London Rules

8

RIVER PARKED IN A metered space, and was fumbling for change when he remembered – duh – that it was Ho’s car, so stopped. He looked around. Dusk was smudging distant outlines. Next to him, Coe was still plugged in. His eyes were open, but had an unfocused, glazed expression which in anyone else River would have taken to mean high.

Coe, he suspected, didn’t get high. Just reaching a level would be a stretch.

He made the get-your-earbuds-out gesture again, a necessary piece of sign language when dealing with Coe, and said, ‘It’s kind of funny, being in actual Slough.’

Coe stared.

‘I’ll explain later. You okay with this?’

‘No.’

‘Which part especially?’

Coe thought, then said, ‘All of it.’

‘Well, just so long as you don’t shoot anyone this time.’

‘I don’t have a gun.’

‘Yeah, I was hoping for commitment. Not just lack of means.’

It wasn’t that River thought it likely there’d be gunfire, violence, blood, but he figured at least one of them ought to raise the possibility, since they were, at least nominally, here to prevent a possible assassination. Or perhaps just interrupt one. But now the journey was over, that possibility had receded into the realms of the far-fetched. Nothing exciting ever happened to the slow horses. Well, okay, there’d been that gun battle a while back, and the psycho who shot up Slough House, but mostly it was just the daily grind. And that they were currently in the actual Slough only rubbed that in, somehow. The actual Slough wasn’t somewhere he’d been before, and all he knew about it was that it had managed to crawl this near to London and then given up. No ambition. There was also a poem about bombs, but he wasn’t reading too much into that.

‘We should check the place out,’ he said. ‘See what’s what.’

‘In case there’s a group wearing Team Abbotsfield T-shirts?’

River looked at him.

‘Or sitting in McDonald’s, enjoying a Happy Terrorist Meal?’

Well, it was better than nothing. ‘Yeah, something like that.’

‘Where’s the meeting?’

It was a couple of streets away, two minutes’ walk. Coe kept his hands in his pockets, and had the look of an adolescent on a forced excursion, except – River noticed – his eyes never stayed still: he checked out everything, traffic and pedestrians alike. River had the feeling he expected the worst on a continuous basis. What he’d do when and if it showed up, River didn’t know, but Shirley was always banging on about him carrying a knife. Handy that at least one of them was tooled up, but how a blade was going to help if a bunch of paramilitary maniacs made an appearance was a question best unasked. Not that that was going to happen, River reminded himself – even Coe had said as much, and it was his fault they were here in the first place.

The meeting hall looked like a primary school: red-brick, with green windows and pipework. It sat behind a low wall into which iron railings had been set, and with a gateway big enough for cars. This was manned by private security guards, their uniforms official-looking at a distance, but their belts weighed down by so much fussy nonsense – radios, torches, puncture repair kits – that you couldn’t take them seriously. But maybe he was just jealous. A fully fledged member of the security services, River carried about as much weight as a supermarket trolley wrangler.

Coe said, ‘Looking at your future?’

‘Shoot me now,’ said River, before remembering who he was talking to.

‘Don’t worry, you’re not likely to finish up a car park attendant. Current scenario, that would be a happy ending.’

It was nice Coe was finding his voice, but River wished he’d shut the fuck up.

‘Let’s separate,’ he said. ‘Make sure Team Abbotsfield haven’t got the building staked out.’

As if, he thought.

On the other hand, stranger things had happened.

Miles away: a little later, another public meeting.

The library was on a side street, and from a distance could have been any municipal building: health centre, brothel, tax office. A flyer taped to the door announced the evening’s event. ZAFAR JAFFREY WILL BE SPEAKING ON THE IMPORTANT ISSUES FACING THE COMMUNITY, AND ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT HIS CANDIDACY FOR MAYOR. A thumbnail photo confirmed Louisa’s impression that Jaffrey was a looker. There were rows of chairs at the back of the room, beyond sets of free-standing bookshelves; some occupied already, though the event wouldn’t begin for thirty minutes. Returning to the car, she’d clocked the other vehicles lining the road. All were empty. There were vacant parking spaces too. Louisa thought about taking a photo, to show people in London.

Back in the car, Shirley sat with folded arms. Despite the sunglasses, she weirdly resembled a Buddha. ‘All I’ve eaten today is a bunch of Haribo,’ she said.

‘Remind me whose fault that is?’

‘We could have stopped at a service station.’

‘We could have gone for a candlelit supper,’ said Louisa. ‘Only I took an executive decision to get on with the job.’

‘Who put you in charge?’

My wheels, my rules, Louisa thought, but didn’t say. There came a point when squabbling with Shirley reached a brick wall: you could either bang your head against it or walk round.

So she said, ‘Jaffrey’s talk starts in half an hour. It’s scheduled to last forty minutes, with a twenty-minute Q&A. One of us should go inside, the other stay out here, and …’

‘Secure the perimeter?’

‘I was trying not to say that,’ she admitted.

‘That’s not really a one-woman job,’ Shirley said.

‘Yeah, no, I didn’t say it was an ideal plan. But it is a plan.’

‘Are you armed?’

‘No. Are you?’

‘I wish.’

‘There’s a monkey wrench in the boot.’

‘Dibs.’

Shirley with a monkey wrench, Louisa thought: yeah, that was someone you’d want on your side. She might look like a mini-Buddha, but she didn’t share the same attitude to peace and oneness and all that. Though, in her defence, she’d given a few unsuspecting souls a nudge in the direction of reincarnation.

She took her phone out, Google Earthed. ‘There doesn’t seem to be a rear entrance. The building backs onto something else, an office block, I think.’

‘What about the roof?’

‘It looks like, you know, a roof. There’s a skylight.’

‘They don’t seem the subtle sort.’

So descending through a skylight was Shirley’s idea of subtle. Interesting. And what did they think they were doing, Louisa wondered; a question she’d successfully avoided until now. The crew who’d massacred Abbotsfield weren’t taking prisoners, they were spraying bullets. Waving a monkey wrench wasn’t going to put them off. And Shirley and Louisa only had one monkey wrench between them.

But it was the longest of shots that anything would happen, and besides, shying away from risk wasn’t going to win anyone a get-out-of-Slough-House-free card. Sitting at a desk, compiling lists of library users, wasn’t the reason she’d joined the Service. And if most ops involved heavy backup and protective clothing, there were always the off-the-cuff moments when you were expected to rely on your training, and the expertise hammered into you on the mats at the Service schools, or on the plains near Salisbury. Put your hands up, hide in a corner until the worst was over, and you might as well be a civilian. This way, when the score was taken at the end, she’d be able to say she’d been there, and ready. Wasted on a desk job, in other words.

Still, though. Just the one monkey wrench.

But nothing bad was going to happen.

‘I’ve got a bad feeling,’ Shirley said.

… Great.

‘Thanks for that. You’re having an intuition?’

‘No, I’m having a stomach cramp. I really need to eat.’

‘Shirley—’

‘There’s a takeaway back there. We passed it just before we turned.’

There were people arriving; little groups of the civic-minded, come to take the political temperature. An elderly couple, walking with sticks; another pair who might be students, one carrying a stack of leaflets.

‘There’s no time. You’ll survive.’

‘Easy for you to say.’

‘It’s an op, Shirley. Not an awayday.’

‘I’m pretty sure Lamb would say yes.’

‘Lamb’s not here. Which means I get to say no.’

‘You don’t give me orders.’

‘No, but I can let you walk home.’

‘There are trains,’ snarled Shirley.

Trains! You had to laugh.

‘As of now,’ Louisa said, ‘we’re live. One of us needs to be in there, to check out the audience. If anything’s gonna happen, we stand a better chance of stopping it if we spot the bad guys before they make their move. So. Are you gonna keep grousing, or get with the programme?’

Shirley mumbled something. Louisa assumed it was assent.

‘You want to be inside or out?’

‘I want the monkey wrench,’ Shirley said.

‘It’s in the boot,’ Louisa told her, and left to join the crowd in the library.

‘I need a cigarette,’ Gimball told his wife.

‘No you don’t.’

‘I’m not going to get through this without one.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘You gave up. Publicly. Very publicly. If I’m seen with a cigarette between my lips again, don’t vote for me. Your words.’

‘Well, yes, but I didn’t mean them. It wasn’t an electoral promise.’

Actually, he reflected, he’d have been better off saying it had been an electoral promise. Only infants and idiots expected you to keep those.

‘You’ve done this a thousand times. What are you so worried about?’

He could tell her, he thought. Explain that he was about to get up on stage and ask for acceptance for who he really was. That done, he could probably let slip he was still smoking too, and get away with it. It wasn’t going to be what his audience focused on.

But if he came clean now, and she expressed doubt – which she would – he’d crumble like a cupcake in the rain. He needed her support, and to get that he’d have to present her with a fait accompli. Following which there’d be some bad moments to get through in private, but in public she’d back him to the hilt, having little choice. Unless – but no. He couldn’t believe she’d abandon him. There’d be mileage in that – the deceived wife – but standing by her man would guarantee acres of coverage, with material for a year’s worth of columns. And also she loved him. So this was the way to go.

‘It’s a crunch moment,’ he said. ‘For both of us.’

No word of a lie.

‘We’re keeping our powder dry,’ she told him. ‘That’s all. Doing as Whelan said isn’t the end of anything, Dennis. It’s an interruption.’

He still needed a cigarette.

‘If you get caught,’ she said, ‘you’re never borrowing my Manolos again.’

Which was her way of giving assent. He’d never fit into her Manolos in a million years.

He checked, with a tap of a finger, that fags and lighter were in his breast pocket, then retreated from their commandeered room to find one of the volunteers staggering past under a ziggurat of plastic chairs.

‘Is there a back door? Need to gather my thoughts.’

There was.

River walked the block, and the neighbouring one, to get his bearings. At one point he saw J. K. Coe crossing a junction up ahead, a mobile slouch, and shook his head. Even now, when he could halfway kid himself he was doing something that mattered – was on an op – the reality of life among the slow horses kept asserting itself. His colleagues were mostly useless, so bowed down by issues they might have been in art school rather than the Secret Service. Louisa excepted, maybe. And himself, of course. Always important to remember that: there was nothing wrong with River himself.

There was an outside broadcasting truck at the hall, and this would be a good disguise for a bunch of armed maniacs, but the more River looked the more like a real TV truck it seemed. Most disguises would have maxed out with a logo on the sides and a few peaked caps and clipboards; here, two men were unreeling a marathon’s length of cabling through a propped-open fire door, and there was still enough equipment left over to shoot a Harry Potter movie. Of course, if you were going to carry out a successful assault on a political gathering, this might be the way to do it – rig out transport, stack it with authentic-looking kit, then park near the target and take your time. But River didn’t think so. Unleashing gunfire on a village street, or leaving a home-made bomb on a train; lobbing a pipe bomb into a penguin enclosure – it all smacked of a bunch of fanatics slipping through the cracks. Any move they made, he thought, would be more a headlong dash for victory than a minutely planned assault. Passing themselves off as media professionals, with all the fake credentials required, was surely out of their league.

He watched a while longer, waiting for some sign that all was not as it appeared, then left them to it.

Not far off was a building wrapped in scaffolding: its upper half freshly painted, the lower grimy and road-splashed, years of urban living etched into its facade. Alongside it ran a narrow alley along which the scaffolding continued, making passage difficult, and which dead-ended in an area occupied by wheelie bins. The building was in use – lights shone in the upper storeys – but a sheet of tarpaulin flapping overhead gave it a forlorn, abandoned air. River walked to the end of the alley, found no human presence, and returned to the main road.

When he looked back, the building reminded him of Slough House. No special reason. Just that it was a little dismal, a little so-what?; the kind of place, if you worked there, you’d find yourself reaching for a drink the moment you got home. Difference was, somebody was going to the trouble and expense of having it repainted: if not a bright new future, at least a fresh coat to cover the past. And he felt a familiar internal slump. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep this pretence up, where he was nominally one of the nation’s protectors but actually an irrelevant drone. He could count on his fingers the number of times he’d been dispatched from Slough House on a mission. Not including fetching takeaways for Lamb. It wasn’t what he’d wanted from life. Not what his grandfather had wanted for him, either.

So if something didn’t happen soon, he’d quit. Anything was better than this. Standing by scaffolding as the evening descended, this was the decision River came to, but if he’d expected his heart to lighten with the moment, he was disappointed. It felt as if something had deflated instead.

Ach, he thought. And then: shit. And then he made his way round the metal poles obstructing the pavement and walked back to the hall, outside whose doors a queue had formed.

He wondered where Coe had got to.

Shirley waited until Louisa had been in the library for ten minutes before going to fetch some chips, and then waited another ten, because if she’d been Louisa, hoping to catch Shirley in the act, that was the time frame she’d have adopted. If she’d been Louisa, she’d definitely have caught Shirley in the act. As it was, being Shirley, she’d be back with her chips before the gathering dispersed.

She was halfway to the takeaway before she remembered the wrap of coke in her pocket.

Sixty-three days she was on, and the sky was gloomy; the evening gathering pace. Not long now, and she’d have sixty-four. What then? Sitting back and watching the numbers grow held no pleasure for her, but still: there was a nagging concern at the back of her mind that there’d be a tint of … failure in setting the calendar to zero. As if she’d set out to do something, and given up before getting there. As if she were unable to carry it further.

But there was no reason why anyone would think that; no reason anyone would know. She was on her own. She could get off her tits on a nightly basis, and provided she rocked up to Slough House every morning, life would crawl on as usual. Because she wasn’t an addict. A user, sure, but for recreation only. And it was nobody’s business how recreational she got.

If she had a problem, how come she had sixty-three days straight?

A fresh batch of cod had just been put into the deep fryer, so Shirley ordered a hot dog while waiting, and ate it watching fat spit and sizzle. She remembered once sitting in an all-night laundrette, studying the tumblers as their loads rose and fell, rose and fell, like dolphins. It might have been hours she sat there, lost in fascination. That was the sort of thing that happened then, but didn’t now. Now life was set to normal, was a long string of grey moments, as if the mood in Slough House were leaking through its walls, and infecting everything, everywhere.

It got to them all in the end, the curse of the slow horses. It sapped them of energy, and left them to wilt.

Her order arrived. Armed with a plastic fork, still chewing the last of her hot dog, she left the shop thinking about Marcus, and what he’d have made of her self-imposed clean stretch. He’d have said little. He’d have nodded, though, or something; made one of those macho gestures of his, to remind her that he might be behind a desk same as she was but he’d kicked down doors in his time, and she’d have felt good, seeing that nod; felt she was on the right track. But on the other hand: fuck off, Marcus; what’s it to do with you? Not as if he’d waltzed through life unaccompanied by demons. Towards the end there, the back half of last year, he’d been pouring money into slot machines like he’d found the secret to eternal life.

The chips were good, though.

When she reached the car she was relieved, despite herself, to find that Louisa hadn’t reappeared, and decided to eat standing up, using the car roof as a table. Stink the inside out, she’d never hear the end of it. She attacked the cod with the two-inch fork – a weapon unsuited to the task – and managed to convey a reasonable chunk into her mouth before remembering she was supposed to be ‘securing the perimeter’: yeah, right. Still chewing, she stepped round the car and into the quiet road, giving the parked vehicles a quick once-over. Everything as it had been.

Except, she thought, before stepping back to her al fresco dinner – except: that van, a hundred yards away. Had that been there five minutes ago?

It hadn’t.

When Coe saw Cartwright heading for the hall, he stepped inside a shop doorway and hid. He didn’t feel needed. I think we’re in trouble he’d said, and meant it, but he didn’t think trouble was going to happen here. The odds were on a par with aliens landing on that scaffolding, or America’s comedy president forswearing Twitter.

But as far as the bigger picture went, he knew he was right.

He slipped his radio’s earbuds in and listened to the headlines: an update on the surviving penguins; a woman found dead in her London home. Not long ago, he wouldn’t have been able to do this: the most he’d been able to bear was long stretches of unscored piano music; improvised melody that had him drifting like a leaf in a rowing boat’s wake. But that was fading; had begun to do so once he’d fired three bullets into a killer’s chest. Strange, the things that eased tension. This one wasn’t likely to crop up in self-help books, but you couldn’t argue with results.

And whatever else was going on, whatever static buzzed in his background, his brain worked fine, so yes, he knew he was right. He’d always had an ability to retrieve written information: to recall the shape of words on a page, the arrangement of paragraphs, at what depth of a book a sentence lay. ‘The watering hole’ was a Kiplingesque phrase that lingered. Whoever had tossed the bomb into the penguin enclosure at Dobsey Park had been following instructions that Coe had seen written down, and beneath that plan a bigger one was shifting. The point of all this was to whip the curtain away, and show the machinery behind. Expose the plan as one the nation had written itself, or its secret sharers had. And a nation’s secret sharers were the keepers of its soul.

He left the doorway and headed down the street, then into an alley between the worked-on building and the next. At the end of the alley wheelie bins jostled, but there was no way through, and he was about to head back when he noticed a ladder fixed to the scaffolding. Okay, he thought. From up high, he could watch the street. Cartwright was bound to call and ask what he was doing; ‘maintaining surveillance’ might shut him up. And he’d be out of harm’s reach. He scaled the ladder, and then another, which took him up to a walkway thirty feet above the street. The wooden boards had give in them, but not enough to feel unsafe. Just a slight swaying motion. Panic attacks, Lamb had accused him of having. Okay, but it was people who triggered them. He was fine with heights. Was fine with most things, provided they didn’t come with people attached.

By the top of this second ladder was a sealed paint tin, which probably shouldn’t have been left there. Coe stepped round it, leaned on a horizontal metal pole, and looked down on the street below.

‘The watering hole’. At Regent’s Park he’d have had to back his assertions with hard evidence or statistical probability. In Slough House, all he’d had to do was convince Jackson Lamb. But then, Lamb had done his time behind the Wall, and could still read the writing on it. People talked about Spook Street – life in the covert world – but Lamb had served down the dismal end, where your instincts stayed sharp or you suffered, and he recognised the truth when he heard it. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t a fat bastard, just that he was a fat bastard you dismissed at your peril.

None of which indicated that Coe would be proved correct here and now, or that Guy and Dander would strike lucky in Birmingham. Zafar Jaffrey and Dennis Gimball were just examples of the kind of target the template advocated: there’d be others, the deaths of whom would cause a tremor through the body politic, and various levels of grief, stress and rejoicing. There’d be angry mobs on streets, and bottles uncorked in dining rooms. It would all go on for days, and the headlines would stoke up outrage, and when the time came for these clowns to reveal whose strategy they’d been applying, the house of cards would be ready to collapse.

It didn’t matter who they were, he thought. Russians, Chinese, Cornish secessionists. Their identity barely mattered against the point they were making: that the target nation, always so eager to squat the moral high ground, had designed its own destruction.

And then he wondered what Dennis Gimball was doing down below; weaving round the scaffolding; scurrying along the alley to where the wheelie bins were gathered.

There was a decent number of people in attendance: fifty-two, more than she’d have expected. Then again, the last time Louisa had attended a public forum on local issues was never. Jaffrey was talking, outlining what might be challenges, might be opportunities – he was big on proclaiming that it all came down to attitude – and she had to admit he had something. Call it charisma, because people usually did. Whatever it was, it was striking that he could be bothered to turn it on in a local library, uncovered by media; and that he seemed to genuinely care about what he was saying, and so far hadn’t dodged any questions, which ranged from residents’ parking issues to the possible fate of the library itself, which was looking at closure. Louisa should feel worse about that, but she was already mentally ticking it off her spreadsheet: at least she’d be spared having to study the lending stats for its terrorism section.

As for the crowd, she wasn’t expecting a killer to erupt from its midst. It would include a police officer: plain-clothes, probably not armed – the country might have been in a heightened state of tension since Abbotsfield, but that had been indiscriminate violence, and there was nothing to suggest politicians were in greater danger than at any time in the recent past. But Jaffrey had a national profile, and he was a Muslim: there were always going to be those who saw either as inflammatory. A police force with one eye on its reputation would keep the other on its local heroes, so the crowd included a police officer, which she guessed was either the Asian woman in the front row – petite but handy-looking, if you knew the signs – or the bulky man doing his best not to look bored a few seats to her left. There was also a pair who might be from Jaffrey’s own team among the audience: young, male and female, very watchful, very engaged. At first sight, Louisa pegged them as the two most likely, and her heart had accelerated. But when the male half got up to help an elderly woman with her bag, she’d relaxed. Terrorists came in all shapes and sizes, but helping the aged wasn’t the standard package.

Outside, she hoped, Shirley was keeping her eyes open, though more than likely she’d sloped off to find food by now. She’d half a mind to pop out and check, but it didn’t seem worth the bother: Shirley would do what Shirley did, and was unlikely to appreciate commentary. So here Louisa was, and she had to pause to remember precisely why. Back in Slough House, this had felt like a plan worth pursuing; here and now, it seemed like it had been a good way of getting out of Slough House. Trouble was, she was now in Birmingham, a two-hour drive home, with Shirley beside her, doubtless smelling of chips.

Never let anyone tell you it’s not a glamour profession, she thought.

Jaffrey was growing animated – Brexit, and its effect on local manufacturing – and Louisa settled back, but kept an eye on the door. People would burst in soon with guns, and try to kill this man. It didn’t seem likely. Nor was she clear on what she was supposed to do about it if they did.

But she supposed that would resolve itself, should the situation arise.

There was something delicious about sneaking off for a crafty cigarette, thought Gimball. It brought his schooldays back. Out of bounds and after lights out – there’d been friendships based on such adventures.

The air felt fresh after the dusty interior of the meeting hall. It was growing dark, and the people queueing at the entrance – always a gratifying sight – were grey, indistinguishable shapes, but he decided to slip round a corner anyway. Those grey shapes came armed with smartphones, whose standard apps included a bogus sense of journalistic responsibility: light up here and he’d be trending on Twitter two puffs in, the modern equivalent of being collared by a beak. Ten minutes, no more. Time to calm himself, compose his thought. Thoughts. Mentally rehearse his address to his people.

Yes, people, because he had those now. Friendships, not so much. He had alliances, but that was different. Even Dodie, without whom he’d not have got this far – and he was big enough to admit this; careful enough to mention it every so often, too – was his best friend inasmuch as there was little competition for the role. ‘Only friend’ sounded equally valid. Which made what he was about to do, get up in front of the cameras and reveal who he really was, even more dangerous. Because Dodie would support him, but she’d be furious he hadn’t cleared it with her first. She had her own agenda to maintain, and standing up for her husband’s right to express himself might involve a little backtracking on previous public pronouncements, which would hardly be a novel experience for a columnist with forthright opinions, a six-figure contract and a pair of junior hacks to do the actual writing, but nevertheless required a certain amount of ground preparation. So yes, that was a storm he’d have to weather, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. But needs must.

The alternative: he’d be Five’s cat’s paw, now and forever. If he gave in to Claude Whelan’s pressure just once, he could kiss any idea about political independence goodbye. So, again:

this was what he needed to do, so

he was going to do it, and

damn the torpedoes.

Gimball felt better, now it was laid out clearly. Still needed a cigarette, though.

He found an alleyway and nipped down it, plugging a cigarette into his mouth before he reached the yard at the end. Catch me here, he thought – what would people make of it if they caught him here, skulking among wheelie bins like a feral cat? He breathed out, and smoke drifted up into scaffolding while a long-lost schoolboy memory retrieved itself and burned across his mind like a cave painting. Three of them behind the gym, passing a cigarette hand to hand. The image vanished, but he wondered: what had happened to those old companions, and what were their names, and what were their lives like? However they’d turned out, they’d be reading about him in the papers tomorrow, or on their screens later tonight. BREXIT HERO ADMITS PERVY LEANINGS. The headline refused to adjust itself, no matter how hard he tried. CROSS-DRESSER CROSSES FLOOR. He shook his head, but it was too late: the full horror of what he planned to do had landed, and there was no pretending it hadn’t. Stand up and publicly announce his most private of peccadillos – really? Spike Claude Whelan’s guns by throwing himself in front of a cannon? It was madness. Because it wasn’t Whelan he had to fear; it wasn’t even the media, which would do what the media always did, and feed on whatever red meat was thrown its way. No, it was his own people who would turn on him if he dared reveal the truth about himself. What had he been thinking?

He could feel damp on his neck, and that loosening inside which comes with narrow escape. It had been a few small hours of angry bravado, that was all. The future that awaited him was too grand, too important, to jeopardise out of pique. So yes, fine, he’d do what Whelan wanted. It would make no difference, not in the long run. He couldn’t announce, tonight, Zafar Jaffrey’s dealings with an underworld enabler; couldn’t undermine the PM by exposing his tame Muslim, but you couldn’t stop the clock on history: the story would break, sooner or later, and if Dennis Gimball wouldn’t be the one to announce it, he’d certainly be there to add colour and noise. In the end, that was what counted – that it was you who was there, at the end. Because politics was all about timing: hell, you could stick your dick in a dead pig’s mouth and get away with it if your timing was right. And provided you were shame-free, but that was a given for Eton. He’d come close to forgetting that lesson, but had pulled himself short in time, thanks to the sacred habit of smoking: if he’d not slipped away to clear his head with a nicotine blast, he might still be in the grip of the delusion that exposing himself in public was the thing to do. Christ. And Dodie got on his case about it.

Well, he thought, given what else he kept quiet about, what did the odd cigarette matter? And just to prove that comforting thought true, he lit another from the stub in his hand, and drew deeply on it while gazing up at what could be seen of the sky through the trapezoids of scaffolding, and then down again, along the alley, at the threatening shape heading his way.

Shirley stood with the takeaway wrappings spread out on the car roof, thoughtfully eating, making sure nothing suggested she was on sentry duty. The van was parked so its rear faced her way, and nobody had emerged from it, though Shirley thought she’d detected a rocking motion, as if somebody – some somebodies – were shuffling about inside. But hard to tell. A latecomer hurried past, heels clacking on the pavement, and disappeared inside the library. When the door opened, a brief exhalation of laughter floated out. The local pol, amusing his masses.

The van was grey with lighter patches, as if recently sprayed and some bits missed, and its registration plate was below her sight line. She considered taking its photo, but decided she might as well raise a big red flag at the same time, and jump up and down with her arms in the air. Maintain a nonchalant awareness, she warned herself. Gaze around at things in general; don’t stare at the van. You’re eating fish and chips on an early summer evening. Things like this happen – they happen all the time.

Other things happened too. Last night, she’d been sprawled outside Ho’s house, while somebody, maybe one of the somebodies in that van, fired a gun at her. She’d found brick dust in her hair this morning, proof that it had happened. At the same time, bruised cheek apart, it felt like a chapter from someone else’s memoirs. Marcus had told her about this phenomenon – the way remembered excitement has a distancing effect, so you view action you were involved in as if through a TV screen. This was one of the reasons you kept going back for more. Like any other high, he’d said, an adrenalin rush couldn’t be faked.

Marcus had known about stuff like that, and if he’d been standing here instead of Shirley, he’d be coming up with a plan.

Which would involve assuming the worst. There was no point treating the van as innocent, because being wrong could prove a disaster. So: would they recognise her, that was the first question. Were they watching her through a peephole, planning to whack her before heading into the library? Or had it been too dark last night, and Shirley just a moving target in the chaos? Their bullets had gone high – was that because they’d been aiming to miss, or were they lousy shots? She had a low centre of gravity, of course – in layman’s terms, was ‘short’ – and that might have thrown their aim off. Being a non-traditional shape had its advantages.

None of which would count for much if they emerged from the van, guns blazing.

She ate a chip, nodded as if in appreciation – every move she made now, she had an audience – and then, still nodding, moved round the car and opened the boot. Watching or not, they couldn’t see through metal, so wouldn’t have been able to observe as she rummaged about in Louisa’s detritus – an old blanket, a wine cooler, trainers – until she found, tucked under the blanket, the monkey wrench, and slid it up her right sleeve. Then, her arm ramrod straight, she closed the boot and returned to her meal, her right hand hooked into her jeans pocket, her left plucking chips and lumps of fish from the mound of paper and steering them mouthwards. Watch me now, Marcus, she thought, and imagined him saying You go, girl.

And she would.

She was just waiting for her moment.

He had no clue where Coe had got to, and when he tried calling got no response. This probably meant the dickhead wasn’t answering, rather than – say – that the dickhead had cornered a hit squad and had his hands full, so River couldn’t get too worked up about it, except for Coe being a dickhead: that never got old. The meeting hall was full now, an air of expectation hanging like fruit. Dennis Gimball, River gathered, was set to make some grand pronouncement: a declaration that he was about to rejoin the party he’d once defected from, a return trip across the Rubicon which many expected would end in his contesting the leadership. That would make as much difference to the ship of state as a koala taking over from a wombat, River thought, though he accepted he wasn’t a political expert. If he were he’d be looking for honest work, like every expert since 2016 should have been.

Anyway: no Coe that he could see. And nothing else to alarm him, or no more than such gatherings always offer: the swivel-eyed fervents; the Union Jack bowler brigade. A man wearing the widest pinstripes River had seen outside a zoo; a woman carrying a pot plant. The one thing absent was Gimball himself. A group by the stage, chatting among themselves and checking their watches, were presumably local dignitaries, and the dangerous-looking woman in blue might be Mrs Gimball, but there was no sign of her husband. Perhaps, like a rock star, he delayed his entrance until every seat in the hall was damp, though with this particular demographic that might prove a risky business.

He headed outside. There were people still waiting to get in, and the TV truck was mildly buzzing: all powered up and ready to shoot. But not that kind of shooting, River reminded himself. He tried to recollect the odds Coe had quoted on anything going down here tonight, but couldn’t. What he did remember was Coe’s equal insistence that he was right; that machinery was whirring; had already chewed up Abbotsfield and fourteen innocent penguins. Dennis Gimball wasn’t necessarily next on the list, but that there was a list was beyond dispute. That was what the dickhead reckoned, anyway. And dickhead logic was as powerful as any other kind.

So where was Gimball, anyway? Maybe he had nerves before an event of this kind, and was bent double over a toilet.

And where was Coe?

Deciding to walk the block once more, River rounded the corner and approached the building clad in scaffolding, which flaunted a cemetery spookiness now, the metal poles lending it a rackety, haunted air. And he was just starting to reach for his phone, to call Coe again, when he reached the alleyway instead, and saw two figures at the far end: one large, broad, intimidating; the other Dennis Gimball.

‘She’s eating chips,’ Shin said.

‘So?’

‘So would she be eating chips if she was on surveillance?’

Danny shrugged. It might be a good disguise; somebody saw you eating chips, they figured you were hungry and that was all. But they saw you hanging around outside a building, they might think you were keeping an eye on it. So he thought it best to keep an open mind.

Shin, though, was keen to close it down. ‘We don’t move until the streetlights have come on. I expect she will have gone by then.’

Danny caught An’s eye, but neither spoke.

This last twenty-four hours, every order from Shin’s lips sounded like a suggestion.

An had drilled a peephole in the van’s back door. Danny shuffled across to it, and Shin – weak-willed fool that he was – moved away to let him see through.

The woman was short, a little wide, would probably have been better off with a salad, and was clearly on her own. What kind of operation involved a woman on her own? She moved awkwardly too: stiff-armed. Not what you’d expect from a soldier.

Still, there had been a woman outside the target’s house last night, at the exact moment Joon came tumbling from the sky like a stork had dropped him. She’d hit the ground when Danny shot at her, and maybe that was because she’d been well trained, and maybe it was the human instinct at work: when bullets were flying, you dropped to your knees. He couldn’t recall anything specific about her: he had learned this at Abbotsfield, that when you held a gun in your hands, the people around you lost definition. They became wraiths, and anything they carried of personality dropped away, no longer of consequence. If you wished to retain your human stamp, stay away from the battlefield. This proposition remained true whichever end of a gun you were looking down.

Besides, they’d been out of there so quickly – Joon stuffed into the car like a bin bag – that he couldn’t be sure the woman hadn’t been shot: that might have been why she’d hit the deck. So maybe there was a dead woman in London, and this one was someone else, just eating chips.

It didn’t matter to Danny either way.

He said, ‘If she’s still there when we move, I will take her.’

‘I have given my instruction,’ said Shin, but he glanced at the others as he said it – at An; at Chris, who was up front, in the driving seat – as if enlisting their support.

When it was at last offered to him, Danny held Shin’s gaze as if it were something grubby he couldn’t put down, for fear of soiling the nearest surface.

It was his moment, he realised.

He said, ‘I wonder if your commitment is total.’

‘… Total?’

‘At Abbotsfield, your aim was all over the place.’

‘What do you mean? What are you saying?’

‘That your bullets flew wild and free, but didn’t actually hit anything. Except a chicken coop. You killed a chicken coop.’

‘I fired straight and true.’

‘You shot up the sky.’

‘I killed two, maybe three.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I fired straight and true,’ Shin repeated.

‘Then it is surprising we did not kill more.’

‘I have command of this unit,’ Shin said. ‘Do you really think my daily report will not contain this conversation?’

‘I make daily reports too,’ Danny lied.

Shin fell silent.

An, squatting against the side of the vehicle, looked down at his feet, then at the panels opposite, or at anywhere that wasn’t Danny, wasn’t Shin.

Danny said, ‘I’m going to kill her first. Before we go in.’

‘I am in charge!’ Shin said. ‘You don’t do anything without my orders!’

‘Then your orders should include this,’ said Danny. ‘That I’m going to kill her first. Before we go in.’

He leaned back against the panel and closed his eyes.

From his vantage point J. K. Coe watched Dennis Gimball smoke a furious cigarette, then light a second from the trembling stub of his first. Something was going on in the politician’s mind: you didn’t have to be John Humphrys to work that out. Which was fine. The way Coe felt about pols in general, Gimball in particular, he’d have been happy watching the man’s head explode.

Even so, he tensed when a new figure appeared in the alleyway; rumbling towards Gimball like a threat on legs. There was something wrong with his face, Coe thought, then decided he was wrong. It was the shadows cast by the scaffolding, making crazy the features they fell upon.

