Slow Horses (38 page)

No balls. With soldiers like him, the war was lost. Hell, it wasn’t even fought. It was all hot air and history.

But Curly was at war. If Larry didn’t know which side he was on, that was his lookout. The thing about an axe was, it didn’t need reloading.

The Paki was showing his heels again. He ran like a girl, elbows tucked into his sides. Curly, though, was flying. Days of tension, of built-up excitement, and here was the moment at last.

We’re gunna cut your head off.

Call it a declaration of war.

Then his right foot landed on something slippery and wet, and for half a beat he might have lost his balance and sprawled on his back, while the axe went flying freely through the air—but it didn’t happen, he didn’t fall; his body was finely in synch with the natural world, and his left foot firmly in place on solid ground; his hip twisting just enough that his centre of balance held, and now he was moving even faster, and the distance between himself and his prey was disappearing by the second.

He wished the Paki had been looking back to see that. Get some idea of what he was dealing with.

We’re gunna cut your head off and show it.

But he was still making tracks, running like a girl. Scared as a mouse. Frightened as a rat.

Curly slowed his pace. This was too good. This was too good to hurry. This was what they meant by thrill of the chase.

We’re gunna cut your head off and show it on the web.

Nick Duffy covered his phone with a hand and said, ‘They’ve got him.’

‘Where?’

‘Webb’s office.’

Taverner glanced at Lamb, who shrugged. ‘If my guys were any good, they’d be your guys.’

‘Why Webb?’ she asked. Then: ‘Never mind.’ To Duffy, she said, ‘Tell them to take whoever it is downstairs. And tell Webb to get up here.’

‘He’s on his way.’

‘Thank you. Give me a minute, would you?’

Duffy left, talking into his phone.

Taverner said, ‘Whatever just happened, that was your last chance. Hope you enjoyed your morning, Jackson, because it’s the last you’ll see for a week. And by the time you’re back upstairs, you’ll have signed a confession, and anything else I tell you to.’

Lamb, sitting facing her, nodded thoughtfully. He seemed to be about to say something important, but all he could manage was, ‘Mind, your lad Spider doesn’t half like a colourful tie.’

Behind her, the door opened.

‘Of course, my lad River can’t do a knot to save his life.’

The minutes spent swapping shirts with the unconscious Spider hadn’t been wasted after all. River Cartwright, wearing Webb’s jacket and tie, closed the door behind him, a black folder tucked under his arm.

Hassan couldn’t look back. Could barely look forward. Had to look at the ground, scan it for roots and stones and unsuspected dips; for anything that might grab his ankle and bring him to a sudden end. For dangers at head-height, he trusted his luck.

‘Having fun yet, Paki?’

Curly, gaining on him.

‘Playtime’s nearly over.’

Hassan tried to speed up, but couldn’t. Everything he had to offer, he was already pouring into this one aim: to keep moving. To never stop. To run to the end of the wood, and then beyond; to always be one step ahead of this Nazi thug who wanted to kill him. With an axe.

The thought of the axe should have been a spur, but he had nothing left to give.

A sudden dip in the ground almost threw him, but he survived. A root reached for his ankle, but missed him by an inch. Two escapes in as many seconds, and that was it: his luck ran out. A branch struck him in the face and Hassan staggered from the blow, ran into a tree without enough force to damage himself, but with more than enough to bring him to a halt. His legs didn’t quite buckle, nor his body quite fall, but there was nothing left. He couldn’t start the engine again. He held on to the tree a moment longer, then turned to face his murderer.

Curly stood on the other side of the dip, panting lightly. A doglike smile was painted across his face, colouring every aspect but his eyes, and he was swinging the axe gently, as if to demonstrate his total control over it. There was no sign of Larry. No sign of the digicam, either; no tripod; nothing. Hassan, though, had the feeling that events were moving to a conclusion regardless. Curly’s need to film this horror was paling beside his need to commit it. The axe was all he required now. The axe, and Hassan’s participation.

But even knowing that, Hassan had given all he had. He couldn’t move another step.

Curly shook his head. ‘The trouble with you lot,’ he explained, ‘is you’re just not at home in the woods.’

