Shirley said, “Right after she got back to the UK, after the UN thing I mean, she filed some kind of report. Whatever it said got stamped on from on high.”
“Huh,” said Marcus.
“Huh,” Shirley repeated. “Very illuminating. What does ‘huh’ mean exactly?”
“In this context,” Marcus said, “‘huh’ means, sounds like political bullshit. And a good kind of bullshit not to get mixed up in is the political kind.”
For no obvious reason, the traffic started to move more freely.
Shirley said, “So what’s the new plan, you gonna turn around and drive us home?”
“No, I figure we’d better catch up with Louisa and Cartwright fast as we can.”
“Why so?” Shirley asked, looking up from her screen.
“Because you see that black van up ahead?”
Shirley did.
“It says Black Arrow on the side,” said Marcus. “And it looks like it’s heading for the same place we are.”
•••
“Fuck off,” said the man.
That was all, but he seemed to think it enough. He moved back, the better to slam the door in Lamb’s face, but Lamb could move fast when he wanted, and a scuffed leather brogue, battle-hardened by years of contact with Lamb’s foot, wedged itself into the gap before the wood hit the jamb.
“Not even a thruppeny bit?” he said. “It’s in a good cause.”
“Move your feet, old man.”
“Sorry. Dancing’s extra.” Lamb pushed, his opponent stumbled backwards, and Lamb was inside, kicking the door shut behind him. In the same movement, he tossed the polystyrene cup at the man’s face, relying on an instinctive reaction, and was rewarded by the man catching it neatly, leaving his stomach wide open . . . Lamb had no desire to embroil himself in hand-to-hand combat. Make it quick, then. Swinging his fist sideways, like he was ringing a bell, Lamb buried it in the man’s midriff, and when he folded in half Lamb slapped both palms against his ears, almost hearing the explosion that must have caused inside his head. And there was always the possibility, he reminded himself as he brought his knee up into the waiting face, that he had the wrong house, so he went easier than he ought to have done; kept his hands on the man’s ears and lowered him to the floor reasonably gently, then stepped back sharpish as blood poured from a broken face.
“That takes me back,” Lamb said, though it was doubtful the man could hear him.
Rolling his victim over, Lamb found a gun in the waistband of his trousers. Well, that solved the problem of whether this was the right house, or at least excused the violence he’d just done the householder if it turned out not to be. Anyone who answered the door to a carol singer armed deserved all he got, thought Lamb piously. Ejecting the magazine, he slipped it into a pocket, and tossed the gun through the nearest doorway. There was nobody else here, Standish aside. He’d have been shot by now otherwise.
He cleared his throat noisily, and glanced around as if for a spittoon. Then swallowed instead: good manners, as he was fond of explaining to his slow horses, cost nothing. There were stairs to the left, and several doorways other than the one he’d just tossed the gun through, but he’d almost certainly end up climbing the bloody stairs, so might as well get to it. He paused on the first landing to light a cigarette, but before doing so sniffed sharply. Why did this place smell of cheese, he wondered.
Not important. Cigarette in mouth, Lamb stomped his way upstairs.
River said, “So what’s your bag, exactly?”
Traynor threw him a sardonic look, but didn’t reply.
River was on the floor, back against the wall, a position which offered his sore stomach muscles some relief, though not so much that he was likely to think of Nick Duffy with fondness in the foreseeable future. Douglas, a yard or two away, looked like he was trying to will himself into a different universe; one in which he hadn’t allowed River and Louisa through the hatch. That, or he was trying not to burst into angry tears. As for Louisa, she had disappeared into what River had come to recognise as her silent space: the one into which she wandered whenever her presence was unavoidable, but her full attention wasn’t required. It was somewhere she’d spent a lot of time when she’d first been exiled to Slough House; now, since Min’s death, it looked like she was planning on moving back there. Like revisiting a flat you’d once lived in, River thought: certain it was pokier than you remembered, but give it a day or two, it would be like you’d never left.
Above their heads, the CCTV monitors continued their automatic surveillance; blinking from coverage of the derelict estate through a montage of the empty corridors and rooms that stretched a mile beneath the western fringe of the capital. Traynor kept glancing at these, presumably checking on Donovan’s progress.
