by Mick Herron
•••
At the junction where the road from Smithfield ran under the Barbican complex, Patrice took shelter outside a gym which was disgorging toned, sweaty City workers, bags in one hand, smartphones in the other, already catching up on what they’d missed while on the treadmill. The massive structure overhead kept the rain off, but the air was damp, and the pavements lumpy with some kind of deposit from the concrete overhangs. It felt like the entrance to an underground garage.
For one brief moment, he remembered the cellar.
Each of the boys, on their twelfth birthday, had been locked in a cellar at Les Arbres, with no natural light and just one candle. Every morning, a single bread roll and a beaker of water was delivered. And every morning, they were told they would be released as soon as they asked for their freedom. Bertrand, Patrice remembered, had lasted just seventeen days before asking to be released. Patrice remembered Frank’s look of disdain at his son’s reappearance, as if it were an act of cowardice, or betrayal. Patrice himself had lasted a full month: at the time, a new record.
Yves had lasted two.
Frank should have known, he thought now. Frank should have known that there would come a time when Yves’s desire to prove he could go further than any of them would see him step over each and every line there was. He had grown too used to the darkness. It was a wonder he had survived so long in the light.
But this thought, that Frank should have known, demanded punishment, and Patrice submitted to the moment, lashing out at the pebble-dashed wall, then licking the resulting blood from his knuckles. He had deserved that. Nobody could have known where Yves’s demons would take him. It was this place that was breeding such ideas: rainy London, its blues and greys seeping into his soul. Well, Patrice wouldn’t be here much longer. This last task done, he and Frank could vanish back to the mainland: Les Arbres was smoke and ashes, but they’d find somewhere. And the others would return—except for Bertrand, of course; except for Yves—and life would start again.
But before that could happen, the old man David Cartwright, who had been there at the birth of Les Arbres, had to go. So did Sam Chapman, his driver, his muscle. That they had survived the first attempts to remove them could be assigned to their own blind luck, or to his and Bertrand’s incompetence; or perhaps, he thought now, it had been because of the weather; this never-ending blanket of rain: slowing the joints, dulling reactions. Well, that was about to come to an end. The young spook had worked in that building over the road, the one Frank had called Slough House, and there was a reasonable chance, a working possibility, that that was where the two targets currently were. It was also possible that by now they had shared their knowledge of Les Arbres with the young spook’s colleagues, which rendered the target pool larger. It was important, then, that this time there be no mistakes.
Pulling his collar up, he crossed the road.
Lamb paused in the yard to light a cigarette, sucking in smoke and holding it so long there was barely anything to exhale. Rain on his hat filled his head with the beating of drums.
The door behind him opened, and Catherine was there. She stood in the hallway, framed by light, and said, “He’s in some distress.”
“Boo hoo.”
“I’ve left him with Moira. She’ll make him a cup of tea.”
“Why stop there? Tell her to tuck him in. Read him a story.”
“He’s an old man, Jackson.”
“He’s an old man with blood on his hands. Let’s not pretend he’s a victim here.”
“He couldn’t know what would happen. He thought he was protecting his family.”
“Protecting himself, more like.” He turned to her. “Last thing he wanted was his daughter shacking up with an ex-Agency oddball. Because that might scupper his chances of getting to be First Desk, right? These days they appear on Newsnight, reviewing Bond films. But back then, the whole secrecy thing was more of an issue, and nobody wanted Service gossip headlining in the tabloids.”
“He never wanted to be First Desk.”
“Uh-huh. And Buzz Lightyear never wanted to be first man on the moon.”
“I don’t think you mean Lightyear. And besides, getting Frank what he wanted didn’t work out, did it? He still never got to be First Desk.”
Lamb said, “By the time he’d finished kitting Frank out, running the money through whatever back-channel he dug, the old man probably thought he’d better keep his head down. Putting your hand in the till, that’s one thing. Shovelling the proceeds the way of a paramilitary organisation, that’s borderline treason. He might have rescued his daughter from the clutches of a lunatic American, but he screwed his own career in the process. I suppose that’s a kind of justice.”
“She never forgave him.”
“For rescuing her?”
“I don’t suppose she saw it as a rescue,” Catherine said. “Besides, it wasn’t just her he was rescuing, was it?”
“You’re going to tug my heartstrings now? Remind me there was a foetus involved?”
“If he hadn’t bought Frank off, he’d have been delivering his unborn grandson into Frank’s hands. And Frank would have got what he wanted eventually, because Franks always do. Which means he’d have found some other way to fund his Cuckoo project, and—”
“And River would have been part of it. Yes, I get that.”
“So why are you so sure his hands are dirty?”
Lamb didn’t reply.
“I’ll bet you’ve done things—”
“Some of them on his orders.” Lamb tossed his cigarette against the wall, and a brief firework bloomed in the dark. Then he reached into his raincoat pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a sock. After gazing at it for a moment, he put it back.
Catherine said, “Where are you going, anyway?”
“I’m out of drink.”
“And you’re fetching your own these days?”
“Yeah, well. Sometimes I get my hands dirty too.”
He slunk out into the alleyway that led to Aldersgate Street.
