“Still,” Taverner went on, as if Sid hadn’t spoken, “he can always share yours. Though of course, given how well you’re looking, it’s possible you won’t remain signed-off yourself much longer. How do you think that’ll go down at home? You heading back to the Service, Cartwright sloping off to the job centre?” She tilted her head to one side. “I can see him as a PE teacher, actually. He’d look good in a tracksuit, and he’ll relate to teenage boys just fine. On the right wavelength.”
“And you’re telling me this why? To save you the trouble of having somebody type a letter?”
“Oh, this is a call I’ll be making myself. Why should the underlings have all the fun?”
Sid stood. “It’s been a total pleasure. Let’s not stay in touch.”
The bridge was waiting for her. She’d use it to put as much of London as possible between herself and Diana Taverner.
Who said, “I thought you were the smart one.”
Sid paused.
“But you’re going to walk away without hearing the rest.”
“No, I just want you to get on with it. I can do without the gloating.”
“Sit down.”
“Talk first.”
“It’s not complicated. You do something for me, and I clear young River’s path back. Which might not be what you want, and it’s nothing I give two damns about, but it’s what he’s desperate for and we both know it.”
“Back to Regent’s Park?”
“Christ, no. To Slough House. Where he belongs.”
“Like I say. A total pleasure.”
This time, she got a few yards.
“Wait.”
She waited.
“You’re very sure of yourself.”
“You’re the one wanted to meet.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m offering blank cheques.”
“Suit yourself.”
Another yard. Then Taverner said:
“He’ll have to have training wheels fitted. And unlearn everything Lamb’s taught him.”
This time, Sid turned. Her smile as she approached the bench might have looked sweet, to anyone but Taverner.
“Keep talking,” she said.
“This is fucked.”
Which was Al speaking. Avril didn’t necessarily approve of the phrasing, but she couldn’t argue with his assessment.
“It is what it is,” she said. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to say these days?”
“Yes,” he said. “But what it is is, it’s fucked.”
Having risen late, they were showered, dressed, hungover. CC had spent the night but was up and out now, gathering provisions; even so, the pair were huddled in the backyard, a tiny breathing space for potted plants and a bin, so they could formulate a plan, or lament its absence, without Daisy overhearing. If the muffled conversation of the pipes scaling the wall was a guide, she was currently in the bathroom.
Avril’s head was clanging too—her body regretting the Bushmills. She said, “Maybe the Park will do the right thing. There’s always a first time. And we could all do with some extra income. CC’s not wrong about that.”
“I’m not a charity case,” Al said.
None of them were. That wasn’t her point. Poverty came in different sizes, and it wasn’t like they were using food banks, but she, at least, was browsing the Reduced to Clear shelf when there was no one around to notice. They weren’t poor the way poor people were poor, but they were poor the way middle-class people were, and that felt poor enough—four former agents, a fistful of medals between them, none of which could be displayed in public, and their joint assets wouldn’t pay a deposit on a flat in central London. With their degrees they could have gone into banking, politics, industry, and it was bolted-on they’d be looking at a twilight spent in second homes on the coast, the odd cruise, instead of shivering each time inflation took a bite from their pensions. None of which made CC’s plan more sensible. But it gave her—gave all of them—a vested interest in its outcome.
Besides, it was happening. If she retained anything of her training, it was to bend to the inevitable rather than break herself against it.
Al said, “We all love the old idiot, but this is dangerous, not the quirky caper he seems to think. From what I’ve heard, Diana Taverner’s ruthless. You think she’ll stand for a half-arsed blackmail attempt?”
“But there are four of us, as he pointed out. Safety in numbers.”
“Or a buy-one-get-three-free tragedy. If we’re all in the same car that goes off the same cliff . . .”
Then it’s not a string of coincidental deaths. Just one sorry accident.
She said, “First Desk won’t sanction mass wet work just to avoid headlines. It’s not the seventies any more.”
“Doesn’t have to be. CC thinks he’s running an op, that he’s got his old crew back together, but we don’t work like that any more. Christ, I need a piss break on a supermarket shop. Can you see the four of us scamming the Park? And then there’s Daisy.”
