Dead Lions (22 page)

She thought she’d pitched that right—with the right amount of emotion. If he thought her a zombie, that would be as bad as thinking her hysterical.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

He looked relieved. “Well. Okay then. That’s good. It would be, ah, awkward to have to rejig …”

“I’d hate to be an inconvenience.”

Spider Webb blinked, and moved on. “Keep me abreast of developments, then.” A phrase from another textbook; one with a chapter on how to let subordinates know the meeting was over.

He walked her to the door. There’d be someone outside to take her downstairs, repossess her visitor’s badge, and see her off the premises, but these signs of exile, which once would have loosed bees in her mind, were irrelevant. She was still assigned to the Needle job. It was a done deal. That was all that mattered.

As he held the door, Webb said, “You’re right, though.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Harper shouldn’t have been on the road after drinking. It was an accident, that’s all. We looked into it very carefully.”

“I know.”

She left.

Perhaps, she thought, as she was guided downstairs; perhaps, once this was over, and she’d found out why Min had died, and killed those responsible, she’d come back and throw Spider Webb through that window he enjoyed looking out of.

It depended on her mood.

While Kelly
showered River pulled boxers and a shirt on, then roamed the bedroom, collecting clothes. Some, it turned out, were still downstairs. Well, she’d only come round for coffee. In the sitting room he found her shirt; also her shoulder bag, a bulky thing which had shed its load across the floor. He uprighted it, returning to its recesses her mobile, her purse, a paperback and her sketchpad, but he leafed through the sketchpad first: the nearby treeline, the road as it left the village, a group gathered on the patio behind the pub. She wasn’t good at faces. But there was a nice study of St Johnno’s, and another of its graveyard, each headstone a pencil-shaded stubbiness around which long grass wilted; and several aerial studies of the village—Kelly Tropper flew. The last page was strange, not so much a sketch as a design: a stylised city landscape, its tallest skyscraper struck by jagged lightning. Scribbled-over words had been scrawled along the bottom edge.

“Jonny?”

“Coming.”

He carried her shirt up to the bedroom, where she stood draped in a towel.

“You look …”

“Gorgeous?”

“I was going to say damp,” he said. “But gorgeous works.”

She stuck her tongue out. “Someone’s pleased with himself.”

He lay on the bed, enjoying the view while she dressed. “Didn’t know you drew,” he said.

“A bit. Saw my book, did you?”

“It fell open,” he confessed.

“Don’t tell me. I can’t do faces. But you need a hobby round here.”

“And flying is …”

“Not a hobby.” Her green eyes were serious now. “It’s the most alive you can ever be. You should try it.”

“Maybe I will. When are you next going up?”

“Tomorrow.” A smile came and went. A special secret flashed. “But no, you can’t come with.” She kissed him. “Gotta go. Need to do stock before we open doors.”

“I’ll be along later.”

“Good.” She paused. “That was nice, Mr. Walker.”

“I thought so too, Ms. Tropper.”

“But that doesn’t mean you can look at my stuff without permission,” she said, and bit his earlobe.

When he heard the front door close, he rang Lamb.

“If it isn’t 007. Got anywhere yet?”

“Nothing but dead ends and blank looks,” River said. He was staring at his bare toes. “If Mr. B was ever here, he dropped out of sight immediately afterwards.”

“Blimey. So he might be, what,
hiding
? Or something?”

“If he was ever here. Maybe his feet didn’t touch the ground. Maybe he was heading somewhere else before the taxi driver flipped his for-hire sign.”

“Or maybe you’re useless. How big’s that place anyway? Three cottages and a duck pond? Have you checked the cowshed?”

“Why come all the way from London to hide in a cowshed? If there was one. Which there isn’t.” River noticed a sock hanging from the curtain rail. “He doesn’t live here. Not as Mr. B or under any other name. I guarantee it.”

“You’ve infiltrated the community, then?”

“I’ve, er, made some progress, yes.”

“Oh Christ,” said Lamb. “You’re shagging a local.”

