‘But the first bedtime story he ever did read me was
‘
‘You get the picture. For my twelfth birthday, he bought me le Carré’s collected works. I can still remember what he said about them.’
River returned to the screen. The newspaper the boy held trembled. Why was he holding it with the back page showing, though?
‘The BBC,’ he said out loud, thinking of the link Sid had sent him.
‘A blog on their news pages. The link was posted there, along with the beheading threat. Then it mushroomed. It’ll be everywhere now.’
River had a sudden image of darkened rooms all over the country, all over the world; heads bent over monitors, studying iPhones, watching nothing happening, slowly. In some of the hearts of those watching would be the same sick dread he felt now; and in others, there’d be unholy joy.
‘Can we trace the link?’ Sid asked. ‘The IPS, I mean? Where it’s being broadcast from?’
He said, ‘Depends. If they’re clever, no. If they’re stupid …’
But both knew that this wasn’t going to end as swiftly and satisfactorily as that.
Sid said, ‘He pissed you off, didn’t he? More than usual, I mean?’
River didn’t need to ask. She meant Jackson Lamb.
He said, ‘How long have you been here now?’
‘Just a few months.’
‘I meant exactly.’
‘I don’t know exactly. Since August sometime.’
About two months.
He said, ‘I’ve been here eight months, two weeks and four days.’
Sid Baker was quiet a few moments, then said, ‘Okay. But hardly worth a long-service medal.’
‘You don’t get it, do you? Being here means I have to sit watching this like everybody else. That’s not what I joined the Service for.’
‘Maybe we’ll be needed.’
‘No. That’s what being in Slough House means. It means not being needed.’
‘If you hate it so much, why don’t you quit?’
‘And do what?’
‘Well, I don’t know. Whatever you like.’
‘Banking?’ he said. ‘Insurance?’
She fell silent.
‘The law? Property sales?’
‘Now you’re taking the piss.’
‘This is what I’m for,’ he said. He pointed at the screen, on which a hooded boy sat on a chair in a cellar. ‘To make things like this not happen. Or when they happen, make them stop. That’s what it is, Sidonie. I don’t want to do anything else.’
He couldn’t remember he’d ever called her that before.
She said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
She turned away. Then shook her head. ‘Sorry you feel that way. But one mistake doesn’t mean your career’s over. You’ll get another chance.’
‘What did you do?’ he asked.
‘Do?’
‘To deserve Slough House.’
Sid said, ‘What we’re doing is useful. It has to be done.’
‘And could be done by a bunch of trained monkeys.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Yesterday morning? Taking Hobden’s files?’
‘Yeah, okay, you got to—’
‘I’m not rubbing it in. I’m simply pointing out, maybe things are changing. Maybe Slough House isn’t such a dead end. I did something real. You went out too—’
‘To bring the rubbish in.’
‘Okay. A monkey could have done that.’
River laughed. Then shook his head. On his monitor, nothing had changed. The laugh turned sour in the air.
‘This poor sod needs more than monkeys on his side,’ he said.
Sid nodded.
River’s hand dropped to his thigh, and he felt the hard nub of the memory stick in his trouser pocket.
She meant well, he supposed, but her predecessor here had quit the Service, ground into submission by routine tasks. As had his own; a man called Black, who had lasted only six months, and left before River arrived. That was the true purpose of Slough House. It was a way of losing people without having to get rid of them, sidestepping legal hassle and tribunal threats. And it occurred to him that maybe that was the point of Sid’s presence: that her youth and freshness were meant as a counterpoint to the slow horses’ failure, rendering it more pungent. He could smell it now. Looking at this hooded boy on his screen, River could smell failure on his own skin. He couldn’t help this kid. Whatever the Service did, it would do without River’s assistance.
‘What is it?’
He turned back to Sid. ‘What’s what?’
‘You look like something occurred to you.’
He shook his head. ‘No. Nothing.’
