Clown Town полностью

But he was right, she had nothing else on. And it shouldn’t be a big decision, an evening out with an old . . . friend? Barely. They’d had someone in common, no more, and she wasn’t sure there was a word for that. For him to reach out after all this time suggested he was after more than a nostalgic evening. Choose wherever. My treat. His words, so he’d obviously come up in the world. Whereas she remained on the same page.

Perhaps that was why she was havering. An evening spent basking in someone else’s progress: Did that sound like fun? Hearing about professional success, worldly advancement, while she looked forward to turning up here tomorrow, to an unswept windowsill? Except none of that sounded like Devon Welles, whom she’d known when he was one of the Park’s Dogs; a friend to Emma Flyte—a good character reference—who’d left the Park after she’d been fired, another indicator of decency. Not the type to spend an evening boasting to a former colleague. No: He was after something else. And it was possible this might turn out to her advantage.

He’s your ticket out of here.

Which wasn’t Min speaking, but might as well have been, being about as grounded in reality as he ever got. What did Welles have to offer her? And why was she overthinking this, anyway? Pick up the phone, book a restaurant. It wasn’t rocket science.

The Post-it note on which she’d scribbled the reminder fluttered for no obvious reason, and she thought goose on my grave. From overhead came a wheezing sound, which might be Slough House expressing its weariness, or Lamb expressing himself. Either way, it was not a reminder of how delightful these precincts were. The days were stacking up like dirty dishes, and each had been packed with moments like this, the kind where you look round and wonder how you got here, and why you haven’t left yet. For the longest time, she’d thought—like every slow horse before her—that this was a temporary glitch; that Regent’s Park would take her back once she’d proved herself. She no longer believed that. So why was she still here? It wasn’t the décor. It certainly wasn’t the company. And no, she wasn’t doing anything tonight. She plucked the Post-it from her monitor, screwed it up and tossed it into the waste basket, nearly.

Then took her phone out and began googling restaurants.

On the shelf, Ashley. On. The. Shelf. You want to spend your whole life there?

Yes, Mum.

Because you’re going about it the right way.

I said—never mind.

Because it didn’t matter what she said: Once The Lecture began, it would keep right on happening until it was over. Estimates varied, but Ashley Khan figured she could write off the next ten minutes. Just keep her phone jammed to her ear, and if anyone appeared, pretend she was busy. In Slough House, pretending to be working was so much part of the agenda, it counted as working.

None of which she could interrupt her mother to explain, because apart from not knowing Ash had been booted out of Regent’s Park and exiled to this shitheap, she also didn’t know Ash had been at Regent’s Park in the first place, and if she had would have assumed it was the offices of the security firm Ash claimed to be employed by, rather than the headquarters of the UK’s intelligence service. All of which would require more than a ten-minute call to set right. Simpler all round to keep listening to The Lecture, with its familiar arc in which her mother went grandchildless to the grave while she—Ash—wasted the best years of her life. Meanwhile, in front of her was her ongoing project. This will keep you out of mischief. A pile of paper eight inches thick, and yes, don’t even bother: paper? It was out of some old Harry Potter book. When Catherine had carried it in, Ash had just stared, not sure whether she was supposed to laugh or cry. I mean, this is data? It needed someone walking in front of it waving a red flag. You could literally have an accident moving it from one place to another. What was saddest was, Catherine spent all day every day doing precisely that. The woman had no idea. Ash should introduce her to her mother.

Who was now telling her, I know it’s not fashionable to say so, but you do have to give some thought to what boys are interested in.