He made no attempt to hide the thoroughness with which he wiped his hip flask before drinking from it. But Desmond Flint had left the cab by then, and had far too much on his mind to take offence.
River pulled into a lay-by half a mile short of home, and Sid handed him his dismantled mobile. He inserted the battery and powered up.
‘If you’ve all gone dark, won’t Lamb have disabled his phone too?’
He remembered the last time Lamb had switched Slough House’s lights out: he’d gathered their mobiles and posted them down a drain. On the other hand, Lamb was freer with other folks’ possessions than he was with his own. But ‘Soon find out’ was all he said.
Lamb answered on the seventh ring. ‘What fresh bollocks is this?’
‘Me.’
‘Not dead yet, then.’
‘It would seem not.’
‘And Baker?’
‘I’d probably have mentioned it first thing.’
‘So you’re breaking protocol why, to tell me you finally got her knickers off?’
‘Someone came for her. Two someones.’
‘And …?’
River said, ‘They’re no longer a problem.’
‘Well, treat my billy goats rough.’ Lamb paused. ‘Okay, good. Unless they were just pollsters or window cleaners or something. You wouldn’t be the first pair to go to town on a passer-by tonight.’
River didn’t know and didn’t care. ‘There’s a car. It’ll need tidying away.’
‘So now I’m your valeting service.’
‘Jackson, I’m not in the fucking mood.’
‘That’s clear. I assume you’re calling from nowhere?’
The middle of. River said, ‘I thought it best to put some distance between us and the …’
‘Recyclables,’ suggested Lamb.
‘Yeah. So, are we still dark? Or can I get the Park to do their thing?’
‘No. Just get back where you started from. Wicinski and Dander are heading there now.’
‘And then?’
‘And by then I’ll have a plan. Are the, ah, empties likely to be noticed any time soon?’
‘Let’s hope not.’
‘Yeah. When did hope ever let us down?’
Lamb disconnected.
Sid said, ‘Well, anyone eavesdropping on that’ll assume it’s just another Wednesday evening.’
Her voice was stronger.
River said, ‘He knows you’re alive. Probably always has done.’
‘He sounds like he hasn’t changed.’
‘No. If anything, he’s more so.’
‘What were those names he said?’
‘Wicinski and Dander. Lech and Shirley.’
‘And he’d already dispatched them to the O.B.’s. So he was worried about you. Us.’
‘Not sure worry comes into it.’ He removed the battery from his phone once more. ‘It’s all a game. He’s just shifting pieces round the board.’
‘Isn’t that what your grandfather used to do?’
‘There’s no comparison.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Barely common ground, even.’ He scowled quickly, for no reason. Then asked, ‘You all right?’
Sid looked at her hands. They’d almost stopped shaking. She said, ‘There was this voice I kept hearing. In my head.’
‘That’s okay. We all get them.’
‘Shut up. It was … I thought of it as my bullet. The one I was shot with? It was like it talked to me.’
River pulled away, his eyes on the dark road ahead. ‘Okay,’ he said again.
‘Only it kind of drowned. When she was holding my head in the lake.’
‘Not a peep since.’
River drove on. The road had grown familiar again: the usual bends, the usual straights. The patch of trees ahead were squared off where they overhung the road, remodelled by the regular passing of a bus. ‘I’m not an expert. But maybe that’s what happens, maybe traumas … cancel each other out.’
‘Seriously? You’re not an expert?’
‘Yeah, shut up.’
‘Because that sounds like seven years of medical school talking.’
River said, ‘You sound fine. Maybe you should walk from here.’
She smiled, and looked down at her hands again. ‘Thanks. By the way.’
‘No need.’
‘She’d have killed me.’
‘I know. But you did pretty good yourself.’
Sid said, ‘I’m not sure good’s the word I’d use.’
‘You or him.’
‘Yes. I know.’
‘And I don’t ever want it to be you again.’
He pulled aside to allow an oncoming car to pass, and they rounded another corner, and then were home.
Catherine said, ‘They’re alive, then.’
‘The night is young.’
Louisa said, ‘“Recyclables”? “Empties”?’
‘It seems our hit squad caught up with Romeo and Juliet, and wonder of wonders, came off second.’ Lamb shook his head. ‘Good job I’m not a gambling man. I’d have lost the house.’
‘And they’re both okay?’
‘’Spect so. What am I, NHS Direct?’
‘It’s over then,’ said Catherine.
‘Yeah, sure it is,’ said Lamb. ‘Someone sics a hunter-killer crew on me, I’m basically just happy to call it bygones.’
Roddy said, ‘I was hoping to see some of that action myself.’
They all stared, and Louisa said, ‘You do realise you said that out loud?’
Because there were no tables, the floor was a mess of foil trays and cardboard covers, plastic knives and forks. In place of the new-paint smell that had lingered like a not-yet-broken promise, the mingled aromas of baltis and bhajis, dhansaks and dhal had taken over, along with – because Shirley had fetched Lamb a plastic lighter – cigarette smoke. Catherine had retaliated by opening the window. Lamb had glared at her as if this were the first skirmish in what might turn out a prolonged war.
