Slough House полностью

There’d been a gathering most weeks lately, usually on a midweek evening; not precisely a march, more what was described as a display of solidarity, even though what it mostly illustrated was deep division. The Yellow Vests were a loose coalition of the disaffected – its French origins an unwitting tribute to the free movement of ideas – and their anger, initially aimed at those who failed to listen to them, or at those who’d listened but had failed to act upon their demands, or at those who had acted upon their demands but in a way deemed unsatisfactory in some manner, had long been swallowed by a free-range hatred for anyone who swam into their crosshairs: Jewish MPs, gay journalists, student activists, traffic wardens; all routinely described as Nazis, which, if nothing else, suggested that the master race’s membership criteria had grown less rigorous since its pomp. Tonight they had gathered along Wardour Street, where Reece Nesmith III passed them in a hurry, ignoring the jeers this provoked. Words he’d heard before, and besides, he was on a mission.

Though the man he was tailing had, for all his size, vanished inside the evening’s folds.

This must have happened within minutes of his leaving Old Miles’s. The streets, gilets jaunes aside, weren’t fuller than usual; the street lights were working, there was no mist. What there was, unless it was Reece’s imagination, was a whiff of foreign tobacco, as if the man had coloured the air he walked through. But of the man himself, no sign. Reece doubled back, running the gauntlet of jeers again, but he was wasting his time. The man was gone.

I know how it works, he’d said. I’m not the fucking janitor. The other one, the man in the suit, was a hanger-on, a spy buff. But this one, for all he was gross and dressed like he’d crawled from a charity bin, something about him suggested he was the real thing. Andy would have picked him out of a line-up: Spook Street. No question. But it wasn’t like Andy was here to say so. That was the whole point.

In the end he gave it up as a bad job and headed for home; along Oxford Street, up Edgware Road, under the flyover. The flat was above a dummy shop, its window display a mosaic of cards showing lettable properties but its door permanently locked. His own door was next along, in a recess, and as he opened it and stepped across the threshold, everything turned upside down. A glimpse of a yellow vest was his last conscious observation. Then he blacked out.

‘I was not expecting to find fucking broadcasters among your guests.’

‘Welcome to century twenty-one,’ Judd said, ironising the words. ‘You can’t attract wealthy sponsors without involving media interests, you know that. But the Murdoch principle still applies. Why break a prime minister when you could have a whole string of them to play with instead?’

‘That’s not particularly comforting.’

‘I’m simply pointing out that Cantor’s on our side. And would much rather have a friendly, ongoing relationship with a power player than a brief headline everyone will call fake news. As for his interview, it’s not going to happen.’

‘Damn right it’s not going to happen.’

‘Though it wouldn’t hurt to—’

‘I’d think very carefully about the next words that emerge from your mouth.’

He paused. ‘It’s always a pleasure, I hope you’re aware of that, Diana.’

She said nothing.

‘But a little gratitude wouldn’t hurt. Nobody’s expecting you to appear on TV, that was out of order. But a fair bit of funding has been ushered your way, and those whose pockets it’s come from are entitled to appreciation. Not to mention those of us who’ve done the ushering.’

‘Does this place do rooms?’ she asked. ‘Because I could rent one. You could have them form a disorderly queue.’

‘All I meant was, it never hurts to acknowledge largesse.’

‘They’re supposed to be angels, Peter. That was the word you used. Silent backers. Nothing more.’

‘Even angels get their wings stroked, now and again.’

‘Except the ones who plotted against God,’ said Diana. ‘They were eternally damned, I seem to recall.’

The unlikely angels, unless they were the legion of the damned, were scattered around the room, engaged in small conspiracies. It was not a mixed crowd: exclusively white, and middle-aged or upwards, Cantor being the exception. Their backgrounds, those she was aware of, could be summed up as urban money, but it troubled her that there were three or four among them who, like Cantor, she hadn’t known would be here. This despite Judd’s briefing.

She said, ‘I’m grateful to have received support. But I’m starting to wonder if the arrangement’s going to work.’ His face didn’t change while receiving this news: that wasn’t a good sign. ‘I didn’t authorise the Kazan operation so your backers could dine out on it.’

‘My backers?’

‘You brought them to the table.’