When the newcomer reached Gimball he raised his shoulders; made himself bigger.

He was big enough to start with: even with the foreshortening his perspective brought him, Coe could see that. He was black, in a big overcoat, and his hair was razored to straight lines across his brow and round his ears. And still there was that crazy shadowing, and it took another moment for the penny to drop. He wore tattoos. Across his face, his cheekbones, inky markings swirled.

Whatever he said was a low grumble, and Coe couldn’t catch the words.

Gimball stepped back. He waved his cigarette, as if sketching in smoke, and said one word over and over: ‘Now now now …’

Coe walked back towards the ladder, so he was directly over where the pair stood. Is this it? The newcomer didn’t appear to be armed, but didn’t have to be: he looked like he could break Gimball in half if he felt like it. Which didn’t mean he was going to, and didn’t make him a terrorist: he could be a concerned constituent, an over-enthusiastic pollster, or just one of the forty-eight per cent – that tiny minority, some of whom hadn’t yet got over and moved on – making a valid political point. And since any or all of the above could feasibly involve dumping Dennis Gimball in a wheelie bin, interfering would be putting a spoke in the democratic process.

So Coe thought: I’ll just watch for a moment.

Then River came down the alley too, and things got complicated.

Louisa stood, and the bored man along her row looked sharply round: you’re the cop, she thought. Pretending not to notice, she retrieved her mobile from her pocket as she walked to the entrance, muttering into it as if in reply to a caller. Through the windows she could see Shirley by the car, eating chips from the roof. Busted. Everything else looked quiet, though there was a van which had arrived since she’d entered the building. No logo on the side, but a driver at the wheel. He was looking behind him, as if talking to someone in the back. Could be something, could be nothing. If this were a proper op, instead of the Slough House equivalent – more like a work experience outing – the van would have been opened up by now, and its occupants made to sing the national anthem. But they were playing off the cuff, and the most they could do was keep both eyes open.

Unless Shirley did something ridiculous, of course.

River shouted ‘Hey!’, and the man with the tattoo turned. He seemed expressionless, despite the nature of the moment, as if his ink-job was left to do all his features’ work.

‘Not your business,’ he said. ‘Back off.’

River came to a halt two feet in front of the pair. ‘You okay, Mr Gimball?’

Gimball said, ‘I have an important meeting to attend. Address. Get out of my way.’

It wasn’t clear which of the two he was talking to, but River ran with it anyway. ‘You heard the man. Let him by.’

‘I hadn’t finished speaking to him.’

‘But he’s finished speaking to you.’

Gimball said, ‘This has gone on long enough. Shall I call the police? Is that what you want?’

‘No need,’ River said. ‘This gentleman was just leaving.’

But this gentleman had other ideas. When River reached out to grab his elbow he swatted it aside and squared up. He was bigger than River, broader, and it didn’t look like this was the first time he’d raised his fists in an alley, but River had been taught to fight by professionals, and if he hadn’t come top of his class, he’d never come bottom either. Which was a great comfort to him when the tattooed guy kicked him in the stomach.

All of this observed from above by J. K. Coe, who was coming to the conclusion that he’d better either intervene or climb into the building and disappear.

River bent double, and the man put a hand on his head and pushed him backwards. He fell over.

Gimball said, ‘That’s it. I’m calling the police.’ He had his phone out: a visual aid. He waved it about. ‘I’m calling them now.’

The man plucked the phone from his grasp and threw it at the wall, where it shattered.

‘Now now now now now …’

‘Now nothing. You listen to me.’

‘Now now now …’

The man grabbed Gimball by the lapel one-fisted, and pulled him close.

Oh Christ, thought J. K. Coe.

River scrambled to his feet.

‘Now now now …’

‘Shut the fuck up.’

River seized the man by the shoulders, and the man released Gimball and turned, ready to plant a heavy fist in River’s face, but River drove his elbow into the man’s nose first. Blood flew, but the man blocked the follow-up punch with a forearm and lunged forward. The pair went crashing into a wheelie bin, then slid to the ground, the man on top. He raised his fist again, but River was already twisting free: he grabbed the man’s wrist, aborting the punch, and at the same time headbutted him in his already damaged nose while Gimball watched in horror.

‘Let me by!’

But he trembled on the spot like a man at a dogfight, worried that if he tried to pass, one or the other would turn on him.

River was on his feet now, and planted a kick which caught the man on the shoulder, though Coe assumed he’d been aiming for his head. This produced a grunt but no serious damage, and then the man was upright too, bobbing and weaving, muttering words: come on then, come on. He dodged River’s next punch, and the one after, then threw one of his own, aiming for the throat: if it had connected, River would have been all messed up. But he’d pulled back and the jab kissed air: from where Coe was watching, it looked choreographed, deliberate. Gimball was wedged against one of the bins, and might possibly climb inside it soon, if assistance didn’t show up; River and his opponent seemed to have forgotten he was there. It was all about the fight, now. It was all about being top dog. Coe checked his options again, and they hadn’t changed: fight or flight. River didn’t even know he was here, for God’s sake. He could force a window, clamber through and make his way to the street. Go back and scrape River off the ground later. Except …

Except if it was him down there and River up here, River would come to his aid.

He thought about that for a moment, long enough to see the next two seconds of action, neither of which were much fun for River, who caught a blow on the side of the head which would have him hearing bells for a while. Helping River, it occurred to Coe, would involve getting in the way of such moments: giving the man another target to bounce his fists off while River caught his breath. So okay, a window it was, and Coe turned to retrace his steps, but as he did so his foot caught that stray tin of paint, knocking it from its perch; sending it swirling, lid over base, thirty feet down to the alley below.

Oh shit, he thought.

Five minutes later, miles away, Shirley finished her chips and the streetlights flickered on, making the world subtly different. It was time, she thought. Whatever was going on with that van: it was time for her to make a move. Because if anything was going to happen, shadow-time was its cue.

She should fetch Louisa, really, but what good would that do? Two of them and just one weapon: if there were bad actors in the van, bringing Louisa would double their targets. She crumpled the fish-and-chip paper, wrapped it round the empty polystyrene carton, and left the resulting brick-shaped wedge on the car roof. She could feel the wrench up her right sleeve, its head digging into her palm. When she loosed her grip it would drop into her hand seamlessly, or that was the idea. In an ideal world, she’d have got to practise the move.

Marcus? she thought.

You go, girl.

She went.

Shin was staring at his phone. ‘There is something,’ he began.

‘She’s coming.’

‘What?’

‘The woman,’ An said. He had taken over the watcher’s role; had his eye pressed to the peephole in the van’s back door. ‘She is approaching.’

‘Then we move,’ Danny said.

He was holding a semi-automatic weapon, nursing it as if it were his newborn.

‘We move,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll take the woman, then we go in.’

It would not be like Abbotsfield, Danny knew. There they were uniformed, and in the open air: blue skies above, and old stone buildings echoing to their presence. There had been water babbling nearby, and deeply rooted trees bearing witness. It was as though they had stepped through the centuries, bringing warfare to a world that thought itself free of bloodshed. Here, there were no hills to scream down from, and no birds to take flight. There would be walls and windows, that was all, and the dying would know themselves deep in the heart of their city: but they’d still die. It was the final, necessary lesson. That they’d die.

And first among them would be that woman with her stiff-armed walk; approaching them now, An said; walking towards them with intent.

Danny reached for the handle on the back door.

‘No. Wait.’

And this was Shin again, still caressing his phone, but looking at Danny, and speaking with more authority than of late.

Danny scowled, and gripped the handle. The gun hung over his shoulder, its webbed strap as familiar to him as the feel of his shirt, of the belt round his waist.

‘I said wait!’

The door released, and air broke in, a sudden waft of summer evening pushing past the reek of male bodies.

Then An put one hand on Danny’s sleeve, and with the other reached across him and pulled the door shut.

‘What?’ Danny said.

Shin, putting his phone away, said, ‘It’s already done. We must leave.’

‘What do you mean, already done? How—’

‘Go! Drive!’

This to Chris, who sat at the wheel.

‘—can it be done?’

Chris started the van, which gave a sudden lurch.

‘No! We have a mission!’

Shin leaned forward and struck Danny across the face. ‘Enough!’

Danny looked wide-eyed at An, but An refused to meet his gaze.

‘This goes in my report,’ Shin hissed. Then, to Chris again, ‘Why are we still here?’

The van pulled away.

Louisa had come to the window again, ignoring the irritated glances from her fellow citizens, while Zafar Jaffrey explained how a modern city, a model community, found space for all within its embrace: there were no exclusions, no pariahs. Yeah, fine. Until a bunch of them turn up with guns and start their own exclusion process. But she was a little ashamed of that knee-jerk response: occupational hazard, she supposed. Which didn’t mean other people shouldn’t be setting their sights higher.

Outside, Shirley had left her car-roof picnic; was walking down the road in a purposeful way, her stiff right arm offering a clue to the monkey wrench’s current whereabouts. She seemed to be heading for the van, whose back door popped open at that moment. Something happening, Louisa thought, and at the same moment became aware of a murmuring behind her; Jaffrey’s audience responding to external events. Shirley flexed her arm, and Louisa saw the wrench drop cleanly into it, and then the van door closed again and the vehicle coughed into life. Shirley started to run. Behind her, Louisa could hear chairs scraping, and shocked noises, Oh my Gods and Bloody hells. Her phone buzzed. The van pulled away, and Shirley was going full pelt now, shouting something, Louisa couldn’t hear what. Oh Jesus, she thought, and then Shirley was in the middle of the road and the wrench in full flight; it arced, graceful as a swallow, and hit the departing van’s back door with the business end before clattering to the ground. Shirley came to a halt, put her hands on her knees, and stood panting and doubtless swearing, but her quarry was gone. The whole thing had taken maybe four, five seconds.

Louisa shook her head. If they were ordinary solid citizens in that van, we’re going to be hearing about that, she thought.

It’s tails, she’d told River. You get Coe.

She shouldn’t have lied. Coe would have been less trouble.

Then she returned to the crowd behind her, to discover what the fuss was about.

9

LAMB SAID, ‘FUCK ME. So that happened.’

On the BBC website, video had been posted of a scaffolding-clad alleyway, where folk in white jumpsuits teamed about. Either ABBA had reformed in Slough, or a body had been discovered there.

Dennis Gimball, according to social media.

Catherine said, ‘There’s been no official confirmation, but …’

‘But everyone’s favourite Europhobe just made a hard Brexit.’ Lamb magicked a cigarette from thin air, then thinned the air further by lighting it. ‘And here’s me having gone to the bother of sending Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and the other one to stop that happening.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘I sometimes wonder why I get out of bed in the morning.’

‘Probably just to spread sweetness and light.’ Catherine was texting; calling River and Louisa home. She didn’t call it ‘home’, obviously. When she’d finished she looked up to see Lamb glaring at her iPad: she’d put it on his desk to show him the breaking news. Aware of how brief Lamb’s relationships with technology could be, she plucked it from his ambit. ‘So. Gimball’s dead and the bad guys are winning. Not our finest hour.’

Lamb sniffed. ‘On the other hand, this proves our theory’s right. So, you know, swings and roundabouts.’

‘I’m sure that’s a great comfort to the deceased.’

‘He sleeps with the silverfishes,’ said Lamb. ‘That’ll have to be comfort enough.’

Catherine left the room to boil the kettle. When she came back with two cups of tea, Lamb had his unshod feet on his desk. All five toes were showing through one sock; three through the other. It was as close as you could get to not wearing socks, she thought, without actually not doing so. She put a cup in front of him and resumed her seat. Lamb farted meditatively, then said, ‘So where does this leave us?’

‘Well,’ Catherine said. ‘You had working knowledge of the possibility of an assassination attempt on Dennis Gimball, but all you did was send a couple of unarmed desk operatives to stand around while it happened. And failed to inform the Park because you were worried they’d issue some scorched-earth protocol to cover up the fact that the potential assassins are following the Park’s own join-the-dots destabilisation playbook. Did I miss anything?’

Lamb stared for a while, then said, ‘That was hurtful. Tact’s just something that happens to carpets far as you drunks are concerned, isn’t it?’

‘I did miss something,’ Catherine said, unperturbed. ‘You had Emma Flyte locked to a chair while this happened.’ She sipped tea. ‘That’s going to look good on the report.’

‘Nah, that plays in our favour. If she’d called it in soon as we loosed her, we’d be neck-deep in Dog shit by now. We’re not, or no more than usual. Which means she kept it to herself, which means she took my point. Anyone who knows what’s going on needs to keep their head down. This one’s toxic.’

‘They’re all toxic, Jackson.’

He looked at her sharply, but she was staring into her tea, as if expecting to find leaves there, as if expecting them to offer answers.

Her phone buzzed, and she checked the incoming text. ‘Louisa and Shirley are heading back.’

‘A grateful nation sighs its relief.’

‘Claude Whelan’s a sensible man, you know. Bypass Lady Di, take this straight to him. He’s not going to have us all buried in some black prison somewhere just because we know more than we should.’ She sipped tea. ‘They don’t really have troublesome agents taken care of any more. If they did, you’d not have lasted this long.’

‘Depends how much trouble they cause. But let’s wait and see what the Fantastic Four have to report before making any decisions. I mean, I don’t wipe my arse before taking a dump, do I?’

‘I’d rather not speculate.’

Lamb sneered, then, having brought his arse to mind, scratched it vigorously. ‘Could be worse, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s not as if one of our lot actually killed the bastard, is it?’ And then he stopped scratching. ‘What was that?’

Someone had just entered Slough House.

Roderick Ho was enmeshed in a dream in which Kim – his girlfriend – was explaining that the various credit card refunds she’d asked him to arrange had been a ploy, to allow her to amass enough cash to buy him a present. This went some way towards explaining her phenomenally poor luck in her online dealings, whereby one retailer or another was forever deducting funds from her card without the promised goods showing up. It was the act of a gentleman to put such matters right, particularly if the gentleman in question (the Rodster) had the ability to wander untrammelled behind the world’s digital mirror, moving numbers from one place to another as the mood took him. Even so, he felt a very specific kind of pleasure wash over him at the news. Indeed, if the watch she then presented him with hadn’t been a small octopus, he might have remained in the dream longer. As it was, it wrapped tiny boneless tentacles around his wrist and emitted a strange kerthunk noise, which, as Ho opened his eyes, coincided exactly with the opening of the door.

The new arrival was kind of a babe.

After wiping his drool-plastered lips with the back of his hand, then wiping the back of his hand on his T-shirt, Ho gave her his second-best smile, the one involving an ever-so-slightly raised eyebrow. No point unleashing full gamma force at Moment One. You have to earn that shit. And it looked like she was going to play the hard-to-get game, because she remained stony-faced as she folded her arms and leaned against the wall. She was blonde and taller than Roddy, but only by the usual four inches or so, and he recognised her now, because she’d been caught up in that mess earlier in the year, when Roddy had heroically climbed out of a window to avoid being shot. It was Emma Flyte, Head Dog. Hot dog, come to that. He’d Google-Imaged her once or twice, on the off-chance, but all he’d found were a few newspaper shots from her time in the force. She’d probably purged her online biography. That was cool: he liked them mysterious.

She said, ‘This Kim. Your girlfriend.’

Roddy nodded apologetically. It was as well she knew up front he was unavailable.

‘Let’s start with her,’ said Flyte.

River Cartwright was taut as a tennis racquet.

‘Christ on a bike,’ he said.

‘I’ve often wondered about that,’ said J. K. Coe. ‘What kind of bike?’ he added.

‘Are you insane?’

Coe looked out of the window. They were heading back to London, River driving as if Ho’s car were made of glass: every limit observed, every rule of the road adhered to. Not the time to be a bat out of hell, not when half the country’s law enforcement and most of its media would be focusing on local activity.

Before getting into the car Coe had called a news site: anonymously, from his pay-as-you-go. An alley in Slough; a man dead. Then he’d dismantled the set, tossing battery, phone and mangled SIM card onto the hard shoulder once they were under way.

‘That was a serious question,’ River said. ‘Are you insane?’

‘They used the word “troubled”. And “distressed”. Nobody ever said “insane”.’ Coe pursed his lips at the memory. ‘And these were experts,’ he said.

‘Because you not only act like a fucking psycho, you’re starting to rack up a score. What do we do now?’

‘I think we stay on the motorway.’

‘… Are you finding this funny?’

‘No,’ said Coe, though his tone suggested: Well, maybe a bit.

A police car flashed past in the opposite direction; then another, and another. River had the feeling he was driving into the heart of a storm, from which these vehicles were being hurled at great speed. The thought of what awaited them at journey’s end made him want to slam the brakes on. On the other hand, what lay behind needed intervening distance, fast.

It might be wise, he thought, to concentrate on driving for the time being.

‘See your phone?’ said Coe.

‘Why?’

‘News.’

River fished it from his pocket and tossed it at Coe, hoping it might take his eye out or something.

‘PIN?’

River told him.

Coe went online and looked at Twitter. ‘There you go.’

There were already seven tweets hazarding, announcing, speculating about what had happened in Slough. An eighth appeared. Then more. It seemed a self-propelled process, like watching facts being established through sheer weight of numbers.

‘And how does that help?’

‘I think the more confusion the better, don’t you?’

As a guiding principle, thought River, not necessarily. Though under the circumstances, maybe it was for the best.

Coe had more colour in his cheeks than River remembered seeing before; the hood of his hoodie was pooled around his shoulders and his earbuds were loose round his neck. Once before he’d killed someone: had the same thing happened then? River had the horrible feeling it might have.

He said, ‘We talked about this. Didn’t we? You said you weren’t going to kill anyone.’

‘I said I wasn’t going to shoot them.’

‘This isn’t the time to split hairs.’

Coe said, ‘I didn’t do it on purpose.’

‘You dropped a tin of paint—’

‘Knocked.’

‘—must weigh God knows how much—’

‘It shouldn’t have been left on the scaffolding.’

‘—from a height of like forty feet—’

‘I’d say thirty.’

‘—onto a man’s head.’

‘In my defence,’ said Coe, ‘if I’d been aiming for him, I’d have missed.’

‘That’s not really a defence, though, is it? More an admission of guilt.’

‘Well, it’s not like he’s a huge loss,’ said Coe.

‘Again, not helping.’ River realised he was starting to accelerate, and forced himself to ease up on the pedal. ‘Cast your mind back. The whole point was to foil the bad guys. Not do their job for them.’

‘Well, mission creep—’

‘Don’t,’ said River. ‘Just don’t.’

If he wasn’t driving he’d sink back in his seat and close his eyes, but if he closed his eyes he’d see it again: that tin of paint hurtling out of nowhere and damn near taking Gimball’s head off. One moment he was stuttering a single word over and over, now now now, and the next he was bouncing off a wheelie bin like a discarded puppet. The tin meanwhile hit the ground, leaped into the air and struck the black guy River was wrestling: he’d yelped – a high-pitched note; strangely feminine for someone who seemed, just River’s opinion, to be made of rubberised concrete – then taken off when he’d seen Gimball’s body. And still the tin’s lid remained tightly in place: they could have used that in their advertising, thought River irrelevantly. The paint manufacturers. Although it wasn’t necessarily a point in its favour, as presumably there’d be moments when you’d want the lid to come off without hassle. When you were painting a wall, for instance, rather than killing a politician. So probably not the hook for an advertising campaign. Anyway: not an important issue.

What was important was, they’d left the scene.

He’d got to his feet. His assailant was gone; River was left staring in fear and astonishment, and J. K. Coe had appeared. We’d better go, he’d said, and then he was hustling River out of the alley, leaving a scene of quiet destruction behind them: one dead Gimball, one tin of paint. All those wheelie bins, clustered round like mourners.

‘We shouldn’t have left,’ he said now.

‘Yes we should,’ said Coe.

‘You said it was an accident. So—’

‘It was.’

‘—so why did we leave? It only makes us look—’

‘We had to.’

‘—like we’re guilty of something, like it was a hit.’

‘We had to,’ Coe repeated. He glanced across at River, then back at the road unfurling in front of them, all its marginal twinklings, its brief reflections, amped up to maximum. ‘Think about it. We were there unofficially—’

‘Lamb sent us.’

‘—because we’re Slough House, not Regent’s Park, and Slough House doesn’t get sent anywhere, doesn’t matter what Lamb says.’

‘We left the scene of a crime.’

‘An accident. One in which the security service’s loudest and most public critic was … glossed over. Sorry.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake—’

‘So any suggestion of Service involvement in his death, including our presence, will be blanketed. You understand? The Park will cover it up. Whatever the cost. And you and me – we’re not expensive, if you see what I mean.’

‘This is a fucking nightmare.’

‘It is what it is,’ said Coe. ‘On the upside, we do have a readymade scapegoat.’

‘You’re gonna put this on the black guy?’

‘Let’s not play the race card. I don’t care what colour he is, he was there to kill Gimball. The fact that he didn’t—’

‘That you did.’

‘—by accident, yeah, the fact that he didn’t’s neither here nor there … Its lid stayed on, did you notice?’

‘The paint?’

‘Yeah. Would have been a real mess if it hadn’t.’

‘It’s a real mess anyway,’ River pointed out. ‘Was he one of them?’

‘One of the Abbotsfield crew? How should I know?’

‘Because he didn’t have a gun, did he?’

‘I imagine he’d have used it if he did. Are you going to drive this slowly all the way?’

‘I thought it best not to attract attention,’ said River, through gritted teeth. ‘In the circumstances.’

‘Not sure five miles an hour under the speed limit is the best way to do that.’

That this was a good point didn’t improve River’s frame of mind. He sped up though, nudging, then jostling, the limit. Coe meanwhile – at last – closed his eyes; assumed what had until recently been his default setting, though without inserting his earbuds. He had one final comment to offer.

‘Probably a tricycle,’ he said.

River didn’t ask.

She wanted to know about his work, Ho said.

‘And why was that?’

… Because she was interested.

‘You told her you worked for the intelligence services?’

No. She thought he worked for a bank, but she’d quickly cottoned on that he was no mere desk jockey.

‘Imagine me just shuffling papers?’ Ho shook his head. ‘No, she could tell I did the digital dance, you know?’ He trilled a little riff on the tabletop in front of him. ‘The keyboard solo.’

‘And how did she work that out?’

‘… I told her.’

‘And once she knew you were a computer ace, Roddy, what did she ask you for?’

Just to help her out occasionally, that was all. So that’s what he did. Because she was Kim – his girlfriend.

Emma Flyte was trying hard not to shake her head, or sigh deeply, or even just burst into tears. ‘Help her out with what?’

Little stuff.

Sorting her credit card troubles, for example: she was always having trouble with her credit card. Or being defrauded in restaurants. So occasionally he’d step into the breach and, well, yeah, make sure everything got sorted.

Flyte didn’t have a word for the expression that accompanied this. It seemed intended to be a conspiratorial smile, but looked like a wasp-victim’s smirk.

‘And you didn’t have a problem with that?’

Well, you know, he explained. Chicks. Right?

‘So when did it stop being about the money?’

Well, it wasn’t the money as such, more the principle—

‘When did it stop being about the money?’

And so it was that Emma Flyte learned that a few months previously Ho had woken up one morning and, well, it must have been the tequila’s fault, because he had no memory of the previous evening and Kim, his girlfriend, was acting all moonstruck, telling him how much it turned her on, all the secrets he’d told her. But that was okay, because she was basically family, right? She was his girlfriend.

Sweet God in Heaven, thought Flyte.

‘Your girlfriend. But apart from her name, and a false address, and the fact that she’s Chinese, you know damn all about her, right?’

For the first time, Ho looked puzzled. ‘Chinese?’

‘Well she is, isn’t she?’

‘No,’ said Ho. ‘She’s Korean.’

‘I don’t get it,’ Danny said. ‘How come Gimball’s dead?’

Shin said, ‘Somebody killed him.’

‘But who? And why does that mean we let Jaffrey live?’

An said, ‘Because the plan calls for a populist leader to die. And a populist leader died.’

‘But we didn’t kill him!’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

They had left the scene at speed, the van still ringing from the wrench hurled by the madwoman.

An said, ‘Gimball’s dead, and nobody will believe it’s a coincidence. They will believe it was part of the plan, and that in itself will mean the plan works. Don’t you see?’

Danny stared, as did Shin, though Shin was trying to pretend that he too had been going to say that very same thing.

‘So for now, we should lie low.’

Lying low meant parking near the university, where the natural camouflage was greatest. Still bewildered at the sudden alteration in the evening – still angry he felt two steps behind the others – Danny found himself thinking about the girl, Kim, a low-rent con-artist who’d been working the target. She had family back in North Korea; distant, but not so distant she was happy to let them become the object of official attention. Or perhaps she was just savvy enough to realise that some offers, you didn’t say no to. However distant those family members might be, her own face, her eyes, her teeth, were within reach, and easy collateral.

Her name had been given to them by the SSD, which had recruited Danny and his companions when they were children, and had provided for all their needs since. Their task was to bend her to the SSD’s will, which was, in turn, the will of the Supreme Leader, whose destiny was to bring low His enemies, and see them scuttle in terror. Like his four – now three – companions, Danny was an instrument of that destiny. Like them, he had come to this country as a student, under the flag of a different nation, his studies a mask for a mission years in the planning. The van they now lived in, the jeep they had long since torched, the weapons they had collected from a lock-up garage on the outskirts of Preston – all had been provided by the SSD. On the other side of the world, the Supreme Leader feasted in His palaces, and Shin made nightly reports, and nightly received instructions. Through His vessels, the Supreme Leader spoke to them, directing them in their mission. And all around the world, other groups like theirs would be activated too, and tearing down the houses of His enemies. The mad American had woken the tiger, and now he and all his allies would pay the price. The world would learn that there were many different ways of being locked and loaded.

The Supreme Leader’s glory was a global fact. Kim understood the serious folly of refusing Him. So she had accepted the orders they gave her, along with the pills she had slipped in the target’s alcohol, ensuring a night of oblivion. In the morning, she had convinced him this had been spent sharing secrets. If the target thought he had already let slip the true nature of his employment, he would find it easier to release subsequent, apparently trivial proofs.

A week later, the document was in their hands. And so it began.

Later still, once the wheels were in motion, they had been instructed to cover their tracks; to get rid of the girl and Ho too, before the significance of the stolen document became apparent. As with any conjuring trick, it would not do for the magic to be revealed before the final flourish. So Shin had finished the girl in her own home; but as for Ho, twice they had attempted to deal with him, and twice he had eluded their efforts. Despite himself, Danny felt respect. Ho was evidently a highly skilled agent, adept at evading danger. A worthy enemy in this milksop nation.

But he worried. They had been told that the plan was unalterable, and yet here they were, altering it. For the moment, he would go along. But if there were further derailments, further rearrangements, he would have to take action.

The Supreme Leader would expect no less.

‘I don’t get it,’ Shirley said. ‘How come Gimball’s dead?’

Louisa was tailgating some idiot crawling at eighty. ‘Because the bad guys got him.’

‘Yeah, but they were in Brum. In that van. Coming for Jaffrey.’

‘Until you scared them off,’ said Louisa.

‘Yeah.’

‘With a monkey wrench.’

Shirley nodded seriously.

‘You actually saw them?’

‘They were in the back of the van.’

‘So you actually saw them.’

‘It was a van, not a shop window.’

‘So you didn’t actually see them.’

Shirley shrugged. ‘They were opening up. That’s when I went for them.’

Running down the road, brandishing a chunk of metal: you could see why the folk in the van had decided to be elsewhere.

Especially if they were, say, a bunch of locals, rather than a tooled-up gang of murdering psychopaths.

Shirley said, ‘Did you see my throw? It actually stuck in the door. Hung there for a second.’

‘So I noticed.’

‘No wonder they scarpered.’

‘Shirley, do you really think that van was full of terrorists?’

‘Yep.’

‘Really? Armed terrorists?’

‘No match for Superwoman.’ Shirley mimed throwing the wrench, though there wasn’t room in the car to do it full justice. It looked more like she was chucking an imaginary ball for a non-existent dog.

‘You don’t think they might have been, say, ordinary citizens? Who you terrified?’

‘Nope,’ said Shirley.

‘So what happened in Slough? If the terrorists were in that van, coming for Jaffrey—’

‘Before I frightened them off.’

‘—before you chased them with a metal stick, what happened in Slough? Are there two gangs out there, or what?’

‘Maybe they split in two.’

Maybe they had, conceded Louisa. It was difficult arguing a point when you had no reliable information or accurate knowledge. Unless you were online, obviously. ‘Does it say how Gimball was killed?’

‘Nope.’ Shirley scrolled through Twitter again, where precise intelligence was being posted by informed witnesses. ‘But I expect he was shot. Or stabbed.’

‘Or poisoned or suffocated,’ agreed Louisa. ‘You’re probably right.’

She was thinking about the sequence of events back there; the precise moment when news of Gimball’s death had wafted through the public consciousness like wind through long grass. She said, slowly, ‘The van left as soon as the news broke. There were people in the library finding out about it on Twitter while I was standing by the window, watching.’

‘So?’

‘So maybe that’s why they left. They hear that the other group has succeeded, so there’s no need for them to do anything. They only need to hit one pol, and that’s job done.’

‘So you do believe me,’ Shirley said.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening.’

‘I think I do,’ said Shirley.

‘Oh, please. Do tell.’

‘I think shit’s hitting the fan,’ said Shirley. Then she brightened. ‘Yellow car.’

It was more gold than yellow, but Louisa let it ride.

Some years back, it seemed, a ship-in-the-night minister had determined that what the Service really needed was a lot more record-keeping. Despite an in-house suspicion that this was precisely what a covert organisation could get by happily without, transparency and openness had been in vogue in Westminster at the time, largely because of the widespread hope that if there were concrete examples of these virtues available for the pointing at, it might foster a belief that they were operating across the board, and nullify the need for further enquiry. Thus was born the Service Archive, a ‘tool for correlating current events with historical precedents’, which would be of incalculable strategic use assuming it was ever actually operational. Currently, though, its status was not dissimilar to that of countless other Civil Service projects, in that its existence had been ordained, the process for bringing it into being had been set in motion, and it would thus continue gestating until it was officially put a stop to, despite having long been forgotten about by everyone concerned in its conception. In this particular instance, its obscurity was exacerbated by the Service having accepted its brief in the same spirit in which it was delivered, and assigned the task of ‘archive maintenance and augmentation’ to Slough House. In other words, to Roderick Ho.

This, it should be said, was Flyte’s interpretation of events, not Roddy’s verbatim account.

‘And you gave access to your ongoing work product to this … Kim?’

‘My girlfriend,’ Ho supplied.

‘You gave your girlfriend state secrets?’

He leaned back in his chair. ‘I did what now?’

The man who appeared at the top of the stairs was black, thickset and snappily dressed by Slough House standards, though there were, Catherine Standish admitted, days when any male arriving with his flies done up could claim that. It was a moment before she recognised him, because his hair was shorter than on their previous encounter, but this was Welles, one of the Dogs. He had a strange first name. Devon, that was it.

Lamb said, ‘Chimneys all been swept, thanks. Maybe next year.’

‘You’re Lamb,’ said Devon Welles. ‘I’ve heard about you.’

Lamb scowled at Catherine. ‘You been on Facebook again?’

Welles came in, gave the room a quick once-over, then returned his gaze to Lamb. ‘I gather there’s been a little trouble.’

‘Your lady-boss dropped the ball,’ said Lamb. ‘I assume you’re looking for it.’

‘Mostly just making sure you’ve not kicked it through a window,’ Welles said. ‘You’d be Catherine Standish,’ he told Catherine. It wasn’t a question.

‘There are more chairs next door,’ she said. ‘And there’s always tea.’

She made it sound a philosophical apophthegm, though whether of consolation or dread, it was hard to tell.

Welles said, ‘I’ve only seen the stairs and this office. But I’m not inclined to drink anything brewed on the premises, thanks all the same.’

Lamb raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m militantly anti-racist, as you know,’ he reminded Catherine. ‘But sometimes uppity’s the only word that fits.’

‘Is he like this all the time?’

‘I expect so,’ said Catherine. ‘I don’t work weekends.’

Welles found a chair that was hidden under what might have been an old coat, might have been the shed skin of a previous inhabitant. Pulling it nearer the desk, he accepted Catherine’s wordless gift of a tissue and wiped it down before sitting. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Slough House. I have to say, it lives up to its billing.’

‘If you’re hoping to be voted least popular visitor,’ Lamb said, ‘I should warn you the competition’s stiff. But keep talking.’

Welles looked at Lamb’s feet, still propped on the desk, but masked any emotion they prompted, and addressed his next words to their owner. ‘Ms Flyte explained what happened here. In detail.’

‘And yet you’ve come alone, unaccompanied by the pack. So you’re, what? Her special friend?’ Lamb waggled his eyebrows. ‘Anything you’d like to share?’

Ignoring this, the newcomer said, ‘You’re supposed to be in lockdown.’

‘There was some talk of that.’

‘And you had a gun. Where is it now?’

‘I think it’s in the lost property box,’ said Lamb. ‘Which I appear to have mislaid. What are the odds, eh?’

Without taking his eyes off Lamb, Welles said, ‘Ms Standish?’

‘It’ll be in his desk drawer.’

‘How unpleasant do you want this to be, Mr Lamb?’

‘The last person who asked me that charged eighty quid.’

‘Are we going to have a problem?’

‘You tell me.’ Lamb produced a cigarette, which was somehow already lit. ‘Your boss left some while ago, and you’re here alone. If you’re going to pretend this visit’s logged at the Park, I’m going to laugh so hard it’ll wet all our pants.’ He inhaled. ‘No, you’re here covering your boss’s back. So, you know, brownie points for you. No offence.’ He exhaled. ‘But I can’t see how I’m involved.’

‘You pulled a gun on the head of the internal security division, and you don’t think you’ve got a problem,’ Welles said slowly.

