was Roderick Ho.

Make it quick? He’s harmless.

They were only going to work him over, they’d said, but she hadn’t really believed it. Which meant, her beating heart whispered, that making herself scarce was the wise next move.

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she left the room and was on the landing when the doorbell rang.

She froze.

But why worry? It was mid-morning, in one of the world’s biggest cities. There were postmen and people peddling religion; there were meter readers; there were pollsters who wanted to know what you thought about things you’d never thought about. The shape behind the mottled glass in the front door could have been any one of these. When she altered position, light slid across the blurred outline of a face, as if it were being scribbled upon.

The doorbell rang again.

There was a back way, through the tiny garden, over the fence; an escape route, except one that meant going down the stairs, making her briefly visible to whoever was at the door. Who was rattling the handle now, and meter readers didn’t do that. They just pushed a card through the slot. Kim backed away from the landing and re-entered her bedroom. Its window gave onto the garden, a drop about twice her own height. There came a splintery whisper from downstairs, as if a metal lever had been inserted into a gap too small for it. The window was a sash and was locked; a screw device that only took seconds if you weren’t panicked by intruders. Kim’s fingers leaked fear, and kept slipping. The splintery sound became a crack. The window-lock gave, and its rod fell into her hand. There were footsteps on the stairs, and her heart battered her ribs as she pulled the window up and tossed her bag out. She would follow it. It would take a second. Less. But her top caught on something as she bent to lever herself through the gap: lives have hung on less. Threads, promises.

When she turned, he was in the room with her, his gun pointing directly at her face.

Emma Flyte didn’t seem too enamoured of Slough House. She wasn’t actually running her finger over surfaces and tutting, but that might have been because she was trying to avoid touching anything. ‘I’m familiar with the phrase “office culture”,’ she’d said, on looking round. ‘But yours appears to involve actual spores.’

River wouldn’t have minded, but he’d cleaned up just last week. Or thought about cleaning up, he now remembered. A plan he’d ultimately rejected in favour of doing sod all.

Flyte had chosen his office in which to assemble them because Lamb’s room barely had space enough to roll your eyes. Lamb, pouting like an emperor in exile, had commandeered River’s desk, and was currently rearranging its clutter with his feet. But at least he’d kept his shoes on. River was leaning against a filing cabinet, his instinct being to keep everyone in sight, while Coe was at his own desk, acting, as usual, as if he were alone. Catherine had pulled a chair against the wall and sat calmly, a folded newspaper in her lap, and Louisa and Shirley were either side of the window, like mismatched candlesticks. Ho, of course, had been hustled away by Dogs and Lady Di, so wasn’t there. That’s all of us, thought River.

Shirley had glowered at both him and Louisa that morning, but her heart hadn’t been in it, mostly because she’d wanted to tell them that she’d been right and they’d been wrong. Somewhere around two in the morning, there’d been broken glass all over Ho’s street. A body had come through a window, and been spirited away. It all sounded like the kind of thing slow horses daydreamed about while fiddling with spreadsheets – action, excitement, other people getting hurt. Though Shirley’s vagueness with the details suggested she hadn’t covered herself in glory.

‘So Lamb was there all the time?’ Louisa asked.

‘Go out with Kim, go home to Jackson Lamb,’ said Shirley. ‘Ho’s priorities are seriously fucked.’

Afterwards there’d been police followed by, in short order, the Dogs. It had been, Shirley said, a travelling circus, and nobody had a clue what was going on.

Situation normal, then.

Flyte, who had positioned herself by the door, was casting an eye over the assembled company. River’s previous encounter with her had involved his head coming into violent contact with hers, and the fact that this was accidental probably didn’t console her as much as it did him. At the time she’d suffered bad bruising, but the damage had left no permanent trace. If Kim was an eight and a half, possibly a nine, Emma Flyte was a ten, possibly an eleven.

What she was focusing on now was Coe, who was fixing buds in his ears.

‘What’s that?’

He didn’t respond.

Lamb said, ‘He’s a bit stand-offish. Try punching him in the face.’

‘Coe,’ Louisa said. ‘Someone wants a word.’

Coe looked at Flyte.

‘What’s that?’ she repeated.

‘iPod.’

‘Put it away.’

‘Why?’

Emma Flyte said, ‘Do I look like I’m here to answer questions? This is a lockdown. No comms.’

‘It’s an iPod,’ Coe repeated.

‘I don’t care.’

Catherine said, ‘You’re familiar with Slough House’s brief, I assume?’

‘I’ve had that pleasure.’

‘Then you’ll know that some of us have … issues.’

‘What’s your point, Ms Standish?’

‘Just that listening to music has the effect of calming Mr Coe down. He’s subject to panic attacks, you see.’

‘And what happens if he doesn’t listen to music?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Catherine said. ‘We’ve never prevented him before.’

‘But he carries a knife,’ Shirley put in.

Flyte looked at Coe. He was thin, white and wearing a hoodie that had bunched around his shoulders: if you were looking for someone to play Bowie on an off-day, he’d not be a bad start. When he had first arrived in Slough House, River recalled, J. K. Coe had been tense as a fist. If he’d loosened up a bit since, he’d become no friendlier.

‘Do you always talk about him as if he weren’t here?’ Flyte asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And is he always like this?’

Shirley said, ‘It’s part of his transitioning process. He’s spending six months living as a prick.’

Coe didn’t bat an eye. He did, though, look as if he were about to say ‘It’s an iPod’ again.

Maybe it was this that triggered a sigh from Flyte. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Listen to the damn thing.’

Coe’s only response was to plug himself in.

River glanced at Shirley, who had been known to get angry when a tense situation resolved itself without violence, but she just shook her head as if disappointed but not surprised. She caught his glance, though, and stuck her tongue out. Then looked at Louisa. ‘I spy,’ she began.

Louisa said, ‘Continue with that, and I will kill you. I will kill you dead.’

‘Well we have to do something. Apart from anything else, I don’t plan to quietly starve.’

The idea that Shirley could quietly do anything was unnerving.

‘We need provisions,’ she said.

‘She has a point.’

‘I’ll go get some treats, yeah?’

‘Nobody leaves,’ said Flyte. ‘You do know what “lockdown” means?’

‘Nobody’s leaving,’ Lamb explained. ‘Dander’s just popping out for a few minutes.’

River, Louisa and Catherine were excavating money from pockets and purses, and passing it to Shirley.

‘Just make sure there’s nutrition involved,’ said Catherine.

‘And maybe sugar,’ said Louisa.

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Flyte said.

‘Yeah, right,’ said Shirley. ‘Back in five.’

For a moment it looked as if Flyte might attempt to physically prevent Shirley from going through the door, which both River and Louisa, for different reasons, imagined might be a valuable use of the next five minutes, but it was not to be. Shirley simply ducked under Flyte’s arm and was off down the stairs, her heels a receding rhythmic clatter.

Flyte looked at Lamb. ‘Ever considered instilling discipline into your staff?’

‘All the time. I favour the carrot and stick approach.’

‘Carrot or stick.’

‘Nope. I use the stick to ram the carrot up their arses. That generally gets results.’ Lamb frowned. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m using metaphor. This is not a fucking poetry reading.’

It looked like a fucking poetry reading, though, inasmuch as there were few people there, and none of them stylishly dressed. Well, Flyte was an exception, though River suspected she’d make a plaid skirt and woollen tights look good. As it was, she wore a dark business suit over a white shirt. Her hair was tied back, her eyes were unamused, and he probably ought to stop contemplating how she looked: hot or not, she was Head Dog, and her predecessor had once kicked River in the balls. If she caught him eyeing her up she might follow suit. She probably wanted to anyway, for old times’ sake.

Lamb seemed happy enough to engage with her, though. ‘So you’re on Claude Whelan’s list of things that make him happy.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Well, Lady Di doesn’t like you. Usually, that’s the fast track to a UB40. And yet you’re still in place. Which means either First Desk fancies you or you’ve got dirt on him.’

‘I do my job,’ Flyte said. ‘I do it well. Whelan knows that.’

‘I don’t trust him. He’s got vicars’ eyes.’

‘… Vicars’ eyes?’

‘Too bright. Too shiny. Give him half a chance, he’ll start a conversation with you.’ He turned to River. ‘I’m devoutly religious, as you know. But priests give me the creeps.’ Back to Flyte: ‘He’s First Desk because he was in the right place when the music stopped, that’s all. Taverner would sell her mother’s kidneys for the job, and the thing is, she’d do it well. But Whelan’s middle management. Which is PC for mediocre.’

‘He’s got the Prime Minister on side.’

‘I rest my case.’

Catherine said, ‘What will happen to Roddy?’

Flyte’s eyebrows twitched, which River interpreted as a shrug. ‘Debriefing.’

‘Will it be hostile?’

‘I don’t imagine it will be especially gentle.’

River, Louisa and Catherine each contemplated that, two of them with light smiles playing on their lips. J. K. Coe was away with whatever fairies were whispering in his ear, but wasn’t – River noticed – miming the piano parts with his fingers. And Lamb had assumed what the slow horses called his hippo-at-rest position: apparently docile, but you wouldn’t want to get too close.

Nobody doing anything remotely useful. Just an ordinary day in the office, River thought.

Shirley returned lightly spackled with rain and clutching emergency provisions. Which turned out, on inspection, to comprise two bottles of red wine and a family bag of Haribo.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Louisa, at the same time as Lamb said, ‘Give me one of those.’

Shirley offered him the Haribo.

‘Very funny.’

She passed him a bottle of wine.

‘I can’t work out which is going to be worse,’ Flyte said. ‘The alcohol intake or the sugar rush.’

Catherine said, ‘You used my money to buy wine?’

Shirley said, ‘Yeah, see, what I thought was, there’d be that much more for the rest of us.’

‘Well, you can’t fault her logic,’ Lamb said. He’d opened his bottle, and was drinking straight from it. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Brainstorm.’ He looked at Flyte. ‘I hope you don’t find the term offensive.’

She shrugged. ‘I’m not epileptic.’

‘No, but you’re blonde. Some of you get touchy when brains are mentioned.’ He looked round the room. ‘Someone wants to kill Ho. Someone not one of you, I mean. Any ideas?’

‘Kim,’ said Shirley. ‘His girlfriend,’ she added.

‘Why? Apart from the obvious.’

River said, ‘She’s way out of his league. Way way out.’

‘Doesn’t always result in homicide.’ Lamb looked at Flyte. ‘You ever shag a two?’

‘… I’m not answering that.’

‘There you go.’

Louisa said, ‘She’s scamming him. Has to be.’

‘Okay. And while he has more money than the rest of you, on account of he had the sense to be the only child of a successful businessman, he’s still not worth the long-term investment of a serious con-artist. If it was just his money, she’d have cleaned him out and hit the bricks months ago. And probably not bothered hanging around to have him whacked, unless she was acting on a purely aesthetic basis.’ He looked at Flyte again. ‘I’m going to assume you don’t have your pity-fucks executed.’

‘Not so far. But I’m thinking of introducing a shoot-to-kill policy for fat bastards.’

‘There. Ten minutes, and you’re fitting right in.’

Louisa said, ‘Information.’

‘That has to be it. Let’s face it, Ho’s a dick, but he knows his way around a password. If he didn’t, I’d have squashed him into a plastic bag and dropped him in a river long ago. So this female—’

‘Kim.’

‘His girlfriend.’

