Slow Horses (23 page)

Sleek stood by the door, pointedly not leaving Hobden alone.

Hobden drifted to the far side of the room; leant against the sink.

He wasn’t writing profiles any more, but if he were, and if his current host were his target, he’d be bound to start with the name. Peter Judd. PJ to his friends, and everyone else. Fluffy-haired and youthful at forty-eight, and with a vocabulary peppered with archaic expostulations—Balderdash! Tommy-rot!! Oh my giddy aunt!!!—Peter Judd had long established himself as the unthreatening face of the old-school right, popular enough with the GBP, which thought him an amiable idiot, to make a second living outside Parliament as a rent-a-quote-media-whore-cum-quiz-show-panel-favourite, and to get away with minor peccadilloes like dicking his kids’ nanny, robbing the tax-man blind, and giving his party leader conniptions with off-script flourishes. (‘Damn fine city,’ he’d remarked on a trip to Paris. ‘Probably worth defending next time.’) Not everyone who’d worked with him thought him a total buffoon, and some who’d witnessed him lose his temper suspected him of political savvy, but by and large PJ seemed happy with the image he’d either fostered or been born with: a loose cannon with a floppy haircut and a bicycle. And here he was now, bursting through the kitchen door with an alacrity that had Mr Sleek making a sharp sideways step to avoid being flattened.

‘Robert Hobden!’ he cried.

‘PJ.’

‘Robert. Rob—Rob! How are you?’

‘I’m not so bad, PJ. Yourself?’

‘Oh, of course. Seb, take Robert’s coat, would you?’

‘I won’t stay long—’

‘But long enough to remove your coat! That’s just dandy, that’s just fine.’ This to Seb, if that was Sleek’s name. ‘You can leave us now.’ The kitchen door swung closed. PJ’s tone didn’t alter. ‘What the fuck are you doing here, you stupid fucking cunt?’ It reminded him of darker days; of missions you might not come back from. He’d always come back from them, obviously, but there were others who hadn’t. Whether the difference lay in the mission or the men, there was no way of knowing.

Tonight, he expected to come back. But he already had one body on the floor and another in a hospital bed, a pretty high casualty rate when he wasn’t even running an op.

The meet was by the canal, near where the towpath came to an end and the water disappeared inside a long tunnel. Lamb had chosen it because it cut down on directions of approach, and he didn’t trust Diana Taverner. For the same reason, he got there first. It was approaching two. A quarter moon was blotted now and then by passing clouds. A house across the water was lit, all three storeys, and he could hear chatter and occasional laughter from smokers in the garden. Some people threw parties midweek. Jackson Lamb kept tabs on his department’s body count.

She came from the Angel end, her approach signalled by the tapping of her heels on the path.

‘Are you alone?’ she asked.

He spread his arms as if to measure the stupidity of her question. As he did so his shirt came untucked, and night air scratched his belly.

She looked beyond him, at the treed slope leading up to the road. Then back at him. ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’

‘I lent you an agent,’ he said. ‘She’s in hospital.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘Lloyd Webber-grade, you said. One step up from sharpening pencils. But now she’s got a bullet in her head.’

‘Lamb,’ she said. ‘The job was the other day. Whatever’s happened to her since, that’s hardly—’

‘Don’t even bother. She was shot outside Hobden’s place. By Jed Moody, intentionally or otherwise. When you’re not co-opting my team, you’re subverting them. You gave Moody a mobile phone. What else did you give him? An earful of promises? A ticket to his future?’

Taverner said, ‘Check the rulebook, Lamb. You run Slough House, and God knows, nobody’s looking to take that away. But I’m head of ops, which means directing personnel. All personnel. Yours or anyone else’s.’

Jackson Lamb farted.

‘God, you’re a vile specimen.’

‘So I’m told,’ he said. ‘Okay, say you’re right, and this is none of my business. What do I do about the body on my staircase? Call in the Dogs?’

If he hadn’t had it before, he had her attention now.

‘Moody?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘He’s dead?’

‘The proverbial dodo.’

Across the water, the smokers fell upon a joke of unusual hilarity. The canal’s surface was ruffled by the wind.

Lamb said, ‘You wanted to subcontract, you could have chosen more carefully. Jesus, I mean, Jed Moody? Even when he was any good he wasn’t any good. And it’s a long time since he was any good.’

‘Who killed him?’

‘You want to hear something funny? He tripped over his own feet.’

