‘The last time you had a window,’ Flyte pointed out, ‘a body went through it. That doesn’t fill me with confidence.’
‘You’re not helping. Shut up. Zafar Jaffrey and Dennis Gimball, any advance on those two? For the role of most likely to be assassinated?’
‘You’re making decisions based on—’
‘You want to let me get this done, or do I need to put a bag over your head?’
River said, ‘She has a point. There are any number of politicians. Why would the target be one of the first two we put a name to?’
‘We’re talking about a bunch of mindless bottom feeders whose general ignorance of our way of life is tempered only by their indifference to human suffering, we’re all agreed on that?’
‘Is this the politicians or the killers?’
‘Good point, but I meant the killers.’
Shirley shrugged. ‘Then yeah. I guess.’
‘Good. So as one bunch of idiots second-guessing another, you make the perfect focus group. Besides, we don’t have the horsepower to cope with more than two potential targets.’ Lamb paused. ‘Horsepower. See what I did there?’
Now, out by Ho’s car, River said, ‘So Gimball’s doing a public meeting back in his constituency, and Jaffrey’s what? He’s not a public servant, or not yet. He doesn’t publish his itinerary. How do we work out where he is?’
‘I thought we could phone his office,’ said Louisa.
‘Oh.’
‘And ask what he’s doing tonight.’
‘Oh. Okay. Yeah, that might work.’
She said, ‘And, River, we can’t let that pair go together, you do realise that?’
‘Shirley and Coe? Why not?’
‘Because we’re trying to prevent a disaster, not cause one.’ Louisa was fumbling a coin from her jeans pocket as she spoke. ‘Call.’
‘Heads.’
She tossed. ‘It’s tails.’
‘… Loser gets Shirley, right?’
‘No, loser gets Coe.’
‘Maybe we should have established that before you tossed.’
‘Why, would that’ve made you win?’
Damn.
He said, ‘But I get to choose which target, right?’
‘So long as you choose Gimball, yeah.’
‘Why does it feel like I’m playing a stacked deck?’
‘Welcome to Slough House,’ Louisa said, and went to fetch her car.
Dennis Gimball felt like a victim.
There were lots of reasons for his feeling this way, and – as was his wont – he set them out as mental bullet points:
the prime minister hated him, so
he was being picked on by the Secret Service, which meant
he wasn’t going to be able to set his brilliant plan in action, because
they’d make him a laughing stock.
No wonder he needed a cigarette.
Dodie was tight-lipped, a bad sign. Tight-lipped meant she was thinking things through, and when that happened Dennis often found himself in deep shit, or that general postcode. Not for the first time, he wondered how things could go tits up so suddenly. A couple of hours ago, he was walking a shining path; now he was looking at, what? A public climbdown. Because as far as the political world was concerned, this was the perfect moment for him to bid for the leadership, and the thing about perfect moments was, they didn’t hang around. Announcing his return to the party fold was one thing, but without follow-through, without revealing that the PM’s go-to Muslim moderate was hand in glove with an illegal arms dealer, the evening could be spun through 180 degrees, and his announcement welcomed by Downing Street as a declaration of support. Like hammering the ball straight over the bowler’s head, only to be caught on the boundary. They didn’t give you two lives. It was back to the pavilion, bat tucked under your arm.
The car wasn’t due for an hour, so Dennis slipped into the handkerchief-sized garden, leaned against one of the huge pots Dodie was apparently growing a tree in, lit a cigarette, and brooded. If his planned triumph mutated into public capitulation, what could he expect? Twenty minutes in the spotlight as a prodigal son, a few weeks of speculation in the run up to the next reshuffle, and some chuckling paragraphs in the broadsheets when a Cabinet post failed to materialise. He’d join the ranks of those who’d confidently expected to swat this weak-kneed PM aside, and were now seeking opportunities elsewhere. A pub quiz question a decade from now: one for wonks only.
Okay, he thought, feeling nicotine course through his veins. That’s the downside. But let’s adjust this picture, shall we? It was always possible that, instead of a victim, he was in fact a hero, who had single-handedly forced everyone else into a corner:
the prime minister was scared of him, so
he was being picked on by the Secret Service, which meant
they thought his brilliant plan would work, so
… they’d make him a laughing stock.
