‘Besides,’ Ho said. ‘Who else? Chopping a kid’s head off on prime-time? Nobody does that except—’
‘Idiots,’ said Lamb. ‘You’re all idiots.’
His slow gaze took them all in: River, Sid and Ho; Min Harper and Louisa Guy; Struan Loy and Kay White; Catherine Standish, on whom he seemed to focus with particular disdain. ‘It’s on the table now. Don’t you get it? They cut heads off, so can we. That’s the masterplan behind this piece of theatre. Somebody somewhere will be using the words
Nobody spoke.
‘I’m disappointed. Nobody think I’m off the wall?’
River would have pulled his own tongue out sooner than tell him he’d had the same thoughts. ‘If you’re right, why haven’t they said so? Why mask him until now?’
‘That’s the way I’d do it,’ Lamb said. ‘If I wanted maximum attention. I’d start off letting everybody think they knew what was happening. So by the time I got around to explaining the real deal, everyone would already have an opinion.’
And he was right, thought River. The fat bastard was probably right. Everywhere, everybody would be doing what Lamb had said: reconfiguring their earlier position that this was Islamist extremism. And he wondered how many of them would experience a brief hiccup before civilized outrage reasserted itself; a moment in which the thought would intrude that this foul threat, if neither fair nor just, was at least some kind of balancing.
Catherine said, ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ and left.
Lamb said, ‘Speaking of which, I assume this little gathering means you’ve all finished your current assignments? Because I want hard-copy updates by three. Along with a ten-bullet explanation of precisely why it’s crucial we get a six-month extension on each of them.’ He looked round.
Nobody blinked. ‘Good. Because we don’t want to end up credit-crunched for looking like a bunch of useless tossers, do we?’
On Ho’s monitor, the slightest of flickers indicated that the loop had come to an end and the reel was beginning again. The boy’s face was still soft and glossy, but his eyes were shafts into the dark.
‘Where’s Moody, anyway?’ Lamb asked.
But nobody knew, or nobody said.
A shag was making its way up and down the Thames, carving out a stretch of river between Hungerford Bridge and Canary Wharf. She didn’t know much about the behaviour of birds—wasn’t one hundred per cent this was a shag—but she suspected that if another turned up there’d be trouble; feathers would fly, and the loser would end up downriver, looking for a quiet life. That was what happened when territory was at stake.
Take this space here: a bench where you could sit with your back to the Globe. Streams of tourists passed every hour, and in either direction fire-jugglers, buskers and itinerant poets jealously guarded their patches; fistfights, even stabbings, resulting from encroachment on another’s turf. Income was at stake. For the shag, food was the prize; for the hustler, tourist silver. But none of them knew the real value of the estate, which was that it was a blank spot. The bench on which Diana Taverner sat was in a twelve-yard corridor of CCTV limbo. It was a small safe cupboard in the open air, and had been reserved for her alone by a foul-looking splash of birdshit running most of its length; a revolting mess ensuring that even the weariest tourist would look elsewhere to rest his bones, though it was, in fact, a plastic transfer.
Unregarded, then, and off the leash, she lit a cigarette, and dragged a lungful of sweet poison into her system. Like most pleasures, this one diminished the more you indulged it. In normal circumstances Lady Di could let a pack last a month, but today, she suspected, she might be setting records.
A weak light fell upon the river. On both banks, the usual noises obtained: the rattle and honk of city traffic; the constant buzz of a million conversations. Way overhead, airliners were stacking up for Heathrow, while nearer to ground level a helicopter discovered a new shortcut between one side of London and the other.
Taverner breathed out smoke which hung in the air two seconds, then broke apart like a daydream. A passing jogger altered course to avoid the drift. Smoking was almost as good a guarantor of privacy as fake birdshit. Though give it another year or two, and it would probably be an arrestable offence.
