‘You want the good news first or the bad news? And I should warn you up front, the bad news is, there’s no good news.’
Which was how Lamb had greeted them once they’d answered the summons to his room, delivered via Slough House’s version of jungle drums: Lamb’s foot, stamping repeatedly on Lamb’s office floor.
Catherine said, ‘Why don’t we cut the pantomime for once, and you could just let everyone know what’s up?’
Lamb, who was drinking what was probably tea from a mug the size of a bucket, raised his eyebrows. ‘Dissent in the ranks? Okay, I’m a reasonable man. Let’s put it to the vote. Hands up those who prefer Standish’s approach. Right. Now, hands up all those in charge. Oh, just me?’ He lowered his hand. ‘The mes have it.’
River Cartwright said, ‘Glad we’ve established that. What’s the bad news?’
‘You know how your self-esteem couldn’t get lower? Well, congratulations. We have a new depth. Tell ’em, Standish.’
‘Louisa was right,’ Catherine said. ‘She was being followed, by a Park junior. As are the rest of you, on and off.’
A certain amount of clamour followed this. Lamb, meanwhile, sipped tea daintily from his bucket, like a well-behaved silverback.
‘As a training exercise,’ Catherine said, once the noise had died down. ‘That’s why Slough House was wiped. To turn you all – us all – into anonymous targets.’
‘So we’re what now,’ asked Louisa. ‘Tin ducks at a fairground stall?’
‘Kind of,’ said Lamb. ‘Only without the individual personalities.’
‘And this is Taverner’s doing,’ said River.
‘You have to admit, it has a sly charm all her own.’
Shirley Dander said, ‘It’s a fucking liberty is what it is.’
Ho was looking from one slow horse to another, as if trying to work out when it would be his turn to speak.
Louisa said, ‘Have you suggested to Taverner that she curtail this?’
‘Hell no. Why would I do that?’
‘To stop your team being treated with disrespect? … Sorry. Forget I spoke.’
‘Already done.’ Lamb set his mug down carefully, then belched with all the restraint of a defrocked nun. ‘Anyway, I can’t see the harm, to be honest. Not like you present a challenge. And if you’re now serving two purposes instead of one, it’s like I’ve just halved all your salaries.’ He beamed. ‘Win win.’
‘What level surveillance are we under?’ asked Lech.
‘What level whattery are we what?’
‘Surveillance. Are they simply using us for pavement practice, or should we assume our airwaves have been tagged?’
‘Ah, yes, I can see why that’s an issue for you. What with all the porn out there, just waiting to be googled.’ He adopted a pious expression. ‘If that’s what one does with porn. You’re asking the wrong person, really. But as far as the surveillance question’s concerned, the answer is, I have no fucking clue. But thank you, Forrest Gimp. Good input.’
Catherine said, ‘So the plan is, we just put up with whatever nonsense the Park wishes upon us?’
Lamb rolled his eyes. ‘God, you’re a drag to have around. Moan moan moan. It’s like being shackled to the ghost of Bob Marley.’
‘I think you mean Jacob.’
‘Depends,’ said Lamb. ‘Which was the one surrounded by wailers?’
After that, the morning crawled past. Lech was deep into his register of social media absconders; #gonequiet, as he’d mentally dubbed it. There seemed no useful algorithm he could apply, so mostly he was making a random trawl of hot-button issues, particularly the aftermaths of terrorist events. In the midst of grief and anger, you could always discern hate. It occurred to him that, for all his pre-digital outlook, Lamb was a walking correlative of Twitter, inasmuch as his daily outpourings of bile didn’t look like drying up anytime soon. An insight he’d once have enjoyed relaying to Sara, his fiancée, when he got home, except they were no longer engaged and no longer lived together. There probably weren’t many relationships could survive accusations of paedophile leanings, he thought. He couldn’t blame Sara for pulling the plug, though he did.
Someone called @thetruthbomb had enjoyed the New Zealand murders.
Shirley Dander was standing in the doorway.
Lech assumed she’d come to see Roderick Ho, who was headphoned and might as well have been blinkered too, which was as much to say, he was being Roderick Ho. But Dander walked straight to Lech’s desk and stood waiting for a reaction, like a mute charity mugger.
‘… What?’
‘You doing anything?’
Lech looked at his computer, looked at Shirley, looked at the ceiling, looked back at Shirley. ‘Now?’
‘For lunch.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I was thinking, maybe fish?’
Lech said, ‘And why do you want me along?’
‘Bait,’ said Shirley.
The keeper of overlooked history, thought Diana. The curator of the dusty box file.
Or just an old bag in a wheelchair.
Two views of Molly Doran.
