While he was in the garden she scrolled through her calendar, checking the details of the following evening’s public meeting, back in the constituency. Keeping it local was deliberate. Dennis’s strength lay in the way he tolerated ordinary people, pretending he was no more important than they were, and at this stage of his career he would rely on that more than ever. When he made his announcement, he would do it to his home crowd, in front of home cameras. His supporters would feel they were part of the moment, and the ensuing wave of good feeling would carry him through the next few months. Meanwhile, that same wave would send the PM onto the rocks. An amiable idiot whose amiability was wearing thin, the PM’s idiocy was growing more apparent by the day; he’d surrounded himself with his familiars to the point where a Cabinet meeting resembled his sixth form common room, and he had no idea of the resentment this was generating. The tide was turning, though, and he’d soon be high and dry.
This was jolly good stuff, by the way. She should jot down notes – wave of feeling, onto the rocks, turning of the tide …
Dodie finished her drink and turned to the next item on her agenda: what to wear for the event. Something sober, something serious, something not too flashy but oozing class. Which, truth to tell, that red cocktail dress never had. It wouldn’t do to let Dennis know that, though. Even the best-matched couples need their secrets.
After five, the stairs in Slough House only went in one direction. That was the general rule, anyway. Shirley’s final AFM was at six, and it wouldn’t take her half an hour on foot to get there, which was just one of the many annoying things about having her anger managed: if she had to spend time kicking something, her heels wouldn’t be her first choice. Besides, she wanted to get on with the evening’s main business: tailing Roddy Ho, and seeing what reptiles crawled in his wake. Was so intent on that, in fact, that the wrap of coke in her pocket kept slipping her mind.
And then, as is the way with such things, slipping back into it again.
Maybe she should take it now? Start the evening with a buzz: give herself an edge. She’d never taken coke before an AFM, except for once or twice, and what the hell: she’d survived the course, right? Had only had it extended once, or maybe twice … Actually, maybe coking up wasn’t the best idea.
Kicking her heels in her office, then. Extending the stupid day’s work another thirty stupid minutes, knowing all the while that River Cartwright and Louisa Guy were already on the job:
Lamb and Catherine.
There was something else on her mind – had been for a while – and the right moment for dealing with it had never come up, largely because such a moment quite likely didn’t exist. But now would be a good time to establish that, one way or the other. Because it was either that or sit here counting minutes, to add to her tally of days …
Fuck it.
Shirley got up, left the office, took the stairs in the wrong direction.
‘How come Ho lives in a house?’ River said.
‘What were you were expecting? An upturned pizza box?’
‘You know what I mean.’
She knew what he meant.
He meant Ho lived in a house. A
‘Bank of Mum and Dad,’ said Louisa.
‘Has to be. And with a weird … what would you call that?’
‘A feature.’
Which looked like an upstairs conservatory: a room whose outer wall was mostly glass, and through the gaps in whose curtains the pair could see stacks of electronica, which they guessed were either for playing music with or wandering the web on. It was currently lit, and Ho – or someone – was pacing the floor within.
‘I think I remember him telling me about that,’ she said.
‘Ho talked to you about his house?’
‘I think.’
‘You
She said, ‘I’m a spy, remember?’
