Spook Street полностью

He had to be—everyone knew Shirley had collected a bagful of scalps out near Hayes last year. But whatever Mr. Piano Man thought, he was keeping to himself. And just to underline the point, he reached into his hoodie’s pouch and retrieved his iPod.

You are not gunna do this, she thought.

He did, though. He set it on the desk in front of him, and slotted the earbuds into place.

So she did the only reasonable thing in the circumstances, which was rip them from his head.

What happened next was weird. Her plan, if you could call it that—her expectation—had been to give him a slap. Open palmed, nothing serious: even HR would agree he deserved that much. But before her hand had made contact, something sharp was under her chin, pushing upwards: he was on his feet, and the dark wet stones of his eyes were black with anger. Shirley found herself on tiptoe, clutching the desk for balance. He leaned close, the blade at her chin forcing her upwards.

“You don’t touch me,” he said.

She blinked.

“Ever,” he said.

There were ways and means, she thought. Push his hand aside, then a blow to the jaw or the stomach, or just reach out and detach his testicles with one rough twist: any or all of these were no more than a heartbeat away.

On the other hand, his knife would be inside her head before she’d completed any of them.

“Are you clear on that?”

From the doorway, Marcus said, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Neither turned to look at him.

Marcus said, “You. Coe. Put the knife down, okay?”

Coe said nothing.

“If I have to come over there and take it off you, I’m gunna ram it where the sun don’t shine, I’m warning you.”

Coe said, “I’ll put it down.”

“. . . Good.”

“But she has to say it first.”

“Has to say what? Uncle?”

“She knows.”

Something trickled down Shirley’s jaw; might be sweat; might be blood. There was no way to confirm which. If she looked down, she’d impale herself on his blade.

“Shirley?” Marcus said. “You know what he’s on about?” He paused. “Probably best not to nod.”

She licked her lips.

Any normal person, she thought, would at least have glanced Marcus’s way. But Coe’s eyes had never left hers through this whole conversation.

All she’d wanted was to give him a little tap. Teach him some manners.

She swallowed.

Marcus said, “Shirl?”

She said—whispered—“I’m clear.”

Coe nodded, and just like that the knife was gone. He tucked it into the pouch of his hoodie and sat down.

Shirley put her hand to her chin, then looked at her fingers.

Sweat.

Marcus shook his head.

“They’ve been watching me for weeks,” the O.B. said. “Thought I hadn’t noticed. Streetlights blinking on and off. Woman at the post office asking questions. It was obvious what was happening. You’re not writing this down.”

“We have invisible pixies to do that,” Lamb assured him.

“You think that’s helping?” Catherine asked.

By way of answer, he poured himself another drink, or tried to. The bottle didn’t hold much more than a double.

The O.B. sat in the centre of the room. Catherine had placed a chair there, and rearranged Lamb’s lamps so much of the light fell around, rather than directly onto him. It wasn’t an interrogation. That’s what she told herself, though it could easily have been mistaken for one by the casual passer-by.

And what most alarmed her about all this, she thought now, was how she seemed to have slid back into her former role: Slough House’s chatelaine; Lamb’s doorkeeper. Was this what her future held? Another season orbiting Jackson Lamb’s dark star? She was going to see today through—make sure the old man was safe—and then kick the house’s dust from her heels, and launder Lamb’s smoke from her clothes.

For now, though, here she was, and the old man seemed happy to hold forth, and if it was true that his answers bore little direct relevance to the questions, they circled the subject at hand, as if closing in on a slippery truth.

“And you,” he said, addressing Chapman. “They let you indoors now, do they? I thought your job was to wait by the car.”

“Times change,” Bad Sam said softly. “Tell us about the other night.”

“What other night?”

“Somebody came knocking on your door,” Lamb said. “And for some reason, you shot him in the head.”

A cunning light switched on in the O.B.’s eyes. “How do you know about that?”

“Assume we were working the streetlights,” Lamb said. “He was pretending to be your grandson, wasn’t he?”

Cartwright said, “There he was, bold as brass, asking about the heating, wanting me to tell him about my day. All part of the act, you see? Yes, I was supposed to think he was . . . who you said. My grandson. The one with the name.”

Lamb opened his mouth, and Catherine said, “Don’t.”

“Said he’d run me a bath. As if I couldn’t run a bath for myself, if I wanted one.”

And he closed his mouth firmly, as if he’d said enough on that subject.

He hadn’t gathered himself together, Catherine thought; not really. Or if he had, he’d done so somewhere else, and was just poking his head round the door.

Chapman said, “He was an enemy.”

The O.B. stared.

“And you defended yourself.”