“What can I tell you? I’m highly sensitive.” He leaned towards her, nostrils twitching, then pulled back. “Only I’m not getting anything now.”
“Lucky you. When’s the last time you changed your shirt?”
“No need to get personal. That’s typical of you spinsters. Once you’re past the menopause, you think you can get away with saying anything.”
She sighed. “Is there a point you’re trying to make, Jackson? Because what I really want to do is get home and have a bath.”
“Did you drink it?”
“Did I drink it? You’ve just finished telling me you’re ‘not getting anything.’ I took that to mean your highly developed sense of smell can detect no whiff of alcohol.”
These last words delivered in a precise, schoolmistressy tone; a warning sign, if Lamb had cared to heed it.
“Yes, well, maybe you stuck your head under a tap or something. You alcoholics can be cunning, I’ve learned that much.”
“Anything you’ve learned about alcoholics is self-taught. Would you mind giving it a rest now? I’m tired.”
“Only he was one of your drinking buddies back in the day, wasn’t he? Sean Donovan. That why he left you a bottle? Old times’ sake?”
She said, “What are you after, Jackson?”
“Just concerned you’re not about to have a relapse. Don’t want to arrive at the office to find you naked and covered in vomit. Which is what we were expecting when you didn’t show this morning, point of fact.”
“Was it?” she said, in a voice that would cut glass.
“Pretty much. First place we looked was the local park bench.”
“Thank you.”
“Second place was under it.”
“Shut up now, Jackson.”
“So why’d Donovan give you booze, if he’s such an honourable guy?”
“Did I say anything about him being honourable?”
“You seem pretty keen on painting him as a white knight. And this is all guesswork, remember? Could be, he’s exactly what he seems to be. A killer drunk driver who thinks the country’s run by lizard people.”
“And this is because you think he left me a drink? Jesus.” Catherine Standish rarely swore. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
Lamb curled his lip. “There’s a difference between offering you a glass and locking you in a room with the stuff.”
“Well pardon me for not getting that. Besides which, it wasn’t Sean left me the drink. It was Bailey. I mean Dunn. Craig Dunn. And he thought he was being kind.”
“Proper little gentleman. Good job I’d toughened you up, isn’t it?”
“You did?” She laughed. Lamb had rarely heard Catherine Standish laugh. “Trust me, it was no thanks to you I kept sober. If I’ve anyone to thank for that it’s my old boss. Because unlike you, Charles trusted me. He showed me friendship, he believed in me, and he kept me on when anyone else would have thrown me to the wolves. So it was Charles Partner let me pour that wine down the sink instead of down my throat, and the only thing you did was turn up and batter that poor boy senseless, when he was going to let me go anyway. Now finish that filthy thing and get back in the car. I want to go home.”
Lamb removed the cigarette from his mouth and studied it for a moment, as if concerned it was as dirty as Catherine had suggested. Then he replaced it, and gave her the same brutal stare. Out on the forecourt a car door slammed, and music briefly blared into life. Then the car departed, and Lamb was still staring, still smoking. At last he dropped it and, unusually for him, ground it out heavily; kept grinding until it was a smear underfoot. All this with his eyes still on Catherine.
Only when she made a
“You really do pick ’em, don’t you? Your hero? Charles Partner? You want to know why he really kept you on?”
“Don’t even dare, Lamb . . . ”
“Charles Partner, your old boss and mine, spent the last ten years of his life passing secrets to the Russians. For the money. That was your hero, Standish. Your oh-so faithful friend. And he kept you on precisely because you’re an alcoholic. You think he wanted someone at his side alert enough, together enough, to pick up on what he was doing? Uh-uh. No, he trusted you all right. He knew he could rely on you to take life one day at a time, and never see beyond the given moment. Once a drunk, always a drunk.”
“You’re lying.”
“Does it sound like a lie? Seriously? Or more like something you’ve known all along and never dared admit to yourself?”
Catherine was frozen into place, looking beyond Lamb as if something monstrous lurked behind his shoulder. And then her gaze shifted, and she was staring straight at him, that sense of monstrosity still steady in her eyes. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
“I didn’t hear that.”
“I said fuck you,” she said, in a voice scarcely louder than silence. “Fuck you, Jackson Lamb. I quit.”
“Of course you do.”
But she turned and walked away without replying.
When he got back to the car, Roderick Ho pointed at the pedestrian bridge, on which Catherine had just crossed the motorway before vanishing from sight on the other side. “Where’s she going?”
“She decided to walk.”
