He said, ‘They must be tripping over each other, if we’ve all got a shadow. And won’t they be wondering how come we all work in the same building?’
‘So we’re a building full of patsies. Besides, maybe they’re doing us one at a time. Who knows? The fact they’re doing it at all is what pisses me off.’
‘Enough to “team up” with the in-house pariah?’
Shirley scrunched her face into make-believe misery. ‘Boohoo. I got caught watching kiddy porn. Poor me.’
‘Fuck you, Dander. I didn’t do that, never have, never would.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Never.’
‘Yeah. That’s what Catherine said.’
He almost choked. ‘… She said what?’
‘That what happened with the kiddy porn was a plant. That you’d been framed. She didn’t say why. Classified.’ She made quote marks with her fingers to illustrate the word, and sprayed sauce onto Lech’s trouser leg. ‘Oh, sorry.’
He looked at the red splashes on his chinos, then at Shirley, cramming what was left of her lunch into her mouth. She rolled her eyes at him.
‘You all know I was framed. Lamb too. And you all still treat me like shit.’
Shirley spoke through food. ‘So you got a tough break. Doesn’t mean we have to like you. You’re kind of a prick most of the time.’
‘For fuck’s sake! I’ve had my whole life destroyed!’
‘None of us are in our happy place.’ She swallowed, then offered him her napkin. ‘You could pour some water on that. Then dab at it.’
‘It’ll make it worse.’
‘But at least you’ll be doing something.’ He made no move to take the napkin, so she wiped her mouth with it instead. ‘Look. Shit happened. Join the club. Meanwhile, more shit is being dropped from a height by Regent’s Park’s pigeon squadron. You gunna lie back with your mouth open, or grab a bow and arrow?’
Lech resisted the temptation to rub at the stain on his trousers and rubbed his cheek instead. The scarring felt strange terrain still; as if he were wearing a mask, and kept forgetting about it. Or had woken to find himself taking part in a masquerade, or an armed robbery. ‘You’re kind of a prick yourself,’ he told her.
‘Yeah, well,’ said Shirley. ‘You get used to it. Do you do coke ever?’
‘… No. Well, sometimes. But no.’
‘I wasn’t offering. Just, there’s a guy on one of the stalls down there, one of the Thai places? He’s your man, you get the urge.’
He had the weird feeling this was Shirley’s idea of a friendship offering. The pipe of peace. Three guesses what would end up in any pipe Shirley got hold of.
‘Okay,’ he said at last. The terrace was empty now, apart from themselves. Shreds of blue sky were showing through rips in the cloud canopy. ‘What are you planning?’
Shirley said, ‘Let’s take one of the bastards down.’
River was in his office, having spent the day staring at his screen, or else through the window, which had planted a square of sunlight onto the vacant desk he shared the room with. It had once been where Sid Baker sat, and that remained its chief significance even during J. K. Coe’s tenure, which hadn’t been fair on Coe, but Slough House wasn’t big on fairness. And now Sid was back. All this time, she’d been in the world, hidden away; partly erased but still breathing, waiting for the moment to appear to him, in his grandfather’s study.
For months he’d been wondering what secrets might be preserved in that room, encrypted among a wealth of facts and fictions. Bringing them into the light would be a task for an archivist – a Molly Doran. He remembered sitting in the kitchen once, watching his grandmother prepare a Christmas goose: this had involved removing its organs, which Rose had set about with the same unhurried calm she had approached most things, explaining as she did so the word ‘haruspicate’. To divine the future from the entrails of birds or beasts. He’d planned the opposite: to unshelve those books, crack their spines, break their wings, and examine their innards for clues to the past. His grandfather’s past, he’d assumed. Instead, what he’d found in that room was something broken off from his own life. Now read on.
Roderick Ho had been summoned to Lamb’s presence after the meeting this morning, but was back in his own office now. You didn’t have to be a spy in Slough House: the creaky staircases and unoiled doors offered clues as to who was where. When River went downstairs, he found that Ho had set his monitors up so they were angled towards him like a tanning device. PC pallor. From behind them, he squinted suspiciously at River.
‘What’s happening?’ River asked.
‘… Why?’
‘Just curious.’
Ho shook his head. ‘Uh-uh.’
‘Lamb got you on some special mission?’
Ho’s eyes narrowed, which River took as a yes. But then, Ho always thought whatever he was doing was a special mission, even downloading menus from local takeaways.
‘Well, I’ve got one. When you’re free.’
‘I don’t work for you.’
‘None of us work for each other. We work
Ho rolled his eyes.
‘No, really. I can just see you as Mrs Peel.’
