Whose soundtrack started even as she had the thought; something grey and sonorous from the organ above. It seemed designed to mark time; not so much its current passage as those stretches forever gone. It made her think of Min, of course. She hadn’t attended his funeral. Too angry. If she had, she’d have met—or seen—Lucas; would have a mental picture of him based in reality, instead of imagining a younger Min; the same half-smile; the same look of concentration when sending a text or checking a score. She had a whole catalogue of images to flick through, from a relatively short time together. What would a lifetime’s memories look like? It was already too late to tell.
If Min hadn’t died, they’d have lasted—sitting here at someone else’s postscript, this felt like a truth. They could have shared a life together, once they’d swallowed the bitter pill about their careers, and jumped ship—happy-ever-afters weren’t much of a thing around Slough House: you couldn’t have the one within the other. Too late now. And Louisa could feel herself getting into the funeral vibe; tears ready to flow, though misattributed tears; nothing to do with the deceased . . .
River walked past, arm in arm with his mother, and the music grew louder, and the service was ready to begin.
He’d seen the face he had come to collect, he was ninety percent sure of that. Had taken a photo. So what he should do now was leave, but something was holding him in place; the sense of unfinished business. That was always the way with funerals, except in those rare cases where you were burying someone you’d killed yourself. That was less of a joke than it might have been if someone else had made it but he thrust the thought aside as he turned his hazard lights off, put his phone away, climbed out of the car.
The Dog who’d checked him out earlier watched as he approached but didn’t challenge him; nodded, rather, from his sentry position by the hedge. Jesus, mate. Do your job. An organ was droning. They’d be lined up in pews now; heads bowed, attention elsewhere. Instead of joining them, he skirted the building and found the graveyard, in the far corner of which a hole was waiting. He lit a cigarette, thinking about those he’d seen heading into St. Len’s earlier. River, of course, and his mother. Isobel had aged gracefully, presumably at the same speed as himself, though she’d taken care to slow down on the curves, or had some first-class mechanics hammering the dings out every other lap. As for River, he was still young enough to take the knocks and stay standing, or get back on his feet afterwards. A nice trick, soon lost. River would learn.
He inhaled, breathed out; the smoke torn apart on the wind. He should leave, he reminded himself, but approached the graveside anyway.
Some of the others, he could put a name to. The fat, badly dressed man: that would be Jackson Lamb. Fat didn’t mean soft, if the stories were true. He’d worn a sly smile, as if finding grim humour in the surroundings, and not only because it was a boneyard. No, Lamb looked the type who’d find grim humour in a kindergarten; who’d find most things blackly funny because of who he was, and what he’d been through; because otherwise he’d sit up at night wondering whether to put a bullet through his brain. He’d had a woman with him, one of his crew. They called them the slow horses. Slough House/slow horse; it was clever, in that very English way; the kind that expressed itself in word play and crossword clues, and was fuck-all use. Look at the Dog out front. Though to be fair, David Cartwright would have had that slacker on a charge.
David Cartwright, though, was beyond any such measures, as the waiting grave underlined. There was no stone yet, of course. Names, dates, came later. The first order of business was planting the dead. Any moment now the chapel’s back door would open, and the bearers would carry him out, and that would be the last touch of daylight he’d know. Comes to us all in the end.
But at least I outlived you, you old bastard, thought Frank Harkness, as he tossed his still burning cigarette into the grave.
The funeral was the usual mess: litany and music interrupting a stream of disconnected memories. River felt actively present one minute out of two. The music had been chosen by Rose Cartwright, long ago. Her husband might have the nation’s security in his keeping, she’d once confided in River, but anything more important fell into her domain. River had retrieved the instructions from the drawer where she’d filed them and emailed them to the funeral director, but had no memory of the titles; no idea what he’d been listening to. Throughout, he’d kept glancing at his mother. Widowhood had bestowed respectability, but the role of grieving daughter seemed beyond her, at least where her father was concerned. At Rose’s interment there had been feeling. But here and now, she seemed wooden; almost bored. As if this final duty were a chore.
