Welles said, ‘The scanners were run over the whole family three years back, when his brother went off to Syria, and again when he announced his candidacy for mayor. He came through with, well, nobody ever has flying colours. But clean in every way you’d want him to be. Family’s middle class but he’s got the common touch, v. good on TV – did that interview, you probably saw it, where he cried on screen talking about how he and his family had failed his brother, how it was imperative that other Muslim families in the UK did not fail their sons. After that he sat on a few committees, made the right noises on
‘Tell me about his brother.’
‘Karim. Quite a bit younger, twelve years, that area. He was radicalised without anyone noticing. Bad internet connections, mostly – that sounds like a techie problem, but you know what I mean. He got involved in a couple of forums that’ve since been shut down. First the family knew about it, he was posting a video from Syria. And the last thing they knew, a couple of months later, he was playing gooseberry in someone else’s date with a drone. Syria’s one place where you really don’t want to go celebrity spotting, isn’t it?’
‘I’ll scrub it from my bucket list. What about entourage?’
‘Jaffrey does a lot of work with radicalised youngsters – recovering radicals, that is. Gets them speaking in schools, writing blogs, doing podcasts. And he recruits his staff from their number. So what we’ve got is a lot of vetting reports with more hedges than Hampton Court maze. That’s just a quick overview, obviously. But still …’
‘Nobody’s putting their career on the line to guarantee they’re all spotless.’
‘That’s about the size of it.’ Welles paused. ‘Plus, I just had a word with a former contact. A print reptile.’
She said, ‘You spoke to a journo?’
‘When the digital revolution’s won, we’ll all be speaking to them on a daily basis. “Yes, I will have fries with that.” Meanwhile, they have their uses. And this one works on Dodie Gimball’s paper. It seems Gimball’s filed a piece claiming Jaffrey has links to an, ah, unsavoury individual dealing with guns and fake paperwork. Dodie’s done the sums, and come up with terrorism. In fact, she’s drawing a direct connection between Jaffrey and the group responsible for the Derbyshire killings.’
Flyte said, ‘Oh – kay. Ten minutes after I’m handed a brief to make sure our man’s a white-hat, it turns out he’s in the frame for a mass murder.’
‘More like an hour,’ Welles said. ‘And are you allowed to say white-hat?’
‘Even we haven’t tagged those responsible for Derbyshire. How the hell would Gimball know?’
‘Doesn’t matter. She’s got some dirt and is about to throw it, that’s all. She’s married to Dennis, the anti-Europe MP. Probably has an agenda we don’t know about.’
‘Everybody does,’ grumbled Flyte. She finished her coffee and stood. ‘Thanks, Dev. But keep digging.’
‘Will do.’
She left in search of Lady Di.
Catherine put the kettle on and, while waiting, scrubbed at a stain on the kitchen counter. There was always something. Not long ago, she’d imagined herself out of Slough House for good, and the life she’d led during those few months had been serviceable enough: evenings had followed afternoons had followed mornings, and during none of them had she drank. But they weighed heavy. There are worse things an alcoholic can have on her hands than time, but not many. Her flat was a model of order; virtually a caricature. In order to spend time tidying, she had to mess things up first. Here in Slough House, mess came as standard. So yes, there was always something.
But not all stains scrubbed away. Some while back there’d been three deaths inside Slough House, which even Lamb allowed was pretty high for a mid-week afternoon. They’d lost a colleague, and a former spook, and a captive had been shot dead too. Catherine was perhaps the only one to mourn this final death. It wasn’t so much the loss of life as the manner of its taking: J. K. Coe had committed murder, and Catherine believed that such actions had consequences. This was nothing to do with religion or spiritual awareness, just her hard-won knowledge that bad things followed bad. Circles were traditionally vicious. Catherine suspected other shapes had teeth too, but better PR.
She finished scrubbing, made two cups of tea, and carried both, along with the dishcloth, up to Lamb’s room.
He stirred. ‘Did I accidentally establish an open-door policy? Because if so, I didn’t mean my door. I meant everyone else’s.’
Catherine put the two cups on his desk, removed a single sock, a comb missing so many teeth it needed dentures and an empty sandwich carton from the chair on the visitors’ side, and wiped it with the dishcloth. Then she sat.
‘It’s like a royal visitation,’ he grumbled. ‘If your arse is so particular, why’s it attached to you? What are you after, anyway? As if I didn’t know.’
‘Someone tried to run Roddy over.’
