“How long have you known?” he asked. “Who brought this to you?”
“One of my kids. A few hours ago.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me then?”
“And if I had? What would you have done?”
He struggled to contain his anger. “What do you think? I’d have included it in my presentation to the PM—”
“And what would have happened then? No, don’t bother. I’ll tell you. We’d be in lockdown, Claude. The Park, over the river, even bloody Slough House—every department, every agent. We’d have Special Branch, or worse still Six, going through every desk. It would make the Cambridge spies inquiry look like garden party chit-chat.” She paused. “Which, to be fair, it more or less was.”
“Where’s your . . . kid now?”
“With the Dogs.”
“You’ve used internal security on this? They’re supposed to be upholding the law, damn it, not acting as your praetorian guard!”
Taverner shook her head. “You still don’t get it, do you? If even a hint gets out about this, any credibility the security services have in this country will be over. Every crackpot conspiracy nut in the world will be calling Westacres a black flag op, and even normal people will believe it.”
“That’s hardly—”
She rolled right over him. “Do you know how long it took, after the bomb, before rumours of cover-ups were plastered across the internet? Less than two hours. That’s the level of trust we’re looking at. We are losing this war, Claude, and believe me, it is a war. They said it couldn’t be waged on an abstract, and I’ll leave that to the philosophers and the pedants, because when you’ve got broken kids being carried out of a wrecked shopping centre, as far as I’m concerned, that’s a war. And we need to be on the front line.
“I signed the what?”
“The warrant authorising the Dogs to pick up Giti Rahman—the kid who found this—and hold her.”
“I didn’t—ah.”
And:
“Which I did,” he said slowly, “before briefing COBRA.”
Thus proving prior knowledge.
It really was surprising, he thought, how slowly buses moved.
“No need to look like that,” she said after a while. “I’m on your side.”
“Good to know. But was it really necessary to make sure my balls were in your pocket before declaring your support?”
“It’s just politics, Claude. You’ll get used to it. And believe me, when the Service is hanging by a thread, the politics get nasty.”
It struck him that Diana Taverner was enjoying this. Or at least looked intensely alert, alive . . . attractive. This was not an observation he wanted to dwell on. Casting it from his mind, he said, “So what do we do now?”
“We find out how our cold body wound up strapping on a Semtex vest. Which means finding out who had access to these IDs, and plugging them into a light socket until they talk.”
“We don’t torture suspects in the UK,” he said automatically.
“Grow up, Claude.”
“And when you say
“Yes. Plural. As far as I can tell, there are three cold bodies unaccounted for. Which means there are two more out there still upright. And God only knows what they plan to do next.”
The smell was stronger here, more acrid, and stung River’s throat as he walked the narrow road. This was bordered on one side by eight feet of brick with a broken-glass topping, and on the other by a hedgerow beyond which lay fields and then roads, a distant smattering of houses, France. The drizzle persisted, and he was starting to notice that his shoes weren’t as waterproof as they might be; that his left foot was chafing against a damp sock. But he’d spent days on the Black Mountains while training; spent nights in ditches evading capture by squaddies. He could survive wet feet. Just so long as he wasn’t expected to speak convincing French while doing so.
Thin branches bent over the road, lending shade to what was already grey and toneless. He ran a finger along one, and it came away grey with soot.
Les Arbres: the house. Not so easy to find on account of its not being there any more; on account of it having succumbed to a fire three nights previously.
