And the trouble with your lot, thought Hassan … The trouble with your lot … But there was so much wrong with Curly’s lot that there was no smart phrase to do it justice. The trouble with Curly’s lot was that it contained Curly, and others like him. What more needed saying?
Curly stepped forward, into the dip, and up the other side. He swapped the axe from one hand to the other; made a little lunge with it to tease his victim; then was neatly hooked round the ankle by the root Hassan had avoided, and hammered down flat on his face. Hassan watched, fascinated, as Curly took a mouthful of leaf and mud; was so engrossed by the spectacle that it took him a full second to register that the axe had just landed at his feet.
But even with bound hands, it took him less than a full second to pick it up.
Spider Webb’s words, the other day. They were right up there with
The folder he held was neatly labelled
‘And this,’ he said to Taverner, ‘is why you had Spider burn me.’
‘Burn you?’
Lamb said, ‘He’s a kid. He gets carried away with the jargon.’
‘I’m calling Duffy back in.’
‘Be my guest,’ Lamb told her. He was fiddling with his bent cigarette again, and seemed at least as interested in it as in whatever River’s folder held. But still: River waited until Lamb threw him a barely perceptible nod, before he went on.
He said, ‘I did my upgrade assessment last winter.’
‘I remember,’ Taverner said. ‘You crashed King’s Cross.’
‘No, you did that. By getting Webb to feed me misinformation, sending me after a plant. A fake fake. Not the real one.’
‘And why would I do that?’
‘Because an earlier part of the assessment was compiling a profile on a public figure,’ River said. ‘My designated target was a Shadow Cabinet Minister, but he had a stroke the night before, and was hospitalized. So I covered you instead. I thought that showed initiative, but you know what?’ He opened the folder, and removed a pair of photographs he’d taken months ago, the day before the King’s Cross assignment. ‘It showed you in a coffee shop instead. Happy memories?’
He laid them on the desk where they could all see. The pictures had been taken from outside a Starbucks, and showed Diana Taverner at a window seat, drinking from a regular-sized mug. Next to her was a crew-cut man in a dark overcoat. In the first photograph he held a handkerchief to his nose, and could have been anyone. In the second he’d lowered his hand, and was Alan Black.
‘He must have been about to go undercover. Was that your last meet?’
Taverner didn’t reply. Behind her eyes, Lamb and River could see calculations rolling once again; as if even here, in a glass room, she might still find a way out that neither of them had yet noticed.
Lamb said, ‘When you found out what Cartwright had done, you took steps. The King’s Cross business should have meant game over, he should have been on the street. But because he had a legend in the family, the best you could manage was Slough House, and once the op was running, and the Voice of Albion was in play, you had Sid Baker assigned to us too, just to make sure Cartwright wasn’t getting any clever ideas. Which, given grandad, he’d likely be prone to, right?’
On a train of her own, she said, ‘I told Webb to get rid of the file.’
‘He’s a quick learner too.’
‘What do you want, Lamb?’
Lamb said, ‘There’s a reason why handlers are always ex-joes. It’s because they know what they’re doing. You couldn’t have fucked this up worse if you were trying.’
‘You’ve made your point. What do you want?’
River said, ‘You know what I want?’
She turned her gaze on him, and he understood a fundamental difference between suits and joes. When a joe looked at you, if he was any good, you’d never notice. But when a suit turned it on, you could feel their glare scorching holes in your intestinal tract.
But still, he was the O.B.’s grandson. ‘If Hassan Ahmed dies,’ he said, ‘there’s no hiding place. It all comes out. Not just here in the Park, but out there in the real world. If your idiot plan gets that kid killed, I will crucify you. Publicly.’
Taverner made a noise halfway between a snort and a laugh. She said to Lamb, ‘Are you going to tell him the facts of life, or shall I?’
‘You already screwed him,’ Lamb told her. ‘Bit late for a theory lesson, I’d have thought. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do.’
She waited.
He said, ‘If Hassan Ahmed dies, I’ll watch Cartwright’s back while he does whatever he thinks necessary.’
And River learned something else about suits and joes; that when a joe wants to be noticed, he is.
After a while, Taverner said, ‘What if the boy’s rescued?’
Lamb gave her his shark’s grin. ‘That happens, maybe we’ll keep it between ourselves. There’s bound to be favours we can do each other.’
The grin made it clear in which direction the favours would flow.
