“You’re doing lots of things, Shirley. But trust me, ‘fine’ is not among them.” Catherine realised she’d adopted a posture she was always warning herself against: arms folded, brow knitted. Damn. But she couldn’t stop now: “Like I said, you’ve got a history of doing the wrong thing. And yet you’re still with us. Which means you’ve been seriously lucky so far, and that won’t go on happening forever.”
“I’ve been lucky? Being in Slough House is lucky?”
“You know exactly what I mean. So put a lid on it. If I send you home, I’ll have to tell Lamb why. And that’ll mean you don’t get to come back.”
“Like this is where I fucking want to be!”
“Your choice.” Catherine left, her heart beating rapidly. When she’d heard that metallic crunch, she’d almost thought it a gunshot—a buried terror: guns had been fired in Slough House before. She was glad, mostly, that Lamb hadn’t stirred, but this wasn’t a source of long-term comfort. When Lamb failed to be furious now, he might be planning incandescence later. And Shirley was so far beyond last chances, her suitcase should be packed.
“What’s going on?” Lech called as she passed Louisa’s room.
“Shirley,” Catherine said.
“. . . Figures.”
Louisa, irritated by the interruptions, said, “Counting down from ten now.”
“What makes it interesting is where he says he saw her,” Lech said. “He was watching TV. She appeared on the news.”
“What’s she done?”
“It wasn’t about her. It was about the Home Office. About the team of ministerial aides being disbanded to ensure, what was the phrase?—a cleaner line of authority from Number Ten. All part of the ongoing power grab by Anthony Sparrow, you know?”
“The PM’s enforcer.”
“One way of putting it. And while they’re saying this, there’s footage of Sparrow coming out of Number Ten like he owns the place, with a folder under his arm and a couple of aides trotting at his heels.”
He paused, except it wasn’t quite a pause. He was waiting.
Louisa said, “Ah . . .”
“Yeah, ah,” Lech agreed. “So what John wants to know is, why is the daughter of a one-time KGB colonel carrying bags for the PM’s special adviser?”
It was Louisa’s turn to pause. Then she said, “That Swiss woman?”
“Sophie de Greer.
“And this didn’t mention mummy being in the KGB?”
“It said little was known of her personal background. She’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma, yada yada yada. Sparrow recruited her after she scored in the top two per cent in a superforecasting tournament. That’s when you make accurate predictions about real-world outcomes—”
“ Lech—”
“—and not just vague remarks about possibilities. What?”
“I know what a superforecaster is.”
“Oh. Sorry. Anyway, yeah. That’s the odd thing. Interested?”
Louisa said, “It’s a hell of a stretch.”
“I know.”
“This de Greer woman looks like someone else. No, sorry, wait. Some old drunk
“Will you not do that?”
“Do what?”
“Call him an old drunk.”
Louisa thought about it, then said, “Sorry. Why doesn’t he go to the Park?”
“Because, well, let’s just say the last time he got involved in anything this size, it didn’t end prettily.”
“I’m surprised he’s not here with us.”
“He’s an irregular, on a two-day week. They’d have to bump him up to full time if they assigned him here, wouldn’t they?”
“How should I know? What’s he expect you to do about this anyway?”
Lech said, “He wants me to have a look at her.”
“Because you’re a spook. He is aware of Slough House, isn’t he? I mean, he knows we’re not in the loop?”
“Yeah, sure. But I’m someone he knows. And I owe him.”
“Because he looked after you when you had the virus.”
“I don’t know about looked after me.” Lech paused for a moment. Then said, “Well, yeah, okay. He looked after me.”
“Don’t be so male about it. You caught a bug, it’s not like you let the side down.”
Lech shrugged.
“God, you’re worse than River.”
Outside, traffic grew heavier as the working day declined. Neither felt like they’d got through much work themselves, but that was normal in these offices, with these chores: you could spend all day shovelling sand, but if you were standing on a beach, the results weren’t noticeable. The prospect of other, more fulfilling tasks was an overheard possibility, just discernible over the nudge and mutter of the traffic.
Louisa said, “She looks like she might be somebody’s daughter. That’s all you’ve got to go on.”
“I know.”
“And even if you’re right, or Bachelor is, you think that’s not going to punch you in the face? Establish a connection between Number Ten’s uber-apparatchik and a former KGB colonel, even one a generation old, and it won’t end happily.”
“I know.”
“And where would you start?”
He said, “With the Bonn meeting.”
“Because you want a picture of the colonel.”
“I’m guessing there’ll be one in the archive. Trouble is . . .”
“The archive’s at the Park.”
“You know Molly Doran, don’t you?”