‘Well, if I did, it’s been overshadowed by events,’ said Lamb. ‘Because a couple of hours ago, I let the head of the internal security division know about a real and credible threat to a member of Her Majesty’s Parliament, who’s currently decorating an alleyway somewhere in Slough. I rather think that comes under the heading total fuck-up, don’t you?’

There was a noise from downstairs.

‘Speaking of which,’ he added.

River and Coe entered a moment or two later.

‘Ah, the conquering heroes,’ said Lamb. ‘Well, that was a good job well done. Which part of “prevent an assassination” gave you trouble?’

‘There were two of us,’ River told him. ‘And we weren’t armed.’

‘Versus?’

River and Coe exchanged a glance.

‘No conferring,’ said Lamb.

Coe said, ‘We only saw one.’

Catherine narrowed her eyes.

Lamb said, ‘Okay, so you were outnumbered.’ He looked at Welles. ‘I always round them down and the opposition up. Gives a more accurate reading of the likely outcome. Oh, I didn’t introduce you.’ He turned back to his slow horses, jerking his thumb in Welles’s direction. ‘This is someone or other from the Park. And these dicks belong here. I can’t remember their names.’

‘River Cartwright,’ said Welles. ‘And Jason Kevin Coe.’

‘I prefer J. K.’

‘I totally understand.’ He turned back to Lamb. ‘Dennis Gimball’s been killed?’

‘Hard to know whether to laugh or laugh, isn’t it?’

‘Where’s, ah …’ River began.

‘We felt we’d detained her long enough,’ Catherine said.

‘So we uncuffed her,’ Lamb added, then said to Welles, ‘Damn it, you’re good. See what you made me give away?’

Welles asked Catherine, ‘When are the other two due back?’

‘They have further to come,’ she told him. ‘But Louisa’s a fast driver.’

‘Whatever unravelled earlier,’ Welles said, ‘we need to put it back together again. That way, maybe we can all get through the day in one piece.’

Lamb rolled his eyes in shock. ‘Are you suggesting some sort of cover up? That we pretend we didn’t know what we knew?’

‘I’m suggesting that it’s not in the best interests of the Service for there to be public doubt about its ability to protect its citizens. Not with this … series of events under way.’

‘Well, the Service’s most vocal critic won’t be expressing his disappointment, will he? On account of being dead. Of course, that in itself might cast doubt on the Service’s ability to blah blah blah.’ He looked at River. ‘I’m used to hamster-boy’s sullen silences. But you’re suspiciously quiet.’

River shrugged. ‘A man died.’

‘I wasn’t expecting you to burst into song. But you were there, weren’t you? Contributions welcome. Who was this “one” you saw?’

J. K. Coe said, ‘Black guy. Face tattoo.’

‘And he killed Gimball?’

‘Looked that way.’

‘I hope you’re not making assumptions based on his colour.’ Lamb turned to Welles and shook his head sadly. ‘I can only apologise.’

Welles said, ‘You saw him with Gimball?’

‘He followed him down an alleyway,’ River said. ‘And Gimball didn’t come out.’

‘So where’s the suspect? In your boot?’

‘We thought it best to leave the scene. Gimball’s known to be a thorn in Five’s side. Us being around might have … muddied the waters.’

‘So instead you let him get away.’

‘A face tattoo?’ said Catherine.

‘You’re about two conversations behind,’ said Lamb, and for Welles’s benefit mimed someone tilting a glass.

‘Something?’ Welles asked.

Catherine said, ‘I did some research earlier. On both potential targets.’

‘The other being Zafar Jaffrey,’ said Lamb.

‘Who has an aide, or a PA or whatever. He appears in several photos.’

‘And has a face tattoo,’ said Welles. ‘Okay, that’s interesting.’

Lamb said, ‘You were a cop too, weren’t you?’

‘You have a problem with that?’

‘No, I quite like cops. You know where you stand with them.’ He gestured to Catherine. ‘Got a fiver? We could buy him off.’

‘This infinite patience of mine,’ Welles said. ‘It’s only an act. You do realise that?’

‘I’m gonna hypothesise,’ said Lamb. ‘So pay attention at the back. You served with Flyte, didn’t you? Or at any rate, came into the Service on her coat-tails. She’s Whelan’s blue-eyed girl, or was until this afternoon. Because let’s face it, if she’d done her job right, my little bunch of never-weres would have spent the day sitting on their hands, and Five would have had Dennis Gimball wrapped in cotton wool. As it is, an MP’s been whacked and the Park has egg all over its Oxbridge chops, so Emma Flyte’s brilliant career looks set to hit the buffers any moment. Which means you’ll be out too. That’s why you want to hush up what happened here this afternoon. You’re covering your arse.’

Welles looked at the others, one by one, then returned his gaze to Lamb. ‘And you’re now going to give me a lecture on ethical behaviour?’

‘Nah,’ said Lamb, tapping ash into his own lap. ‘Ethical behaviour’s like a vajazzle on a nun. Pretty to picture, but who really benefits?’

‘Mr Lamb’s colourful imagery aside,’ said Catherine, ‘cover-ups are never a good idea. Look at Watergate.’

‘People always say that,’ Lamb told her, ‘but they never ask what was really being covered up at Watergate. That shit got out, you’d see fireworks.’

‘It’s safest to assume he’s kidding,’ Catherine told Welles, ‘and move straight on.’

‘That was my plan.’ Welles turned to Lamb. ‘From what Flyte told me, you had a whole lot of speculation this afternoon, and not an ounce of evidence. If she failed to report back on that, it’s hardly an error of protocol. She might as well report on gossip in the supermarket.’

‘Sadly,’ Lamb said, ‘it’s possible Flyte didn’t paint you in on the whole picture. By which I mean how we knew what we know. Are you still in the room?’

This last to J. K. Coe, who nodded.

‘Just checking. Tell the nice man about the pretty piece of paper.’

But before Coe could speak, Welles said, ‘I know about the document. Like I told you, Flyte gave me all the details.’

Lamb narrowed his eyes. ‘She really does trust you, doesn’t she?’

‘Get over it. If that paper even exists, it doesn’t prove anything. I could write down a list of targets—’

There was more noise, more commotion. Louisa and Shirley returning; the latter entering the room first.

‘Did you eat all the Haribo?’

Lamb threw something at her, which she caught gratefully, but turned out to be the wrappings from a takeaway. He then nodded at Louisa. ‘Congratulations. Your guy’s still alive.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Of course, there’s the teeniest possibility he had Gimball whacked,’ Lamb went on. ‘Which complicates matters, as you might imagine.’

‘Shirley and I still win,’ she said. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Devon Welles. And you’re Louisa Guy.’

Louisa straightened her hair. ‘Yeah.

River looked at her, then at Welles, and rolled his eyes.

‘Which makes you Shirley Dander,’ Welles continued. ‘So the gang’s all here.’

‘Apart from Roddy,’ Catherine said.

‘Round about now we usually have a singsong,’ Lamb said. ‘But in the circumstances, let’s press on, shall we? You could write down a list of targets. The village. The watering hole. And so on.’

‘And claim it came from Service files, yeah. So what? It’s fake news.’

‘Unless they’ve got something else up their sleeves,’ River said.

Louisa said, ‘What do you mean, he might have had Gimball whacked?’

‘Well,’ said Lamb, ‘that depends on how much we trust the Chuckle brothers here. Coe’s little eyes are all sparkly, you notice, and that’s never a good sign. So either he and Cartwright slipped in a knee trembler somewhere between here and Slough, or something else lit his candle. But’ – and here he turned to Welles once more – ‘I digress. I’m almost certain you weren’t finished.’

Welles said, ‘So all we need do is agree that you all spent the afternoon safely in lockdown. And everything’s tidy.’

‘Yeah, not really,’ said Lamb. ‘Because you wouldn’t need to be here for that to happen, would you? Flyte could have said all that herself. But she’s somewhere else, which I’m guessing means she’s tracking down that piece of paper it would be so easy to fake.’

‘The Watering Hole paper,’ Coe said.

‘Thank you, boy wonder. And if she’s doing that, it’s probably because she’s wondering exactly the same thing I am.’

‘How come they knew about it,’ said Louisa.

‘We know how they knew about it,’ said River. ‘They honey-trapped Ho. Remember?’

‘Funnily enough, yeah,’ said Louisa. ‘But not really what I was getting at.’

‘But thanks for the mansplanation, Cartwright,’ Lamb said. He looked at Louisa. ‘Mansplaining is when a man tells a woman something she already knows in a patronising, condescending manner,’ he said, slowly and clearly.

‘Thanks.’

‘Do you need me to repeat that?’

‘No, I’m good.’

‘Excellent.’ He turned to Welles. ‘We can pretend all we like that we know nothing about what’s happening, but once the Dogs have finished with Ho, that’s not gonna wash. Meanwhile, the big question is, how come these clowns knew the Watering Hole paper existed in the first place?’

‘Oh, right, yeah,’ River muttered.

‘So we can stick our heads up our arses and pretend it’s not happening, like you suggest,’ Lamb continued, ‘or we can walk back the cat and see who we’re really up against. Ideally before they move on to the next stage in their schedule.’

Welles looked round the room. Everyone was staring at him, except Coe and Shirley Dander, the former of whom was focused on his shoes and the latter peering hard into the gloomier corners of the room, possibly trying to locate the missing Haribo.

He sighed and said, ‘So just what is the next stage?’

Everyone turned to J. K. Coe.

Who said, without looking up, ‘Seize control of the media.’

Shirley made a scoffing noise. ‘Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.’

‘They’re right on schedule so far,’ Louisa said.

‘So what, they’re gonna hijack the BBC?’

‘Well, it worked for Graham Norton.’

‘If you’ve finished amusing yourselves,’ Welles said, ‘do you have an actual suggestion to make?’

Lamb shifted his weight from one buttock to another, and everyone in the room bar Welles flinched. But when he spoke it was without intestinal accompaniment. ‘Yeah, I suggest you put your thinking cap on. You need to come up with a story.’

‘For what?’

‘For getting me into the Park,’ Lamb said. ‘For some reason, they don’t much like me over there.’

10

DARKNESS HAD FALLEN OVER Regent’s Park when news of Dennis Gimball’s death broke: the darkness would roll away in time, but news once broken remains forever unfixed. Claude Whelan was heading out the door: a fresh shirt, dinner with Claire; neither seemed a lot to ask. But all he had time for was a brief dalliance on the steps; a few deep breaths holding the summery tang of leaves from the park opposite. Heading back in, summoned by his beeper, he encountered, inevitably, Diana Taverner, also on her way to the hub. Despite the hour and the punishing past few days she looked alert and fresh. There were rumours she had a room on one of the upper floors where she enjoyed blood transfusions, or perhaps sacrificed virgins, always supposing any made it past security. Her chestnut brown hair, naturally curly, was worn short of late. Whelan wondered whether the colour used help. Lady Di would see grey hairs as a sign of impending weakness.

‘It’s Gimball,’ were her opening words.

Whelan groaned. ‘Don’t tell me – he’s making his speech.’

‘No, but that would be headline news,’ Lady Di conceded. ‘Given his current state. He’s dead, Claude.’

‘He’s what?’

‘Dead. In an alley in Slough. Someone damn near took his head off.’

‘They took his … Oh, Jesus! What with, a machete?’

‘A tin of paint. Don’t look at me like that, reports are confused. But it’s definitely him, he’s definitely dead, and there are no current sightings of any hostiles. Which is … strange.’

‘Someone murdered Dennis Gimball with a can of paint,’ Whelan said faintly, ‘and there’s something you’re finding strange?’

‘It’s not the usual pattern. Terror bots don’t hit their target and fade away, they score as many victims as possible and go out in a blaze of glory. All we’ve got is an anonymous sighting of a black male with a face tattoo, and given the general level of eyewitness reliability, this’ll probably turn out to be a teenage girl with a birthmark. If it’s not a smokescreen to start with.’

‘Let’s move out of the hall, shall we?’ They headed for the stairs, and on the first landing down Whelan stopped her and said, ‘I spoke to him this afternoon.’

‘To Gimball?’

‘Before he set off for Slough.’

‘I see. To warn him off flaming Zafar Jaffrey in public, I presume.’

He said, ‘It would have upset a few apple carts.’

‘The PM,’ said Lady Di.

‘For these purposes, yes, he’s an apple cart. It’s an open secret Gimball was announcing his return to the fold this evening, and the odds are good he was also going to break whatever story his wife had up her sleeve. I was … advising him against such a course.’

‘You were doing the PM’s dirty work.’

‘In the national interest.’

‘Are we sure about that?’

‘I don’t much care for your tone, and this isn’t the time for a strategy review. What’s done is done. We now need to make sure that whoever’s responsible for this appalling act is identified as swiftly as possible.’

‘Before anybody speculates that it might have been us, you mean.’

‘That would be a ridiculous assumption.’

‘Of course it would, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be made,’ Taverner said. ‘Gimball was your – I mean our – fiercest critic. If you were coming the heavy with him the afternoon he was killed, well. It’s not going to look pretty.’ She reached out and removed a speck of lint from his lapel. ‘To be blunt, Claude, it’s going to look like we had something to do with it.’

A horrible possibility was forming, like a cloud taking shape, in Whelan’s mind. ‘And did we?’

‘Now you’ve lost me.’

‘You’re Ops, Di. Did we have anything to do with this?’

She said, ‘The small print’s a pain to trawl through, but if you look at the T&Cs carefully, you’ll notice I’m not allowed to have serving MPs whacked. With or without your knowledge.’

‘That’s a comfort.’

‘But I’ll not forget you felt the need to ask. A little trust wouldn’t go amiss.’ She led the way down the next flight and into the lift lobby, and while they waited said, ‘What if it’s connected?’

Whelan was still processing the new information. ‘To …?’

‘To all the rest of it. Abbotsfield. The zoo bombing.’

‘What connection could there be? They were random attacks, this is a targeted assassination.’

‘Maybe so. But there’s a guerrilla cadre operating within the UK, so they’re automatically top of the suspect list when it comes to the death of a serving politician. Regardless of whether or not you had a meeting with that politician hours before he died. You’re the head of the Security Service, for God’s sake. For all anyone knows, you were there to warn him of impending danger.’

‘Well, yes, but …’

‘Ah.’ The lift arrived. Diana Taverner stepped into it, then said, ‘So someone else was present.’

‘His wife. Dodie.’

‘The journalist,’ she said flatly.

‘That’s right. The journalist.’

‘You do have a way of complicating matters, Claude. Couldn’t you have done it over the phone?’

‘Well, I didn’t think GCHQ needed to know.’

They stepped out onto the hub, and made their way to Lady Di’s office. Behind her closed door, she said, ‘Flyte didn’t have precise details of the dirt Gimball has on Jaffrey. Have you run that down yet?’

‘She’s been running smear stories on him for months. The details barely matter, it’s the timing that’s the problem.’

‘Well it might be an idea to find out,’ said Taverner. ‘If it’s real, it could be just what we need to keep the public occupied while we track down the Abbotsfield crew.’

‘I don’t think the PM’s going to be in favour of Jaffrey being exposed to bad publicity. That’s precisely what we were trying to avoid.’

‘Yes, but the PM’s going to have to lump it. If it comes to a choice between feeding the media our own head or lobbing it Zafar Jaffrey’s, I’m not going to think long and hard, are you? Especially not when Gimball’s own wife can do the job for us. We need to steer her in the right direction. Whatever she thinks about you, us, she’s got to hate Jaffrey more.’

Whelan stared out at the hub. All the boys and girls – they were always boys and girls; it didn’t matter that some were fathers and mothers themselves – were intent on work, mostly centred on the weapons used at Abbotsfield. The pipe bomb lobbed into the penguin compound had been home-made; the device on the train was based on an internet recipe. Any reasonably competent psychopath could have devised either, given a Wi-Fi connection and a full set of digits. But automatic weapons implied serious backing.

Taverner said, ‘Claude?’

‘I’m listening.’

‘You’re going to have to decide which flag you’re flying. The Service doesn’t exist to further the interests of the party in power. In fact, the party in power is arguably our natural enemy. Given that it’s holding the purse strings.’

‘We serve the nation, Diana,’ Whelan said. ‘And the party in power is democratically elected to lead that nation.’ He turned back to the glass wall, and the worker ants beyond, but continued talking. ‘I tried to get hold of Flyte earlier, but she’s not around. I was told you had her on something.’

‘She’s at Slough House. It’s in lockdown. And can stay that way until we’ve determined what connects Jackson Lamb’s pet nerd with Abbotsfield. Has he talked yet?’

Whelan said, ‘I was leaving him to soften up. A crew was sent to his house, they’ve collected his IT. Quite a lot of it, apparently. Have we got anyone in Slough?’

‘We’ll wait on the police reports. It’s not like our forensics’ll be better than theirs. We’re using the same contractors half the time.’

‘Keep me posted. I’ll talk to Dodie Gimball.’

‘No, let me,’ said Taverner.

‘Diana—’

‘If she thinks you had her husband killed, how happy is she going to be to see you?’

He paused. ‘Maybe so. All right, then.’ He turned to go, then turned back. ‘Are we really calling them “terror bots” now?’

‘They always turn out devoid of personality. It seems to fit.’

‘If we end up throwing Jaffrey to the wolves,’ he said, ‘I’ll need to be sure he deserves it.’

Taverner waited until Whelan had gone before she replied. ‘He’s not one of us, Claude. That usually suffices,’ she said. Then she turned the dial on her desk which frosted the glass wall, hiding her from view.

Apart from that, how was the show, Mrs Lincoln?

An old gag, which he’d have to make sure didn’t slip out at an inappropriate moment. Which, for a budding pol, was any moment, ever.

So otherwise, you enjoyed the motorcade, Mrs Kennedy?

Zafar Jaffrey ran a hand through his already enjoyably tousled hair and shook his head, though there was nobody with him.

Apart from the whole thing about Dennis Gimball being murdered, and the news breaking on Twitter midway through, the evening at the library had gone passably well. The answer he’d given on the likely impact of Brexit on the local hospitality industry would, under other circumstances, have caused chatter; as it was, his talk had been eclipsed, and all attention drawn like iron filings to Twitter’s magnet. Utter confusion. As usual with social media, rumour had the inside lane, and by the time official confirmation came through – death; cause still unknown – it had been definitively stated by observers as far away as Texas that Gimball had been attacked by burkha-clad suicide bombers. But facts could wait. The immediate aftermath was a deliciously stunned sense of news happening; of the dark heart of political conspiracy being exposed once more.

What Jaffrey needed to know was where Tyson was; what his bagman had done.

He’d escaped as soon as possible – easy to claim he was needed elsewhere – but waited until he’d reached home before calling.

‘Were you there?’

‘I’m in the car, boss.’

‘I appreciate that you’re in the car, Tyson.’ He could hear the usual ambient noise: the humming of the engine; the swishing of traffic. ‘That’s not what I asked you. Were you there?’

‘… Was I where, boss?’

There was something he’d noticed about youngsters who’d lived on the criminal margins; who’d dipped a toe – both feet, sometimes – in a lifestyle which prided itself on disregarding the civilised norms, and it was this: they were incredibly fucking childish. They thought widening their eyes proof of innocence.

‘Come to the house, Tyson. When you’re back.’

‘I thought maybe in the morning, boss?’

‘No, Tyson. Tonight.’

So he’d waited in the dark; a gradually strengthening sequence of gin and tonics for sustenance. Gins and tonics? Gins and tonic, he settled on. The gin element was well past plural; the tonic still coming from the same half-bottle. He was a bad Muslim, he knew, but there were limits to how strong one could be, how good.

Earlier, he had spoken to his mother. She had wanted to know what she always wanted to know: how many had been in attendance, what questions had been asked, whether anyone mentioned Karim. Always that last question, and still Zafar didn’t know why, precisely. Was she worried his younger brother, the Syrian ‘martyr’, had forever scuttled Zafar’s political career? Or did she just want to know he wasn’t forgotten? Sometimes Zafar wanted to tell her that his own public life, far from being hampered by his brother, had been made by him; his own awakening germinated by the news of Karim’s death. It was true that there were those for whom his sibling connection would ever bar him from political credibility, and sections of the media which would fan those flames every chance they got. But the deeper truth was, if not for Karim’s wasted life, Zafar would never have entered the public arena. As it was, he felt the need to eradicate the stain left by his brother’s unwise choices – and prove, too, that being Muslim did not mean being an enemy in his own country. It was shameful that there was a need to prove such things, but that was how the world spun.

But he hadn’t known how long-lasting the tremors of one Hellfire missile could be; how they would continue to churn the ground beneath his feet so many miles and years away from their detonation point.

Tyson arrived at last; late enough that it was clear he’d been dragging his wheels. Zafar poured him a coke and sat him on the sofa. An interviewing arrangement, not dissimilar from the one he’d used when he’d first met Tyson Bowman, and seen in him a young man worth saving. There were many who wouldn’t have looked past the tattoo.

‘Did you speak to Mr Gimball?’

‘… Kind of.’

‘Kind of yes? Or kind of no?’

Tyson was frightened. That was something else it was important to remember about the young: they were often frightened, because there was always the chance they’d be sucked down into an abyss they’d only gradually become aware of. And they always tried to hide this fear, but it never went away.

‘It’s all right, Tyson,’ he said. ‘Whatever happened, we can fix it.’ This was a lie. ‘But I need to know what it is I have to fix.’

He’d become the shining light in these youngsters’ lives: the only one to show faith, offer support, without demanding their souls in return. But this meant a lot of them thought him capable of any manner of impossibles, including fixing things that couldn’t be mended.

‘I wanted you there to observe,’ he reminded Tyson now, hating himself for doing so; hating that he was making sure his own essential innocence was part of Tyson’s story. But he’d started, so he’d finish. ‘To talk to him if the opportunity arose, but not to force the issue.’

‘Didn’t force the issue, boss.’

‘I just wanted to know what he planned to say.’

Because if Ed Timms had been right, and Gimball had been preparing to throw shit at the walls, Zafar would have needed as much warning as possible. To wrap up the Dancer Blaine business, and then cover his tracks.

‘So what happened?’

‘I was gonna explain to him,’ Tyson said. ‘Tell him not to dis you, like. Keep his mouth shut.’

Zafar’s heart was all the way deflated now, a useless piece of rubber curled up and drying in his chest. He could see it happening as clearly as if it were projected onto his sitting-room wall: Tyson catching Gimball unprotected; overconfident swagger on one side, panicky reaction on the other. Fists clutching lapels. A struggle, a blow.

‘And did you …?’

Did he what? Zafar didn’t even know what question to ask. There’d be no consoling answers.

‘It was just a bit of argy. I didn’t touch him.’

‘You didn’t touch him?’

‘Not hardly.’ Tyson rolled his shoulders. ‘Just messing a bit. He wouldn’t stay still.’

It was like talking to a child who’d stoned a cat. I didn’t mean to hurt it. It was the cat’s fault.

He thought, Tyson has to disappear. And I’ll have to finish what he started. Like most of his decisions, it was no sooner made than he was formulating the strategy: he’d need to cancel tomorrow’s meetings; fake a head cold, whatever. All of that was doable. He was good at details.

But still he could feel the ground trembling beneath his feet; those shockwaves ploughing up the earth.

Catherine said, ‘I think it’s about time you explained what happened, don’t you?’

Lamb had left, with Welles on his heels like a man who’d been rabbit-punched then put on a leash: there really was cause, she sometimes thought, to hang a warning notice on Lamb’s door. She’d have gone home herself, if not for the gauntlet of pubs, bars and off-licences she’d have to run. As it was, the role of den mother had once more dropped onto her shoulders.

Shirley had found what was left of the Haribo, and had tucked in before Catherine could warn her about Lamb’s rejection policy. Louisa was leaning against the radiator – they were in River’s room – and frowning about something, or possibly everything. J. K. Coe was at his desk, hood up. River was also seated, but visibly arriving at the conclusion that Catherine was mostly talking to him, and unlikely to take silence for an answer.

‘We’ve told you,’ he said at last. ‘A man followed Gimball up the alley, and Gimball didn’t come out again.’

Catherine pursed her lips. After a moment, River looked at Coe. ‘That’s what happened, right?’

Still hooded, Coe said, ‘That’s what happened.’

Shirley said, ‘The bad guys were in Birmingham.’

‘But Jaffrey wasn’t attacked,’ said River. ‘Was he?’

‘They were in a van. I chased them off.’

‘Be that as it may,’ Catherine said. She returned her gaze to the two men. ‘“We only saw one”,’ she said. ‘I’m quoting here.’

‘Quoting who?’ River asked.

‘Mr Coe. That’s what he said when you got here.’

‘Well, he counted right.’

‘It’s not his arithmetic that bothers me. It’s more that he was so keen to volunteer information. It usually requires strong persuasion before he opens his mouth in company. Doesn’t it, Mr Coe?’

Coe shrugged.

‘And like Lamb said, he appeared a little more bushy-tailed than usual. And I think we all remember the last time that happened.’

‘You don’t seriously think,’ River began, then stopped.

‘We don’t seriously think what?’ Catherine asked.

For half a moment, maybe less, the only sound in the room was a fly banging against the dust-tracked windowpane; just one more futile attempt to escape from Slough House.

And then a penny dropped.

‘Oh Christ,’ said Louisa. ‘You didn’t!’

‘It was an accident.’

Louisa, mouth wide, looked at Catherine, who was staring into whatever abyss had just opened inside her own mind. Shirley had frozen mid chew, and her face had the blurred rubbery look that comes from being caught between two expressions. The men exchanged a glance, then resumed their defensive postures. And the fly hurled itself at the glass once more, and vomited invisibly on contact.

It was Catherine who spoke first. ‘You killed him?’

It was Coe she was talking to, and Coe didn’t answer.

‘Mr Coe? Pull your hood down and answer the question.’

Unexpectedly, Coe did as he was told. ‘… Not exactly.’

‘But imprecisely, right? In some vague, non-specific, possibly even daydreamy fashion, you killed him? Please say you didn’t.’

‘He was hit by a tin of paint.’

‘How?’

‘… It got knocked off some scaffolding.’

‘By who?’

‘Whom.’

‘Don’t even—’

‘It was an accident,’ said Coe.

‘Yeah, I think we’ve established that,’ Louisa put in. ‘But whose fucking accident was it?’

‘His,’ said River.

Everyone in the room turned to River.

‘Well it was! I was fighting the tattooed guy!’

‘So you didn’t invent him?’

‘Christ, no,’ said River. ‘He attacked Gimball.’

Catherine said, ‘I feel faint. You know? I actually, seriously feel faint.’

‘I told you they were in the van,’ said Shirley.

‘What?’

‘The actual bad guys,’ said Shirley. ‘Whatever happened in Slough, that was just a cosmic fuck-up. The actual bad guys were in Brum. And I chased them away.’

‘Yes, great, thanks for that,’ said Louisa. ‘Meanwhile, what do we do about having accidentally assassinated someone who might have been our next PM? And when I say “we”, incidentally, I mean Coe. I had nothing to do with it.’

‘Nor me,’ said Shirley.

‘That’s right,’ said Catherine. ‘You were busy assaulting somebody else somewhere else.’

‘Gimball’s dead because the guy with the tattoo attacked him,’ River said. ‘And we’ve already established he’s Zafar Jaffrey’s man. That’s what’s going on here. In addition to, you know. The country being under attack and all.’

‘So the fact that it was you and our resident psycho here—’

‘Louisa …’

‘—who whacked him, that’s just a detail, is it?’

Something hit her in the chest, and she caught it reflexively.

A phone.

Coe said, ‘You want to call the police?’

Louisa looked at the phone, then at Coe.

Who repeated himself: ‘That’s what you want to do? Go right ahead. You weren’t there. Uninvolved, like you said. You’ve all made that very clear.’

After a moment, Catherine said, ‘Protocol would say we report to the Park, not the police.’

‘And it’s pretty clear that’s not happening, isn’t it? Unless you think that’s what Lamb’s doing.’

‘Lamb doesn’t know about this yet.’

‘Yeah, ’cause he’s notoriously slow on the uptake, isn’t he?’

Catherine seemed about to reply, but changed her mind.

Louisa said, ‘If we don’t report this, we could all end up in deep shit.’

‘It was an op,’ said Coe. ‘Authorised by our team leader. We report back to him and him alone. Anything else and we’re in breach of the Secrets Act. Which is equally deep shit.’

Shirley said, addressing the others, ‘He got away with it last time.’

They stared.

‘Just saying.’

‘Let’s wait until Lamb gets back before deciding our next move, shall we?’ said Catherine at last. ‘And it might be an idea to keep an eye on the news.’

‘Might also be an idea to pretend this conversation never took place,’ said Louisa, and tossed Coe’s phone back at him.

Welles checked in via the car park, showing his pass to the guard on duty but signing Lamb in using the standard visitor soubriquet ‘Lindsay Lohan’, a hangover from a few years back, when Lohan was turning up everywhere unannounced. The guard didn’t bat an eye. Jackson Lamb’s own name might cause ripples even among the young and unblooded, but his public appearances were as rare – and as welcome – as a fin on a bank holiday beach, so his physical presence rang no bells. The guard probably had him down as a local joe, working undercover in a food bank queue.

This side of the Park was for trade and passing talent: little chance of bumping into your Diana Taverners, your Claude Whelans. Waiting for the lift to take them down into the bowels, Welles said to Lamb, ‘Remind me why I’m doing this.’

‘If we want to know what this killing crew plan next, we need to know who’s pulling their strings. They knew exactly what they were after when they trapped Ho in their honeypot. Which means they had inside knowledge, if not an actual insider.’

‘You think there’s a mole?’

‘It’s happened before. But no, honest answer, I think somebody fucked up. That’s usually what turns out to have happened.’

‘We should kick it upstairs,’ Welles said. ‘We should definitely kick it upstairs.’

‘Yeah, but before committing Hare Krishna, let’s see if we’ve got wiggle room when it comes to assigning blame.’

‘Hara-kiri.’

‘You’re welcome.’

When the lift doors opened, they were on Molly Doran’s floor.

She was already rolling out to meet them because, as she later explained to Lamb, she had a sixth sense for impending unpleasantness. ‘When you’re in the area, it’s like everything grows darker.’ He would simply blink at this assertion, as if the obvious had been stated once too often for his liking. Meanwhile, in the here and now, Molly was a short woman, and would be shorter were she standing, as both her legs were missing below the knee. This lack contributed to the impression of spherity she radiated, as did – somehow – her overabundance of make-up, a quantity which would have drawn comment had anyone else indulged in it, but with Molly Doran seemed to be a challenge. Her cheeks were white; her lips scarlet. Her wheelchair cherry-red, with thick velvet armrests.

When she saw Lamb and Welles her expression didn’t change, but the light in her eyes shifted a pantone, from dark red to darker. There’d always been stories about Molly Doran – how she guarded her fiefdom like a lioness its kill – and she had always encouraged them, because there’s nothing Spook Street enjoys more than a legend, unless it’s a myth. The distance between the two was paper thin; the exact space between one’s last breath and the next thing. Welles had met her in passing only; had once asked – quite late at night – if she needed help getting into a lift. The look he received in response was one they could have usefully taught down the road, where new recruits were drilled in unarmed combat.

‘Jackson Lamb,’ she said. ‘I hardly need to ask, do I? You’re after something.’

‘Would I be here otherwise?’

‘Pay the troll.’

He bent and kissed one over-powdered cheek. For Welles, it felt like a moment that should have been preserved somehow, though not on a camera, not on a phone. It needed Goya, with a lump of charcoal.

Molly said to Welles, ‘He doesn’t do social calls. Only time he shifts his fat arse off a chair is when something promises to relieve his boredom.’

‘I’d visit more often,’ Lamb said, ‘but you cripples make us normal people uncomfortable.’

‘Jesus, man,’ said Welles.

But Molly Doran laughed. ‘He likes to give the impression he’s sparing us the bullshit,’ she told Welles. ‘Truth is, he’s just peddling a different line of bullshit altogether. How’ve you been, Jackson?’

‘My knees have been giving me gyp,’ he said. ‘But I don’t expect sympathy.’

‘See?’ she said to Welles. Then: ‘I don’t allow Dogs on my floor.’

‘I’m not sure you have a choice in the matter,’ he replied.

‘That’s because you’ve never tested the proposition,’ she said, and smiled sweetly.

A flake of powder floated free, as if it hadn’t been expecting that particular muscle to throb.

Welles opened his mouth to reply, but Lamb leaned towards him. ‘Probably best do what she says. She’s run over bigger boys than you in that thing.’

‘And it takes forever to scrape the treads clean.’

‘You’re pushing your luck,’ Welles told Lamb, unpeeling the other man’s fingers from his elbow.

‘You’re a dear boy, I’m sure,’ Molly Doran said. ‘But on this floor, I make the rules. And while not much brings me pleasure these days, fighting my corner does get the juices flowing.’

‘And trust me,’ said Lamb. ‘You don’t want to see her juices flowing.’

Welles looked from one to the other. ‘I’ll give you ten minutes,’ he said. ‘But ten minutes only. Once that’s done, I’m coming in there.’ He nodded towards Molly’s doorway.

Molly considered for a moment, then beamed. ‘I quite like this one,’ she told Lamb. ‘He’s less damaged than your lot.’

‘Give it time.’

‘This once only, you may remain right here,’ Molly said to Welles. ‘But no whistling. I can’t abide whistling.’

She spun on the spot, and headed into her room.

‘If we’re not finished, there’ll be a sock on the doorknob,’ leered Lamb. ‘One of mine, obviously,’ he added, following Molly into her lair.

Which was a long room lined with upright cabinets, set on tracks allowing them to be pushed together when not in use; like library stacks, and imbued with a similar sense that knowledge, information, words, never really died, but simply burrowed down out of the daylight and waited for curiosity to dig them up again. Here were Regent’s Park’s older secrets. Those that were freshly minted were stored in more instantly accessible form, of course, and many had consequently enjoyed fifteen minutes of fame on social media since.