‘—whatever, she’s a honey trap. What do we know about her?’

‘She’s Chinese,’ Shirley said.

River said, ‘She looked Chinese.’

‘Yeah,’ said Lamb. ‘Let’s not jump to racist conclusions. She might be normal, but just look Chinese. One other thing, though—’

J. K. Coe gave a start, and sat upright.

‘Oh, did we wake him?’

Louisa, who was nearest, kicked Coe, and he reached up and pulled his earbuds loose.

Lamb said, ‘Excellent, I do like it when people at least pretend to pay attention. One other thing I forgot to mention. Whoever she’s in cahoots with was responsible for Abbotsfield.’

The silence that greeted this was marred only by the sound of Shirley masticating a Haribo.

Then J. K. Coe said, ‘I think we’ve got a problem.’

7

DURING THE WINTER THE day tires early, and is out of the door by five: coat on, heading west, see you tomorrow. The night then takes the long shift, and though it sleeps through most of it, and pays scant attention to what’s occurring in its quieter corners, one way or the other it muddles through until morning. But while summer’s here the day hangs around to enjoy the sunshine, and allowing for a post-lunch lull, and the odd faltering step when its five o’clock shadows appear, generally powers on as long as it’s able. And in those unexpectedly stretched-out hours, there’s more opportunity for things to come to light; or, failing that, for light to fall on things.

The light that fell on Regent’s Park that afternoon cast perfect shadows. As if designed by a professional, these were sliced laterally by venetian blinds to etch themselves onto desks and walls and floors, turning the upstairs offices into pages from a clothing catalogue, needing only model or mannequin to complete the effect. But as with swans, all the actual work at the Park went on out of sight; as picturesquely industrious as the upper storeys looked, it was down on the hub where the sweat and toil happened; where Lady Di Taverner and Claude Whelan gazed through glass walls at the boys and girls monitoring the world, and all the varied realities it had to offer. Here, the hunt for the Abbotsfield killers continued. It was slow progress. This surprised nobody. If you turn up out of nowhere and kill everything in sight, you don’t leave much to be tracked by. The origins of the killers’ odyssey were shrouded in static. Their jeep first appeared on CCTV eight miles north of Sheffield; backtracking took it to the outskirts of that city, where it disappeared in an electrical storm: the jerky whirr and buzz of too many cameras watching too much traffic, and skipping too quickly between too many points of view. Even a jeep could disappear in the stillness between digital breaths.

And when this happens, conspiracy theories blossom like mould. There must be a reason why the jeep had been able to evade surveillance so effectively; there must be an underlying cause. And there was a reason, and the reason was this: shit happens. When everything goes smoothly and the wind blows fair, the men in the jeep are arrested before they’ve finished oiling their weapons, and their victims continue their lives without ever knowing the fate that sidestepped them. But when shit happens the bad guys disappear, and their victims’ names grace headlines, and the boys and girls of the hub work on through the everlasting day, in a doomed attempt to atone for failures that others have laid at their door.

Meanwhile, other hunts were afoot as the afternoon light continued to poke and pry into disused crannies. Files were opened – some of them actual cardboard folders, containing actual paper, the idea being that to steal these you’d have to be in the building, whereas digital theft required no presence – and perused for hot content, this being highlighted for First Desk’s attention. Members of Parliament aren’t spied on as a matter of course, though many believe themselves to be. But the awkward customers among them, and the notoriously indiscreet, the suspiciously innocent and the flamboyantly wayward, all pass across the Service’s radar, often at the behest of their own leaders, for while the Service exists to preserve the security of the nation, the insecurities of the political elite need tending too. The current prime minister, like many of his predecessors, had an overtuned ear for possible treachery – he had, as a wag once noted, predicted seven of the last two backbench rebellions – and throughout his inexplicably prolonged residence at Number 10 had demanded in-depth reports on pretty much every MP in his party who had achieved more than two column inches or seven minutes’ airtime on consecutive days. This had resulted in a lot of paperwork, and much of what it revealed was never in fact disclosed to the PM, it being determined that the information in question was politically irrelevant, or personally embarrassing, or too potentially useful to be squandered so lightly. And as a result, in Molly Doran’s collection there existed a file on Dennis Gimball; a file tagged not with a black label, nor with a red or a green – any one of which would have pegged him as requiring close attention, up to and including discreet retirement from public service, as several former home and foreign secretaries might attest – but with a white label to which a small cross had been added by hand, probably Molly’s own, to indicate that between its covers might be found a quirk or a dropped stitch, an unexpected weave in the fabric of a life; a chink into which a makeshift key could be slotted, and made to turn.

Claude Whelan didn’t get out much. He travelled from home to Regent’s Park; from Regent’s Park back home again; he shuttled between the Park and Whitehall; he mostly lunched at his desk. Occasionally, true, he would be called upon to attend gatherings further afield, but unlike his lamented/lamentable – according to choice – predecessor Ingrid Tearney, he spent as little time as possible on the Washington circuit, holding that if improved communications didn’t result in fewer air miles, they weren’t worth the fibre optics that produced them. And when the invitation was impossible to refuse, he spent the odd early evening nursing a G&T at one members-only watering hole or another, between whose antique furniture former big beasts like Peter Judd could be glimpsed, plotting their comebacks. But for the most part Claude was an office bod: papers arrived on his desk and were signed and spirited away again; messages pinged into his inbox, and were swallowed by electrical circuitry. There was no shame in being tethered to the furniture. No especial dignity either, or heroism: everything a joe might endure could happen to a drone, treachery not excepted. Whelan well remembered his first traitor, a man he’d shared projects with, sat in meetings with, discussed geopolitics with over a sandwich, back, as they said, in the day. The man had, it turned out, been prey to demons, the kind which had left him in need of money, and open to temptation. A shopping list of secrets had been found in his flat, and a roster of potential buyers. It had been Claude himself who had suggested that the opportunity for spreading misinformation was too good to miss; that his erstwhile friend, if no longer reliable, was at least a valuable conduit. It had been Claude who devised Operation Shopping List, a plan that misfired when the embryonic traitor committed suicide before its full implementation. All very messy, and none of it involving travel. No, Claude had never felt his horizons limited by his disinclination to abandon his safe places; he’d seen enough, good and bad, without having to pack. Not getting out much wasn’t a weakness. It was Claude, playing to his strengths.

Today, though, was a day for leaving the office. The file on Dennis Gimball had landed on his desk, and a swift read-through was enough to have Whelan rearranging his afternoon. Apart from anything else, Gimball had lately taken delight in stamping on Claude’s reputation. Claude wasn’t a vindictive man, but this was largely because the opportunity to be one had rarely presented itself. In this he resembled most other people, with the added advantage that he was head of the Secret Service, with access to files like the one in front of him now.

But before leaving he had another matter to deal with.

‘This man Ho,’ he said.

‘He’s downstairs, sir.’

Which had various meanings in Regent’s Park. Claude was downstairs himself, inasmuch as he was on the hub. But further below lay rooms where you really didn’t want to spend much time, if you were keen on leaving them under your own steam. As opposed to being stretchered out, or carted away in a bucket, by someone much like the man he was talking to now: one of Emma Flyte’s Dogs.

‘Who’s talking to him?’

‘Nobody, sir. We were told to leave him to sweat.’

A good, if obvious, ploy. Sooner or later, if you were in one of the downstairs rooms, with its single plastic chair whose legs weren’t quite of equal length, you would start to wonder why the floor was ever so slightly off-level, and what the tap in the corner was for, when there wasn’t a basin there. Just an open drain, to allow for run-off.

After a few hours’ contemplation, this could start to seem a pressing matter.

There was, as yet, no certainty that the attack on Roderick Ho was part and parcel of the Abbotsfield massacre. ‘Guns are currency,’ Whelan had said to Lady Di earlier. ‘It’s possible the Abbotsfield killers ditched theirs as soon as they were able. And other bad actors picked them up. In which case what we have is a coincidence.’

‘I don’t like those.’

‘No, well, neither do I. But if it’s the same crew, it’s a very different plan. Murdering random strangers is one thing. This was an attempted hit on Service personnel. Chalk and cheese, no?’

‘Yes. Or …’

‘Or what?’

‘Or someone was tying up a loose end,’ said Lady Di. ‘Perhaps Ho was aiding them, intentionally or not. In which case …’

In which case they might want to sever the connection.

Diana had a point, and it needed testing. If there was a link between Ho and Abbotsfield they had to discover it, and the fastest way would be to squeeze Ho none too gently. But Roderick Ho was a slow horse, and though on one level this meant he could be screwed up and tossed away like so much waste paper, there was a complication in that he was one of Jackson Lamb’s crew, and Lamb was inclined to play rough when you messed with his things. Which meant that any attempt to do so would have to involve snookering Lamb: not a step to take lightly, because if it failed, Whelan would be left standing on scorched earth. Lamb knew more about Whelan than Whelan was comfortable with. And Whelan had yet to think himself out of this corner, so for now had to tread carefully.

Lady Di might have delivered Ho. But it was up to Whelan what happened next.

So before he headed out to beard Dennis Gimball, he gave the instruction: ‘Keep sweating him for now. Another couple of hours’ soft time. It’ll pay off in the long run.’

Because soft time or not, a few hours in below-stairs accommodation and Roderick Ho would turn to jelly; just a messed-up ball of anxious worry, dying to spill his guts.

Well for a start, thought Ho, the plumbing’s fucked.

Single tap, jutting out of the wall at a height you’d have to be seriously below average to use comfortably: whose idea was that? But this was what you got when you used cowboys. You’d have thought the Service would rise to something a bit less cheap, a bit more reliable, but the austerity bug bit deep. Look at Slough House, and his own kit – years out of date, and while Roddy Ho could make a PC cable of any vintage come rising from a basket like a snake, that didn’t make it right to foist him off with substandard gear. It had long been on his mind to raise the issue first chance he got, but he wondered whether now was, in fact, the right time. People here had problems of their own. Even the floor was wonky. And besides, there were other matters to discuss.

Someone had tried to kill him last night.

Bad as that was, he couldn’t complain that it wasn’t being taken seriously. Here he was, after all, in protective custody; ferried by Diana Taverner, no less; the Park’s Second Desk (Ops), who hadn’t said much on the ride over, so rattled was she at how close they’d come to losing him. He’d nearly patted her hand, in fact – just in simple reassurance that he was still among the living – but had recognised that a physical overture might be misconstrued: another time, another place, lady. Because there was Kim, his girlfriend, to consider, and seriously: Lady Di ought to be focusing on keeping him safe right now, instead of allowing herself to be distracted by middle-aged fantasies.

(Middle-aged was pure chivalry, mind. She had to be in her fifties.)

Anyway, here he was, in the bowels of the Park, having been escorted here by the Dogs, the Service’s cop squad. Who hadn’t been talkative, and had forgotten his request for an energy drink while he waited. Still, if he got thirsty, he could help himself from that tap. Nobody could say Roddy Ho wasn’t prepared to rough it while the powers that be worked out the best way to protect him.

Dragging the chair to a corner, Roddy entertained himself by discovering how sharp an angle he could balance it at before toppling to the floor. This proved to be about half as sharp as his first attempt but, it turned out, he had plenty of time to improve.

J. K. Coe said, ‘I think we’ve got a problem.’

Lamb said to Flyte, ‘He doesn’t speak much. Perhaps he’s making an effort on your account. Let’s see.’ He turned to Coe and said, very slowly, ‘Why. Might we have. A problem?’

