By the time Lamb’s taxi reached the laundrette, near Swiss Cottage, it would have been cheaper to bin the shirt and buy several new ones. While it swam away in the never-ceasing stream of traffic, Lamb lit a cigarette and perused posters in the laundrette’s window: a local quiz night, stand-up gigs, tomorrow’s Stop the City rally, an animal-free circus. Nobody paid him attention. When his cigarette was done he ground it out and entered.
Machines lined both walls, most of them sloshing rhythmically, making sounds Lamb’s stomach made when he woke at three, having drunk too much. A familiar noise. Dividing the room was a series of benches on which four people sat: a young couple wrapped round each other like an interlocking puzzle; an old woman rocking back and forth; and, up the far end, a short dark middle-aged man in a raincoat, engrossed in the
Lamb sat next to him. “Any idea how these things work?”
The man didn’t look up. “Do I have any idea how washing machines work?”
“I assume they take money.”
“And washing powder,” the man said. Now he did look up. “Jesus, Lamb. You never been in a laundrette before? Short of tearing a postcard in half, I thought this couldn’t have got more old school.”
Lamb dropped the bag to the floor. “I was your other kind of undercover,” he said. “Casinos, five-star hotels. World-class hookers. Laundry was mostly room service.”
“Yeah, and I jet-packed to work, before they fired me.”
Lamb extended his hand, and Sam Chapman shook it.
Bad Sam Chapman had been Head Dog once, Nick Duffy’s role now, until a high-profile mess involving an industrial amount of money meant he’d had his arse handed back on a plate: no job, no pension, no reference, unless you counted “Lucky to be leaving upright.” He now worked for a detective agency which specialised in finding runaway teenagers, or at least in taking credit card details from the agonised parents of runaway teenagers. Since Chapman’s arrival their success rate had tripled, but that still left a lot of missing kids.
“So how’s life in the secrets business?” he asked.
“Well, I could answer that …”
“But then you’d have to kill me,” Chapman finished.
“But it’d bore your tits off. Got anything?”
Bad Sam passed him an envelope. By its thickness, it contained maybe two folded sheets of paper.
“This took you three weeks?”
“Not like I have your resources, Jackson.”
“The agency not got pull?”
“The agency charges. Any special reason you couldn’t do this in-house?”
“Yeah, I don’t trust the bastards.” He paused. “Well, maybe a couple of the bastards. But not to actually do a proper job.”
“Oh, that’s right. Your crew’s special needs.” With his index finger, Chapman flicked the envelope in Lamb’s hand. “Someone was ahead of me on this.”
“I’d hope so. The cow killed a spook.”
“But not all the way,” Sam continued.
Down the bench one of the youngsters abruptly stood, and Sam paused. It was the boy, or possibly the girl—or possibly they were both boys, or both girls—but whatever, they fed the nearest drier with a clatter of coins so it came grunting back to life, then sat and wrapped themselves round their other half again.
Lamb waited.
Chapman said, “Someone ran the numbers on her, and I expect they gave her a clean bill of health.”
“Because she’s clean?”
“Because they did a half-arsed job. She looks clean now, but go far enough back and it’s a whole other story.”
“Which you did.”
“But my successor didn’t. Or whichever minion he assigned.” Chapman slapped the newspaper on the bench without warning. The
“Yeah, but it’d probably be round my gaff.” Lamb tucked the envelope into a pocket. “Owe you one.”
“There’s another possibility,” Bad Sam said. “Maybe they didn’t do a proper job on her because they already knew what they’d find.”
Jackson Lamb said, “Like I say, I don’t trust the bastards.” He rose. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“You’ve forgotten your shirt,” Sam called.
Lamb looked at the canoodling couple as he passed. “I’ll never forget that shirt,” he told them kindly.
On the whirling metal circus of the road, it took him five minutes to find a taxi.
Ambling down the road to The Downside Man, River pondered the task in hand. A contact—Mr. B had come to Upshott to make contact: with his handler or his joe. And who that might be, River still had no idea.
It hadn’t taken long to embed himself into the village. He’d been half-expecting a Wicker Man scenario, with locals in sinister masks, but turning up at the pub every night and attending evensong at St Johnno’s was all he’d had to do. Everyone was friendly, and nobody had tried to set fire to him yet.
