Slow Horses (33 page)
‘You think I have a sneaking regard for your talents?’
‘I think you do nothing without a reason.’
‘The day I let Regent’s Park screw me around’s the day I take the pledge,’ Lamb said. ‘If the Dogs tried to steal my pencil sharpener, I’d hide it. And I don’t have a pencil sharpener.’
Ho said, ‘What’s a pencil sharpener?’
‘Very funny.’
Ho looked puzzled.
‘So what’s the point?’ Louisa asked. ‘Why are we here?’
Lamb lit his cigarette. For a moment, his face wreathed in smoke, he might have materialized from the tomb he leant against. ‘Let’s not kid ourselves. Dogs’ll pick you up before you get your breakfast. But at least you know what’s happening. Taverner’s got Loy and White, and she’ll have turned both of them by now. They’ll swear blind whatever story she feeds them is true. And that’ll be that this whole mess was planned at Slough House. Meaning me.’
‘Nice to know where your priorities lie,’ River said.
‘Yeah, well, the difference between us is I’ve a career to look back on. And I’m not having Taverner piss all over it.’
‘And that’s it?’ Min Harper said. ‘We just hang about for the Dogs to catch up?’
‘You have a better plan?’
Louisa said, ‘Hassan’s still out there somewhere. Maybe not far away. We can’t sit on our hands and wait for his body to be found.’
‘I thought you were dying for your breakfast.’
‘You’re trying to wind us up, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. So you discover the heroes inside yourselves.’ He paused. ‘Look. I don’t normally say this stuff, but I want to tell you something.’ He took a drag on his cigarette. ‘You’re fucking useless, the lot of you.’
They waited for a ‘but’.
‘No, I’m serious. If you weren’t fuck-ups, you’d still be at Regent’s Park. If you’re all Hassan Ahmed’s got to rely on, I hope the kid’s got religion.’ He dropped his cigarette and ground it into the damp leaves underfoot. ‘Now, given that Cartwright’s the only one with anything useful to offer, he’d better come with me.’
‘Where to?’ River asked.
‘To let the air out of Taverner’s tyres,’ Lamb said. ‘The rest of you can do what you like.’
As they headed towards the gates, Lamb half a pace ahead, River said: ‘You were trying to wind them up, weren’t you?’
‘No,’ Lamb told him. ‘I meant every word.’
‘Might have the effect of winding them up, though.’
‘I don’t suppose that’ll do much harm,’ Lamb said. ‘But it’s not likely to do a hell of a lot of good.’ Producing a key, he tossed it to River, who unlocked the gates, let Lamb through, then followed him on to the pavement.
Lamb was already striding over the road, where a large black SUV was parked half on the opposite pavement.
River said, ‘Where’d you get the car?’
‘Official issue,’ Lamb told him. ‘You been near Slough House?’
‘Not since we all left together.’
‘So we don’t know whether the cleaners have been in.’
For a moment, River thought he meant just that: the cleaners. He hadn’t been aware Slough House was ever cleaned. Then he remembered Moody. ‘It’s been a few hours. They might have been and gone.’
‘Or it might still be there.’
It
, meaning Jed Moody’s body. Lamb started the engine. ‘Let’s find out.’
The others watched Lamb and Cartwright disappear between the trees.
Louisa said, ‘Bastard.’
Catherine Standish said, ‘He told us we’re useless because he wants us to prove him wrong.’
‘No he didn’t. He’s covering his arse, that’s all.’
‘But supposing he wasn’t?’ said Catherine.
‘What difference would that make?’
‘It would mean he wants us to prove him wrong.’
‘I’m not desperate for his approval.’
‘Hassan Ahmed might appreciate it, though.’
Min said, ‘Everyone in the country’s been looking for Hassan Ahmed for two days. How are we supposed to find him?’
‘We know where he was not long ago. Anyway, we’re not looking for him,’ Catherine said. ‘We’re looking for the people who took him.’
‘There’s a difference?’
‘You’re Alan Black,’ she said. ‘That’s what he was saying before Cartwright interrupted. So, we’re Alan Black. What would we have done?’
Louisa said, ‘You’re right. It gives us an edge.’
Ho said, ‘You think?’
‘Why not?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t remember ever having a conversation with him.’
‘So how come you didn’t like him?’
‘He used to open windows.’
Catherine said drily, ‘I can see how upsetting that must have been for you.’
