“Yeah, we should, if there was the remotest possibility he’d still be there,” said Lamb. “But it’s probably best we don’t bother, on account of not being complete morons. Present company excepted.” He was holding a cigarette. He hadn’t been, a second before, but this was something the slow horses were used to: between endless examples of fat bastardy, there was the odd moment of slick trickery too. “So. Any ideas as to what he’s up to?”
“Stevenage,” said Shirley. “I’m ruling tourism out.”
“Yeah, Stevenage was regrouping,” said Lamb. “His business lies elsewhere. Where’s your mother?”
This to River, who started. He said, “Brighton. You don’t think—”
“Maybe.” Lamb plugged the unlit cigarette into his mouth, and for a moment looked lost in thought.
“Because if she’s in danger—”
“But maybe not. No, if it was her he was after, he’d not have needed to scope out grandpa’s funeral to find her. He’s a lifetime spook. I imagine he knows about directory enquiries.” He looked up, and River saw something in his eyes that wasn’t usually there. “I’d thought he might have wanted to see you, but that’s not likely either, is it? No, there’s something else.”
They waited, but whatever it was, he hadn’t grasped it yet.
Shirley said, “That new guy was there. Nash? The Limitations Committee’s new boss.”
She mimed someone looking down a sniper scope. It wasn’t a very good mime, but the context was obvious enough that it didn’t have to be.
River said, “Frank Harkness has a screw loose, sure. But he has no reason to want to whack the head of the Service’s steering committee.”
A match flared, and the smell of burning tobacco filled the room. “We all know Cartwright here’s biased, on account of, you know, DNA and stuff, but he has a point.” Lamb shifted in his chair, and swung his unshod feet onto his desk. “Last time Frank was here he was mopping up his own mess, but it was a mess he made trying to protect this country’s interests, not destroy them.”
“Big difference,” Shirley pointed out.
Lamb grunted, then frowned. “I’d be the first to admit I have trouble telling you apart,” he said. “But is there someone missing?”
“Louisa’s on leave,” Catherine reminded him.
“All right for some, eh? I suppose we should be grateful there’s not an emergency on. Like, you know, a homicidal spook on the loose.”
“She probably decided it was Park business. And that Slough House had no reason getting involved.”
“Nice going. Here’s me bending over backwards to boost the morale of this shiftless bunch of spastics, and you have to undermine them. I don’t know why I bother, I really don’t.”
He took a drag on his cigarette, then scowled at the glowing end, as if concerned it would give his position away.
Coe spoke. “He wasn’t alone,” he said.
Lamb put a spare finger into his ear, wriggled it about, and removed something he peered at then wiped on his sock. “That’s better, touch of tinnitus. Unless . . .” He looked enquiringly around. “He didn’t speak, did he?”
“There were three men with him.”
“Let’s pretend we’d like a little detail.”
Coe said, “I ran face recognition on the Southampton arrivals. There were three other hits on the same ferry. All on the Park’s Annex C.”
Lamb’s look of perplexity was a pantomime dame’s, appealing to an audience for help with a lunatic.
Surprisingly, it was Lech Wicinski who came to his aid. “Minor players,” he said. “Mercenaries, informants, known associates. That kind of thing.”
“What you might call the grey area,” River said.
“So the kind of pool Harkness might go paddling in,” Lamb said. He pointed his cigarette at Coe. “Any visible contact?”
“No.”
“But a big coincidence if they weren’t a team. Unless Brittany Ferries were running a special. Three lowlifes for the price of two. You check this Annex Whatever?”
“All have records as private contractors. Military.”
“So Harkness has a team in country. Gadfuckingzooks.” Lamb shook his head, but River saw a gleam in his eye. That pretence about not knowing what Annex C was; the general air of marvelling at the world’s dirty linen. Fat slob he might be, but joe blood ran in Lamb’s veins. Had stained his hands.
Now he said to Coe, “Nice to see you using your brain, instead of spreading someone else’s over the landscape. You have names for this crew?”
“Anton Moser. Lars Becker. Cyril Dupont.”
“That was all just noise to me, but I assume the rest of you have taken note.” Lamb sat upright suddenly, swinging his feet floorwards. “Anything else?”
“Harkness is Annex A,” said Coe.
“Meaning, I presume, that he’s regarded as toxic?”
Coe nodded.
“And yet he walks among us. Seems like the deal he swung last time still holds good.”
“Which means,” Catherine pointed out, “that he’s untouchable.”
“You again? I’m starting to wonder whose side you’re on.” He flipped his cigarette stub into the air—a new trick, this—and it dropped neatly into the half-full mug of tea on his desktop. “Harkness might have a hands-off agreement with the Park. But he doesn’t have one with me.”
Me either, River thought. Me either.
