Ho ignored him, and spoke to Louisa. ‘Told you I could do it.’
‘Actually,’ said Louisa, ‘you didn’t. Not in words.’
‘Same difference.’ He slid past River and opened the fridge, where half a pizza sat, still in its box. He wormed it out, but left the box where it was. ‘Seven tweeters in that postcode,’ he said, closing the fridge door. ‘Two mentioned people knocking on the door the morning you said.’
‘It was me said it,’ River put in helpfully. ‘If that matters.’
It didn’t seem to. ‘One said they were from the Latter Day Church of Heaven, and the other from the Latter Day Church of Christ the Redeemer. There’s no such places. So the dudes weren’t righteous, doesn’t look like.’
‘Is English your second language or your third?’
Ho scowled.
From upstairs came a familiar thump: Jackson Lamb wanting attention.
River said, ‘He wants your download on Lady Di. What’s that about?’
‘It’s below your pay grade,’ said Ho, cramming his pizza into his mouth before heading up the stairs.
‘Oh, happy day,’ said Louisa. ‘I want him to keep saying that forever.’
River said, ‘So they weren’t missionaries.’
‘Wouldn’t appear so.’
‘Which means Sid was right. They were looking for her.’
‘Possibly.’ The kitchen had filled with the smell of fresh coffee, and for a moment Slough House was transformed. ‘So it’s like I said before. You need to take this upstairs.’
‘The same upstairs using us as practice dummies?’
‘I meant Lamb.’
River said, ‘If we’ve been wiped, how come these guys know who to come looking for? If that’s what’s happening?’
She stared. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting Lamb has anything to do with it?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Except Sid’s in danger.’
‘And you plan to get all Jason Statham on it.’
‘Tell Catherine I’ve been taken sick, would you? Must have been something I saw Ho eat.’
Before he could leave, she said, ‘River?’
‘What?’
‘I don’t want to lose anyone else.’
‘When did the Stath ever get lost?’
‘Well, he’s made some pretty iffy career choices,’ Louisa said, but River was gone.
Afternoons dragged, but this one was reaching its apex now; tipping into evening. This happened differently than up north, where Sid had spent the last few years; differently, too, from the way it happened in cities, where you could measure sunlight’s decline against the buildings. Here there were trees that ought to perform the same function, but they were too variable to rely on, too prone to arbitrary movement, and seemed as if they might be capable of pushing the day on as their moods took them, ushering in the dusk with their gently waving limbs.
They were best watched from upstairs. Sid had told River she stayed in the study, but that wasn’t true. Obviously, she had to use the bathroom, and while these were brief furtive visits, tarried over no longer than necessary to get the job done, there were also times, like now, when she’d climb the stairs to the master bedroom, which had a view of the lane that wound through the trees. This was surprisingly well maintained, given its negligible importance. Eventually it joined forces with a larger road, which in turn fed into a motorway, which in turn became London. All these miles distant, that was a barely imaginable turbulence. Here, in rural stillness, there was a house next door, separated by a generous strip of garden and a bossy hedge; that aside, the next dwelling was a hundred yards down the lane. Before reaching it, you could cut off along a footpath, which took you to the village. She knew all this from a map she’d found in the study. There were other footpaths, dotted lines; you could tear along them, and rip the countryside to shreds. Scatter the pieces like leaves in a wind.
Tonight, anxiety had drawn her upstairs. Being alone all day skewed her emotional thermostat. The continual silence oppressed her, yet any unexpected noise – a passing lorry, passing voices – would have her crouching against a wall, waiting for it to subside. And then she’d find herself stroking the rift in her skull, wondering how much of her identity, of Sidonie Baker, had been carved away by that bullet’s passage. She had never been one to cower against walls. That was something the bullet had left her with; a whole new character trait, conjured out of pain and confusion.
