by Mick Herron
As ever, he played to win.
Lamb said, “She was listening outside when you were talking to Ho.”
“And I was inside when you caught her doing that,” Catherine said. “So how come I didn’t hear you disembowelling her?”
“Oh, she had an excuse.”
Catherine waited.
Lamb said, “She wanted to hear what you were talking about.”
“That would cover it,” Catherine agreed. “You think she’s Lady Di’s plant?”
“Don’t you?”
“She’s not the only possibility.”
“So you assume it’s Lockridge. What are you, Standish, racist?”
“No, I—”
“That’s even worse than thinking it’s the dyke,” Lamb said.
“I’m so glad we’ve got you to grade our discrimination issues.”
“Ho’s looking at the Upshott menagerie?”
She was used to him switching topics. “I’ve got as far as I can on my own. There are plenty of candidates, no obvious suspects.”
“Would’ve been quicker to use him in the first place.”
“I wasn’t supposed to be doing this in the first place,” she pointed out. “Has River checked in?”
“Earlier today.”
“He okay?”
“Why wouldn’t he be? Whatever’s going on, it’s not a big plot to assassinate Cartwright.”
“This summit happens in the morning. The Pashkin thing.”
“And you think there’s a connection,” he said flatly.
“Arkady Pashkin,” she said. “Alexander Popov. That doesn’t worry you?”
“Give me a break. I’ve got the same initials as … Jesus Lhrist, but I don’t go on about it. This isn’t an Agatha Christie.”
“I don’t care if it’s a Dan Brown. If the two are connected, then something’ll happen in Upshott. Soon. We should let the Park know.”
“If Dander’s Taverner’s mole, they already do. Unless you want to take a punt on this initials thing.” Lamb scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Think they’ll call a COBRA session?”
“You’re the one who put all this in motion. And you’re just going to wait and see what happens?”
“No, I’m just going to wait for Cartwright’s call. Which he’ll make when he’s back from the MoD place. You think I’m still here this time of night because I’ve nothing better to do?”
“Pretty much,” Catherine said. “What’s happening at the MoD place?”
“Probably nothing. But whoever laid a trail didn’t do it to keep what’s going to happen a secret. So I’m assuming Cartwright’ll find a clue somewhere. Now bugger off and leave me in peace.”
She rose but paused at the doorway. “I hope you’re right,” she said.
“About what?”
“That whatever’s going on isn’t a plan to assassinate River. We’ve already lost Min.”
“They staff us with screw-ups,” Lamb reminded her. “We’ll be back up to strength in no time.”
She left.
Lamb tilted his chair back and gazed at the ceiling for a while, then closed his eyes, and became very still.
Ho sucked his teeth as he worked. What Standish had done with her data was old school: she’d processed it looking for common threads. You could do the job faster if you just printed it out and read it, biro in hand.
Going Amish, they called that. Applied to Catherine Standish too. The woman wore a hat.
Ho’s method didn’t have a name, or not one he could think of. What he did came naturally, like water to a fish. He took the names, plus their DOBs, ignored everything else Standish had supplied, and ran them blind through engines both backdoor and legal. Legal was anything in the public domain, plus various government databases his Service clearance gave him access to: tax and national insurance, health, driving licence; what he thought of as data-fodder.
The backdoor stuff was more potent. For starters, he had an NCIS trapdoor. Ho limited himself to brief forays, because its security was improving, but it gave near-instant rundowns on even peripheral involvement with criminal investigations. It wasn’t likely a deep-cover spook would have form, but it wasn’t impossible, and Ho liked to keep in practice. After that came the premier division. Back when he’d been a junior analyst at the Park Ho had been given one-off access to the GCHQ network, and had made a clone from his temporary password. He’d subsequently upgraded himself to administrator status, and could pull up all existing background on any name he chose. This covered not only subversive activity—which included relationships with foreign nationals from any country on the suspect list; travels to unfriendly nations, which for historical reasons included France; and any contact whatsoever, up to vague geographical proximity, with anyone on the watchlists, which were updated daily—but also digital footprint, phone use, credit rating, litigation record, pet ownership: everything. If GCHQ sold user-lists to direct-mailing companies, it could fund the war on terror by itself. In fact, an enterprising freelancer might take advantage of this, Ho thought; a topic worth researching, though maybe not right this moment.
He let himself in, entered the target names, created a destination folder for the results, and exited. No point hanging around while the Matrix did its stuff, which was to accumulate, assess and regurgitate data, with crossover points neatly highlighted so even an Amish could assimilate the bullet points. Kind of like playing Tetris. All the little blocks of info, settling into place. No gaps.
Like that, only much more cool … If Shana could see him now, that boyfriend of hers would be dust. And Roderick Ho lapsed into happy daydream, while the machine-world did his work.
“Why’d you stop me?”
The tube was quiet: a few homegoers down the far end; a lone woman plugged into her own little iWorld; a drunk man by the doors. But Louisa kept it low, because you never could tell.
Marcus said, “Like I told you. Trying to take down Pashkin on your own’s a good way of getting hurt.”
“And what’s that to you?”
