Bad Sam eyed Ho with pity. “It’s Roderick, right?”
“. . . Yes.”
“Roderick, would you let me piss on you for a quid?” he asked.
“. . . No.”
“So why’d you let him do it for free?”
“Don’t mind him,” Lamb explained. “It’s the pain talking.”
“When you open your mouth, that’s a pain talking. What are you finding so funny?”
This to Catherine.
“You two,” she said. “It’s like watching dinosaurs having foreplay. Or
“We’ve met, haven’t we?” Bad Sam asked.
“One of my happiest memories.”
“You’re very perky,” said Lamb. “Happy to be back?”
Catherine told Ho, “He doesn’t need food, he’s already eaten. But find me some ice, if you can.”
Ho slipped away, still rubbing at the mark on his new leather jacket.
She said, “I’ve told you why I’m here. The Park are looking for the old man. I thought it best to bring him somewhere safe.”
“Which old man are we talking about?” Chapman asked.
“Your ex-boss,” Lamb said. “David Cartwright.”
“Cartwright? He’s still alive?”
“Yeah, but we’re in injury time,” Lamb said. “The guy who tried to whack you? There’s a lot of that going round.”
“He tried to kill Cartwright?”
“Not personally. That particular gentleman ended up with a flip-top head. But I’m assuming the two events are not unconnected. Unless it’s just open season on clapped-out spooks.”
“I’m pretty sure if that happened, you’d be top of most people’s list,” Catherine said.
Chapman said, “Well if the Park are looking for him, why’s he here? He’d be safer with the professionals.”
“Well, that rather depends who signed off on the murder attempt.”
He stared. “You think someone at the Park wants to kill David Cartwright? And me?”
“It’s a theory.”
“They already gave me the sack,” Chapman said. “It’s a bit fucking cheeky having me murdered too. Besides, I’m old news. I don’t even know who’s running the place now. Tearney went, didn’t she?”
“A victim of political correctness,” Lamb said sadly.
“Didn’t she arrange several murders?”
“Well, that too. But the new boy, his name’s Whelan, hasn’t been there long enough to start throwing his weight around. No, if this things got its roots in the Park, it’s like you. Old news. From back when Cartwright was one of the movers and shakers. You used to watch his back, didn’t you?”
“Sometimes. It’s not like he needed full-time supervision.”
“But he went walkabout occasionally.”
“What are you getting at, Jackson?”
“You went with him to France.”
“Oh Christ,” said Sam Chapman. “This is about Les Arbres, is it?”
Moira Tregorian, too, was wondering at the turns the day had taken; from the secret thrill at the death of a colleague—well, it wasn’t as if she knew him well—to its baffling reversal; from the lunch she’d expected to be an induction into the rituals of Slough House to the interrogation it had turned into instead. How well did she know Claude Whelan? What was the point of contact between her—Regent’s Park’s erstwhile office manager; wielder of the power of overtime; desk allocator to the Queens of the Database; timekeeper extraordinaire; marshal of the service contracts; fielder of stationery-related enquiries; occasional duty-officer—and the brand-new, squeaky clean First Desk? Did they belong to the same book club? Frequent the same church? Had they, perhaps—even spooks have their carnal moments—indulged in an office indiscretion? And Lamb’s blandly neutral choice of word here, barely more loaded than a water pistol, was utterly belied by his expression, which was a popish leer. She’d suspected Mr. Lamb would be an awkward customer. She hadn’t realised how much work “awkward” could be made to do.
And then this: the arrival of her predecessor.
Whatever Moira Tregorian might have expected of Catherine Standish, this wasn’t it. She had seen drunks before: who hadn’t? They tended to vibrate slightly, as if tuned to a higher frequency than everyone else, and their skin was saggy and their hair poorly tended. They served, in other words, as a warning. But Catherine Standish seemed intact, a word Moira wasn’t sure she’d used of a person before. She was intact: nothing obvious missing. It was disappointing, somehow, though she had managed to keep this reaction to herself, she hoped.
Meanwhile, she was still sorting through a hundredweight of memos from the Park, and now had an observer in the corner.
“He needs somewhere quiet to sit,” Miss Standish had said, barely glancing round her old office. “He’s had a long day.”
“Well, I don’t know about—”
But already she was gone, and the old man—David Cartwright—was commandeering her chair, settling behind her desk as if this was his kingdom, and Moira the usurper.