‘That’ll sound good before Limitations. Though you might want to leave out the bit about it being funny.’

Lamb threw back his head and laughed a silent laugh, while leaves’ shadows flickered across his wobbling face. He looked like someone Goya might have painted. ‘Good. Very good. Limitations, yes. So we call in the Dogs? Hell, it’s a death. Why don’t I call the plod? As it happens, I’ve a mobile with me.’ He grinned at her. His teeth, mostly different shapes, shone wet.

‘Okay.’

‘The coroner. His turf, right?’

‘You’ve made your point, Lamb.’

He went fumbling in his pockets, and for a horrified moment she thought he was unzipping himself, but he produced a packet of Marlboro instead. He drew one with his teeth, and as an afterthought waved the pack in her direction.

Taverner took one. Always accept hospitality. It forms a bond. Makes you allies.

Of course, whoever had taught her that hadn’t been thinking of Jackson Lamb.

He said, ‘Talk.’

‘It’s good to see you too, PJ.’

‘Have you lost your cocking mind?’

‘You’ve not been taking my calls.’

‘Of course I haven’t, you’re fucking toxic. Did anyone see you arrive?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What kind of prick answer is that?’

‘The only prick answer I’ve got!’ Hobden shouted.

The pitch of his voice caused something metallic to ring.

It gave PJ pause, or caused him to appear that it did. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. Well. Crikey. I suppose you’ve got a reason.’

‘Someone tried to kill me,’ Hobden said.

‘To kill you? Yes, well. Lots of fanatics about. I mean, you’re not the most
popular
—’

‘This wasn’t a fanatic, PJ. It was a spook.’

‘A spook.’

‘We’re talking assassination.’

Judd’s lapse into his public persona didn’t survive the word. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. What was it, a close encounter on a zebra crossing? I’ve got guests, Hobden. The fucking Minister for Culture’s upstairs, and he’s got the attention span of a gnat, so I need to—’

‘He was a spook. They’ve been following me. He broke into my flat and waved a gun around and—somebody got shot. If you don’t believe me, turn the news on. Or on second thoughts, don’t—there’ll be a D. But call the Home Secretary, he’ll know. Blood on the pavement. Outside my flat.’

PJ weighed it up: the likelihood of any of this having happened, as against Hobden’s appearance in his kitchen. ‘Okay,’ he said at length. ‘But you live at the arse end of nowhere, Robert. I mean, home invasions, they must be weekly events. What makes this different?’

Hobden shook his head. ‘You’re not listening.’ Then shook his head again: he hadn’t laid out the whole story. That business at Max’s the other morning; the spilt coffee. Nothing to it at the time, but since the gunman’s appearance Hobden had replayed recent history, and concluded that this evening had been a culmination, not a one-off. When he’d picked up his keys to leave the café, his memory stick had fallen loose and bounced on to the table. It had never done that before. Why hadn’t a warning bell rung?

‘They tried to take my files. They want to see how much I know.’

And now PJ took on a new seriousness; a side the public never got to see. ‘Your
files
?’

‘They didn’t get them. They copied my memory stick, but—’

‘What the fuck do your files contain, Hobden?’

‘—it’s a dummy. Just numbers. With any luck they’ll think it’s a code, waste their time trying to—’

‘What. Exactly. Do your files contain?’

Hobden raised his hands to eye-level; examined them a moment or two. They shook. ‘See that? I could have died. They could have killed me.’

‘Give me strength.’ And now Peter Judd started ransacking his kitchen, morally certain there’d be alcohol somewhere, or what was the point of it? A bottle of vodka appeared. Cooking vodka, would that be? Did people cook with vodka? Was PJ muttering any of this aloud, or did his body language shout it while he located a glass and splashed out a generous measure?

‘So.’ Handing the glass to Hobden. ‘What do your files contain? Names?’ He barked the sudden laugh TV audiences liked. ‘My name wouldn’t be there anywhere.’ Underneath the bark, the hint of bite. ‘Would it?’

‘No names. Nothing like that.’

This was good news, but prompted a follow-up. ‘So what are you on about?’

Hobden said, ‘Five’s running an op. I’ve known about it for a while. Or not known about it, exactly—known something was going to happen, but not precisely what.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Start making sense.’

‘I was at the Frontline. One night last year.’

‘They still let you in?’

