by Mick Herron
Louisa quite liked Emma, but didn’t see that she had to take any crap from her.
‘Careful,’ Lamb said. ‘She bites. Meanwhile, there’s a simple way we can find out whether Coe’s talking through his arse. Anyone want to hazard a guess?’
There was a pause.
‘We could torture him,’ Shirley suggested.
Coe flicked her a glance she could have sharpened her buzz cut with.
River said, ‘He’s only counted to three.’
‘It’s nearly a shame you’re an idiot,’ Lamb said. ‘When with a bit of application, you might have amounted to a halfwit. Because yes, in this rare instance, you’re right. Coe’s only counted to three.’ He tipped the neck of his wine bottle in Coe’s direction, and took a drag on his cigarette before saying, ‘Okay, Mr PMT, or PTSD, or whatever it is you’ve got. Do enlighten us. What are the nasty mans going to do next?’
‘Assassinate a populist leader,’ said Coe.
The maroon blazer gave him the edge, thought Dennis Gimball, admiring himself in the full-length mirror. Anyone could wear a suit. Anyone did, mostly. But it took style to carry off a less conventional look, and in this business, style was at a premium. How many politicians were remembered for what they wore? Not counting Michael Foot, obviously. He shifted to a profile, slid his hand between buttons three and four, and puffed his chest out. He’d look good on a five pound note, he decided. Hell, he’d look good on a stamp.
He hurriedly withdrew his hand when Dodie entered the room. Not hurriedly enough, though.
‘Were you posing, dear?’
‘Just … scratching.’
‘Well you’d better not do that in front of the cameras. Not either of those things.’
‘One is supposed to pose for cameras.’
‘There’s posing and posing.’ She eyed him critically: not the man himself, but the figure he cast in the mirror. He was carrying a few too many pounds, which was okay for politics. But if it all bottomed out and they ended up on Strictly, he’d need supervision. ‘Did you listen to the news?’ she asked. ‘There’s been another bomb.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Nobody hurt.’
‘Oh God. Well, no. I mean, good. Where? When?’
‘On a train,’ Dodie said. ‘I’ll get the news desk to email the details. When you’re asked about it, which you will be, sound like you know more than you’re saying. As if high-level intel crosses your desk.’
Because these were also rules: sound like you know more than you can say; act like you’ll do more than you intend. And when campaigning, lie your head off – the referendum’s other great legacy.
Dennis nodded and was about to reply when his phone rang. Unknown number. He frowned, prepared to get dusty if it was a cold-caller.
It wasn’t.
‘Speaking … Oh. Oh. When, now? … I’m not sure I have time … Oh. Oh. Well, in that case, yes then. At the flat, yes. Yes.’
He disconnected, slightly cross-eyed, which tended to happen when he was puzzled. Dodie had spoken to him about it, but it was difficult to train someone out of an unconscious physical reaction. Electric shocks might work.
‘What?’ she said.
‘That was Claude Whelan,’ he said.
‘Claude … Claude Whelan? MI5?’
He nodded.
‘What did he want?’
‘He wants to talk,’ her husband said.
‘There you go,’ said Lamb. ‘Soon as a people’s pin-up gets whacked, we’ll know we were right.’ He leaned back further, and shuffled his feet on River’s desktop. Items fell to the floor. ‘Wake me when that happens.’
River said to Coe, ‘That’s it? A populist leader?’
Coe shrugged. ‘There’s always one.’
‘It’ll be Zafar Jaffrey,’ Shirley said. ‘Has to be.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s the nearest thing to a popular politician in years.’
‘Populist,’ said Coe.
‘Same difference.’
‘Yeah, no, it really isn’t,’ Louisa told her.
Catherine said, ‘If everybody talks at once, we’re not going to get anywhere.’
‘Are you their nursery nurse?’ asked Flyte.
‘No, why, are you their new stepmum?’
Lamb said, ‘Well, this is going well.’ He swung his feet to the floor, with an agility that surprised no one bar Emma Flyte. ‘But I’m overdue for a Donald. You lot squabble amongst yourselves.’
