‘No, what’s funny is, Taverner wants you toasted both sides. But that Russian crew leaving bodies everywhere? As far as they’re concerned, you’re their best mate. Better hope they reach you before the Park does.’
‘Fuck off.’
Before he reached the door, Reece said, ‘I wouldn’t stand too close to those windows. Regent’s Park hire some pretty sharp shooters.’
He was confident you’d need a tank to break that glass. But it wouldn’t hurt to have Cantor think there might be one nearby.
Diana remained where she was after ending her call, adding a cigarette butt to the cairn on an air vent’s flat top. The day was settling on its mood: sunny with grim intervals. Her own outlook was pretty much the inverse. It would give her no pleasure to call off the hunt for Moscow’s hit squad. Amnesty was too big a concession, even if their victims were ex-Slough House, too lowly for a Spook’s Chapel send-off. There should have been retribution. And if Lamb found out about the deal she’d just agreed there probably would be, even if disproportionate and wrongly directed.
But there was sunshine too. Cantor was hers now. If she’d thought she’d get away with it, she’d have let Vassily Rasnokov think she didn’t know who’d stolen the Slough House file, but that wouldn’t fly. If Rasnokov thought Diana incapable of discovering that much, he’d have been too busy pissing himself laughing to take her call. So there was no chance she could turn Cantor round and use him to feed Moscow a bullshit buffet. Instead, she had Cantor himself, because Rasnokov had holiday snaps all right – everyone took holiday snaps. Rasnokov had sound and vision of Cantor handing the stolen file to his Russian new-media exec pals, because Moscow Rules and London Rules shared this much in common: once you handed over secrets, you became the product. Cantor would have found out the hard way that you never feed a cat just once. You feed a cat, it owns you ever after.
The same sets of rules said you never burned an asset either, but Rasnokov was old-school Spook Street. No way would he leave his crew out in joe country, even when the crew were a pair of assassins, and the mission one he hadn’t believed in. He wanted them brought home, because that was what you did. You brought your joes back, or buried them yourself. If that cost you an asset, so be it.
And hidden in there was another ray of sunshine: Rasnokov’s admission that he’d not have sent his crew into the field if he hadn’t been pressured from above.
That was more than sunshine; it almost promised a summer. But while the glimmer of a crack in Moscow’s walls was a fine thing to contemplate, there was also the possibility that Rasnokov wanted her to believe that such a crack existed; had given her a glimpse of it simply in order to get his joes back. So yes, she’d think hard on that, but not right now. She had other eggs to boil. Her back to the view, she took out her main phone and rang the first number on her contact list.
‘I need to see him,’ she said.
And then, moments later, ‘Four o’clock. Yes. Thank you.’
She put the phone away.
Next, she’d call off the search for the hit squad. This would cause muttering, but First Desk didn’t have to listen, she just had to give orders. And if everyone else fell in line, then, grim intervals or not, she could come out of the far end of today back on top.
Just so long as nobody fucked things up in the meantime.
A HANDWRITTEN NOTICE PASTED TO the window offered thanks, blessings and farewells to friends and customers, and then said the same thing over again, presumably, in, presumably, Polish. That much Shirley Dander had taken in before getting down on her knees. Roderick Ho stood to one side, pretending to speak into a mobile phone, while she got busy with what Lamb had assured her was a set of global skeleton keys, good for any standard-issue lock; an assurance that, so far, had proved as sound as one of his motivational homilies.
‘Bastard thing.’
Into his phone, Ho said, ‘I’ve given my instructions. I expect them to be acted on immediately,
‘Supposed to be blending in,’ Shirley muttered. ‘Not dicking out.’
Because it was a busy midweek morning Roddy Ho had opted for camouflage, and as well as his phone was holding a clipboard Catherine Standish had found. This made him look, Shirley claimed, like a nervous driving instructor, to which Ho had retorted that he was, in fact, as chilled as …
Minutes passed.
None of these damn keys fit.
‘… Samuel L. Jackson’s drinks cabinet.’
‘What?’
‘That’s how chilled.’
‘You’re supposed to be on the phone. Not talking to me.’
Roddy said into his mobile, ‘Nah, no one important. Just some underling whose arse needs kicking.’
‘Like that’s gunna happen.’ Shirley had had haircuts that had done more damage than Ho was capable of.
The next key was also a failure.
‘Is it opening again?’
‘… I’m sorry?’
‘The shop.’ It was an elderly woman wheeling a shopping basket. ‘Old Miles’s.’
