Place was a security nightmare, though—they called it The Spooks’ Chapel, which summed it up: why didn’t they pitch a neon sign out front? He’d just watched the Park’s First Desk arrive, followed by Oliver Nash, Head of the Limitations Committee, who, okay, wasn’t going to sell tickets on his own, but if you were in the know—if you knew who pulled the levers on this secret train they rode—you’d definitely want to target, if you were a bad actor. One well-timed intervention and you could take out the whole of the Service’s top tier, and much of its dead wood, without pausing between breaths. But then, that was the trouble with England—with Britain—it was so in love with its myths and legends, it couldn’t see what a ball and chain they were. No, if you wanted to stay ahead of the bad guys, you had to cut history loose. That was his considered opinion. He had memories—who didn’t?—but his baggage was all carry-on; he could walk away from any identity he’d ever had without a backward glance. He certainly wouldn’t hang around to bury his dead. And if he did, he wouldn’t bury them in a tourist attraction. “The Spooks’ Chapel.” You might as well print pamphlets.
Some of this he said out loud, into the dead phone, and if anyone was watching they’d note his animation and assume he was talking to someone he could pull rank on: an underling or a girlfriend, not a boss or a wife. And maybe, thinking he was CIA, they’d assume he was here to pay his respects to a one-time hero of a rival Service, because they were all in this together, even if only one of them was going into a hole today. So yeah, that’s what they’d think; that he was representing the Company, and he’d hang up his call and dip his head when they carried the coffin inside.
But he wasn’t here to pay respects.
He was here collecting faces.
And this, anyway, solved River’s protocol problem: if they stood right where they were they could watch arrivals without having to worry about whom to acknowledge, whom to discreetly ignore. Lady Di, for instance, and the tubby man she’d come with: what Lamb would call a suit, by which Lamb meant it was only the pinstripes holding him upright. Whoever he was, Lady Di was a difficulty. Responsible for River’s exile, because though—on paper—he’d crashed King’s Cross, a messed-up training exercise of a kind no junior spook could walk away from, the mess-up hadn’t been of his making but hers. History now, but it still churned River to see her.
His mother was regarding him, an odd expression on her face. “Are you all right, dear?”
“It’s my grandfather’s funeral.”
But she’d followed the direction of his scrutiny. “Oh, I say.” She watched Taverner walk the gravelled path to the chapel door. “A little . . .
“She’s . . .” He hesitated, but what the hell. His mother was a Service child. “First Desk. That’s why she’s here.”
“Well, she’s nicely turned out, I’ll give her that. But you ought to set your sights on someone your own age.”
“I’m not—”
“Or your own wage bracket. That’s Chanel she’s wearing.” She eyed her son critically. “Whereas, well, not to criticise. But where did that suit actually come from? A garage forecourt?”
“They had a surprisingly wide selection.”
“You’re going to need that sense of humour if you don’t start earning money soon. And who’s this?”
This was Louisa Guy, who saw them and sketched a wave, but went straight inside. River was glad to see her. She hadn’t known his grandfather, and hadn’t come because he was a Service legend: she’d come because River was a friend, and if River drew up a list of his current friendships, he’d be chewing his pencil once he’d written her name. But he was also happy she’d headed in. Friend didn’t necessarily mean he wanted her to meet his mother. There were some conversations you didn’t want to have.
And some you couldn’t avoid.
“A little more your league, dear.”
“She’s a colleague.”
“Like I say.”
“It’s a funeral, mother. Not a speed-dating group.”
“Just as well. You’re not exactly in a hurry, are you?” She wrapped both hands round his elbow. “But I don’t mean to pressure you. If there’s anything you want to tell me, just come out and say it. Your grandfather was an old reactionary, but I’ve always had very liberal views.”
“I’m not gay.”
“Well, if you’re sure.”
“And if I was, why imagine I’m fixated on Di Taverner?”
“It’s a not uncommon pattern. But don’t forget, dear. Liberal views.”
His sexual identity, income bracket and dress sense having been taken care of, River wondered whether they could now focus on the morning’s actual business. He looked away. Frost had rimed the headstones’ edges, and crystallised the bouquets that graced some graves; it had captured, too, a hundred spiderwebs, transforming them to works of antique beauty: jewellery fit to adorn the Egyptian dead. Not that the O.B. would have considered himself a Pharaoh. But he’d have enjoyed advising one; whispering strategies into the ear of power. That would have been his role whatever his era.
