And this was Shin again, still caressing his phone, but looking at Danny, and speaking with more authority than of late.
Danny scowled, and gripped the handle. The gun hung over his shoulder, its webbed strap as familiar to him as the feel of his shirt, of the belt round his waist.
‘I said wait!’
The door released, and air broke in, a sudden waft of summer evening pushing past the reek of male bodies.
Then An put one hand on Danny’s sleeve, and with the other reached across him and pulled the door shut.
‘What?’ Danny said.
Shin, putting his phone away, said, ‘It’s already done. We must leave.’
‘What do you mean, already done? How—’
‘Go! Drive!’
This to Chris, who sat at the wheel.
‘—can it be done?’
Chris started the van, which gave a sudden lurch.
‘No! We have a mission!’
Shin leaned forward and struck Danny across the face. ‘Enough!’
Danny looked wide-eyed at An, but An refused to meet his gaze.
‘This goes in my report,’ Shin hissed. Then, to Chris again, ‘Why are we still here?’
The van pulled away.
Louisa had come to the window again, ignoring the irritated glances from her fellow citizens, while Zafar Jaffrey explained how a modern city, a model community, found space for all within its embrace: there were no exclusions, no pariahs. Yeah, fine. Until a bunch of them turn up with guns and start their own exclusion process. But she was a little ashamed of that knee-jerk response: occupational hazard, she supposed. Which didn’t mean other people shouldn’t be setting their sights higher.
Outside, Shirley had left her car-roof picnic; was walking down the road in a purposeful way, her stiff right arm offering a clue to the monkey wrench’s current whereabouts. She seemed to be heading for the van, whose back door popped open at that moment. Something happening, Louisa thought, and at the same moment became aware of a murmuring behind her; Jaffrey’s audience responding to external events. Shirley flexed her arm, and Louisa saw the wrench drop cleanly into it, and then the van door closed again and the vehicle coughed into life. Shirley started to run. Behind her, Louisa could hear chairs scraping, and shocked noises,
Louisa shook her head. If they were ordinary solid citizens in that van, we’re going to be hearing about that, she thought.
She shouldn’t have lied. Coe would have been less trouble.
Then she returned to the crowd behind her, to discover what the fuss was about.
LAMB SAID, ‘FUCK ME. So that happened.’
On the BBC website, video had been posted of a scaffolding-clad alleyway, where folk in white jumpsuits teamed about. Either ABBA had reformed in Slough, or a body had been discovered there.
Dennis Gimball, according to social media.
Catherine said, ‘There’s been no official confirmation, but …’
‘But everyone’s favourite Europhobe just made a hard Brexit.’ Lamb magicked a cigarette from thin air, then thinned the air further by lighting it. ‘And here’s me having gone to the bother of sending Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and the other one to stop that happening.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘I sometimes wonder why I get out of bed in the morning.’
‘Probably just to spread sweetness and light.’ Catherine was texting; calling River and Louisa home. She didn’t call it ‘home’, obviously. When she’d finished she looked up to see Lamb glaring at her iPad: she’d put it on his desk to show him the breaking news. Aware of how brief Lamb’s relationships with technology could be, she plucked it from his ambit. ‘So. Gimball’s dead and the bad guys are winning. Not our finest hour.’
Lamb sniffed. ‘On the other hand, this proves our theory’s right. So, you know, swings and roundabouts.’
‘I’m sure that’s a great comfort to the deceased.’
‘He sleeps with the silverfishes,’ said Lamb. ‘That’ll have to be comfort enough.’
Catherine left the room to boil the kettle. When she came back with two cups of tea, Lamb had his unshod feet on his desk. All five toes were showing through one sock; three through the other. It was as close as you could get to not wearing socks, she thought, without actually not doing so. She put a cup in front of him and resumed her seat. Lamb farted meditatively, then said, ‘So where does this leave us?’
