Under discussion was a sash window: a metre wide, fifteen centimetres high, it was fuzzy glass and sat above a larger pane, similarly opaque. A toilet, obvs. Ideal for passing contraband through, the stuff bouncers confiscated at the door—bottles of vodka, more bottles of vodka—but also, it occurred to Shirley, Roddy Hos, if you bundled them small.
“There is no way I’m fitting through that. It’s the size of a letterbox!”
“Your trouble is, you’re all about the problems.”
Plus, if you were stuck with him as your partner, you were coming last. Louisa had disappeared, and Shirley could hear Lech and Ash round the corner, rattling a chain like Houdini shedding a skin. River and Sid had gone the other way, and had probably found an open door. So she and Roddy would be out here arguing about a window while the action, whatever that was, happened elsewhere. Grim fucking outcome. As usual.
And who was this?
Who not what, because Shirley could spot a Dog at the usual distance: a mile off. Everyone here was way outside their ground—with the notable exception of Shirley herself, because nowhere was offbeat to Shirley—and all of them scuffling about because River thought a black-bag op was going down, and if Shirley had her doubts about this at least some of them dispersed then and there, because why would a Dog be here unless bad shit was suspected?
Bad shit was Shirley’s favourite kind.
Before he reached them, Shirley adopted what she thought of as her nonconfrontational stance, and others recognised as her pre-confrontational stance: legs apart, hands on hips; cheerily welcoming, with a hint of fuck-with-me-at-your-peril. Which covered all the bases in most social encounters she was likely to be involved in, with the possible exception of a job interview.
“Brilliant,” she said. “Just what we needed.”
“. . . You what?”
“My friend needs a bunk-up. Would you mind kneeling there for a minute?”
And she gave him her best smile, with the same care she might have shown applying a match to a fuse.
Once inside, Lech and Ash found themselves in a wide corridor where dim strip lighting hummed overhead, remembering better times. Open doors revealed an office so resembling Slough House someone might have been taking notes, another room in which boxes containing paper towels, plastic beakers and cleaning fluids had been stacked in a shape roughly approximating a bed, and a staff toilet whose narrow sash window above a larger fuzzy pane was propped open an inch, not enough to dispel the smell of mould. Muffled squabbling could be heard outside: Shirley and Roddy were discussing the window’s potential as a means of ingress. Lech shook his head wearily.
Ash said, “And we think Peter Judd’s here somewhere?”
“That’s what Louisa’s mate reckoned.”
“This the guy who’s offering her a job?”
“You’d have to ask her.”
Ash rolled her eyes.
The final door gave onto a staircase leading up. Lech led the way; he was on the third step when Ash said, “Wait a minute.”
“What?”
She pointed back the way they’d come. “Wee break?”
“Are you kidding?”
By way of answer, Ash slipped into the staff toilet, leaving Lech wondering at what point Slough House had become a nursery, and how come he was in charge?
When Sid’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she made out an open space, a bar, tables and stools. A human shape was visible, too big to be CC. Peter Judd—because you had to have lived the past decade in a cornflakes box not to know who this was—eased himself upright. “If you’re looking for somewhere to dance, remove yourselves. The club is shut.”
River whispered, for Sid’s benefit, “That, right there, is why they say never meet your heroes.”
“Shut up,” she said. Then, to Judd, “We’re not here to dance.”
“Who are you?” Judd came closer. “Have we met?”
“We think someone’s been sent to harm you.” Then: “We’re not them. We’re the cavalry.”
“Well you don’t bloody look like cavalry.”
“Thanks,” said River.
“You look more like stable hands, to be honest.”
“Yeah. Just out of interest, who did Taverner say was coming to meet you?”
“
“It’s simply dealt with,” Sid said. “Just leave.”
“I’m quite capable of planning my next move.” He was squinting at River now. “I do know you. You’re one of Jackson Lamb’s squad.” Something passed across his face. “Is that what this is about? Is this Lamb’s doing?” He looked towards the door.
Which opened.
The taxi stop/started, stop/started, and each jerk scribbled a memo on Avril’s bones: Being old was a pain. She glanced at her phone. CC wasn’t moving either. Had Taverner really wound him up and pointed him? It wasn’t a comfort to know he’d stolen Al’s gun.
