The Service network required a new password every month, for security reasons, though since you could only register a new password by first entering your old one, there were those who questioned the value of this procedure. Shirley was among their number.
“What you looking for?” Marcus asked, as Shirley went through the process of acquiring a new login, which took up some nineteen seconds of her precious bloody time, as she dubbed it under her breath.
“Phone number.”
“Bit early for Chicken Shack.”
“It’s never too early for Chicken Shack,” said Shirley. “Besides, fuck off. This is work.”
Logged in, she accessed the internal phone directory: everyone you might need to contact, at the Park and all other Service outposts—except Slough House. Nobody needed to contact Slough House.
Marcus was curious now, but didn’t want to ask. Shirley took pity. “Molly Doran,” she said.
“The wheelchair wonder?”
“Well, I think of her as the legless legend, but basically, yeah, we’re thinking of the same person.”
“Impression I got, she was pretty sick of Slough House. Didn’t River try to nick one of her files?”
“News flash. I’m not River.”
“You’re a slow horse, though.”
Shirley shrugged. “She’s a walking history book. She’ll either know something or not. And tell me or not. Only one way to find out.”
She dialled the number.
The café smelt of coffee and grilled cheese, and the faded pictures on the walls were of girls in rural costumes, with mill-and-cornfield backgrounds. A flyer for a circus had been taped to the door, alongside a coatstand, heavy with damp clothing. To River’s right was a glass-topped counter whose interior displayed pastries and sandwiches; most of the rest of the floorspace was occupied by chairs and tables, except for immediately in front of the counter, where a child’s buggy was parked. Its usual occupant sat in a high chair, slapping the tray with one hand, tugging an ear with the other, and gurgling as his/her—its—mother spooned into it a confection which was luridly green enough to look radioactive, though presumably wasn’t. The woman glanced River’s way, registered that the buggy was blocking his passage, and turned back to her child. River, offering a Gallic shrug, shifted the buggy enough to get past, then sat at a table against the far wall.
It wasn’t quite full. Mother and infant aside, there were only four others; a man in his fifties, with neat beard and pencil-thin eyebrows, reading a paper, and three young men sprawling round an array of cups and crumb-riddled plates and mobile phones. One watched River with open curiosity. The man with the newspaper didn’t look his way at all. An amiable woman, a little plump, appeared through a bead-curtained door behind the counter, and plucked a notepad from a shelf as she made her way towards River, pausing en route to cluck over the infant.
“Monsieur?” she said.
River ordered coffee.
He sat with it for half an hour. The three young men left in a noisy dazzle of endearments for the waitress; two girls came in and chattered ceaselessly over toasted sandwiches. River’s stomach growled, but he had barely enough cash for the coffee. The newspaper reader was brought another plate: an omelette, with mushrooms folded into it, judging by the smell. The coffee was good, but nowhere near filling. He examined the receipt once more: it was from five days previously, on the old side of the New Year, and Adam Lockhead had enjoyed two bottled beers and a steak-frites. The slip of paper had been crumpled into a ball, a forgotten piece of pocket detritus rather than deliberately retained for expenses; the distinction, in River’s mind, meaning that trips to Le Ciel Bleu had been regular, ordinary experiences for Adam Lockhead. Meaning that people here would recognise him; would know where he was staying, who his associates were . . . That, anyway, was what River had been telling himself for twelve hours or more. But it was starting to feel tenuous, here at this end of the argument, and not for the first time in his life, he wondered whether his initial instincts might have borne more rigorous inspection.
And would he have got this far, if not for that physical similarity, that coincidence of height and colouring? But then, he told himself, how many different colours did pairs of eyes come in? How many shades of fair did hair possess? Besides, the coincidence wasn’t that he looked like Lockhead; it was that Lockhead looked like him. That was the only reason Lockhead had managed to talk himself through the O.B.’s door; was maybe—probably—the reason he’d been chosen for the job in the first place.
The glances the waitress was giving him were gathering force. He’d possibly outstayed a single cup of coffee.
River nodded at her, and she was on him like a flash.
“Madame,” he began, then noticed she wore no wedding ring, but it was too late to back down now. “Je cherche un ami, un gens Anglais?”
She waited.