“Most of the population’s either retired, or commutes, or
teleworks, but a lot of the houses are empty. There’s talk of the local school closing, always a sign of a dying community—”

“If I want a bleeding heart editorial I’ll read the
Guardian
. What about the MoD place?”

“Well, they don’t like you to wander about, but they don’t test secret weapons there, do they? It’s a target range.”

“Which used to belong to the Yanks. Who knows what toys they kept in their cupboards?”

“Whatever they were, I doubt they’re there now.”

“But if there’s evidence of them ever being there, it could still cause embarrassment,” said Lamb.

Like you’re an expert on that, thought River. “Yeah.” He retrieved his sock. “Which is what I was calling about. I’m going in tonight, take a look around.”

“About time.” Lamb paused. “Are you dressed? You don’t sound dressed.”

“I’m dressed,” River said. “How’s Louisa?”

“Doing her job.”

“Good. Yes. Obviously. But how is she?”

Lamb said, “Her boyfriend got smeared by a car. I don’t suppose she wakes up whistling happy tunes.”

“You checked out the accident?”

“Did we change places when I wasn’t looking?”

“Simple question.”

“A pissed cyclist. Which part doesn’t spell organ donor?”

“Fuck off, Jackson,” River said bravely. “Harper was one of yours. If he was struck by lightning, you’d be questioning the weather. I’m just asking what came up.”

There was a pause, during which River heard the click of a lighter. Then Lamb said, “He was drunk. He’d been over the road, had several beers there. Stopped elsewhere and loaded up on vodka. They’d had a row.”

River squeezed his eyes shut. Course they had. You have a
row; you get pissed. How it works. “Where’d he drink the vodka?”

“We don’t know. You want to guess how many bars there are west of City Road?”

“Does he show up on—”

“Why didn’t we think of that?” Down the line, Lamb sucked up smoke. “He flashes past cameras on Oxford Street, or we think he does. Black and white footage, and all cyclists look the same. And there was nothing at the scene. Camera was buggered up when a car sideswiped its pole.”

“Now there’s a coincidence.”

“Yeah. One which says it’s a junction where accidents happen. The Dogs okayed it.”

“Huh.” Even River didn’t know what he meant by that. The Dogs were the Dogs. “Okay then. I’ll call later.”

“Do that. And Cartwright? Next time you tell me to fuck off, make sure you’re a long way away.”

“I am a long way away,” River explained.

“Apology accepted.”

He dropped the phone and went to shower.

“So,” Pashkin
said, addressing them both, but speaking to Louisa. “Everything is ready for tomorrow, yes?”

“It’s all under control.”

“And not wanting to throw any spanners around, but you’re not from the Department of Energy.”

Longridge opened his mouth, but Louisa beat him. “No.”

“MI5, yes?”

“A branch of it.”

Marcus said, “The details aren’t important.”

Pashkin nodded. “Of course. I’m not trying to compromise you. I’m just establishing … parameters. I have my men here to protect me—”

He had Kyril by the door, and Piotr hovering nearby; an entirely different pair today to the brusque, almost jolly couple they’d seemed three weeks ago, the day Min—

“—and you, I presume, have been assigned to make sure all other arrangements run smoothly.”

“They will,” Marcus said.

“I’m pleased to hear it. Department of Energy or not, you’ll be aware your Government is keen to, ah, reach a mutually beneficial understanding regarding certain fuel demands my company can meet.” His features adopted a self-deprecating expression. “Not enough to drive your entire country, of course. But a reserve. In the event of difficulties arising elsewhere.”

He spoke fluently, with a medium-thick accent Louisa suspected was cultivated. A deep and sexy growl never hurt when you were opening negotiations, whatever they happened to be.

“And given the obvious delicacy of the situation, it’s in all our interests that the meeting goes smoothly. And with that in mind, I have a request.”

Watching his mouth form words, Louisa had the impression they were little clockwork toys he was winding up and setting free, to waddle across this wide expanse of carpet. “All right,” she said.

“I would like to go there. This afternoon.”

“There …?”

