Slow Horses (27 page)

‘Then where?’

‘Blake’s grave. Soon.’

They left in separate cars.

A bare minute later, two black vans arrived, and figures piled out.

‘A spook.’

‘But …’

‘But fuck all. He was a spook. End of.’

He made a chopping motion with one hand.

In both their minds, a head fell to the floor.

‘I’m …’

‘You’re what?’

‘I’m just …’

‘You’re scared.’

‘You killed him.’

‘
We
killed him.’

‘I didn’t even know you were gunna do that.’

‘Did you think this was a game?’

‘But it changes everything.’

‘You’re a nancy. Nothing’s changed.’

‘Nothing’s
changed
? We killed a copper—’

‘Spy.’

‘Spy, copper, what’s the difference? You think they’ll let this lie? You think they’ll—what?’

Because Curly had thrown his head back and screamed in mirthless laughter.

Diana Taverner was in her office. It was shortly after three, and the hub was mostly empty; only a couple of the kids hunched over a console, coordinating surveillance of an animal rights group. She’d just put the phone down. The tactical ops squad—‘the achievers’—had gone into the house near Waterloo; it was empty, save for a body. They’d cut his head off. The good part, if you could call it that, was that he’d been dead before that happened.

A fingerprint scan was on its way, but she already knew whose the body was. It wasn’t Hassan Ahmed’s, so it had to be Alan Black’s. Her agent. Jackson Lamb and his crew were nowhere. Her earlier worst thoughts, about things going even more wrong, had come to pass. It was as well she’d set a back-up plan in motion.

Echoing that thought, the phone rang. Ingrid Tearney, her boss. They’d spoken earlier; Taverner had called her from the canal. She was somewhere over the Atlantic, nearer New York than London.

‘Ingrid,’ she said.

‘I’m hearing rumours. What’s going on, Diana?’

‘Like I said earlier. It’s Jackson Lamb.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘It looks like it.’ She leant forward; rested her forehead on her palm. Commit to the action, and the voice follows. ‘The body at Waterloo? It’s Alan Black’s. He used to be one of Lamb’s. Quit last year, but maybe he didn’t after all. It looks like Lamb’s been playing him all along.’

‘Jesus wept. This can
not
be happening.’

‘Best I can tell, Lamb was running the kidnapping to make a personal score. Or else, God knows, to make the Service look good. Either way, it’s shot to hell. His agent’s murdered, and the others are gone, Hassan Ahmed with them. And there’s no reason on earth they should stick to their deadline now.’

‘Christ, Diana, this is your watch—’

‘Mine? Slough House hardly falls under my jurisdiction, does it? Before we start the recriminations game, let’s get that on the record. And face facts. The body’s one of Lamb’s people. Lamb knew where to go, for Christ’s sake.’

Ingrid Tearney said, ‘He was there, then. At Waterloo.’

‘Yes. I don’t know where he is now. But we’ll trace him.’

‘In time?’

‘Ingrid, at this stage he knows as much about Hassan Ahmed’s whereabouts as we do. His op’s blown. We’re looking at damage limitation. I know you’re shocked. But he’s always been a loose cannon. And ever since the Partner business—’

‘Careful.’

‘I don’t officially know what happened then, but I’ve a shrewd idea. And anyone who can do what Lamb did probably thinks he’s above scrutiny. I’ve been worried about him for some time. That’s why I put Sid Baker in there.’

‘And what did she report?’

‘That Lamb runs the place like a mad hermit. Sits in his top-floor lair with the blinds drawn. It’s not a big surprise he’s tipped over the edge, Ingrid.’

She was using her name too often. She’d have to watch that.

‘What’s Baker said about tonight?’

‘She’s in no position to say anything. She was one of tonight’s casualties.’

‘Hell’s teeth. Did I miss the meeting where war was declared?’

‘We’re mopping up. I’ve one of Lamb’s people downstairs. It won’t take long to get cast-iron proof. All we need is something that puts Lamb with Black since Black quit the Service. Let’s face it, Jackson Lamb’s not the Friends Reunited type.’

‘You’re very keen on playing the judge.’

‘Well, it’s a fucking mess! We’ve got the body of a rogue agent, in a house where Hassan Ahmed was held. How’s that going to play with the boy’s uncle? We can swear we’ve clean hands till the cows come home, he’s still going to smell Service involvement. And this is a man HMG hopes is going to come down on the side of the moderates. We’ve got to clean it up.’