“I was ops. We had this thing about watching each others’ backs.” He didn’t appear offended. “You think he killed Harper, don’t you?”
“Or had him killed. You think I’m wrong?”
“Not necessarily. But don’t you think he’s been looked at?”
“By Spider Webb.”
“Who’s not been straight with us.”
“He’s a suit, he’s the Park. He wouldn’t be straight if you rammed a telegraph pole up his arse.” She stood. “I change here.”
“You’re going home?”
“Now you’re my dad?”
“Just tell me you’re not heading back for another crack at him.”
“You took my cuffs, Longridge. And my spray. I’m not going back for another crack, no, not with just my bare hands.”
“And you’ll be there in the morning.”
She stared.
He spread his hands wide: look at me; nothing to hide. “Maybe he had Min whacked, maybe not. But we’ve still got a job to do.”
“I’ll be there,” she said through gritted teeth.
“That’s good. But one other thing, yeah?”
The train pulled into the station, and suddenly there were white tiles and lurid posters visible through the windows.
“Tomorrow, I’m working security. And my job’s to neutralise any threat to the principal. Understand what I’m saying?”
“Good night, Marcus,” she said, stepping onto the platform. By the time the train moved off, she’d disappeared down an exit tunnel.
Marcus remained in his seat. Two other people had left at Louisa’s stop, three more had got on, and he knew exactly which were which. But as none represented a threat, he closed his eyes as the train picked up speed, and for all the world looked like he’d fallen asleep.
Ho woke, straightened his neck, and the thread of drool bridging the corner of his mouth and his shoulder broke and pooled on his shirtfront. He wiped his mouth
blearily, dabbed at his shirt with his fingers, and wiped his fingers dry on his shirt. Then he turned to his computer.
It was making a contented humming sound; the friendly noise it made when it had finished a task he’d set it.
He rose. This was a sticky business—his clothing clung to his chair. In the hallway, he paused. Slough House was quiet, but didn’t feel empty. Lamb, he guessed, and probably Standish also. He yawned and padded to the toilet, peed mostly into it, then padded back to his office and slumped back into his chair. Wiped his fingers on his shirt again, and drank some energy drink. Then tilted his flatscreen to see the results of his searches.
As he scrolled down, he leant forward. Information interested Ho to the precise degree that it might prove advantageous, and the data he was looking at had no relevance to himself. But it was of interest to Catherine Standish. Among the names he’d processed, she hoped, was that of Mr. B’s contact; a Soviet sleeper from the old days. Finding out who it was would impress her. On the other hand, she already knew he was shit-hot at this, and while it was true she was nicer to him than anyone else in this dump, the fact remained that she’d blackmailed him into—
Something caught his attention. He stopped scrolling, scrolled back up again, checked a date he’d just registered. Then re-scrolled down to where he’d been.
“Hmph.”
Ho pushed his glasses up his nose with a finger, then sniffed the finger and made a face. He wiped it on his shirt and returned his attention to the screen. A moment later, he again stopped scrolling.
“You’re kidding,” he muttered.
He scrolled down further, then stopped.
“You have got to be kidding.”
He paused and thought. Then he keyed a phrase into the search box, hit return, and stared at the results.
“You have got to be fucking kidding,” he said.
This time, he didn’t stick to the chair at all.
He heard a voice.
“Walker.”
The booming noises remained, but only inside his head: a pulse like a dull metal drumbeat, caroming round his skull. With every contact a starburst was born, died, and rose again. His body was one big fist, its knuckles raw.
“Jonathan Walker.”
River opened his eyes to find he’d been captured by a dwarf.
He was where he’d always been; curled at the foot of an indestructible tree, the only thing fixing the earth to the sky. The ruined building had shrunk—or everything else had grown—and his heart was trying to burst free from its cage.
How long had he been here? Two minutes? Two hours?
And who was the dwarf?
He unclenched himself. The dwarf wore a red cap, and twinkled in an evil way. “Enjoy the show?”
River spoke, and his words swelled up as they left his mouth. His head had been swallowed by a balloon.
“Griff? He’s long gone.” River could have sworn the dwarf rolled back on his heels, like a toy you couldn’t push over. Then he loomed back into River’s face. “Not likely to stick around during artillery practice, is he?”
He hauled River to his feet, and it turned out he wasn’t a dwarf at all, but a medium-sized man. Unless River had shrunk. Terror could do that. He shook his head, and when he stopped the world carried on shaking. He looked up, which was another mistake, but at least the sky had calmed down. No new scars ripped it apart. He looked back at the no-longer dwarf.
“I know you,” he said, and this time his voice more or less behaved itself.
“Maybe we should move.”
River pressed his hands to his temples. This suppressed all movement for a while. “We in danger here?”
“The night’s young.”
The man in the red cap—not a dwarf, but that cap remained real—turned and plodded out of the shell of the building. River stumbled after him.
Lamb wiped his face with a meaty hand. “This better be good.” He’d been asleep in his chair, and looked barely awake in it now. But when Roderick Ho had appeared in the doorway, printout in hand, his eyes had snapped open, and for a moment Ho had felt like a rabbit who’d wandered into a lion’s cage.
