Catherine took the phone and left the room. Shirley could hear her talking to Louisa, quietly, as she made her way up the stairs. And then a door closed, and her soothing murmur was cut off.
Lamb looked around at what was left of the company: Shirley Dander, Coe and Roderick Ho. “So she’s telling Guy we’ve lost two. You think that’s a good idea? Think that’ll put her at her operational best?”
Nobody had an answer. Nobody knew anything.
For once, Lamb didn’t press the point. Instead, he made a cigarette appear out of nowhere, and lit it. He looked grey. He always looked grey, more or less, but was now a shade greyer. He dragged in smoke, blew a cloud at the ceiling, and said to Shirley, “Made your mind up yet?”
Shirley stared.
He said, “Not to put too fine a point on it, but your partner’s head looks like someone took a shovel to a watermelon. If you’re happy to let the wheels of justice take their course, that’s up to you. But if you want to discuss matters with the Terminator here, you go ahead. I’m going for a smoke.” He flapped the hand holding his cigarette. “You’re not allowed to do that indoors any more.”
Ho watched as Lamb left the room, then looked at Shirley nervously.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“Then fuck off.”
So he did; following Lamb part way down the stairs, then peeling off into his own office, closing the door behind him.
JK Coe stayed where he was.
Shirley said, “You too.”
“Me too what?”
“Fuck off.”
He shook his head.
“I’m not going to ask twice.”
“You didn’t ask once yet. You just told me to fuck off.”
“So why haven’t you?”
“Because it’s my office. Where’m I supposed to fuck off to?”
“That’s more words than I’ve heard you say before,” she said. “Put together.”
“Yeah, well. Big day.”
Patrice coughed; a thick, phlegmy noise.
It startled Shirley. She’d more or less forgotten he was there; as if he’d ceased to have human significance, and been reduced to one factor in an equation, the others being Shirley herself, the gun in her hand, and the half-second it would take to act.
The gun, which still felt so very very heavy.
JK Coe said to her, “You don’t want to do this, do you?”
But she really did.
“Fuck it!” said Louisa. “Fuck it fuck it
“What?” Emma said. “What happened? That was Lamb?”
Louisa shook her head. The lights of London blurred. She was driving through heavy rain, and had just been told Marcus was dead, Bad Sam Chapman too . . .
Marcus, dead.
Marcus had saved her life once, on London’s tallest rooftop. He’d shot a man who’d been about to kill her, and Louisa’s only regret was that she hadn’t been able to kill the bastard herself. And this afternoon too, bursting through those wooden gates in a commandeered taxi: if he hadn’t done that—shit, she’d be dead all over again. Dead twice over if not for Marcus.
She’d never met his family, never been to his home—Christ, they were a dysfunctional bunch, the slow horses; in each other’s pockets half their lives, but never taking the time to share the other moments.
And now they’d be diminished, smaller, less of a unit. Marcus, apart from anything else, had probably been the only thing keeping Shirley Dander from going postal on a daily basis.
“You okay?” Emma asked.
Louisa nodded, and blinked her vision clear.
“This is Patrice we’re hunting?”
“One of his team.”
“Good enough.” Emma unbuttoned her coat, and checked her weapon.
“I thought you’d lost that.”
“I took Devon’s. He’s not going to need it in A&E.” She thought about that. “He’s probably not going to need it in A&E. How much further?”
“Blackfriars Bridge,” Louisa said. “Next one.”
Emma squinted through the windshield. “There’s some kind of commotion up ahead. That’ll be our stop, right?”
There were roadworks, metal fencing dividing the road in two. On the river side, there was no road surface, and plastic bollards blocked the way. Temporary traffic lights herded traffic into single file, shepherding them left. Louisa pulled right instead, ploughed through a row of bollards, and hit the brakes so hard the back of the vehicle was briefly airborne.
“Jesus!” Emma shouted.
A cluster of people at the end of the dazzle ship’s jetty were examining the water below in a manner suggesting emergency. Despite being winded, Emma was out of the car first. Something about her—the bruise on her face?—must have conveyed authority, because the crowd parted for her, offering overlapping commentary:
“We can’t see him!”
“He’s gone under!”
“There were two of them—”
“The other one legged it.”
“What happened?” she said, and was echoed immediately by Louisa:
“Who’s in the water?”
A man in a blue coat said, “There were two of them out here, acting odd. An older bloke and a young man, fairish hair—”
“Who’s in the water?” Louisa repeated.
“The old one tipped the young guy over the side. I saw him from the bar window.”
The water below was black and rained-on and furious.
“Oh, fucking hell,” said Louisa.
An orange lifebelt bobbed lonely on the surface. There was no sign of anyone reaching for it.
Louisa pulled her coat off.
“What?” said Emma.