He stole Catherine’s newspaper on his way out.
‘… Donald?’ Flyte looked disturbed, more at Lamb’s expression than his sudden departure from her custody.
‘Trump,’ Louisa explained.
‘Thank God for that. I thought he meant Duck.’
‘Dennis Gimball,’ said Catherine.
‘Are we still doing rhyming slang?’
She ignored that. ‘If I was looking for a populist leader in the current climate, he’s who I’d choose.’
‘Sooner you than me,’ Louisa said. ‘I wouldn’t vote for him with a bargepole.’
‘I wasn’t suggesting I approve of him,’ said Catherine. ‘More that, if I was planning on assassinating somebody in that category, he’d be top of my list.’
‘I’d kill Peter Judd,’ said Shirley. ‘Or Piers Morgan.’
‘Morgan’s not a populist leader.’
‘Whatever.’
River said to Coe, ‘Exactly how many stages were there to this blueprint?’
Coe didn’t look up. He spread his hand out on his desk again instead, and seemed to draw inspiration from the number of fingers he could see. ‘Five.’
‘Five,’ River repeated.
‘I think.’
‘You think?’
Coe shrugged.
‘Because it’s kind of an important detail.’
‘Yes. But I didn’t know that at the time.’
‘So this was just, what, some random memo that crossed your desk?’
‘It was something that came up when I was researching something else. I wouldn’t have remembered it at all if it hadn’t been for the penguins.’
River said, ‘Well, now you have remembered it, can you give us a clue as to what the fifth stage might be?’
‘Hey! Spoilers,’ said Shirley.
Everyone stared at her.
‘Well, we haven’t had the assassination yet.’
‘The general idea is, we might try to stop that bit,’ Louisa explained.
‘You’re all crazy,’ Flyte said.
‘We prefer the term “alternatively sane”.’
‘If any of this is even remotely likely,’ Flyte continued, ‘you need to inform the Park.’
‘Yeah, right,’ River said. ‘Excuse me, Park, but our team gave one of your secret documents to some bad guys, and they’re busy running rampage with it up and down the country. Can you imagine how that’ll go down? And let me emphasise, we’re already not popular.’
‘It isn’t about popularity.’
‘No, but it is about who’s left standing. And trust me, Di Taverner will dismantle Slough House brick by brick first opportunity she gets. And this, if you’re still unsure, would count as one of those.’
‘Taverner isn’t in charge. Whelan is.’
‘You keep telling yourself that.’
‘You’re starting to sound like your boss,’ Flyte said.
‘He didn’t say “fuck” enough,’ Louisa pointed out.
‘Who didn’t?’ And this was Lamb back, of course. He could always be trusted to enter a conversation at its most awkward point.
‘Your mini-me here,’ Flyte told him. ‘He’s picked up your habit of twisted thinking.’
‘Has he? Because I’m not sure I’ve ever put that habit down.’ Lamb did put himself down, though: heavily, on River’s chair once more. ‘What do you suppose they’re doing with Ho?’
‘I imagine they’re trying to discover what connects him to the Abbotsfield killers,’ Flyte said.
‘Yeah, I didn’t think they’d invited him round for tea and Jaffa Cakes. What I meant was, what’s the current protocol for debriefing squashy bodies? Will they be plugging him into something, hitting him with something, or injecting him with something?’
Catherine murmured words. Nobody heard what they were.
‘None of those are standard practice,’ Flyte said after a moment.
Lamb said, ‘Yeah, right, nor is pissing in a lift. But it happens. So which one is it, and how long will it take? Bearing in mind that Ho hasn’t been trained not to reveal things under pressure.’
‘And that he knows fuck all about anything,’ River muttered.
Flyte said, ‘The first thing they’ll do with him is nothing.’
‘And is that nothing the kind you plug him into, hit him with or inject?’
‘I meant literally, they won’t do anything with him. They’ll lock him in a room and let him sweat. Probably for a few hours. By the time they get to asking him questions, he’ll be an open book.’
