Slow Horses (18 page)

‘What?’

‘In
ter
net. Intranet’s something’s else.’

‘Same difference.’

Larry looked at Moe again, and an unspoken thought passed between them.

‘Anyway,’ Curly said. ‘Think he’s scared now? He’ll be a steaming pile of chickenshit this time tomorrow.’

This with an air of finality, as if it were the final step in a careful argument.

‘I’m going for a crap,’ he added.

Both chairs hit the floor when he stood.

When he’d gone, Larry lit a cigarette, then tossed the pack to Moe. ‘Do you think he’s up to this?’

‘He’s not as stupid as he pretends to be.’

‘No, well. Cunt can walk and breathe at the same time, he’s obviously not as stupid as he looks.’

‘I said pretends.’

‘I heard.’

On the other side of the kitchen door Curly listened without moving a muscle, until satisfied they’d finished. And then he moved like smoke down the hallway and up the stairs, where he locked himself in the bathroom, and made a quiet call with a phone he shouldn’t have had.

Lamb was at his desk with a folder in front of him—an analysis of congestion charge anomalies, or Twitter feeds, or cash-in-hand real estate purchases in Beeston—but his attention seemed focused on the corkboard on his wall, on which an array of money-off tokens were pinned: the local takeaway pizza place; Costcutter’s price promise on Ginster’s sausage rolls. Catherine watched from the doorway. She’d intended to walk in, add her own report to his pile and leave, but something had snagged her. Lamb didn’t look like the Lamb they all knew and hated. There was something there that hadn’t been there before.

The funny thing was, Catherine Standish had once been keen on meeting Jackson Lamb. It had been Charles Partner’s fault. Lamb had been one of Partner’s joes, back in the Middle Ages. He’d turned up one day in the modern world; was Partner’s 10 a.m.
He’s one of a kind, Jackson Lamb
, Partner had said.
You’ll like him.
And given the source, she’d thought she would.

At the time, Lamb had been in transition; making the jump from foreign holidays—as the joes all called them—to tending the home fires. This was in that blissful break when the world seemed a safer place, between the end of the cold war and about ten minutes later. And she’d known he’d spent time behind the Curtain. You couldn’t know a detail like that without it colouring your expectations. You didn’t expect glamour, but you understood the bravery involved.

So he was unexpected, this overweight, dishevelled man who’d stumbled into her office an hour and twenty minutes late, hungover, or still drunk. Partner was in another meeting by then, and if he’d been surprised by Lamb’s no-show he hid it well.
When he turns up, give him coffee.
So she’d given Lamb coffee and put him in the visitor’s chair, which he’d occupied the way a sloth occupies a branch. He’d fallen asleep, or pretended to. Every time she looked his eyes were closed and a bubble was forming at his lips, but still: she felt watched all the time he was there.

A couple of years later, the world was upside down. Partner was dead; Slough House was up and running; and Jackson Lamb was king.

And for some reason, Catherine Standish was beside him. Lamb had asked for her specifically, she discovered, but he never gave her one hint why. And she’d never asked him. If he’d had designs on her, he was years too late; there’d been a time when she’d have slept with him without giving it much thought, or remembering it afterwards, but since drying out she’d been more particular, and had slept with precisely no one. And if that ever changed, it wasn’t going to be for Jackson Lamb.

But now here he was, and there was something about him that hadn’t been there before. Anger, perhaps, but anger with the brakes on; held in check by the same impotence that curbed everyone else in Slough House. Lamb had spent the best part of his working life behind enemy lines, and now here the enemy was, and there was bugger all Lamb could do but sit and watch. Weirdly, this had the effect of making Catherine want to say something comforting. Something like: ‘We’ll get them.’

We’ll get them
. People were saying this in offices up and down the country; in pubs, in classrooms, on street corners.
Can’t happen here. We’ll get them
; and by
we
they all meant the same thing: those in jobs like her own and Jackson Lamb’s; those who worked, one way or the other, for the security services. Those who didn’t allow things like this to happen, even if they generally didn’t succeed in stopping it until the fifty-eighth minute. And it occurred to Catherine that if anyone thinking these thoughts ever got a look around Slough House, they might re-evaluate their position sharpish.
That kid in the cellar? Doesn’t have a prayer.