Catherine watched him go, then shut the door, and headed back upstairs.
Moira Tregorian had her hands full again: when was it ever any different? Make him a cup of tea, if you please. This was Her Ladyship, of course; Ms. Catherine Standish, dishing out orders as if neither of them knew her discharge papers were sitting on the desk in broad daylight, not that there was much of that to be seen. Daylight.
“Here you go, then.”
She put it in front of him, and if she did so a little abruptly, causing it to slop over the rim, well, it wasn’t as if he was about to complain, was he?
“It’s already sugared,” she added.
And then, because he stared at it uncomprehending, she felt ashamed, and said, more gently, “You want to drink it before it gets cold. You need a warm drink inside you.”
Whether he did or didn’t seemed beside the point, somehow. There was precious little else she could do for him.
There was work to do, because there always was. Nobody had ever accused Moira Tregorian of not pulling her weight, not that her weight was anything anyone ought to be making comments about. There were still files and folders here from last September, and she had a good mind to call Ms. Standish in, ask if she wouldn’t mind lending a hand as a good part of this confusion had happened on her watch? But she could imagine the frosty answer she’d get from that one. Queening it over the whole department as if she were the Lady of Shallots or someone. No, that wasn’t who she meant. The other one.
“Lady Guinevere,” she said out loud.
That was who she meant.
There was an unseemly slurping from the old man as he revived himself with a healthy gulp of tea. When he set the cup down, he said, “King Arthur.”
Oh Lord help us, she thought. He thinks we’re playing Snap.
But she was s
till feeling guilty about her rough treatment of him. And it was nice to have someone to talk to, even if it was childish nonsense.
She said, “Sir Lancelot.”
“Sir Percival.”
She wasn’t even sure Sir Percival was a real one, to be honest, but she didn’t want to spoil the old man’s game. “Sir Gawain,” she said, conscious that if this went on much longer, she was going to run out of names.
“Sir Galahad.”
Galahad, she thought. Now that was funny—that rang a bell.
Where had she come across Galahad recently?
But the answer wouldn’t come.
It was clear that nobody used the front entrance—you only had to look at the door, its peeling black paint, to know it hadn’t been opened in years—which meant there must be another round the back. So he passed the Chinese restaurant, on whose grubby windowpane was fixed a yellowing menu, and reached an alleyway lit only by window-leakage from the neighbouring office block. It was one of those lost areas every city knows; an unconsidered gap between postcodes. To his left was a wall with wooden doors set into it at intervals, and when he tried the second one, it opened. Now he was in a small, mildewed yard, looking up at a dismal building which must be Slough House. For a department of the Security Service, it didn’t seem too secure. That said much about the value placed on its inhabitants.
Patrice took the gun from his pocket. The woman who’d owned it had been Service too, and it struck him briefly how difficult it would be for her, knowing her own weapon had been used to erase her colleagues. But this was no more than a blur on his mental horizon; an awareness of the weather elsewhere.
He tried the door, which jammed a little. He had to lean on it, pushing upwards on the handle to ease it open without making a noise. But that took only a moment. And then he was inside, and on the stairs, the gun dangling by his side, as if it were of no more weight or importance than a pint of milk.
Marcus could hear Catherine talking to Shirley in the kitchen. There was a kind of comfort in having her back in Slough House—they were two of a kind, after all—A gambler and a drinker; funny they’d never discussed their respective addictions. Except it was anything but funny, of course; this situation they were in. His family life was more than fraying at the edges; it was perforated right down the middle, and one quick tug would leave him floating wide and loose. As for Catherine—well, she seemed serene. But what kind of life was she living, really; what demons had smuggled themselves into her private corners? So no, of course they’d never spoken of such things. Besides, he’d never admitted it out loud before, had he? Had rarely said as much to himself.
“I have a gambling problem,” he said, very quietly. The words barely bothered the air. His lips moved, but that was about it.
He shook his head. If Shirley had been around for that, he’d never hear the end of it—
And because she wasn’t, he pulled open his desk drawer and stared down into it again. The one thing he could sell, get serious money for—a couple of ton at least—without Carrie knowing. He’d brought it in that morning, carried it through the rush-hour crush in his raincoat pocket; had half-expected Lamb to have found it by now—creepy, the way that man knew what was going on around him without appearing to open his eyes. And this evening, when he left, he’d take it with him, though he wouldn’t be heading straight home. There was a place round by St. Paul’s, a stationer’s shop, except it wasn’t. It had a back office where a man who looked like a hobbit kept court: Dancer, his name was, and Dancer bought guns, and sold them on again to people whose motives it was best not to inquire into.
Putting a gun on the street—can I really do that, Marcus wondered?
But I need the money.
He needed the money and he’d always need the money, the same way Catherine would always need a drink. Except Catherine needed a drink without taking one. Marcus looked down at the gun in his drawer and thought of all the uses it could be put to once it was out of his possession. Uses he’d never know about, though he’d never stop wondering. But meanwhile, he’d have a couple of hundred and could pay some bills; pay more than a few if he did the clever thing, and used the money to stake himself a bigger win . . .