‘I hope they’ve got their coloured pencils ready,’ Lamb said. ‘So chances are, they haven’t started on him yet?’
‘Why does that matter?’
Lamb bared his teeth in an unholy grin. ‘It gives us a little time.’
‘… You’re going to have to elaborate.’
Catherine leaned forward and gave Emma her sweetest smile. ‘Oh, I think Mr Lamb has a plan.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because he claimed he was going to empty his bowels. And he never takes less than fifteen minutes to do that.’
Lamb smiled proudly. ‘If a job’s worth doing,’ he said.
‘So where did you really go?’ Flyte asked.
‘To fetch this,’ said Lamb, and he unfolded the newspaper he was still holding and showed her Marcus’s gun.
Claude Whelan wouldn’t have been surprised if a butler had opened the door. It was a mews flat not a mansion, but still: a grammar school boy, he retained that sense of expecting the worst when dealing with privilege. In the event, though, it was Dodie Gimball – arch-columnist; keeper of the flame – who answered the bell. She wore a knee-length grey skirt and matching jacket over a white blouse, which looked to Whelan like battle gear. Her smile was as false as her nose. The latter had cost her upwards of twenty grand; the former, years of practice.
‘Mr Whelan. So marvellous of you to visit.’
‘Mrs Gimball.’
‘Oh, do call me Dodie. I imagine you’re familiar with so many details of my life, it seems artificial to have you stand on ceremony.’
Given his awareness of what her nose job had cost, it would have been disingenuous to contest that. ‘Dodie, then.’
‘You’re on your own? No armed guards or, what do you call them? Dogs?’
‘I don’t know how these stories get about,’ he said.
‘Of course you don’t. Can I take your coat?’
‘Thank you.’
The rain had passed over, and while the eaves were still dripping and the gutters puddled, the sun was peeping from behind tattered clouds, and Whelan’s raincoat quite dry. As he handed it to her, as she hung it on a hook, Dennis Gimball emerged from the front room. Or parlour, Whelan supposed.
‘Ha. George Smiley, no less.’
‘If only,’ Whelan replied. ‘Thank you for taking the time to see me.’
‘I was given the distinct impression I had little choice in the matter.’
There was an aggressive edge there, a bluster, which surprised Whelan not at all. Gimball’s public performances always contained this element; an aggrieved awareness that not everyone present held him in the esteem he deserved – as compared to, say, Peter Judd, who successfully conveyed the impression that he gave no fucks for anyone who didn’t cheer his every syllable. But Judd was presently waiting out a hiccup in his career – long story – while Gimball apparently presented a threat to the PM’s position. One of the unforeseen consequences of Brexit, reflected Whelan, was that it had elevated to positions of undue prominence any number of nasty little toerags. Ah well. The people had spoken.
And if Gimball wanted aggression, that’s what he’d get.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You havn’t.’
Dennis looked taken aback, but Dodie pursed her lips, as if having a presentiment confirmed.
‘I’m not sure I’m going to offer you a drink,’ she said.
‘I won’t be staying long. Perhaps we could …’ He gestured towards the open door.
‘If we must,’ said Dennis, leading the way.
The room had been knocked through, so there were windows at both ends, allowing for more daylight than the property’s outside appearance suggested. A pair of overstuffed sofas faced each other across the middle of the floor. Perhaps the Gimballs each had their own, and lay in parallel, purring across the divide. For the moment, though, neither sat, nor offered Whelan the opportunity to do so.
‘It might be best if I spoke to your husband in private,’ he said to Dodie.
‘Seriously?’
‘It’s always best to say that up front,’ he said. ‘That way, nobody can pretend they weren’t warned.’
‘Oh, if warnings are being passed around, here’s one for you. If you attempt to come the heavy with my husband, you’ll understand the meaning of the power of the press.’
She thought herself impregnable, Whelan knew. What she hadn’t yet realised was that the leash her editor kept her on might be long, but remained a leash. She just hadn’t felt its limit yet. But her editor imagined a knighthood in his future, and her paper’s proprietor a seat in the Lords. There was little doubt whose interests would win if it came to bare knuckles.
