“Well, looks like she found you.” She turned back to Louisa. “You were meant to call.”
“You came all this way because I didn’t phone?”
“A lot of cases, that would be passive-aggressive behaviour,” Emma admitted. “But, you know. Our line of work.” She was surveying the open-plan room. Lights off, no heating. An attempt at vacancy. “You’re hiding.”
“Could we move away from the windows?”
Which proved Emma’s point.
She followed Louisa into the room. It was warmer than outside, but you needed a stopwatch.
Louisa was nursing her left arm. Lucas Harper had scratches across his cheek.
“What happened?”
“Like you said. I found him.”
“I am still here, you know!”
Both women looked at Lucas.
Emma said, “This is going to work best if only one of you tells it.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend of the woman who hurt her arm helping you.” She turned back to Louisa. “Is that broken?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Accident?”
“Well, I think he planned to break it. So in that sense, yes.”
“I sometimes wonder if Lamb gives you all lessons in smart-arsery. How bad does it hurt?”
Louisa said, “It’s still in its socket. I might have damaged a tendon.”
Because when she’d slipped in the snow, the second man—not the one she’d copped with the wrench—had dropped and straddled her. Nine times out of ten that would have been it, but with her free hand she’d scooped snow and mashed it into his face, making him rear back; making him, more crucially, open his legs wide enough for her to ram her knee into his crotch. Ten times out of ten, that was always it. Then he was sprawled in the snow and she was scrambling for the wrench, her fingers just making contact when the third man, who’d been driving, leaped on her from behind, pulling her arm back almost to breaking point. Instead of resisting she’d rolled with it, using his momentum against him, and suddenly he was on his back, Louisa on top, and she raised her head and butted his face. He let go of her arm and she pulled free, tasting blood, her legs not wanting to work, though she forced them. Then she was heading down the dark road, haring after Lucas.
“We were out all night,” she said. “Hiding in the wood.”
“Where you ditched your phone.”
“And Lucas’s Fitbit. I wasn’t taking chances.”
“And yet here you are.” Emma looked at the boy. “You okay?”
He nodded.
“Glad to hear it. How much trouble are you in?”
“It’s not my fault.”
“It never is.” She turned back to Louisa. “Where’s your car?”
“They slashed the tyres.”
“Yeah, well, probably doesn’t matter. The roads are a mess. But get your coats on anyway. Where’s the nearest police station?”
“We can’t go to the police,” said Lucas.
“He’s right,” Louisa said. “Besides, I called it in. The Park will respond.”
“Well, they’re taking their time. And meanwhile, we can’t stay here. Because it was the first place I came looking.”
“Yeah, how did you—”
“I used to be a cop, remember?”
“And they let you keep your crystal ball?”
“Cartwright told me who Min Harper was. So I had Devon access his personnel file. Turns out he called the Park from here once, so the address was on his contact list. That took me literally three minutes. Even the guy you clocked with a wrench probably isn’t going to take much longer. So, like I say . . .”
“Except they don’t know who Lucas is.”
“You’re sure about that?”
Lucas said, “He knew my name. The guy at the crossroads.”
Louisa said, “You told them who you were?”
“No.”
“But they found out anyway. Christ . . . We shouldn’t be here.”
“As I said.”
Louisa was already grabbing her coat from the back of a chair.
“It’s dark,” Lucas said. “And we don’t have a car. Where are we going?”
He looked, thought Emma, about twelve.
She said, “They’re not looking for three of us. We’ll check into a hotel, a B&B, whatever, and make a plan.” She looked at Louisa. “Which will involve telling me exactly what’s going on.”
Before Louisa could reply, a fist ploughed through the diamond-shaped window in the front door.
He didn’t have to be here, Lech Wicinski reminded himself. He could be in a hotel. There was, come to think of it, one down the road; a strangely modern building in which he suspected guests were crammed into capsules overnight, like corpses in cold lockers. But that would be better than this. At the back of a cupboard he’d found a blanket, which looked like it might have been a picnic accessory between the wars, and was slumped in his chair like a pensioner on a promenade, blanket draped over him. And still he was cold and uncomfortable; and still he stayed, because making for a hotel would involve human intercourse, and Lech would rather wake up dead tomorrow than make small talk now. For the moment, Slough House was his refuge. Which, like any other, had its price.
“You look like a slug in a kaftan.”
Lamb, leaving. But finding time to look in as he made his way downstairs.
Lech said, “Just finishing some stuff up.”
Lamb snorted. “Well, if it gets too cold . . .”
Tell me how to work the boiler, thought Lech. Please.
“. . . You’ll fucking freeze.”
