This time, it was more than a chuckle. This time it was an outright laugh. “Oh dear. Sounds like you’re about to make a plea.”
Lamb said, “Cartwright’s not my only joe gone walkabout. If there’s anything happening I need to know about, you’d best email those details too. Save me having to come over there and ask you myself.”
He hung up, and gave his foot one last vicious tweak with the ruler, which split in half with a noise like a gunshot.
This being Slough House, and Lamb being Lamb, nobody came to find out if that’s what it had been.
When he could see again, all he could see was the floor. He spat, and then he could see the floor and some spit, and then his vision went wavy again, and then it came back.
So now you know, a small voice in the back of his head told him, what it’s like to be kneed in the balls by an expert.
It’s surprising how even the most basic of skills can become, in the hands of an artist, a minor masterpiece.
“I’m waiting,” another voice said. This one wasn’t in his head; it existed in the rest of the world too.
River hauled himself into a squatting position where the pain didn’t exactly subside, but allowed him to think that it might one day do so, and took a deep breath, half-scared that doing so would rupture something important. He looked for his voice, and found it a little farther away than usual. “Slow. Horses. They call us. The slow. Horses.” Even to himself, he sounded like a nonagenarian refugee. “And you know. What they call. You?”
“Everyone knows what they call us,” Duffy said. “They call us the Dogs.”
“No. They call the Dogs. The Dogs. They call you. A useless prick.”
“And yet you’re the one lying on the floor.”
“You ever. Try that. Outside your own backyard,” River said. “We’ll see who ends up. On the floor.”
It was getting easier again, this old talent of his: making words come out of his mouth. He looked up, and found Duffy looking straight back down at him.
“Maybe we can check that out,” he said. “But not anytime soon. You’re going to be busy for a while yet.”
“Standish,” said River. “They have Catherine Standish.”
“Yeah, well. It’s not like we were doing anything with her. And you’re going to have one hell of a job persuading anyone she’s worth the PM’s vetting file.” Duffy ran his left index finger over the knuckles of his right hand. “Now get to your feet, and let’s try again.”
Queasily, River managed to stand.
Duffy said, “Who were you planning on selling it to?”
River said, “They have Catherine Standish. Check my phone, you moron.”
This time, Duffy hit him in the stomach.
•••
“Sorry about this,” the soldier began.
He didn’t look sorry.
“But we’re out of milk.”
He put the mug of tea he was carrying on the bedside table.
“Room service?” Catherine said.
“Well, we can hardly let you wander down to the kitchen at will. Security issues.”
“This is the weirdest kidnapping I’ve ever heard of,” she told him. “Not that I’m an expert. But seriously? Is this your first time?”
The soldier pursed a lip, as if giving it thought. “We’ve taken prisoners before. But the circumstances were different.”
“You’re not going to kill me, then.”
“We’re not animals.”
“Can I have that in writing?” She’d hoped for a chuckle, and when she didn’t get one asked, “Where’s Donovan?”
“Downstairs.”
No he wasn’t. He’d left earlier, in the van. But it didn’t hurt to pretend to believe him.
She said, “I could do with a change of clothing.”
“I said we weren’t animals. I didn’t say we were Marks and Spencer’s.”
He turned to leave, and Catherine reached for a hook to hold him. She found it just as he was closing the door.
“Does he talk about her much?”
“. . . About who?”
“The girl who died.”
He paused. Then said, “She wasn’t a
“My apologies. But she’s still dead, right? Does he talk about her at all? I’m sure I would.”
Catherine could hear her own voice rising as she spoke—she rarely lost control of her tone, but she was desperate for him to stay, say more, cast light on why she was here, and what was happening elsewhere.
“If I’d been drunk-driving the car that killed her, I mean,” she finished.
He shook his head, sadly it seemed to her, and left the room, padlocking the door behind him.
After a while, Catherine reached for the tea.
Nick Duffy splashed water onto his face, then gazed hard into the bathroom mirror, finding nothing out of the ordinary there. A morning’s work. They weren’t all like this—well, they couldn’t be. It wasn’t a police state.