Molly reversed into a cubbyhole just wide enough for her chair, and braked. Jackson Lamb eyed a nearby stool with distaste, but perched a buttock on it regardless. If this had happened in Slough House, the team would be praying, hard.

‘I hear David Cartwright’s entered the twilight,’ Molly said.

‘Best place for him.’

‘Young River must find that difficult.’

‘Young River finds dressing himself difficult,’ said Lamb. ‘I don’t want to speculate on his emotional trials.’

‘Oh, he’s bright enough. He just has the disadvantage of having you as his team leader. That would make anyone question their own competence.’

‘I don’t encourage them to think of me as team leader,’ Lamb said. ‘I prefer “pagan deity”.’ He looked at the wall above her head. ‘There was a picture there. Why’d you take it down?’

‘Because I fancied a change?’

‘You like change the way I like milk.’ He glanced round the room, searching out more clues, then turned his gaze back to her. ‘You’re moving?’

She said, ‘I’m being let go.’

Lamb nodded, and gestured towards her wheels. ‘Just so long as they don’t do it on a slope.’

‘I don’t expect sympathy, Jackson. But spare me attempts at humour. I’ve been here decades. They built this room around me. It’s what I know, it’s where I’m comfortable. But apparently I’m … surplus to requirements.’

He nodded again. The room was mostly dark, only this particular nook of it illuminated, and this satisfied whatever inside him thrived on gloom and unacknowledged corners. The rows of files were secret histories, and some would be his own; reports made by and of him; lists of the survivors, and an accounting of the dead. Molly Doran lived among past lives he’d discarded, and those of joes he’d known in Cold War days. She belonged here as much as any of those black-ribboned folders. She’d steered her wheelchair into this cubbyhole without hesitation, as easily and unthinkingly as anyone else might step through a doorway.

‘What will you do?’ he asked, and had any of the slow horses been present – except Catherine – they’d have wondered where the words were coming from, where the tone had arisen.

‘Well I don’t see myself settling into civilian life, do you? Even if I found another job, I’d be there to tick boxes. Age, disability, gender. Jump right in as soon as you think of something offensive.’

‘I don’t know why you’re always expecting me to be the comedian,’ he said. ‘You’d be quite the stand-up yourself, if not for the obvious.’

Whatever softness had blurred his edges was gone.

‘I’ve lived a useful life,’ she said. ‘I’ve made a difference. Now they want to replace me with an intern, Lord help us all. What will I do? What would you expect me to do, Jackson?’

He sniffed. ‘This one of Lady Di’s plans?’

‘She’s signed off on it.’

‘There you go, then,’ said Lamb. ‘Taverner’s the word of God round here. I mean, Whelan rattles the cup. But she’s the one grinding his organ.’ He fished a cigarette out of nowhere, and rolled his eyes before Molly could speak. ‘I’m not going to. It helps me think, that’s all. How do you intend to do it?’

‘“It”?’

He drew a finger across his throat. ‘Turn the lights out. Once you’ve been given the push. I assume that’s what you’re getting at.’

‘Oh. Pills, I expect. That’s the favoured option, isn’t it?’

He shrugged. ‘Seems to me it’s one area you have a wider choice than most. Nice coastal path. Big steep drop. You might set a new record for unassisted flight.’ He sucked his teeth. ‘Or at the very least, a personal best.’

‘You’re always a comfort, aren’t you? But then, you’re not here to listen to my woes.’

‘Christ, you got that right,’ he said. ‘Do I look like a fucking social worker?’

‘Our ten minutes is ticking away. And I don’t think our friend is likely to offer much leeway.’

‘Someone came for Roderick Ho the other night,’ Lamb said. He tucked his cigarette behind an ear. ‘He’s the one does my internet and stuff. And when I say “came for”, I mean, with guns.’

‘I presume they didn’t actually succeed.’

‘He was lucky enough to have the right pagan deity onside.’

‘Fortunate for him,’ said Molly. ‘But from what I’ve heard of your Mr Ho, you don’t require a shortlist of suspects as much as the electoral roll.’

‘There is that,’ said Lamb. ‘But as it happens, we know who it was. The same homicidal cretins who shot up that Derbyshire village.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Molly. ‘Stepped into something nasty, did he?’

‘And been treading it round on his shoe ever since. Course, he’s the last to notice.’

‘Where is he now?’

Lamb pointed floorwards.

‘But you don’t want to wait until they’ve finished wringing him out.’

‘He gave someone something. We know that much. The Watering Hole paper, Coe’s calling it.’

‘Mr Coe? I remember him. Pleasant young man.’

‘Yeah, he’s had a personality transplant since. Anyway, it’s a postwar planning document, some nonsense about destabilising a third world state, or developing nation, or whatever we call them now. Tinpot hellholes?’

‘I’m not sure that’s the PC term, but I think I know what you’re getting at. Where’s this paper come from?’

‘This is Ho we’re talking about. He snatched it out of the ether.’

‘Well, there you go. If it’s been digitised, it won’t be here. The point of putting records on the Beast is so they’re not taking up space elsewhere. The original will have long since been shredded.’

The Beast was Molly’s collective name for the assortment of databases the Service operated. She barely hid the hope that one day the whole vast edifice would crumble into spiralised landfill, leaving her realm the Service’s sole bank of reliable memory.

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Lamb. ‘Except.’ He scratched an ear, found a cigarette there, stared at it for a moment, then put it back. ‘Except I think there’s more than one version. The original was ancient, like I said. But at some point or other it was picked up and dusted off, which is how it ended up on a database. Might not have been put into play, but it was certainly on an agenda at least once in recent decades.’

‘So you’re thinking the original might still exist, because the one your boy snatched from the Beast was an updated version.’ She grimaced, and her nose twitched. ‘Could be,’ she said at last. ‘Especially if whoever updated it didn’t want it known they’d copied someone else’s homework.’

‘Excellent,’ said Lamb. ‘Couldn’t find it for me, could you?’

‘Well, of course. I mean, I’ve nothing better to do.’

‘That crew who shot up Abbotsfield? They’re using this thing as a blueprint.’

‘Oh dear,’ Molly said.

‘So, you know. A bit of legwork’d be appreciated.’

She sucked in breath, but after a moment in which detonation seemed possible she exhaled again, blinked slowly, and shook her head. ‘You just can’t help yourself, can you, Jackson?’

‘Well, be fair,’ he said. ‘You’re a sitting target.’

Someone appeared in the doorway, and they both turned, expecting Welles.

But it was Emma Flyte.

‘You are seriously starting to piss me off,’ she told Lamb.

Nobody was going anywhere, but that didn’t mean they had to stay where they were. Louisa, Shirley and Catherine departed to their own offices while awaiting Lamb’s return, each contemplating the possible blowback that might be – would be – was definitely heading Slough House’s way. For Shirley this meant taking the twist of coke from her pocket, picturing the rush she’d get were she to take it, and trying to find a compelling reason for not doing so. The only one she could summon was that if she took it now she couldn’t take it later, when she might have greater need. As for Louisa, she’d gone online; at first dipping into various dodgy forums, looking for Abbotsfield chatter, but ultimately giving this up and shopping for boots instead. She found a promising pair, maybe a little pointy-toed – she’d heard it said boots can’t be too pointy, but never by anyone she completely trusted – but hovered over the Buy Now button so long it started to feel like she’d contracted retail paralysis, a condition she’d always thought gender-specific. Christ, it was only money. She clicked, and enjoyed a brief endorphin release. Upstairs, Catherine was tidying places that were already tidy. Her office was like a chamber of her own mind: everything was where it ought to be, but keeping it so required constant vigilance. Across the landing was Lamb’s room, its door lazily ajar; in Lamb’s desk drawer was a bottle of whisky, and with no conscious effort – as if it were marked with a pencil – Catherine could recall exactly the level at which its contents stood. It was as if she were perpetually geared up for departure, and always knew where her nearest exit was. In case of emergency, grab glass. Or no, forget the glass; go straight for the bottle.

Still in their own room, River and Coe were picking at the evening’s scab.

‘I thought you dumped your phone out the car window.’

Coe said, ‘You only have one phone? Seriously?’

‘You keep the spare for dramatic gestures, right?’

River was remembering Coe tossing the phone at Louisa: You want to call the police? Go right ahead. Remembering the gesture, perhaps, because it was preferable to dwelling on the consequences had Louisa done precisely that.

He said, ‘The entire country is focused on an alleyway in Slough. Do you really think they’re not going to work out what happened there? Someone will have seen us. Even if there’s no CCTV, someone will have seen us. Ho’s car’ll be on camera entering and leaving town.’

‘Along with hundreds of others,’ said Coe. ‘Besides, there was a genuine bad guy there, remember? We were trying to protect Gimball.’

‘And a damn fine job we did.’

‘Stop bitching. He’ll be on camera too, and he won’t have the advantage of being a member of the Service. We were there to protect Gimball. He was there to hurt him.’

‘He might have his own story to tell though, mightn’t he?’

‘Yeah, well,’ said Coe. ‘That depends on whether he gets to tell it.’

‘… Are you serious?’

‘He looked like a player. Let’s face it, he was giving you trouble. So when a SWAT team comes through his door, what are the odds he’ll put up a fight?’ Coe made a facial shrug, mostly using his eyebrows. It was as much expression as River had ever seen him wearing, and meant, in this instance, Game Over.

‘There’ll be an investigation,’ he said. ‘Even if they arrest tattoo guy’s corpse, they won’t just leave it at that. They’ll piece things together.’

‘How long have you been doing this? There’ll be an official version of events. That’s what happens. And what really went down, if it’s inconvenient, will be buried.’

‘Yeah, but we’re not inconvenient,’ said River. ‘We’re Slough House. We’re pretty much made to measure, if they’re looking to hang someone. Not to mention,’ he added, ‘that you really did kill him. You know? So it’s not even a fit-up.’

‘We’re Service,’ said Coe. ‘Slough House or not. This gets public, it’ll go global in a heartbeat. Half the world will believe we were following orders. The other half’ll know it for a fact.’

‘You keep saying “we”,’ said River.

‘There’s a reason for that.’

River remembered again, second time in as many days, sharing this room with Sid Baker: that was the last time the office had heard this much conversation. Well, argument. He said, ‘We sit here much longer, I’m going to start throwing things through the window.’ Beginning with you, he didn’t say. ‘If you’re so keen on constructing a more favourable narrative, what’s your game plan?’

‘“Constructing a more favourable narrative”?’

‘I read the Guardian,’ said River. ‘Well, sometimes. Well, the cartoons.’

Coe said, ‘What happened today’s part of the Abbotsfield sequence. That’s the narrative. Tattoo guy, Zafar Jaffrey’s man – he’s mixed up in that bigger picture. We were trying to foil him.’

River realised Shirley was in the doorway, her left hand curled into a fist – gripping something – and her right leaning against the door frame.

‘Come up with a plan yet?’ she asked.

‘I was thinking, prayer,’ he said.

‘That’s your best option,’ she agreed. ‘But you’re still fucked.’

‘Yeah. But thanks for the pep talk.’

‘Want a Haribo?’

‘Is this your idea of constructive help? Because I have to tell you—’

‘You need to find Kim,’ she said.

‘Ho’s girlfriend?’

Shirley said, ‘She’s the one he passed the Watering Hole paper to. She’s the one with the connection to the Abbotsfield crew. Find her, you find them. Probably.’

Coe said, ‘Ho’s been at the Park all afternoon. Anything he can tell them about Kim he’ll have told them, in which case they’ll already have her or they can’t find her. Probably because she’s already dead.’

Shirley said, ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

‘What is?’

‘You get a lot perkier after killing someone.’ She tucked whatever she was holding into her jeans pocket. ‘Lamb’ll probably adopt it as office policy.’

Coe ignored her. To River, he said, ‘They tried to kill Ho. Stands to reason they’ll have cut the other loose thread by now.’

‘That’s what you would have done, is it?’ said Shirley.

‘What’s what who would have done?’ Louisa stepped past Shirley and came into the room.

River said, ‘Oh, we’re just discussing the office rota. You know, whose turn it is to wash up. Who Coe’s going to kill next. That sort of thing.’

‘We watched Kim the other night. She’s pretty fly,’ said Shirley.

‘I don’t speak disco.’

‘I mean, they tried to kill Ho, and couldn’t even manage that. And he can barely tie his laces. So I think they’d have had trouble whacking Kim. She seemed pretty … smart.’

Coe was looking something up: woman found dead in her London home. He read the headline out. Then said, ‘Black?’

‘Not Kim then,’ said Shirley.

Louisa said, ‘You’re thinking if we can find her we can trace the Abbotsfield crew.’

‘Or at least get some idea of what they might try next,’ said River.

‘Seize the media,’ said Shirley. ‘That could be anything. You’re basically seizing the media if you buy a newspaper these days.’

And now Catherine was with them. ‘Have you tried checking his phone?’

‘I assume it’s at the Park,’ said River. ‘With Ho.’

‘I think he’s got two.’

Coe gave River a told-you-so look.

Shirley said, ‘Yeah, but one of them might be a bit broken.’

‘If it’s still got its SIM card, we can use it,’ said Louisa.

But Ho’s broken phone – the one Shirley had sent flying the previous day, ‘saving his life,’ as she reminded them – provided no clues, even once they tracked it down to his desk drawer: Kim’s number, listed as ‘Kim (Girlfriend)’, yielded only that empty, echoless silence signalling unequivocal departure.

‘Told you she was fly,’ said Shirley.

‘Or dead,’ added Coe.

‘Either way,’ said Louisa, ‘our chances of finding her are like a one-legged man’s in an arse-kicking contest.’

‘Who organises those events, that’s what I want to know,’ Shirley complained. ‘And when are they gonna tighten up the entry criteria?’

Catherine said, ‘Any other bright ideas?’, and said it with the air of a primary school teacher scraping the barrel but keeping a brave face regardless.

‘They’re in a hurry,’ said River at last. ‘It’s all kicked off very quickly.’

‘Because they have no backup,’ Louisa said.

They looked at her, but Coe was nodding.

She went on, ‘They’re racing the clock so they get to the end before they’re caught. Because if they don’t finish the plan, nobody’s going to finish it for them.’

Catherine said, ‘That explains why they’ve taken shortcuts. The bomb on the train, that fizzled out. Ticking things off the list matters more than doing them right.’

‘So whatever media strike they’re planning, they’re going to implement it as soon as they possibly can.’

‘Which means it’s already been scheduled,’ said J. K. Coe.

‘Hardly narrows things down,’ River said.

But Shirley had brightened again. ‘We found them once,’ she said. ‘We can do it again.’

‘Remind me where we found them?’

‘They were in a van,’ she said stubbornly. ‘In Birmingham.’

‘Are you sure you were in Birmingham? You got back very fast.’

‘Louisa was driving.’

Louisa shrugged modestly.

Catherine said, ‘So let’s work on the assumption Kim’s still alive. She’s discovered she’s expendable, and she’s gone to ground. But she is, as Shirley claims, pretty smart. So where would she hide?’

‘The last place they’d look,’ said Louisa.

‘And where might that be?’

River said, ‘Ho’s place.’

11

THERE WERE STILL GLASS splinters in the gutter, their brief brilliance catching the eye when the angle was right, but the house itself was in darkness. The curtains were undrawn, though the big broken window had been boarded over, the resulting black eye adding to the air of vacancy. Crime scene tape sealed the door. It looked like a property about to succumb to dereliction: give it a week, River thought, it would be festooned with graffiti, and occupied by crusties, dogs and mice.

They’d arrived in the same two cars, Louisa’s and Ho’s. Same pairings, too. ‘Why split up a winning combination?’ Louisa had asked. River had spent the journey working on a comeback; now they were here, his attention was focused on the fact that the spare keys taped beneath Ho’s desk hadn’t included one for his front door. Shirley, though, was already forging ahead. River expected her to kick the door in, or headbutt it into submission. Instead, having ripped away the tape, she produced a set of keys and tried each in turn. The third worked.

‘… You’ve got keys to Ho’s house?’

‘They were Marcus’s.’

‘… Marcus had keys to Ho’s house?’

‘Duh.’ Shirley waggled the key ring. ‘Universals?’

Marcus hadn’t always kicked doors down. Sometimes he’d gone the quiet way.

They trooped into the house, and fell to whispering.

‘The Dogs have been,’ River said. This was obvious: there were traces of official, inquisitive presence – drawers hanging open; spaces where electrical equipment had sat. It was an article of faith that anything you could plug in could transmit data: even toasters weren’t above suspicion. Roderick Ho had had a lot of kit, and now he had a lot of empty shelves.

Louisa said, ‘Well, I damn well hope so. That’s their job.’

‘So if Kim was hiding here they’ll have her.’

‘Unless she waited until they’d been and gone.’

She’s a kid, River wanted to say, a club hustler, scamming idiots like Ho: what would she know about tradecraft? But he could feel his chest constricting again. His organs felt like they’d been wrenched a notch tighter. But he managed to say, ‘I’ll do upstairs.’

Louisa said, ‘Yeah, me too. Shirley, you clear down here. Coe – watch the door.’

It was halfway through River’s mind to ask how come Louisa was giving instructions, but his wiser angels hushed him. There were recent, compelling reasons why neither River nor Coe should be allowed unsupervised charge of a tin opener, and the idea of Shirley taking command: well. His wiser angels had better things to do than finish that sentence.

Louisa led the way, and they parted company on the landing; Louisa taking the door into Ho’s bedroom – which accounted for the appalled look she was wearing – and River heading into the sitting room with the big, now broken, window.

Someone had entered the room, so she made herself stiller than ever. She was a coat on a hanger, a folded-up sweatshirt; something you’d expect in a wardrobe: one glance, you’d turn away and close the door. And then she’d be alone in the dark, and before long could start to breathe once more.

The trick was to occupy a space just slightly smaller than yourself, and then to keep doing that, over and over. Once you were done you’d vanished, and nobody would find you ever again.

The floorboard creaked. Something opened and closed. There were only so many places a hider could hide; so many a searcher could search. The time left to her was measured in seconds, and she could feel them dropping away, slipping through the gap beneath the door. They were noisy seconds, and made fluttering noises; they would give her away.

It had been an unwise choice, Roddy Ho’s house. She’d have been better off risking the streets.

Kim clenched her fist, around which she’d wrapped a wire coat hanger, and waited.

In Ho’s kitchen, Shirley was thinking: This doesn’t get used much.

By the back door was a tower made of pizza boxes; next to it, an overflowing bag of plastic bottles: energy drinks, coke, some brand names she didn’t recognise. The fridge was huge but underused, though its freezer section contained more pizzas and two bags of oven chips, putting Shirley in mind of a corner shop on a Sunday evening. Mind you, her own fridge was nothing to boast about; its only hint of green was bottled beer. But it was a relief Ho lived down to her expectations. If he’d turned out a secret gourmet, with a stash of white truffle oil and unrecognisable vegetables, she’d have had trouble with it.

She’d already checked the people-sized hiding places, the cupboards and under-table areas. No sign of Kim. It was a long shot anyway. Sooner or later she’d be found in a bin bag, just as misshapen as the one full of bottles, but squashier, and starting to stink.

Shirley hoped not, but hoping was one thing and brutal truth another. You didn’t have to be a slow horse to pick that much up.

She opened a cupboard, expecting mugs or plates, spices or flour. It contained a lot of tins of beans. A lot.

In her pocket, Marcus’s keyring felt heavy. It was the first time she’d used his universal key set, a trophy she’d snatched from his desk drawer. She’d been hoping for his gun, but Lamb didn’t hang around when it came to snaffling dead men’s trifles. She’d thought at first that he’d left the keys because he hadn’t realised they were a housebreaking kit, had assumed they were Marcus’s spares, but it hadn’t been long before a more credible explanation occurred: Lamb hadn’t taken Marcus’s keys because he already had a set of his own. Fine by her. She still wished she’d been first to the gun, though.

As Marcus himself would have pointed out, there were times when a gun came in handy.

Bad as things were – her heart pumping so hard, the wardrobe was probably pulsing in time – they could have been worse. The wardrobe could have been a coffin. When she’d stood by the window in her own house, too late to launch herself through it, there had been no sensation like this, of time leaking away; instead, everything had come to a stop. It was Shin who came through the door, holding a gun. Kim’s bladder had given, a little, and in that moment she learned that a getaway bag was not enough. What she needed was a second life, in which none of this had happened … She was not a good person, but she blamed this on circumstances: she was surrounded by victims, and whose fault was that? There were two kinds of men, she had long ago determined; the kind you could use as money-pumps, and they’d chalk it off to experience; and those who spat blood and came looking. One or two had found her. She’d not survive many encounters like that.

But Shin and his crew had been different. They’d known who she was, what she did, and it was clear their information came from some higher agency. There’d always been rumours about girls being recruited by the intelligence services: honeytraps were a popular device, and girls like Kim were honey. But she’d put it down to urban myth, generated by the girls themselves, to whom it lent mystery: they weren’t just mattress ornaments but players in a high-stakes game. The last thing she’d expected was to discover that she’d crossed paths with an actual spook. Even more gobsmacking was that this was Roddy Ho, whom she’d been fleecing for months without breaking a sweat. It might even have been funny, if Shin’s group hadn’t made clear the consequences of rejecting their advances. There was family in North Korea; aunts and uncles she’d never seen. A cousin with two infants – they’d shown her photos. These people could have been anyone, and blood relations, well – Kim’s life had not been made happier by the blood relations she knew. She thought she could live with the discomforts suffered by strangers.

Then they had shown her a mirror; her own face, its many small perfections.

If it had been easy persuading Ho to steal from credit card companies, it was a cakewalk having him plunder secrets. By the time she’d given him the code number of the file she wanted, he was convinced that poaching it was his own idea.

She had known, of course, that delivering the file to Shin would not be the end of the story; that once honeytraps were sprung, someone came to wipe away the honey. So her timing was off, getting caught at the window; she should have disappeared already, and be lying low elsewhere. But she was a London girl. Any other city, and she’d be game rather than huntress. And besides, there were only two kinds of men, and Kim never played one end when she could be playing both.

She had stood by the window, her getaway bag a lump on the lawn below, and made her mouth the right shape to greet Shin, who had come through the door holding a gun.

‘Thank God it’s you!’ she had said, and reached for him.

A car moved down the street at average speed, and though Coe took a tighter grip on the blade in his pouch, he gave no outward reaction. The driver studied him anyway, by the glow of the nearest streetlight. The neighbourhood would have been well aware that something had been going on in Ho’s house. Last night a body hurled through a window, and shots fired; today, black vans removing most of Ho’s possessions. But anyone curious enough to have approached the Dogs would have had their fingers nipped. That kind of word got round fast.

And even if it hadn’t, thought Coe, I am a bad man. Approach at your peril.

Oh shit had been his reaction when he saw the paint can hit Gimball. It hadn’t been pretty. But what he mostly thought now was how swiftly he’d got his act together; nearly as quickly as tattoo guy, who’d been away faster than a cat could blink. Even having to climb down two ladders, Coe hadn’t been far behind; collecting Cartwright, who was cartoon-stunned; propelling them both to the car. He was pretty sure nobody had seen them emerge from the alley. Which didn’t mean they were in the clear, but at least he’d won some breathing space.

And Cartwright thought they were on borrowed time, but Coe knew that one thing the Service liked tightly wrapped was a fuck-up. London Rules meant build your walls high, and the order in which you chucked your people over them was in inverse proportion to their usefulness. So as long as he was more useful than Cartwright, he’d not be first in line to be pitched over the wall. Coe didn’t feel great about thinking this way, but he did feel alive, and that was the first priority. You were all in this together until you weren’t. That was also London Rules.

And another thing he wondered about was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed: was that how he’d come off this evening? When he’d joined the Service he’d been in Psych Eval, which had involved evaluating operational strategies for psychological impact – on targets as well as agents – but had also meant carrying out individual assessments; who was stressed, who’d benefit from a change of routine, and who was a psychopath. Every organisation had a few, usually at management level, and it was handy to know who they were in case there was an emergency, or an office party. J. K. Coe had become adept at recognising the signs, but perhaps he should have been taking a hard look at himself, especially since his own trauma. Maybe that had opened a door into his dark, one never since closed. And that was why he reached for his knife every time he was startled; why taking a life left him feeling buoyed, and in control. If he’d been writing a report for his own Psych Eval folder, half of it would have been in green ink.

But J. K. Coe thought that was probably okay. Everyone needed an edge. This was his.

The car had gone; the street was dark and quiet. His blade was where it ought to be.

Behind him, in Ho’s house, something clattered and someone shrieked.

A floorboard creaked again, and Kim readied for flight.

On her first approach to Ho’s house, there’d been activity; a black van, and serious-looking men loading Roddy’s computer equipment into the back of it. There was broken glass on the pavement, and a couple of chunks carved out of the brickwork. From the back of last night’s cab she’d called Shin and said He’s home alone and Make it quick? He’s harmless. Had she really thought it would be painless? The important thing was that it hadn’t been happening to her. Those were the rules of the game: number one came first and foremost.

And just for insurance, she’d tended Shin from the outset.

You’re in charge, aren’t you?

The others have to do what you say.

You’re not like them …

None of them were ever like anybody else. That was what men liked to hear about: the many ways in which they were unique.

Kim had walked straight past the black van; found a café to nest in for the afternoon, and had returned to find the house in darkness. She’d let herself in with the key Roddy had given her, then lain on the bed, planning her next move.

He was probably dead. They’d probably killed him. Would have killed her, too, if she hadn’t played Shin. You’re in charge, you’re not like them. This had been necessary, not least because she was frightened of Danny, who had a dangerous look. And it had paid off, because Shin had let her leave; had watched her drop through the bedroom window, visibly swelling with the promises she’d made him. They’d be together, once this was all over. She would wait for him. They would fuck happily ever after.

But for every trick that paid off, there was another left you in the dust. So here she was, crouching in a wardrobe, and there was somebody out there – any number of somebodies. If it were Shin and co., the same ploy wouldn’t work twice. Shin on his own, she could shape like putty. Shin with the others watching would be a different story.

But she didn’t think that was who was in Ho’s house now.

Waiting, ready, she tightened her fingers round the wire hanger; reshaped and wrapped around her fist, its hook straightened to a jabbing point.

If someone else’s eye was the cost of her freedom, that was fine by her.

There was a draught, because the board that had been wedged over the broken pane didn’t fit properly. River prised it aside, and let dark air waft across his face. If he’d had the sense to have parents like Ho’s, perhaps they’d have kitted him out with a property too, with a front door of his own, and neighbours who were occasionally visible during daylight hours. But the thought of his mother gifting him a deposit on an ordinary house in an ordinary street almost made him smile. No, his family support came in the shape of the O.B., support that was rotting away now, had rotted away, would give any moment, and then just be a memory of timber: something that was strong and upright and always there, until it wasn’t. Well, at least he’d be spared knowing about the god-almighty fuck-up River had been part of today. That was when you knew things were bad; when your grandfather’s mental slippage was a silver lining.

He came away from the window. There wasn’t much here, now Roddy’s toys had been carted away. A brisk, efficient job the Dogs had made of it; nice to know, given they’d soon be doing the same for him. Well, good luck with that. You could pile most of what he owned into a skip without anyone deeming it a waste. No, the real waste was his career, which had turned out to have a damp fuse attached; so much so that the thoughts he’d had earlier, about walking away, themselves seemed a pipe dream now. Once the Park had taken stock of the day’s events, he’d either be offered up as a sacrifice or swept under a carpet. And again it gripped him, behind his ribs: cold panic. He didn’t dare check his phone to see what the news was saying; at the same time, he wanted to hear somebody’s voice, someone on his side. His mother? Hardly. His grandfather? He’d need a stronger signal than his phone was capable of. So who else – his father? But Frank was a renegade with blood on his hands, and River might kill him if the opportunity arose.

So there was only the here and the now; there was only this moment. Until it all fell apart, and the Dogs came and dragged him away, he’d keep on with the matter in hand, searching for someone who might be dead, which felt like the story of his life. He dropped to one knee and checked under the sofa, which was far too low to be a hiding place, but allowed him to feel he was doing something. And then rose at a crash from across the landing, and a startled shout: Louisa.

Ho’s room was heavy with an acrid, non-specific odour which, caught and bottled, would probably kill rodents, or old people. Louisa was breathing carefully. On any list of rooms she was never likely to find herself in, this one was right behind Benedict Cumberbatch’s, though for diametrically opposite reasons. Still, at least Ho wasn’t here. Just the evidence of his being: the Anime posters on the walls; the clutch of dirty mugs on the floor, rimed with chocolatey sludge.

She didn’t want to think about the used tissues blossoming between them, like failed, discarded attempts at origami.

The bed was wide, its sheets dark blue, its duvet cover brown. Seriously, thought Louisa. She dropped to her knees, checked under the bed. More discarded Kleenex roses; enough dust bunnies to dehydrate Watership Down. There’d been a bedside lamp, but it was gone – you’d think the Dogs were running a boot sale on the sly – but there were drawers in the table it had sat upon, and Louisa looked through these. Okay, so Kim wasn’t likely to be hiding in one, but how often did chances like this crop up? Not that Ho would conceal anything interesting by putting it in a drawer: his life would be parcelled into bite-sized data chunks, and distributed among the laptops and drives that were now visible only by the marks they’d left behind; the dusty outlines of removed hardware. It would all be back at the Park now; like Ho, in the process of being dismantled. Chances were, it would never be put back together again. Whether this went for Ho too was a thought Louisa didn’t dwell on, though she was conscious of a rare flash of empathy for her colleague, who had been useful on occasions, if likeable on fewer. But who was she to talk? She’d not gone out of her way to make Slough House a happier place. She’d made efforts with River, true, but Jesus: after today, the one-time Most Likely To Succeed was well and truly holed below the waterline. What they were doing here, a pointless search for a probably dead witness, was basically marking time: River and Coe were fucked, and it would take a miracle for the rest of them to survive the morning-after recriminations.

So thinking, she opened the wardrobe drawer, and a demon burst out, its right fist a thin metal spike it jabbed straight at Louisa’s face.

The last thing she’d ever see from her left eye was a screaming witch with a pointy fist: that so nearly came true, it haunted Louisa’s sleep for weeks. But she jerked her head aside in time and stepped backwards, her left foot coming down on one of Ho’s discarded mugs, which broke beneath her heel and sent her pitching to the floor. She shouted as she fell, and saw from a crazy angle, like a fragment of jigsaw puzzle, River appear in the bedroom doorway.

There was no time for strategy, only for action. The woman who’d opened the wardrobe door was out of the game; the following second, a man had joined her. Kim had hit him full tilt: her head, his stomach. He was lean enough – it wasn’t like butting a pillow – but her head was harder, and full of bad thoughts. He staggered back and Kim whipped under his outstretched arm and took the stairs four at a time; more of a controlled fall than a mannered descent, but even so another figure materialised before she’d reached the bottom and grabbed her collar so her feet left the floor. The pair collapsed in a heap, and Kim slashed wildly behind with her makeshift weapon, catching flesh and hearing an outraged squawk from the barrel-shaped creature who’d caught her. The grip loosened. Kim was on her feet immediately, opening the front door. From overhead there was noise, numbers one and two getting upright and coming after her, but she was outside now, on the street, and here was another one: a man in a hoodie, a dangerous odour coming off him. He was reaching into his pouch and Kim couldn’t have that, she knew what men like this reached for, and she slashed again, the wire hanger a diagonal flash in the night air. He jerked back but she caught his chin: a few drops of blood kissed her face. No time to worry about that, because he’d recovered already, had grabbed her arm, and for a moment it was over; the three in the house were regrouping now, and this one had her in his grip, but it required no thought for Kim to do what she did next, which was knee him in the balls: a traditional move but it still had legs, and he folded immediately. Free from his grasp, she headed down the street at speed.

Go to ground. Find a corner, occupy it. Lose the coat hanger, which makes you look crim.

Without slowing she wriggled her hand from the hanger, which fell to the pavement like a discarded Easter crown. She crossed the road, ran past a line of parked vehicles to the junction, and was about make a sharp left when a car door swung open in front of her. Kim smacked into it, bounced back, and hit the ground so hard that all the bones in her body lit up like fairy lights.

Something heavy emerged and stood over her; an awful beast about to shatter its prey.

‘I’m strictly anti-chauvinist, as you know,’ it said. ‘But I do like to open a door for a lady.’

But Kim had stopped listening by then.

12

WHELAN MADE SOME PHONE calls, and while he spoke, while he listened, watched the boys and girls on the hub. One young woman in particular he kept an eye on; purely paternal – she resembled a young Claire – but his gaze tightened if she leaned across her desk to address a colleague, or bent to a drawer. There was a blank space in Claude Whelan’s memory. He kept it that way. If someone had taxed him with the details of that long-ago night, the conversation with the girl on the corner, the appearance of the plain-clothes officer, the hours in custody before it was all made to go away, he’d have been genuinely puzzled for a moment, unable to remember whether it had happened to him or been something he’d read about, so hard had he tamped the episode down. A blip, he’d have said, if pressed. A regrettable lapse, long behind him. He was content with Claire, with their perfect marriage, and if her interest in the physical side had waned from not very to nothing, that was a small price to pay for her constant support.

Jackson Lamb, of course, had ferreted out the details; had dangled them in front of Claude like a dog with a kill, its mouth full of feathers, but all he appeared to want was that Claude leave him and his alone.

For the time being, that would have to do.

Whelan spoke to the editor of Dodie Gimball’s paper; then to that paper’s lawyer; then to a Service lawyer, and then to the paper’s editor again. That second conversation was fairly short. When he had all the details he needed he rang the number the editor had at last given him, and spoke to a man named Barrett, whose rich voice it was a pleasure to listen to. Barrett, a former cop, carried out investigative work for the paper, a necessary gap in the news-gathering process now that most journalists rarely ventured beyond Twitter and the nearest Nespresso machine. Barrett relayed the details of his job for Dodie Gimball without hesitation, repetition or deviation. When he’d finished Whelan thanked him and disconnected. Then resumed staring through his glass wall.

