Because when you hit someone with a London cab, they generally stayed hit long enough for you to collect their ears, let alone their insurance details. But this guy was smoke: he must have gone over the cab’s roof and hit the ground feet first. Which were already moving, like in cartoons: if not a ninja, at the very least Daffy Duck.
Though when Daffy Duck whacked folk with heavy weapons, they assumed odd shapes for a second or two, then shook their heads and walked away intact.
“How you feeling?” he asked Louisa.
“Same as last time you asked,” she said. “That was ibuprofen, not horse tranquillisers.”
They were back at Slough House, in Marcus and Shirley’s room, and Louisa’s jeans, ripped in her fall, were rolled to the knee while her feet soaked in a plastic washing-up bowl nobody had known Slough House possessed—nobody except Catherine Standish, that is, who’d been there when they returned. It was a weird sort of reunion, with Louisa limping, and Bad Sam Chapman taking the stairs one at a time.
“You’re back,” Marcus had told her, unnecessarily.
She’d touched him, briefly, on the elbow. Then said: “Why’d you bring them here? They should be in A&E.”
“Slippery slope,” Lamb said. “Once you start giving this lot the professional attention they require, there won’t be enough of us left for a game of darts.”
“You can play darts on your own,” Roderick Ho said.
“Who was that guy?” Sam Chapman asked. “Why was he following me? Why were
“God, I hate catch-up scenes,” Lamb said. “And a thank-you would be nice. I did just save your life.”
“Didn’t see you there.”
“Yeah, well, I let others do the spade work.” He glanced at Marcus. “Just a phrase. Let’s not involve the thought police.”
“We’d need a swat team,” Marcus muttered.
While this was going on, Catherine had found the plastic bowl for Louisa to soak her ankles, and produced some ibuprofen. Louisa claimed through gritted teeth she was fine, but her ankles looked like she’d done service on a chain gang.
“The skin’s not broken,” Catherine told her. “That’s something, anyway.”
It didn’t feel like much to Louisa, but having Catherine say so was reassuring somehow. “You back for good?” she asked.
“I hope not,” Catherine said, then followed Lamb and Chapman out of the room and up the stairs.
“She brought the O.B. with her,” Shirley told them.
“The O.B.’s here?”
“Upstairs with the Moira.”
Marcus shook his head. Chaos seemed the order of the day. That was certainly what Stan-the-garage-man had thought, when he’d returned to find his forecourt a war zone: a black cab steaming in the rain, his gates in splinters. Marcus had shown him his ID, pointing to the line about Her Majesty’s Service, and told him they were Duty Men, apprehending a VAT defaulter. Stan had cast an uneasy eye towards his workshop, which was doubtless where he kept his books, and piped down. Though he did ask who’d pay for the gates.
“Send the invoice to your local tax office,” Marcus said. “They’ll see you all right.”
And now Marcus felt good, or better than in recent memory. It wasn’t just smashing through the gates that had done the trick; nor sideswiping the bad guy in the process. It was more that he hadn’t had to use his own car. This felt like a turning of the wheel; his luck shifting back to its proper position.
Except for the part about the bad guy getting away.
He said, “I clipped him with the taxi, I know I did. Felt the impact.”
“And then he got away,” said Shirley.
“Shirl,” Marcus said. “If you’d been there, you’d have decked him. We get that. But you weren’t, and he’s smoke. Okay?”
“Just saying.”
“Any word from River?” Louisa asked.
“Not even a postcard. Don’t you hate it when colleagues go on holiday and—”
“When did Catherine get here?”
“I bet he won’t even bring chocolates back. About half an hour ago.”
“What kind of state’s the O.B. in?”
“He looked like a ghost. Confused and scared.”
“River was worried about him.”
“Yeah, well,” Shirley said. “Running off to the continent’s a good way of showing it. Cool jeans, by the way.”
“Ripped jeans.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“I pay good money for unripped jeans.”
“Kim wears ripped jeans,” Ho said. “She’s my girlfriend,” he explained.
“Really.”
“Ripped jackets too.”
“Are you still here?”
“Yes,” Ho said. They stared. “No,” he said, and left. Before he’d crossed the landing, they heard Lamb bellowing down the stairs for him.
“Ripped jackets?” Marcus said. “Is that a thing now?”
“No,” said Shirley. “And asking if something’s a thing now isn’t a thing any more either.”
“You think Chapman has any idea what’s going on?” Louisa asked.
“I hope somebody does,” said Marcus.
When Ho got to Lamb’s office Lamb threw a handful of takeaway cartons at him. “These things have been breeding. When you’ve chucked ’em out, go next door and fetch some new ones. Full.”
“. . . Full of what?”
“Chinese food, idiot,” Lamb said. “Or ‘food,’ as you people call it.”
Ho brushed a lump of congealed rice from his jacket, then tried to rub the stain away. “What kind, I meant?”
“Surprise me.”
