“Don’t tell me. Second-rate hood.” Running a hand through greasy thinning hair, Lamb parked himself behind his desk. “Not ranking KGB, but showed up in a supporting role when heavy lifting was needed.”
“You already knew?”
“I know the type. When did he leave?”
“The morning after he killed Dickie Bow.”
“I note the absence of ‘allegedly’. You starting to believe me, Standish?”
“I never didn’t believe you. I’m just not sure sending River out on his own is the right way to find out what’s going on.”
Lamb said, “Yeah, I could have prepared a report. Presented it to Roger Barrowby, who’s evidently running things these days. He’d have had three other people read it and make recommendations, and if they came up positive, he’d have formed an interim committee to investigate possible avenues of reaction. After which—”
“I get the point.”
“I’m so glad. I was beginning to bore myself. Do I take it you’ve recruited Ho to do your research? Or is he still playing computer games on the firm’s time?”
“I’m sure he’s hard at work on the archive,” Catherine said.
“And I’m sure he’s hard at work on my arse.” Lamb paused. “That didn’t work. Pretend I didn’t say it.”
“Andrei Chernitsky,” Catherine persisted. “Did you recognise him?”
“If I had, don’t you think I’d have mentioned it?”
“Depends on your mood,” she said. “But the reason I ask is, Dickie Bow obviously did. Which suggests Chernitsky did time in Berlin.”
“They didn’t call it the Spooks’ Zoo for nothing,” Lamb said. “Every tuppeny lowlife turned up there one time or another.” He found his cigarettes, and put one in his mouth. “You’ve got a theory, haven’t you?”
“Yes. I—”
“I didn’t say I wanted to hear it.” He lit up. The smell of fresh tobacco filled the room, displacing the smell of stale tobacco. “How’s the day job? Shouldn’t there be reports on my desk?”
She said, “When Dickie Bow was kidnapped—”
“We used to call it ‘bagging’.”
“When Dickie Bow was
“I really have no choice but to hear this, do I?”
“—he said there were two of them. One called himself Alexander Popov.” Catherine batted away smoke with her hand. “I think Chernitsky was the other. Popov’s muscle. That’s why Bow dropped everything to follow him. This wasn’t some stray spook from the old days. It was someone Bow had a very specific memory of, someone he might even have wanted revenge on.”
Cigarette notwithstanding, Lamb appeared to be chewing. Maybe it was his tongue. He said, “You realise what that would mean?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Uh-huh you do, or uh-huh, you’re making a noise so I’ll spell out what it means and you’ll pretend you knew all along?”
“They bagged him. They force-fed him alcohol. They let him go,” Catherine said. “There was no point to it at all, except that he get a look at them. So that one day they could swish a coat in his path, and he’d trot after it like a trained poodle.”
“Jesus.” Lamb breathed out grey air. “I’m not sure what disturbs me more. The thought that someone’s got a twenty-year plan, or the fact that you’d already worked that out.”
“Popov took a British spy off the streets twenty years ago with no motive except to use him as an alarm bell when the time was right.”
“Popov never existed,” Lamb reminded her.
“But whoever made him up did. And apparently this was part of his plan. Along with the cicadas. A sleeper cell.”
Lamb said, “Any plan a Soviet spook came up with two decades back is long past its sell-by date.”
“So maybe it’s not the same plan. Maybe it’s been adapted. But either way, it’s in play. This isn’t you chasing ghosts from your past any more. It’s a ghost from your past jumping up and down, shouting ‘look at me!’ ”
“And why’s that?”
“I haven’t a clue. But it demands a more coherent response than just letting River Cartwright off the leash. Chernitsky went to Upshott for a reason, and the only logical reason is that that’s where this network’s ringleader is. And whoever that is, you can bet your life they already know River’s not who he’s pretending to be.”
Lamb said thoughtfully, “Or I could bet River’s life. Which would be safer for me and more convenient.”
“It’s not a joke. I’ve been checking up on the names in River’s reports. None of them scream ‘Soviet agent’. But then, if any of them did, they’d not have successfully buried themselves all this time.”
“Are you still talking to me, or just thinking aloud?” Lamb took a final drag on his cigarette and dropped the stub into a coffee cup. “Bow was killed, yes. Sad, but shit happens. And the point of killing him was to lay a trail. Whatever that’s about, it’s not to set up River Cartwright. Someone wants one of us there for a reason. Sooner or later, probably sooner, we’ll find out who and why.”
“So we do nothing? That’s your plan?”
“Oh, don’t worry. There’s plenty to chew on in the meantime. The name Rebecca Mitchell ring a bell?”
“She’s the driver who ran down Min.”