He looked at Dennis. ‘I gather you have plans for this evening.’
‘That’s no secret,’ Gimball said. ‘It’s a public engagement, widely advertised. You’re welcome to attend, in fact. Come along. You might learn something.’
‘And you’re going to use the occasion to make wild accusations about Zafar Jaffrey.’
‘Wild accusations?’
‘That’s the information I have.’
‘I don’t suppose there’s any point my asking where it comes from? No, of course not. The Establishment closing ranks, as usual.’
Dennis Gimball, as all present well knew, was the public-school-educated son of the owner of a high street fashion chain. It was funny, if tiresome, how self-appointed rebels always believed themselves to have ploughed their own furrow.
Whelan said, ‘Be that as it may, with the national mood as it is, there’s a feeling that it would not be useful to have you indulge in rabble-rousing.’
‘… “Rabble-rousing”?’
‘Stirring people up.’
‘I’m aware of what the phrase means, Whelan, I’m questioning your application of it.’
‘There’ve already been public disturbances in several cities, mostly in areas with a high immigrant population. It’s in nobody’s interests that we see any more.’
‘I’m flattered that you think anything I say could have such a wide-ranging effect.’
‘You really shouldn’t be.’
‘But what we’re seeing is the natural revulsion felt by the law-abiding majority to the atrocity in Abbotsfield. And if you imagine I’m going to keep quiet when I have information which might lead to those responsible being apprehended, well, that’s rather casting doubt on my patriotism, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Nobody doubts your patriotism for a moment. But if you have any such information, I’d suggest you convey it to the appropriate authorities rather than deliver it to a public gathering.’
‘The appropriate authorities being …?’
‘The police, obviously. Or, if you prefer, you could give it directly to me.’
‘Ah, yes. To be suppressed or twisted, no doubt.’
‘That’s not how we operate.’
‘Really? Because my impression was, the PM speaks and his poodle bar
ks. That’s really why you’re here, isn’t it? Nothing to do with Jaffrey. Everything to do with the effect that what I say will have on the PM’s chances of remaining in office.’
‘I’m not interested in party politics, Mr Gimball. I’m interested in national security.’
‘And a fine job you’re making of it. What was today’s triumph? A bomb on a train? How many people have to die before you admit you’re unfit for office?’
‘Nobody died today, Mr Gimball.’
‘But twelve people died at Abbotsfield,’ Dodie Gimball said. Up until now, she’d been watching this like a ferret watching someone juggle eggs. ‘And that would be on your watch, would it not?’
He wanted to say: there’s no system in the world can prevent a bunch of homicidal lunatics shooting up a village if they get the urge – no system, that is, that anyone sensible would want to see. It was a question of balance. You lived in a democracy, and accepted that certain freedoms came hand in hand with certain dangers, or you opted for full-scale oppression, which severely curtailed the opportunities for unofficial slaughter, but potentially maximised the official kind. But this was not a conversation to have with Dennis Gimball. So instead he said, ‘I take full responsibility for all the failures of the Service. And have a duty to prevent, as far as it’s in my ability to do so, any further such failures. Which is why I have to ask you not to make the speech you’re intending to make tonight, Mr Gimball. It might have serious consequences.’
Gimball had puffed himself up now. Someone, somewhere, had once used the word Churchillian in his presence, and the memory lingered on. ‘Serious consequences, my arse.’ His eyes flickered towards his wife, but she seemed on board with the vulgarity, so he continued. ‘All you’re doing is shoring up your own position. You might not be interested in party politics, but you’re still its creature, and as long as I’m a threat to the PM, I’m a threat to you too.’
He evidently rather liked the idea of being a threat. His eyes had acquired a little light. The image that occurred to Whelan, oddly, was marsh gas: flickering flames where gas was escaping. He’d never seen the phenomenon; only read about it.
‘And I can assure you—’
Enough, thought Whelan.
‘Dancing Bear,’ he said.
