by Mick Herron
‘So what happened?’
‘Mr Nobody topped himself, that’s what happened. Overcome by shame or, I dunno, tied the knot too tight for his Friday night jerk-off. So Operation Shopping List never got past the initial stage. Which was to distribute the list of goodies around the interested parties.’
‘Which is how come the SSD knew of its existence.’
‘Oh yes. It was out there. It was just withdrawn from the shelf before the shop opened. But lo and behold, two decades later, the SSD decides it might be just the thing to get their grubby hands on, on account of the huge embarrassment it would cause us if they wound it up and set it loose right here in the green and pleasant. What looked like a random series of attacks suddenly has the Service’s fingerprints all over it, from a document now dated to look less than two decades old. And here we are.’
‘Here we are,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m still waiting to find out how this makes my dreams come true.’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘That would be the identity of the bright spark who set the whole thing in motion.’
Di Taverner closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, they were full of murky light. ‘Claude Whelan,’ she said.
‘The one and only.’
She nodded at the glass in his hand. ‘Spare me one of those?’
‘I’m a generous-hearted soul, as you know,’ he said. ‘But buy your own fucking drinks.’
‘… Who else knows about this?’
‘So far? You, me and Molly Doran. I imagine you’d like to be the one to tell Claude.’
‘What, that his cunning little plan of two decades ago just bit us all on the arse? Yes, I think I’ll enjoy that conversation.’
‘Oh, good. We’re all gonna be happy, then.’
‘And here comes the bill. What do you want, Jackson?’
‘What I always want, Diana. I want to be left alone.’
‘Suits me.’
‘Me and mine. So you can slap Ho’s wrists hard as you like, but send him home when you’re done. I’ve not finished with him. As for the other two—’
‘There’s a strong chance they were involved in Gimball’s death.’
‘Yeah, boohoo. No, I think what’ll turn out to have happened is, Gimball went for a smoke and leaned against some scaffolding on which some muppet left a tin of paint.’ He made a spiralling motion with his free hand. ‘Gravity strikes again.’
‘… Are you serious?’
Lamb shrugged. ‘Everyone keeps telling me smoking’s bad for your health. They can’t all be wrong. And if they are, well, Zafar Jaffrey’s bagman was also on the scene. And if you can’t fit up a black ex-con for Gimball’s death, what’s the country coming to?’ He adopted a pious expression. ‘It’s what he would have wanted.’
‘Maybe we’ll go with the accident,’ said Taverner. ‘And that’s it? You want your crew back in place?’
‘Molly Doran too. She tells me you’re turfing her out.’ He shook his head. ‘Not gonna happen.’
Taverner recrossed her legs. ‘A suspicious mind might wonder why you want Molly kept on a leash. Don’t want anyone else crawling round her little kingdom, eh? Who knows what they might unearth down there. Not like you’re short of secrets.’
‘With what I’ve just given you, First Desk is yours for the taking. Claude’ll never survive being known as the architect of Abbotsfield. Not to mention all those penguins. And unlike other recent fuck-ups, this can be pinned on him alone, rather than systemic failure, leaving your path free and clear.’ He stubbed his cigarette out as nastily as possible. ‘So you’ll do as I say and smile while doing it. Just like any other professional.’
‘What about Flyte?’
‘What about her? She’s not one of mine.’
‘You have a code all your own, don’t you, Jackson?’ She stood. ‘Okay, then. You get what you want. And here and now, I’ll even smile. But I don’t like being dictated to. Never have. You might want to bear that in mind.’
‘Where you’re concerned, I bear everything in mind.’
Lamb reached for another cigarette as she turned to go, but the action triggered something inside him, and his face purpled. He slumped back in his chair as the coughing took hold, one arm folded across his chest while with the other he grabbed the desk, knocking his drink to the floor. His eyes watered in pain or alarm, and the effort it cost him to pull in air would have felled a good-sized tree. He looked, thought Diana Taverner, like a semi-aquatic mammal, struggling to give birth. Sounded like one too. Watching him, true to her word, she smiled. Then left his office, closing the door behind her.
Across the landing, she knocked once on Catherine Standish’s door, and let herself in without waiting for a response. Catherine, at her desk, hair neatly brushed, had a stack of papers in her hand; she was tapping them on the desk’s surface, aligning their edges. When she saw Taverner she stopped.
‘Is he okay?’
‘Don’t get me started.’ Taverner leaned against the office door. ‘Tell me, Catherine,’ she said. ‘Something I’ve always wondered. Did Lamb ever tell you how Charles Partner really died?’
When dusk at last comes it comes from the corners, where it’s been waiting all day, and seeps through Slough House the way ink seeps through water; first casting tendrils, then becoming smoky black cloud, and at last being everywhere, the way it always wants to be. Its older brother night has broader footfall, louder voice, but dusk is the family sneak, a hoarder of secrets. In each of the offices it prowls by the walls, licking the skirting boards, testing the pipes, and out on the landings it fondles doorknobs, slips through keyholes, and is content. It leans hard against the front door – which never opens, never closes – and pushes softly on the back, which jams in all weathers; it presses down on every stair at once, making none of them creak, and peers through both sides of each window. In locked drawers it hunts for its infant siblings, and with every one it finds it grows a little darker. Dusk is a temporary creature, and always has been. The faster it feeds, the sooner it yields to the night.
