“And anywhere south of the river, obviously. More to the point, they were playing us, Louisa. All that time we were sitting working out the details, them saying yes ma’am, no ma’am to all your suggestions, they were basically just thinking fuck you. We can’t trust them an inch. They’ll say whatever we want to hear and do whatever they want to do. And Webb made it clear that if anything goes wrong, it’s our fault.”
“Yes, I noticed that.”
“So—”
“So we make sure nothing goes wrong.”
They were sitting on the stone balustrade of one of the flower beds on the Barbican terrace overlooking Aldersgate Street. Traffic hummed below, and from somewhere behind them music played; something classical. Over the road, through one of Slough House’s windows, Catherine was visible behind the spare desk in Roderick Ho’s office. The back of Ho’s head was a motionless black blob. They made an unlikely pair of conspirators.
Louisa put her hand on Min’s, which was resting lightly on her knee. “Okay, so they lied to us about staying in a nice hotel because they don’t want us to think they’re just rent-a-heavies, even though they are, and even though that’s what we’re gunna think anyway. Or maybe Pashkin
“But at least we know now.”
“At least we know now.”
“Thanks to me.”
“Yeah yeah. Thanks to you.”
“I’ll take that as a pat on the head then.”
“Pat pat,” Louisa said.
“You think they’ll ditch the guns?”
“I think they probably carried the guns because if they hadn’t, we’d be wondering where their guns were. So yes, they’ll ditch them for the time being. But they’ll carry them when their boss is here. That’s what goons do.”
“You’re good at this.”
“I’ve been using my brains. While you were nearly getting yours splattered across Old Street, playing Lance Armstrong.”
“This is about the bike, isn’t it?” Min said, but she didn’t get it.
Over in Slough House, Catherine was still talking to Ho. In the next room, Marcus Longridge was at his computer. Min couldn’t make out the expression on his face. Marcus was a cipher. Nobody was entirely sure why he’d been exiled, and nobody knew him well enough to ask. On the other hand, nobody cared, so it wasn’t a big worry.
Louisa said, “The one who was doing the talking. Piotr. You think he was coming on to me?”
“You wish. He had his arm round Kyril in the taxi. They were kissing.”
“Right.”
“Seriously. Tongues and everything.”
“Right.”
“You need your gaydar seen to.”
“You know what?” she said. “It’s not my gaydar needs seeing to.”
She gave him a sideways look he was getting to know very well indeed.
“Oh,” he said. “Right. Got you.”
“My place tonight?”
Min stood. The music had stopped, or else got quieter. He reached out a hand, and Louisa took it.
“Bring it on,” Min said.
Catherine put her cup down, but kept talking. “Don’t get me wrong, Roddy, it’s a neat trick, but don’t you think you should have programmed it to show a few off-reservation sites? Nobody sits at their computer all day and does nothing but work.”
Ho became aware that his mouth was open, so he closed it. Then opened it again, but only to fill it with Red Bull.
“But perhaps,” said Catherine, “you’re wondering how I know about this.”
He wasn’t, actually. He’d already decided it must be witchcraft.
Because Catherine Standish knew which way up a keyboard went, and probably had a certificate somewhere verifying her typing speed, but anything beyond surfing tourist sites was as far from her reach as dating … well, dating. Even if she’d crept in at night and logged on in his user-name, she couldn’t have found the program he’d written. If Roddy hadn’t been the one who’d hidden it, he’d not have been able to find it himself.
He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Catherine glanced at her wristwatch. “That’s about thirty seconds too late to be convincing. Which, in a way, proves my point.”
This time Ho really didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Roddy,” she said, “you don’t get people, do you?”
“Get them?”
“Understand what makes them tick.”
He snorted. Understanding what made people tick was what he did. He tossed a mental coin, and it came up Min Harper. Take Min Harper, then. What made Min Harper tick? Hang onto your hat, lady, because Roddy Ho could tell you Harper’s service record, his salary, the mortgage on his family house, the rent on his bedsit, his credit card debts, his standing order payments, the family-and-friends earmarked on his mobile network, how many points he’s racked up on his supermarket loyalty card and what websites he’s bookmarked. He can tell you Harper looks at Amazon a lot without buying much, and e-mails the
