That was almost certainly what she thought, she thought. But she also thought it might be best to head him off if it looked like he was going to say anything.
“Doing anything later?” he asked.
“Yeah, no, what? Later?”
“’Cause there’s something I want to talk to you about, only here’s maybe not the best place.”
Oh fuck, she thought. Here we go.
“I’m sorry, is this a private conversation?”
And here was Moira Tregorian, a name Louisa had spent much of yesterday trying to get her head round. Tregorian kept splitting into separate syllables, and rearranging itself: what was it, Cornish? She didn’t want to ask in case the answer bored her rigid. People could get funny about their ancestry.
“No, we were just talking,” River said.
“Hmmm,” said Moira Tregorian, and the younger pair exchanged a glance. Neither had spoken much to Moira yet, and
She was in her fifties, sure, but that was where her resemblance to Catherine Standish ended. Catherine had had something of the spectral about her, and a resilience too, an inner strength that had allowed her to conquer her alcoholism, or at any rate, enabled her to continue the daily struggle. Neither River nor Louisa could remember her complaining about anything, which, given her daily exposure to Jackson Lamb, indicated Mandela-like patience. Moira Tregorian might turn out to be many things, but spectral wasn’t going to be one of them, and patient didn’t look promising. Her lips were pursed, and her jowls trembled slightly with pent-up something or other. All that aside, she was five-three or so, with dusty-coloured hair arranged like a mop, and wore a red cardigan Lamb would have something to say about, if he ever showed up. Lamb wasn’t a fan of bright colours, and claimed they made him nauseous, and also violent.
“Because it seems to me,” Moira said, “that two days after a major terrorist incident on British soil, there might be more useful things you could be doing. This is still an arm of the Intelligence Service, isn’t it?”
Well, it was and it wasn’t.
Slough House was a branch of the Service, certainly, but “arm” was pitching it strong. As was “finger,” come to that; fingers could be on the button or on the pulse. Fingernails, now: those, you clipped, discarded, and never wanted to see again. So Slough House was a fingernail of the Service: a fair step from Regent’s Park geographically, and on another planet in most other ways. Slough House was where you ended up when all the bright avenues were closed to you. It was where they sent you when they wanted you to go away, but didn’t want to sack you in case you got litigious about it.
And while it was true that national security had been stepped up to the highest notch, things hadn’t yet reached the pass where anyone was screaming down a telephone: “Get me the slow horses!”
Louisa said, “If there was something we could do, we’d be doing it. But we don’t have the resources or the information to do anything useful here in the office. And in case you haven’t noticed yet, they don’t put us out on the streets.”
“No, well. That’s as may be.”
“Which is why Marcus and Shirley are blowing off steam. I can’t speak for Coe, but my guess is he’s zoning out at his desk. And Ho’ll be grooming his beard. I think that’s all of us accounted for.”
“Is Mr. Lamb not expected?” Moira asked.
“Lamb?”
“Mr. Lamb, yes.”
River and Louisa exchanged a glance. “He’s not been around much lately,” Louisa said.
“Hence,” said River, and waved a vague hand. Hence people talking in kitchens and torturing each other in offices. When the cat was away, Lamb had been known to remark, the mice started farting about with notions of democratic freedom. Then the cat returned in a tank.
(“Remind me,” River had once asked him, “back in the Cold War—whose side were you on?”)
“Only he’s invited me to lunch.”
In the silence that followed, the radiator on the landing belched in an oddly familiar way, as if it were working up an impression.
“I think I may have just had a small stroke,” Louisa said at last. “You can’t possibly have said what I thought I just heard.”
River said, “Have you met Jackson?”
“He sent me an email.”
“Is that a no?”
“We haven’t met in person.”
“Have you heard about him?”
Moira Tregorian said, “I’m told he’s a bit of a character.”
“Did nobody tell you which bit?”
“There’s no need for—”
Louisa said, “Seriously, you haven’t met him, but he sent you an email asking you to lunch? When?”
“He just said ‘soon.’”
“Which might mean today.”
“Well . . . Yes, I thought it might.”
“Action stations,” murmured River.
They escaped, but before they disappeared into their separate rooms River said, “So, you okay for later?”
“Yeah, no, what? Later?”
“Quick drink,” said River. “Thing is—”
Here it comes, thought Louisa.
“—I’m worried about my grandfather.”
