For a moment, Diana Taverner sat perfectly still, looking through her wall at the kids on the hub. At all the empty spaces which would be filled in a few short hours by more kids, doing more thankless tasks. They’d have been warned about that as soon as they signed up, of course, and would have pretended to believe it, but nobody ever really did, not at first. Each and every one of them secretly expected to be appreciated. It wasn’t going to happen. She’d wanted to drop a spectacular victory in their laps. That wasn’t going to happen either. But at least she could make sure the crash happened as far off as possible, and only damaged the dead wood.
Then she rang the crew at the Waterloo house. It was a brief, one-sided conversation: ‘Disappear the body. Clean the house.’
Cleaning houses, when you cleaned them properly, required strong agents. Fire was the safest bet.
Then she returned Nick Duffy’s call. He was back in Regent’s Park, though well below where she sat now. ‘Which one? … Okay. Five minutes.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Black. Alan Black.’
River had never met him. He’d quit Slough House months before River’s arrival; one of those in whom the fire that had driven him into the Service had been quenched by quotidian drudgery. River had no idea what failure had landed Black in their company. Asking would have been like dredging up ancestral sins; enquiring which wicked uncle interfered with which parlour maid. More than that, it would have required River to care, and he didn’t.
So why had Black’s face been familiar?
He sat in the back, with Louisa at the wheel; Min Harper next to her. When the streetlights washed across them, their faces became doughy and unloved, but were, at least, attached to their bodies. The acrid taste of vomit stung River’s throat. Streets away, the head on the kitchen table leered at him, and probably always would.
Because River had seen that face before. Last time, it too had been attached to its body. For the moment, he couldn’t put the parts together again: the head on the man; the man in his memory. It would come, though. River’s recall was good. Already it was churning through possibilities, plucking them like balls from the bubbling air in a lottery machine. No winners yet, but give it time.
‘You’re sure?’
‘That it was Black?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes. I’m sure. Why did that bastard trash our phones?’
‘So no one can trace us.’
‘Thanks again. I knew that. I meant why’s he worried about anyone tracing us?’
River worked it out as he spoke. ‘We’re being set up. We were supposed to be rescuing Hassan Ahmed. We find a former agent, dead. This whole Hassan thing, it must be an op. And it’s every which way screwed up.’
‘How did Lamb know where to go?’
‘It was Lady Di he went out to meet earlier, yes?’
‘And you’re saying she told him?’
River said, ‘I’m saying that’s what he’s saying.’
‘Lamb’s running an op?’
‘I don’t know,’ River said. ‘Maybe. But then again, if he was …’
‘If he was, what?’
River stared out of the window. ‘If he was, I don’t think he’d have screwed up like this.’
There was silence from the front seats. Min Harper and Louisa Guy were not big fans of Jackson Lamb.
‘He’s carrying a flight fund,’ he told them. ‘If things had gone belly up, he’s got the wherewithal to fade away. He’d not be sending us to collect the others …’
He was slower than his companions on this particular uptake.
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Which is why we don’t have any phones.’
‘And are running our arses all over London. While he’s where?’
River said, ‘He didn’t have to fetch me. From the hospital.’
‘He did if he wanted to know what was going on.’
‘Which he would. If he was running an op.’
‘So what do we do?’ River asked. ‘What he said? Or head to Regent’s Park and start spilling beans?’
This was met with silence; the sound of two bodies still fizzing with alcohol, but shocked out of actual drunkenness.
A blue and yellow blur spun by, siren screaming. Maybe heading for the house they’d just left. But River guessed not. River guessed the tidying up of that particular mess would happen quietly.
Then he heard: ‘I guess, if he’s not at Blake’s grave, we’ll know we’ve been screwed.’
‘And if we’re gunna be screwed, we might as well all be screwed at once.’
‘It’ll save time.’
River felt grateful, though wasn’t entirely sure why.
‘Okay. So did either of you get those addresses?’
Without taking her eyes from the road, Louisa Guy recited them, note perfect.
‘Nice one,’ said River, impressed.
‘Well, if they turn out wrong, that’ll be a clue, won’t it?’
‘We’d better split,’ he said. ‘You do Loy and Ho. Drop me here. I’ll head back for White.’
‘You’ll manage for transport?’
‘Please,’ River said. The car slowed; stopped. He got out.
‘See you later.’
In a different car, Curly screamed in mirthless laughter.
‘What? What’s funny?’
‘You think they’d have let it lie otherwise? When we chop the Paki’s head off?’
‘The plan was never to do it.’
‘Your plan was never to do it,’ Curly said. ‘Your plan.’