Then he looked at Flyte again, tapping a finger to his temple. ‘Bit simple,’ he mouthed.

Coe twisted his earbud cord round his fingers. ‘There’s been another incident.’

‘Did you wet yourself again? Don’t worry, we didn’t notice.’

Catherine said, ‘Let’s hear him out, shall we?’

‘A bomb on a train,’ Coe said.

‘And that came to you via the music, did it?’ said Lamb. ‘Might have to try listening to jazz myself. Except I’d rather rub sand in my eyes.’

He put his bottle to his lips, and drank wine like it was water.

‘He’s not listening to jazz,’ Catherine said.

‘Yeah, funny thing, I’d got that far myself.’

‘We’re in lockdown,’ said Flyte. ‘No comms. And you’ve been listening to the radio?’

Shirley said, ‘Give him some slack. He carries a knife.’ She’d found a plastic glass somewhere and poured herself some wine, and her mouth was red from that or the Haribo. She looked like she’d applied lippy while no one was looking.

‘Where was the bomb?’ said River. ‘How many hurt?’

‘Nobody. The device was found and disabled.’

‘Where?’

‘On an HST from Bristol. Heading into Paddington.’

The others already had their phones out, checking the news websites.

Flyte said, ‘Do I have to say this again? Turn your devices off. We’re in lockdown.’

‘It’s because you’re new,’ Lamb said. ‘They’re testing the boundaries.’

‘When I need your input, I’ll ask.’

River, eyes on his phone, said, ‘Nobody’s claimed responsibility yet.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Lamb said. ‘Taking the credit for fucking up, that would be your department.’ He looked at Coe. ‘And as for you. I make a big announcement about the Abbotsfield killers having a crack at Ho, and you trump it with a story about nobody being hurt somewhere else?’ He shook his head. ‘We have to start playing cards for money round here.’

‘There’s more, isn’t there?’ said Louisa.

Coe had put his hands on the desk in front of him, and his fingers seemed agile and twitchy. ‘Yes.’

Lamb’s sigh would have filled a sail. ‘A few fucking details wouldn’t go amiss. Whenever you’re ready.’

Coe collected the agile fingers on his right hand and turned them into a fist. He unbent them one at a time, still staring at the desk in front of him. ‘One. Destroy the village.’

River opened his mouth to speak, but changed his mind.

‘Two. Poison the watering hole.’

Lamb leaned back in his chair, looking grim.

‘Three. Cripple the railway.’

Coe folded his hand away again, and stuffed it into the pouch of his hoodie.

There was a short silence, broken by Shirley. ‘Am I missing something?’

‘He’s saying these aren’t random acts of terrorism,’ said River, not taking his eyes off Coe. ‘It’s a destabilisation strategy.’

‘A bunch of penguins get shredded?’ said Shirley. ‘Who’s that supposed to destabilise? David Attenborough?’

‘It’s not the penguins,’ said Catherine. ‘It’s the name. Is that what you’re saying?’

Coe nodded.

‘The Watering Hole,’ said River. ‘Why is that significant?’

‘Think about it,’ said Lamb.

They thought about it; all except Coe, who seemed to have withdrawn into his private universe again.

At length, Emma Flyte said, ‘Well, if it’s a destabilisation plan, it’s not working, is it? Because whatever grand plan they’re working to, the effects still look random. Which is bad enough, but hardly world-shattering. I mean, Abbotsfield? It’s a tragedy, but nobody had heard of the place last week.’

‘Congratulations,’ said Lamb. ‘You’re now an honorary slow horse.’

‘Because I contributed?’

‘No, because you missed the fucking point.’

‘But she’s right,’ said Louisa. ‘If this goes on, people’ll get nervy about public spaces, worried what might happen. But it’s not like they’ll think some supervillain has a strategy. I mean, if this was happening in a tiny state somewhere …’

She broke off.

‘There you go,’ said Lamb. ‘Penny drops.’ He looked at Coe. ‘They’re operating to a plan that might pacify a local population. Because it’s all singular, isn’t it? The village. The watering hole.’

Coe nodded.

‘It was never meant for a state the size of Britain.’

‘So why,’ River began, then stopped. Then said: ‘If the strategy’s not going to achieve its original aim, why is it being deployed?’

‘And as long as we’re playing twenty questions,’ said Lamb, ‘anyone want to hazard a guess as to how come our mad monk here recognises it?’

‘Oh Christ,’ said River. ‘It’s one of ours, isn’t it?’

Coe nodded.

The others stared at each other in incomprehension. Only Lamb, who had closed his eyes, and Catherine, who was shaking her head, seemed to grasp the implications.

Lamb said, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. He might be simple, but compared to you lot he’s a walking Sudoku. The plan they’re working to isn’t a foreign plot to destabilise Britain, it’s a British plot devised to destabilise some troublesome tin-pot nation. And no, murdering penguins and failing to blow up trains isn’t going to bring the country to its knees, but when these jokers, whoever they are, reveal that they’re operating to a strategy developed by British Intelligence to undermine developing nations, well … Anybody want to join the dots?’

‘It’ll be an omnifuckingshambles,’ offered Shirley.

‘For once, you have a point.’

River said, ‘Poison the watering hole? How old is this plan?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Catherine said. ‘It may not be state of the art, but it’s still a black op. People have died.’

‘And penguins,’ Shirley added.

Louisa said, ‘It could have been a lot worse. How many wine bars are called the Watering Hole?’

‘How sure are we any of this is true?’ said Emma Flyte. ‘I mean, forgive my scepticism. But – it’s Coe, isn’t it? Mr Coe here mumbles something about this being a British plot, and just like that you’re all convinced. I’d need to hear more, personally. And you’re not going to smoke,’ she added, as a cigarette appeared in Lamb’s fist.

‘Ordinarily I wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Lamb. ‘But it’s the only thing keeps my upset stomach in check.’

Before Emma could reply, Catherine said, ‘Seriously. Don’t call his bluff.’

Lamb inhaled, blew smoke everywhere, then said to Coe: ‘Well, you going to tell us the origins of this plot? Or is that your party piece done?’

Coe glanced at Lamb, then looked down at the desk in front of him. ‘It’s from a working paper the weasels produced post-war. A strategy for destabilising a developing region, should the need arise.’

‘Before he was a fuck-up,’ Lamb explained to Emma Flyte, ‘he used to be a dickhead. Unless I mean egghead. I get them mixed up.’

‘You worked across the river?’ said Flyte.

Coe nodded.

‘Psych Eval,’ Shirley said. ‘He knows about the history of black ops.’

‘Maybe so,’ said Flyte. ‘It still sounds like a reach to me.’

‘Except for the watering hole bit,’ said Catherine quietly. ‘Because Louisa’s right. There are plenty of bars called the Watering Hole. But if they’d chosen one of them, nobody would have said hey, watering hole! They’d have said, they bombed a bar.’

‘And this paper, it was dug out of its drawer a while ago,’ Coe said. ‘Some bright spark suggested it had value as a template. You take the basic principles and apply them on a larger scale. Or replicate them across a wider region, so the same events happen in more than one location at the same time.’ He paused, then said, ‘It was one of those games that gets played over there. Never likely to be put into operation. Except some of them are.’

‘But this one wasn’t.’

He shrugged. ‘Is now.’

‘I’m not convinced,’ said Flyte.

‘Yeah, well, the thing is, fuck off,’ Lamb told her. ‘Because you’re overlooking the clincher.’

‘Which is?’

‘Which is where whoever’s doing this got the Watering Hole paper from in the first place.’

‘Ho,’ said River, Louisa and Shirley in unison.

‘Poor Roddy,’ Catherine murmured.

‘And Kim—’ Louisa began.

‘—his girlfriend—’ inserted River.

‘—must be the point of contact between him and the bad actors.’

‘Which explains why someone tried to whack him.’

‘Twice.’

‘And why Ho’s got a girlfriend,’ finished Shirley.

Flyte looked like someone had just clapped her round the head with a bedpan.

‘Someone tried to kill our resident tech-head,’ explained Lamb. ‘His colleagues here are suggesting that that’s because he was honey-trapped into handing over this destabilisation template. And whoever he handed it over to didn’t want him spilling the beans before they were ready.’

‘So why didn’t Ho say he’d done that?’ Flyte objected. ‘Once he realised people were trying to kill him?’

‘Well, there’s a strong chance he hasn’t yet noticed that that’s what’s going on,’ said Louisa.

‘There’s a reason you lot are all here, isn’t there?’ said Flyte after a while. ‘I keep forgetting that.’

‘Whereas your own brilliant career,’ Louisa reminded her, ‘hangs by a thread that’s dangling from Claude Whelan’s thumb.’

Louisa quite liked Emma, but didn’t see that she had to take any crap from her.

‘Careful,’ Lamb said. ‘She bites. Meanwhile, there’s a simple way we can find out whether Coe’s talking through his arse. Anyone want to hazard a guess?’

There was a pause.

‘We could torture him,’ Shirley suggested.

Coe flicked her a glance she could have sharpened her buzz cut with.

River said, ‘He’s only counted to three.’

‘It’s nearly a shame you’re an idiot,’ Lamb said. ‘When with a bit of application, you might have amounted to a halfwit. Because yes, in this rare instance, you’re right. Coe’s only counted to three.’ He tipped the neck of his wine bottle in Coe’s direction, and took a drag on his cigarette before saying, ‘Okay, Mr PMT, or PTSD, or whatever it is you’ve got. Do enlighten us. What are the nasty mans going to do next?’

‘Assassinate a populist leader,’ said Coe.

The maroon blazer gave him the edge, thought Dennis Gimball, admiring himself in the full-length mirror. Anyone could wear a suit. Anyone did, mostly. But it took style to carry off a less conventional look, and in this business, style was at a premium. How many politicians were remembered for what they wore? Not counting Michael Foot, obviously. He shifted to a profile, slid his hand between buttons three and four, and puffed his chest out. He’d look good on a five pound note, he decided. Hell, he’d look good on a stamp.

He hurriedly withdrew his hand when Dodie entered the room. Not hurriedly enough, though.

‘Were you posing, dear?’

‘Just … scratching.’

‘Well you’d better not do that in front of the cameras. Not either of those things.’

‘One is supposed to pose for cameras.’

‘There’s posing and posing.’ She eyed him critically: not the man himself, but the figure he cast in the mirror. He was carrying a few too many pounds, which was okay for politics. But if it all bottomed out and they ended up on Strictly, he’d need supervision. ‘Did you listen to the news?’ she asked. ‘There’s been another bomb.’

‘Oh God.’

‘Nobody hurt.’

‘Oh God. Well, no. I mean, good. Where? When?’

‘On a train,’ Dodie said. ‘I’ll get the news desk to email the details. When you’re asked about it, which you will be, sound like you know more than you’re saying. As if high-level intel crosses your desk.’

Because these were also rules: sound like you know more than you can say; act like you’ll do more than you intend. And when campaigning, lie your head off – the referendum’s other great legacy.

Dennis nodded and was about to reply when his phone rang. Unknown number. He frowned, prepared to get dusty if it was a cold-caller.

It wasn’t.

‘Speaking … Oh. Oh. When, now? … I’m not sure I have time … Oh. Oh. Well, in that case, yes then. At the flat, yes. Yes.’

