They were in Louisa’s car, and were, well, spying. To help with this, both were eating burgers out of polystyrene containers, and were sharing a portion of cheesy potato wedges, after a prolonged bout of negotiation (‘You don’t need to put salt on. They put salt on them already. They
The car was swampy with food odours. Louisa wound the window down to let some of them escape.
‘Speaking of houses.’
This was River.
She said, ‘Yeah?’
‘I went to the house the other day.’
‘Your grandad’s?’
River nodded.
‘Must be strange, him not being there.’
‘I think it’s the first time I’d ever been alone in the place. That can’t really be true. But it felt like it.’
It had been like stepping into someone else’s past. The books on the shelves, the coats on the rack, the wellingtons by the back door. It had been a decade since River moved away, and there’d be remnants of his presence, sure; chips on the skirting board, boxes in the attic, the odd shelf of teenage reading. But the house was the O.B.’s now, and before then had been the O.B. and Rose’s, River’s grandmother. Walking through it, he had felt himself a stranger, as if someone had curated a museum of his grandparents but forgotten to apply the labels. He had found himself touching objects, trying to place them in a chronology he had only ever known a small part of.
‘What’ll happen to it?’
‘Happen to it?’
Louisa looked away, then looked back. ‘He’s not going to live forever, River.’
‘No, I know. I know.’
‘So are you his sole heir?’
‘My mother’s his next of kin.’
‘But is he likely to leave it to her?’
‘I don’t know. No. Probably not.’
‘Well then.’
‘It’s not like I’m just waiting for him—’
‘I know.’
‘—to die, I’m not—’
‘I know.’
‘—counting the days. Yeah, I’ll probably inherit. And yes, it’ll come in handy. God knows, London’s pricey. But I’d rather have him around, if it’s all the same to you. Even now. When he’s away with the fairies half the time.’
‘I know,’ said Louisa.
Between his fingers, his styrofoam container screamed like a clubbed seal. Or like one of those murdered penguins: a mad target. Did it even count as terrorism when no mammals were killed?
‘Here he comes,’ Louisa said.
Ho was leaving his house, stepping straight into an Uber.
‘Game on,’ she murmured, and took off in its wake.
Lamb was coiled like a spring, if you meant one of those springs on a rusted old bedstead. He was semi-sprawled on his chair, eyes closed, one foot on his desk, a cigarette burning to death in his right hand. Through a gap in his unbuttoned shirt Shirley could see his stomach rise and fall. The smoke from his cigarette was a blue-grey spiral, but broke into rags when it hit the ceiling.
Still daylight outside, barely evening yet, but Lamb punched his own clock, and won on a technical knockout. In his room it was forever the dead zone; the same time it always was when you woke with a start, heart racing, and all your problems waiting by the bed. Shirley was half minded to turn tail and use the stairs the way they were intended: down and out. But she’d already missed that window.
‘If you’re after a rise,’ he said, still with his eyes closed, ‘just think of me as Santa Claus.’
‘… You’re giving me a rise?’
‘I’m saying ho ho ho.’
‘I’m not after a rise.’
‘Holiday? Answer’s the same.’
‘Marcus had a gun,’ Shirley told him.
This caused one eye to open. ‘Okay,’ he admitted. ‘That wasn’t going to be my next guess.’
‘Can I have it?’
‘Yeah, why not? It’s on a shelf back there.’ Lamb indicated a corner with a blunt head movement. ‘Help yourself.’
‘… You’re kidding, aren’t you?’
‘Course I’m fucking kidding. I don’t read all the management shit, but I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to arm staff just ’cause they’re bored. That’s the main reason British Home Stores failed.’
‘I’m not bored.’
‘You’re not? Sounds to me like a criticism of my leadership style.’
‘I’m bored,’ Shirley amended, ‘but that’s not why I want Marcus’s gun.’
‘If you need a paperweight, steal a stapler. Everyone else does.’
‘The Park has an armoury.’
‘The Park has a spa and a gym too. It even has a crèche, can you believe it? If you were keen on employee benefits, you should have borne that in mind before fucking your career up.’ He moved his foot from the desk, dislodging some probably unimportant papers in the process, and leaned forward to kill his cigarette in a teacup. ‘Telling you that counts as pastoral care, by the way. There’s a feedback form somewhere, if you can be bothered.’
‘If the shit hits the fan again,’ Shirley said, ‘I don’t want to be left hiding behind a door that’s mostly cardboard. When that mad spook stormed the place, we were fighting him off with a kettle and a chair.’
