The pub across the road from Slough House felt like a continuation of their work lives: more a chore than a break. The coffee was poured from a jug, but tasted like instant. River could have done with an actual drink, but that would have been a mistake: he’d be back on the road as soon as he could, behind the wheel, back to Tonbridge. Wouldn’t have left her last night, except she insisted.
‘And you haven’t told Lamb?’ Louisa said.
‘What do you think?’
‘I think he’s going to find out anyway.’
‘Sid’s frightened. She asked me not to tell anyone, so that’s what I’m doing.’
‘Except for me.’
‘Well, yes. Except you.’
‘Thanks. I think. Who’s trying to kill her?’
‘She doesn’t know. She just knew she was being watched.’
Louisa said, ‘Lot of that about.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘What do you mean, how do I mean? I was tailed last night? Remember?’
‘Yeah, sorry, right. No, I mean yeah, but what’s the connection?’
‘I didn’t mean there was a connection, I just … oh, never mind. So she felt she was being watched. Doesn’t she have a handler or something? They didn’t just put her out to pasture, did they? Recovering from head trauma?’
After the farmhouse, after the residential care, Sid had been moved to a cottage on a newbuild estate not far from Kendal. She’d been there more than a year, relearning the steps required to live a life. The phrase had remained with River: he pictured her with L-plates on, buying groceries, feeding plastic into an ATM. Opening brown envelopes which explained her civic duties: council tax, voter registration, jury service.
‘She had a handler, or a milkman anyway,’ he said. ‘Twice a week, she’d turn up and check everything was okay. That Sid was managing.’
Milkmen were what retired spooks got; and also those gunned down in the field, it seemed.
‘And this milkman, who’s a she you say, making her a milkwoman, thanks – what did she make of it?’
‘Don’t know,’ said River. He tried some coffee: dreadful. ‘I haven’t actually put thumbscrews to her yet. Sid. Haven’t choked every last detail out of her.’
Louisa said, ‘I hate to ask this. But is she, you know – okay?’
‘In what sense?’
‘Well, most of them.’ River was looking obstinate again, but she ploughed on regardless. ‘Look, she was shot in the head. I get it she’s still alive, and you told me about the hair thing, the white stripe. But how’s she looking otherwise? Still a Burne-Jones, or is she more Picasso now?’
‘She hasn’t lost her looks,’ said River. ‘She’s more fragile looking.’
‘And how about mentally?’
‘Pretty spacey. Drifts off while she’s talking. But look, I hadn’t seen her in however long it’s been. Years. Hard to tell what’s awkwardness and what’s … permanent.’
‘No it isn’t,’ said Louisa. ‘Sid was bright, Sid was witty, she was never at a loss for words that I remember. Which means the Sid you’ve been talking to’s not fully come back from her wound.’ She picked up her coffee cup, came to her senses and put it down again. ‘There’s a lot of space between thinking someone’s watching you and thinking they want you dead. The mysterious watchers might be a symptom, for all we know. Paranoia.’
‘Says the woman who was tailed into a sportswear shop last night.’
‘Oh, that happened. His phone pinged, remember?’
‘I believe her.’
‘Okay.’
‘Something happened to send her on the run.’
‘Sure. But let’s not forget she’s not the only one who got hurt when she was shot. You’ve been feeling guilty ever since.’
Tell him about it. The memory was seared on his mind: the rain, and the blood gathering on the pavement. And then the night-ride to the hospital, and the slamming doors, and the body on the trolley being wheeled away. He’d ended up locked in a cupboard, guarded by one of the Dogs, until Lamb had come to rescue him.
‘And that makes you more inclined to believe her.’
‘I believe her because she’s Sid.’
‘Same difference. Look, you want my advice? Because I’m giving it anyway. Tell Lamb. Hate to say it, but. Either Sid’s in danger, in which case she’s better off him knowing, or she’s not, in which case people need to know anyway. So they can set about making her better.’
‘What if he knows already?’
‘… That she’s at your grandfather’s house?’
‘That she’s still alive.’
‘It’s possible,’ said Louisa. ‘He knows all sorts of things he shouldn’t. But either way, he’s Lamb. And she’s his joe, when you get down to it.’
‘That doesn’t always help, does it?’ River said, and they both thought briefly of the empty desk in his office.
‘We should get back,’ said Louisa, rising to her feet. Then, buttoning her coat, said, ‘Slough House, by the way.’
‘… What?’
‘That’s the connection between Sid and me. Slough House.’
River just grunted.
