Slow Horses (22 page)

River had wondered that himself, on and off. He hadn’t cared much. Still, he’d wondered. ‘And you told him?’

‘No. But I told him the next best thing.’

‘Which was?’

Lamb’s face gave away less than Buster Keaton’s. ‘I told him why I’d ended up there.’

River opened his mouth to ask, then closed it.

Lamb used the hand he wasn’t driving with to find a cigarette. ‘You think Hobden’s the only right-wing fruitcake in the country? Or was he the only one you could think of at closing time?’

‘He’s the only one I know of who’s had two spooks sicced on him in the past forty-eight hours.’

‘So you’re a spook. Congratulations. I thought you’d failed your assessment.’

‘Fuck off, Lamb,’ he said. ‘I was there. I saw her shot. You know what that’s like?’

Lamb turned to study him through half-open eyes, causing River to remember about the hippo being among the world’s most dangerous beasts. It was barrel-shaped and clumsy, but if you wanted to piss one off, do it from a helicopter. Not while sharing a car.

‘You didn’t just see it,’ he said. ‘It was down to you. How clever was that?’

‘You think I let it happen deliberately?’

‘I think you weren’t good enough to stop it. And if you’re not good enough for that, you’re no use to anyone.’ Lamb changed gear like it was a violent assault. ‘If it wasn’t for you, she’d have been tucked up in bed. Hers or somebody else’s. And don’t think I haven’t noticed the looks you’ve been giving her.’ The car growled onwards.

River said, in an unfamiliar voice, ‘She told me she was a plant.’

‘A what?’

‘That she’d been put in Slough House for a purpose. To keep an eye on me.’

‘Was that before or after she got shot in the head?’

‘You bastard—’

‘Don’t even bother, Cartwright. That’s what she told you, is it? That you’re the centre of the universe? Newsflash. Never happened.’

For a dizzy moment, River was aware only of a ringing in his ears; of a throbbing in his palm from yesterday’s burn. All of it had happened, even Sid’s words:
I was put there to keep an eye on you, River. You’re not supposed to know about this.
That had happened. The words had been said.

But what they meant was anyone’s guess.

The Chinese restaurant, which even when open looked derelict, was definitively shut. Lamb parked opposite, and as they crossed the road River caught a glimmer of light from one of the higher windows.

Probably a reflection from the Barbican towers.

‘Why are we here?’

‘Somewhere you’d rather be?’

River shrugged.

Lamb said, ‘We both know you know nothing, Cartwright. But that doesn’t mean Regent’s Park won’t be looking for you.’ He led the way round the back, to the familiar scarred door. ‘I won’t say this is the absolute last place they’ll look, but it won’t be top of their list.’

Entering, they were met with the sound of newly established silence.

River wasn’t sure how they knew this, but both did. The air trembled like a fork in the darkness. Somebody—some bodies—had recently stopped moving; some bodies were waiting up the stairs.

‘Stay,’ was Lamb’s harsh whisper.

And then he was heading up, light as a whisper. How did he do that? It was like watching a tree change shape.

River followed.

Two flights later he caught up, and here was what they’d missed: Jed Moody, a balaclava peeled from his face, dead as a bucket on the landing.

Sitting three and five steps up respectively, Min Harper and Louisa Guy.

Lamb said, ‘If you had issues with him, I could have spoken to HR. Arranged an intervention.’ He tapped Moody’s shoulder with his foot. ‘Breaking his neck without going through your line manager, that shit stays on your record.’

‘We didn’t know it was him.’

‘Not sure that counts as a defence,’ Lamb said.

‘He had a gun.’

‘Better,’ Lamb said. He regarded the pair of them. ‘He used it earlier, if it helps. Shot Sid Baker with it.’

‘
Sid?
’

‘Christ, is she—’

River found his voice. ‘She’s alive.’

‘Or was twenty minutes ago,’ Lamb corrected. Bending his knees, he went through Moody’s pockets. ‘When did this happen?’

‘Ten minutes ago.’

‘Maybe fifteen.’

‘And you were planning on what, waiting for it all to go away? What were you doing here anyway?’

‘We’d been over the road.’

‘In the pub.’

‘Can’t afford a room?’ Lamb produced a mobile phone from Moody’s pocket. ‘Where’s the gun?’

Harper gestured behind him.

‘He look like using it?’

Harper and Guy exchanged glances.

‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ Lamb said. ‘This isn’t a court of law. Did he look like using it?’

‘He was carrying it.’

