“I’m not going to,” Emma said. Her beer bottle had a piece of fruit lodged on its rim for some reason, and she pushed it inside with her thumb. It fizzed. “I mean, he’s a pig. And he lied about whose body he was looking at, which might come back and bite him yet. But I’d sooner have him telling me lies than Diana Taverner. When that lady plays hide-the-soap, she does it for keeps.”
Louisa let that image sparkle and die before saying, “Maybe you and Lamb have more in common than you think.”
Emma’s phone buzzed, and she glanced at it. “The Park.”
“Uh-huh.”
“They probably want to know what happened out there,” Emma said, nodding towards the door, the outside world, Pentonville Road. “And how come Adam Lockhead has, ah, evaded custody.”
“I thought you said his name was Patrice.”
“It’s Cartwright I’m talking about.” Despite the booze, her voice was steady. “That’s the passport he was using. Adam Lockhead. News to you?”
“I’m about three laps behind everyone at the moment,” Louisa said. “All I know is, this Patrice? He’s a pro. And as we’ve established, armed. In fact, his becoming armed is doubtless clocking up views on YouTube as we chat. So all in all, it might be an idea to be out there looking for him instead of in here self-medicating.”
“When we find him, it won’t be because I’m outside getting wet,” Emma said. “It’ll be phoned in by some beat-cop who listened to his radio chatter.”
“D’you think that’ll be before or after he kills Cartwright?” Louisa said. “I realise you’re not that bothered either way.”
“He didn’t look to me like he wanted to kill Cartwright. He looked—startled, I thought. Startled to see him.”
“River can be a pain in the neck,” Louisa agreed. “But he’s not actually alarming. Not at first glance.”
“Where’d he been?”
“I gather he’s spent the day in France.”
“Why?”
“When I see him, I’ll ask. You used to be with the Met, right?”
“Yes.”
Louisa grinned. “Missing it yet?”
The phone buzzed again, angrier this time, the way phones get. Emma sighed, and moved a few steps away. “Flyte.”
“Tell me that’s not you I’m watching. Along with half the population of the western world.”
“I doubt it’s that many,” Emma said. “Most of them’ll be viewing it twice. You have to factor that in.”
Diana Taverner said, “Are you drunk?”
“Not yet.”
“How did this happen? How did any of it happen?”
“It happened because I wasn’t given enough information,” Emma said. “So when we were sideswiped by a professional hitman, we weren’t expecting it. In the circumstances, we got off lightly. Unwelcome publicity notwithstanding.”
“You call that lightly? What would heavy look like?”
“It would involve my body lying in the street. Who was Adam Lockhead supposed to be?”
“That’s way outside your need to know.”
“Fine. So do you want me to forget who he really is? Because another couple of tequilas might do the trick.”
Taverner said, “What are you talking about?”
“The man you sent me to collect, the one whose passport said Adam Lockhead, he’s River Cartwright. Who for a while last night we thought was dead. Stop me if I start making sense. It would be a good note to end my day on.”
In the pause that followed, the usual bar clatter seemed to increase, as if anxious to fill any void in its jurisdiction. Emma wondered if Taverner was running the video again, to check what she’d just said.
Maybe so, because when she next spoke she said, “It does look like Cartwright. Did he say anything?”
“He knew the hitman.”
“Why do you keep calling him that?”
“He hit us with a car. It’s the shortest version of that I can think of.” Emma was missing her drink, so she wandered back to the table. The way things had come undone, it didn’t seem to matter who heard what. “Cartwright called him by name. Patrice.”
“Where are they now?”
“Do you know, that’s a really good question,” Emma said, reaching for her shot. “Not sure. London?”
“Are you anxious to lose your job?”
“I figure that’s out of my hands.” There was a short interval, during which she saw off her tequila. “The Met’s on the case now anyway. Can’t keep this one quiet. He was firing a gun in the street.”
“Your gun.”
“I hadn’t forgotten. You haven’t asked about Devon yet.”
“. . . What the hell has Devon got to do with anything?”
“Devon Welles. He was driving the car.”
“Oh. Right. He’s not dead or anything?”
“Couple of cracked ribs. I packed him off to A&E. You want me to have Giti Rahman released?”
“Why would I want that?”
“Because there doesn’t seem much point hanging onto her. Whatever it is you’re so desperate to keep under wraps is leaking worse than a broken sieve. I’m not sure which’ll happen first, a Freedom of Information request or an offer for the film rights.”
