Joe Country полностью

What Louisa figured was, it was some kind of twelve-step thing. Clare Harper was looking for licence to move on. And part of that process was facing Louisa Guy, with whom her late husband had spent the last year of his life.

She finished her Americano and thought: there’s not enough tequila in the world. Forget about coffee: not enough tequila. She didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to be here. But she didn’t leave, despite the deal she’d made with herself.

How old would the children be now? She’d never even met them . . . Fifteen, she decided. Sixteen? That would be Lucas. She couldn’t remember the younger one’s name. George? No, she was associating.

“Hello?”

Hadn’t even noticed the door opening again.

“Oh. Yes.”

“You’re . . . ?”

“I’m Louisa, yes.” She stood. “And you must be Clare.”

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

“No, that’s okay.” There was a moment where nothing was happening; just two women, paralysed by meeting. Louisa forced her way past it: “Can I get you a coffee?”

“Oh . . . A latte. Thank you.”

First contact survived, Louisa rejoined the queue, and like a spy studied Clare Harper in the mirrored wall. Except not Harper: Addison. Either way, she was about Louisa’s age, a little older; so call her thirty-nine, or thirty-eight and three quarters for solidarity’s sake. She was a brunette, her hair tapered close to the neck but longer in the front, a style Louisa had tried herself a couple of years back, but didn’t entirely get on with. Wearing jeans and a loose green sweater, which in other circumstances Louisa might have asked where it came from. She didn’t think, though, that they were about to become best buddies. She thought they were here so Clare Addison could stomp on her a bit before moving on. But Louisa wasn’t here to be anyone’s bunny, or even to talk about Min: she was here to say Yes, that was me. Give Clare Addison a face to go with the name, just like Louisa herself had one now. Closure worked both ways.

When she returned to the table, Clare was sitting, hands clasped in front of her. Louisa said some words: she wasn’t sure what—have you come far?; something like that. Clare was nodding, or shaking her head, and Louisa noticed tight lines around her mouth, the way her eyes flickered left to right, as if she were expecting somebody else. The tension seemed unnecessary. Whatever was going to happen, the worst was in the past. Wounds healed.

She made to say more words, useful ones this time, but Clare was already speaking.

“You worked with Min, right? At this place—Slough House?”

“That’s what they call it.”

“It’s where they assigned him after he messed up that time.”

“Yes,” said Louisa. She didn’t understand why the woman was going the long way round. What did she want, a day-by-day account of their affair? Because screw that. She was prepared to offer sympathy, but wasn’t about to bare her soul. “Clare, I don’t know how much Min told you about me, or about Slough House, but you have to understand there are some things I can’t talk about.”

“He didn’t tell me much. Just that it was a punishment posting, which I’d already worked out. And he didn’t talk about his colleagues at all. That’s why I rang his old number. I didn’t know who to ask for, otherwise.”

“You didn’t . . .”

“He talked about your boss, a dreadful man. Is he still there?”

“Oh yeah.”

“But I couldn’t remember his name.” Clare’s eyes became still at last, and she focused on Louisa. “And you were in the same office? On the next desk?”

“It’s an old-fashioned set-up,” she heard herself saying. “Not open-plan or anything.” Her voice faded away at the impossibility of putting Slough House into a modern office context. “He didn’t talk about any of us? His colleagues?”

“We weren’t together long, after he was posted there. He was in such a state. He couldn’t believe he’d messed up so bad.”

“No . . .”

“He heard about it on the radio, you know. On Today. An item about a classified disk being found on the Tube. They were onto the weather before he realised it was him they were talking about.”

One of those moments when the floor drops away. Louisa had once seen a photograph of a construction site in China; a huge development that razed a neighbourhood, though one homeowner had refused to sell up. So his house remained intact while all around was dug away, leaving it perched on a pillar of earth a hundred metres high. She remembered looking at the picture and recognizing it: no ground beneath your feet, save the space you occupied. Min had felt the same. It wasn’t so different now, she supposed, except that she’d got used to it.

She didn’t want more coffee; would be buzzing the rest of the morning. Gave her something to do with her hands, though.

“Clare—”

“I need your help.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Lucas. Our son. Min’s and mine.”

“Lucas? What’s he done?”

“He’s disappeared,” said Clare. “I’ve no idea where he is.”