The PM was not going to be happy.

Night keeps its head down during daylight hours, but it’s always there, always waiting, and some open their doors to it early; allow it to sidle in and bed down in a corner. Molly Doran was among this number. She had become a creature of the dark, the brightest hour she felt comfortable in the violet one, and had long ago washed up in this windowless kingdom some floors below where Claude Whelan sat. Home was a ground-floor apartment in a new build, a twenty-minute taxi ride away, but that was simply a box she hid in when custom deemed it necessary. Here was where she felt alive, especially now, on the late shift, when night was out of its basket and prowling behind her as she propelled herself along the aisles.

There were rows and rows of files in her archive, each containing lives; there were operations minutely recounted, whose details would never be open to the public, and she was fine with that. It was called the Secret Service for a reason. Transparency and openness were for pressure groups to bleat about, but Molly Doran knew that much of what keeps us safe should be kept hidden. The appetites that keep democracy alive can be unseemly. There were stories here to make liberals combust, and while Molly occasionally felt she could have done with the warmth, such a bonfire might easily get out of control.

Sometimes she spoke to her files.

‘So, my dears,’ she said aloud. ‘What are we looking for tonight?’

They didn’t answer, of course. She wasn’t insane. But she spoke to the world gathered round her the way shut-ins might speak to their walls; it was another way of talking to herself, of underlining her presence.

‘The watering hole,’ she said. ‘Such a quaint turn of phrase.’

Quaint, in this case, meaning old; postwar, but old.

Her chair made little noise. She often wondered, were she to get down on hands and useless knees, whether she’d detect grooves in the floor from her years of ceaseless trundling. Didn’t matter any more. They’d be ejecting her soon – another six weeks; no need to work your notice; why not take a little holiday? – fuck them. What did they think, she’d go surfing? The idea had occurred that she could simply refuse to go, and lock herself in, but there was a lack of dignity in that; she’d become the wrong sort of legend. Better to exit on her own terms.

‘Let’s start here, shall we?’

Here being the late fifties, and some never-implemented contingency plans, strategies, adventures, from the fag end of empire.

Hardly worth saying that the hunt she was on was a sacking offence. Jackson Lamb was so much persona non grata that Regent’s Park practically amounted to a no-Jacksons club, and even if he hadn’t been there were protocols, none of which involved having someone just turn up and beg a favour. So the whole six-weeks’-notice-and-why-not-have-a-skiing-break? could turn out to be moot: one slip-up now and being dumped on the pavement without fanfare would be the upside, inasmuch as prison would also be possible. Molly Doran didn’t fancy prison much.

But nor did she like being handed her cards by Diana Taverner. Not that Lady Di had made an appearance herself, but her fingerprints were all over this: Taverner mistrusted the eccentric, her definition of which covered anyone whose vision didn’t coincide with her own. Though if she’d ever spent time here among the records, she’d know it was the eccentrics and fantasists, the borderline cases, who’d always flown the Service’s flag highest.

Besides: Jackson Lamb. The temptation to hand him whatever rope he was looking for was not one to shrug off easily. Sooner or later he’d wind up swinging from it – nobody could be Jackson Lamb forever without paying the price – but the certain knowledge that aiding him would give Lady Di the screaming abdabs was good enough for Molly Doran. She had a sudden image of Lamb’s carcass dangling from a gibbet. The reek of it would empty buildings. But he wouldn’t have it any other way, she knew. After half a lifetime battling the forces of oppression, he’d spent the second half revenging himself on a world that had fucked up anyway. If things had gone otherwise, he might have been something to behold. As it was, he was a spectacle; just not the kind to draw admiring glances.

Easy to spiral away into such thoughts. Her days and weeks, her years, down here; so many of them had been lost to flights of fancy, her earthbound wheels notwithstanding. It was as if the files were slowly leaking; gracing the air with secret histories, with private visions.

‘It’s Regent’s Park,’ she reminded herself now. ‘Not bloody Hogwarts.’

So saying, she reached out and plucked from the shelf the first of the night’s treasures.

She was alone in the car, and this was what grief meant. Grief meant being alone in the car.

Would she remember that, or should she make a note for future reference?

Technically, Dodie Gimball supposed, she wasn’t alone, because of the driver, but such were the details art skimmed over. Her husband was dead, and she was alone in the car, and evermore would be. Her lifemate had been destroyed – here one moment, gone the next. What was she to do now?

There were lights behind her, lights ahead; the police escort was running without sirens, but both cars were flashing their blues, and the BMW’s interior pancaked in and out of colour. Every so often, too, it blurred, as tears filled Dodie’s eyes, but the outpour never came. It was as if a valve had stuck, refusing to allow the free passage of water.

Dennis was gone. They had killed him. They would pay.

Nobody had been able to tell her what had happened. It was ‘under investigation’. It was ‘too soon to tell’. The area had been cordoned off, and there’d been a roadblock in place when her motorcade exited Slough, but all of that was not for her ears, not for her eyes. Under any other circumstances she’d have blown a dozen different holes through the careers of everyone in earshot, but tonight she felt powerless. This was grief; grief was being alone in the car. But it was something else too, something she hadn’t got to the bottom of yet.

Her last words to Dennis had been If you get caught, you’re never borrowing my Manolos again. And that was that.

This, too, would benefit from a rewrite. As I embraced him, I had a strange presentiment, of a kind I’ve only ever once had before, when my beloved grandmother – no, grandfather – grandmother – sod it, the interns can handle the details. ‘I love you, my darling.’ I’ll always be glad those were the last words I …

The blue light in front slowed, drew to a halt.

Her own car followed suit.

They were on Western Avenue. Up ahead, lights picked out the Hoover Building, under reconstruction. On the road, red fireflies streamed into central London; here, blue lights looped slowly fore and aft of her, and she was stationary in a layby, and the driver was saying something: it included the word ma’am.

‘… What?’

‘I’ve been asked to pull over.’

‘… What?’

‘You have a visitor.’

And then the driver was leaving, and she truly was alone in the car.

‘How did you know where to find us?’

Lamb sighed. ‘Give me credit. You were clearly going to be looking for the girl, and where else would she be hiding?’

‘Also, I told him,’ said Catherine.

‘Well, if you want to get technical.’

Kim – Roddy Ho’s girlfriend – was flat on her back on the office floor with everyone gathered round her, the spectrum of concern to indifference running from Catherine Standish at one end to Jackson Lamb so far off the other, he was barely visible. ‘Timing,’ he’d said more than once. ‘Now that was timing.’

‘There might have been gentler ways of accosting her.’

‘Yeah, right.’ He surveyed the assembled: J. K. Coe with a slashed chin; Shirley Dander with a torn earlobe; Louisa and River both moving gingerly. ‘Because you lot handled her with such fucking panache.’

The conversation with Catherine had taken place over the phone in Welles’s car, after they’d left the Park; Flyte and Welles up front, Lamb sprawled in the back.

‘We need to find the girl,’ Flyte had said.

‘I know.’

‘If they haven’t killed her yet.’

Traffic was light. London wore its evening gown: glittering sequins and overstuffed purse. Some nights it looked like an empress in rags. Tonight it was a bag lady in designer clothes.

Lamb had said, ‘I’d have killed her. But these numbnuts had two goes at Ho and barely bruised his ego. Given that a five-year-old could take him down with a walnut whip, I don’t have much faith in their abilities.’ Before she could reply he shifted his bulk, and the seating squeaked indignantly. ‘I can’t help noticing you’re in the car.’

‘As are you,’ said Flyte, pinching the tip of her nose briefly.

‘Well, I’m hardly walking home, am I? But what’s your excuse?’

‘You think I should be jogging?’

‘I think you should be in your office, making your report. Yet here you are.’ He scratched his ear, and when he’d finished, he was holding a cigarette. ‘Because you’re in this up to your neck now, and so’s Cornwall here.’

‘Devon.’

‘Whatever. You fucked up, and he had your back at the wrong moment.’ Lamb glanced towards Welles. ‘Bet you’re wishing you never answered your phone.’

Welles ignored him.

Flyte said, ‘Gimball’s dead.’

‘Boo hoo. Shall we buy a teddy bear, tie it to a lamp post?’

‘You said he was in danger. If I hadn’t ignored that, it might have turned out differently.’

Lamb eased back. ‘When they reassign you, I’m gonna put you in with Cartwright,’ he said. ‘You’ve bumped heads before, I seem to recall.’

‘I’ll shoot myself first.’

‘I’ve a gun you can borrow.’

That was when his phone had buzzed: Catherine Standish, with the latest from Slough House.

While Lamb was talking, Flyte said to Welles, ‘When I asked you to cover for me, I didn’t know things were going to hell. I’m sorry. You’re still off duty. You can walk away now.’

Welles said, ‘I signed Lindsay Lohan here into the Park. There’ll be questions about that.’

Flyte thought for a while, then settled on a one-size-fits-all response. ‘Shit.’

‘It’s not so bad at my gaff,’ Lamb said, ending his call. ‘We have a new kettle.’

‘You’re enjoying this.’

‘It’s called a positive attitude,’ said Lamb. ‘Watch and learn. Oh, and Hampshire? Change of plan. My team think the girl’s at Ho’s house.’

‘Alive?’

‘Too early to say. Their last search and rescue didn’t work out so well. Worth a trip, though.’

Welles pulled into a layby. ‘We should head back to the Park,’ he said. ‘Lay it all out for Whelan or whoever.’

‘Yeah, not a great idea,’ said Lamb. ‘Remember?’

Flyte rolled her eyes. ‘What now?’

But it was Welles who answered. ‘When they came for the blueprint, they knew what they were looking for. They had inside info.’

‘Shit,’ she said again.

‘Which means someone’s been a bad apple,’ said Lamb. ‘Be nice to know who before we go waltzing in like Little Red Riding Crop.’

‘Hood.’

‘Different movie.’ He looked at Welles. ‘You gonna sit there all night?’

‘Depends on what my boss says.’

‘Did you train him with a stick? Or send him to school?’

Flyte said, ‘If they had inside info, how come they needed Ho?’

‘Just one of the many things we’re not gonna find out sitting here.’

‘I screwed up,’ she said. ‘That happens around you a lot, doesn’t it? Like gravitational pull. And I’ll take the rap. But I don’t plan to spend the rest of tonight in a room next to Roddy Ho. Not if there’s a chance we might track these bastards down.’

So they’d headed to Ho’s house instead, arriving there, as Lamb hadn’t yet tired of saying, with impeccable timing.

Now, in Slough House, Catherine knelt to hand another paper tissue to Kim, who snatched it and pressed it to her nose. The nine that Shirley, Louisa and River had granted her the previous evening was looking more like a three and a half now she’d been slam-dunked by a car door; maybe a four, Shirley conceded, if you were into that kind of thing, ‘that kind of thing’ being bruised and swelling features. Mental note: don’t land on your face, she thought. Not from any kind of height. Height was about the only physical thing Shirley had in common with Kim. Well, that and, presumably, a yearning for medication, though in Kim’s case that would be a current predicament rather than an ongoing condition.

‘Has she said much yet?’ Lamb asked.

‘You’ve been standing right there,’ Catherine reminded him.

‘Yeah, I might have drifted off,’ he said. ‘On account of I can see up her skirt.’

Catherine straightened Kim’s clothing.

Emma Flyte said, ‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s purely academic interest. But do you plan to pull a gun on her and cuff her to a chair?’

‘Twice in one day? Not without medical supervision.’

Kim, still prone, swore at him. She’d been doing this at intervals since coming round in the car on the way to Slough House.

‘We should take her to hospital,’ said River again, his tone indicating that he didn’t hold out much hope of being listened to.

‘Yeah, we could do that,’ said Lamb. ‘Or you could shut up.’

Louisa said, ‘It’s gone midnight.’

‘If I wanted the speaking clock, I’d have dialled your number.’

‘I was just pointing out, it’s a new day. And it seems we’re set on making it even worse than the old one.’

‘You were a Gimball fan?’

‘I’m a fan of not worrying that we’re all about to be arrested.’

‘I’m starting to sense a guilty conscience.’ Lamb looked at River, then Coe, on whom his gaze lingered. ‘Wonder whose it could be?’

Welles said, ‘If she’s got a line to the crew that shot up Abbotsfield, we should be asking her questions. Not watching her bleed out.’

‘I might have misjudged you, Dorset,’ Lamb told him. ‘Though as spectator sports go, I’ve heard worse ideas.’ He dropped to his knees. ‘Let’s be clear about this,’ he said to Kim, and though he spoke softly, nobody had any trouble hearing every word. ‘We know what you’ve done, and we know what happened as a result. You’ll tell us everything we want to know, or your life as a free woman is over as of tonight. That clear enough?’

‘Fuck you,’ she told him through gritted teeth.

‘That was gonna be your second option.’

‘Jackson …’ Catherine warned.

‘Yeah, all right. Jesus. When did making a joke get to be a criminal offence?’ He got back on his feet and turned to Emma Flyte. ‘There you go. I’ve warmed her up for you.’

‘You’re going to let me do this?’

‘You’re supposed to be the expert.’

She knew better than to congratulate him on his attack of common sense. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘the rest of you can clear out.’

Which, once they’d looked to Lamb for confirmation, they all did.

As she approached the Gimball woman’s car, Di Taverner’s mobile rang and she paused on the edge of the layby to take it. Traffic was light, but moving fast, and she had to speak, to listen, against a background of engine noise.

‘We’ve confirmation of a known face at Slough.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Picked up on CCTV in the town centre, minutes after the news of the death came in.’

‘Quick work.’

‘He rang bells on the face recognition software, on account of being highly decorated.’

For a moment, Taverner’s mind swam with images of valour. ‘He’s a soldier?’

‘An ex-con. With facial tattoos.’

The speed limit, and possibly a local record, was just then broken by a passing hothead.

Taverner waited until it had echoed into the distance before saying, ‘Let’s leave the imagery aside, shall we, and stick to the facts?’

The Queens of the Database, as the Park’s comms and surveillance tribe were known, were prone to sporting verbal fascinators; one of the consolations, they claimed, for not getting out much.

‘Sorry, ma’am.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Name of Tyson Bowman. He’s an aide to Zafar Jaffrey, who’s—’

‘I know who Jaffrey is. Any idea why he was in Slough tonight?’

‘Not yet. The police have barely started trawling their captures. We got this sooner because Jaffrey’s flagged, and any associates light up the circuits.’

The CCTV feeds had been supplied to the Park, the theory being that any hits would be shared immediately. Everyone knew this rarely happened, though the reason wasn’t usually policy driven; was more often due to information snagging on the red tape that dangled on jurisdictional borders like flypaper.

She said, ‘Okay. Was Jaffrey in Slough too?’

‘No. He was addressing a meeting in Birmingham.’

‘Okay,’ she said again. ‘Let’s see if we can organise a pick-up without the locals getting into a tizzy. It’s probably a coincidence. But.’

‘I’ll see who’s within range. Shame he didn’t flag earlier. We had a pair on the ground.’

Taverner, who’d been about to disconnect, held her thumb. ‘… What?’

‘A pair of agents in Slough. They flagged too.’

‘I see,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes, that is a shame. Remind me who they were?’

Up close, the girl didn’t resemble the younger Claire as much as he’d thought; was narrower of feature, with skin ever so slightly pitted where adolescence had left its cruel marks. But even if you stripped away all other reference points, the facts remained that she was young, she was female, and that was enough to provoke certain memories. And there was this, too: he’d summoned her and she’d come. Sometimes, that was all it took.

‘Sir?’

‘Josie.’

She waited. ‘… Was there something you needed?’

Whelan blinked and recovered himself. ‘A man called Blaine, goes by Dancer. He runs a stationer’s somewhere near St Paul’s, but it’s a cover for various … activities, I’m told. Is he on our books?’

‘I can find out.’

‘Good girl. I mean, thank you.’

He watched through the wall as she returned to her desk at a trot and began harvesting information: a digital rake, a digital scythe. He noticed how her blouse protested when she stretched; how she bit her bottom lip in concentration, and his throat clicked.

There was someone in his doorway.

‘… Yes?’

‘This for you, sir.’

This was a transcript of the interrogation of Roderick Ho.

Whelan frowned when he saw the name at the top: Emma Flyte? Wasn’t she supposed to be at Slough House? It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, but he was alone again, the transcript’s bearer having slipped back into anonymity.

He scanned the pages. Ho was a slow horse – all branches of the Service went by one unofficial name or another; Whelan himself was a weasel; but the slow horses were different, their name tinged with contempt – and like the others of his type, his brief bio was a study in decline. From Regent’s Park to Slough House; a distance that could be walked in a brisk thirty minutes, though the return journey was unclockable, because nobody had ever made it. Oddly, though, there appeared to be no defining blot on his copybook. Exile was usually preceded by some catastrophic performance failure; Ho was simply assigned there, as if he’d been misaddressed in the first place, and his re-delivery a simple correction of error.

Which wasn’t the point. Whatever had sent Ho to Slough House, he clearly belonged there, because the honeytrap he’d fallen into was ludicrously familiar. If the Park ever got round to producing a training manual in comic-book form, here was its template: a bar-girl latching on to a keyboard warrior whose sex life probably depended on a Wi-Fi connection. And having got what they wanted, the girl’s controllers evidently decided to eliminate him, which was where Ho bucked the odds by getting lucky. But what the hell had they been after, anyway?

Josie was back, panting a little, but Whelan barely noticed. He’d focused on two pieces of information on the typescript in front of him, the first of which concerned the girl. A UK citizen, but of North Korean descent.

The second was the nature of the document Ho had passed her way.

‘… Sir?’

It took him a moment to swim back to the here and now.

‘You wanted to know about Dancer Blaine,’ Josie said.

‘… Did I?’

‘Are you all right, sir?’

‘Do you know,’ Whelan said, ‘I’m not entirely sure.’

‘Your name’s Kim Park. You’re Roderick Ho’s girlfriend, or passing as. And he supplied you with documents you subsequently dealt to some very bad actors. You’ve been aiding and abetting terrorism, Kim. You know what the penalty for that is?’

‘Fuck you.’

While her nose was a mess, and her eyes black and swollen, the girl’s mouth was intact and functioned fine. Underneath the hostility, though, Emma Flyte could hear fear. Hard case or not, she was young and she was damaged. And Flyte didn’t feel good about pressing down on a fracture; on the other hand, this kid had greased the wheels on a series of events that had the entire country reeling. Having a car door bashed in her face was about as gentle a reception as she could currently expect.

‘This isn’t going to last long, because if I don’t get answers within five minutes, I’m washing my hands. The next crew who come for you – and it will be a crew – they’ll be rougher than me. They see a young girl like you withholding information and they light up like football players at a roast. I think you know what I’m saying. There are different ways of doing this, but all of them end with you spilling everything you know. Your choice.’

‘This is England,’ the girl said. ‘They can’t do that. So fuck you.’

‘This is England, and a few days ago a village got shot up by the bastards you’ve been playing show and tell with. Maybe you had reasons for going along with them. Maybe they threatened you, threatened your family. But you might as well hear this now because you’ll certainly hear it later. It makes no difference to anyone what forces were brought to bear. Not to anyone. As far as the rest of us are concerned, you might as well have been there yourself, Kim. You might as well have been pulling a trigger.’

‘I was nowhere near.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Never did, in legal terms, and less than ever in the current climate. All you can do now is cooperate, in the hope it gets less nasty down the road. Tell me you understand that. And don’t say—’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Four minutes. The clock’s running, Kim.’

‘Fuck you.’

But the fear was getting louder.

She was alone in the car, but only for moments. When the door opened, a woman climbed in and joined her on the back seat. She was about Dodie’s age, and wearing it without obvious surgical assistance. Her shoulder-length hair was chestnut brown, and her suit Chanel, dark-blue or black; her blouse crimson. She nodded at Dodie and said something. Dodie had to ask her to say it again.

She said, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘Who are you? What are you doing in my car?’

‘My name’s Diana Taverner.’ She paused, as if anticipating recognition. ‘And I’m sorry to interrupt your journey, but it’s important that we speak.’

‘Are you with the police?’ But even as she was asking the question, Dodie was answering herself: shaking her head; an angry denial. ‘No. No, you’re not, are you? You’re MI5.’

‘I can’t confirm my precise role, but yes, I’m with the security services.’ She flashed a card which might have been a John Lewis gift token for all Dodie took in. ‘And we need to talk about what just happened.’

‘My husband was murdered.’

‘Your husband died, yes, and I’m very sorry about that. But the cause of death is yet to be established. And it won’t benefit anyone, least of all yourself, if rumours start to circulate.’

‘They’re already circulating!’

Dodie Gimball hadn’t meant to shout, but it seemed she had as little control of her volume as she did of her tear ducts.

‘Here!’

She showed her phone to this woman, this Taverner woman. A Twitter feed, a trending hashtag. An orchestra of outraged lament, screaming blue murder.

‘See?’

‘I know.’ Diana Taverner leaned back in the seat, but kept her eyes on Dodie. She said, ‘I’d as soon seek information from a wasps’ nest. What happened could have been an accident. It could have been natural causes. Nobody can be sure yet. All we know for certain is that it’s now open season on your husband’s life and career, and if you want to honour his memory, and your own career to prosper, you’ve got to be very careful about which donkey you start pinning tails on.’

‘My Dennis was a great man! His life will be celebrated—’

‘And accompanied by photos which will be less than flattering, Dodie. You know the kind I mean.’

Beside them, on the road into London, traffic hissed its displeasure.

‘So here we are,’ said Dodie. ‘My husband dead a few hours, and already you’re back with your nasty threats. Do you know how many people share the same … tastes as Dennis? Do you really think it matters?’

‘I don’t, as it happens. Not one bit. But the people who read your column do, Dodie. Even those who read it wearing their wives’ underwear. You’ll have heard all this from Claude Whelan already. It doesn’t matter how innocent it is, it doesn’t matter that nobody gets hurt, or that it’s nobody else’s business. There’s only one slant a newspaper like yours is going to take on it, and that’s to splash it as a sordid little secret. You know the difference between a dead pervert and a live one? A dead one can’t sue.’

‘My husband was not—’

‘So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to publish the story you were planning on Zafar Jaffrey. You can even let it be known that Dennis was intending to reveal that same story in his speech tonight. What you will omit from that narrative is any mention of Secret Service involvement. Are you clear on that?’

She wasn’t.

The blue lights were still looping, ahead and behind. Their wash turned her visitor’s face different colours: indigo, then purple, then sudden, ghostly white. It occurred to Dodie that, ten minutes ago, she’d thought the police cars there to protect her. Now, it seemed, their purpose had always been to deliver her to another tormentor, whose own mission it was to confuse. She was already nostalgic for simple grief; for the time spent alone in the car.

She said, ‘But the whole point of Whelan’s visit was to warn us off Zafar Jaffrey,’ and even to her own ears, her voice sounded lifeless.

‘Things change,’ Taverner told her. ‘Alliances shift. And you’d be advised to bear that in mind, Dodie. For some reason, you seem to think we’re the enemy. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re not perfect, sure. Sometimes, things get past us. But the rest of the time – all the rest of the times – we’re there, doing our job.’

She turned and observed the passing traffic for a while, as if conscious that this too was under her protection. Then turned back to Dodie.

‘Nothing can bring your husband back, Mrs Gimball. But if you want him to be remembered as a hero, we can help that happen. In due course. And his little embarrassments don’t ever have to see the light of day.’

She opened the car door.

‘I’m going now. Again, I’m sorry for your loss. But if you want your husband’s legacy to be one he’d have been proud of, you’ll remember what I said and omit any mention of Service involvement. I’m sure we understand each other.’

She left. Alone again, Dodie focused once more on the string of red tail lights on the road ahead, breezing into the city. She barely noticed when the driver got back in, and the little procession recommenced its journey.

13

DAWN HAD COME ONCE more, and slipped in unnoticed. In Slough House she was met with the unfamiliar spectacle of living, waking humans; most of whom, true, might have been mistaken for some other kind. River Cartwright and J. K. Coe both had their eyes shut, though in Coe’s case this reflected an effort at memory: he was trying to recall the exact shape of an emotion, the precise geometry of a particular moment, when he had fired three bullets into the chest of a manacled man. River, meanwhile, was screening horrors on his eyelids: the never-ending tumble of a lethal can of paint; its repeated collision with a human head. Both men were seated, both on the floor; in fact, of all those present, only Louisa Guy was upright, her back ramrod straight against the wall, her right leg raised level. She held this position for a full thirty seconds, then lowered that leg and raised the other. Through crocodile eyes Jackson Lamb watched her, his mind busy with other things.

Shirley Dander was also on the floor, curled into a ball, but she wasn’t sleeping either; she was adding another day to her tally, and wondering where this numerical sequence would end. An hour earlier Catherine Standish had laid a coat across her, which had given her a tremor. Being tucked in didn’t really figure in her lifestyle. Catherine, mother-henning done, had settled in an office chair, on the opposite side of the desk from where Lamb was sprawled; a configuration replicated from Lamb’s own office, as if they remained engaged in the same dance, regardless of location. She seemed alert and unruffled, her hair tied back in its usual manner; her dress as uncreased as if she’d put it on an hour ago. Lamb had fetched his bottle from upstairs, and it stood, a nearly empty sentry, on the desk in front of him. But there was only one glass there – his – and Catherine’s eyes never lingered on it or the bottle itself.

They were in Roderick Ho’s office, though Ho himself, of course, was elsewhere. Of those in the room, only two gave any thought to this, and one of those was Catherine.

From across the hall she could hear a low murmur, which had started as a singular flow, Emma Flyte’s voice, with the occasional interjection. Now there was a mumbled counterpoint, hesitant at first, a drip from a faulty tap, which had since become more regular; a steady trickle which would, in time, fill any vessel provided. This was what happened when you opened up: there was no stopping what you’d started. It was one of the reasons Catherine was wary of AA meetings.

Now she thought of that poor girl’s face, her nose a mess, her eyes black and swollen; and then of the TV footage from Abbotsfield, the Derbyshire fastness which guns had undone, in part because of that girl’s actions. It was odd she could feel sympathy for the one in spite of the other. Or that even now she worried about Roddy Ho, when really they should have banded together ages back, and dangled him from a window. Made him realise there were hard facts beyond the bubble of his own ego; among them, the nearest pavement.

Lamb stirred. ‘Isn’t this cosy?’

‘I’d have made her talk by now,’ said Shirley, her voice muffled by her own arm.

‘You’d have made her scream. There’s a difference.’

Louisa said, ‘What if she doesn’t know anything?’

‘Well if she’s that fucking ignorant she can join the team,’ said Lamb.

Catherine turned on her iPad and flicked through news channels. All were burning up the same story: the death of Dennis Gimball in an alleyway in Slough. Speculation ranged from assassination by Remainers – as unlikely a theory as it was inevitable – to a conspiracy hatched in Downing Street. The latter, admittedly, wasn’t getting coverage on the mainstream sites, but was popular with idiots on social media. Then again, idiots on social media had dictated world events of late, and were clearly on a roll.

Elsewhere, there were follow-ups on Abbotsfield; a Home Office spokesperson saying that investigations were continuing, arrests would be made. The lack of concrete detail was explained by the need not to compromise ongoing operations; a need that most readers understood would be jettisoned as soon as concrete details became available. Meanwhile, a service for civilian casualties of war, re-dedicated as a memorial for Abbotsfield, would be held that afternoon at Westminster Abbey, attended by the younger princes, the PM, and everyone with a desire to have their tears recorded for posterity. A less star-spangled, somewhat hijacked service would take place in Abbotsfield itself. She found a shaky little video from the village: its church; a weathered cemetery; the multicoloured dullness of stained glass viewed from the wrong side. The lychgate was draped with wreaths and the small offerings the living consecrate to the dead – toys and ribbons, flowers, photographs. Catherine wasn’t sure how she felt about this. On the other hand, it wasn’t her grief.

‘Seize control of the media,’ said Lamb. He seemed to be pouting, his lower jaw thrust forward. Could mean anything from deep thought to imminent flatulence.

Shirley sat up. The left shoulder of her sweatshirt was spattered with blood from her torn ear, a spattering which her attempts at rinsing the top without first removing it had made substantially worse. The ear wasn’t pretty either. There had been no sticking plasters of the appropriate size in the first aid box, and by the time Catherine had trimmed an over-large one down to size, Shirley had self-medicated with a length of Sellotape. This had clogged the bleeding right enough, but gave Shirley the appearance of a mended doll.

She said, ‘TV. That’s their next target. Shepherd’s Bush or wherever. Where’s Sky?’

For a brief confused moment, Catherine thought Shirley had just asked where the sky was. More worryingly, she’d found it a reasonable question.

‘They’re not going to attempt to take control of a television company,’ said Louisa. ‘I mean, seriously?’

‘Why not?’ River asked.

‘Because they couldn’t even plant a bomb on a train successfully. Which, let’s face it, isn’t much more difficult than forgetting an umbrella.’

‘Somebody wandered into Dobsey Park and blew up a lot of penguins,’ River reminded her.

‘Yeah, penguins. Hard target or what?’

‘Okay, but they got in, they got out, they weren’t caught.’

‘It’s not a maximum-security prison, it’s a zoo. You buy a ticket. TV studios have checkpoints, they have guards, you need passes. You need to know what you’re doing. This bunch have tripped over their own dicks twice.’

‘Three times,’ said Shirley.

‘Whatever, they’re hardly the A-Team. Shooting up a village full of pensioners, that’s one thing. But what they’re best at is falling through windows.’

‘Well, okay, maybe not TV,’ River said.

‘Newspaper? Same story,’ Louisa said. ‘You don’t just waltz into a newspaper office unchallenged. In fact, you especially don’t waltz into—’

‘Radio?’ said River.

‘They could hang a few DJs,’ Shirley suggested.

‘—a newspaper office.’

Devon Welles said, ‘Is this brainstorming? I’ve often wondered what it looked like.’

‘Seize. The. Media,’ said Lamb again, and they all looked at him. ‘Where does that mention a building?’

J. K. Coe said, ‘The original plan—’

‘The Watering Hole paper,’ River offered.

‘—was predicated on a developing nation state.’ He spoke slowly, as if reading from notes. ‘Pre-satellite. Pre-internet. One where there’d only be a single TV channel. A single radio station. So seizing control of the media would be a straightforward business.’

‘You could do it with a couple of machine guns,’ said Shirley.

‘That was more or less my point.’

‘But it’s not so simple in Big London, right? Different rules.’

Coe rubbed his chin, and opened the scratch Kim had given him.

Welles, despite himself, was drawn in. ‘Remind me how they attempted to bring down the transport infrastructure?’

‘With a dud bomb,’ said Shirley.

‘On a train,’ said Welles. ‘That’s the key point. They put a bomb on a train.’

Louisa said, ‘Ri – ight.’

‘A dud bomb,’ Shirley repeated. ‘We’ve established they’re screw-ups. How is the small print helping?’

‘Doesn’t matter that it was a dud,’ Louisa said. ‘It matters that it was a train.’

‘Because blowing up a train, even with a bomb that works, is just blowing up a train,’ said Welles. ‘It’s not bringing down infrastructure. Get it?’

‘They’re ticking boxes,’ said Louisa. ‘Good thinking.’

‘Oh God, she’s in heat,’ said Lamb.

‘So they’re gonna blow up a TV set?’ said Shirley. ‘Set fire to a newspaper?’

River said, ‘Not the media. A media event.’

The door opened, and Emma Flyte came in.

‘Did she talk?’ Welles asked.

‘She talked,’ said Emma.

Claude Whelan tugged a loose thread on his shirt collar, then wished he hadn’t. Sometimes, when you pulled at things, all you did was make them worse.

Oh God, he thought. Way too early in the day for symbolism.

In a different world, he’d done what he’d intended yesterday evening: had left work, gone home, suppered with Claire. Some nights they shared the same bed, but not often, and always chastely. Was it any wonder … but no point going down that road. He loved his wife. Had phoned her at midnight, to tell her he wouldn’t be home; that things were moving, that he was on top of them. He’d had an image of young Josie while saying that: an image of being on top of her while she was moving. Was that his fault? He supposed it depended who you asked.

She had returned to him with her rundown on Dancer Blaine:

‘A small-time fixer, sir. Fake IDs, sometimes safe houses, the occasional used firearm. But mostly it’s IDs.’

‘And he reports back to us?’

‘Not on everything, or we’d have hauled him from the river by now. But he’s been helpful.’

She had a sheaf of printouts: a rough tally suggested Blaine had helped put away a dozen bad actors, none of them marquee names, and through it all had been allowed to continue his dreary little enterprise hard by St Paul’s. A little fish, Whelan had thought, leafing through the pages. One we throw back. Surely there’s an argument for feeding him into a waste disposal unit instead? Because let’s face it, the big fish are still out there. Sparing the little ones never changes that.

But it was late and things were sour, and you couldn’t change the rules once the game was under way. He was pretty sure that was one of Lady Di’s diktats.

‘Sir?’

He must have been staring at the pages too long.

‘Was there anything else you want?’

God, no, she hadn’t said that. Hadn’t said anything like it.

She returned to the hub. Everyone was working late; the perspective had altered now they knew they were no longer looking at Islamist extremism. The net they’d thrown had too wide a mesh. ISIS had claimed responsibility, true, but stop all the clocks: a death-worshipping bunch of medieval fascists had taken time off from beheading hostages to tell porkies. And if he said that out loud, he’d be the one in trouble: ‘porkies’ was a no-no … No wonder he was exhausted. Watching the world go mad was a tiring business.

Di Taverner had come into his office, and was staring. ‘Are you feeling all right?’

‘Sorry.’ He had run a hand through his hair, thinking, even as he did so, that it was a dramatic gesture more than a grooming need. ‘Things have happened.’

‘They never stop.’

This was true. Was it yesterday he’d been charged with ensuring Zafar Jaffrey was squeaky clean? And he’d fulfilled that mission by determining the exact opposite, which meant the PM wouldn’t be happy. On the other hand, the PM’s days were numbered, Jaffrey’s lack of squeaky-cleanliness being one more nail in what was starting to appear an over-engineered coffin.

