These days Catherine Standish listened when her conscience twittered, even if the bad decisions it informed her of were being made by others. In Slough House, it was Shirley Dander picking up the slack. Shirley’s weapons of self-destruction might not be those Catherine had chosen—a traditionalist, it had been alcohol all the way for her—but that was a detail, and Shirley was impressively single-minded when it came to creating havoc. Her recent attempt at detoxification, for instance, had resulted in mass casualties at the Service-run facility she’d been sent to, an episode Catherine had been hoping to resolve with her suggestion that Shirley write to the manager offering words of regret. Shirley, though, had other ideas, predominant among them being that everyone should fuck off and leave her alone. Detoxification, in Catherine’s experience, had been about facing her demons. Sooner than wrestle with those, Shirley would prefer a televised cage-fighting event with everyone else’s.
A simple letter. It couldn’t have hurt.
Probably never know, though. She had enough experience of Shirley to be sure that, having drawn her line in the sand, she’d not let the sea itself wash it away without a fight.
Not for the first time, Catherine wondered what life might be like in a less obstreperous workplace; somewhere whose occupants were prepared to leaven their take with a little give. Pointless fretting about what-ifs, though. Here was where she was, and—Jiminy Cricket be damned—she had to let others work through their own issues. Shirley would do that or not; she’d make it or she wouldn’t. Entering her office, the one space of tidy calm in the noisy mess that was Slough House, Catherine allowed herself to shrug off her self-appointed role as mother hen, and accept a reality she spent too much time avoiding: that it didn’t matter whether Shirley made it, because there’d always be someone ready to crash and burn. The best Catherine could do was deal with the damage, not attempt its avoidance. Because damage was inevitable—her colleagues’ impulsive behaviours made sure of that.
Though it had always been true, of course, that some of them were more aware of this than others.
Three little words.
Roddy Ho was having one of those.
And don’t talk to him about best-laid plans, dude, because all he’d hear was “laid.” So mark your calendars: The next few months would play like self-replicating code—you knew what was coming but watched it happen anyway, because, shit, well,
Of course, you also helped the process along, because that was the difference between being a doer and being did.
So yesterday, Roddy had got himself inked.
Truth was, he’d been meaning to get a tat for ages. It was today’s art form, and with a gallery like Roddy, it’d be criminal to leave the walls bare. Besides, it was a means of communication, and Roddy was all about the comms. Give a dude a tat, it saved you having to get to know him. One look gave you the lowdown, which in the Rodster’s case came to three little words again: simple, classical, beautiful.
Put it another way, a hummingbird.
Which was the stuff of poetry, you didn’t have to read poetry to know that. Hummingbirds were the Roddy Hos of the avian world: compact, powerful, super-intelligent, and capable of lifting many times their own weight. Some of these facts he’d already known, but the guy with the needle had told him the rest. Put all that together and you basically had Roddy’s spiritual equal. Chicks were going to crap themselves, in a good way. Like he said, hot girl summer.
(True, he hadn’t actually seen it yet—it was still under a bandage—but the needle guy had told him, “That’s the best damn art I’ve made in years,” before binding it up and saying not to let air hit it for twenty-four hours.)
So Roddy was just awaiting the moment of reveal, which it was tempting to put on TikTok—grab himself some viral attention—but the squares at Regent’s Park kept circulating memos about social media, and Roddy didn’t need The Man on his back. Dude: He followed Kanye on X.
But tomorrow, or day after at the latest, he’d be open for viewing: roll up, take a seat, marvel.
He patted his arm, yelped, then looked round to make sure no one had heard, but he was alone in the office because Lech Wicinski had taken to squatting elsewhere, on account of
More gently he stroked his bandaged arm again. Hot girl summer or not, there were moments you had to be your own wingman, but that was okay.
If there was one thing Roddy was used to, it was being his own best friend.
