He stood so suddenly she thought the world had shifted; that the building was tumbling, and he’d been thrown loose. With the wave of an arm, he took in her treasures. “So all of this, Standish, all this dancing about with your personal demons, nobody cares. Least of all me. Drink or don’t, but make your fucking mind up and do it quick. Because I have better things to worry about than how far you’re gunna fall, and what kind of splash you’ll make when you hit the bottom.”
She found a voice somewhere, and used it. “Always a comfort to have you around.”
“Just doing my job.”
She sat while he forced his feet back into his shoes and clumped from her flat. All around her the bottles whispered, their rose-blood colouring staining the air. When all was quiet again she stood and walked to the window. Lamb was down there, on the street, but he disappeared into shadow as she watched. Where he belonged, she thought.
It occurred to her that he’d neither opened a bottle, nor taken one with him. But there were other things to think about, and she didn’t dwell on it long.
Louisa was on her third glass of wine, taking it slowly. On the TV, a rather camp chef was constructing a masterpiece involving squid ink and shredded kale. In Louisa’s sink was the pan she’d boiled pasta in, and an empty tub of pesto.
She muted the sound when her phone rang.
“You work with that guy?” Emma Flyte asked. “I mean, spend time with him on a daily basis?”
“He’s not that bad when you get to know him.”
“Seriously?”
“No, of course not seriously. He’s a dick. You just notice less after a while, that’s all.”
Emma said, “That’s not an experiment I plan to undergo.”
“Still time to change your mind. Always an opening at Slough House.”
She could hear Emma shudder and it almost made her smile. Almost.
“But you got what you were after, right?”
“What
“But he traced the Fitbit.”
“He traced the Fitbit.”
This time Louisa did smile. Day one—not even day one: she’d been at work today. Tomorrow was day one. And already she’d found Lucas. How cool was she?
“So where is it?” she asked.
Emma said, “I’ll text you the actual coordinates. But big picture, it’s in a town called Pegsea, in Pembrokeshire.”
“Okay,” said Louisa.
“That’s in Wales,” Emma added.
“I know. Somebody told me.”
Afterwards, she zapped the TV off and considered her options, but not for long. Bottom line was, she was due a stupid idea. Her lifestyle choices of the past six months had been reassuringly sober, and mostly couched as a series of negatives: I will not go to bars by myself; I will not hook up with strangers. I will not spend four hundred quid on a pair of boots. Okay, that last one she’d reneged on, but if you were going to backslide, you might as well do it in killer footwear. And she hadn’t hooked up with any strangers lately.
Looked like she was going to Wales, then.
She checked her weather app, and confirmed what she suspected: that it had been snowing in Pembrokeshire, with more on the way.
Good job she had a new winter jacket.
Finishing her wine, she went to pack.
Something in his bones had always sung of doom. But nothing in the lyrics had ever suggested this: that he’d be sleeping in his clothes in his office, while his life fell apart around him.
He hadn’t been. He had tried to tell her that. Whatever was happening, it was something he’d been thrown into, not something he’d dug for himself.
For obvious reasons. For obvious fucking reasons, Sara. Because it’s child porn, Jesus Christ—even the words rip a hole in your guts.
Richard Pynne, he thought. As soon as he’d left the pub, Pynne must have been on the phone.
Which was what he’d done, got back on home, after a long walk through the late-night, ghost-blown streets. A day in Slough House, with its damp dissatisfactions, needed flushing out of the system.
And then he was back at the flat, to find Sara in furious tears.
