‘I’m not talking about after the event, I’m talking about tonight. These splinter groups, the BPP, the UK Nazis, the other fuckers, they may hate each other’s guts, but not half as much as they hate everyone else. Hobden’ll get the word out, if he hasn’t already. Pull your agent in. Now. Or Moody and Baker won’t be tonight’s only casualties.’
She turned away.
‘Taverner?’
‘They’re a sealed group. There’s no input from anywhere else.’
‘You wish. But look at how you’ve managed so far. This thing couldn’t have fallen apart faster if you’d bought it at Ikea, and you’re the professional. You think the jokers your agent’s entrapped in this farce have kept their mouths shut? Any minute now, one of them’s going to get a call from someone who knows someone who knows Hobden, telling them they’ve been set up, which means two people are in extreme danger right now. Your agent and this kid.’ Lamb blinked. ‘Who’s just some unlucky bastard who’s the wrong colour, right?’
She didn’t reply.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Lamb said. ‘How could this get worse?’
‘Because it’s got to be stopped,’ Hobden said. ‘Don’t you see?’
‘If it’s a Service op, obviously it’ll be stopped,’ Peter Judd pointed out. ‘Five are hardly going to let anyone be beheaded on the internet. The whole point—’
‘I know what the whole point is. It’s for everyone to forget about bombs on the tube, and all those dawn raids that finish in acquittals. No, we’ll have action footage of our brave spooks rescuing some poor brown-skinned boy, and coincidentally painting the right as a bunch of mad murdering bastards into the bargain. That’s what I want stopped. What about you? Do you want to let them get away with it?’
‘Given their track record, I rather doubt they will. But you still haven’t explained why you’re coming to me with this.’
‘Because we both know the tide’s turning. The decent people in this country are sick to death of being held hostage by mad liberals in Brussels, and the sooner we take control over our own future, our own borders—’
‘Are you seriously lecturing me?’
‘It’ll happen, and within the lifetime of your government. We both know that. Not this Parliament, but probably the next. By which time we both know where you expect to be living, and it won’t be Islington, will it?’ Hobden had grown alive again. Eyes bright. Breathing normal. ‘It’ll be Downing Street.’
‘Yes. Well.’ The effing and blinding PJ of ten minutes ago—the PJ who’d slapped Hobden—left the room; in his place was the bumbly figure familiar from countless broadcasts and not a few YouTube moments. ‘Obviously, if called upon to serve, I’ll leave my plough.’
‘And you’ll want to take your party further right, but what if that ground’s already staked out? And what if one of the occupying groups is mostly famous for attempting a prime-time execution?’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous. Not even the muckiest rakers of your former profession are going to equate Her Majesty’s Government with—’
‘Well, they might if they learn of your connection with one of those groups.’
And now they’d come to the meat of the matter.
Hobden said, ‘Don’t imagine that the reason I never mentioned it in print was that I thought it a youthful indiscretion. I just never wanted to hear you deny it in public. You’re PM material. With you at the helm, this country can be great again. And those of us who believe in strong government don’t want to hear you apologizing for the causes you truly espouse.’
PJ placed his glass very carefully on the counter. ‘I’ve never had any truck with extremism,’ he said levelly. Now he was Peter Judd, the people’s pundit: his tone precisely the one he used on TV when he was about to put someone right while indicating that few people had ever been wronger. ‘As it happens, I did write a report on the activities of some fringe right groups in the early nineties, in the course of researching which I attended one or two meetings.’ He leant closer, so Hobden could feel his breath.
‘And do you really think you have any credibility?’ His voice was velvet. ‘You’ll think the car crash your life has become is a fucking feather bed. Compared to what’ll happen next.’
‘I don’t want to cause a scandal. That’s the last thing I want. But if I did—’
Slowly, carefully, Hobden drained his own glass.
‘But if I did, I don’t need credibility. I have something far more useful.’
He set his empty glass next to PJ’s.
‘I have a photograph.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. How could this get worse?’
Taverner said, ‘It’s not simply about improving Five’s reputation. There’s a war on, Jackson. Even from Slough House you must have noticed. And we need all the allies we can get.’
‘Who is he?’
‘It’s not who he is, it’s who his uncle is.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ Lamb said. ‘Don’t tell me.’
‘His mother’s brother is Mahmud Gul.’
‘Jesus wept.’
‘General Mahmud Gul. Currently Second Desk at Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.’
‘Yes. Thank you. I know who he is. Jesus Christ.’