‘Your presence at the Gimballs’ yesterday officially didn’t occur,’ Lady Di told him. She’d removed her raincoat and hung it over the back of his visitor’s chair. She didn’t sit, but didn’t pace either, preferring to remain upright with one hand lightly on the chairback, as if posing for a magazine shoot.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘We stand together,’ she said, which he took to mean, for as long as it suited her. Now was not the time to see her boss sink beneath the waves, not with them both on the same liner. She wanted him around until a lifeboat hoved into view. ‘Now. What things?’

He rose, went and closed the door and returned to his seat. Then frosted the office wall, blurring Josie and all the other girls and boys to dim shapes huddled over monitors. ‘These attacks. It’s not ISIS. It’s North Korea.’

Taverner nodded. Her refusal to be surprised was one of her more irritating traits. ‘Okay. I think we’ve all been expecting that shoe to drop. Does Number 10 know?’

‘Not yet. There’s more.’

Of course there is, her silence said.

He told her about the document Ho had passed on.

Outside, the dim shapes kept up their blurry movements. Inside, the only movement was that of time passing, while Taverner caught up with the implications.

‘They’re using our playbook,’ she said at last.

‘Well, it’s not exactly a—’

‘They’re using our playbook.’

He nodded.

‘That,’ she said, ‘is not going to go down well.’

‘Your input’s always welcome. But I’d got that far myself.’

‘A North Korean black op. Here. Jesus.’ At least she had the grace to swear, even if her expression remained unperturbed. He wondered if she Botoxed; thought about finding out. Shelved the thought as not important right now. She said, ‘So what’s the order of play?’

‘The what?’

‘They’re following a list. What’s next?’

‘I haven’t checked.’

‘You don’t think that would be useful?’ she said, after a pause.

‘I don’t think it would help to have a paper trail,’ he said. ‘Not if we’re going to achieve deniability.’

Taverner nodded. ‘Like I said the other day, you’re learning. What are the boys and girls doing?’

‘Whereabouts of Korean nationals, and ethnically similar. Not exactly the time for PC niceties.’

‘Of course not. But this is good. We’re nearer catching them. Now we know what they aren’t, I mean.’

‘And we also know they’re not simply trying to slaughter their way through the countryside. They’re using our own imperial past as kerosene. It’s the propaganda coup to end them all.’

‘Only if they complete their mission,’ Lady Di said. ‘The penguin thing, that was them too?’

‘And the bomb on the train, I think. And the Gimball death’s a mess, but it could easily be part of the pattern.’

‘Yes, and could easily be the flotsam and jetsam of everyday reality. Welcome to 2017.’ She went to the frosted wall. Up close, it was like seeing the world through a film of gauze. As if there were ghosts on the other side; or reality on the other side, and ghosts on this. ‘The whole thing has the look of a master plan cooked up by a fantasist in his mum’s box room. So we find them before they reveal what they’re doing, and that bursts their bubble.’ She was saying all this to the wall, or to herself. ‘The Supreme Leader can spout all he likes about how this crew were acting on a British blueprint, and we can say, sure they were. And you lot firing warheads into the Sea of Japan, that’s right there in Nostradamus.’

‘They’ll produce the document.’

‘And we’ll deny it’s genuine. Come on, Claude. We’re playing a propaganda war here. The winner’s the one with the pokerest face.’

‘“Pokerest”?’

‘It’s two in the morning. What do you want, Will Self?’

‘And if the killing crew show up, saying look what we did?’

‘Yes, well, that part can’t happen.’ She turned to face him at last. ‘They have to die, Claude. I would have thought that was obvious.’

‘It can’t look like an execution.’

‘It doesn’t matter what it looks like. You think their deaths will play poorly? Maybe a year from now, when one of the Sundays does an in-depth. But three days after Abbotsfield, and there’ll be a street party in The Mall, with crowds queuing up to see their corpses. And any lefties screaming judicial murder had better be wearing hard hats.’

‘It’s the sort of decision we don’t make without Home Office input.’

‘Fuck that,’ said Lady Di. ‘They started it. They want to play London Rules, they should have known to write their wills first.’ She shook her head. ‘We end this. And then we take a long look at the SS fucking D. Starting with chopping their balls off.’

When she left he’d tried to take a nap, which turned into a feverish ten-minute wrestling match: he’d come to with an erection frighteningly close to a victory cheer. Its memory still an ache in his groin, he’d splashed water on his face and patrolled the hub, hovering by Josie’s desk, trying to feel paternal. He asked whether she ever went home; she laughed and said she could say the same thing. There was something in the air, the ozone that crackles during an emergency.

Around five, two names popped up at almost the same time. Students, on Chinese passports, both of whom had dropped out of sight the previous weekend.

‘Let’s find out where they are,’ he said, as if saying the words made a difference. All around him, the boys and girls were already focused on this very task.

Those loose threads, he thought again. Let’s start tugging.

‘Dancer Blaine,’ he said to Josie.

‘Sir?’

‘Call him,’ Whelan told her. ‘It’s time I had a word.’

‘They’re kids.’

‘Kids?’

‘Students. Nineteen, twenty, like that. Planted here years ago. Could I get a cup of tea?’

Catherine made to move, but Devon Welles was faster; was out of the door, heading kettlewards, before she was on her feet.

Emma Flyte lowered herself into the chair he’d vacated. Exhausted as she was, she still possessed a radiance. From the overhead bulbs a high-watt light left everyone else – Welles and Shirley excepted – colourless. Falling on Flyte, it found hidden golds and greys.

River said, ‘Middle East?’

‘North Korea.’

Louisa whistled softly. ‘That’s big.’

‘But nothing new,’ said Lamb. He poured the last of his bottle into his glass. ‘The Fat Controller’s sponsored so many terrorist acts, it’s a wonder he hasn’t had T-shirts printed. Have you locked her in?’

‘Trust me,’ Flyte said. ‘She’s not going anywhere.’

Welles returned with a mug of tea, and she took it gratefully. ‘Thanks. They recruited her a couple of months ago. Picked her up in a club. She has relatives, she said. They showed her pictures.’

‘They’re probably already dead,’ said Coe. When looks turned his way, he shrugged. ‘That’s how they do things. The State Security Department.’

‘The SSD,’ said River.

‘Thanks. If I have trouble with any other sets of initials, jump right in.’

‘She was already involved with Ho,’ Flyte continued. ‘Scamming him, pure and simple.’

‘Told you,’ said Shirley.

‘And they reeled her in, on the SSD’s instructions. They wanted the blueprint. The whatyoucallit—’

‘The Watering Hole paper.’

‘Which they already knew about,’ said Lamb, almost to himself. ‘That’s interesting.’

‘So glad I’ve got your attention,’ said Flyte.

‘How come they didn’t kill her?’ Louisa asked.

‘She did what she does. She wrapped one of them round her little finger.’

‘I doubt it was her finger.’

‘Yeah, this is the parental control version. Shin, his name is. That’s how she got away. The others think he killed her, after they came for Ho.’

‘Clearing house,’ Welles said. Chairless now, he’d planted himself against the wall next to Louisa, who’d ceased her exercises.

‘Uh-huh. Because they’re nearly done.’

‘And when he wasn’t rolling around for her to scratch his tummy,’ said Lamb, ‘did this Shin mention what their final act would be at all?’

Unconscious of doing so, they all leaned in as Flyte answered.

‘Not as such,’ she said. ‘What he did tell her was, the whole world would be watching. And then he said something about the snake eating its own tail.’

Everyone fell quiet for a moment.

Then: ‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ said Louisa.

‘Sorry. But it’s what she said.’

‘Where’s it from? Sun Tzu?’

‘More like Kung Fu Panda,’ said River.

But Lamb said, ‘I keep forgetting you lot are idiots.’

St Paul’s was bathed in heavenly light, or that’s what it was hard to avoid thinking. In his heart, Zafar Jaffrey knew it wasn’t so, and would have felt the same had it been a mosque. Which it actually looked like, a bit. A thought best kept to himself.

On the commuter train, surrounded by businessmen, voters, he’d tried to disappear; to cloak himself in the early morning misery colouring the carriage. All he’d wanted was anonymity; just another upright stiff on the daily pilgrimage: whisked through the half-light, dumped on a platform, spat underground. They’d barely left Birmingham before a man leaned over and touched his elbow. ‘First class travel, eh?’ Chuckling. ‘Not quite the man of the people after all.’

‘Go fuck yourself,’ Zafar had told him.

A vote lost, but a moment won.

Last night, he’d given Tyson all the cash he had to hand; instructed him to go as far as possible as soon as possible. Short-term advice, but that was the only kind Tyson was likely to hear, the long term always having been a puzzling perspective where that young man was concerned. What could be more important than the here and now? For Tyson’s own good, what Zafar should have done was call a lawyer. All he’d done, really, was buy breathing space.

He had the address memorised.

‘A stationer’s?’

‘Office supplies an’ stuff, yeah.’

For some reason, this was the detail Jaffrey’s imagination snagged on; that a criminal enterprise was being run from a stationer’s. Pick up a few rollerball pens, a notebook, some Post-its. Want some fake passports to go with that? A driving licence? A gun?

‘He needs the rest of the money, yeah? Funny looking geezer.’

Said the man with the face tattoo, thought Jaffrey.

Tyson left, his pocket full of cash. How far would he get? Jaffrey wondered. Soon, if not already, people would be hunting Tyson Bowman, who wasn’t an unnoticeable man; had gone out of his way to be someone you gave a second look. He was a moving violation of the law of common sense: someone who’d spent his adolescence in criminal activity, and just to simplify things for everyone, had had himself branded to that effect. Which made Zafar Jaffrey wonder whether that was why he’d recruited Tyson in the first place. Not to offer redemption, but on the off chance he’d need a partner in crime one day. It was Tyson who’d known how to solve Jaffrey’s problem, Tyson who’d shown him to Dancer Blaine’s door. It was the way the world turned. You dipped a toe in the criminal waters, you could always get dry again. But once you’d inked your face, nobody would ever truly believe it.

Jaffrey located the stationer’s easily enough, but it wasn’t open yet, so he circled the nearby streets, glad to put the moment off. How did one approach this, exactly? My name is … Hell, no. I believe you have something for me? One of the speeches he habitually delivered, addressing young people at risk, was to explain that the criminal life was the easy option, that they had to believe themselves capable of the tougher choice, but he wondered now whether that was true. There were difficulties in criminal enterprise that had never occurred to him before. A whole new set of rules.

London was stirring; coming to life. It had been full enough already, but that was with people hurrying to work. Now came the new wave, of those who weren’t in a rush. Those with time to look in shop windows, or to pause at corners and check their phones.

When he reached the shop again, it was open, and he went in.

A youngish man was the only creature visible: behind the counter, reading his phone. A mug of something steamed on a shelf beside him, not quite aromatic enough to mask the sweet-sick smell of marijuana coming off his clothes. He took no notice of Jaffrey’s arrival. Barely looked up when Jaffrey spoke.

‘I’m looking for Mr Blaine.’

‘Never heard of him.’

Okay, Jaffrey thought. So what now? Buy a ream of A4 and wander back to Euston? He reached into his pocket, brought out the envelope he’d been carrying for days, scared to leave it anywhere in case it disappeared. A frightening chunk of his savings account. The remaining half of what Blaine was owed. He slapped it on the counter, hard; the unmistakeable sound of money.

The young man looked up.

‘Heard of him now?’ said Jaffrey.

The body was starting to smell.

Truth is, it wasn’t clear it was the body on the turn; the body was wrapped in cling film, which should be keeping it fresh, and there were other possible sources: Shin, for a start, and An, and Chris. The back of the van was a mobile oven, and it was days since any of them had showered. So it might be that Joon was blameless, the only one not contributing to the rancid atmosphere, but he was also the only one currently dead, so there was little chance he could evade blame.

As well as body odour, tension muddied the air.

Shin said, ‘There will be armed police.’

‘We do not know that,’ said An.

‘And helicopters.’

Again: ‘We do not know that.’

Danny nodded, to show An his agreement. Noticing this, Shin scowled.

But Shin had diminished overnight, and his presence carried no more weight than Joon’s. They no longer believed in him. Shin had yet to threaten to raise this in his precious daily report, but only, Danny thought, because he knew how weak it would make him appear. When Shin’s face crumpled in frustration or rage, he pretended it was the tightness of his collar enraging him, or the looseness of his belt, and he would fumble briefly at the supposed cause of offence. But in truth, it was Danny and An who were angering him; their having seen through his weakness and failure.

They had left Birmingham an hour ago, Chris at the wheel once more. Of all of them, Chris alone seemed unchanged by events; seemed happy to drive, to wait, to follow orders.

Shin said, ‘They know what we are capable of.’

An was down on his haunches, a position Danny found impossible to believe was comfortable in a moving vehicle, and was holding one of the assault rifles across his lap. One palm was laid flat across its trigger guard, and the barrel was pointing at the back door.

‘And they will be expecting us to make a move.’

An said, ‘But they cannot know where.’

He stroked the gun.

Shin tried again. ‘They will know the document we are following. Ho will have told them. We are no longer working in darkness.’

An said, ‘But Ho knows nothing of our actual plans. There is nothing he would be able to tell them.’

‘But maybe the girl …’ said Shin, and stopped.

The van went over a pothole: always potholes on the roads. The whole country was sliding into a pit, one small chunk at a time.

Danny said, ‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing. I said nothing.’

‘You said something about the girl.’

‘The girl knew nothing either. That is all I was going to say.’

Danny said, ‘The girl is dead.’

‘Yes,’ said Shin.

‘So why do you say she knew nothing?’

Shin said, ‘Because even if she were alive, it would not help them. That is all I meant.’

‘You said you killed her.’

‘I did.’

‘When you came out of her house, you told us she was dead, that you had ended her.’

‘Yes.’

‘But nobody else saw her body.’

‘I saw her body,’ said Shin.

Danny looked at An, waiting for him to reach the obvious conclusion: that Shin was lying. That Shin had betrayed them.

But An said nothing.

Shin said, ‘Why are you asking me these questions? Have you forgotten who is in charge?’

Nobody had forgotten who was in charge.

The heat in the van increased as sunlight took hold. In here for hours now, for days, and their old lives as lost as a snake’s sloughed skin. It was true, though, that they were no longer working in darkness; somewhere there would be doors being knocked upon, computer records shuffled, names and descriptions gathered in. But they only had one more thing to do, and all that mattered was that they do it.

Because they were soldiers. As a student in this strange world, Danny had been amazed at the words and antics of those who imagined their lives their own to do with what they would, never realising that everything they thought they desired had been imposed on them by forces greater than themselves. It was only in accepting those forces that true freedom could be found. Example: when he learned that the Supreme Leader had had his own uncle executed with an anti-aircraft gun, Danny understood that such a thing had been necessary to punish dissent. When he further learned that this story had been concocted by the Western media, Danny understood that the Supreme Leader was a gentle soul, vilified by his enemies. In neither of those different worlds was his faith in the Supreme Leader shaken.

As if he were reading Danny’s mind, An spoke. ‘It does not matter,’ he said. ‘They are expecting us, they are not. It makes no difference. We will fulfil this destiny.’

Then he reached up for the transistor radio that hung by a strap from a hook; a small, cheap, apparently indestructible device, that didn’t mind being slapped against the panel every time they took a corner or hit a bump. When he turned the knob, a news broadcast chirruped into life. The subject under discussion was the service that afternoon at Westminster Abbey, where there would be princes and politicians, the PM among them, and all of it taking place under the eyes of the world’s cameras.

Shin said, ‘I am not afraid. I am simply saying we should be careful. That is all.’

Danny said nothing. Shin had let the girl go free. Shin had endangered all of them. He was a traitor and a coward, and this should not go unpunished. And he tried to communicate all this to An, but An’s eyes were closed, and the look Danny gave passed harmlessly by him.

And on they drove through the lengthening day.

14

TO STEP OUT INTO morning air – to leave the dentist’s surgery, or a job interview – to find one’s feet on firm pavement again, with the day stretching out bared and steady as a racetrack – is to know oneself alive, thought Zafar Jaffrey. He emerged from the warren of alleyways to catch a glimpse of St Paul’s, a moment of purity he felt to his toes. In his jacket pocket nestled the package he’d just collected. Everything might still be worth it. Even the mess Tyson had stepped into, the death of Dennis Gimball – there was no law that said things couldn’t work out right.

Dancer Blaine, as Tyson had said, was a funny-looking fellow, with grey-streaked hair folded into a rope, and squirrelly brown eyes behind thick round glasses. Even during their short conversation, he’d allowed Jaffrey to understand that his nickname was honestly earned; that he was nimble as a flea. Jaffrey had nodded politely. Oddly, he had no trouble picturing this creature floating an inch or two above a dance floor; no difficulty imagining him executing balletic movements. What he couldn’t see was the woman who would partner him. Beneath his dirty rope of hair, his pocked and greasy skin, lurked an odour of rot. Blaine smelled the way Jaffrey’s toenails did, if left too long between clippings.

But this didn’t matter. Dancer Blaine was a crook, an underworld fixer, and he had done what fixers do and fixed Jaffrey’s problem. So despite the pitch he’d had to breathe – because of the pitch – Jaffrey was now light and free, and believed in possibility again. He was tethered to the earth by habit, nothing more. He was suddenly ravenous. He was deeply relieved.

There was a coffee shop with tables outside, despite the narrow pavement. He sat and ordered coffee and two croissants, and stretched his legs as far as they would go. The weight in his pocket was that of his own heart. He rang his mother and spoke to her of nothing much; listened to her talking until the coffee arrived, and then told her he had to go, that he had a meeting. He was starving; he was empty. He didn’t so much eat as inhale the first of his pastries, and ordered a refill of coffee before he’d finished the cup.

He closed his eyes. Dancer Blaine saying, A pleasure doing business with you. He hadn’t been able to reply. The pleasure lay in it being over.

A shadow fell.

Zafar Jaffrey did not open his eyes. Until he did so it could be ignored, this new reality. It was the waitress, to refill his cup; it was the manager, eager to know all was satisfactory. As long as he kept his eyes shut, this could easily be the truth: everything was satisfactory, everything shone.

‘Mr Jaffrey?’

This happened too. He was recognised; his was a known face. Even here, in large London, where different rules applied.

‘Mr Zafar Jaffrey?’

‘I’m resting,’ he said.

‘My name’s Claude Whelan,’ the shadow said, and Zafar knew that soon he’d have to pretend to wake up.

‘Emma Flyte.’

‘Ma’am.’

‘You look rough. Bad night?’

‘I’ve had better.’

She’d have worse.

The pair had met in the lift lobby: Flyte having just arrived back at the Park; Diana Taverner taking a break from the hub. Flyte did seem tired, it was true. Taverner herself had been awake for more hours than she could remember, and could have given Flyte a decade and still come out ahead. But there was something within her that thrived on emergency, and she was glowing at the core. That said, she wasn’t deluded enough to think she outshone Flyte, for whom looking rough was on a par with Trump looking presidential: all the wishful thinking in the world wasn’t going to make it happen. But Taverner was Second Desk, and outranked any mirror in the building. And Flyte wasn’t likely to take it to HR.

‘Well, you’ve certainly been busy.’

‘I’m sure we all have.’

‘Though in your case, it’s kept you from following instructions. You were supposed to be at Slough House.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which was supposed to be in lockdown. Any special reason that didn’t happen?’

‘Things got out of hand,’ said Flyte.

‘That happens when Jackson Lamb’s involved,’ Taverner conceded. ‘Which is why I put you on it. Aren’t you the expert on crowd control?’

‘He’s not so much a crowd, though, is he? More a road traffic accident.’

‘Nice. Doesn’t explain why you came back here and interrogated Roderick Ho, though.’

‘It seemed important to find out what he knows.’

‘What he knows is, he passed a classified document to his girlfriend. He’s going down for a long time.’

‘Is he?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Flyte said, ‘He claims the document wasn’t classified.’

‘That’s his defence? Good luck with that in court. He downloaded it from the Service database, Flyte. That’s not like nicking Post-its. You’re aware what use the document’s been put to?’

‘I am.’

‘You see, that worries me too. That knowledge puts you way out of your depth. And interrogating Ho without authorisation, that’s outside your jurisdiction too. Mind telling me what you’re up to?’

‘With respect, ma’am, I’m authorised to interview Service members at my discretion.’

Taverner paused. It was true: as Head Dog, Flyte had authority to question any Service member, herself included, though if it ever came to that there’d better be seconds involved, and an ambulance on standby. ‘But you abandoned a lockdown I instigated. Where’s your authorisation to do that?’

‘As a division head, I can delegate as I see fit. I had Devon sub me.’

‘Devon?’

‘Devon Welles, ma’am. You can’t miss him. He’s the Dogs’ diversity appointment.’

Taverner said, ‘You might not have escaped Lamb swiftly enough. You seem to be infected.’ She consulted her phone, aware that Flyte was all but ticking in front of her: she was carrying news; it was ready to break.

‘Ma’am—’

‘One moment.’ She finished checking the duty calendar, and flashed it at Flyte. ‘According to this, Welles was off roster. He should be halfway through a forty-eight-hour leave.’

‘Yes, he should. But like I said, I asked him to sub me.’

‘And he’s still there now?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you can categorically state that Lamb’s team have been locked down for the past twenty-four hours?’

Flyte took a deep breath. ‘There might have been a slight interruption.’

‘Which would make this a disciplinary—’

‘It would. But can that wait? I need to see Mr Whelan.’

‘He’s not in the building. You’re seeing me.’

‘Then you might not want to hear this.’

‘Anything I might not want to hear, I definitely want to hear,’ Taverner said. She stared at Flyte hard. ‘Let’s go to my office.’

The boys and girls on the hub didn’t look up. They were too busy bouncing off each other like pinballs in a machine: there came a point when it stopped mattering that they were individuals. They swarmed. There was a day when all the butterflies arrived, Flyte remembered reading once: a town on the Black Sea, she thought it was. On one single day, marking summer’s arrival, the town became alive with butterflies. That thought came to mind, seeing the hub bright with activity. It wasn’t just the work being done. It was the knowledge that results were taking shape. The boys and girls were becoming butterflies.

It was possible Diana Taverner didn’t feel the same way, because she frosted the wall once they were in her room.

‘This had better be good,’ she said.

‘The final item on the Watering Hole paper,’ Flyte said.

‘The what?’

‘That’s what they’re calling it. The Watering Hole paper.’

‘I’m making a list myself,’ Taverner said. ‘And it’s getting longer by the minute. What’s the final item?’

‘Seize control of the media,’ said Flyte. ‘But it doesn’t mean exactly what it says.’

‘You seem to know a lot about this.’

‘It was actually Lamb who saw it. This final thing, the media thing, what they’re going to do is some kind of attack on camera. Somewhere there’s a lot of press, a lot of media. Somewhere public. Somewhere soon.’

‘The Abbey,’ said Taverner.

‘Yes, the Abbey,’ Flyte said. ‘Today. The Abbotsfield memorial service.’

They brought him some pizza. A meat feast, he’d ordered; the jokers arrived with a plain cheese-and-tomato onto which anchovies had been added: you guys, he thought, shaking his head, scraping the offending morsels to the edge with his finger. You guys.

Then they left him alone.

It had gone on all night. After his session with Emma, after he’d finished putting her straight on a few things, the guys had come in and he’d had to go through it all over again. You don’t talk to each other? he’d wanted to ask. But Roddy Ho knew how it went, because Kim – his girlfriend – was just the same: whenever they were together for more than ten minutes, she found it too intense and needed to be somewhere else for a while, somewhere quiet, on her own. That was gender politics for you – chicks need their downtime. Was he right, or was he right?

That aside, the fact that they were keeping him here suggested a high-level threat remained in place. It made sense, cotton-woolling him – God knows, you wouldn’t want to hand the bad actors a propaganda coup like rubbing out the Rodman – but you’d have thought all concerned would have copped on by now: that if there was any rubbing out going on, it would be Roddy Ho doing it.

Because there was a word for the kind of cool he had, and it was this: feline. Cats, you only had to look at them to know they never put a paw wrong, or if they did, it was a temporary disarrangement. They landed on their feet, cats. And that was the kind of cool Roddy Ho enjoyed, where there might be the occasional excitement – a bit of a tussle, like the other night – but you always knew who was going to come out on top.

At the same time, he could hotdog it with the best of them. Your typical maverick. Best of both worlds.

Like he’d told the guys: ‘So sure, they sent someone to take me out. And look where it got them. Next time, they’ll know to send two.’

And the guys had exchanged a look.

So now he finished his pizza, except the anchovies, and as he sat licking his fingers it occurred to him that nobody had yet told him what had happened to Kim, his girlfriend. Now he’d explained that the document he’d shown her wasn’t even classified – seriously: the Dyno-Rod, passing on secrets? C’mon – she was surely cleared of everything except curiosity, and since when was that a crime? But they were leaving him in the dark.

Or maybe …

But there was a corner of his mind Roderick Ho preferred not to visit, and he backed away from it now. It was a corner where different decisions had been made, and different destinations reached; one which, if he’d spent more time there, might have meant he’d be a little more slow horse, a little less the Rodster. It would have meant he’d asked more questions when Kim came into his life, and had more people around to help answer them … But there was no going back. This was who he was now, and Kim was his girlfriend, right? Kim was his girlfriend. And if he was partly in the dark right now, well, that was the thing about the secret world. A lot of it was just too … secret.

Roddy shook his head. It would all come out in the wash, he guessed. Meanwhile, he supposed he’d have to stay here so nobody got too worried about him. He smiled to himself. Who is this guy? is what they’re wondering, he thought. Some kind of Bond–Q combo? Scouts the Dark Web by day, and come nightfall goes clubbing with an uber-foxy chick, tossing villains through windows?

Who is this guy?

That’s what they’re wondering.

In the room next door, the two guys were sharing a meat feast. They didn’t speak much, but at length one of them paused to say, ‘Who is this guy?’

And they both shook their heads, and carried on eating.

Claude Whelan was back in Downing Street, in one of the cubbyhole incubators. The PM had kept him waiting – not a great sign – but the time had been swallowed by a call from Di Taverner, with an update from the hub. When a funeral-suited PM arrived at last, his face was red with exertion. ‘I’m in Cabinet all morning, no time to change later. This is awfully form-fitting. It doesn’t make me look fat?’

‘I really don’t …’ Whelan made himself stop; start again. Nothing would happen until this bridge had been crossed. ‘Black is slimming.’

‘It’s supposed to be, but when I stand sideways … Tubby is a cruel word, isn’t it? But you hear whispers.’

‘You look … prime ministerial.’

He looked like a side of ham at a wedding, but nobody wanted to hear that.

‘I should get more exercise,’ the PM brooded. ‘But all the chaps I played tennis with … Well.’ His face assumed a Shakespearian cast. ‘It’s the ones who make dodgy line calls turn out to be snakes in the grass. That’s telling, don’t you think?’

‘I think we’ve more important things to discuss.’

The PM sighed theatrically. ‘You think I don’t know that?’ He undid the lowest button on his jacket and released a breath. ‘Zafar Jaffrey’s in custody. It’s still a rumour, but a true one, yes?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘I wanted to know he was a safe pair of hands, and it turns out he’s involved with some underworld fixer. Really, Claude?’ It sounded like he held Whelan responsible. ‘It’s like a bad Michael Caine movie.’

Technically, the PM was too young to remember any other kind, but now wasn’t the time.

‘Perhaps. But the Gimball news is going to eclipse everything else for today at least. As things stand, you’re ahead of the curve. Make a statement now, and it’ll be the first anyone knows about it.’

‘A statement? I don’t even know what he was up to yet. He’s what? A secret ISIS supporter? I don’t believe it, Claude, the man follows Warwickshire—’

‘It’s his brother.’

‘So his brother gets killed in Syria, which was his own stupid fault by the way, and that means Zaff, what, converts to the cause?’

‘His brother didn’t die.’

‘Oh.’

‘His brother was the reason he needed a false passport.’

‘Oh.’ The PM drew a breath in, and rebuttoned his jacket. ‘We all thought he died.’

‘His own family thought he did. Hellfire missile, drone-fired, August 2016. Young Karim wasn’t the target, but he was known to be near the impact, and there was a body unaccounted for.’ Whelan shook his head. ‘There’s a ninety-five per cent accuracy reading on these strikes. Karim fell into the five. It happens.’

‘So he what, just walked away?’

‘We don’t have the details. What we do know is, he got in touch with his older brother four months ago. In France at this point, living rough. He played the prodigal card. All he wants is his old life back, because now he’s seen what it’s like, it turns out jihad isn’t a bed of roses.’

‘Yes, well, I could have told him that. Anybody could have told him that.’

‘And Zafar agreed to help him.’

‘Call me a pedant, but I was under the impression ISIS don’t much like it when you change your mind. Like swapping Celtic for Rangers.’

‘No. That’s why the whole underworld fixer business.’

‘Ah. Of course. So Jaffrey was sorting out a new identity for his brother so he could get back to Blighty undetected and, what, just pick up where he left off? Except pretending to be someone else, so his sins would go unpunished?’

‘Something like that,’ said Whelan.

‘Why didn’t Zafar come to me?’

‘Probably because you’d have seen to it young Karim stood trial, following which he’d have gone to prison. Where he’d probably have been killed.’

‘No, that’s true.’

‘Avoiding which was rather the point.’

‘Families are a nuisance, aren’t they? I forget, do you have siblings?’ The PM didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Well, anyway. I suppose it’s as well I know all this before I issue denials. Lying to the House never looks good. By the fourth or fifth time, there’s a distinct air of disapproval.’

‘There’s more.’

‘There always is.’ The PM produced a tin of breath mints from his trouser pocket. ‘Care for …?’

‘Thank you.’ Lodging it inside one cheek, Whelan continued. ‘There may be an attack on the Abbey this afternoon.’

‘At the service.’

‘At the service. It’s not intelligence, as such. More an informed guess.’

‘And where’s this guess coming from?’

‘Diana Taverner.’

‘Ah. The fair Lady Di.’ The PM fiddled with the knot of his tie. ‘Except not fair, obviously. Still. Fine-looking filly. Wouldn’t mind taking that round the paddock. Though if it ever gets back to her I said that, I’ll have you killed.’

‘Yes, well, as she’s the one you’d have to speak to, that might be a self-defeating exercise,’ Whelan said. ‘Meanwhile, she thinks it’s a credible threat. She got wind of a phrase, the snake eating its own tail. In other words, the campaign comes full circle, finishing up at a memorial service for the very first attack. It’s a self-fulfilling victim list. They’d know who’d be there. The princes, you, the Opposition leader—’

‘Oh, God. Her.’

‘—half the front bench, and the Mayor, and so on. There’ll be maximum security, obviously, but plenty of potential for serious damage. It’s the old story. They only have to get lucky once.’

The PM’s many critics took delight in highlighting his political cowardice, but occasionally, unobserved, he shone. ‘Well, we’re not cancelling, and we’re not entering the Abbey in tortoise formation. But let’s make sure the crowds are kept further back than usual, eh? In case of, whatever. Shrapnel.’

‘Of course.’

‘There’s no time for COBRA, but I’ll speak to the Chiefs about upping the military presence. Not that there’ll be room for much more. At least three thousand on the streets, and shooters – they call them shooters, don’t they? Not snipers?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Shooters on every rooftop. Good God, man. What have we come to? London used to be somewhere you felt safe. There were rules.’

‘We’re not immune to the world’s problems. We never will be.’ Whelan shifted his mint from one cheek to the other. ‘The Palace needs to be warned, obviously.’

The PM snorted. ‘I’d like to be a fly on the wall for that. No, it will go ahead as planned. All public events are targets, these days. But what are we supposed to do? Hide in our basements?’

‘Of course not.’

‘I don’t want any more lives endangered than we can avoid. That said, I want these bastards taken alive, Claude. I want prisoners in a dock. I want to see them applying for legal aid, and pleading not guilty, and appealing to the Supreme Court, and standing on all the rights we afford them. I want the world to see them begging for clemency from a system they despise. And then I want them banged up to rot for the rest of their miserable fucking lives. What I don’t want is martyrs. We’ve had too many bloody so-called martyrs.’

Whelan bit down on the mint, and felt it crack between his teeth. For a moment, sinking heart, he thought it was the tooth that had cracked, and had to gather the pieces with his tongue, grade them bit by bit, to be sure. He almost was. It was probably just the mint. The PM was still talking:

‘This might be my last big day, you know. The wolves are gathering at the gate, if that’s even a bloody phrase. Gimball would have led the charge, but you know what? With him gone, others will come out of the woodwork. Nobody was going to make a move when he’d secured the popular vote. But now it’s anybody’s game. All anyone knows for sure is, who’s got the unpopular vote. And that would be me.’

‘You can’t know for certain,’ said Whelan, who was pretty sure that in this instance you could.

‘No, my days are numbered. But you know what? You catch these murdering swine on my watch, and that’ll do me, as swansongs go. Then I think I’ll buy a shed. Write my memoirs.’ He checked his frontage again; seemed to accept there was no way he was losing three pounds in the next thirty minutes, and nodded. ‘Interesting times, Claude. Good meeting.’ Then he left.

Whelan swallowed fragments of mint, and checked his teeth with his tongue. Not been my finest few days, he thought. Jaffrey, by now, would be lawyered up, but he’d know his career was over, his election lost. And that wasn’t much of a result, not for the folk of the West Midlands. He’d have been a good mayor, and what had got in his way hadn’t been greed or hatred or any of the myriad temptations of public office, but his love for a brother who’d have been better off incinerated by that missile. Or maybe not love: maybe loyalty. You didn’t have to love somebody to remain true to them. Who knew if the reverse also held?