He disconnected, slightly cross-eyed, which tended to happen when he was puzzled. Dodie had spoken to him about it, but it was difficult to train someone out of an unconscious physical reaction. Electric shocks might work.

‘What?’ she said.

‘That was Claude Whelan,’ he said.

‘Claude … Claude Whelan? MI5?’

He nodded.

‘What did he want?’

‘He wants to talk,’ her husband said.

‘There you go,’ said Lamb. ‘Soon as a people’s pin-up gets whacked, we’ll know we were right.’ He leaned back further, and shuffled his feet on River’s desktop. Items fell to the floor. ‘Wake me when that happens.’

River said to Coe, ‘That’s it? A populist leader?’

Coe shrugged. ‘There’s always one.’

‘It’ll be Zafar Jaffrey,’ Shirley said. ‘Has to be.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s the nearest thing to a popular politician in years.’

‘Populist,’ said Coe.

‘Same difference.’

‘Yeah, no, it really isn’t,’ Louisa told her.

Catherine said, ‘If everybody talks at once, we’re not going to get anywhere.’

‘Are you their nursery nurse?’ asked Flyte.

‘No, why, are you their new stepmum?’

Lamb said, ‘Well, this is going well.’ He swung his feet to the floor, with an agility that surprised no one bar Emma Flyte. ‘But I’m overdue for a Donald. You lot squabble amongst yourselves.’

He stole Catherine’s newspaper on his way out.

‘… Donald?’ Flyte looked disturbed, more at Lamb’s expression than his sudden departure from her custody.

‘Trump,’ Louisa explained.

‘Thank God for that. I thought he meant Duck.’

‘Dennis Gimball,’ said Catherine.

‘Are we still doing rhyming slang?’

She ignored that. ‘If I was looking for a populist leader in the current climate, he’s who I’d choose.’

‘Sooner you than me,’ Louisa said. ‘I wouldn’t vote for him with a bargepole.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting I approve of him,’ said Catherine. ‘More that, if I was planning on assassinating somebody in that cat-egory, he’d be top of my list.’

‘I’d kill Peter Judd,’ said Shirley. ‘Or Piers Morgan.’

‘Morgan’s not a populist leader.’

‘Whatever.’

River said to Coe, ‘Exactly how many stages were there to this blueprint?’

Coe didn’t look up. He spread his hand out on his desk again instead, and seemed to draw inspiration from the number of fingers he could see. ‘Five.’

‘Five,’ River repeated.

‘I think.’

‘You think?’

Coe shrugged.

‘Because it’s kind of an important detail.’

‘Yes. But I didn’t know that at the time.’

‘So this was just, what, some random memo that crossed your desk?’

‘It was something that came up when I was researching something else. I wouldn’t have remembered it at all if it hadn’t been for the penguins.’

River said, ‘Well, now you have remembered it, can you give us a clue as to what the fifth stage might be?’

‘Hey! Spoilers,’ said Shirley.

Everyone stared at her.

‘Well, we haven’t had the assassination yet.’

‘The general idea is, we might try to stop that bit,’ Louisa explained.

‘You’re all crazy,’ Flyte said.

‘We prefer the term “alternatively sane”.’

‘If any of this is even remotely likely,’ Flyte continued, ‘you need to inform the Park.’

‘Yeah, right,’ River said. ‘Excuse me, Park, but our team gave one of your secret documents to some bad guys, and they’re busy running rampage with it up and down the country. Can you imagine how that’ll go down? And let me emphasise, we’re already not popular.’

‘It isn’t about popularity.’

‘No, but it is about who’s left standing. And trust me, Di Taverner will dismantle Slough House brick by brick first opportunity she gets. And this, if you’re still unsure, would count as one of those.’

‘Taverner isn’t in charge. Whelan is.’

‘You keep telling yourself that.’

‘You’re starting to sound like your boss,’ Flyte said.

‘He didn’t say “fuck” enough,’ Louisa pointed out.

‘Who didn’t?’ And this was Lamb back, of course. He could always be trusted to enter a conversation at its most awkward point.

‘Your mini-me here,’ Flyte told him. ‘He’s picked up your habit of twisted thinking.’

‘Has he? Because I’m not sure I’ve ever put that habit down.’ Lamb did put himself down, though: heavily, on River’s chair once more. ‘What do you suppose they’re doing with Ho?’

‘I imagine they’re trying to discover what connects him to the Abbotsfield killers,’ Flyte said.

‘Yeah, I didn’t think they’d invited him round for tea and Jaffa Cakes. What I meant was, what’s the current protocol for debriefing squashy bodies? Will they be plugging him into something, hitting him with something, or injecting him with something?’

Catherine murmured words. Nobody heard what they were.

‘None of those are standard practice,’ Flyte said after a moment.

Lamb said, ‘Yeah, right, nor is pissing in a lift. But it happens. So which one is it, and how long will it take? Bearing in mind that Ho hasn’t been trained not to reveal things under pressure.’

‘And that he knows fuck all about anything,’ River muttered.

Flyte said, ‘The first thing they’ll do with him is nothing.’

‘And is that nothing the kind you plug him into, hit him with or inject?’

‘I meant literally, they won’t do anything with him. They’ll lock him in a room and let him sweat. Probably for a few hours. By the time they get to asking him questions, he’ll be an open book.’

‘I hope they’ve got their coloured pencils ready,’ Lamb said. ‘So chances are, they haven’t started on him yet?’

‘Why does that matter?’

Lamb bared his teeth in an unholy grin. ‘It gives us a little time.’

‘… You’re going to have to elaborate.’

Catherine leaned forward and gave Emma her sweetest smile. ‘Oh, I think Mr Lamb has a plan.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Because he claimed he was going to empty his bowels. And he never takes less than fifteen minutes to do that.’

Lamb smiled proudly. ‘If a job’s worth doing,’ he said.

‘So where did you really go?’ Flyte asked.

‘To fetch this,’ said Lamb, and he unfolded the newspaper he was still holding and showed her Marcus’s gun.

Claude Whelan wouldn’t have been surprised if a butler had opened the door. It was a mews flat not a mansion, but still: a grammar school boy, he retained that sense of expecting the worst when dealing with privilege. In the event, though, it was Dodie Gimball – arch-columnist; keeper of the flame – who answered the bell. She wore a knee-length grey skirt and matching jacket over a white blouse, which looked to Whelan like battle gear. Her smile was as false as her nose. The latter had cost her upwards of twenty grand; the former, years of practice.

‘Mr Whelan. So marvellous of you to visit.’

‘Mrs Gimball.’

‘Oh, do call me Dodie. I imagine you’re familiar with so many details of my life, it seems artificial to have you stand on ceremony.’

Given his awareness of what her nose job had cost, it would have been disingenuous to contest that. ‘Dodie, then.’

‘You’re on your own? No armed guards or, what do you call them? Dogs?’

‘I don’t know how these stories get about,’ he said.

‘Of course you don’t. Can I take your coat?’

‘Thank you.’

The rain had passed over, and while the eaves were still dripping and the gutters puddled, the sun was peeping from behind tattered clouds, and Whelan’s raincoat quite dry. As he handed it to her, as she hung it on a hook, Dennis Gimball emerged from the front room. Or parlour, Whelan supposed.

‘Ha. George Smiley, no less.’

‘If only,’ Whelan replied. ‘Thank you for taking the time to see me.’

‘I was given the distinct impression I had little choice in the matter.’

There was an aggressive edge there, a bluster, which surprised Whelan not at all. Gimball’s public performances always contained this element; an aggrieved awareness that not everyone present held him in the esteem he deserved – as compared to, say, Peter Judd, who successfully conveyed the impression that he gave no fucks for anyone who didn’t cheer his every syllable. But Judd was presently waiting out a hiccup in his career – long story – while Gimball apparently presented a threat to the PM’s position. One of the unforeseen consequences of Brexit, reflected Whelan, was that it had elevated to positions of undue prominence any number of nasty little toerags. Ah well. The people had spoken.

And if Gimball wanted aggression, that’s what he’d get.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You havn’t.’

Dennis looked taken aback, but Dodie pursed her lips, as if having a presentiment confirmed.

‘I’m not sure I’m going to offer you a drink,’ she said.

‘I won’t be staying long. Perhaps we could …’ He gestured towards the open door.

‘If we must,’ said Dennis, leading the way.

The room had been knocked through, so there were windows at both ends, allowing for more daylight than the property’s outside appearance suggested. A pair of overstuffed sofas faced each other across the middle of the floor. Perhaps the Gimballs each had their own, and lay in parallel, purring across the divide. For the moment, though, neither sat, nor offered Whelan the opportunity to do so.

‘It might be best if I spoke to your husband in private,’ he said to Dodie.

‘Seriously?’

‘It’s always best to say that up front,’ he said. ‘That way, nobody can pretend they weren’t warned.’

‘Oh, if warnings are being passed around, here’s one for you. If you attempt to come the heavy with my husband, you’ll understand the meaning of the power of the press.’

She thought herself impregnable, Whelan knew. What she hadn’t yet realised was that the leash her editor kept her on might be long, but remained a leash. She just hadn’t felt its limit yet. But her editor imagined a knighthood in his future, and her paper’s proprietor a seat in the Lords. There was little doubt whose interests would win if it came to bare knuckles.

He looked at Dennis. ‘I gather you have plans for this evening.’

‘That’s no secret,’ Gimball said. ‘It’s a public engagement, widely advertised. You’re welcome to attend, in fact. Come along. You might learn something.’

‘And you’re going to use the occasion to make wild accusations about Zafar Jaffrey.’

‘Wild accusations?’

‘That’s the information I have.’

‘I don’t suppose there’s any point my asking where it comes from? No, of course not. The Establishment closing ranks, as usual.’

Dennis Gimball, as all present well knew, was the public-school-educated son of the owner of a high street fashion chain. It was funny, if tiresome, how self-appointed rebels always believed themselves to have ploughed their own furrow.

Whelan said, ‘Be that as it may, with the national mood as it is, there’s a feeling that it would not be useful to have you indulge in rabble-rousing.’

‘… “Rabble-rousing”?’

‘Stirring people up.’

‘I’m aware of what the phrase means, Whelan, I’m questioning your application of it.’

‘There’ve already been public disturbances in several cities, mostly in areas with a high immigrant population. It’s in nobody’s interests that we see any more.’

‘I’m flattered that you think anything I say could have such a wide-ranging effect.’

‘You really shouldn’t be.’

‘But what we’re seeing is the natural revulsion felt by the law-abiding majority to the atrocity in Abbotsfield. And if you imagine I’m going to keep quiet when I have information which might lead to those responsible being apprehended, well, that’s rather casting doubt on my patriotism, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Nobody doubts your patriotism for a moment. But if you have any such information, I’d suggest you convey it to the appropriate authorities rather than deliver it to a public gathering.’

‘The appropriate authorities being …?’

‘The police, obviously. Or, if you prefer, you could give it directly to me.’

‘Ah, yes. To be suppressed or twisted, no doubt.’

‘That’s not how we operate.’

‘Really? Because my impression was, the PM speaks and his poodle barks. That’s really why you’re here, isn’t it? Nothing to do with Jaffrey. Everything to do with the effect that what I say will have on the PM’s chances of remaining in office.’

‘I’m not interested in party politics, Mr Gimball. I’m interested in national security.’

‘And a fine job you’re making of it. What was today’s triumph? A bomb on a train? How many people have to die before you admit you’re unfit for office?’

