“I don’t want him to be alive when Marcus isn’t,” she said.
“I know.”
“He should die.”
“But you shouldn’t kill him.”
Silently, Coe offered his hand. She looked at it, then at the gun in her own. Then at Patrice, who was still on his back, cuffed to the radiator. A short time ago, he’d been indestructible; storming Slough House, killing Marcus, killing Sam.
Shirley really wanted him dead.
But she didn’t want to kill him. Not like this.
And she felt so very very tired.
She heard Catherine sigh softly as she lowered the gun into Coe’s waiting hand.
Then Coe shot Patrice three times in the chest.
“There you go,” he said, and handed the gun back to Shirley.
River rolled and threw up Thames water, then opened his eyes. He was staring at wet pavement. He rolled again and a blurry face, inches from his own, took shape, slipped out of focus, then slipped back in again.
“Louisa,” he said, or tried to. It came out “Larghay.”
“In future,” she told him, “pick up a fucking phone, yeah?”
Then she pulled away and all he could see was the rain, still steadily falling.
In the glow from the streetlights, the drops looked like diamonds.
The rain had stopped, which was such a longed-for, such an unexpected outcome, that all around the city people were saying it twice: the rain has stopped. The rain has stopped. Slough House was all but empty that night, twenty-four hours after the attack. There was still a stain on the wall behind what had been Marcus’s desk; another on the carpet in Louisa’s room, where Bad Sam had fallen; and a third in Coe and Cartwright’s office, beneath the radiator. But the bodies had been removed, and someone, probably Catherine, had cleared away the smashed chair and assorted debris. The broken doors were propped against walls, waiting for the paperwork to go through enough channels that somebody, somewhere, would give up and sign a chitty allowing them to be replaced. Until then, Slough House would be largely open-plan.
Jackson Lamb’s door was undamaged, but stood ajar, allowing a little grey light to spill onto the landing. The room opposite, once Catherine Standish’s, was in darkness, though its door too was open. And on the stairs was a noise, a series of noises, made by someone on their way up; someone unused to the creaking staircase, the damp walls, the various odours of neglect in the stairwell, which it would take industrial solvents or environmental catastrophe to shift.
When Claude Whelan reached the uppermost landing he paused, as if unsure the ascent had been worth it.
“In here,” something growled.
Suppressing a shudder, he went in.
Lamb was behind his desk. His shoeless feet rested on top of it, his right heel showing through a hole in one sock, and most of his toes through a hole in the other. There was a bottle in front of him, and a glass in his hand, whose emptiness was presumably a temporary anomaly. The room’s only light source was to his right, a lamp set on a thigh-level ziggurat of dusty books: telephone directories, Whelan thought. An analogue man in a digital world. Whether that was obsolescence or survival trait, time would tell.
He said, “Legend doesn’t do this place justice.”
Lamb seemed to consider several responses before settling for a fart.
“Or you,” Whelan added.
“Maybe leave the door as it is,” Lamb suggested.
There was a visitor’s chair, so Whelan took it.
Not much of Lamb’s office could be seen in the gloom. A blind was drawn over the only window; a cork noticeboard hung on one wall. And there was a clock somewhere, which Whelan couldn’t see; instead of ticking it made a steady tap-tap noise, a dull repetition which seemed to underline how appalling the passage of time could be.
Lamb refilled his glass, then reluctantly waved the bottle in Whelan’s direction. When Whelan shook his head, he set it down again, unstoppered. “Can’t remember the last time we had First Desk here,” he said. “No, hang on, yes I can. Never.”
“We don’t usually make housecalls,” said Whelan. “But in the circumstances . . . ”
“What, dead agents? Yeah, that’s always a photo op.” Lamb rested his glass on his chest, his meaty fingers embracing it. “Did you tie a teddy to a lamp post?”
Whelan said, “You wanted a meeting. We could have done this at the Park.”
“Yeah. But that would have involved me making the effort instead of you. Frank coughing his guts up?”
If the sudden switch fazed Whelan, he hid it well. “He’s been . . . cooperative.”
“I’ll bet.”
“We’ve not had to adopt unorthodox measures to make him talk, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Lamb said, “I was thinking you’d have to get seriously innovative to shut him up. I mean, he told Cartwright his life story. It’s not like he’s shy.” He raised the glass to his mouth without taking his eyes off Whelan. He resembled a hippo enjoying a wallow. “But what surprises me is you took him alive. I’d have thought Lady Di would have had the trigger pulled as soon as he broke cover.”