As for Dennis Gimball, whatever his failings, what Whelan himself had done was unconscionable: used a harmless activity to bring pressure on the man. God knows, thought Claude: I’m one to talk. But there it was. He had a brief, and he was doing what he could to fulfil it. There’d be casualties, because there always were, but there was also a higher agenda, and it was his duty to pursue it. If he expected forgiveness from those he’d wronged, he’d not have lasted this long.

He had other problems too, of course. Sometimes, you had to make sure your own back was covered: what Diana Taverner would call London Rules.

Which meant the show trial the PM wanted wasn’t going to happen, for a start.

Whelan left the building, reaching for his phone. There’d be more armed soldiers in London’s streets this afternoon than at any time since the last war, and his job right now was to make sure they all had the same instructions. But first, he wanted a swift word with his wife. Her voice always fell on his ears like a kind of forgiveness. And he had a lot to be forgiven for right now.

They parked some miles short of their destination, and ate what food they had left: some congealing noodles from an icebox whose catch didn’t work. Danny felt a lurking foulness on his tongue, and at the same time savoured this experience: a working mouth; a body receiving nourishment. There would not be many more meals, perhaps.

Shin did not appear to feel the same way. The first mouthful, he spat into a handkerchief; the rest he left.

There were different ways of being a warrior, Danny knew. But Shin knew none of them. Shin was a coward, and deep in his belly recognised this. It was why he could not eat now. It was why he had let the girl live.

That in itself, Danny could forgive. It was an error and a betrayal, but it was a forgivable weakness to feel pity for a woman, and if this had been Shin’s only fault, Danny would have taken no pleasure in seeing him die for it. But in letting her go free Shin had put the mission at risk, and in lying about it afterwards had shown contempt for Danny and An and Chris. So when Shin died, Danny would look him straight in the eye and make sure he knew that Danny would piss on his corpse, and burn it in a ditch.

And if they survived this final assault, he would go looking for Kim, and put an end to her too. Because this had been part of their mission, and no part could be left unfinished.

An looked at his watch. ‘Four hours,’ he said. Like Danny, he had put on the same scrappy uniform he had worn at Abbotsfield; like Danny, he now carried a revolver in a holster at his waist. There would be no mingling within crowds when the hour came. They would arrive like furies, in a storm of war.

‘It sounds quiet,’ Shin said hopefully.

‘Quiet or not. We go in four hours.’

‘We should send someone out first. To make sure our approach is clear.’

‘You are tying yourself in knots,’ Danny told him. ‘You are like a dog leashed to a kennel. You bark when there are noises. You bark when there are none.’

‘If we are to succeed, we must proceed cautiously,’ Shin said. ‘And we go at my command, not yours,’ he added, looking at An.

Danny said, ‘You are scared.’

‘No more than you.’

‘I am not frightened,’ Danny said.

It was true. He was something, he wasn’t sure what – elevated, perhaps; in expectation of glory – but he wasn’t frightened. What came next, even if it included his death, would be a heroism not offered to many. He would be fulfilling the Supreme Leader’s vision, and his name would burn like an everlasting candle. Few futures had been offered to him, but this one he would seize.

Shin, though, would cower from any future more dangerous than a putrefying noodle.

‘You let the girl go,’ Danny said now.

‘I killed her.’

‘You lie.’

Shin said to An, ‘He is a fool,’ but his voice shook.

‘Did you hear that?’ Danny asked. ‘He knows I know. We all know. He let the girl go.’

‘That is enough,’ said An.

Chris said, ‘You let her go? You should not have done that.’

‘He endangered the whole mission,’ Danny said.

‘I did not endanger the mission!’ Shin shouted.

His words rang round the inside of the van, as if a stone had been thrown.

Danny said, ‘Before you let her go. Before you disobeyed your orders. Did you tell her what we planned next?’

‘I told her nothing.’

‘But you let her go.’

‘I disobeyed no orders. I am in charge!’

‘You are not worthy of command.’

‘Who are you to say—’

‘At Abbotsfield, you fired wild. You shot up the sky. You killed a chicken coop.’

‘At Abbotsfield, I did my duty,’ said Shin, his voice trembling with fury.

‘And what about today? Can we trust you today?’

‘Can we trust you?’ Shin demanded. ‘I am in charge here. When I speak, I speak for the Supreme Leader!’

Chris said, ‘I am worried that you let the girl go.’

‘Enough,’ said An.

Danny said, ‘When we set out, when we go to complete our mission. What will you do this time? Will you hide behind a dustbin? Will you throw your hands up and surrender?’

‘This will all be in my report!’ said Shin. ‘It is you who’s the traitor!’

Danny looked at An. ‘He endangers us all.’

‘I am in charge!’

‘Who is to say what he told the girl? Already they might be coming for us.’

‘You are a traitor,’ Shin told him. ‘You break ranks. You spit on the Supreme Leader himself.’

‘Enough,’ An said again.

‘Yes, enough,’ said Danny. He looked at Chris, then at An. ‘He is not to be trusted. If we are to complete our mission, we must do it without him. He will betray us all.’

‘Liar!’ screamed Shin.

An took his gun from its holster and shot Danny in the face.

Once the echo died away, he said to Shin, ‘The Supreme Leader put you in charge. To question that is to question Him.’

Shin nodded dumbly.

‘We go in four hours,’ An said, and put the gun down, and resumed eating noodles.

15

NOON COMES WITH BELLS on, because this is London, and London is a city of bells. From its heart to its ragged edges, they bisect the day in a jangle of sound: peals and tinkles and deep bass knells. They ring from steeples and clock towers, from churches and town halls, in an overlapping celebration of the everyday fact that time passes. In the heat, it might almost be possible to see their sound travel, carried on the haze that shimmers in the middle distance. And in time with the bells, other devices strike up: clocks on corners and hanging over jewellers’ premises strike the hour in their staggered fashion, all a little behind or a little ahead of the sun, but always – always – there’s one single moment when all chime together. Or that’s what it would be nice to pretend; that twice a day, around midnight and noon, the city speaks as one. But even if it were true, it would be over in a moment, and the normal cacophony re-establish itself; voices arguing, chiding, consoling and cracking jokes; begging for ice cream, for lovers to return; offering change and seeking endorsement; stumbling over each other in a constant chorus of joy and complaint, bliss and treachery; of big griefs, small sorrows, and unexpected delight. Every day is like this one: both familiar and unique. Today, like tomorrow, is always different, and always the same.

And today, London has slipped onto a war footing. Armed police on the streets are an unhappy outcome, but it seems there are prices to be paid for the common liberties London enjoys: the freedom of its citizens to walk its streets, to show their faces uncovered, to hold hands in public. Months go by without a civilian seeing a gun. But recent lessons have been harsh, and the capital’s dead, and the dead of its sister cities, are a familiar presence wherever crowds gather, so armed police are on the streets today. In the Abbey’s environs the pavements have been trammelled by metal barriers, and behind them Londoners, visitors too, are gathering to pay their respects to the Abbotsfield dead, because Abbotsfield could have been anywhere, and London is anywhere too. This is what London and its sister cities have learned: that hate crime pollutes the soul, but only the souls of those who commit it. When those who mourn stand together, their separate chimes sounding in unison if only for a moment, they remain unstained. So the people gather and wait, and the armed police officers study new arrivals, and twelve o’clock comes and goes in a welter of bells, and afternoon begins.

It was hours since anyone had put their head down. Claude Whelan was back at Regent’s Park; relieved to be at his desk, where he could at least feign some semblance of control; Di Taverner, likewise, was in situ, though roaming the hub now, looking over the shoulders of the boys and girls. She lingered longer than usual at one particular desk: a young woman’s – Josie – whose Breton-hooped T-shirt accentuated her breasts, and who had a way of blinking shyly when spoken to. The casual observer would have found it impossible to guess what Taverner was thinking, but a seasoned Lady Di-watcher would have known a mental note was being taken, information stored.

‘Sit rep,’ she said.

Josie blinked, then read from her screen. ‘The royals are due at the Abbey in fifty minutes. PM in forty. There’s been a disturbance on Great Smith Street, but it’s already over. A few drunks getting out of hand.’

Taverner said, ‘We don’t call them the royals, and we don’t call him the PM. Let’s maintain coding protocols, shall we?’

‘Sorry, ma’am.’

‘What’s our street-level status?’

‘Kestrel One’s on Millbank, Two’s on Westminster Bridge. Neither reporting anything suspicious. Three through Five are strung out along Whitehall. The crowd’s mostly subdued, they say, with a few angry outbreaks. Chanting about Dennis Gimball. Probably orchestrated by one right-wing group or another.’

That lines of connection were being drawn between the Abbotsfield massacre and the death of Dennis Gimball didn’t much surprise Taverner. Conspiracy theories bloomed at the rate of one hundred and forty characters a second.

She said, ‘Any arrests?’

‘A handful, ma’am. That we know of.’

Taverner placed her hand on the shoulder rest of Josie’s chair. It felt warm. ‘Are you keeping Mr Whelan up to speed?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Email, or …?’

‘He prefers me to step into his office.’

Taverner nodded, as if her mind was on something else entirely. ‘Tread carefully,’ she said, and returned to her room.

Kim Park, Roderick Ho’s girlfriend, was downstairs now, delivered by Flyte and Welles. On first time of asking, she’d had little to say she hadn’t already told Flyte, though her interrogation would continue for some while yet. Kim had been well aware of her rights; of how long she could be detained without charge. What she was now in the process of learning was that this only counted when she was under arrest, which she wasn’t. Legally, she’d been abducted. And the best of luck to her making an issue out of that, thought Taverner. She had at least provided identikit drawings of the terror suspects, though like every such picture Taverner had seen, the resulting images resembled automatons: batteries not included. She suspected their real-life counterparts would look little different. Terror-bots, she’d called them earlier. Those prepared to murder for their beliefs were inevitably without empathy, the human light in their eyes dimmed to nothing. She occasionally felt a little detached herself. But she’d never waged war on children.

Josie looked like she might be fair game, though. And if she was sitting on Claude’s lap while delivering her memos, she’d better be prepared to learn the meaning of collateral damage.

For a moment Taverner dimmed her own eyes. Emergencies tested the systems, her own not excluded. When this was over, she’d need to sleep for forty-eight hours. But not yet.

She turned the TV on, found a news channel. Aerial images of London filled the screen. Just ten years ago, it had looked so different: no Heron Tower, no Needle. Fold back twenty years, and you lost the Gherkin, the Eye, half the skyline. And twenty years from now, who knew; there might be monorails stretched between hundred-storey towers. But it would still be London, because that was the rule. Under the glitter and glad rags, the same heart beat.

Meanwhile, at ground level, the Met’s chief commissioner currently ruled the streets. But Di Taverner had agents out there too; Kestrels One to Five, watching, taking the city’s pulse. If an attack came, the terrorists were unlikely to be taken alive. Having agents on the scene pushed the odds a little further in that direction.

And it would soon be over either way; following which, there were other tasks in hand. Emma Flyte needed dealing with; her bagman, Devon Welles, too. The pair were confined to the Park for the duration. Taverner suspected conspiracy about seventy per cent of the time; whatever Flyte had been up to possibly fell into the cock-up category, but that was enough to come down on her hard. Slough House, too, was on her agenda. It was long since time Jackson Lamb got the message: among the bells heard today were some that tolled for him.

Protecting the Service was her top priority, now and always. Chopping away the dead limbs that threatened to choke its healthy trunk: that was good husbandry.

Up on the screen, footage of the gathering crowds was on both channels. Londoners were taking to the streets in a show of solidarity with the distant dead. It was a predictable, admirable response, and one the killers were relying on. Di Taverner hoped that, come tomorrow, there would be no more victims to remember. But it was true of every crowd that if you broke it down into its constituent parts, there would always be victims among them.

River Cartwright was in the crowd, threading through knots of people, most of them sombre, serious, aware of the day’s burden, and conscious of making a statement. We are not afraid. The talk was of Abbotsfield, Dennis Gimball’s death figuring highly too, and connections were being drawn. Every time he checked the BBC website, he expected to find his own face staring at him, alongside Coe’s. The police are seeking these men. But so far, nothing.

Twice he’d had to show his Service card to be allowed through a barrier: he didn’t remember London ever being tied this tight. But it made sense. An attack at the Abbotsfield memorial service would be more than a propaganda coup; it would be a dagger in the heart of the Establishment, even if the shooters got nowhere near the Abbey itself. Which they wouldn’t. Any armed hostile in central London right now would last seconds, no longer. Which didn’t mean he couldn’t take dozens of bystanders with him, writing headlines that would scorch their way around the world.

The snake eating its own tail …

He was exhausted, but couldn’t imagine what sleep might feel like. Every nerve inside him jangled like a landline.

He called Louisa. ‘Where are you?’

‘Storey’s Gate. You?’

‘Not far. Stay there?’

‘You asking or telling?’

‘Asking.’

‘Yeah, okay then.’

He disconnected, and headed up the street; a two-minute walk under normal circumstances, which now would take nearer ten.

Some hours before, they’d all been at Slough House. Flyte and Welles had departed, taking Kim; the slow horses were in Ho’s office, because that had become their common room, now that its regular occupant was absent. They should get rid of the furniture, River had thought; get a pinball machine. A jukebox. Not that he would have long to enjoy the amenities. That rumbling noise he could hear in the distance; that wasn’t traffic surging up London Wall. It was fate bearing down.

Catherine, who’d been reading her iPad, had said, ‘They’re expecting thousands of people. Tens of thousands. That’s what happens when there’s a tragedy. People want to show solidarity.’

‘Yeah, well, they’d be better off parking their arses at home,’ said Lamb. ‘Not like the dead are paying attention.’

‘It matters,’ she said sharply. ‘When bad things happen to the innocent, the rest of us should stand together. Otherwise we might as well live behind barricades.’

‘You know why bad things happen to good people?’ Lamb asked. ‘It’s because of all the dickheads.’

‘Well, that’s theology’s big issue wrapped up. Thanks for that.’ She looked around the assembled crew. ‘Everybody’s exhausted. There’s nothing we can do. Why don’t you all go home?’

‘We should get out there,’ Shirley said. ‘To the Abbey.’

‘And do what?’ asked Lamb. ‘Chuck staplers at the bad guys?’

‘A stapler can do a lot of damage,’ she muttered.

River said, ‘Flyte’s reported to the Park, the Park’ll have brought the Met up to speed. There’ll be police, there’ll be army, and Five’ll have eyes on the ground. I think they’ll struggle by without us.’

‘I imagine it had already occurred to them today’s service was at risk,’ Catherine said. ‘It’s not like they’d let the princes attend without serious security in place.’

‘A suspicion corroborated becomes a working theory,’ Coe said.

‘Thank you, Confucius,’ said Lamb. He turned to River. ‘Once bitten, twice chewed, huh?’

‘I don’t even know what that means,’ River said.

‘That last night’s little adventure’s left you gun-shy. What’s the matter, don’t want to be nearby in case more … accidents happen?’

‘I just want some sleep,’ he said.

‘We all do,’ said Catherine. ‘We should all go home,’ she repeated. ‘Whatever happens today, it’s not our watch.’

As if she hadn’t spoken, Lamb said, ‘I don’t know what happened in Slough, but the pair of you clearly pissed upstream. What are the odds we’re all going to be drinking from that soon?’

Louisa stretched theatrically. ‘Well, Catherine’s got a point. If we’re gonna be drinking piss tomorrow, we might as well bag some sleep.’

‘I’m not sure that was precisely what I said.’

Coe was looking out of the window.

Lamb said, ‘So, I mention Slough, and everybody wants to go home. A suspicious mind might find that curious.’

‘They went to Slough,’ Louisa pointed out. ‘I drove to Birmingham. And back. And haven’t slept.’

‘So you don’t plan to make a nuisance of yourself round the Abbey, then.’

‘State I’m in? I’d be about as effective as Donald Trump junior.’

‘There’s a Donald Trump junior? Christ. Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse.’

A phone buzzed, but nobody reached for a pocket.

‘Will someone shut that bloody thing up?’ Lamb said.

‘It’s yours,’ Catherine pointed out.

‘In that case, will everyone fuck off elsewhere?’

They trooped from the office and reconvened in Shirley’s room.

‘Now would be a good time,’ Catherine said. ‘Just go. All of you.’

‘He knows, doesn’t he?’ River said.

‘You’re probably better off if he does,’ she told him. ‘If what happened gets out, then Slough House is in trouble. Which means he’ll be on your side, for as long as it takes to sort things out.’

Unless Lamb had the power to restore life, River didn’t think things would get sorted out too quickly.

Shirley had disappeared. Coe was inserting his earbuds again, though whether he was listening to a news channel or his interminable jazz soundtrack was anyone’s guess.

River said, ‘Okay, I’m done,’ and left the building.

On Aldersgate Street he’d waited for Louisa to catch up. ‘You heading home?’

‘That seems to be our instruction.’

‘So are you?’

‘Hell no.’

‘Me neither.’

‘Didn’t think so. What was with the, “I think they’ll struggle by without us” bit?’

‘Last thing I want right now,’ River told her, ‘is pairing up with Coe again. Or Shirley.’

‘You think they’ll head that way too?’

‘I’m not making any predictions about Coe. Except that whatever he does, I hope he does it far away. But Shirley, yeah.’

‘You’re probably right. We tubing it?’

He’d left Ho’s car keys on his desk; besides, central London’s traffic would be jammed to a standstill. ‘Yep.’

They’d separated on arrival, patrolling streets that were slowly, then quickly, transformed by the public. It was a pointless exercise, but it was hardwired into them all the same. It was the job they’d trained for, before they’d soiled their copybooks. It was that tiny spark of hope, not quite dead, that, carefully nurtured, might light their way back to their careers. Two hours in they’d rendezvoused for a Coke, then headed back into the throng. Now, ninety minutes later, the memorial service was gearing up to start, one o’clock ready to strike its ragged antiphony. River saw Louisa up ahead, by a streetlight; holding two cups of coffee one-handed while she checked her phone.

‘Anything?’ he asked, relieving her of a cup.

‘Nada. You?’

‘Same.’

Cars went past, a little way distant. The only traffic carried VIPs to the Abbey. That would be the princes arriving, he thought, or the PM. It was starting.

‘Seen Shirley?’

‘Nope. Coe neither.’

‘I expect they’ve gone to bed.’

Louisa spat coffee.

‘Christ, no. I meant—’

‘I know what you meant. I just—’

‘Yeah.’

‘I mean, can you imagine?’ She slipped her phone back into her pocket. ‘You think it’s gonna work out?’

‘The service?’

‘Everything.’ She glanced around, to check nobody was listening, but dropped her voice anyway. ‘Coe. The Gimball thing. Shit, River, it’s fucking huge.’

‘I don’t know what’s going to happen,’ he said, keeping his own voice level. They began to walk, past a row of parked cars.

‘Have you thought about taking it upstairs?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘I don’t know what good it’ll do. I was there, same as Coe. We both know what that’ll mean, if it comes to handing down verdicts. There are reasons why the Park might want to cover it up, but probably plenty more why they won’t. Not least being, we’re not their favourite people.’ His coffee was too hot. A hot drink on a hot day. Better than nothing, though. ‘You want to know something funny?’

‘Please.’

‘I was planning on quitting. Before it all kicked off. I’d decided I’d had enough, and was gonna jack it in. Start a new life.’ He laughed: not a real laugh. ‘Good times.’

Louisa put her hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re all over the place right now, though. With your grandfather and all.’

‘Yeah. Still.’

‘So I wouldn’t make any big decisions. Not until … yellow car.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Not until it all shakes down a bit. We catch these guys, we get to be heroes. That’ll alter the picture. Besides, you know. Lamb. He has a way of sorting things out.’

River said, ‘There are limits. Anyway, catching these guys, that’s not gonna happen, is it? Realistically. Even if they do turn up here. In which case, frankly, we’re more likely to get shot than be heroes.’

Louisa dropped her cup into a bin. ‘Now, that’s just defeatist.’ She fished her phone out again. ‘I still think it’s strange we’ve not seen Shirley.’

‘It’s a big crowd. She’s a small person.’

‘But with ways of making her presence felt. I’m gonna call her.’

‘You’ll probably wake her up.’

Louisa said, ‘Yeah, that’ll be fun too,’ and made the call.

Fixed to the wall were two TVs, currently mute, each showing footage from Westminster Abbey. The PM was just disappearing inside, shadows swallowing him as surely as history would, any moment now. Then again, people had been saying that for a while. The other screen showed crowds lining the roads. It might have been a celebration, but there were few flags flying. Close-ups showed serious expressions, occasional tears.

Emma Flyte said, ‘Have you ever seen so many blues on the street?’

‘Royal wedding?’

‘Even then. And khaki, too. There must be two full regiments out there. You could basically stage a war in central London.’

Welles said, ‘You’re worried something’s going to happen? Or that it’s not?’

They were in the Dogs’ quarters – ‘the kennel’, naturally – having been told by Taverner to remain there for the foreseeable, which as far as Flyte was concerned, might turn out not that long. Yesterday she’d sat in Slough House, handcuffed to a chair, and listened to those idiots discussing which of Gimball or Jaffrey might end up dead. If she’d brought that straight to the Park, maybe Gimball would have made it through the night. As it was, her career probably wouldn’t survive him by much.

But here she was, and she’d dragged Devon along behind her. She’d yet to hear him complain about it.

She said, ‘The Abbotsfield crew, they’re what, five strong? And probably one down now, given someone went through a window.’

‘Two words,’ said Welles. ‘Suicide squad.’

‘Okay. But even then, how close to the Abbey could they get? There’s no traffic within quarter of a mile. And on foot, they won’t get that close. Not with every pair of eyes on the lookout for dodgy actors.’

‘They don’t need to get close,’ Welles said. ‘These aren’t combat rules, remember? To be a target, you just have to turn up. This crew, if they mow down a crowd at a zebra crossing, they’ll call it a result. Any crowd, any street. They just have to open fire.’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘But that’s not exactly seizing the media, is it?’

‘No shortage of news crews out there.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘Nobody likes it.’ Welles hoisted himself out of his chair. There was a table in the corner on which an ancient coffee machine muttered to itself. ‘You want some?’

‘I’m caffeinated beyond belief,’ Flyte told him. ‘Any more, you’ll have to peel me from the ceiling.’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’ He filled a cardboard cup from the jug. ‘I’m not even supposed to be here,’ he reminded her. ‘I’m off duty.’

‘Yeah, boohoo.’

‘I feel a discrimination lawsuit coming on.’

‘You make such a thing out of being black,’ she said. ‘Try being blonde. Then you’d know what harassment feels like.’

He laughed.

On one of the screens the picture changed, and Flyte tensed. A disturbance, people pressing forward so a barrier fell.

‘Dev?’

He’d already abandoned his coffee, the cup dropping to the tabletop, rolling onto the floor.

And then there were policemen on the screen; helping people to their feet, moving the barrier so nobody else tripped.

Welles exhaled heavily.

Flyte said, half to herself, ‘So many people there. It’s like a coronation.’

‘“We are not afraid,”’ Welles quoted. ‘They want to be there, show the bastards they’re not winning. That they’ll never win.’

‘But some of us will lose, all the same.’ The screen showed someone who’d borne the brunt of the collapse; a young woman, her face contorted in pain. Broken leg? Broken something. Two officers were crouching beside her, one laying a hand on her forehead.

Welles said, ‘Would you prefer it if the streets were deserted? If they had a memorial service and nobody came?’

She said, ‘They’ve picked soft targets until now. They’re in for a shock.’

‘Not sure there’ll be many of us feeling sorry for them.’

‘No. But it makes me wonder why they got so ambitious. They’re not going to get anywhere near the Abbey.’

‘A snake eating its tail. This wouldn’t be happening if they hadn’t shot up Abbotsfield. They’ve ordered their own victim turnout. What’s the matter?’

Emma had gone white.

Lamb was not far from Regent’s Park, waiting at a junction where a tree overhung the pavement. There were no crowds; outside of the Abbey’s environs, London was muted, as if the arching blue sky were an upturned bowl, clamping down on everything. He had contrived to be late, but not late enough, and it was a full minute before Molly Doran approached, her cherry-red wheelchair buzzing, as if pursued by mosquitoes. He lit a cigarette, then ran a finger round his collar. It came away damp.

‘What speed can you manage on that thing?’ he asked, when she’d come within range.

‘Faster than you’d think.’

Lamb grunted. ‘Might get one myself. Walking’s hell in this weather. Makes my feet swell up.’

‘Is there not a small part of you that gets tired of this?’

He leered. ‘I have no small parts. Remember?’

‘Must be fun working under you, Jackson.’ She steered her chair into the shade. ‘Tell me about Catherine Standish.’

For a moment, the near impossible happened, and Jackson Lamb looked thrown. But he was looming above Molly Doran’s eye level, and it was possible she didn’t notice. ‘She’s a drunk. She makes my tea. Does the typing. So what?’

‘Nobody types any more.’

‘Yeah, I don’t micromanage. Typing or whatever. What’s it to you?’

‘Seems only fair I get some information in return.’

‘In return for what? You’ve told me nothing yet.’

‘You seriously think I’d show you mine without seeing yours first? Come on, Jackson. Even when I did have legs, I didn’t spread them that easily. She was Charles Partner’s girl Friday, wasn’t she?’

‘You never met her?’

‘She was on the exec level. I didn’t get upstairs that often.’

‘You could have left that to me,’ he said. ‘There’s a punchline in there somewhere.’

‘She crops up now and again, in the records. In Partner’s files. Just another of those stories I’ll never hear the end of now.’

‘She’s a slow horse,’ said Lamb. ‘Like all the others.’

‘Except she was the first of them, wasn’t she? She was the one you took with you, from the Park. Why’d you choose her? That’s my price.’

He said, ‘I needed someone to make my tea. And do the typing.’

‘Fuck off, Jackson.’

He removed the cigarette from his mouth and examined the glowing tip. Veins of bright orange under a film of ash. He blew on it, and the ash disappeared. Within moments, it was back.

‘She’s a joe,’ he said at last.

Molly Doran laughed: half sneer, half cackle. Out here, she looked like she didn’t belong to the daylight world. ‘She rode a desk her entire career. When she wasn’t riding half the available males in her postcode. Reading between the lines, you understand.’

‘Partner used her as a cut-out.’

And now she inhaled deeply, satisfaction painted across her face like an extra layer of make-up. ‘So the rumours about Partner are true.’

‘Yeah, I wouldn’t broadcast that. It remains pretty sensitive.’

‘So his suicide—’

‘Enough,’ he said, with absolute finality.

She paused, and said, ‘But he used her. And that makes her a joe in your eyes.’

‘In Slough House, my eyes are the only ones that count. Have you finished playing now?’

‘I’m going to miss all this.’

‘If I pretend to give a fuck, will you get a move on?’

‘Jackson, Jackson, Jackson.’ She shook her head, as if releasing a few bad thoughts. Then said, ‘The document your boy Ho stole.’

‘You found the original?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And there’s a paper trail?’

‘Oh, you’d better believe it,’ said Molly Doran.

Flyte said, ‘We’ve got it wrong. Everybody’s got it wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s the memorial service all right. That’s where they’ll attack. But not at Westminster. They’re back at Abbotsfield.’

‘You think—’

But Flyte was already on the move; out of the door, heading up to the hub.

An said, ‘It is time you gave the order.’

They’d hoisted Danny’s body on top of Joon’s, so the two lay like logs; the lower sheened in cling film, the upper growing waxier by the minute. Danny’s last thoughts had been spray-painted across the van’s side panel, but were drying now, and remained forever private.

Shin tried to speak, couldn’t, and reached for his bottle of water. After a draught, he tried again. ‘We go now,’ he said.

‘Louder.’

‘We go now.’

Up front, Chris started the van. It pulled away from the edge of the unkempt road, leaving the weeds and long grass it had been parked upon to commence the struggle of becoming upright once more.

Down the hill, Abbotsfield awaited their second coming.

Shirley answered on the third ring. ‘Yeah. What?’

‘Where are you?’

‘Why, where are you?’

‘I’m at the Abbey, Shirl. With River. Are you not here too? We haven’t seen you.’

‘Well, yeah, that’s because I’m not there,’ she said. ‘Simples.’

Louisa stifled an exasperated sigh. ‘So where are you, then?’

‘I’m at Abbotsfield,’ said Shirley.

16

ONCE LAMB HAD LEFT Slough House, Shirley had crept up to his office. Crept might be the wrong word, just as hiding might not be what she’d been doing immediately before he left. But it was true she didn’t want to be caught searching his desk, which was why she nearly hit the ceiling when J. K. Coe addressed her from the doorway:

‘Looking for Lamb’s gun?’

‘It’s Marcus’s gun,’ she managed at last.

Coe shrugged.

She’d heard the back door open and close several times, and had thought everyone had gone. If asked to place a bet, she’d have put money on Coe leaving first.

‘Not your business, anyway.’

‘No.’

The bottom drawer on the left-hand side was locked. Shirley fumbled in her pocket; found Marcus’s universals.

Coe said, ‘You’ll probably tell me anyway. If I stand here long enough.’

‘They shot at me,’ said Shirley. ‘Outside Ho’s house. If they shoot at me again, I want to shoot back.’

‘At the Abbey?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Anyone waves a gun near the Abbey today, they’ll be cat food twenty seconds later.’

Shirley said nothing.

The smallest key fitted. She opened the drawer, and found a shoebox.

Coe said, ‘Thing is, I don’t think they’re going to the Abbey.’

‘The others?’

‘The Abbotsfield crew.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because basically, they’re village cricket. And the Abbey’s a Test match.’

She removed the box’s lid. Nestled inside, head to toe, were a pair of guns. A Heckler & Koch she guessed was Lamb’s, and the Glock that had been Marcus’s.

‘And I don’t think these kids’ll go up against the best London can offer. I think they prefer a soft target.’

‘So why didn’t you say?’

‘No one’s listening to me right now.’

‘That’ll be because you killed Dennis Gimball.’

The Glock was loaded, which was nice. She didn’t check the other. Stealing Lamb’s gun, she thought, was worse than swiping his lunch, and nobody ever swiped Lamb’s lunch.

She removed the Glock, then replaced the lid on the shoebox and tucked it back in its drawer, which she locked.

‘If it makes you feel better,’ she said, ‘they should probably erect a statue to you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘But they’re not going to. They’re gonna put you in prison. Sorry.’

‘Got what you wanted?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘So now you’re off to the Abbey.’

It was where Louisa and River would be headed, without waiting for her, the bastards. And Coe was probably right about waving a gun around today, but she wasn’t going to be waving it, was she? It was a just-in-case. Next time somebody shot at her, she wouldn’t just drop behind a car.

‘I thought you’d have gone home by now,’ she said, getting to her feet.

‘Do you think I’m a psychopath?’

‘Hadn’t really thought about it,’ she lied. ‘Yeah, maybe. Why?’

‘Just wondered.’

‘I’m not, you know, a professional. That’s just my opinion.’

‘I know.’

‘You’re the one from Pysch Eval, come to think of it. What do you reckon?’

‘Not sure. I might be.’

‘You’re certainly a lot more talkative lately.’

‘That’s not necessarily an indicator.’

‘Suppose not.’ She felt a bit awkward holding a gun during this conversation. He might think she felt the need to defend herself.

It fitted unhappily into her jacket pocket. She was going to need a bag or something.

‘You haven’t asked where I think they’ll show up.’

‘Where do you think they’ll show up?’

‘Abbotsfield,’ Coe said.

‘… Seriously?’

‘There’s a memorial service there today. Same time as the Abbey. There’ll be a security presence, I expect, but nothing like London’s. And there’ll be media.’

‘Hit it twice?’

He said, ‘I’m not sure anyone’s done that before.’

‘Christ on a bike!’

‘Probably a tri—’

‘You need to tell someone!’

‘Nobody’s listening to me.’ He rubbed his nose, then said, ‘On account of what happened in Slough.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘And I might be wrong.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘So what I thought I’d do is head that way myself.’

‘… Seriously?’

‘It’s about three hours by car. Bit more than.’

He tossed keys in the air and caught them. Ho’s, she guessed.

‘And what if you’re right? What if they’re up there?’

‘You’ve got a gun now, haven’t you?’

She should stick to plan A, she thought. Everyone else was doing plan A. She didn’t want to be doing plan B if everyone else was having fun.

‘Or you could head for the Abbey. Join the crowds.’ He tossed the keys again. ‘Your choice.’

‘Why do you want me with you?’

‘Sidekick?’

He didn’t need a sidekick, she thought. He needed a dick whisperer. But same difference.

What would Marcus do? Abbey or Abbotsfield? Everyone was at the Abbey. Which meant, if there was glory going round, the shares would be measly, and no one would notice.

‘You coming, then?’

Marcus, she thought, would make sure all exits were covered.

‘… Yeah, all right.’

And now they were there.

They’d spent three and a half hours in the car. Not a lot of conversation involved. They’d swapped at the two-hour mark, and Shirley had driven the second leg, satnav chirping occasionally. The gun was still an awkward bulge in her pocket. In another pocket was the wrap of coke. It occurred to her that if they were stopped and searched, that combination wouldn’t make for much of a character reference. So it would be best, she decided, if they weren’t stopped and searched. Some problems were more easily solved than others.

The blood on Coe’s chin had dried, but he hadn’t wiped it away. Her ear felt unpleasantly warm, but the Sellotape ensured no dripping.

Every hour on the hour, they checked the news: nothing much. Dennis Gimball was still making headlines, his last-gasp bid for attention. And reports filtered in from round Westminster Abbey, where the streets were thronged with mourners.

‘This better not be a waste of time, dipshit,’ Shirley said, but not out loud. Not because Coe might be a psychopath, but in case he wasn’t. If he did have feelings, his future looked grim enough without Shirley hurting them.

In Derbyshire, they’d entered a different world. Hills rose all around, and trees shaded the roads. Hedgerows sprang up, sometimes giving way to ditches, and there were sheep and cows in all directions.

Last time she’d been in the country, she’d seen a peacock. It was one of the few living things she encountered there that probably hadn’t been a Russian spy.

