The men hemming Sparrow in had a familiar feel; thick legs, cable-tense arms, the kind of hard-bodied trunks you might find in a wood. Neither spoke, but sat with their big shoulders forcing him into a supplicant’s cringe, staring ahead at a road that was on the move again.
“Alessandro—”
“Benito.”
“Benito, am I missing something?”
“What makes you ask that, Mr. Sparrow?”
“Because I’m still in the car. And de Greer isn’t.”
“Right.” He changed lanes, to overtake a night bus. “An interesting woman, Dr. de Greer. We had a most enjoyable conversation.”
“. . . When?”
“Shortly before you called me. It was strange, she knew exactly how our conversation would go. They have a name, don’t they? People who can predict outcomes?”
“Benito—”
A heavy hand on his shoulder discouraged further protest.
“She knew the things you’d promise, and the threats you’d make,” Benito continued. Traffic was gathering and the streetlights had grown weary, their glow a pallid offering that seemed to drop to the ground rather than reach into the dark. “And what she wanted to know was, how about if all your promises, about dropped charges and secure visas, could be fulfilled by someone else. She mentioned Regent’s Park?”
“She was lying, Benito. She can’t deliver on any of that. Only I can.”
“I’m not sure. She was very convincing. She—”
“Of course she was convincing! That’s her job!”
“She made a reasonable point. She said, why trust you, when you’ve already had my team run into what some people might think was a trap, when I could trust her instead? I thought that was an interesting viewpoint.”
“She’s nobody. She’s a spy. She’ll be arrested by morning, none of her promises mean anything!”
“So you know what I did? I followed her advice and asked my crew what they thought about it.”
“Let me out. We’ll forget this ever happened.”
“Of course, not many of my crew were available, on account of last night’s activities. But the Stefanos here—they’re both called Stefano. I hope that’s not confusing for you?”
“Stop the car!”
“Because arguably, it’s simpler. Anyway, the Stefanos here didn’t join in last night’s fun on account of a previous engagement. Which is lucky for me and also for you, because—”
“Please,” said Benito.
One of the Stefanos clamped a hand round Sparrow’s mouth, while the other brought a hammerlike fist down on his testicles. This combination of events occupied Sparrow for a while, but Benito was considerate enough to give him some minutes before continuing.
“As I was saying. This is lucky for both of us. For me, because I like my crew to have a part in the decision-making process.”
Sparrow still couldn’t speak.
“And for you because I know how much you enjoy the fun and games we have in the woods.”
“Where are you taking me?” Sparrow managed to say.
“What was that expression you used? ‘Going to live on a farm’?”
He couldn’t be serious.
“In any case, it’s nowhere you haven’t been before.”
Stefano tightened his grip on Sparrow’s shoulder, in what might have been a gesture of reassurance and support.
But might not.
The sun was coming up before they reached the woods. It silvered the branches like a dusting of snow, or a tinkling of bells, or a promise kept.
In the days to come, news will find its way to Slough House from various corners of the wider world, one a continent away. There has been a boating accident on the Barents Sea, four friends on a fishing trip having come unstuck in wild weather, and rumours are beginning to circulate that Vassily Rasnokov, Moscow’s First Desk, was involved. No body has been recovered, but that’s not an uncommon outcome in such circumstances: the wind whips up the waves, and the water reveals its depths, and what happens in the gap between can remain forever an undisclosed secret. And if other possibilities exist—that, for example, Vassily has pulled off a vanishing act, the better to slip into anonymous retirement—that’s a problem for his own Service to ponder, and is presumably unconnected with the recent off-the-books purchase by Regent’s Park of an undistinguished flat on the Holloway Road. Here, a small but operationally experienced team has assembled; its codename Rosebud; its remit, to discover the identity of the man who burned to death in a dosshouse near the Westway, and to wait by the open door of his vacant life, to see who, if anyone, steps through it. It’s a job requiring a humdrum dedication to detail, a million miles removed from high-tech movie-spookery, yet nor is it the daily trudge that the minions of Slough House endure. Because for Rosebud, a positive result to their investigation might lead them into the realms of gold, whereas for the slow horses, the end result of unvarying labour tends to be reams of dross, and no matter how much shit they shovel, they always remain in the stables.
