‘Dander, I’d hate you to get the idea that I give even the smallest of fucks about this, but you’re a junkie with a short fuse. Putting you in charge of a loaded gun would be like giving a three-year-old a box of matches. It might make for an entertaining ten minutes, but I’d have HR on my back before you can say “fuck me, smells like bacon”. Besides, I hate to harp on about the paperwork. But Standish has me signing fifteen forms a day as it is.’ He held his hand up in front of him, and grimaced sadly. ‘I’m think I’m developing repetitive strain injury.’
‘Nobody would know,’ she said. ‘Marcus shouldn’t have had it in the first place. It’s not even legal.’
Lamb affected shock. ‘You mean, if he’d been caught with it, he could have been charged with a criminal offence?’
‘Yep.’
‘Dodged a bullet there, didn’t he? Shame he didn’t make a habit of it.’
For what might have been half a minute she stared at him, but he’d adopted his most benign expression – post-coital warthog, or thereabouts – and gave every indication of being prepared to hold it until his final trump. And given Lamb’s capacity for farting, which was paradoxically bottomless, that could be a long time coming.
Anger fucking management. Her session should be a doddle after this little chat.
‘What happens if we get attacked again?’ she said by way of farewell.
‘The kettle got replaced, didn’t it?’ Lamb said, closing his eyes once more. ‘Go quietly on the stairs please. Some of us are of a sensitive disposition.’
Over at the Park, meanwhile, orders were filtering down the great chain of being.
‘First Desk wants to be sure that Zafar Jaffrey is … reliable,’ Lady Di now told Emma Flyte.
Nobody’s reliable, Flyte thought. This is politics, not DIY.
But all she said was, ‘How soon does he want to know?’
‘Ten minutes ago,’ said Lady Di. ‘Why are you still here?’
There was bad blood between them, if not as bad as there might have been. Both, for instance, were still standing. But Emma Flyte, being cursed with exceptional beauty, was used to hostility from both genders, though it was usually delivered in disguise. In some ways, Lady Di’s frank dislike was refreshing. And besides, Flyte had Claude Whelan’s support, so here she still was: Head Dog, which meant chief of the Service’s internal police, a branch of Five which had historically morphed, now and again, into a private squad administering to the merciless whims of one First Desk or other, but under Flyte’s leadership had become what it had originally been meant to be, or at least be seen to be: an impartial department dedicated to the purging of unacceptable in-house activity. Hunting out naughty spies, basically. Flyte’s usual intractability on this point was the main bone of contention between herself and Taverner, but here and now, she was prepared to allow the margins to grow misty. Nothing to do with a quid pro quo for Whelan’s backing, but a tacit acceptance that when the Park was under the hammer, everyone did what was needed. And since Abbotsfield, the Park was under the hammer.
Besides, Lady Di – ever the professional – never let her animosity show unless it was absolutely necessary, or she felt like it.
So Flyte simply said: ‘Just planning my next move, sir,’ and headed off to set things in motion, which first off involved getting Devon Welles to access the available background and bring her up to speed.
Devon, like herself, was former Job: real police, which meant he knew when to follow orders, when not to bother, and where the nearest pub was. In this instance, it took him forty minutes to pull together the threads the Service had wrapped around Zafar Jaffrey to date: two full-scale vettings and a handful of once-overs.
‘A lot for a middleweight pol,’ she observed.
‘It would be a lot for a middleweight white-bread pol,’ Welles corrected. ‘But outside the London mayor, Jaffrey’s the highest-profile Muslim player in the country. And each vetting preceded a public handshake with the PM. Who is not the type to be seen cuddling up to anyone dangerous.’
‘Are you allowed to say “white-bread” to me?’
‘I’m pretty sure you just asked for a black coffee in my hearing.’
They were in the canteen, which was where a lot of meetings took place that either weren’t private at all, or were so private they wanted to appear not to be.