Or I could go upstairs right now and talk to Catherine. She’d listen. Help.
Yeah, he thought. I should do that . . . Except no, not really. Because he didn’t have a problem. What he had was a run of bad luck, and the thing about runs was, they came to an end.
A couple of hundred in hand. All he’d need was one glimmer of light and he could turn his whole situation round. Then buy the gun back off Dancer before any harm was done. He smiled to himself at the thought of this happening, soon.
Then he wondered who that was, out on the staircase.
Bad Sam’s knee still hurt, for all the anaesthetising effects of Lamb’s bottle, but he had to stand anyway, and leave the office. Volkswagon had nothing on Lamb when it came to unfiltered emissions . . . Letting the ice pack slump to the floor, he tried a little weight on his leg and found it more or less bearable.
Half-hopping down to the next level, where the kitchen was, he found Catherine Standish and another woman—Shirley? Shirley—the former busying herself with the kettle while the latter watched. Shirley was short with suede-cut dark hair; broad at the shoulders, but not without a certain appeal, provided you were a lot younger than Bad Sam, and didn’t mind things getting edgy. That was a lot to read into a brief acquaintance, but she had a legible face. She said nothing when Bad Sam arrived, but watched him closely.
Well, he thought. It was a good thing someone round here was reasonably alert.
He said to Catherine, “I’m sorry.”
A lesser woman would have raised an eyebrow. She simply looked at him.
“For after Partner died. The interrogation.”
She nodded.
“But it had to be done.”
She nodded again.
Shirley was looking from one to the other, like a cat at a tennis match.
Catherine said, “He’s gone for some more alcohol. But I’m making tea.”
“That would be great.”
Sam felt released from something; he wasn’t sure what. Like he’d said, the interrogation had to be done; if it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else. And he hadn’t given it a moment’s thought in years. But still, in this woman’s company, he couldn’t help feeling he’d done her a wrong, and was glad to be forgiven. If that’s what this was. And he—
A gunshot cut the thought off.
Two gunshots, rather; one following the other so swiftly, they might have been two halves of a single sound.
Sam said, “Is there a—”
“Lamb’s desk.”
“Get it.”
She vanished up the stairs while Shirley rattled open a drawer, finding only a corkscrew she gripped in her right fist, its twirly point becoming a wicked extra finger.
“Upstairs,” he told her.
“And then what?”
JK Coe appeared in his doorway, his hood puddled around his shoulders, his blade in hand. He looked at Shirley. “What was that?”
The light on the lower landing went out.
Bad Sam said, “Get behind that door. Barricade it.” He was reaching for the kettle as he spoke; it was still grumbling to itself, steam gusting ceilingwards. “Now.”
He pushed past them, bad knee forgotten, and leant over the banister. As a dark figure appeared on the next flight down, Sam dropped the kettle onto its head.
Catherine knelt by Lamb’s desk, tugged at the bottom drawer, found it locked. There’d be a key somewhere, but she didn’t have time: there was a metal ruler on the desktop, acquired to break him of the habit of shattering plastic ones, and she slid this into the gap and pulled upwards until the drawer gave. From it, she pulled a shoe box and—because the mind w
on’t stay in its kennel—found herself thinking When did Jackson last buy a pair of shoes?, a thought that burst like a bubble. The lid of the shoe box was taped in place, which cost her another second. And then Lamb’s gun was in her hand, surprisingly small, though heavy enough. There was nothing else in the box—no bullets—so she hoped it was loaded: time would tell. As she left the room, the door to her old office opened, and an irritated Moira Tregorian appeared.
“What in the blessed name of—”
“Stay in there.” The gun in her hand would have done the trick anyway. Moira changed colour, and faded back inside, closing the door behind her.
Catherine was on the stairs when she heard the third shot, and almost felt it on her cheek—the displaced air the bullet pushed aside on its upward journey.
The kettle missed Patrice’s head by half an inch, though it struck him on the shoulder, spouting scalding water onto his face. He leaned back against the wall to rub his eyes. The kettle bounced down the staircase, its contents arcing across the walls, and overhead a door slammed. Vision still blurry he raised his gun, and when he heard someone on the stairs, fired blind. The bullet whistled up the stairwell and buried itself in the roof.
Deliberately, he banged his head against the wall, twice. Clarity of a kind returned.
Ignoring his scalded cheek, Patrice took the stairs two at a time, swivelling on the half-flight to aim at the figure on the landing above.
Coe grabbed Shirley and pulled her into his room, where she swiped at him with her corkscrewed fist, and tried to get back onto the landing. He tripped her, and when she hit the floor he threw his knife aside to grab her by the collar and the seat of her jeans, and haul her back.
“Fuck you—”
“Yeah, you too.”
He was reaching for the door when Catherine appeared from upstairs, looking wild—her hair had come loose and floated wide behind her, and in her eyes was something savage; in her hand was Lamb’s gun.
“Move!” Sam Chapman screamed—he was emerging from Louisa’s office, where he’d flung himself after hurling the kettle downstairs. Now he was brandishing a chair, and moving like someone who’d forgotten his knee didn’t work.