Ho removed the dongle from his laptop and powered down. ‘Anyway, we can’t stay here. It’s cold and damp. Where’s that caff?’
‘Old Street.’
‘Come on, then.’
‘All of us?’
‘Someone has to come. I didn’t bring any money. They have wi-fi, you notice?’
Louisa looked at Min, then back at Ho. ‘You want to try looking for Hassan?’
Ho shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
‘Don’t tell me you want Lamb’s approval.’
‘Approval?’ Ho said. ‘Fuck, no. I just want to prove the prick wrong.’
The car came to a halt, and Hassan’s body was bounced against the boot lid. He barely noticed. Further bruising seemed immaterial.
There was, after all, worse to come.
Lamb pulled up by the bus stop opposite Slough House. One of Moody’s checkpoints, River recalled; constantly monitored for loiterers. He said, ‘So. What we doing?’
‘See any lights?’
‘Third floor.’
‘Did you leave that on?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Think.’
River thought. It didn’t help. ‘I don’t remember. You were there too. Why is it my fault the light was left on?’
‘Because I’ve better things to worry about.’
At the windows no shapes appeared; no other lights went on. The cleaners might be inside, removing Jed Moody. Or might have been and gone, and left the light on; or might not have been there at all.
And might turn up in the next few minutes.
Reading River’s thoughts, Lamb said, ‘Only one way to find out.’
‘We’re going in?’
‘You are,’ Lamb told him. ‘No point us both running the risk.’
‘And supposing I don’t get caught? What am I supposed to do?’
Lamb told him.
‘So we what, try to work out what we’d do in their position?’
‘We work out what Black’s back-up plan would have been. If the safe house was blown.’
‘But Black was the one planning to blow the safe house.’
‘Yes,’ said Catherine patiently. ‘But given that he probably didn’t tell them that in advance, they might have wanted to know if there was a back-up plan.’
‘They killed Black because they discovered he was a spook,’ Louisa said. ‘They’re hardly likely to trust his plans now.’
‘True,’ Min Harper put in. ‘But on the other hand, they’re a bunch of morons.’
‘How do we know that?’
‘Well, they joined a group called Voice of Albion. You want a definition of moron …’
‘They sussed out Black.’
‘Yeah, well, he wasn’t James Bond.’
‘This is getting us nowhere,’ Catherine said.
They were in a café on Old Street: long and narrow with a counter along the window, and tables against a mirrored wall. Coffee had arrived, and breakfasts been ordered. Ho’s laptop was open, and that familiar expression was capturing him; the one where the world on his screen became more real, less irritating, than the one around him.
He said, ‘They might have offed him already. Why stick to the deadline now?’
‘For the sake of the exercise,’ Catherine said, ‘let’s pretend there’s a chance of saving his life. Otherwise we might as well go back to bed.’
Louisa said, ‘What about CCTV? I thought the UK had blanket coverage. Especially on the roads.’
Ho offered her a pained look. ‘All other objections aside, we don’t know what they’re driving.’
‘So how do we find out?’
They fell silent.
‘He’s not likely to have used his credit card,’ Min said at last.
‘But there’ll be a papertrail.’
‘A footprint.’
‘In a black op?’
‘Black ops cost. Unless Taverner’s funded it out of her own pocket, there’ll be—’
‘A footprint,’ Ho repeated. ‘Not a papertrail.’
‘Whatever.’
‘This isn’t a black op,’ Catherine said. ‘It’s off the books. Different animal entirely.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘A black op’s officially deniable. One that’s off the books never happened.’
‘So how’s the funding work when it’s off the books?’
Catherine thought for a moment. ‘I once heard about an op where a safe house was kitted out. In Walsall, I think. All the utilities, council tax, everything was on standing order. But the house didn’t exist. The money went from Budgeting into a property account, which then funded the op.’
‘Tracking that,’ Ho said, ‘would take forever.’
‘No, but,’ Louisa said. She turned to Catherine. ‘That safe house never existed. But we know one that does, don’t we?’
‘Roupell Street,’ Min said.
They looked at Ho.
‘I’m on it.’
Curly said, ‘We need to get out of the city.’
‘We should dump the car. Walk away,’ Larry said.
He’d been bottling this up, Curly could tell. Until the words felt like a winning argument:
This is what we should do, because I just said it was.
‘We killed a spook,’ he said.
‘You killed him.’
‘He’s dead, you were there. You want to argue details?’