‘He didn’t point it exactly.’

‘You might want to reconsider your position on that,’ Lamb said, fishing a faded brown envelope from inside Moody’s jacket. ‘Son of a bitch!’

‘He was in your office.’

‘We figured he was on a raid.’

Watching the pair of them in contrapuntal gear, River recognized something new going on; a shared conspiracy that hadn’t been apparent before. Love or death, he figured. Love in its most banal guise—a quick fumble in the stairwell, or a drunken snog—and death in its usual weeds. One of the two had fused this pair together. And he flashed again on that moment on the pavement outside Hobden’s, when whatever had been starting to grow between himself and Sid Baker ended.

Her blood was on his shirt still. Possibly in his hair.

‘He had a balaclava on.’

‘Didn’t look like a junkie thief.’

‘We didn’t mean to kill him, though.’

‘Yeah,’ said Lamb. ‘It’s all very well being sorry now, isn’t it?’

‘What’s in the envelope?’ River asked.

‘You still here?’

‘He took that from your office, didn’t he? What’s in it?’

‘The blueprints,’ Lamb said.

‘The
what
?’

‘The secret plans.’ Lamb shrugged. ‘The microfilm. Whatever.’ He’d found something else: Moody’s black-wrapped form hid more pockets than a magician’s. ‘Son of a bitch,’ he said again, only this time with less venom; almost with admiration.

‘What’s that?’

For a moment, it seemed Lamb was about to secrete what he’d found in the folds of his overcoat. But he held it up to the light instead: a brief strand of black wire, the length of a straightened paperclip, with a split-lentil head.

‘A bug?’

‘He bugged your office?’

‘Or maybe,’ River said, ‘he was on his way to bug your office.’

‘After the evening he’d had, I doubt tapping my office was top of his list,’ Lamb said. ‘No, he was cleaning up. Prior to getting out.’ He hadn’t finished his body-search yet. ‘Two mobiles? Jed Jed Jed. I’m surprised you had enough friends to carry one.’

‘Who’s he been talking to?’

‘Thank God you’re here. Would I have thought of that?’ A mobile in each hand, Lamb pressed buttons with each thumb; surprisingly dextrous for a self-proclaimed Luddite. ‘Now that’s strange,’ he said, in a tone indicating that it wasn’t. ‘This one’s barely used. Just one incoming call.’

River wanted to say ‘Ring back,’ and only the cast-iron knowledge that Lamb wanted him to say it too kept his tongue in harness.

Still sitting, Min and Louisa kept their own counsel.

After a moment’s thought, Lamb pressed a few more buttons, and raised the mobile to his ear.

It was answered almost immediately.

Lamb said, ‘I’m afraid he can’t come to the phone right now.’

And then he said, ‘We need to talk.’

Chapter 10

Down a quiet street in Islington—its front doors perched atop flights of stone steps; some with pillars standing sentry; some with Tiffany windows above—Robert Hobden walked, raincoat flapping in the night wind. It was after midnight. Some of the houses were dressed in darkness; from others, light peeped behind thick curtains; and Hobden could imagine the chink of cutlery, and of glasses meeting together in toasts. Halfway down the street, he found the house he was after.

There were lights on. Again, he caught an imaginary murmur from a successful dinner party: by now, they’d be on to the brandy. But that didn’t matter: lights or not, he’d still be ringing the bell—leaning on it, in fact, until the door opened. This took less than a minute.

‘Yes?’

It was a sleek man speaking, dark hair brushed back from a high forehead. He had piercing brown eyes which were focused on Hobden. Dark suit, white shirt. Butler? Perhaps. It didn’t matter.

‘Is Mr Judd in?’

‘It’s very late, sir.’

‘Funnily enough,’ Hobden said, ‘I knew that. Is he in?’

‘Who shall I say, sir?’

‘Hobden. Robert Hobden.’

The door closed.

Hobden turned and faced the street. The houses opposite seemed to tilt towards his gaze; the effect of their height, and the overhead clouds scudding against a velvet backdrop. His heartbeat was curiously steady. Not long ago he’d come as close to death as he’d ever been, and yet a calm had settled upon him. Or maybe he was calm because he’d come close to death, and so was unlikely to do so again tonight. A matter of statistics.