“The Needle,” he said. “That’s what the building’s called, yes?”

“Yes, the Needle.”

“On account of its mast,” Marcus said.

Pashkin looked at him politely, but Marcus had nothing to add. He returned his gaze to Louisa. “I want to see the room. To walk the floor.” He touched the top button of his shirt with his right index finger. “Before we get down to business. I want to feel comfortable there.”

Louisa said. “Give me five minutes. I need to make a phone call.”

When he’d
finished speaking to River, Lamb sat for a while wearing what Catherine Standish called his dangerous expression: the one where he was considering something other than what to eat or drink next. Then he checked his watch, sighed, and with a heavy grunt rose and picked up a shirt from the floor. Scrunching it in a fist, he crossed the landing to Catherine’s room.

“Got a carrier bag?”

Looking up from her desk, she blinked.

He waggled the shirt. “Anyone home?”

“In there,” she said, pointing at a canvas bag slung from her coatstand.

Thrusting a hand into it, Lamb withdrew half a dozen plastic carriers. He shovelled his shirt into one. The others fell to the floor. He turned to go.

“Leaving early?” she asked.

Lamb hoisted the bag above his head without turning round. “Laundry day,” he said, and disappeared down the stairs.

She stared for a while, then shook her head and returned to work.

In front of her were fragments of lives, fillets of biography, snatched from online sources and official records: HMRC, DMLV, the ONS; the usual crowd. It was like eating alphabet soup with a fork.

Raymond Hadley, 62, had been a BA pilot for eighteen years, and now busied himself with local politics and environmental issues, his commitment to which didn’t prevent him owning a small aeroplane.

Duncan Tropper, 63, was a solicitor; formerly with a high-powered West End interest, he currently put in a couple of days a week at a firm in Burford.

Anne Salmon, 60, was an economics don at the University of Warwick.

Stephen Butterfield, 67, had been sole owner of Lighthouse Publishing, a small concern specialising in left-leaning history, until one of the industry monoliths had gobbled it up, leaving a smoking pile of money in its place.

His wife Meg, 59, part-owned a clothes store.

Andrew Barnett, 66, was Civil Service (retired); something in the Ministry of Transport, which—a first in Catherine’s experience—actually meant he’d been something in the Ministry of Transport.

And the rest, and the rest, and the rest. Someone from the Financial Services Authority; two TV producers (one Beeb; one independent); a chemist who’d worked at Porton Down; graphic designers; teachers; doctors; a journalist; business refugees (construction, tobacco, advertising, soft drinks): it added up to a bunch of successful professionals who’d managed to combine busy careers with a quiet life in the Cotswold village of Upshott; the kind of quiet life, Catherine guessed, you’d need a busy career to fund. Many had taken early retirement. Most had children. All drove.

And, Catherine reminded herself, none of it was her business, let alone her job; and in her job, minding her business was paramount. But she was missing River Cartwright, sort of. And hoped he’d return safely, not dead.

The Cotswolds, Standish. Not bleeding Helmand Province
.

Which was true, as was the fact that Lamb had staked River out like a sacrificial, well, lamb, to see what would happen next. And given that what had happened first was a murder, there were no guarantees River’s country exile would prove idyllic.

She looked at Stephen Butterfield’s brief profile again. A left-leaning publishing house. Too obvious? Or just the right amount?

Without more background it was impossible to say, and while Upshott had a small population, running a solo check on every
villager was an uphill task. But of this, Catherine was convinced: that if every current inhabitant lined up in front of her, Mr. B would not be among them. Because if Lamb was right, and poor Dickie Bow had been killed in a drag hunt, then Mr. B’s role had come to an end once he’d finished laying his trail. The question was, why did that trail lead to Upshott?

The clue was that word,
cicadas
. Part of the Popov legend, intended to have the Service tying itself in knots, looking for a network that didn’t exist. But in the spooks’ hall of mirrors, that didn’t mean it couldn’t be real … The Cold War was history, but its shrapnel was everywhere. Maybe, all these years later, Upshott harboured a cicada, who was getting ready to sing.