‘Nobody died today, Mr Gimball.’

‘But twelve people died at Abbotsfield,’ Dodie Gimball said. Up until now, she’d been watching this like a ferret watching someone juggle eggs. ‘And that would be on your watch, would it not?’

He wanted to say: there’s no system in the world can prevent a bunch of homicidal lunatics shooting up a village if they get the urge – no system, that is, that anyone sensible would want to see. It was a question of balance. You lived in a democracy, and accepted that certain freedoms came hand in hand with certain dangers, or you opted for full-scale oppression, which severely curtailed the opportunities for unofficial slaughter, but potentially maximised the official kind. But this was not a conversation to have with Dennis Gimball. So instead he said, ‘I take full responsibility for all the failures of the Service. And have a duty to prevent, as far as it’s in my ability to do so, any further such failures. Which is why I have to ask you not to make the speech you’re intending to make tonight, Mr Gimball. It might have serious consequences.’

Gimball had puffed himself up now. Someone, somewhere, had once used the word Churchillian in his presence, and the memory lingered on. ‘Serious consequences, my arse.’ His eyes flickered towards his wife, but she seemed on board with the vulgarity, so he continued. ‘All you’re doing is shoring up your own position. You might not be interested in party politics, but you’re still its creature, and as long as I’m a threat to the PM, I’m a threat to you too.’

He evidently rather liked the idea of being a threat. His eyes had acquired a little light. The image that occurred to Whelan, oddly, was marsh gas: flickering flames where gas was escaping. He’d never seen the phenomenon; only read about it.

‘And I can assure you—’

Enough, thought Whelan.

‘Dancing Bear,’ he said.

Gimball stopped mid-sentence.

‘Do you need me to say more?’

‘… I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘We both know that’s not the case.’

Dodie Gimball’s face had sharpened to a point, all but her expensive nose, which retained its shape while the rest of her features contracted. Whelan’s reading was, the name was strange to her, but its implications weren’t. Which didn’t matter either way. She had never been the intended target of any necessary revelation.

He said to her, ‘I did warn you.’

‘Dennis and I have no secrets.’

‘Perhaps not from each other. But there are a lot of people out there who might find your husband’s … proclivities surprising.’

‘Dancing Bear doesn’t even exist any more,’ Gimball said. ‘It closed down years ago. And what of it, anyway? It was a perfectly legal establishment.’

‘So I understand.’

‘Just a little bit of dressing up.’

Whelan nodded. His face was blank of any obvious emotion: while he had no qualms about dropping a bomb in the Gimballs’ parlour, he didn’t want to give the impression he was enjoying it. That would lack class.

Dodie had gathered herself now. She said to her husband, ‘Darling, should I call Erica?’ Then, to Whelan, ‘Our lawyer.’

Before Whelan could answer, Gimball was shaking his head. ‘No. No. Let’s just wait and …’

See, probably. The word escaped him. Or suggested another implication:

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me there are photographs.’

‘Good God, no.’

‘… No?’

‘No, I’m not going to tell you that. It would be a little retro, wouldn’t it? A few polaroids in a Manila envelope? We’ve moved on since those days.’

‘Spit it out,’ said Dodie.

‘There’s video. Do you really think a club like Dancing Bear would pass up the chance to film its members having fun? That was its main revenue stream. If we hadn’t bought up its archive, you’d have heard from its proprietors by now. Given your rise to prominence since.’

Dennis was shaking his head, though more as an indication that he was still in his denial phase than in actual disbelief.

‘So here we are, then. Fair warning. If you go ahead with the speech you’re planning, your career will be over before the Shipping Forecast’s aired. I’m not suggesting the evening news, nor even tomorrow’s papers. All due respect, Mrs Gimball, but they’re no more of the moment than a polaroid would be. No, we all know that Twitter, YouTube, reach parts of the planet where they’re still puzzling out the wheelbarrow. And you’ll be tomorrow’s big star. I’d ask you both to consider that carefully.’

There was nothing more to say on either side, so he left them there and made his own way to the front door. But Gimball caught him as he was retrieving his raincoat, and barred his way, looking as if he hoped there were something that might be said or done to render the last few minutes impotent. But hope was all it was. So it was almost with pity that Whelan said, ‘I lied, by the way. I do that sometimes, for effect,’ and reached into the pocket of his coat and took out an envelope. It was creamy white, the kind birthday cards arrive in, and wasn’t sealed, and when he held it slantwise a single photograph slid out, face up. It showed Dennis Gimball in a happy mood. He was on a small stage, and appeared to be singing – karaoke, probably – dressed in what Claire, Whelan’s wife, would almost certainly identify as a flapper dress. It brought to mind The Great Gatsby, anyway.

As Gimball studied it, the way one might an alien artefact, Dodie appeared at his shoulder. She glanced at the photo in his hand, no more, and then at her husband with what Whelan identified as sympathy.

At Whelan himself, she directed a gaze of pure hate.

Gimball spoke. ‘There’s no crime in it.’

‘Nobody suggested there was.’

‘No one gets hurt by what I do.’

‘I doubt anybody will claim that. No, I think what most people are going to do is laugh, Dennis. I think they’re going to laugh their fucking hearts out.’

Afterwards, Whelan was ashamed of saying that – the whole sentence, not just the profanity – and knew that Claire would have been disappointed, but it came naturally in the moment. This probably had something to do with the way Gimball had attacked him in the House.

His raincoat over one arm, he walked through the mews to the road, where his car was waiting.

‘“Alternatively sane”?’

‘Top of my head.’

‘It showed.’

‘It was off the cuff, River. I didn’t know I was going to be marked on it.’

Louisa and River were fetching their cars, or in River’s case, Ho’s car. Well, Ho wasn’t using it, and Lamb had known where he hid his spare keys: in an envelope secured to the underside of his desk. ‘The second most obvious place,’ Lamb called it, the first being if Ho had just Sellotaped them to his forehead. River didn’t feel good about using Ho’s car without permission. He felt fantastic.

The rain had eased off, and the breeze that was kicking up felt fresh and ready for anything.

Ho used a resident’s parking permit he’d applied for in the name of a local shut-in, not far from where he’d nearly been run over the previous morning. Louisa was on a meter, which was nearly as expensive as, though without the obvious benefits of, a second home. They reached Ho’s car first. Before Louisa could walk on, River said, ‘You really think there’s something to this?’

‘What Coe said?’

‘That, yeah. Plus what happens next. Someone’s going to try to whack Zafar Jaffrey? Or Dennis Gimball? Tonight?’

‘Everything else has happened in a hurry. Abbotsfield. The penguins. The bomb on the train.’

‘Yeah, but.’

‘I know.’

‘We can’t even be sure it’s Jaffrey or Gimball. Let alone tonight.’

‘Well, we have to do something.’

‘On account of Lamb.’

‘On account of Lamb, yeah.’

More specifically, on account of Lamb pulling a gun on the Head Dog.

‘I didn’t think he was going to do that.’

‘It would worry me if you had. Emma’s already got you down as Lamb’s mini-me.’

‘… You agree with her?’

Louisa said, ‘Nah. You’ve a way to go yet.’

‘Thanks. I think.’

What Lamb had done: he’d aimed Marcus’s gun in Emma’s direction.

Emma Flyte said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘Well, you’d think so. But try seeing it from my point of view.’

She stood up. ‘Seriously, you are out of your mind.’

‘It’s been said before. But best sit down.’

Flyte looked around the room. Everyone was staring at Lamb, except Catherine Standish, who was looking at Emma.

‘I’d do as he says.’

‘He’s not going to shoot me.’

‘Probably not.’ Catherine let that ‘probably’ hang there a moment or two, then shrugged. ‘But it’s your call.’

Flyte said to Lamb, ‘You’ve lost your senses,’ but she sat down.

Lamb said, ‘Didn’t we used to have a pair of handcuffs somewhere?’

‘… Why is everyone looking at me?’ Shirley asked.

‘We’re not judging,’ said Catherine.

Grumbling under her breath, Shirley went to her room and came back with a pair of cuffs. River waited until she’d secured Emma Flyte to her chair before saying, ‘And this is a good idea because …?’

Lamb said, ‘Okay, for those of you who weren’t paying attention, or are just slow, or are called Cartwright, let me point out what you’ve missed. These last couple of days, the terrorist massacre, the dead penguins, the bomb on the train, yada yada yada, it can all be laid at our door.’

‘Ho’s door,’ Louisa said.

‘You think Di Taverner cares which door? Once she’s got an opening, she’ll use it. By which I mean, she’ll drive a bulldozer through Slough House, and the best you lot can hope for is, someone’ll pull you from the rubble before burying you again.’ He remembered his bottle of wine, and reached for it. ‘And before you ask, no, that’s not a metaphor either.’

Louisa said, ‘You’re not seriously saying the Park would black ribbon us?’

Black ribbons were what were wrapped round closed files.

‘I’m saying,’ Lamb said, ‘that if they don’t want you around to tell tales, then you won’t be around to tell tales.’

River said, ‘There was that protocol, a few years ago. Waterproof? But there was an inquiry. They don’t use that any more.’

‘Oh, believe me,’ J. K. Coe said. ‘They do.’

River stared, but Coe said nothing more.

‘Waterproof?’ asked Shirley.

‘Black prisons. Eastern Europe.’

‘Fuck.’

Emma Flyte said, ‘Will you lot listen to yourselves? The Park does not bury its mistakes any more. Or ship them off to foreign dungeons.’

‘They brought you in to run a clean department,’ said Lamb. ‘That doesn’t mean there aren’t still dirty bits you don’t get to hear about.’

‘You’ve been rotting away in this slag heap for too long. You’ve all turned paranoid. If there’s even any remote truth in this scenario you’ve conjured up, this is not the way to deal with it.’

‘Nobody’s actually keeping minutes,’ Lamb said. ‘But if anyone had been, rest assured your objections would have been noted.’

‘I thought you had enough on Taverner to keep her onside,’ Louisa said. ‘Or at least to stop her going all medieval on us.’

‘If what happened at Abbotsfield turns out to be our fault,’ Catherine said softly, ‘that’ll trump anything Diana Taverner’s done.’

‘Yeah,’ said Lamb. ‘To be fair to her, her civilian casualties are probably still in single figures.’ He surveyed his assembled crew. ‘The good news is, if they’re holding off on questioning Ho, we’ve got a window.’

‘The last time you had a window,’ Flyte pointed out, ‘a body went through it. That doesn’t fill me with confidence.’

‘You’re not helping. Shut up. Zafar Jaffrey and Dennis Gimball, any advance on those two? For the role of most likely to be assassinated?’

‘You’re making decisions based on—’

‘You want to let me get this done, or do I need to put a bag over your head?’

River said, ‘She has a point. There are any number of politicians. Why would the target be one of the first two we put a name to?’

‘We’re talking about a bunch of mindless bottom feeders whose general ignorance of our way of life is tempered only by their indifference to human suffering, we’re all agreed on that?’

‘Is this the politicians or the killers?’

‘Good point, but I meant the killers.’

Shirley shrugged. ‘Then yeah. I guess.’

‘Good. So as one bunch of idiots second-guessing another, you make the perfect focus group. Besides, we don’t have the horsepower to cope with more than two potential targets.’ Lamb paused. ‘Horsepower. See what I did there?’

