Lamb threw his jacket at the coatrack and missed. “Hang that somewhere,” he instructed nobody in particular, and pulled the chair out from the room’s second desk, the one on which Ho collected software packages and grease-stained pizza boxes. As he dropped into place he swept them to the floor. “That’s better. Now. I could have sworn you all had jobs to do.”
Ho said, “I told them to go back to their own rooms, but—”
“Yeah yeah, shut up.” Lamb folded his hands across his stomach. He’d brought odours of tobacco and sweat from the great outdoors, and seemed happy for them to circulate. “So. What are we all looking at?”
Louisa said, “We’ve found the man who snatched Catherine.”
“Sylvester Monteith,” said Lamb. “Former chum of Peter Judd, current mess on the pavement.” He observed their bewilderment with a practised sneer. “What, you wanted to surprise me?”
“Judd’s involved, isn’t he?”
“My, my,” said Lamb, admiringly. “Here’s me thinking you’d been banging your brains out every night, and it turns out they’re still functioning.”
Ho threw Louisa a puzzled glance.
Shirley stifled a giggle.
Lamb said, “What about you, Cartwright? Fun day so far?”
“It’s been . . . different.”
“I’ll bet. Taking a run at the Park? You’re in the Secret Service, not the Secret Seven. You should know that by now.”
“Monteith sent me this.”
He showed Lamb his phone. Something passed across Lamb’s eyes, then flitted away. His lip curled. “She look frightened to you?”
“That’s what I said,” Shirley announced.
“Yeah, and when you tie a woman up, I’m sure you do it properly.” Lamb threw River’s phone back at him. “Monteith’s crew was a tiger team. Hired by Judd. And you, you moron, played right into his hands.”
Marcus said, “So who whacked him?”
“That’s the thing about tigers, isn’t it? Some of them turn out to be real.”
“So who were they testing?” River asked. “Us or the Park?”
Lamb stared at him for what felt like a full minute and, Lamb being Lamb, might well have been, before starting to laugh. Still being Lamb, this was a full-body exercise: his frame shook, and his guffaws filled the room. Head flung back, he looked like an evil clown. Where a shirt button had popped, a hairy patch of stomach winked at the room.
“Jesus wept,” he said at last. “Sorry, but that is just so fucking funny. Us or the Park. You’ll be wanting a licence to kill next.” He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and humour vanished. “Do you seriously think Judd wants to test how effective or secure Slough House is? He wants this place packed into a skip, and when I say ‘this place,’ I’m including you comedians.”
“But evidently his plan backfired,” Marcus said.
“Silver linings,” Lamb agreed. “His old chum Monteith is tomorrow’s compost, but you, you lucky devils, live to play another day. Because guess what? Now the tigers have eaten their owner, they’ve got a whole new agenda, and it turns out you’re on it. Slough House just went live. The four of you are up.”
“There are five of us,” Ho pointed out.
“Oh, are you here too? Put the kettle on, there’s a good lad. I’m parched.”
Ho chuckled.
No one joined in.
Ho dragged himself reluctantly out of his chair, and shuffled off to the kitchen.
“‘Up’?” Marcus said.
Lamb said, “Ever heard of the whackjob files?”
“It’s what they call the Grey Books,” River said.
“Might have known you’d know. One of grandad’s bedtime stories, was it? Go on, then. Floor’s yours.”
River said, “They’re the records the Service keeps on conspiracy theories. 9/11, 7/7, the Lockerbie bombing, WMDs—they’re a paranoid’s treasure-chest.”
“And don’t forget the creepy shit,” Lamb said.
“Right,” said River. “Downing Street’s run by lizards, the Royal Family are aliens, UFOs visit regularly, and the Soviet Union never really collapsed and has been running the world since ’89.”
“And these are official records?” Marcus said. “Seriously?”
River said, “They’re an overview of what’s out there. Back in the war it was noticed that improved communications don’t just let information travel faster, they let bullshit off the leash too. There was a rumour about Churchill being assassinated and replaced by a double, it went what we’d call viral today. And damaged morale.”
“Disinformation,” Louisa said.
“Except this is the crap people make up for themselves,” said River. “And with the internet, you can have a paranoid fantasy at breakfast and a cult following by teatime. Anyway, the Service learned long ago that when you know what people are prepared to believe, it makes it easier to bury uncomfortable truths. Hence the Grey Books.”
“So some of it’s
Louisa, thinking aloud, said, “Throw enough darts, you’re bound to hit the board.”
“Uh-huh,” River said. “A couple of years ago, if you’d suggested that western intelligence agencies were hoovering up people’s emails, you’d have been laughed at.”
“So some of it’s true,” said Shirley.