“I found something,” he said.
Catherine appeared. If she’d been sleeping, too, she’d been less messy about it than Lamb, who was smeared with big red blotches. “What kind of something, Roddy?”
She was the only person who called him that. Ho couldn’t decide whether he liked it that way, or wished more people did.
He said, “Don’t know. But it’s something.”
“That wasn’t the best sleep I’ve ever had,” Lamb said. “But if you woke me to play twenty questions, you’ll be sharing a room with Cartwright when he gets back.”
“It’s the village. Upshott. The population spread.”
“It’s pretty tiny,” Catherine said.
Lamb said, “It’s bloody Toytown. With fewer amenities. You have any information we don’t already know?”
“Fewer amenities, exactly.” Ho was starting to feel confident again. Remembered he was a cyber warrior. “There’s nothing there. And even when there was, it was the Yank airbase, and none of the names on the list had anything to do with that.”
Lamb lit a cigarette. “First of the day,” he said, when Catherine flashed him a look. It was ten past midnight. “Look, Roddy.” This was said kindly. “All that crap I lay on you? The name-calling? The threats?”
“It’s okay,” Ho said. “I know you don’t mean it.”
“I mean every bloody word, my son. But it will all seem trivial compared to what’ll happen if you don’t start making sense sharpish. Capisce?”
The cyber warrior leaked away. “None of them were connected with the airbase. Something else must have attracted them to Upshott, but there’s nothing else there. So—”
“Urban flight?” Lamb asked. “It’s what happens in cities when too many undesirables turn up.” He paused. “No offence.”
“Except that’s a gradual thing,” Ho said. “And this wasn’t.”
The smoke from Lamb’s cigarette hung motionless in the air.
Catherine said, “What do you mean, Roddy?”
And here was his night’s triumph, though it involved fewer blondes than he’d wanted. “They moved into the village in the space of a few months. A whole bunch of them.”
“How many?” Lamb asked.
Handing his printout to Catherine, Ho said, “Seventeen of them. Seventeen families. And they all arrived in Upshott between March and June, nineteen ninety-one.”
And he had the satisfaction of seeing, for once, Lamb lost for an instant reply.
Stomping up the slope Griff Yates had led him down earlier, River had to rest halfway. But the pounding in his head was fainter, and he was starting to notice he was alive, when he could easily have been sprayed across this landscape as a fine red mist.
The thought of encountering Griff again was starting to energise him too.
Redcap waited at the top. He was little more than a dark outline, but River’s brain was firing again, and a name popped into it. He said, “You’re Tommy Moult.” Outside the village shop, selling packets of seeds from his bike basket. That was where River knew him from, though they’d never spoken beyond a hello. “What are you doing here this time of night?”
“Picking up strays.” Tufts of white hair sprigged out from Moult’s cap. He must have been seventy: he had a well-lined face, and dressed like he lived under a hedge with an ancient tweed jacket that smelled of outdoors, and trousers that were knotted round his ankles. Makeshift bike clips, River supposed, though less sanitary possibilities occurred. His voice was a rough gargle: the local accent poured over pebbles. An unlikely saviour, but a saviour all the same.
“Well, thanks.”
Moult nodded, turned and walked. River followed. He had no idea which direction they were headed. His inner compass was spinning crazily.
Over his shoulder, Moult said, “You’d have been all right. They don
’t target the buildings. If they did they’d be rubble, and those trees would be matchsticks. See the humps in the land back there?”
“No.”
“Well, they’re bronze age barrows. The military don’t plant ordnance on them. Draws criticism.”
“I suppose Griff knows that too.”
“He didn’t plan on you being blown to bits, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’ll bear that in mind next time I see him.”
“He just wanted to scare you shitless.” Moult halted so suddenly River nearly bumped into him. “What you probably ought to know is that Griff’s been in love with young Kelly Tropper since she took the stabilisers off her bike. So what with you and her being so friendly—and in the middle of the day—well, you can see he might take that amiss.”
“Jesus wept,” said River. “That was like—that was this afternoon.”
Tommy Moult glanced skywards.
“Yesterday afternoon. And he knows about it? You know about it?”
“You’re familiar with the phrase global village?”
River stared.
“Well, Upshott’s the village version of that. Everyone knows everything.”
“Bastard could have killed me.”
“I suppose, to his way of thinking, it wouldn’t have been him doing the killing.”
Moult tramped off. River followed. “It seems further than it did before,” he said after a while.
“Same distance it’s always been.”
A penny dropped. “We’re not heading back to the road, are we?”
“Be a shame,” Moult said, “to go to all this effort, not to mention having the poop scared out of you, and then just scoot home with your tail between your legs.”
“So where are we going?”
“To find the only thing round here worth finding,” Moult said. “Oh, and by the way? It’s top secret.”
River nodded, and they walked on into the dark.
“Okay,” Lamb said at last. “That must be why I keep you round. Now back to your toys, button-boy. If they’re all sleepers then they’re long-term fakes, fakes being the operative word. Their paperwork must be good, but there’ll be a chink of light somewhere. Find it.”
