Staying put was out of the question.
A hotel? But this was London, a city with more cameras than pigeons, and the Service had access to any CCTV system they chose. Showing his face in a hotel lobby would be as discreet as popping up on
He called upstairs. ‘I need a car, nothing fancy. On your own card, not the company’s. And I need it downstairs three minutes ago.’
‘Damien? Is there something going on I should know about?’
‘What you should know is, I need a car three minutes ago.’
He packed a two-day bag. How long could this take to sort out? Taverner was throwing a scare, that was all. The dwarf had been part of it – his story about the dead British agents? Hashtag didn’t happen. Taverner was punishing him for having flexed his muscles, that was all. Which meant the Russian voice,
What he jumped at next was his phone, again.
‘Damien? Your car’s on its way.’
‘When?’
‘It will be there before you’re downstairs. Damien, are you sure everything’s all right? Because you have a meeting scheduled—’
‘Cancel it. And get hold of Tommo. Have him call.’
Was he running? No. This was a strategic withdrawal, no more.
As he took the lift down, he thought of last night’s news footage being played right now, on screens all over London. The capital’s agenda, set by him. Taverner didn’t know what she was getting into.
Ground floor. There were people milling about, queuing for the tourist lift, and he had to push through them to get to Clyde – Claude? – who was holding a set of keys on a BMW fob. It’s round back, sir. Thanks. This taking seconds: he was starting to feel like he worked for the Park himself. He’d grabbed his baseball cap on his way out, and twisted it now so the peak faced backward. Street smarts.
The car was waiting as promised, and winked its lights when he clicked the fob. But before he could reach it a man was up close behind him, breathing into his ear.
‘You don’t want to get in that car.’
It was the voice from the first phone call, guttural, throaty, and its owner had a face to match: like he’d lost a fight with a kitchen blender.
‘Trust me. I’m on your side.’
Across the road a woman stepped out of the shadows and started towards them.
There was a traffic jam, because there were always traffic jams, because this was London. Perhaps there were cities whose streets flowed freely, but they’d belong to the world’s more repressive regimes, where state control extended to the driving seat, and you’d need permission to venture onto the roads. So the price you paid for freedom of movement was sometimes lack of movement; an aphorism she might find a use for one day, but meanwhile: screw this. Diana Taverner abandoned the cab and walked the rest of the way. She could use the thinking space.
She’d been ready to melt glass when she left the mews house, but there was no sense picking over what should have been. And there was always an upside, if you knew which angle to take. What Lamb did best was sit in his office, drinking himself into a waiting grave, but what he did second best, when he could be bothered, was cut his enemies off at the knees. In this instance that was only incidentally Diana herself, was principally Damien Cantor, so if nothing else Lamb’s meddling had saved her the effort. Because one way or the other, Cantor was a blown fuse, and whether that was because she had Rasnokov’s evidence of his wrongdoing, or because he’d had the fear of Lamb thrown into him, made no difference in the long run.
Besides, Rasnokov’s thugs were apparently dead, and whichever angle you examined that from, it was clear who’d achieved payback. And there was, too, that chink of light Vassily had let show, his hint that this vicious tit for tat had been wished on him from on high. A glimpse of weakness on his side matched by a show of strength on her own. That was the kind of balance she wanted to maintain.
So let that go, and all she had to worry about was her other battle front: the one patrolled by Peter Judd. Who thought he had her under his thumb, and who needed showing that he too would end up squashed like popcorn if he persisted in such a delusion.
The door to the club opened for her before she was up the steps, the members’ register waiting for her to sign. And no need to ask if Mr Judd had arrived, for there was his name two lines above, each letter fully formed, in a way that perhaps spoke of self-assurance and ego, but to her seemed schoolboyish. In the bar, ma’am, she was told. The bar was up one flight. She did five minutes’ battle prep in the cloakroom, then went to find him. Her plan: to come out fighting.