Now, out by Ho’s car, River said, ‘So Gimball’s doing a public meeting back in his constituency, and Jaffrey’s what? He’s not a public servant, or not yet. He doesn’t publish his itinerary. How do we work out where he is?’

‘I thought we could phone his office,’ said Louisa.

‘Oh.’

‘And ask what he’s doing tonight.’

‘Oh. Okay. Yeah, that might work.’

She said, ‘And, River, we can’t let that pair go together, you do realise that?’

‘Shirley and Coe? Why not?’

‘Because we’re trying to prevent a disaster, not cause one.’ Louisa was fumbling a coin from her jeans pocket as she spoke. ‘Call.’

‘Heads.’

She tossed. ‘It’s tails.’

‘… Loser gets Shirley, right?’

‘No, loser gets Coe.’

‘Maybe we should have established that before you tossed.’

‘Why, would that’ve made you win?’

Damn.

He said, ‘But I get to choose which target, right?’

‘So long as you choose Gimball, yeah.’

‘Why does it feel like I’m playing a stacked deck?’

‘Welcome to Slough House,’ Louisa said, and went to fetch her car.

Dennis Gimball felt like a victim.

There were lots of reasons for his feeling this way, and – as was his wont – he set them out as mental bullet points:

the prime minister hated him, so

he was being picked on by the Secret Service, which meant

he wasn’t going to be able to set his brilliant plan in action, because

they’d make him a laughing stock.

No wonder he needed a cigarette.

Dodie was tight-lipped, a bad sign. Tight-lipped meant she was thinking things through, and when that happened Dennis often found himself in deep shit, or that general postcode. Not for the first time, he wondered how things could go tits up so suddenly. A couple of hours ago, he was walking a shining path; now he was looking at, what? A public climbdown. Because as far as the political world was concerned, this was the perfect moment for him to bid for the leadership, and the thing about perfect moments was, they didn’t hang around. Announcing his return to the party fold was one thing, but without follow-through, without revealing that the PM’s go-to Muslim moderate was hand in glove with an illegal arms dealer, the evening could be spun through 180 degrees, and his announcement welcomed by Downing Street as a declaration of support. Like hammering the ball straight over the bowler’s head, only to be caught on the boundary. They didn’t give you two lives. It was back to the pavilion, bat tucked under your arm.

The car wasn’t due for an hour, so Dennis slipped into the handkerchief-sized garden, leaned against one of the huge pots Dodie was apparently growing a tree in, lit a cigarette, and brooded. If his planned triumph mutated into public capitulation, what could he expect? Twenty minutes in the spotlight as a prodigal son, a few weeks of speculation in the run up to the next reshuffle, and some chuckling paragraphs in the broadsheets when a Cabinet post failed to materialise. He’d join the ranks of those who’d confidently expected to swat this weak-kneed PM aside, and were now seeking opportunities elsewhere. A pub quiz question a decade from now: one for wonks only.

Okay, he thought, feeling nicotine course through his veins. That’s the downside. But let’s adjust this picture, shall we? It was always possible that, instead of a victim, he was in fact a hero, who had single-handedly forced everyone else into a corner:

the prime minister was scared of him, so

he was being picked on by the Secret Service, which meant

they thought his brilliant plan would work, so

… they’d make him a laughing stock.

Fuck.

He reached into his breast pocket, where something with sharp corners was digging into him: the photograph from Dancing Bear. Ancient history, but he’d had happy times there – and was that a crime? Nobody could look at this photo, surely, and not see past the ill-applied blusher (okay, that had been unwise) to the joy behind. Yes, he was wearing a dress; yes, elbow-length gloves – but so what? Was he hurting anyone? The only damage being done was to his own future, and since he couldn’t have known that at the time, even that was an innocent injury. He had known Dodie then, but they weren’t married, and it wasn’t until years later that he had confessed to her this aspect of his personality. So: all this photo showed was a single man, happy in the company of like-minded fellows. A little bit of dressing up – have we not come far enough, as a society, to accept that? He could feel himself slipping into speech mode. This, this: this was normal English manhood, letting off steam. Hadn’t Mick Jagger once declared that no Englishman needed encouragement to dress up as a woman? And look at Eddie Izzard – he was popular; beloved, even. So why shouldn’t Dennis Gimball receive the same treatment?

It’s not like he was gay, for God’s sake.

So he could be a pioneer. Could break the mould.

And – once it was known he was being persecuted for who he was – he could be the poster-boy for a whole new politics. The sanctity of personal choices, that would be his banner. Identity, selfhood, fiscal responsibility, strong borders, and a ground-up rethink of the benefits system. What’s not to vote for?

A scorching sensation at his fingertips warned him he’d finished his cigarette. He ground it out on the terracotta pot and buried the stub in its soil. His speech would need a new shape: how the Secret Service had tried to prevent him telling the truth about Zafar Jaffrey with blackmail threats. How they had tried to destroy Dennis Gimball with their bully-boy tactics. And how he was not a man to allow any citizen, himself included, to be ground beneath the Establishment’s boot …

He would be carried from the hall shoulder high, he decided. His people’s cheers would echo through the nation; his name would ring between the very stars.

Taking one last look at the photograph, he tucked it carefully away in his pocket.

And wished he could see the look on Claude Whelan’s face when the spook realised he’d been outmanoeuvred.

Most of the crew had departed Slough House: Cartwright with a reluctant Coe; Louisa Guy with an oddly subdued Shirley Dander. Catherine worried about Shirley; would have worried less if she’d spent the months since Marcus’s death kicking holes in walls and throwing desks through windows. It was when a bomb stopped ticking that you should be nervous.

J. K. Coe, too: Catherine couldn’t read him at all. It wasn’t that he was a bad person; more that bad things had happened to him, and there were bound to be consequences. Plus, of course, he might be a bad person. No point pretending otherwise.

Probably, though, who she ought to be worrying about was herself.

Lamb had disappeared into the toilet, having loudly announced that this time was for real, and he’d be taking no prisoners. ‘No offence,’ he’d added to Emma Flyte, still handcuffed to a chair. And this was the main reason Catherine should be worried: Lamb had kidnapped the Head Dog and sent the horses on a madcap errand which, if it turned out not madcap after all, demanded seventeen times the number of agents and a hell of a lot more resources if they weren’t to make a bad situation worse. Which, as someone had once pointed out, was their specialist area. So why did it all have a just-another-day-at-the-office feel? She must have been here too long.

She said to Emma, ‘Tea?’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘I wasn’t, actually. I’m having some. But it’s up to you.’

‘Do you have the key to these things?’

‘There used to be one somewhere. I hope Shirley didn’t lose it.’

Catherine went and made tea, and when she came back Emma didn’t appear to have moved at all; hadn’t hopped around the room on the chair, battering it against the walls, hoping to break it in pieces. That wasn’t a great sign. Situations like these, you were probably better off if your hostage wasn’t calm, cool and calculating.

She had to hold the cup to Emma’s lips so the woman could sip her tea. It was a potential Hannibal Lecter scenario, but passed without dental assault. When Emma had had enough, Catherine put her mug on the desk, sat down too and smiled gently. ‘When he’s in a specially grim mood, Lamb likes us to come up with mission statements,’ she said. ‘I’ve always thought “Apologies for the inconvenience” had a ring to it.’

‘How about “Fucking up the parts other fuck-ups can’t reach”?’

‘I’ll add it to the list.’

‘Are you really happy to see your career flatline because your lord and master had a rush of blood to the brain?’

Catherine said, ‘I really don’t know where to start with that. Career, lord and master, or brain.’

‘Even if you’re right, even if Coe’s onto something, how can you stop it by yourselves? Those four … I mean, seriously? Louisa’s got her head screwed on I’ll grant you, but the other three are dangerous. And not in a good way.’

‘River’s better than that. It’s not his fault he was assigned here.’

‘That’s what makes him dangerous. He’s got too much to prove.’

‘Maybe we could just agree to differ.’

‘Let me go. We’ll take your theories to the Park. The worst that could happen, you’re proved wrong. And if you’re proved right instead, well. It could turn all your careers round. But not if you go about it like this.’

Catherine said, ‘This is Slough House. We could produce a signed affidavit from whoever’s running Daesh today, outlining their plans for the next twelve months, and Di Taverner would screw it up and bin it before she’d act on it.’

‘People might die,’ Emma Flyte said.

‘People already have,’ Catherine said. ‘And whatever you think of Jackson, take it from me. If he can stop another Abbotsfield happening, he will.’

I’m very nearly positive about that, she thought.

Flyte opened her mouth to reply but before she could do so, he was back in the room: their supposed lord and master.

‘I didn’t hear a flush,’ Catherine said suspiciously.

‘No,’ said Lamb. ‘The Guinness Book of Records people might want a look first. I feel about two stone lighter.’

‘And you thought being handcuffed was cruel and unusual,’ she said to Emma.

Lamb scooped up the bag of Haribo Shirley had abandoned and collapsed onto a chair: his usual challenge to the office furniture. Which sooner or later would surely rise up and smite him, but this didn’t happen today. ‘So. Has she confessed yet?’

‘… Confessed?’

‘Sorry. Flashback. I meant, has she had a cup of tea? Don’t want anyone thinking I don’t know how to treat a guest.’

Emma Flyte said, ‘We were just discussing how much shit you’re in.’

‘You could hear it from here?’

‘That’s even without whatever happens once your crew start playing Mission Impossible. If either of those pols are actually at risk, they should be under Protection Orders. Not being surreptitiously babysat by the Teletubbies.’

Lamb said, ‘I feel like I should warn you at this point – last guy we used those handcuffs on, it didn’t end well.’

‘For you or for him?’

‘I’m still here,’ Lamb pointed out.

‘How long have you been getting away with this?’

‘This?’

She jerked her head, a gesture meant to include everything. ‘This. Slough House. Your crew. The whole making-it-up-as-you-go-along schtick.’

Lamb said, ‘I’ve been here since the start.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

‘It was my idea, in fact.’

‘What, you took a long hard look at your career and decided to franchise it?’

Catherine said, ‘He was a joe.’

Emma turned her way. ‘What?’

‘He worked undercover.’

‘I know what it means. I’m wondering why you’re defending him.’

‘I’m not. I’m warning you not to underestimate him.’

‘If you’re going to wrestle,’ said Lamb, ‘I may have to film it for later study.’ He looked at Catherine. ‘Do we have any jelly?’

‘Let me go now. It’s not too late to straighten this out.’

‘By informing the Park? That’s not really going to help.’

‘Because the Park won’t pay attention, I know.’

‘And because Coe was right.’ Lamb watched her reaction, multitasking by shovelling Haribo into his mouth and washing them down with a swallow from the bottle of red. ‘He opens his trap maybe once a month. When he actually says something, he’s usually sure of his ground.’

‘He looks like a disaster victim.’

‘And you look like a catwalk model. Does that mean we shouldn’t take you seriously?’

She said, ‘So let’s say he’s right. Even if the Park don’t listen, tell them about it and you’ve covered your back.’

‘Yeah, not really. Because if these guys are laying waste to the country using a script the Service wrote, there are few lengths the Park won’t go to to cover it up. And anyone who knows about it will be in the firing line. Which includes you, if you’d lost count. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll be safe when they start playing London Rules. Because you’re not a suit, Flyte. You’re a joe. And joes are expendable.’

‘I’m a cop.’

‘There’s less difference than you might think.’

‘If this is an attempt to get me on board by appealing to our common heritage, we’re in for a long evening.’