He didn’t know for sure the intruder had meant to kill him. It had been confused—one moment he’d been pacing the room, waiting for a phone call that wouldn’t come; the next there’d been a black-masked stranger demanding his laptop in an urgent whisper. He must have picked his way through the door. It was all noise and fear, the man waving a gun, and then another intrusion, another stranger, and then somehow they were all outside and there was blood on the pavement and—

Hobden had run. He didn’t know who’d been shot, and didn’t care. He’d run. How long since he’d done that? Back when he’d had urgent places to be, he’d have taken a taxi. So before long his lungs felt fit to burst, but still he’d pounded away, feet slapping pavement like wide flat fish, the juddering shock reverberating up to his teeth. Round one corner, then another. He’d been living in London’s armpit for longer than he cared think about: still, he was lost within minutes. Didn’t dare look back. Couldn’t tell where his own footfalls stopped and another’s might start; two loops of sound interlocking like Olympic circles.

At last, heaving, he’d come to a crumpled halt in a shop doorway where the usual city smells lurked: dirt and spoilt fat and cigarette ends, and always, always, the smell of winos’ piss. Only then had he established that nobody was following. There were only the late-night London ghosts, who came out when the citizens were tucked up in bed, and anyone still on the streets was fair game.

‘Got a light, mate?’

He’d surprised himself with the ferocity of his reply: ‘Just fuck off, all right? Just fuck off!’

You could say this for the mad, at night; they recognized the madder. The man had slunk away, and Hobden had recovered his breath—filled his lungs with that obnoxious stew of smells—and moved on.

He couldn’t go back to his flat. Not now; maybe never. This was an oddly cheering thought. Wherever he went, he wasn’t going back there.

And in fact, there weren’t many places he could go. Everyone needs somewhere where the doors will always open. Hobden didn’t have one—the doors in his life had slammed shut when his name appeared on that list; when, for the first time ever, he’d shuddered to see his name in the papers, no longer the smoothly
provocative
but the rawly
unacceptable
—but still, still, there were letterboxes he could whisper through. Favours people owed him. Back then, when the storm was raging, Hobden had kept his mouth shut. There were some who thought this meant he valued their survival over his own. None had made the simple connection: that if they’d been made to suffer the same ostracism he endured, their cause would have been set back years.

Nothing to do with racism, whatever the liberal elite pretended. Nothing to do with hate, or repulsion at the sight of difference. Everything to do with character, and the need for national identity to assert itself. Instead of lying down and accepting this unworkable
multiculturalism
; this recipe for disaster …

But he hadn’t had time to rehearse unanswerable arguments. He’d needed sanctuary. He’d also needed to get his message across: and if Peter Judd wasn’t going to answer his phone calls, then Peter Judd was going to have to answer his door.

Though Peter Judd, of course, didn’t answer his own door. Certainly not at this time of night, and probably not at any other.

The door opened, and the sleek character reappeared. ‘Mr Judd is not available.’

The absence of
sir
carried its own echo.

But Hobden had no qualms about blocking the door with his foot. ‘In that case, tell Mr Judd he might have to make himself available first thing in the morning. The red-tops like their front pages laid out by lunchtime. Gives them time to organize the important stuff. You know, girly shots. Gossip columns.’

His foot withdrew, and the door closed.

He thought: Who do these people think I am? Do they think I’ll lie on my back, waggle all four legs in the air, while they pretend I’m some stray they never invited home?

Maybe two minutes; maybe three. He didn’t count. Again, he studied the clouds whipping elsewhere, and the looming roofs opposite threatening to come crashing down.

Next time the door opened, no words were spoken. Mr Sleek simply stepped to one side, his demeanour suggesting he’d drawn the word
grudging
in a post-dinner game of Charades.

Hobden was shown downstairs, past the drawing room, from behind whose closed door came the soft murmur of happiness. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d attended a dinner party, though he’d probably been discussed at a few since.

Downstairs was the kitchen, which was about the size of Hobden’s flat, and more carefully outfitted: wood and gleaming enamel, with a marble block forming a coffinsized island in its centre. Pitiless overhead lighting would have shown up streaks of grease or splashes of sauce, but there were none, even now: the dishwasher hummed, and glasses were assembled along one surface, but it all looked like a tidy representation of a party’s aftermath in a catalogue dedicated to polite living. From stainless steel hooks on a rail hung shiny pans, each with their sole purpose; one for boiling eggs, another for scrambling them, and so on. A row of olive oil bottles, ordered by region, occupied a shelf. He still had a journalist’s eye, Robert Hobden. Depending on who he was profiling, he’d take these things as evidence of middle-class certainty, or mail-ordered props intended to buffer up just such an image. On the other hand, he wasn’t writing profiles any more. And if he was, no one would print them.