A flash of anger. ‘I’ve paid my subs.’ He finished his vodka, held the glass out for more. ‘Diana Taverner was there, with one of her leftie journalist pals.’

‘I’ve never been sure what disturbs me more,’ Peter Judd said, filling Hobden’s glass. ‘The fact that MI5 is run by women, or the fact that everybody seems to know this. I mean, didn’t it used to be called the secret service?’

Pretty sure he’d heard this riff already, probably on a panel show, Hobden ignored it. ‘It was the night of the Euro elections, and there’d been BNP gains. Remember that?’

‘Well, of course I do.’

‘And that was the subject of discussion. This hack, Spencer his name is, got rolling drunk, started spewing off the usual nonsense about how the fascists were taking over, and when were Taverner’s lot going to start doing something about it. And she said …’

Here Hobden screwed his eyes shut while summoning up history.

‘Something like yes, that’s under control. Or on the agenda. Christ, I don’t remember the exact words, but she gave him to understand it was
happening
. That she was setting something up not just against the BNP, but against what she’d call the extreme right. And we all know who that includes.’

‘She said this in your hearing?’

‘They didn’t know I was there.’

‘Second Desk at MI5 announced her intention to sting the BNP, to sting the right, and this happened in a
bar
?’

‘They were drunk, okay? Look, it happened. Is happening. Haven’t you seen the news?’ PJ eyed him coldly. ‘The kid in the cellar?’

‘I know what you’re referring to. You’re saying that’s it? That’s a Service op?’

‘Well, it’s a big bloody coincidence, don’t you think? That I’m being hassled the same week it happens, that somebody tries to kill me the same day—’

‘If it is,’ PJ said, ‘it’s the single most cack-handed intelligence operation I’ve ever heard of, and that includes the Bay of fucking Pigs.’ He glanced down at the bottle in his hands, then hunted around for a second glass. The nearest candidate was an unrinsed stem, waiting by the sink. He poured a slug into it, and put the bottle down. ‘Is this why you were calling?’

‘What do you think?’

PJ slapped him hard, the noise ricocheting round the kitchen. ‘Don’t talk back to me, you little creep. Remember who’s who. You’re a one-time journalist whose name stinks from here to Timbuktu. And I’m a member of Her Majesty’s loyal cabinet.’ He examined his wet shirt cuff. ‘And now you’ve made me spill my drink.’

Hobden, his voice as shaky as a pea in a whistle, said, ‘You
hit
me!’

‘Yes, well. Tempers running high. Oh, for God’s sake.’

He poured more vodka into Hobden’s glass. Hobden was a toad, but not an ignorant toad. It had been a mistake to forget that. Still, though: PJ was furious. ‘You were calling me because you think this this this piece of
theatre
has been organized by MI5 to discredit the right—you’ve barely finished explaining that you’re under surveillance, and you’re
calling me
? Have you lost your fucking mind?’

‘Somebody had to know. Who was I supposed to call?’

‘Not me.’

‘We’ve known each other for years—’

‘We are not friends, Robert. Don’t make that mistake. You always treated me fairly in print, and I respect that, but let’s face it, you’re a fucking has-been, and it’s no longer appropriate to be associated with you. So take it somewhere else.’

‘Where do you suggest?’

‘Well, your chums in the British Patriotic Party spring to mind.’

The red weal PJ’s hand had left on Hobden’s cheek darkened. ‘Chums? My chums? When that list appeared on the net, who do you think they blamed? Half the death threats I get come from people I supported! As far as they were concerned, if it weren’t for me, they’d have been left alone. Because we all know who was responsible for posting that list. The same bunch of leftish criminals who’re hassling me now!’

‘Maybe so. But I’m still not sure why that means you have to turn up on my doorstep in the middle of the night—’

‘Because this has got to be stopped,’ Hobden said.

Lamb said, ‘Talk.’ Then flicked a lighter in front of Taverner’s face like a threat.

She leant forward for the flame. Her seventh of the day: drawing smoke into her lungs was growing familiar. She breathed out. Said, ‘Do you ever wonder why we do what we do?’

‘Taverner, it’s after two, and my team’s smaller than it was yesterday. Let’s get on with it, all right?’

‘There’ve been fifteen failed terrorist plots since 7/7, Jackson. That must be true. I read it in the paper.’

‘Good for us.’

‘It was on page eleven, below the fold.’

Lamb said, ‘If you wanted to be famous, maybe the secret service wasn’t the right path.’