Lamb didn’t look any different, was still a soft fat rude bastard, still dressed like he’d been thrown through a charity shop window, but Jesus, River thought—Lamb was a joe. He kept a flight fund pinned behind his noticeboard, which he plastered with money-off coupons and out-of-date special offer ads nobody ever saw beyond. Mis-direction. It was what a joe did, or so the O.B. had always told River:
Crossing the Thames, River saw a world of tall glass buildings. They were mostly in darkness, towers of unilluminated windows casting back pinpricks of light they’d found on the streets below or the skies above, but here and there a pane would be starkly lit, and through some there were figures visible, crouched over desks or just standing in rooms, their attention owned by the unknowable. There was always something going on. And it wasn’t always possible, from the outside, to understand what it was.
Of course, hope is what gets you in the end.
Worse than the noise had been the silence that followed.
Hassan was holding his breath, as if he were hiding, rather than being hidden. It half-occurred to him that if these bastards knew how English he was, how wary of drawing attention to himself, they’d forget the colour of his skin and embrace him as one of their own … But no, these bastards, they’d never forget his skin. Hassan Ahmed hoped that the SWAT team, the armed police, his uncle the soldier, showed these bastards no mercy, now they’d tracked them down.
Larry, Moe and Curly.
Curly, Larry and Moe.
Hassan didn’t give a toss who they were either, all right?
But it wasn’t his uncle who burst into the cellar a minute later.
‘You.’
They meant him.
‘On your fucking feet.’
But Hassan couldn’t get up. Gravity had sealed him to the chair. So they had to help him—grab him. Drag him. Rough-handle him on to shaky legs and pull him through the door and up the stairs. Hassan wasn’t sure how much noise he made during this. Perhaps he was praying. Because you always found your gods again. For however long he’d been in that cellar, he’d been begging Allah for release; making all the bargains always made in this situation. Perhaps if Hassan had believed in Him, He wouldn’t have abandoned Hassan to the fate of dying for being one of His believers. But Hassan wasn’t allowed much time to meditate upon this. Mostly he was being manhandled up a narrow flight of stairs, at the top of which waited whatever was going to happen to him next.
He had thought the execution would happen down in that cellar.
But it happened in the kitchen.
The house was on a terrace that had seen better days, most of them pre-war. The upstairs windows were boarded over and those at ground level thickly curtained, with no light showing. A water stain spattered its façade.
Lamb said, in a harsh whisper, ‘Hands up who hasn’t been drinking tonight?’
Min and Louisa exchanged a look.
‘Here.’ Lamb handed River Moody’s gun, the .22. ‘Point it anywhere near me and I’ll take it off you.’
It was the first time River had been on a public street with a weapon. It should have weighed more.
He said, ‘You think they’re in there?’
Because the house didn’t simply look asleep. It looked dead.
‘Act as if they are,’ Lamb said. They’d driven straight past the house; had parked twenty yards down. Min and Louisa had been right behind them; now all four were crouched beside Lamb’s vehicle. River glanced at his watch. If Lamb’s estimate had been right, they had five minutes before the achievers turned up. Seven, if you wanted to be strictly accurate.
‘We’re going in?’ he asked.
‘We’re going in,’ Lamb said. ‘You and me. You can do the door.’ This last to Louisa. ‘There’s a jemmy in the boot. And you watch the back.’ Min. ‘Anyone comes out, don’t let them see you. But don’t lose them. All clear?’
All was clear. Months of waiting for a real job to do: they weren’t about to pass it up.
‘Okay. Don’t anyone get shot or anything. It goes on my record.’
