Just for fun, River said, ‘But supposing we guessed right, and they’ll go for Gimball. Tonight. How’d you rate our chances of stopping it? On the same scale?’
J. K. Coe raised his earbuds again, but before slotting them into place he said, ‘Less than zero.’
‘Yellow car,’ said Shirley.
‘Yeah, not really.’
‘Yes really.’
‘Not really,’ said Louisa. ‘On account of one, it’s a van, not a car, and two, it’s orange, not yellow. So orange van, not yellow car.’
‘Same difference.’
Louisa suppressed a sigh. Until ten minutes ago, the rules of Yellow Car had seemed pretty straightforward: when you saw a yellow car, you said, ‘Yellow car’. There wasn’t much room for controversy. But that was before she’d introduced Shirley to the game.
Nor had the game stopped Shirley fidgeting. She’d already been rooting about in the glove compartment, and had found a pair of sunglasses she was now wearing, and also some gum. ‘Can I have this?’
‘Jesus. It’s like being trapped with a ten-year-old.’
‘I get bored on long car journeys.’
Louisa said, ‘I can drop you at the next services. Just say the word.’
Shirley admired herself in the mirror on the sunshield. ‘These shades are about six years out of fashion.’
‘That’s why they’re in the glove compartment,’ Louisa said. ‘And not, for instance, on my face.’
‘Are we nearly there yet?’
Not nearly enough, thought Louisa.
‘There’ was the east side of Birmingham: a phone call having determined that Zafar Jaffrey was in his home city that evening, delivering a talk in a library. The woman who’d given Louisa this information had added a gloss or two, emphasising Jaffrey’s manifold qualities which, Louisa suspected, might have included walking on water if she’d prolonged the call long enough. Nice to know he had his supporters, though when a politician seemed too good to be true, that usually meant he was. Still, if you had to pick one you’d rather not see assassinated, Jaffrey had the edge on Dennis Gimball, which was why she’d left Gimball to River. Faced with the task of keeping Gimball alive, she couldn’t put her hand on her heart and say she’d do her damnedest; there was a strong argument that knocking Gimball off his perch would be doing the nation a favour. Or at any rate, not doing it so much harm it would need therapy.
As for the voice of support, Louisa recalled that Jaffrey was famous for recruiting his staff from the ranks of ex-offenders, which meant, if this were a movie, that he’d turn out to be running a crime syndicate under cover of a political campaign. Then again, if this were a movie, Louisa’s shades wouldn’t be six years out of style.
Shirley said, ‘What are the chances Coe’s right about this?’
‘Not high.’
‘How not high?’
‘Really not high.’ Louisa pulled out to overtake some middle-lane hog who was dawdling along at seventy-five. ‘I mean, okay, the whole watering hole thing, maybe he’s on to something. But if you mean, is a terror gang about to try and whack Zafar Jaffrey, I can’t really see that happening, no.’
‘So why are we here?’
‘Gets us out of the office.’
Shirley turned to give a little wave to the overtaken driver, then blew a bubble with the gum and let it pop. ‘If he’s as clever as everyone says he is, how come he’s a fucking idiot?’
‘Who, Coe? I don’t think he is a fucking idiot.’
‘He barely ever says a word.’
‘Not a sign of idiocy,’ Louisa said pointedly, though that barb didn’t land.
‘Plus he’s a psycho.’
‘Well, yeah. He is that.’
‘I bet his phone’s smarter than he is.’
‘Everyone’s phone is smarter than they are.’
‘I bet his has a more exciting sex life.’
‘Is he gay, do you reckon?’
‘I don’t want to think about Coe’s dick.’
‘I’m not asking you to think about—’
‘Yeah, you’re asking me to speculate where he likes putting it. And I don’t want to think about that.’
Louisa said, ‘You’re the one who brought it up.’ She raised a finger from the wheel and pointed it at the opposite lane of traffic. ‘Yellow car.’
‘I don’t want to play that any more.’
Like an eight-year-old, Louisa mentally amended. It was like being trapped with an eight-year-old.
Maybe she’d have been better off partnering with Coe – she’d certainly have had a quieter journey – but, yes, he was kind of psycho. This didn’t mean his overall analysis of the situation was off. The whole destabilising project sounded barking enough to ring true to Louisa, and that was enough to make this journey worthwhile – she hadn’t been kidding about getting out of the office. Because sooner or later, Ho was going to tell the boys and girls at Regent’s Park that he’d handed over a Service document to some bad actors, who were using it as a blueprint to a murder spree, and then hellfire was going to rain down. Best to be elsewhere when that happened: let Lamb soak it up on his own.