So she backed away from the door and returned to her room, her report still tucked under her arm.

Chapter 8

There wasn’t much of a moon, but that hardly mattered. River was opposite Robert Hobden’s flat again. Less than forty-eight hours ago rain had been falling in torrents, and River had been on the pavement, stealing shelter from an overhanging window. Tonight it wasn’t raining, and he was in the car—if a warden came, he’d move. From behind Hobden’s curtain, a thin light shone. Every so often, a shadow fell across it. Hobden was a prowler, unable to sit still for long. Much as River hated to admit anything in common with him, they shared that much. Neither could rest quietly in their own skin for long.

And now River almost jumped out of his:
what the—

Just a tap on the glass, but he hadn’t seen anyone approaching.

Whoever it was bent, and peered into the car.

‘River?’ she mouthed.

Jesus, he thought. Sid Baker.

He opened the door. She slid inside, pulled it shut, then shook her head free of her hood. She was carrying a pair of take-out coffees.

‘Sid? What the hell are you doing?’

‘I could ask you the same thing.’

‘Have you been following me?’

‘You’d better hope not, hadn’t you?’ She handed him one of the coffees, and he was helpless to do anything but accept it. Peeling the polystyrene lid from her own released a gust of steam. ‘Because that would mean I’d tracked you halfway across London without you noticing.’ She blew softly on the liquid’s surface, and the steam flurried. ‘On foot. Which would make me pretty special.’

Opening his own cup involved splashing hot coffee on to his thighs. She handed him a napkin. He fumbled with it, trying to mop himself dry without spilling more. ‘So what, you guessed I’d be here?’

‘It wasn’t that difficult.’

Great, he thought. Nothing like being transparent. ‘And you thought I might want company?’

‘I can honestly say I’ve never thought that, no.’ She looked past him. ‘Which one’s Hobden?’

River pointed.

‘And he’s alone?’

‘Far as I know. So why are you here?’

She said, ‘Look. You’re probably wrong. If Hobden’s got anything to do with Hassan—’

‘They’ve released his name?’

‘Not officially. But Five have got it, and Ho picked it up a couple of hours ago. That boy’s slick. It’s a good job he’s working for us.’

‘So who is he?’

‘Hassan Ahmed. Ho’s probably got his shoe size by now, but that’s all he had when I left. Anyway, if Hobden’s involved, he’d hardly still be loose. Five would have brought him in.’

River said, ‘That had occurred to me.’

‘And?’

He shrugged. ‘I know he’s up to something.’

‘That stuff you were looking at in the pub. Ready to tell me what that was about?’

He might as well. It wasn’t like he could convince her he wasn’t up to anything. ‘They were Hobden’s,’ he said. ‘The files you stole the other day.’

‘They were
what
?’

He told her what he’d done, as briefly as he could. When he’d finished, Sid was silent for a full minute. He was glad about that. She could easily have launched into a catalogue of exactly what an idiot he was; explained that theft of government property was one thing, and theft of classified information another. Even if that information turned out to be useless. He didn’t need to know any of that. And nor did she mention that merely hearing what he’d told her put her in the same situation as him. If River wound up in the dock, she’d be by his side. Unless she left the car now. And called the Dogs.

Instead, when the minute was up, she said, ‘So what’s with pi? Code?’

‘I don’t think so. I think his back-up’s a dummy. I think he’s the kind of paranoid who expects someone to lift his files, and wants to be sure they don’t get anything. No, more than that. Wants them to know he was expecting it. He wants to have the last laugh.’

River remembered something else: that Hobden used copies of
Searchlight
, the anti-fascist newspaper, to wrap his kitchen leavings in; an up-yours to anyone who rifled his dustbins.
You think he’s calling us Nazis?
he’d asked Lamb.
Well, yes
, Lamb had said.
Obviously. Obviously he’s calling us Nazis
.

‘Well, you can’t say he’s wrong,’ said Sid. ‘I mean, I lifted his files. You went through his rubbish.’

‘And that list didn’t get on the web by accident,’ River said. ‘Let’s face it, the Service screwed him good and proper.’

