Clown Town полностью

She’d been in Slough House too long, because none of it didn’t. “Okay. So what are you planning?”

“Me? I plan to light this thing, and maybe do some more tailoring.” He tapped the cigarette still hanging from his lip, then picked up the reel of tape. “My collar could do with reinforcing.”

“So I’m here because . . . ?”

He rolled his eyes. “Can you lot never keep up? You’re here, learning this from me, so you can find out what Taverner’s got in mind for Cartwright.”

Which explained why it was her, not Catherine, in the room. “Is that with a view to helping or hindering him?”

“Whichever causes me least aggravation.”

“But you want her to reverse her decision? About River not coming back?”

He had found a lighter, and answered her by clicking it to no effect.

Louisa said, “Why should I? Like you said, he’ll be better off in the wild. So why would I help you keep him here?”

“Because that’s what he wants, poor sod. Closest he’ll get to living his dream. Back at his desk, imagining he’s protecting the nation. Happy as Lazarus.”

“Larry.”

“He came back from the dead, didn’t he? Mind you, one place he’s never going is the Park, not while Taverner’s in charge, but that penny hasn’t dropped yet and probably never will. Whereas you—your penny’s in the well, isn’t it? Made your wish yet?”

She had, even if she only knew it this moment. “I’m leaving.”

“So this can be your farewell present.”

“To him or you?”

His lighter flared, and he applied it to his cigarette before tossing it over his shoulder.

“I’ll get started, shall I?”

“Soon as you like,” said Lamb.

It doesn’t matter how you wind your clock, time comes out different lengths. The night River had just endured was one of his longest, and as it approached its end he couldn’t decide which had been worse; the hours spent awake, staring into nothingness, or the minutes he’d been asleep, dreaming furtive versions of his grandfather. Stam’s words had spiralled through both states—We all have things we’d like to hide in boxes. It doesn’t undo all the good in our lives. But he’d already known that, hadn’t he? Over the past few years, River had come to understand that the grandfather he’d adored had harboured a dark side. Had made ruthless decisions, reached brutal conclusions. Neither his favourite gardening gloves nor his moth-butchered cardigan could cover up a life lived on Spook Street. But this was not new information: River had known it was there, awaiting acceptance.

But it was the banality of this new item, that the O.B. had used pornography, that River found hard to take in. He was neither innocent nor a prude—the internet had inured his generation to degrees of porn that even a Victorian might have found shocking—but something rang false, and as he rose from the bed Sid had vacated earlier, as he showered and brushed his teeth and chose clothes, it became clear what this was, an epiphany that would have arrived sooner if he’d been on his game. It was that the old man had hidden his stash among his books. That was what was unfathomable; that his grandfather had—here was the word—sullied his library with porn. Because he wouldn’t have done that. There were nooks and corners, angles and crannies, a hundred places where he might have filed this lesser secret. He would not have chosen to include it among the shelves so dear to his heart—no, if he’d hidden something among his books, it was because he wanted it found. That was the spook’s code; everything you did should be read backwards. David Cartwright would have known his bookcases would be assessed and pored over, if not by River himself then by a Service archivist, or a book dealer. His box-safe would come to light, its contents be unpacked. There was no version of his grandfather that would have allowed his pornography to be revealed in such a way.

Stam had lied to him.

When he arrived downstairs there was a note on the kitchen table from Sid, whose phone he’d heard ringing an hour ago. See you later. Which gave him the opportunity to head out without explaining where and why. Living with Sid was everything he’d hoped for, but that didn’t mean he wanted life to be an open book. Jacket on, car keys in hand, he left. His own phone started ringing before he reached his car.

London is London, every last inch of it, but some parts more than others. Crossing the Thames, Sid Baker found herself gazing down at the rolling water, none of which would be in the city for more than—what—twelve hours? A day? And yet it was the essence of the capital; always London, but always passing through. As if the whole could be captured by a single moving part, the entire story held within a verb.

She was not sure she had entertained such transports before her accident, but it didn’t much matter either way. She was who she was now, and that was all there was to it.