Frank should have known, he thought now. Frank should have known that there would come a time when Yves’s desire to prove he could go further than any of them would see him step over each and every line there was. He had grown too used to the darkness. It was a wonder he had survived so long in the light.
But this thought, that Frank should have known, demanded punishment, and Patrice submitted to the moment, lashing out at the pebble-dashed wall, then licking the resulting blood from his knuckles. He had deserved that. Nobody could have known where Yves’s demons would take him. It was this place that was breeding such ideas: rainy London, its blues and greys seeping into his soul. Well, Patrice wouldn’t be here much longer. This last task done, he and Frank could vanish back to the mainland: Les Arbres was smoke and ashes, but they’d find somewhere. And the others would return—except for Bertrand, of course; except for Yves—and life would start again.
But before that could happen, the old man David Cartwright, who had been there at the birth of Les Arbres, had to go. So did Sam Chapman, his driver, his muscle. That they had survived the first attempts to remove them could be assigned to their own blind luck, or to his and Bertrand’s incompetence; or perhaps, he thought now, it had been because of the weather; this never-ending blanket of rain: slowing the joints, dulling reactions. Well, that was about to come to an end. The young spook had worked in that building over the road, the one Frank had called Slough House, and there was a reasonable chance, a working possibility, that that was where the two targets currently were. It was also possible that by now they had shared their knowledge of Les Arbres with the young spook’s colleagues, which rendered the target pool larger. It was important, then, that this time there be no mistakes.
Pulling his collar up, he crossed the road.
Lamb paused in the yard to light a cigarette, sucking in smoke and holding it so long there was barely anything to exhale. Rain on his hat filled his head with the beating of drums.
The door behind him opened, and Catherine was there. She stood in the hallway, framed by light, and said, “He’s in some distress.”
“Boo hoo.”
“I’ve left him with Moira. She’ll make him a cup of tea.”
“Why stop there? Tell her to tuck him in. Read him a story.”
“He’s an old man, Jackson.”
“He’s an old man with blood on his hands. Let’s not pretend he’s a victim here.”
“He couldn’t know what would happen. He thought he was protecting his family.”
“Protecting himself, more like.” He turned to her. “Last thing he wanted was his daughter shacking up with an ex-Agency oddball. Because that might scupper his chances of getting to be First Desk, right? These days they appear on
“He never wanted to be First Desk.”
“Uh-huh. And Buzz Lightyear never wanted to be first man on the moon.”
“I don’t think you mean Lightyear. And besides, getting Frank what he wanted didn’t work out, did it? He still never got to be First Desk.”
Lamb said, “By the time he’d finished kitting Frank out, running the money through whatever back-channel he dug, the old man probably thought he’d better keep his head down. Putting your hand in the till, that’s one thing. Shovelling the proceeds the way of a paramilitary organisation, that’s borderline treason. He might have rescued his daughter from the clutches of a lunatic American, but he screwed his own career in the process. I suppose that’s a kind of justice.”
“She never forgave him.”
“For rescuing her?”
“I don’t suppose she saw it as a rescue,” Catherine said. “Besides, it wasn’t just her he was rescuing, was it?”
“You’re going to tug my heartstrings now? Remind me there was a foetus involved?”
“If he hadn’t bought Frank off, he’d have been delivering his unborn grandson into Frank’s hands. And Frank would have got what he wanted eventually, because Franks always do. Which means he’d have found some other way to fund his Cuckoo project, and—”
“And River would have been part of it. Yes, I get that.”
“So why are you so sure his hands are dirty?”
Lamb didn’t reply.
“I’ll bet you’ve done things—”
“Some of them on his orders.” Lamb tossed his cigarette against the wall, and a brief firework bloomed in the dark. Then he reached into his raincoat pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a sock. After gazing at it for a moment, he put it back.
Catherine said, “Where are you going, anyway?”
“I’m out of drink.”
“And you’re fetching your own these days?”
“Yeah, well. Sometimes I get my hands dirty too.”
He slunk out into the alleyway that led to Aldersgate Street.
Catherine watched him go, then shut the door, and headed back upstairs.