‘And his revenge involves setting up some kid for execution? You know what kind of backlash there’ll be if it actually happens?’

‘I can imagine.’ His coffee was still too hot. He placed the cup on the dashboard. ‘Islamic communities taking to the streets. Oh, there’ll be plenty of sympathy from the liberal left, why wouldn’t there be? An innocent kid killed on camera. But it won’t just be demonstrators waving placards and demanding respect. It’ll be about revenge. There’ll be stabbings and God knows what. You name it.’

‘That’s what I meant. He might be a raving idiot, but he’s a patriot, for what that’s worth. You really think he wants chaos in the streets?’

‘Yep. Because after the chaos comes the clampdown, and that’s what he’s after. Not the backlash but what follows, when everything gets harsh. Because nobody wants kids executed on TV, but they want riots on their doorstep even less.’

Sid said, ‘I hate conspiracy theories.’

‘It’s not a theory once it’s proved. After that, it’s just a conspiracy.’

‘And sitting outside Hobden’s flat helps how?’

‘Let me get back to you in the morning.’

‘You’re seriously planning on sitting here all night?’

‘I hadn’t got as far as making it a plan.’

She shook her head, then sipped from her cup. ‘If nothing happens, you’re buying breakfast.’

He didn’t know what to say to that, but before it became obvious, another thought occurred to her.

‘River?’

‘What?’

‘You know you’re an idiot, don’t you?’

He smiled but turned away first, so she wouldn’t notice.

That was at ten. For the next hour, it seemed breakfast was on River; there was almost no movement on the street, and none involving Hobden. The light at his window remained steady. An occasional shadow on the curtain proved he was still in there, or that someone was—perhaps River should knock on his door. That might provoke a reaction.

But provocation was a no-no.
It distorts the data
. Spider Webb, speaking up during a seminar:
It distorts the data to provoke the target into a course of action he might not otherwise adopt
. No doubt Spider had been parroting somebody who knew what he was talking about. On the other hand, if Spider was against it, River was for it.

An argument he’d had with himself five times now, and wasn’t close to resolving.

He stretched his legs as best he could, trying not to make it obvious. He was wearing everyday gear: blue jeans, a white collarless top under a grey V-neck. Sid wore black jeans and hooded sweater. Tradecraft, but she looked good in it. She’d pushed the car seat back and was mostly in shadow, but every so often her eyes picked up light from a nearby streetlamp and threw it in his direction. She was thinking about him. When a woman was thinking about you, it was always either a good thing or a bad thing. River had no idea which in this case.

To put an end to it, he said, ‘So what made you sign up?’

Now she held his gaze. ‘What else? The glamour.’

‘You’ve seen the show. Now live the life.’

‘I’m not stupid, you know.’

‘Didn’t think you were.’

‘I took a first in Oriental Languages.’

‘That’s got to be a comfort.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘It’d be a greater one if you’d shut up.’

So he shut up.

On the street the pavements stayed empty, and there was little traffic.

Prowling his apartment … Hobden could be issuing orders on his mobile, or e-mailing confederates. But River didn’t think so. He didn’t think Hobden would be doing anything that rendered him vulnerable to electronic eaves-dropping. He was just prowling like a cat in a cage; waiting for something to happen.

River could relate to that.

Sid said, ‘You’re Service family.’

He nodded.

Once, it hadn’t been uncommon; the same way some families go in for police or plumbing. Even now, you’d encounter third- or even fourth-generation spooks; roles in life handed down like family silver. With a grandfather a Service legend, River had never stood a chance. But this was Sid’s story, so he said nothing.

‘I don’t have your pedigree. Never gave the Civil Service a thought, let alone this branch. I was heading for banking. Mum’s a barrister. I was going to be an even higher-paid banker. That’s how you measure success, isn’t it? Earning more than your parents.’

He nodded again, though the thought of his mother earning money was quite funny.

‘But I was still at uni when the bombs went off.’

And this was no surprise either. No one had joined the Service since the bombs without the bombs being part of the reason.

He listened without looking at her. People talked about that day in different ways. Either it was a story about them in which bombs happened, or it was a story about the bombs, and they’d just happened to be there. Whichever this turned out to be, it would be easier for her if he wasn’t watching.