Still humming, still in a terrific mood, and still looking fantastic, Ho returned to his screen, metaphorically rolled his sleeves up, and splash-dived into the Dark Web, deaf to the continual gurgling of his radiator, and the sloshing in the pipes connecting his room to everyone else’s.
What was that blessed noise?
Only she didn’t need telling what it was, thank you very much, because it was the radiator again, sounding like a sick cat doing its business. Putting the most recently sorted stack of papers down—not that “sorted” was the right word, their category being “documents without a date”—Moira Tregorian paused in her efforts and surveyed her new domain.
Her office was on the top floor; it was the one vacated by her predecessor, and nearest Mr. Lamb’s. The personal possessions Catherine Standish had left behind (her departure had been abrupt) were in a cardboard box, sealed with packing tape: her non-official-issue pens, a glass paperweight; a full bottle of whisky, wrapped in tissue paper—the woman had had a drink problem, but then, that was Slough House. Everyone here had problems, or what you now had to call “issues.” Moira supposed that was why she’d been assigned here, to provide overdue backbone.
Dust everywhere, of course. The whole building felt neglected; seemed to revel in the condition, as if the appearance of a duster might cause structural conniptions. And condensation fogged the windows, and had pooled in puddles on the frame, where it was blossoming into mould, and much more of this and the whole place would be falling around your ears . . . Well. Someone needed to take a firm hand. This had clearly been beyond poor Catherine Standish, but once you let the bottle be your friend, you were letting yourself in for sorry times indeed.
It had not escaped her that among the forms awaiting attention were Standish’s discharge papers, needing only Jackson Lamb’s signature.
And it had long been Moira Tregorian’s credo that paperwork was what kept battleships afloat: you could have all your admirals out on deck in their fancy get-up, but without the right paperwork, you’d never get out of the harbour. She had always been a force for order, and didn’t care who knew it. In Regent’s Park, she’d kept the Queens of the Database in trim, ensuring that their timekeeping was precise and their equipment regularly serviced; that the plants they insisted on were disposed of once they died; that the stationery they got through at a rate of knots was replenished weekly, and a log kept of who was taking what, because Moira Tregorian wasn’t born blind and she wasn’t born stupid. Post-it notes might be made of paper, but they didn’t grow on trees. And every so often, just to show there wasn’t much she couldn’t turn her hand to, she’d taken a shift as duty-officer: fielding emergency calls and what-not. None of it terribly complicated, if you asked her—but then, she was an office manager, and proud of it. Things needed managing. You only had to cast an eye around to get an inkling of what happened otherwise. And chaos was a breeding ground for evil.
Another thump from downstairs suggested that chaos was winning the battle for Slough House. In the absence of any other champion, Moira gave a long-suffering sigh, and headed down to investigate.
“How old would you say she was?”
“Fifties, mid,” Louisa said. “So . . . ”
“’Bout the same as Catherine,” River said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Almost like a replacement,” River said. “You know. One in, one out.”
“. . . You been talking to Shirley?”
“Why? What did she say?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Louisa said. She shook her head, not in self-contradiction but to remove her hair from her eyes; it was longer now, and she had to pin it back when actually doing anything: reading, working, driving. She’d let the highlights grow out and it had reverted to its natural brown, a little darker during these winter months. It would fade up once the spring arrived, if the spring brought sunshine; and if it didn’t, hell, she could always cheat, and squeeze a little sunlight from a bottle.
Right now, spring felt a long way distant.
River said, “Ought to get some work done, I suppose,” but sounded like he had things on his mind, tiptoeing around a different conversation entirely.
Louisa wondered if he was going to ask her for a date, and what she’d say if he did.
Almost certainly no. She’d got to know him this past half year, and his virtues stacked up well against the other locals: he wasn’t married like Marcus, a creep like Ho, or a possible psychopath like his new room-mate. On the other hand, he wasn’t Min Harper, either. Min had been dead now for longer than they’d been a couple, and there was no sense in which she was seeking a replacement for him, but still: date a colleague, and comparisons would be made. That could only get ugly. So the occasional drink after work was fine, but anything more serious was out of bounds.
