Because he was not a forgettable man, being tall and broad shouldered, with a nose that had been broken a time or two—an even number, he’d once joked, else it would look even more crooked—and if his hair, streaked with iron now, was longer than she recalled, it was still barely more than a bullet-cut. As for his eyes, they remained blue, because how could they not, but even in this fading evening she could see that tonight they were the stormy blue of his darker moments, and not the shade of a September sky. And tall and broad, which she’d already marked off, twice her size easily, and they must look a pair standing here in the violet hour; him with warrior written all over him, and her in a dress buttoned to the neck, with lace at the sleeves, and buckles on her shoes.
Since it had to be addressed, she said, “I hadn’t realised you were . . . ”
“Out?”
She nodded.
“A year ago. Thirteen months.” The voice, too, was not one to be forgotten: its touch of the Irish. She had never been to Ireland, but sometimes, listening to him, her head would fill with soft green images.
Being a drunk had helped, of course.
“I could give you the figure in days,” he added.
“It must have been hard.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” he said. “You literally have no idea.”
For that, she had no reply.
They were standing still, and this was not good tradecraft. Even Catherine Standish, never a joe, knew that much.
He read this in her posture. “You were heading that direction?”
Pointing towards the Old Street junction.
“Yes.”
“I’ll walk with you if I may.”
Which is what he did, exactly as if this were what it appeared to be; a chance encounter on a summer’s evening, as light began to fade at the edges; one old friend (if that was what they had been) stumbling upon another, and wanting to prolong the moment. In another age, thought Catherine, and perhaps even in some corners of this one, he would have taken her arm as they walked, which would have been sweet, and a little corny, but mostly would have been a lie. Because Catherine Standish—never a joe—knew this much too: that chance encounters might happen in some places, to some people, but they never happened here, to spooks.
In a bar near Slough House, Roderick Ho was contemplating romance.
He’d been doing this a lot lately, with good reason. The simple truth was, everyone thought Roddy and Louisa Guy should have coupled off by now. Her thing with Min Harper was history, and if the internet had taught Ho anything, it was that women had needs. It had also revealed that there was no scam so risibly transparent that someone wouldn’t fall for it, and that if you wanted to cause a shitstorm on a message board, you simply had to post something mildly controversial about 9/11, Michael Jackson or cats—yep: one way or the other, the internet had made Ho the man he was. Roddy was a self-taught citizen of twenty-first-century GB, and all clued up on how to conduct himself therein.
Bitch was ripe was how he read it.
Bitch was
All he had to do was reach out and pluck it.
But while theory was nine tenths of the game, he was having trouble with the remaining fraction. He saw Louisa most days, and had taken to appearing in the kitchen whenever she was making coffee, but she kept misreading his signals. He’d actually commented, and this was over a week ago, that since they were driven by the same caffeine needs it made excellent sense for her to make enough for two, but this had gone whistling over her head and she was still carrying the pot back to her office. You had to laugh at her feeble grasp of mating rituals, but in the meantime he was stumped for ways to get down to her level.
Ho didn’t even like coffee. These were the lengths he was prepared to go.
There were strategies he’d come across, heard about: be kind, be attentive, listen. Jesus—did these people still live in wooden houses? That crap took ages, and it wasn’t like Louisa was getting any younger. As for Ho himself, frankly, he had his own needs, and while the internet catered for most of them, he was starting to feel a little tense. Louisa Guy was a vulnerable woman. There were men might seek to take advantage. He wouldn’t put it past River Cartwright, for a start, to try it on. And while Cartwright was an idiot, there was no second-guessing what a vulnerable woman might do, especially one misreading the signals.
So Ho figured he needed a little practical assistance. Which was why he was in this bar with Marcus Longridge and Shirley Dander, who shared the office next door.
“Spoken to Louisa lately?” he asked.
Marcus Longridge grunted.