‘In a court of law—’
‘You what? You fucking
what
?’
‘Because—’
‘You think we’ll end up in court, you’re more of a twat than those jeans make you look.’
Larry said, ‘What’s wrong with them?’
‘We killed a spook. You think they’ll arrest us?’
‘What you saying?’
‘They will shoot. Us. Dead. End of. No arrest, no trial, no weaselly words about how you only watched while I cut his head off.’ Saying the words, he could feel the blood pulse through his cutting arm. It was like having an erection, right to his fingertips. ‘A pair of bullets each. Bam bam. Double tap.’
Larry was shaking.
‘So don’t even think about court. We’re not going to court. Get it?’
Larry gave no response.
‘Get it?’
‘I get it.’
‘Good.’ And now he let Larry off the hook: ‘But it’s not gunna happen anyway. We’re not getting caught.’
‘We had a spy with us. You think—’
‘I know he was a spy. That doesn’t mean we’re gunna get caught. You think we’re alone in this? We’re not. The people are on our side. You think they’re gunna turn their backs on us?’
Larry said, ‘Maybe not.’
‘Maybe not.
Maybe
not. If that’s all you believe, you should’ve just sat in the pub, complaining about the country being taken away from us. Another fucking whiner with no balls.’
‘I’m here. I’m not all noise. You know that.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Curly wanted to say more, to explain to Larry what the future held: that they’d be heroes, outlaws, Robin Hoods. Symbols of the struggle against Islam. And when the war started, leaders of the people. But he didn’t, because Larry didn’t have it in him. Larry thought he was a soldier, but he was just another coward; happy to talk, scared to walk. No point talking to him about a future that was Curly’s alone.
Which Larry didn’t know yet, but he’d find out soon.
But the Roupell Street house led nowhere.
‘Civil Service property since the fifties,’ Ho said, scanning records he’d pulled onscreen. ‘Treasury first, then something called “collateral purposes”.’
‘Safe house,’ Catherine said.
‘And now it’s listed under Sales.’
‘Which means exactly what it sounds like.’ Catherine shook her head. ‘There’ll be no papertrail.
Footprint
, sorry. All Taverner had to do was check the sales portfolio for an empty property, and use that.’
‘So they were squatting,’ Min said.
‘Basically.’
‘They’d have had a shock if a potential buyer turned up.’
‘In this climate?’
‘Okay, that takes us nowhere. So where are we?’ Louisa said.
‘Twiddling thumbs,’ Ho said. ‘The kid’s toast.’
‘Shut up,’ Catherine snapped.
Ho eyed her warily.
‘Get this through your head. Until we know he’s dead, we keep looking. We’ve no idea what their plan is. They might want to keep to the original timetable because it’s, I don’t know, Hitler’s birthday or something. It might matter to them. We might still have time.’
Ho opened his mouth as if to reveal when Hitler’s birthday was, but thought better of it.
Louisa said, ‘None of us are giving up.’
Their breakfasts arrived: three platefuls of the full English; one mushroom omelette. Ho shifted his laptop on to his knees, then scooped a forkful of beans into his mouth.
‘Were you taught to eat?’ Louisa said. ‘Or is it still a learning process?’
Chewing rapidly Ho nodded at her, as if to indicate that a smart reply was but minutes away.
Min said, ‘Okay, they got the house for free. They’d still need money. For transport if nothing else.’
‘They might have stolen it.’
‘With a kidnap victim? Too risky.’
‘They might have used their own wheels.’
‘Black was a pro. He’d have wanted fresh.’
Catherine agreed.
‘And paid with cash,’ said Min.
‘Most likely,’ agreed Louisa.
‘And if they used cash, it’s history.’
Catherine cut her omelette into uniform slices. The others watched, fascinated.
When she’d finished, she ate two pieces in silence, then took a sip of coffee. She said, ‘Not necessarily. Black was using a fake name. When you’re establishing a cover, one of the first things you go for is a credit card. It’s easy to do. And once you’ve got it, why not use it? It adds verisimilitude.’
‘Adds what?’ Ho said.
Catherine gave him a look
Min said, ‘Sounds good, but where does it take us? We don’t know what name he was using.’
‘Didn’t Lamb check his pockets? For a wallet?’
‘I think he’d have said if he had. On account of it being, you know. A clue.’
‘Let’s step back,’ Louisa suggested. ‘You’re running an op. What do you need?’