Taverner said, ‘Check the rulebook, Lamb. You run Slough House, and God knows, nobody’s looking to take that away. But I’m head of ops, which means directing personnel. All personnel. Yours or anyone else’s.’
Jackson Lamb farted.
‘God, you’re a vile specimen.’
‘So I’m told,’ he said. ‘Okay, say you’re right, and this is none of my business. What do I do about the body on my staircase? Call in the Dogs?’
If he hadn’t had it before, he had her attention now.
‘Moody?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘He’s dead?’
‘The proverbial dodo.’
Across the water, the smokers fell upon a joke of unusual hilarity. The canal’s surface was ruffled by the wind.
Lamb said, ‘You wanted to subcontract, you could have chosen more carefully. Jesus, I mean, Jed Moody? Even when he was any good he wasn’t any good. And it’s a long time since he was any good.’
‘Who killed him?’
‘You want to hear something funny? He tripped over his own feet.’
‘That’ll sound good before Limitations. Though you might want to leave out the bit about it being funny.’
Lamb threw back his head and laughed a silent laugh, while leaves’ shadows flickered across his wobbling face. He looked like someone Goya might have painted. ‘Good. Very good. Limitations, yes. So we call in the Dogs? Hell, it’s a death. Why don’t I call the plod? As it happens, I’ve a mobile with me.’ He grinned at her. His teeth, mostly different shapes, shone wet.
‘Okay.’
‘The coroner. His turf, right?’
‘You’ve made your point, Lamb.’
He went fumbling in his pockets, and for a horrified moment she thought he was unzipping himself, but he produced a packet of Marlboro instead. He drew one with his teeth, and as an afterthought waved the pack in her direction.
Taverner took one. Always accept hospitality. It forms a bond. Makes you allies.
Of course, whoever had taught her that hadn’t been thinking of Jackson Lamb.
He said, ‘Talk.’
‘It’s good to see you too, PJ.’
‘Have you lost your cocking mind?’
‘You’ve not been taking my calls.’
‘Of course I haven’t, you’re fucking toxic. Did anyone see you arrive?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What kind of prick answer is that?’
‘The only prick answer I’ve got!’ Hobden shouted.
The pitch of his voice caused something metallic to ring.
It gave PJ pause, or caused him to appear that it did. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. Well. Crikey. I suppose you’ve got a reason.’
‘Someone tried to kill me,’ Hobden said.
‘To kill you? Yes, well. Lots of fanatics about. I mean, you’re not the most
‘This wasn’t a fanatic, PJ. It was a spook.’
‘A spook.’
‘We’re talking assassination.’
Judd’s lapse into his public persona didn’t survive the word. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. What was it, a close encounter on a zebra crossing? I’ve got guests, Hobden. The fucking Minister for Culture’s upstairs, and he’s got the attention span of a gnat, so I need to—’
‘He was a spook. They’ve been following me. He broke into my flat and waved a gun around and—somebody got shot. If you don’t believe me, turn the news on. Or on second thoughts, don’t—there’ll be a D. But call the Home Secretary, he’ll know. Blood on the pavement. Outside my flat.’
PJ weighed it up: the likelihood of any of this having happened, as against Hobden’s appearance in his kitchen. ‘Okay,’ he said at length. ‘But you live at the arse end of nowhere, Robert. I mean, home invasions, they must be weekly events. What makes this different?’
Hobden shook his head. ‘You’re not listening.’ Then shook his head again: he hadn’t laid out the whole story. That business at Max’s the other morning; the spilt coffee. Nothing to it at the time, but since the gunman’s appearance Hobden had replayed recent history, and concluded that this evening had been a culmination, not a one-off. When he’d picked up his keys to leave the café, his memory stick had fallen loose and bounced on to the table. It had never done that before. Why hadn’t a warning bell rung?
‘They tried to take my files. They want to see how much I know.’
And now PJ took on a new seriousness; a side the public never got to see. ‘Your
‘They didn’t get them. They copied my memory stick, but—’
‘What the fuck do your files contain, Hobden?’
‘—it’s a dummy. Just numbers. With any luck they’ll think it’s a code, waste their time trying to—’
‘What. Exactly. Do your files contain?’
Hobden raised his hands to eye-level; examined them a moment or two. They shook. ‘See that? I could have died. They could have killed me.’
‘Give me strength.’ And now Peter Judd started ransacking his kitchen, morally certain there’d be alcohol somewhere, or what was the point of it? A bottle of vodka appeared. Cooking vodka, would that be? Did people cook with vodka? Was PJ muttering any of this aloud, or did his body language shout it while he located a glass and splashed out a generous measure?
‘So.’ Handing the glass to Hobden. ‘What do your files contain? Names?’ He barked the sudden laugh TV audiences liked. ‘My name wouldn’t be there anywhere.’ Underneath the bark, the hint of bite. ‘Would it?’
‘No names. Nothing like that.’