Lamb shrugged. ‘I’m in no hurry to be elsewhere. But what I’m appealing to is your survival instincts. How far would you trust Diana Taverner?’

‘Not much further than I trust you.’

‘So if you head back to the Park now, tell Lady Di that my crew, far from being locked down, are out on the streets with their Batcapes on, how do you think she’ll react? Pat on the back? Or kick up the arse?’

‘I’d like to see her try,’ Flyte muttered.

‘There’s the cop talking.’ Whatever Lamb had just put in his mouth was the wrong flavour, and he paused to spit it back into the bag. ‘But I’m betting your job won’t survive her discovering you’ve fucked up again.’

‘Again?’

‘When David Cartwright went walkabout,’ he said. ‘You didn’t exactly emerge from that one covered in glory.’

Flyte said, ‘Look who’s talking. But why would I take it to Lady Di? I already know she doesn’t like me. I’d go straight to Whelan.’

‘Claude Whelan has a lot on his plate right now,’ Catherine said. ‘If he can’t trust you to do your job efficiently, what use are you to him?’

‘However good you look in the attempt,’ Lamb said.

He tipped the bottle into his mouth again but it was empty, so he dropped it on the floor.

‘We’re gonna let you go now,’ he said. ‘But before you make your next move, consider your options. Either Coe’s right and there’s a gang of killers out there poised for a high-level hit. Or he’s wrong, and your career’s fucked anyway, because you let my crew loose when you were supposed to have ’em wrapped up. If you can’t handle a simple job like that, you’ve been promoted beyond your abilities.’

‘Let’s not forget that you’re fucked too,’ said Flyte. ‘On account of Slough House being the source of the leak. If it happened.’

Catherine produced the handcuff key from a pocket in her dress, and went round the back of Emma’s chair to uncuff her. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that’s just the usual story. If we weren’t fucked, as you so graphically put it, we wouldn’t be here in the first place.’

Freed from the handcuffs, Emma rubbed her wrists. ‘And what do you expect me to do now? Just keep my fingers crossed everything works out okay?’

‘See?’ said Lamb. ‘We are on the same page after all.’

River hadn’t asked Coe if he wanted to drive, and Coe hadn’t indicated a preference, but the way he was slumped in the passenger seat, eyes closed, suggested he was happy being driven. Except you couldn’t really use ‘happy’, River amended. Actually, a brief scroll through his mental thesaurus, and the best he could come up with for Coe was ‘alive’. Even then he’d have to keep checking every half-hour. There was no question: he’d rather have been with Louisa, who he knew he could trust, or even Shirley, who was at least a known quantity; a lit firework, but not an unfamiliar one. J. K. Coe, though – River couldn’t even remember what the initials stood for without putting work into it – had been sharing his office for the best part of a year, and River couldn’t have told you where he ate lunch. Nine to five he occupied his desk, almost constantly plugged into his iPod: quiet music, you had to give him that – none of the tinny leakage that warned you Ho was near – but you could tell he was using it as a barrier; a way of minimising contact with his fellow humans. Plus, of course, he’d murdered that guy not long ago: three bullets to the chest of an unarmed, manacled man. That was always going to weigh in the balance when you were alone in a car with him.

But for the time being, Coe was asleep, or as good as, and River had something to occupy his mind, after weeks of staring at digital wallpaper. What had he been tasked with? Oh yeah: cross-checking electoral rolls against properties on which council tax and utilities were regularly paid and up to date, to determine whether apparently occupied properties were in fact standing empty. This, Lamb had suggested – with the enthusiasm of one to whom the idea had occurred after a lunchtime which had started early, finished late, and been mostly liquid – being a foolproof method of compiling a list of possible terrorist safe houses, though River suspected that a more accurate approach might involve wandering round the British Isles knocking on random doors.

‘You want me to do this for everywhere in the country?’ he’d asked, a vision of hell yawning before him.

‘Christ, no,’ said Lamb. ‘You think I’m some kind of monster?’

‘Well …’

‘You can skip Sunderland. And also Crewe. But yeah, do everywhere else.’

So River had now been playing Spider Solitaire for a record-breaking three weeks straight. Every couple of days, a random cut-and-paste job produced a list of properties which, if they fulfilled Lamb’s criteria, did so purely by chance: he passed these on to Catherine, who, he suspected, knew damn well he was flying kites. Probably Lamb did too, and was waiting for the right moment to dump on him. Well, okay, River thought. Roll the damn dice. There was only so much punishment he could take. Rooming with Coe might turn out the last straw.

Back when he’d first arrived in Slough House, he’d shared with Sid Baker: Sid for Sidonie, very definitely female, though River hadn’t got to know her as well as he might have done, on account of her being shot in the head not long afterwards. Head wounds were tricky: lots of blood, and a general expectation that even if you pulled through you were going to be straw-fed thereafter, but bubbling alongside that was an awareness of all the many exceptions. River had read the same stories as everyone else about gunshot survivors living for decades with bullets lodged in their craniums. But whether Sid would have turned out one of these lucky ones, River didn’t know. The Service had dropped a fire blanket over the incident, and whether that meant they’d cremated the body after slapping a natural causes sticker on it or had her nursed back to health in a lakeside sanatorium was anybody’s guess. He tried not to think about her often. If she was dead, which she probably was, he hoped they’d spread her ashes somewhere nice.

But the past was his daily passenger at the moment: right there next to him wherever he went. And it wasn’t what he thought it had been, either; not so much a passenger as a hitchhiker; one who gets weird a few miles down the road. River had met his father for the first time earlier that year. This was not a meeting he had ever expected to happen. His father, he’d always assumed, had been a drive-by from his mother’s wayward youth, and this explained the scant information she’d ever released as to his identity. This had long ceased to matter to River, or at least, had become something he was prepared to bury under the psychological debris of the everyday: the actual father figure in his life was the O.B., under whose guidance he had grown to be the man he was. So his had been an unplanned birth: so what? The same could be said about a fair proportion of the world’s population, not many of whom had enjoyed his safe upbringing. But now it turned out this picture was askew; that far from having been a vague figure who had emerged from bar or nightclub to enjoy an overnight fling with Isobel Cartwright, his father had lived on Spook Street, same as his grandfather; that far from being unplanned, River’s birth had been plotted, his very existence a counter in a bigger game. And now his father was out there in the world, and while this had been true before River had ever laid eyes on him, its continued truth now carried a different weight.

He thought he might kill his father next time their paths crossed.

And he also thought that Slough House was no longer enough for him; that the tenuous promise it offered of future redemption, a return to the shining fold of Regent’s Park, could sustain him no longer. Weeks of playing computer games rather than fulfilling another of Lamb’s Sisyphean tasks; wasn’t that his psyche telling him he was ready to quit? At the very least, he was asking to be fired. And no coincidence that this was happening while he was waiting for the O.B. to die.

The thought blurred his vision momentarily, and he had to slow down. Because that would be a great way to go: checking out in a borrowed car with a surly companion, just as he was starting to make decisions about his future.

They were about half an hour from Slough; traffic a little sludgy, but not too bad – the fag end of rush hour, not its evil heart – and the sky starting to think about changing for the evening. The car was nice to drive – it was an electric-blue Ford Kia: its very name enough to generate outraged emails – but only in the sense that River wasn’t worried about pranging it. Ho, presumably, had chosen this car because he felt it suited him. River could only agree.

He glanced across at Coe, and was surprised to find he had his eyes open.

‘How sure are you this is gonna happen?’ he asked.

Coe didn’t react.

iPod. Of course.

River tapped him on the knee and made a take-your-fucking-earbuds-out gesture, which Coe reluctantly did.

‘How sure are you this is gonna happen?’ River repeated.

Coe stared ahead for a while, watching the road being swallowed up by the car’s front wheels, then shrugged and started putting his buds back in.

‘In the interests of a healthy working relationship,’ River said, ‘I should warn you that if you do that, I’m gonna pull onto the hard shoulder and beat the snot out of you.’

Coe paused and then nodded. ‘You could try,’ he said, and carried on inserting the earbuds.

That went well, thought River.

But a minute later, Coe pulled them out again. He said, ‘On a scale of one to ten? Maybe three.’

River nodded. That’s about what he’d figured.

He said, ‘But you felt it worth raising.’

There was another pause, then Coe said, ‘I’m right about the bigger picture. The template they’re using. The chances of us guessing right which pol they’ll try to hit, and it happening tonight, that’s a stretch.’

He didn’t look at River while saying this, but stayed focused on the road ahead of them.

Just for fun, River said, ‘But supposing we guessed right, and they’ll go for Gimball. Tonight. How’d you rate our chances of stopping it? On the same scale?’

J. K. Coe raised his earbuds again, but before slotting them into place he said, ‘Less than zero.’

‘Yellow car,’ said Shirley.

‘Yeah, not really.’

‘Yes really.’

‘Not really,’ said Louisa. ‘On account of one, it’s a van, not a car, and two, it’s orange, not yellow. So orange van, not yellow car.’

‘Same difference.’

Louisa suppressed a sigh. Until ten minutes ago, the rules of Yellow Car had seemed pretty straightforward: when you saw a yellow car, you said, ‘Yellow car’. There wasn’t much room for controversy. But that was before she’d introduced Shirley to the game.

Nor had the game stopped Shirley fidgeting. She’d already been rooting about in the glove compartment, and had found a pair of sunglasses she was now wearing, and also some gum. ‘Can I have this?’

‘Jesus. It’s like being trapped with a ten-year-old.’

‘I get bored on long car journeys.’

Louisa said, ‘I can drop you at the next services. Just say the word.’

Shirley admired herself in the mirror on the sunshield. ‘These shades are about six years out of fashion.’

‘That’s why they’re in the glove compartment,’ Louisa said. ‘And not, for instance, on my face.’

‘Are we nearly there yet?’

Not nearly enough, thought Louisa.

‘There’ was the east side of Birmingham: a phone call having determined that Zafar Jaffrey was in his home city that evening, delivering a talk in a library. The woman who’d given Louisa this information had added a gloss or two, emphasising Jaffrey’s manifold qualities which, Louisa suspected, might have included walking on water if she’d prolonged the call long enough. Nice to know he had his supporters, though when a politician seemed too good to be true, that usually meant he was. Still, if you had to pick one you’d rather not see assassinated, Jaffrey had the edge on Dennis Gimball, which was why she’d left Gimball to River. Faced with the task of keeping Gimball alive, she couldn’t put her hand on her heart and say she’d do her damnedest; there was a strong argument that knocking Gimball off his perch would be doing the nation a favour. Or at any rate, not doing it so much harm it would need therapy.

As for the voice of support, Louisa recalled that Jaffrey was famous for recruiting his staff from the ranks of ex-offenders, which meant, if this were a movie, that he’d turn out to be running a crime syndicate under cover of a political campaign. Then again, if this were a movie, Louisa’s shades wouldn’t be six years out of style.

Shirley said, ‘What are the chances Coe’s right about this?’

‘Not high.’

‘How not high?’

‘Really not high.’ Louisa pulled out to overtake some middle-lane hog who was dawdling along at seventy-five. ‘I mean, okay, the whole watering hole thing, maybe he’s on to something. But if you mean, is a terror gang about to try and whack Zafar Jaffrey, I can’t really see that happening, no.’

‘So why are we here?’

‘Gets us out of the office.’