‘There’s a crew there now?’

‘Yes. But they’re not investigators, and they don’t do forensics. If anything’s marked clue, they’ll pick it up. But otherwise …’

‘But otherwise they might miss something that would help the cops find Hassan,’ Tearney finished.

Both fell silent. A blinking light on Taverner’s phone told her she had another call. She ignored it. The receiver felt hot, but she gripped it so tight her hand trembled.

‘Okay. Bring him in.’

‘Lamb?’

‘Lamb. Let’s see what he has to say for himself.’

‘What about Hassan Ahmed?’

‘I thought you’d covered that.’

London rules, she thought. London rules. ‘I’m going to need to hear you say it, Ingrid.’

Some decisions, she wanted other people’s fingerprints on from the start.

‘Oh, Christ. Having Mahmud Gul’s nephew killed on our soil is one thing. Having him killed with our connivance is another. Leave him to the cops, and pray they get to him in time. Either way, I don’t want Five appearing in their write-ups.’

‘Lamb’s not likely to come quietly.’

‘He’s not an idiot. Get Duffy on to it. And bring the rest of them in too.’

‘The rest of them?’

‘The Slough House crew. The slow horses. Get them off the streets and find out who knew what before any more damage is done. I don’t want mud sticking to Five over this. We get enough flak as it is.’

‘Consider it done. Safe flight.’

For a moment, Diana Taverner sat perfectly still, looking through her wall at the kids on the hub. At all the empty spaces which would be filled in a few short hours by more kids, doing more thankless tasks. They’d have been warned about that as soon as they signed up, of course, and would have pretended to believe it, but nobody ever really did, not at first. Each and every one of them secretly expected to be appreciated. It wasn’t going to happen. She’d wanted to drop a spectacular victory in their laps. That wasn’t going to happen either. But at least she could make sure the crash happened as far off as possible, and only damaged the dead wood.

Then she rang the crew at the Waterloo house. It was a brief, one-sided conversation: ‘Disappear the body. Clean the house.’

Cleaning houses, when you cleaned them properly, required strong agents. Fire was the safest bet.

Then she returned Nick Duffy’s call. He was back in Regent’s Park, though well below where she sat now. ‘Which one? … Okay. Five minutes.’

‘Who was he?’

‘Black. Alan Black.’

River had never met him. He’d quit Slough House months before River’s arrival; one of those in whom the fire that had driven him into the Service had been quenched by quotidian drudgery. River had no idea what failure had landed Black in their company. Asking would have been like dredging up ancestral sins; enquiring which wicked uncle interfered with which parlour maid. More than that, it would have required River to care, and he didn’t.

So why had Black’s face been familiar?

He sat in the back, with Louisa at the wheel; Min Harper next to her. When the streetlights washed across them, their faces became doughy and unloved, but were, at least, attached to their bodies. The acrid taste of vomit stung River’s throat. Streets away, the head on the kitchen table leered at him, and probably always would.

Because River had seen that face before. Last time, it too had been attached to its body. For the moment, he couldn’t put the parts together again: the head on the man; the man in his memory. It would come, though. River’s recall was good. Already it was churning through possibilities, plucking them like balls from the bubbling air in a lottery machine. No winners yet, but give it time.

‘You’re sure?’

‘That it was Black?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes. I’m sure. Why did that bastard trash our phones?’

‘So no one can trace us.’

‘Thanks again. I knew that. I meant why’s he worried about anyone tracing us?’

River worked it out as he spoke. ‘We’re being set up. We were supposed to be rescuing Hassan Ahmed. We find a former agent, dead. This whole Hassan thing, it must be an op. And it’s every which way screwed up.’

‘How did Lamb know where to go?’

‘It was Lady Di he went out to meet earlier, yes?’

‘And you’re saying she told him?’

River said, ‘I’m saying that’s what he’s saying.’

‘Lamb’s running an op?’

‘I don’t know,’ River said. ‘Maybe. But then again, if he was …’

‘If he was, what?’

River stared out of the window. ‘If he was, I don’t think he’d have screwed up like this.’

There was silence from the front seats. Min Harper and Louisa Guy were not big fans of Jackson Lamb.

‘He’s carrying a flight fund,’ he told them. ‘If things had gone belly up, he’s got the wherewithal to fade away. He’d not be sending us to collect the others …’

He was slower than his companions on this particular uptake.

