And had carried on up the winding street, then down the other side. Like missionaries would have done.
Sid said, ‘Maybe it wasn’t just to look less suspicious. Maybe they didn’t know exactly which house I was in.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I called it in.’
Which was standard. If you had a handler, if you had a milkman, you always called it in.
River said, ‘It was supposed to be a safe house. How could they know where to find you?’
‘They could have known about the farm. Where I spent time in recovery.’ A hunk of bread balanced uneaten on her chair’s armrest. ‘It’s been used for years.’
And a link between the farm and the estate, a few miles down the road, wouldn’t have been hard to establish. They might not have followed Sid’s milkman to Sid’s exact address – the estate was a warren of culs-de-sac and one-way streets; a tail would have burned bright as a beacon – but they could have established her general whereabouts, and then gone door to door.
‘And what makes you sure they wanted to kill you?’
She picked up the bread and stared at it, puzzled. Then put it carefully down. ‘What else would they have planned?’
It pulled at his heart to have her sitting here, both because it was her and because it was here. Sid, whom he’d thought dead. And here, of all places, where that same heart had put down its first roots. He’d been carted place to place by his mother, like a suitcase. Only once she’d abandoned him to his grandparents’ care had he learned what home meant. And thinking that thought, he realised he had no idea what family Sidonie Baker had; what friends she might have left behind. Besides himself, he thought, then caught that: had he been her friend? They’d fought through most of their short relationship. Which was a familiar story when it came to River and women, though in his defence, by no means all of them ended up shot in the head.
And it was impossible not to think about head wounds, their long-term implications. Being shot in the head might leave you fearing being shot in the head again. Most professions this didn’t happen once, let alone twice, but River could see how it might be: once shot, twice shy. Sid was a softer presence now; her colours muted. Maybe her reception in general was fuzzier, and prone to static. Strangers weren’t always dangerous, but those that were were best avoided. Why wouldn’t she imagine them bringing harm to her door?
Some of this might have been written on his face, because she said, ‘You think I’m paranoid.’
‘No.’
‘Yes you do.’
‘Sid, you had a bad time of it, and I’m sorry. It was my fault.’
Truth was, he could barely remember if that were so. He had been the reason Sid was there that night, on that London street in the rain, but he hadn’t asked her to come.
‘You didn’t pull the trigger,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘Well then.’
‘Why did you come here?’
‘I couldn’t think of anywhere else. And you’re safe.’ She raised a hand to the white stripe in her hair. ‘You’re a slow horse. Whatever’s going on, whatever’s happening, you’re not involved. Slow horses never are.’
Which was partly true, he thought. Slow horses spent a lot of time not being involved. And by the time things turned out otherwise, it was frequently too late.
‘Why do you think they’re after you?’
‘Maybe I know something.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know … Maybe I used to know something, and I’ve forgotten what it was. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still know it. Back there.’
She made a vague gesture: the back of her mind, she meant. A part blocked off since the shooting. He imagined the bullet throwing up furrows as it creased her head: creating little earthworks in the brain, behind which memories piled, irretrievable clumps of information.
And that would be just like a slow horse too, he thought. To be in possession of crucial information, and still be the last to know.
‘What do you think I should do?’
‘You can stay here for a while.’
‘That’s not a solution. Just a hiding place.’
‘Best I can do right now.’ He wanted to move closer to her, offer reassurance, but wasn’t sure that was the way to do so. Instead, he rose and turned on the lamp in the corner, dispelling the gathering gloom. ‘I can try to find out more about those missionaries.’
‘They weren’t missionaries.’
‘Whoever they were. I can get Ho to check them out, probably.’
Provided he didn’t mind eating some serious shit.
‘Roderick Ho … Is he still with you?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘How is he?’
‘Much the same,’ said River. ‘Unfortunately.’