Shirley turned to give a little wave to the overtaken driver, then blew a bubble with the gum and let it pop. ‘If he’s as clever as everyone says he is, how come he’s a fucking idiot?’

‘Who, Coe? I don’t think he is a fucking idiot.’

‘He barely ever says a word.’

‘Not a sign of idiocy,’ Louisa said pointedly, though that barb didn’t land.

‘Plus he’s a psycho.’

‘Well, yeah. He is that.’

‘I bet his phone’s smarter than he is.’

‘Everyone’s phone is smarter than they are.’

‘I bet his has a more exciting sex life.’

‘Is he gay, do you reckon?’

‘I don’t want to think about Coe’s dick.’

‘I’m not asking you to think about—’

‘Yeah, you’re asking me to speculate where he likes putting it. And I don’t want to think about that.’

Louisa said, ‘You’re the one who brought it up.’ She raised a finger from the wheel and pointed it at the opposite lane of traffic. ‘Yellow car.’

‘I don’t want to play that any more.’

Like an eight-year-old, Louisa mentally amended. It was like being trapped with an eight-year-old.

Maybe she’d have been better off partnering with Coe – she’d certainly have had a quieter journey – but, yes, he was kind of psycho. This didn’t mean his overall analysis of the situation was off. The whole destabilising project sounded barking enough to ring true to Louisa, and that was enough to make this journey worthwhile – she hadn’t been kidding about getting out of the office. Because sooner or later, Ho was going to tell the boys and girls at Regent’s Park that he’d handed over a Service document to some bad actors, who were using it as a blueprint to a murder spree, and then hellfire was going to rain down. Best to be elsewhere when that happened: let Lamb soak it up on his own.

And even if nothing happened in Birmingham, this didn’t make the journey a waste of time. She’d screwed up last night. Ho could have been killed, and, whatever anyone felt about Ho, Slough House had seen enough death. Besides, if Ho had been whacked, what would that say about her own abilities? She’d been there to protect him. So today she was going the extra mile: call it penance. Also, she’d closed River down when he’d suggested Shirley was missing Marcus, and she felt bad about that too. Maybe it was time to start probing. Maybe, instead of bouncing off each other like spinning tops, she and Shirley could do each other some good.

So she said, ‘You never talk about Marcus.’

Shirley proved her point by not replying.

‘I know what it’s like to lose someone close.’

‘And when you talk about them, do they come back?’

It was Louisa’s turn not to say anything.

Shirley said, ‘How long has this gum been in there anyway?’

‘Longer than the sunglasses.’

Shirley spat it into her hand. Then her face brightened. ‘Yellow car.’

‘I thought you didn’t want to play any more.’

‘No,’ said Shirley. ‘I just didn’t want to lose.’

Are we nearly there yet? wondered Louisa.

A sign told her: fifteen miles.

See? We are on the same page after all.

When a police officer, Emma Flyte had never fallen into the trap of thinking cops and villains two sides of a coin, closer in outlook than a civilian could understand. She preferred to hold to a more fundamental verity: that villains were arseholes who needed locking up, and cops were the folk to do it.

Here on Spook Street, the option of arresting the bad guys wasn’t open to her.

If it had been, Jackson Lamb would have been on her list. She didn’t care that he used to be a joe – didn’t buy into that whole romantic notion of the bruised survivor of an undercover war – and wasn’t impressed by his apparent determination to bully or alienate everyone around him. She simply thought him a bastard, and the best way of dealing with bastards was to cut them off at the knees. And even Lamb himself, deluded ringmaster that he was, would have to agree that over the last hour or so, he’d provided her with a sharp enough axe to do just that.

Emma pulled back her hair, tied it with an elastic band. Anything less utilitarian – even the most basic of scrunchies – and she’d get sideways looks from male colleagues, who seemed to think any hint of decoration meant she was playing the gender card. That these same men wore ear studs and sleeve tattoos didn’t figure in their calculations … She was in her car, though hadn’t yet turned the key. Hadn’t yet figured out her next move.

She hoped it hadn’t showed, back in Slough House, but rage was sluicing through her body. Being cuffed like a prisoner; fed tea from a cup in someone else’s hands – what she really wanted was to bang heads together; corral the slow horses and have each of them hobbled. Boiled down into glue.

But …

But she didn’t much care for the bigger picture either.

The Standish woman was right: Claude Whelan had his hands full, and wouldn’t appreciate the mess she’d made of locking down Slough House. And Taverner would be less than no help: she’d happily accept any ammunition that could be used against Lamb, but she wasn’t the type to waste ammo, and if she could bring down Emma with the same round, she’d do precisely that. Emma had disappointed Taverner by failing to nail her colours to Taverner’s mast, and Diana had a robust approach to alliances, one which refused to accept the notion of a neutral. If you weren’t for her, you were fair game.

Besides. There was always the possibility Lamb was right. And whatever she’d said back there about Waterproof, about how the old ways no longer applied in Regent’s Park, she had the feeling that if the Abbotsfield killings turned out part of a cataclysmic self-inflicted wound, then anyone who knew about it would soon wish they didn’t.

She drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel. The day was packing its bags and tidying up; would be drawing the curtains before long. Whatever she was going to do, she’d better get on with it.

There was a phrase she’d heard bandied about: London Rules. Rule one was cover your arse …

What she really hated about reaching this conclusion was knowing Lamb would expect her to do just that.

Thank God she had at least one ally in this dog-eat-dog universe. Before starting the car, she reached for her phone, and called Devon.

Catherine said, ‘Happy now?’

‘You know me. Like Pollyeffinganna on Christmas morning.’

‘I’m guessing Santa brought you mostly coal,’ she said.

They were in his office. Outside, the afternoon was dying; in here, it could have been any time from 1972 onwards. Lamb had poured himself a medium-huge glass of whisky; had poured one for Catherine, too, which he did sometimes. Perhaps he wanted her to drink from it. Perhaps he just wanted to watch her resisting. So much of his life seemed to consist of testing other people’s limits. Presumably he’d grown bored testing his own.

‘You do know,’ she said, ‘that Flyte’s probably rounding up her Dogs even now. And that wherever they’re keeping Roddy, there’ll be a space next to him just for you.’

He looked indignant. ‘What did I do?’

‘… You want a list?’

‘She’s not going to go crying all the way home,’ Lamb said. ‘She did that every time a nasty man handcuffed her, she’d never have any fun.’

‘You know, I’d think twice about offering that in mitigation.’

Lamb waved her objection away, unless he was chasing off a fly. ‘She’s a cop,’ he said. ‘She knows damn well that if there’s even the slightest chance what Coe said is true, then it needs chasing down. And stopping to file a complaint about what happened here’s just gonna clog the wheels.’ He paused to raise his glass to his mouth. He’s already drained a bottle of wine, Catherine thought. She could almost taste it, if she tried hard enough. But that was a door she wasn’t walking through: not today. He was talking again. ‘Besides, she’s not gonna want everyone knowing what a crap job she made of it. Dander went out for sweeties, for Christ’s sake. I’m pretty sure that’s outside the lockdown guidelines.’

‘I don’t think they were drawn up with you in mind.’

He nodded seriously at that. Guidelines never were.

Catherine said, ‘You sent our crew out after a bunch of killers.’

‘I’d have gone with them, but—’

‘But you couldn’t be arsed, yes. That wasn’t my point. Coe’s carrying a knife if you believe Shirley, but other than that they’re unarmed. Just supposing a pair of them do run into this gang. How’s that likely to turn out?’

‘Well, I’m an incurable optimist, as you know,’ he said. ‘But I expect it’ll all go to shit, as usual.’

‘That’s reassuring.’

‘Oh, grow a pair. Actually, on second thoughts, don’t.’ He stared at his glass a moment, as if trying to work out what it was, and where it went, and then solved that puzzle in the usual way. When he’d done, he said, ‘These killers aren’t up to much. Slaughtering a bunch of pedestrians is one thing. But they failed to whack Ho twice, and let’s face it, he’s a walking wicket. Nah, they’re amateurs. I’d back Guy and Dander against them most days.’

‘What about River and Coe?’

‘Okay, you’ve made your point. But at least we’ll have a spare room.’

‘Jackson—’

‘The targets, both of them, ’ll have a police presence. Armed police, more than likely. If our crew spot anything, all they have to do is raise the alarm. It’s not like I’m expecting them to lay their lives down.’

‘… All right.’

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘if they weren’t fuck-ups, they wouldn’t be here in the first place.’

‘You’re wasted on us,’ she told him. ‘You should be writing greetings cards.’

A shattered sneer pasted across his face; he reached for her glass.

There were five of them, and one was dead.

They’d wrapped him, tight as they could, in what came to hand, which was cling film. This lent a horror film sheen to the corpse, and every time Danny looked at him – it – he had the feeling it was about to move; to extend its mummy-like arms and shuffle to its feet. Just yesterday, he’d been among the living. Joon, he’d been called then. Now Joon was an it, and cling film-wrapped, as if sheets of skin-thin plastic could keep him fresh.

They all knew that wasn’t going to happen.

‘Bad fall,’ Shin had said.

Apparently, there were good ones. In Joon’s case, this would have involved not landing neck first, after falling through a big window. And pretty clearly, even before his meeting with the pavement, Joon had not been having a successful evening: if he’d completed the task in hand, there’d have been no need to take such a dramatic short cut. He could have padded down the stairs and let himself out through the door. No, the target was still upright, that was clear.

Which was Shin’s fault, and while it was not Danny’s place to offer criticism, it was becoming harder to hold his tongue. He had been in the country three years, and still the flabbiness of life in Britain startled him on a daily basis. There was no direction. No leadership. The newspapers – the media – delivered a chaotic medley of constant opinion: contradictory, mindless noise that was affecting them all. Since Abbotsfield, they had had more failures than successes; and of the latter, the Watering Hole bomb had been down to Danny alone: a simple, beautiful physical action, after which he had ghosted himself away, invisible to the shocked crowds around. But the target, Ho, had escaped unharmed twice, and the bomb on the train had been a humiliating debacle. There were two reasons for this that Danny could see. The first was Shin himself, who appeared to have no stomach for a leadership role. The second was the absence of uniform. Having shed their uniforms, they had let the chaos in.

Shin was looking at his phone now, his back against the side of the van they’d been living in for the past week, scrolling through Twitter feeds, through news headlines, as if consulting an oracle. Danny felt contempt worming through him: if Shin were to lead he should lead, not look for answers in the rubble of the internet. His resolve was weakening by the hour. He thought the best way of getting results was letting them know the plan they were working to, whereas a true commander would expect obedience to be blind, and deal with infraction severely. He had not even punished An when An failed to run the target over the previous morning. Was even now unable to draw a line between these two events: because An had failed yesterday, Joon was dead today.

He closed his eyes and tried to find the calm space. Their mission had stumbled, but had not been compromised. As for Shin, Danny would report him once it was over. There could be no other way. His leadership was a mistake, a disgrace, and he would understand that for himself had his head not been turned by the chaos. As for the rest of them – who had been four and now were three – they would keep their cool and see the plan through. That was the phrase he was after: keep their cool. It wasn’t, after all, the details that mattered; it was the simple fact of the plan’s implementation. This was the oldest of all stratagems, the lesson you delivered to your enemies: that the stronger they built their citadels, the more securely they sealed the instruments of their own destruction within.

All that Danny and his comrades needed was to remain … cool.

That was the phrase.

Cool cats.