Where the road took a dip, a signpost appeared: ABBOTSFIELD. ‘You have reached your destination,’ the satnav chipped in. Nice to have a consensus.

‘Hey,’ she said. She didn’t know what to call him: Coe? J. K.? You’d think that would have been settled one way or the other during the previous year. Whichever he preferred, he was asleep right now, or as good as. Shirley punched his shoulder: lightly, but not so lightly he could pretend to sleep through it, and he opened his eyes. ‘We’re here.’

Coe removed his earbuds and looked around.

There were police officers, quite a few of them; not armed, it didn’t appear, but flagging down traffic. Coe flashed his Service card, which earned him a pair of raised eyebrows. Cars were parked along one side of the main street, and on the other side two news crews were shooting to-camera pieces. More cars were parked along the three side streets, each of which puttered into nothingness after a hundred yards or so. The main street, meanwhile, looped around the church, squeezing between what Shirley wanted to call its back garden, though was full of headstones, and a high wall which probably guarded a manor house or something. The country had its own rules, and she wasn’t sure she understood them. But whatever they were, they originated behind that wall, or one like it.

There was a police van outside the church, near a porch-type arrangement which was garlanded with flowers and toys, and multicoloured scraps of paper, cut into shapes. Hearts and more flowers. Another van belonged to a third news crew, currently occupying the path leading to the church, which Shirley thought intrusive. On the other hand, she was turning up with a gun in her pocket. That too might seem a little uncalled for.

Now that she was here, she hoped it was.

She followed the loop round the church, found a space almost big enough for Ho’s car, and wedged it in. Engine off, she patted her pocket automatically – gun still there: where else would it be? – then studied the area. Beyond the church was a row of cottages, splashes of colour dripping from window boxes; elsewhere, bunches of flowers were tied to lamp posts, and there was something chalked on the road too, a child’s drawing it looked like: more colour. More flowers, in fact, Shirley realised, and then: That was where one of the bodies fell. There’d be a war memorial: most villages had one. And now Abbotsfield had one everywhere you looked.

‘Why are you really doing this?’ she asked Coe.

Coe stared straight ahead for a while. ‘If they come for me, over Gimball?’ he said at last.

‘Which they will.’

‘It might be a good idea to have something my side of the ledger.’

So I killed an MP, she thought, but I drove all the way to Derbyshire on the off chance of catching some bad actors.

She really didn’t think the one would cancel the other out.

‘What now?’

He said, ‘The front street’s pretty well covered.’

‘With unarmed policemen.’

‘At least three of them have guns.’ He pointed. ‘Two round that corner. One further down the road. We passed him first, just after the village sign.’

She’d thought he’d been asleep. ‘Rifles?’

‘One. Two machine guns.’

‘You’re good at this.’

He said, ‘Bit paranoid. It helps.’

She wondered if that were a joke, then decided it didn’t matter.

‘So what do you suggest?’

He shrugged. ‘Getting here’s used up all my ideas.’

‘I might go in the church.’

‘You might not want to carry that thing in your pocket.’

She’d jam it down the back of her jeans. The jacket would cover it.

That’s what she did once they were out of the car. Coe nodded, presumably agreeing she was now less noticeably tooled up, then gestured down the road.

‘I’m gonna take a look down there.’

And once he’d done that, she thought, he could take a look the other way, and then they’d be more or less done.

She crossed the road alone. There’d been bells ringing when they drove into the village, but they’d stopped now. The TV crew were moving their equipment from the church path onto the pavement. They regarded her for a moment, but evidently decided her unnewsworthy.

‘Full house?’ she asked, meaning the church.

One of them, thirtyish, in a T-shirt that read ON YOUR CASE, checked her out briefly, then said, ‘Yep.’

‘Much TV here?’

He considered. ‘Four crews?’

Seize the media, thought Shirley.

‘And a couple from the radio doing vox pops by the shop,’ someone chipped in. She said ‘radio’ like she meant ‘measles’; one of those things you’d have thought had been cured by now.

They left her there, on a crazy-paved path through the graveyard that led to the church porch. More flowers had been piled here: an untended mass of bouquets that made Shirley wonder what the point was; fifteen or twenty quid on a gesture nobody would notice, except as part of a large, undifferentiated orgy of sentiment. The only person left feeling better was the florist. But the scent met her as she passed: hit her like a swinging door. At that same moment, her phone rang.

Like an idiot, her first reaction was to reach for the gun.

Luckily, there was nobody to notice. From inside the church came a communal mutter of ritualised response, and then a shuffling that could have been anything, but was, in fact, a large congregation reaching for its hymn books. Shirley got to her phone on the third ring. ‘Yeah. What?’

‘Where are you?’ Louisa asked.

‘Why, where are you?’

‘I’m at the Abbey, Shirl. With River. Are you not here too? We haven’t seen you.’

‘Well, yeah, that’s because I’m not there,’ she said. ‘Simples.’

Louisa stifled an exasperated sigh. ‘So where are you, then?’

‘I’m at Abbotsfield.’

‘You’re what?’

‘Me and Coe.’

‘What the hell are you doing there?’

Same as what Louisa and River were doing at the Abbey, Shirley thought. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Singing began. Something sacred, obviously, and freighted with sorrow. Shirley recognised the tune, but couldn’t think what it was.

‘Nothing much,’ she said. ‘What’s happening there?’

She waited, but Louisa didn’t reply. She’d lost the signal, she realised. Hick place like this, the wonder was her phone had rung in the first place.

Putting it away, she opened the door and slipped inside. The church was full, and everyone was standing, singing; the air was thick and warm; the light patterned with colour. A few people turned when she entered, but not many, and she closed the door behind her softly as she could. There were spaces on the back pews, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to stay, now she was here, though didn’t want to bow out immediately. It would be disrespectful. So she stood at the door and cast her eyes around. How long since she’d stepped inside a church? And did she have anything to say to God right now? She supposed she wanted to ask Him what made it all right to let those murderers intrude on this quiet place. But He’d been overseeing village massacres since time immemorial. Either He’d have a foolproof answer by now, or He didn’t give a damn either way.

The hymn swelled to a chorus, and the church filled with sound.

It was a good few minutes before anyone noticed the shooting.

When Chris saw the sign reading ABBOTSFIELD, which also suggested that visitors drive carefully, he increased speed to thirty, thirty-five.

‘Drive normally!’ Shin hissed behind him.

But An said, ‘No. This is good.’

There was blood on Shin’s shirt, not his own. It had sprayed from Danny when he died. There were other bits too, that looked like scrambled egg, and when he stepped into sunlight, he would look a fright.

But he would look a fright anyway, on Abbotsfield’s streets again.

‘There will be cameras,’ An said. ‘Our victory will be seen around the world.’

And then what? Shin had wondered. The Supreme Leader himself would see their victory, it was true. But then what?

‘We take the church,’ An said, as if answering Shin’s question. ‘That is where they are gathered now. They will be praying, but they will not get what they pray for.’

Thirty-five, forty.

‘We will seize their attention for all time.’

The van bumped and swayed on the imperfect road.

Up ahead, a police officer stepped out, and waved for them to stop.

When J. K. Coe saw the van approaching, he thought: this is not good.

Vehicles were weapons now. Everything was a weapon.

He had reached the far end of the village, the scene of the attack, before turning back towards the church. Outside the sole shop, on a forecourt boasting a row of newspapers in a plastic display unit, a pair of journalists had approached, one wielding a microphone, but he fended them off with an open palm. A little further on a police officer had stopped him and he’d shown ID once more, but offered no explanation for his presence. I’m here because if I go home, I’ll just be waiting for a knock on the door. The officer had examined his card as if it were the first time she’d seen one, which it probably was, then continued her slow patrol down the road. Half a minute later, having skirted the two TV crews, something made Coe look back. A van was approaching, moving fast.

This is not good.

The police officer stepped into the road to flag it down.

She was not armed. It would have made little difference if she had been: when the van clipped her she was thrown against the wall of the nearest cottage, where she hung for a fraction of a second before dropping to the ground. The van swerved in the aftermath of impact, sideswiped a parked car with a tortured screech, then righted itself and continued up the road towards Coe.

Who also dropped, taking shelter behind a car.

There was shouting and sounds of running; someone yelling into a clipped-on radio. The journalists were running too, towards the fallen officer, but as the van passed them its back door swung open and Coe heard the pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire. One of the journalists was hurled sideways and bounced off the bonnet of a car.

Somebody screamed.

As the van hurtled past, a police officer appeared from a side street, took aim and fired three times, each shot hitting the rear door, which had bounced on its hinges and swung shut again. And then reopened as the van kangaroo-hopped: from where he crouched, Coe caught a brief glimpse of a khaki-clad figure, upright, armed. He smelled fear and metal and joy, and saw the policeman attempt a pirouette, and give up halfway through. His rifle hit the ground a second after his body. Up ahead, the van skewed to a halt.

Behind him somebody shouted, ‘Are you getting this?’

The driver clambered from the van, raised a gun and died as two armed officers opened fire simultaneously.

Amid movement and confusion, Coe got to his feet. His body appeared to be making its own decisions, he was interested to learn. Was operating slowly, but efficiently. At least two figures had jumped from the back of the van, and one of the police officers had run through the lychgate into the church grounds and was firing from the shelter of the wall. The other had taken cover behind the abandoned van, and had dropped into firing stance, but wasn’t shooting; was shouting instructions at someone. Himself?

Coe crossed the road and bent by the fallen policeman. Would have checked for a pulse, but there seemed little point, as the officer’s throat was mostly missing. Coe wondered how he felt about this, and decided he didn’t feel anything yet. Except, perhaps, that he would rather not be here. All the same, he discovered he was picking up the fallen rifle.

‘Put that down! Put that weapon down!’

This time the instruction was pretty clearly aimed at himself so he did just that, put the rifle down, when more gunfire cut the instruction in half, Put that wea—

It was no longer clear to him where the gunmen were. He couldn’t see either, always supposing there were two, were only two. He could, though, see the police officer who’d been shouting at him a moment earlier: he was a heap on the road. So the gunmen were out of Coe’s field of vision; must be along the side of the church, on the road that looped round it, where Dander had parked. Their driver was still by the van, which was similarly riddled with bullets. Bonnie and Clyde, thought Coe.

And a news crew was out in the open, filming proceedings.

Something ought to be done about that, he thought, without in any way volunteering for the role. Instead, he picked the rifle up again, and tested its heft, as if he knew what he was doing. Some hundred yards behind him, someone was wailing: only word for it. It was strange to note that the weather was still fine; the sky above still blue. Rifle in his hands, Coe walked towards the van.

This was wrong, he thought. He should be crouching, hiding, taking cover. But whoever was shooting was round the corner. Bullets, thought Coe, didn’t handle angles well. As long as he stayed on the main road, he was safe.

He reached the corner, and paused. Was this psychopathic behaviour? It certainly wasn’t sensible. He wondered where Shirley Dander had got to, and whether she was about to appear, gun blazing, or whether she was dead. He had spent a lot of time, these past years, hoping nothing would happen, or that if it did, he was nowhere near. So what was he doing now? He wasn’t built for this. Last time he’d killed someone – fair play: last time he’d killed someone deliberately – they’d been unarmed and handcuffed to a radiator. It had been low risk. And even then, the recoil had sprained his thumb.

The nearest news crew was filming him now. They didn’t have guns; perhaps he should just shoot them.

Instead, he stepped around the corner.

Across the road, the policeman behind the low church wall stood and loosed two quick bursts of ammunition, which stitched a neat line of holes into a row of parked cars, one of them Roderick Ho’s. And it was behind Ho’s car that a gunman was sheltering: on the pavement, legs outstretched, his back against the driver’s door. He was fitting a new magazine into his weapon, an action he completed even as Coe watched. And then he half rolled onto his knees, levelled the gun on the car’s bonnet and issued a volley in the vague direction of the police officer. The stained-glass windows along the side of the church shattered. Why wasn’t this man looking his way, Coe wondered. Coe had a perfect sighting on him, but it was like the man hadn’t even seen him. Maybe fifty yards away. A tin duck in a gallery. Better safe than sorry, though. The gunman’s weapon was semi-automatic; he could loose off a lot more bullets than Coe in a hurry. If Coe fired and missed now, he’d get more than a sprained thumb for his pains.

So he moved nearer, slowly but steadily, sighting down the barrel as he walked.

The singing had started to falter before glass began to rain.

Shirley saw it as a series of explosions: the church’s side windows disintegrating into coloured hailstones that blew halfway across the vaulted spaces before scattering onto the congregation. It sounded like wind chimes, sounded like ice. And then the harmonies, too, disintegrated and scattered, and the hymn gave way to hysteria. The organ stopped, and screaming began. People ducked and covered, sheltering themselves and their loved ones from the kaleidoscopic downpour, and those at the ends of the pews broke ranks and ran for the door, in front of which Shirley stood.

They can’t go out, she thought. That’s where the guns are.

There was a large, old-fashioned key in the lock; she turned it, removed it, then stood facing the crowd with arms flung wide. ‘No!’ she shouted, or thought she did; everything had broken down so abruptly, she couldn’t be sure her voice still worked. The glass had stopped falling, but the alteration in the light, the swift exchange of harsh daylight for colour, was like a punch in the face. How quickly the congregation became a mob; how quickly screaming swallowed the air. A young man tripped while clambering from a bench, and the man behind trampled him in his fury to escape. She shouted ‘No!’ again, but the crowd was upon her now; she was being pressed against the door, and the breath squeezed out of her. Prayer had become panic, another unifying force, but one with no thought, no time, for its components. Someone’s foot came down on hers, and she jerked free, but it was like fighting a herd. Those caught at the front, like Shirley, were jammed fast, while those behind, still programmed for flight, pushed and shoved as if this would make a difference. She thought she heard more gunfire outside. But that was a distant problem, for on this side of the door, in this dense press of bodies, her vision clouded, and fear swallowed rationality. If this kept up, people would die. She’d be one of them. Someone was on her foot again, someone’s elbow jammed in her face. Someone’s head struck her nose, and then there was blood.

A man at the back of the crowd was tearing at the people in front of him. He hooked an arm around a woman’s throat, and threw her to the floor.

Shirley closed her eyes, and felt the door groan. If it gave way now, she’d be crushed beneath this zombie onslaught.

She should have let them take their chances with the gunmen. The screaming grew louder; the panic soared. Something pressed into her stomach, part of someone else’s body, and she couldn’t tell what it was, but it would be among her final sensations. The slow unlearning of how to breathe. This was what being buried alive was like. Buried alive by people. She swallowed blood: her final meal. If she could reach her gun she would shoot herself. In the moment of arriving at this decision, it felt like a prayer, or as much of one as she’d made in adulthood. Let me reach my gun. I won’t hurt anybody else.

Then there was a bell.

People were still screaming, still pushing; Shirley was still fighting for breath, but there was a bell behind the noise now: behind it, below it, alongside it; at last above it; the ringing of a bell. It was clear and musical, and the more insistent it became, the more the screaming subsided. The elbow was removed from Shirley’s face, and whatever had been pressed against her stomach relaxed, and she breathed again: bad air, full of sweat and fear and the stink of interrupted death, but air. She realised she was clutching something – an arm – and let it go. The press of people pulled back, some still lying on the floor, and there was crying and whimpering and other scared noises, but the screaming had stopped, and the bell was still ringing.

Shirley could see now, all the way to the altar, where the vicar stood swinging a handbell high and low. Even as she watched, he slowed and stopped. Behind him, the rose window remained intact. But along the right-hand wall the tall narrow windows had been shattered, and whatever stories they had told lay in fragments on the floor and the pews, and caught in people’s hair. Outside the church, another story had ended too: the gunfire had ceased. In its place came static and chatter, and bellowed oaths and distant sirens.

And now, at the far end of the aisle, appeared a young man holding a short-barrelled machine gun.

The press of people fell away from Shirley, and she stepped over those who remained on the floor. Gradually, everyone was becoming aware of the gunman, but instead of renewed panic a desperate calm fell. Those still on the pews bowed their heads, as if a refusal to watch what he planned to do would negate its effect, and those who had scrambled towards the door scuttled for what cover they could find.

Some remained standing, however, staring him down.

How had he got there? Shirley wondered.

And then: back door. There was always a back door.

Almost without realising she’d done so, she had drawn her own weapon, Marcus’s gun, and held it in front of her in a two-handed grip.

Half a dozen paces, and she was in the aisle herself.

‘Put the gun down,’ she called.

The man stared at her. Glanced down at his weapon, then stared at her again.

She should shoot him without warning. He was armed, he was dangerous. He had been here before. There were dozens of people all around, every one of them an innocent target, and he could cut them to ribbons within seconds. Even dying, his finger could shred their lives. She should shoot him now: put a bullet in his head. She was a good shot. She could kill him from here.

He was, by the look of him, seventeen. Maybe eighteen. Hard to tell.

‘Put that down,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll kill you.’

He didn’t put it down.

She kept walking towards him. A good shot already, and he was getting easier by the moment.

Someone was hammering on the church door, from outside.

‘Put it down,’ she repeated.

Off to her left, a child hiccuped in fear.

Again the hammering, which now became a dull thump, as if a battering ram were in use.

Behind the gunman, up on the altar, the priest had closed his eyes; was mumbling in prayer.

The gunman’s mouth trembled.

‘Now,’ she said.

One shot. She could put a bullet through either eye: it was up to him. Or he could lose his weapon, but he would have to do it now.

If she took another step, the muzzle of her gun would meet his forehead.

He looked down at his weapon once again. Shook his head as if denying its reality, or this moment, or his presence.

She should kill him now. Before he remembered himself. Before he taught Abbotsfield how to die again.

Her gun met his skin.

‘I shot up the sky,’ he told her.

Shirley reached for his weapon, and he released it to her grasp.

Behind her the door splintered and gave, and the church filled with noise once more.

It might have been the following day; might have been the day after.

Late afternoon had claimed Slough House, wrapping it in curdled heat. In her office, Louisa Guy was scraping paint from the window frame, in the hope of being able to open it and set a breeze loose through the building. River Cartwright was reaching for his ringing phone; J. K. Coe studying traffic. A smell of damp patrolled the staircase; lurking on landings, peeling paper from walls. Shirley Dander, flat on her back, was listening to the feverish ticking of a clock, wondering whether time was moving faster or she herself slowing down. Behind a closed door Catherine Standish was brushing her hair, nine ten eleven times; when she reached thirty, she’d stop. Roderick Ho was nowhere. And Lady Di Taverner was ascending the stairs, trying not to touch anything, even the stairs.

‘Fuck off,’ Lamb growled from his room, as she raised her hand to knock.

‘I’m not even going to ignore that,’ she told him, entering, closing the door behind her and crossing to the room’s single window.

Lamb had his feet on his desk, one cigarette smouldering in an empty packet seeing service as an ashtray, another clenched in his mouth. Grey hairs poked through the missing button on his shirt, and he scratched them absent-mindedly while watching her fiddle with the blind, her evident intent being to open the window it shielded. ‘I’d tell you you’re wasting your time,’ he said, ‘except I’m finding it quite entertaining.’

She gave up. ‘There’s no air in here. Would you put that damn thing out?’

‘Sure.’ He stubbed it out, then lit another. ‘That all you wanted?’

‘You wish.’ She eyed the visitor chair with distaste, and dragged it further away from Lamb’s desk. Then stood with her hands on the backrest. ‘We need to discuss your staff.’

Lamb leered.

‘This is me, not some intern,’ she said. ‘Dick jokes aren’t going to cut it.’

‘Everyone’s a critic.’

‘J. K. Coe. Thoughts?’

‘Recent reports claim he’s a hero.’ Lamb yawned. ‘Familiarity, on the other hand, suggests he’s a dick. I expect the truth is somewhere in the middle. As usual.’

‘Thanks for the insight. The officer on the scene says Coe walked right up to the gunman, who was firing a semi-automatic at the time, and shot him in the head, point-blank range. With a rifle.’

‘Yeah, I saw the photos. They look like Jackson Pollock threw up on a pizza.’

‘Coe was asked why the gunman didn’t see him coming. You know what he said? He said he approached him very, very quietly.’

‘I’m gonna start locking my door,’ said Lamb. ‘It’s creepy enough when he just sits staring at his fingers.’

‘Shirley Dander, meanwhile, is endangering a churchful of people by waving an unauthorised gun around. Her target also had a semi-automatic weapon. The potential casualties don’t bear thinking about. She should have taken him down the very first moment.’

‘She did an anger management course. It obviously backfired. But look on the bright side, you got one of them alive. Isn’t that a treat for your knuckle-twisters? Except, no, hang on – did I hear a rumour?’

‘He was wounded in an exchange of gunfire before entering the church,’ said Lady Di. ‘He was DOA at the nearest hospital.’

‘Funny, Dander didn’t mention him being wounded.’ He waited, but Taverner remained expressionless. ‘Huh. Well, I hope for his sake it was an authorised gun did the damage. We finished?’

‘Not even nearly. You sent two of your crew to Abbotsfield. Are you out of your mind?’

‘Opinions differ.’

‘Trust me, not at the Park they don’t. And then there’s Slough. Coe – him again. Cartwright and Coe were in Slough the night Gimball was killed.’

‘Cartwright and Coe,’ said Lamb. ‘Sounds like a solicitors’ firm, doesn’t it?’

‘You were supposed to be in lockdown. But unless they’ve got a pair of identical twins, we’ve CCTV coverage of them lurking around where it happened.’

‘Do you suppose they found any clues?’

‘I’m sure the Met’ll let us know. We’re handing the coverage to them. I imagine your pair’ll be invited in for questioning, ooh, twenty seconds later.’

Lamb took the cigarette from his mouth and studied it, his face a blank. ‘You’d hand over two joes to the Met?’

‘They’re not joes, Lamb. Slough House doesn’t do joes. You’ve been allowed to run this place on sufferance, because of what you did for the Service—’

‘Yeah, I remember it well.’

‘—but there are lines and there are limits, and you’re way over both.’

‘Nobody gave me a game plan. I was handed the keys. I still have them.’

‘Yes, well, you’ll be asked for them back before long. This has got too messy. Your rejects are supposed to be shackled to their desks, not hotdogging it all over the map. And we haven’t even started on Roderick Ho. A traitor? Here? You haven’t the budget to replace the coat hooks, but you’re glamorous enough to have your own fully fledged traitor?’

Lamb slotted his cigarette back into place, and his lip curled as he inhaled. Unless he was smiling. It was hard to tell.

Di Taverner said, ‘So you won’t be getting him back, either. No, it looks like happy hour’s over, Jackson.’

‘Unless,’ said Lamb.

‘Unless what?’

‘Unless I can make all your dreams come true.’

She made to speak, then stopped.

There was a clock ticking somewhere, but she couldn’t see it.

She said, ‘Is this going to turn into another one-liner about your staff?’

‘You might get lucky. But first off, it’s about our so-called traitor. Thing is, that classified document that’s caused all this trouble? The one you really don’t want to become public knowledge?’ He breathed out smoke. ‘It wasn’t classified.’

Taverner laughed. ‘This again? It was on the database. Everything on there’s classified.’

‘But not this.’ Lamb opened his drawer, pulled out a sheet of paper, handed it across. ‘That one’s a copy. But check the coding.’

She did, with narrowing eyes. ‘Is this a joke?’

‘Oh, now you want me to bring on the funny? No, it’s not a joke.’ From the still open drawer he produced a bottle and two glasses. He put them on the desk, paused, and put one of the glasses away again. Into the other, he poured an absurd measure of Scotch. ‘Want to hear a story?’

‘I’m pretty sure you’re about to tell one.’

‘Yeah, but sit down.’ She didn’t move. ‘I’m serious. You’re gonna hear this. But you’ll sit down for it.’

‘Your gaff, your rules, eh?’ But she sat on the chair at last, still holding the sheet of paper.

Lamb nodded in its direction. ‘Nineteen years ago, that was declassified, just like the coding shows. Signed off on by Charles Partner, because he was First Desk then. And nobody can declassify except First Desk.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘But it wasn’t his idea. It was part of an operation called Shopping List. Because there was a traitor in the Service at the time. Oh, not a great big one like Partner himself – we already know about him. But a low level one whose name doesn’t matter, a man who had heavy debts, and thought one way of settling them would be to sell some secrets.’

He raised his glass to his lips, swallowed.

‘Unfortunately for Mr Nobody, he’d barely got as far as hanging his shingle out before he was rumbled. No payday for him. But some bright spark decided this might be just the hook to hang his brolly on. And so was born Operation Shopping List. You see, Mr Nobody had already dipped his toe in murky waters, and there were a few interested parties who knew he was for sale. And what they wanted to know was, what were his goodies like?’

‘So we provided him with some,’ Lady Di said.

‘Oh, yes. He was given a load of worn-out secrets, all jazzed up to look shiny and new. Nothing like feeding the opposition a bowl of dog shit dressed up as caviar. But before said dog shit could be offered as bait, it had to be declassified, else Operation Shopping List itself would have been an act of treason. You can’t go offering classified material for sale, even as part of a sting. Even when that material’s of no strategic value.’

‘Like the Watering Hole paper,’ she said.

‘Yep. A worthless little strategy dreamed up by some ex-colonial, back when topis were the rage. Sounded good in summary, though. How to destabilise a nation state. Leave out the bit about it being fifty years behind the times, and you’d have a lot of Dr Evils salivating over that one.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Mr Nobody topped himself, that’s what happened. Overcome by shame or, I dunno, tied the knot too tight for his Friday night jerk-off. So Operation Shopping List never got past the initial stage. Which was to distribute the list of goodies around the interested parties.’

‘Which is how come the SSD knew of its existence.’

‘Oh yes. It was out there. It was just withdrawn from the shelf before the shop opened. But lo and behold, two decades later, the SSD decides it might be just the thing to get their grubby hands on, on account of the huge embarrassment it would cause us if they wound it up and set it loose right here in the green and pleasant. What looked like a random series of attacks suddenly has the Service’s fingerprints all over it, from a document now dated to look less than two decades old. And here we are.’

‘Here we are,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m still waiting to find out how this makes my dreams come true.’

‘Well,’ he said. ‘That would be the identity of the bright spark who set the whole thing in motion.’

Di Taverner closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, they were full of murky light. ‘Claude Whelan,’ she said.

‘The one and only.’

She nodded at the glass in his hand. ‘Spare me one of those?’

‘I’m a generous-hearted soul, as you know,’ he said. ‘But buy your own fucking drinks.’

‘… Who else knows about this?’

‘So far? You, me and Molly Doran. I imagine you’d like to be the one to tell Claude.’

‘What, that his cunning little plan of two decades ago just bit us all on the arse? Yes, I think I’ll enjoy that conversation.’

‘Oh, good. We’re all gonna be happy, then.’

‘And here comes the bill. What do you want, Jackson?’

‘What I always want, Diana. I want to be left alone.’

‘Suits me.’

‘Me and mine. So you can slap Ho’s wrists hard as you like, but send him home when you’re done. I’ve not finished with him. As for the other two—’

‘There’s a strong chance they were involved in Gimball’s death.’

‘Yeah, boohoo. No, I think what’ll turn out to have happened is, Gimball went for a smoke and leaned against some scaffolding on which some muppet left a tin of paint.’ He made a spiralling motion with his free hand. ‘Gravity strikes again.’

‘… Are you serious?’

Lamb shrugged. ‘Everyone keeps telling me smoking’s bad for your health. They can’t all be wrong. And if they are, well, Zafar Jaffrey’s bagman was also on the scene. And if you can’t fit up a black ex-con for Gimball’s death, what’s the country coming to?’ He adopted a pious expression. ‘It’s what he would have wanted.’

‘Maybe we’ll go with the accident,’ said Taverner. ‘And that’s it? You want your crew back in place?’

‘Molly Doran too. She tells me you’re turfing her out.’ He shook his head. ‘Not gonna happen.’

Taverner recrossed her legs. ‘A suspicious mind might wonder why you want Molly kept on a leash. Don’t want anyone else crawling round her little kingdom, eh? Who knows what they might unearth down there. Not like you’re short of secrets.’

‘With what I’ve just given you, First Desk is yours for the taking. Claude’ll never survive being known as the architect of Abbotsfield. Not to mention all those penguins. And unlike other recent fuck-ups, this can be pinned on him alone, rather than systemic failure, leaving your path free and clear.’ He stubbed his cigarette out as nastily as possible. ‘So you’ll do as I say and smile while doing it. Just like any other professional.’

‘What about Flyte?’

‘What about her? She’s not one of mine.’

‘You have a code all your own, don’t you, Jackson?’ She stood. ‘Okay, then. You get what you want. And here and now, I’ll even smile. But I don’t like being dictated to. Never have. You might want to bear that in mind.’

‘Where you’re concerned, I bear everything in mind.’

Lamb reached for another cigarette as she turned to go, but the action triggered something inside him, and his face purpled. He slumped back in his chair as the coughing took hold, one arm folded across his chest while with the other he grabbed the desk, knocking his drink to the floor. His eyes watered in pain or alarm, and the effort it cost him to pull in air would have felled a good-sized tree. He looked, thought Diana Taverner, like a semi-aquatic mammal, struggling to give birth. Sounded like one too. Watching him, true to her word, she smiled. Then left his office, closing the door behind her.

Across the landing, she knocked once on Catherine Standish’s door, and let herself in without waiting for a response. Catherine, at her desk, hair neatly brushed, had a stack of papers in her hand; she was tapping them on the desk’s surface, aligning their edges. When she saw Taverner she stopped.

‘Is he okay?’

‘Don’t get me started.’ Taverner leaned against the office door. ‘Tell me, Catherine,’ she said. ‘Something I’ve always wondered. Did Lamb ever tell you how Charles Partner really died?’

When dusk at last comes it comes from the corners, where it’s been waiting all day, and seeps through Slough House the way ink seeps through water; first casting tendrils, then becoming smoky black cloud, and at last being everywhere, the way it always wants to be. Its older brother night has broader footfall, louder voice, but dusk is the family sneak, a hoarder of secrets. In each of the offices it prowls by the walls, licking the skirting boards, testing the pipes, and out on the landings it fondles doorknobs, slips through keyholes, and is content. It leans hard against the front door – which never opens, never closes – and pushes softly on the back, which jams in all weathers; it presses down on every stair at once, making none of them creak, and peers through both sides of each window. In locked drawers it hunts for its infant siblings, and with every one it finds it grows a little darker. Dusk is a temporary creature, and always has been. The faster it feeds, the sooner it yields to the night.

But for now it’s here in Slough House, and as it moves, as it swells, it gathers up all traces of the day and cradles them in its smoky fingers, squeezing them for the secrets they contain. It listens to the conversations that took place within these walls, all faded to whispers now, inaudible to human ears, and gorges on them. From behind a radiator in Shirley Dander’s office it collects the memory of her unfolding a wrap of paper and snorting its contents through a five-pound note. ‘Back to zero,’ Shirley said aloud once she was done, and though dusk has no understanding of the words – has no vocabulary at all – it takes her tone of defiant regret and adds it to its purse. In Roderick Ho’s empty room it finds nothing, but on the next floor there are moments of interest, items to ponder. Louisa Guy has left a trace of scent behind: dusk has no sense of smell, but there’s a familiarity of intent here, a lingering sense of purpose it recognises. Dusk has seen a lot of action in its time. It appreciates the efforts that go into such occasions.

And in the companion office it dawdles longer, savouring the remnants of the day. It can still hear River Cartwright’s recent phone call, a call consisting of one word only, River?, before the connection disappeared, leaving River grasping at a vacant space. Sid? he might have said; a word is only a noise, and easily lost amid other sensations: for example, River’s understanding that any protection Lamb might offer will last only while he’s a slow horse. For Lamb will go to any lengths to protect a joe, but would watch in mild amusement if the rest of the world hanged itself. This may not be true – there are corners in Lamb’s life River has no knowledge of – but for the moment, at least, it seems that resignation is no longer an option; a conclusion that tarries in the room after River has taken leave. J. K. Coe, too, has long departed, but before doing so stood a while, seeming to smile as dusk peered out from a hole in the carpet. Dusk, unused to such greetings, wonders whether Coe has mistaken it for its older brother night. Perhaps an introduction is in order. But Coe has gone before that can happen, which is maybe just as well, for those who meet the night on equal terms are rarely left unbruised by the encounter.

There are more stairs, and dusk has already climbed them. In Catherine Standish’s room, it now remembers, it lay beneath a filing cabinet while Diana Taverner described Catherine’s former boss’s final moments; how Jackson Lamb murdered Charles Partner in his bathtub; a sanctioned murder, but a murder all the same; one which precipitated Lamb’s exile, and gifted him Slough House. The life Catherine now leads is built on the proceeds of Jackson Lamb’s crime. Diana Taverner just thought she should know that. And once Taverner had left, dusk waited for Catherine to weep, or shout, or rage, but it heard nothing; and when time came for it to creep from its hiding places, it found the room empty, and Catherine Standish gone.

So at last dusk comes to Jackson Lamb’s office, where, of course, it’s already waiting. And finds there is nothing to find there, for Jackson Lamb carries his own darkness with him, and is careful not to leave any lying in unregarded corners. All that remains of his recent presence, spillage of whisky and ash aside, is a soiled and rotten handkerchief hanging off the lip of a bin. Dusk considers this, and adds it to its knowledge of the day; knowledge it will abandon soon, for this is the rule, in London and elsewhere: everything that happens – good and bad – dusk clocks, absorbs, then mostly forgets. For if dusk remembered everything the weight would nail it in place, keeping it from its eternal search for its twin, the dawn, which it has never met. Always, it’s halfway behind, or halfway ahead. It’s never known which.

Meanwhile, dusk’s older brother night, which has hovered overhead this past hour, is beginning to lose its balance, beginning to fall. Soon everything will be different again, the same as it always is. Dusk has a last look round, but its vision is failing, its hearing dim. It has been everywhere, seen everything. It is time to go. It has already left. In its wake, in the dark, Slough House slumbers, Slough House snores.

But mostly, Slough House waits.