He was, by the look of him, seventeen. Maybe eighteen. Hard to tell.
‘Put that down,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll kill you.’
He didn’t put it down.
She kept walking towards him. A good shot already, and he was getting easier by the moment.
Someone was hammering on the church door, from outside.
‘Put it down,’ she repeated.
Off to her left, a child hiccuped in fear.
Again the hammering, which now became a dull thump, as if a battering ram were in use.
Behind the gunman, up on the altar, the priest had closed his eyes; was mumbling in prayer.
The gunman’s mouth trembled.
‘Now,’ she said.
One shot. She could put a bullet through either eye: it was up to him. Or he could lose his weapon, but he would have to do it now.
If she took another step, the muzzle of her gun would meet his forehead.
He looked down at his weapon once again. Shook his head as if denying its reality, or this moment, or his presence.
She should kill him now. Before he remembered himself. Before he taught Abbotsfield how to die again.
Her gun met his skin.
‘I shot up the sky,’ he told her.
Shirley reached for his weapon, and he released it to her grasp.
Behind her the door splintered and gave, and the church filled with noise once more.
It might have been the following day; might have been the day after.
Late afternoon had claimed Slough House, wrapping it in curdled heat. In her office, Louisa Guy was scraping paint from the window frame, in the hope of being able to open it and set a breeze loose through the building. River Cartwright was reaching for his ringing phone; J. K. Coe studying traffic. A smell of damp patrolled the staircase; lurking on landings, peeling paper from walls. Shirley Dander, flat on her back, was listening to the feverish ticking of a clock, wondering whether time was moving faster or she herself slowing down. Behind a closed door Catherine Standish was brushing her hair, nine ten eleven times; when she reached thirty, she’d stop. Roderick Ho was nowhere. And Lady Di Taverner was ascending the stairs, trying not to touch anything, even the stairs.
‘Fuck off,’ Lamb growled from his room, as she raised her hand to knock.
‘I’m not even going to ignore that,’ she told him, entering, closing the door behind her and crossing to the room’s single window.
Lamb had his feet on his desk, one cigarette smouldering in an empty packet seeing service as an ashtray, another clenched in his mouth. Grey hairs poked through the missing button on his shirt, and he scratched them absent-mindedly while watching her fiddle with the blind, her evident intent being to open the window it shielded. ‘I’d tell you you’re wasting your time,’ he said, ‘except I’m finding it quite entertaining.’
She gave up. ‘There’s no air in here. Would you put that damn thing out?’
‘Sure.’ He stubbed it out, then lit another. ‘That all you wanted?’
‘You wish.’ She eyed the visitor chair with distaste, and dragged it further away from Lamb’s desk. Then stood with her hands on the backrest. ‘We need to discuss your staff.’
Lamb leered.
‘This is me, not some intern,’ she said. ‘Dick jokes aren’t going to cut it.’
‘Everyone’s a critic.’
‘J. K. Coe. Thoughts?’
‘Recent reports claim he’s a hero.’ Lamb yawned. ‘Familiarity, on the other hand, suggests he’s a dick. I expect the truth is somewhere in the middle. As usual.’
‘Thanks for the insight. The officer on the scene says Coe walked right up to the gunman, who was firing a semi-automatic at the time, and shot him in the head, point-blank range. With a rifle.’
‘Yeah, I saw the photos. They look like Jackson Pollock threw up on a pizza.’
‘Coe was asked why the gunman didn’t see him coming. You know what he said? He said he approached him very, very quietly.’
‘I’m gonna start locking my door,’ said Lamb. ‘It’s creepy enough when he just sits staring at his fingers.’
‘Shirley Dander, meanwhile, is endangering a churchful of people by waving an unauthorised gun around. Her target also had a semi-automatic weapon. The potential casualties don’t bear thinking about. She should have taken him down the very first moment.’
‘She did an anger management course. It obviously backfired. But look on the bright side, you got one of them alive. Isn’t that a treat for your knuckle-twisters? Except, no, hang on – did I hear a rumour?’
‘He was wounded in an exchange of gunfire before entering the church,’ said Lady Di. ‘He was DOA at the nearest hospital.’
‘Funny, Dander didn’t mention him being wounded.’ He waited, but Taverner remained expressionless. ‘Huh. Well, I hope for his sake it was an authorised gun did the damage. We finished?’
‘Not even nearly. You sent two of your crew to Abbotsfield. Are you out of your mind?’
‘Opinions differ.’
‘Trust me, not at the Park they don’t. And then there’s Slough. Coe – him again. Cartwright and Coe were in Slough the night Gimball was killed.’
‘Cartwright and Coe,’ said Lamb. ‘Sounds like a solicitors’ firm, doesn’t it?’