But for now it’s here in Slough House, and as it moves, as it swells, it gathers up all traces of the day and cradles them in its smoky fingers, squeezing them for the secrets they contain. It listens to the conversations that took place within these walls, all faded to whispers now, inaudible to human ears, and gorges on them. From behind a radiator in Shirley Dander’s office it collects the memory of her unfolding a wrap of paper and snorting its contents through a five-pound note. ‘Back to zero,’ Shirley said aloud once she was done, and though dusk has no understanding of the words – has no vocabulary at all – it takes her tone of defiant regret and adds it to its purse. In Roderick Ho’s empty room it finds nothing, but on the next floor there are moments of interest, items to ponder. Louisa Guy has left a trace of scent behind: dusk has no sense of smell, but there’s a familiarity of intent here, a lingering sense of purpose it recognises. Dusk has seen a lot of action in its time. It appreciates the efforts that go into such occasions.
And in the companion office it dawdles longer, savouring the remnants of the day. It can still hear River Cartwright’s recent phone call, a call consisting of one word only, River?, before the connection disappeared, leaving River grasping at a vacant space. Sid? he might have said; a word is only a noise, and easily lost amid other sensations: for example, River’s understanding that any protection Lamb might offer will last only while he’s a slow horse. For Lamb will go to any lengths to protect a joe, but would watch in mild amusement if the rest of the world hanged itself. This may not be true – there are corners in Lamb’s life River has no knowledge of – but for the moment, at least, it seems that resignation is no longer an option; a conclusion that tarries in the room after River has taken leave. J. K. Coe, too, has long departed, but before doing so stood a while, seeming to smile as dusk peered out from a hole in the carpet. Dusk, unused to such greetings, wonders whether Coe has mistaken it for its older brother night. Perhaps an introduction
is in order. But Coe has gone before that can happen, which is maybe just as well, for those who meet the night on equal terms are rarely left unbruised by the encounter.
There are more stairs, and dusk has already climbed them. In Catherine Standish’s room, it now remembers, it lay beneath a filing cabinet while Diana Taverner described Catherine’s former boss’s final moments; how Jackson Lamb murdered Charles Partner in his bathtub; a sanctioned murder, but a murder all the same; one which precipitated Lamb’s exile, and gifted him Slough House. The life Catherine now leads is built on the proceeds of Jackson Lamb’s crime. Diana Taverner just thought she should know that. And once Taverner had left, dusk waited for Catherine to weep, or shout, or rage, but it heard nothing; and when time came for it to creep from its hiding places, it found the room empty, and Catherine Standish gone.
So at last dusk comes to Jackson Lamb’s office, where, of course, it’s already waiting. And finds there is nothing to find there, for Jackson Lamb carries his own darkness with him, and is careful not to leave any lying in unregarded corners. All that remains of his recent presence, spillage of whisky and ash aside, is a soiled and rotten handkerchief hanging off the lip of a bin. Dusk considers this, and adds it to its knowledge of the day; knowledge it will abandon soon, for this is the rule, in London and elsewhere: everything that happens – good and bad – dusk clocks, absorbs, then mostly forgets. For if dusk remembered everything the weight would nail it in place, keeping it from its eternal search for its twin, the dawn, which it has never met. Always, it’s halfway behind, or halfway ahead. It’s never known which.
Meanwhile, dusk’s older brother night, which has hovered overhead this past hour, is beginning to lose its balance, beginning to fall. Soon everything will be different again, the same as it always is. Dusk has a last look round, but its vision is failing, its hearing dim. It has been everywhere, seen everything. It is time to go. It has already left. In its wake, in the dark, Slough House slumbers, Slough House snores.
But mostly, Slough House waits.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
HUGE THANKS, AS EVER, to my friends at John Murray in London, and at Soho Press in New York, especially Mark Richards, Yassine Belkacemi, Emma Petfield and Becky Walsh over here, and Bronwen Hruska, Juliet Grames and Paul Oliver over there. And to Juliet Burton, of course, for keeping everything on track.
Some while ago, I was lucky enough to be present while Helen Giltrow and Steph Broadribb discussed Mr Tom Hiddleston. I hope I haven’t misrepresented their views. And questions asked by Mark Billingham, Sarah Hilary and Will Smith suggested some avenues I’m gratefully pursuing in this novel and the next. My thanks to all.
I’m grateful, too, to various readers for their enthusiasm, support, and gentle correction of error. Aakash Chakrabarty and David Craggs have been especially helpful, but all the many emailers, however brief their messages, lighten the days. And I’m indepted to the staff at Summertown Library in Oxford for tolerating my near-daily presence as I mooch around their shelves, shuffle through their DVDs, read their newspapers and use their computers. It’ll surprise them to learn that I do occasionally get some work done.
The rules of ‘Yellow Car’, as cited by Louisa in chapter 7, were laid down by Mr John Finnemore in his delightful Radio 4 series Cabin Pressure. Thanks to him, I’ve been playing Yellow Car since about 2014. It doesn’t seem likely that I’ll ever stop.
MH
Oxford
September 2017
