“Yes.”
“Well make sure he sits somewhere quietly and touches nothing.”
“They want you to sit somewhere quietly,” Louisa began, but Douglas snorted again.
“I heard.”
River said, “The files are that way.” He indicated the doors Douglas had pointed to earlier: swing doors with glass portholes, through which only darkness could be made out.
Traynor said, “Thanks. Now go sit with Igor.”
Douglas said, “Igor?”
“I’m not sitting anywhere,” River said.
“Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” Louisa muttered.
River ignored her. “The deal is, we let you have the Grey Books, then everybody leaves. Nobody said anything about letting you wander round—”
“If he doesn’t shut up, can I pop him?” Traynor asked Donovan.
River, being River, took a step forward at this, a move Traynor seemed to be expecting. They were an inch off bumping chests when Louisa laughed. “Why don’t you just get them both out? I expect Douglas has a tape measure.”
Donovan said, “Okay, pack it in. That includes you.” This to Louisa. Then to Traynor: “Wait here. Don’t shoot anyone unless you have to.”
Traynor nodded, and dropped his hand to his belt, brushing his shirt tail aside. The movement revealed, as it was intended to, the handle of a gun.
River rolled his eyes, making sure Traynor noticed.
Donovan said, “I’m not going to say it again. Behave yourself or he’ll put a bullet in your knee.”
Then he strode to the swing doors, pushed through, and disappeared into the corridor beyond.
“Marcus.”
“Fucking moron copper. That light was amber. I had
“Marcus.”
“He’s lucky I didn’t—”
“Marcus.”
“
Asking the question but not in a way that suggested he wanted an answer: it was one of those
“There were two soldiers, right?” she said. “Donovan and Traynor.”
“Yeah, they joined Black Arrow at the same time.” He started the car, and glanced bitterly into the mirror, where he could see the policeman at the kerb, studying Marcus’s departure as if willing some further infraction to be made: a failed indicator, mirror-neglect, state treason.
“Benjamin Traynor served with Donovan,” Shirley said. “He was honourably discharged about the time Donovan came out of the clink.”
“So? They were mates. Soldier buddies, they’re not gonna let a thing like a little jail time come between them.”
“Yeah, right. Except. Alison Dunn? The woman who was killed in Donovan’s car that night?”
“What about her?”
“She was Traynor’s fiancée,” Shirley said.
Lights through windows leaked a pallid yellow into the evening sky; an hour from now they’d be beacons, but for the moment seemed an admission of weakness. The farmhouse was stone, with a brick addition on one wing, and the front door had a small porch arrangement, a wooden afterthought which one big storm or one bad wolf might easily render kindling. And there was a bus on the forecourt, a London familiar made strange by dislocation; an open-topped tour bus, its upper deck swaddled in canvas to keep the rain off, a gesture that embraced both caution and optimism, given the heatwave.
If it had been a working farm, Lamb noted, there’d have been dogs barking. The only sound he could make out was an insect-like chirping.
He studied the house again. It would have an attic and cellar, and any hostage would be in one or the other. Himself, he’d have opted for the cellar. But there was something off about this whole affair—it had been tainted with unreality since the Grey Books were thrown into the mix—so chances were Standish was in the kitchen, brewing up a cuppa for whomever Donovan had left in charge. Probably happier than she was in Slough House.
But she was one of his, and you messed with Lamb’s stuff at your peril. Besides, the joes you didn’t bring home were the ones who never let you go.
He rattled the polystyrene cup, and was rewarded with a silvery tinkle. If you were going to storm an enemy citadel, you might as well do it with flair—he kept a gun at Slough House, illegal, unofficial, and it might have been a useful piece of kit right now, but Lamb hadn’t survived this far by getting into firefights with soldiers. Well, maybe just the once—and memory tugged at him again: the burning church, and gunfire in the snow. He shrugged it away.
In the porch he found a doorbell but used the rapper instead, pounding it as loudly as he could—a steady, unforgiving thunder that rattled the door on its hinges and travelled every inch of the building, swarming along its boards and beams as fluidly as a family of mice.
