Catherine held his stare a little longer. It had become a matter between the two of them, River realised. He might as well not be here. And for a moment he thought Lamb might look away first, but it didn’t happen; Catherine gave a shrug instead, one in which something seemed to leave her body, then turned away. She took the folder Longridge was holding, and went into her office. The other pair trooped downstairs.
So, that went well, he thought.
But before River had been at his desk twenty minutes came a godawful noise from upstairs; the kind you’d get if you tipped a monitor off a high-enough desk that the screen shattered when it hit the deck. It was followed by the scattering rattle of plastic-and-glass shards spreading across the available space. River wasn’t the only one who jumped. And everyone in the building heard the oath that followed:
“
After that, Slough House went quiet for a while.
The film was grainy, jerky, black-and-white, and showed a train at a platform late in the evening. It was raining: the platform was roofed, but water trickled down from misaligned guttering. Seconds passed while nothing happened. Then came a sudden onrush, as if a gate had been opened offscreen releasing a swarm of anxious passengers. Their jerky motion was due to the film skipping frames. Movements gave it away: the sudden appearance of hands from pockets; umbrellas folding without warning. Mostly, the expressions on offer betrayed irritation, anxiety, the desire to be elsewhere. River, who was good at faces, recognised no one.
They were in Ho’s office, because Ho had the best equipment. After Lamb had tipped his computer over while trying to insert a CD—a piece of slapstick River would have given a month’s salary to have witnessed—he’d boiled in his room half an hour, then stalked downstairs as if this had been the plan all along. Catherine Standish followed a moment later. It might have been residual embarrassment which prevented Lamb from protesting when the other slow horses assembled in his wake, though River doubted it. Jackson Lamb couldn’t have defined embarrassment without breaking into a sweat. And once he’d given Ho the CD, and it was up and running, it was clear he expected them all to watch. Questions would follow.
There was no sound; nothing to indicate where this was happening. When the platform cleared the train began to move, and there were no clues there, either: it simply jerked into motion and pulled out of view. What was left was an empty platform and a railway track, onto which heavy rain fell. After four or five seconds of this, which might have been fifteen or twenty in real time, the screen went black. The entire sequence had lasted no more than three minutes.
“And again,” Lamb said.
Ho tapped keys, and they watched it again.
This time, when it stopped, Lamb said, “Well?”
Min Harper said, “CCTV footage.”
“Brilliant. Anyone got anything intelligent to add?”
Marcus Longridge said, “That’s a west-bound train. They run out of Paddington into Wales and Somerset. The Cotswolds. Where was that, Oxford?”
“Yes. But I still can’t remember your name.”
River said, “I’ll make him a badge. Meanwhile, what about the bald guy?”
“Which bald guy?”
“About a minute and a half in. Most of the others pile onto the train, but he walks up the platform, past the camera. Presumably he gets on board further up.”
“Why him?” Lamb asked.
“Because it’s pouring. If everyone else is getting on the train within view of the camera, that suggests the rest of the platform’s not covered. They’re all trying to stay out of the rain. But he’s not. And it’s not like he’s carrying an umbrella.”
“Or wearing a hat,” Lamb said.
“Like the one you brought in.”
Lamb paused a beat, then said, “Like that, yes.”
“If that’s Oxford,” Catherine said, “then that’s the crowd just got off the bus Dickie Bow died on. Right?”
Looking at Ho, Lamb said, “You have been a busy bee. Anything else you’ve made public I should know about? My dental records? Bank account?”
Ho was still smarting from being reduced to entertainments officer. “That’d be like asking a plastic surgeon to do your ingrown toenails.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m insulting you,” Lamb said kindly.
“I …”
“Because when that happens you’ll know all about it, you slanty-eyed twat.” He turned to the others. “Okay,” he said. “Cartwright wasn’t wrong. And it’s not often I get to say that. Our bald friend, let’s call him Mr. B, got on a train at Oxford last Tuesday evening. The train was headed for Worcester, but stopped several times along the way. Where’d Mr. B get off?”
“Are we supposed to guess?” Min asked.
“Yes. Because I’m really interested in pointless speculation.”
River said, “You got this footage from Oxford?”
“Well done.”
“Presumably other stations will have coverage too.”
“And aren’t there cameras on trains these days?” Louisa put in.
