There was a pub she favoured, mostly because she had a contact there. She didn’t like to say ‘dealer’: dealer implied habit; habit implied problem; and Shirley didn’t have a problem, she had a lifestyle. One she had no intention of allowing to die the way her career had. That Slough House was a graveyard, she’d never been in doubt; that the earth was piled on quite so high, she’d just discovered. She’d done what Jackson Lamb had asked—done it well, without missing a beat—and all she’d earned was a back-to-your-desk. And from stories she’d heard, it was a miracle she’d been sent out at all. Slow horses came and slow horses went, and the passage between was spent tethered in their stalls. It was as if her mission had been one of calculated cruelty: give her a glimpse of the sunshine, then close the stable door.
Screw Lamb anyway, though. He wanted to make her life difficult, he’d find that was a two-way street.
The pub was crowded three deep at the bar. Didn’t matter. She wasn’t planning on staying. A familiar face raised a hand in greeting, but Shirley feigned abstraction and worried her way through to the toilets, which were round the far side: a sleazy corridor with a smeared mirror, and handbills pasted to the walls for open-mic poetry nights, local bands, the Stop the City rally, transgender cabarets. She didn’t have to wait long. Her contact sidled through from the bar, and precisely seventeen words later Shirley was leaving, three banknotes lighter, a comfortable weight nestling in her pocket.
Black jacket. Black jeans. She should have been invisible, but felt marked out. Memories of the previous night flashed from car windscreens: that kid she’d scared half to death, raiding DataLok. That was how easy it was to terrorise. You simply had to believe your cause was just; or failing that, simply not care about the people you were doing it to … When she turned, Shirley was convinced there’d be someone in her wake; a face from the pub; one of the wallhuggers whose eyes were always busy, but who never dared approach. Well, stuff them. Shirley was spoken for; and besides, she didn’t dance where she shopped. That’s what she was thinking when she looked back, but the street was empty, or seemed to be empty. Paranoia, that’s all. The comfortable weight in her pocket would take care of it.
All in black, she carried on her way.
“Alexander Popov,” said Catherine Standish.
Lamb regarded her thoughtfully. “Now, where’d you come across that name?” he asked.
She let him wonder.
“I sometimes worry you’re going over to the enemy.”
She looked askance. “Regent’s Park?”
“I meant GCHQ. You got me bugged, Standish?”
She said, “You’re sending River undercover—”
“Oh god, I might have guessed,” Lamb sighed.
“—into something you already know is a trap?”
“I only told him a couple of hours ago. Did he change his Facebook status already?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Did gramps not teach that kid anything except how to tell stories?” Raising his glass to his mouth again, his eyes remained fixed on the one he’d poured for Catherine. It sat like a challenge, or a carefully worded insult. “Besides, trap or not, he wouldn’t care. An op’s an op. He probably thinks all his Christmases just came at once.”
“I’m sure he does. But you know what Christmas is like. It always ends in tears.”
“He’s going to the Cotswolds, Standish. Not Helmand Province.”
“There’s something Charles Partner used to say about ops. The friendlier the territory, the scarier the natives.”
“Was that before or after he blew his brains out?”
Catherine didn’t answer.
Lamb said, “What everyone seems to forget is that even if Alexander Popov never existed, whoever invented him did. And if the same smartarse is making a mousetrap in our back yard, we need to find out why.” He belched. “If that means making Cartwright our designated cheese-eater, so be it. He’s a trained professional, remember. Being a fuck-up is only his hobby.”
“He’s your white whale isn’t he? Popov?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Something else Charles once said. That it’s dangerous personalising an enemy. Because when that happens, you’re chasing a white whale.” Catherine paused. “It’s a
“No,” said Lamb. “And he’s not going to find out. Or your confidence about your unassailable role here might turn out to be misplaced.”
She said, “I’ll not tell him.”
“Good. You planning on drinking that?”
Catherine poured her glass’s contents into Lamb’s. “Unless I decide he’s in danger,” she went on. “It’s your whale, after all. No reason anyone else should die trying to stick a harpoon in it.”
“Nobody’s going to die,” said Lamb. Inaccurately, as it turned out.
The phone rang.
