Lamb took the cigarette from his mouth and examined it as if it were an alien artefact. Then he flicked it at his wastepaper basket, scoring a direct hit. “Last time Frank Harkness showed his face, he sent one of his sock puppets round with a gun.”
“I hadn’t forgotten.”
“He’s got the blood of my joes on his hands.”
“Funny how they’re joes once they’re dead.”
A thin spiral of smoke rose from the wastepaper basket.
Lamb said, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s just got the blood of more useless twats on his hands. But they were my useless twats. And I hadn’t necessarily finished with them.”
“You’ll get River killed.”
“Standish, I could chain him to his desk and lock the door. You really think that’ll prevent him going after Harkness?”
She wasn’t in the mood to admit he might be right about anything. Nor inclined to warn him that he’d set his bin on fire: if nothing else, burning Slough House to the ground would see the paperwork off.
Speaking of which, the papers she’d set down for him began their inevitable slide floorwards. Catherine caught them before they became airborne; automatically tapped them into alignment before tucking them under her arm. It was as if the role she’d been cast into was an iron maiden, retaining its shape even as she was screaming for release. And her mind flipped forward a few hours: the journey home, the bottle of wine. Its glass body smooth to the touch. All those memories, waiting to be released.
He was watching her, his lip curled in its automatic sneer. What was it like being him? Pointless even to speculate. “You’ve been seething for a while,” he said. “You ever going to actually combust, or just keep us all in suspense?”
She didn’t know what he was talking about, or at least, that was the impression she tried to convey. “You need to sign these,” she said. “Now would be good. And with your actual name this time. Nobody was amused by the last lot.”
“I’m surprised they even read them.” Lamb reached out a fat palm, and she handed him the forms. While he signed them with a blue Biro—its plastic casing bitten through: he destroyed a dozen a week, not using more than one for actual writing—he continued scrutinising her. “Cartwright hasn’t done any work for longer than I can remember,” he said, “and the fact that you keep typing up whatever garbage he hands you doesn’t make them official reports. You know and I know and Cartwright knows that ninety-nine percent of what we do here is to provide practice for Regent’s Park’s document shredders, but that won’t help him if I call him upstairs now and can him on the spot.”
“Do you plan to do that?”
“Not today. Today he’ll actually be putting some effort in, which will make such an almighty change I’m half expecting spring to break out, with fucking butterflies and stuff. He’s probably tap dancing with cartoon rabbits as I speak.”
“You seriously think River’ll be able to trace him?”
“I seriously think if we dangle River from a piece of string, Harkness will show his face sooner or later, which is the only reason for keeping Cartwright in place I can think of offhand. That doesn’t involve using him as a toilet brush. What’s Guy want leave for?”
So much, thought Catherine, for his disregard for what he was signing.
She said, “I can only imagine she needs respite from the unrelenting comedy.”
“Yeah, I thought it was probably that. Does she know I can dock her a week’s pay for taking leave without proper notice?”
“You really can’t.”
“Yeah, but does she know that?”
Catherine shrugged. She’d fought enough of Louisa’s battles for one day. She held her hand out and Lamb surrendered the forms. All she needed do now was despatch them, wait a day, then begin the process again, with nothing achieved in the meantime. Well, Louisa would get her leave, she supposed. On her way to the door a thought struck her. “Wicinski. Lech. Should he even have access to the internet?”
“He’s already Kevin Spaceyed his career,” Lamb said. “If he wants to go for the full Rolf Harris, he’s a braver man than me.”
He magicked a cigarette from somewhere, plugged it between his lips, then bent and retrieved a smouldering twist of paper from the bin. He blew on it until it caught flame, and used it to light the cigarette. Then he wafted it to ash, dumped it back in the bin, and poured the dregs of a cup of tea on the budding bonfire. A thick plume of smoke filled the room.
“They’re not all joes,” he said.
“. . . Who aren’t?”
But Lamb had closed his eyes, and didn’t answer.
