“You bring a spare?”
“What am I, your nanny? No I didn’t bring a spare. This is a family car, not a roving arsenal. Now do your buttons up. Your T-shirt’s showing.”
Shirley did her buttons up, and the pair of them set off round the corner.
Nick Duffy checked his watch, wondered again where the hell the Black Arrow crew were, then exhaled when he saw the van appear below, coming to a halt with an unnecessary squeal of brakes near the pile of mesh fencing. Amateurs: they spilled out the back the way they’d seen it done in Vietnam movies, as if they’d set down in a chopper, and Charlie was lurking in the reeds.
But they didn’t need to be good at what they did. They only had to be there, in large numbers.
Duffy counted a dozen before letting the binoculars fall to his chest. They were in full-on Cowboys and Indians mode, peeping out from behind whatever shelter they could find: the van itself, the skip, that pile of fencing. The Slough House crew’s vehicle was available too: Cartwright and Guy were that keyed into undercover work, they’d parked it in full view of the slowly appearing stars. In a sense, he’d be doing everyone a favour, taking them off the board. And even as he had the thought, he was aware that this was the mood required for this kind of job: you had to be clear that what you were doing was for the common good, even of those you were doing it to.
He watched the black-clad wannabes at work, some unpacking equipment from the back of their van—a pair of quick-assembly scaffolding towers on which klieg lights perched—while others hopped and jumped from shadow to shadow, preparing their ground, and looking like they were having fun, but only because they’d never done this for real before. If he were of a sentimental persuasion, Duffy might have mused that once upon a time he’d been like that himself, but he wasn’t, and he hadn’t, so he simply stooped to the holdall at his feet and pulled out a black silk balaclava. Black for night, silk for coolness—even now, the heat persisted; like a bakery where the ovens had only just been turned off—but most of all, a balaclava so his face wasn’t on show. When this was over, the Black Arrows were going to be left holding the body bags, and it would be nicer all round if they had no descriptions to chuck about.
Then he checked his guns, checked his ammunition, and went down to take charge.
On the top landing, Lamb found a padlocked door and thought: okay, that resembles a clue. The key was no doubt in Sunny Jim’s pocket, and it wouldn’t take two minutes to pop back downstairs and collect it, but it didn’t look like anyone was about to volunteer, so he simply bellowed “Standish? You might want to step back,” and without further warning applied his foot. The first kick threw splinters and pulled the metal clasp holding the padlock halfway out of the frame. The second completed the job, and the door slammed inwards, hit the wall, and bounced back closed. In the split second between, he saw Catherine Standish, framed in another doorway, holding something in her hand. When he pushed the broken door open once more and stepped through it, she was still there, but her hands were empty.
Lamb looked at her, looked around the room, looked at her again, and said, “Thought this was a kidnapping, not an awayday.”
“The lock was on the outside,” she pointed out.
“I’ve seen more secure rabbit hutches.” Walking past her, he poked his head through the doorway into the bathroom. “It’s en suite, for God’s sake.”
“Maybe. But I requested non-smoking,” she told him.
“That’s a really bad habit, that passive-aggressive shit.” But he lobbed his cigarette at the toilet anyway. It bounced off the seat, and disappeared behind the sink pedestal, where it probably wouldn’t start a fire and burn the building down.
Catherine said, “What did you do with Bailey?”
“If he’s the work-experience type they left in charge, he’s having a lie down. Another old flame, is he?”
“How much of a lie down?”
“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re asking.” Lamb had spotted the tray now, and made a beeline for it. “Don’t get me wrong, I disapprove of Service personnel being abducted. But it’s not like you’re important.”
Deliberating for a moment, he scowled at the apple, pocketed the flapjack and tore open the sandwich.
“Who’s with you?”
“Nobody.”
“You came by yourself?”
She couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice.
“Yes. Well, Ho drove.” Lamb bit into the sandwich and made a face. “Christ. How long’s this been sitting there?”
“What did Donovan want?”
“In return for you?” Lamb chewed for a moment, swallowed, then took another bite. Once his mouth was full, he went on, “Well, he says he wants the Dipshit Chronicles.”
Catherine looked confused, then more so. “The
