The older one was shaking his head. “No it wasn’t,” he said. “This is an uppercut.” He demonstrated with his right fist. “What you did, you just flailed about, basically.” He did this too, making it look like he was shaking out a duster. “She’s right. It was a lucky punch.”
“Seriously, does he look like someone I’d need to be lucky to punch? He’s actively—”
“Fuck you!”
“—begging for it.”
The young Dog advanced on River, who dropped, scooped up a clod of earth and tossed it at him. He caught it neatly, then froze to the spot.
“See?” River said to the older Dog. “He’s standing there like a crash-test dummy. I could ring for an Uber before hitting him. Or organise a mortgage. He’d just wait for me to finish.”
The older Dog was shaking his head. “I don’t train them,” he said. “There’s a rota. We’re partnered randomly.”
“I feel your pain.”
“I still plan to kick your head in.”
“In case it matters,” Louisa said, “I haven’t gone anywhere. Also, I’m cammed up.” She tapped her sunflower brooch. “So smile. Everyone’s up in the cloud, and how delighted are your bosses gunna be when they take a look at this?”
The two men exchanged a glance.
“And you know where bad Dogs go, don’t you?” River said.
“That’s the difference between you and me,” the younger Dog said. “I was offered the choice between Slough House and cleaning shit off blankets, I’d take the blanket any day.”
“Well, we all find our level.”
The Dog took a step forward, but his companion put a restraining hand on his arm. At the same time, his phone rang. He answered without taking his eyes off River. “Yeah. Okay. Okay. Understood.” He finished the call with his hand still on the other man’s sleeve, but it was to River he spoke. “To be continued.”
“Definitely,” the other Dog said.
“Let’s make an appointment,” River said. “Put it in your calendar, ring it in red. It’ll still come as a surprise when I punch your lights out.”
“Get in the car, you,” Louisa told him. To the Dogs, she said, “Let’s write this off to experience, yeah? Trust me, he’ll have walked into a lamp-post before the day’s out. Save you slapping him.”
Neither man replied. Both returned to their car.
River said, “How many Dogs does it take to change a light bulb? Answer, no one asks a Dog to change a light bulb.”
“Are you finished?”
“Because they’re too fucking stupid. I’m finished now.” He pointed to her sunflower brooch. “Is that really a camera?”
“Now who’s fucking stupid? And what was that about? You’re Jack Reacher suddenly? Jesus. You’re lucky you’re not being scraped off a shovel.”
“Yeah, well, they decided not to mess with me, didn’t they? Us, I mean.”
“Because they were called off. Lamb’s work, probably. And not because he hates the thought of you getting hurt. It’s because I told him Sid was missing. You know what he’s like when a joe’s in trouble.”
His face crumpled.
“She is in trouble, isn’t she?” Louisa said.
“She might be dead,” said River.
I’m dead, thought Sid.
Brand new iPhone, not a scratch. Cherry-red cover, because why not? A present from River, and for some while now—up to and including yesterday—any time River saw Sid on her phone, he’d make indirect, or sometimes direct, reference to that fact. And now she’d lost it . . . I’m dead.
Then again: Been there, done that. At least this time she wasn’t bleeding from a head wound on a pavement in the rain.
When Daisy had attacked her, the sweet old lady had been holding a blade, and knew how to work it. The sharp end had been pressed to Sid’s throat, and the sweet old lady was saying words. Sid had been too shocked to hear them.
She could and did, but was almost immediately swept off her feet again, this time by a wave of anger large enough that she might find herself in a tree later, miles inland. But first she locked sights on Daisy, who was no longer holding a blade and appeared unperturbed by her actions. “Try that again and I will slap the snot out of you.”
The bigger man stepped forward. “That’s enough.”
“You too.” Sid was blazing. The night the Russians took her she had thrust a stiletto upwards through a man’s jaw, so the question of what she would do in such circumstances had forever been resolved. If this sweet old lady attacked her again, Sid would turn her lights out.
Maybe something of this was written on her face, because the big man said, “Lay a hand on Daisy, I’ll shoot you.”
“Al!” This had been the other woman, who turned out to be called Avril.
Charles Cornell Stamoran was checking Sid’s tote bag, possibly for weapons. He removed the envelope Taverner had given her. “This is for me?”
She nodded.
He unsealed it and looked inside, without revealing its contents to the others. No one seemed surprised. A moment passed. Then he said to Sid, “Sit down. Avvy, you drove here?”