‘Yeah, right.’

‘Which is why we don’t have any phones.’

‘And are running our arses all over London. While he’s where?’

River said, ‘He didn’t have to fetch me. From the hospital.’

‘He did if he wanted to know what was going on.’

‘Which he would. If he was running an op.’

‘So what do we do?’ River asked. ‘What he said? Or head to Regent’s Park and start spilling beans?’

This was met with silence; the sound of two bodies still fizzing with alcohol, but shocked out of actual drunkenness.

A blue and yellow blur spun by, siren screaming. Maybe heading for the house they’d just left. But River guessed not. River guessed the tidying up of that particular mess would happen quietly.

Then he heard: ‘I guess, if he’s not at Blake’s grave, we’ll know we’ve been screwed.’

‘And if we’re gunna be screwed, we might as well all be screwed at once.’

‘It’ll save time.’

River felt grateful, though wasn’t entirely sure why.

‘Okay. So did either of you get those addresses?’

Without taking her eyes from the road, Louisa Guy recited them, note perfect.

‘Nice one,’ said River, impressed.

‘Well, if they turn out wrong, that’ll be a clue, won’t it?’

‘We’d better split,’ he said. ‘You do Loy and Ho. Drop me here. I’ll head back for White.’

‘You’ll manage for transport?’

‘Please,’ River said. The car slowed; stopped. He got out.

‘See you later.’

In a different car, Curly screamed in mirthless laughter.

‘What? What’s funny?’

‘You think they’d have let it lie otherwise? When we chop the Paki’s head off?’

‘The plan was never to do it.’

‘Your plan was never to do it,’ Curly said. ‘Your plan.’

Hassan was in the boot. They’d pulled the hood over his head, and tied his wrists.
If you shout or make a noise, I’ll cut your fucking tongue out.

‘How did you know?’

‘Know what?’ Curly asked.

‘That he was a … spook.’

Curly tapped the breast pocket of his denim jacket, where his mobile nestled. ‘Got a call, didn’t I?’

‘You weren’t supposed to have a phone.’

‘Good job I did. Else we’d still be back there with that fucking traitor. Waiting for the SAS.’

He wasn’t supposed to have a phone, it was true. Mobile phones could be traced: Larry’s rule. But before they could trace you via your phone, they had to know it was yours. Otherwise it was only a mobile signal, and everyone had one of those. So he’d bought a pre-pay, and had used it to call Gregory Simmonds, the Voice of Albion, every couple of hours. Because any time Simmonds stopped answering his phone, that meant the cops were on to them.

Curly had encountered Simmonds through the British Patriotic Party’s website, where he’d posted messages as Excalibur88, the 88 meaning HH,
Heil Hitler
. This was just after the Lockerbie bomber had been sent home. There’d been scenes on TV of him meeting a hero’s welcome: happy flag-waving crowds. Meanwhile the BNP was being taken to court, because it was against the law to have a party only for true Englishmen, and believers’ names were being plastered on the internet, an invitation to left-wing thugs to throw bricks through windows, and threaten wives and families.

The issue, Curly posted, was simple. White man dies in a bomb attack? String up a Muslim from a lamppost. Right here, right now. Didn’t matter who. It wasn’t like the tube bombers had checked out their victims in advance, making sure there weren’t kids or nurses on the trains. You string one up and then another, to show them who they were dealing with. Kick me once, I kick you twice. And then jump on your head. That’s how you win a war, and this was a war.

So then he’d been contacted by Gregory Simmonds, the Voice of Albion. A short man with tall opinions, Simmonds had made his money in long-haul logistics, what used to be called removals. He’d founded the Voice because he was sick of seeing this once-proud country dragged downhill by scumbag politicians in the pockets of foreign interests—conversation with him was like listening to a party broadcast, but he wasn’t all talk. Voice of Albion was about action. There were a couple of other guys Simmonds knew, a plan coming together. Was Curly interested in action?

Curly was. Curly would have liked to be a soldier. Never worked out, so he was mostly unemployed, but he did a weekly off-the-books stint as an exit-coordinator at a club, what used to be called bouncing. This was in Bolton. There were more exciting cities, more exciting lives.

So anyway. Officers stayed behind the lines, but Simmonds was putting the plan together, with help from these other guys, Moe and Larry.