And the trouble with your lot, thought Hassan … The trouble with your lot … But there was so much wrong with Curly’s lot that there was no smart phrase to do it justice. The trouble with Curly’s lot was that it contained Curly, and others like him. What more needed saying?

Curly stepped forward, into the dip, and up the other side. He swapped the axe from one hand to the other; made a little lunge with it to tease his victim; then was neatly hooked round the ankle by the root Hassan had avoided, and hammered down flat on his face. Hassan watched, fascinated, as Curly took a mouthful of leaf and mud; was so engrossed by the spectacle that it took him a full second to register that the axe had just landed at his feet.

But even with bound hands, it took him less than a full second to pick it up.

Mistake? I prefer to call it a fiasco.

Spider Webb’s words, the other day. They were right up there with
London rules
as far as River was concerned.
I prefer to call it a fiasco.
Thank you, Spider. That would be a clue.

The folder he held was neatly labelled
Fiasco
.

‘And this,’ he said to Taverner, ‘is why you had Spider burn me.’

‘Burn you?’

Lamb said, ‘He’s a kid. He gets carried away with the jargon.’

‘I’m calling Duffy back in.’

‘Be my guest,’ Lamb told her. He was fiddling with his bent cigarette again, and seemed at least as interested in it as in whatever River’s folder held. But still: River waited until Lamb threw him a barely perceptible nod, before he went on.

He said, ‘I did my upgrade assessment last winter.’

‘I remember,’ Taverner said. ‘You crashed King’s Cross.’

‘No, you did that. By getting Webb to feed me misinformation, sending me after a plant. A fake fake. Not the real one.’

‘And why would I do that?’

‘Because an earlier part of the assessment was compiling a profile on a public figure,’ River said. ‘My designated target was a Shadow Cabinet Minister, but he had a stroke the night before, and was hospitalized. So I covered you instead. I thought that showed initiative, but you know what?’ He opened the folder, and removed a pair of photographs he’d taken months ago, the day before the King’s Cross assignment. ‘It showed you in a coffee shop instead. Happy memories?’

He laid them on the desk where they could all see. The pictures had been taken from outside a Starbucks, and showed Diana Taverner at a window seat, drinking from a regular-sized mug. Next to her was a crew-cut man in a dark overcoat. In the first photograph he held a handkerchief to his nose, and could have been anyone. In the second he’d lowered his hand, and was Alan Black.

‘He must have been about to go undercover. Was that your last meet?’

Taverner didn’t reply. Behind her eyes, Lamb and River could see calculations rolling once again; as if even here, in a glass room, she might still find a way out that neither of them had yet noticed.

Lamb said, ‘When you found out what Cartwright had done, you took steps. The King’s Cross business should have meant game over, he should have been on the street. But because he had a legend in the family, the best you could manage was Slough House, and once the op was running, and the Voice of Albion was in play, you had Sid Baker assigned to us too, just to make sure Cartwright wasn’t getting any clever ideas. Which, given grandad, he’d likely be prone to, right?’

On a train of her own, she said, ‘I told Webb to get rid of the file.’

‘He’s a quick learner too.’

‘What do you want, Lamb?’

Lamb said, ‘There’s a reason why handlers are always ex-joes. It’s because they know what they’re doing. You couldn’t have fucked this up worse if you were trying.’

‘You’ve made your point. What do you want?’

River said, ‘You know what I want?’

She turned her gaze on him, and he understood a fundamental difference between suits and joes. When a joe looked at you, if he was any good, you’d never notice. But when a suit turned it on, you could feel their glare scorching holes in your intestinal tract.

But still, he was the O.B.’s grandson. ‘If Hassan Ahmed dies,’ he said, ‘there’s no hiding place. It all comes out. Not just here in the Park, but out there in the real world. If your idiot plan gets that kid killed, I will crucify you. Publicly.’

Taverner made a noise halfway between a snort and a laugh. She said to Lamb, ‘Are you going to tell him the facts of life, or shall I?’

‘You already screwed him,’ Lamb told her. ‘Bit late for a theory lesson, I’d have thought. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do.’

She waited.

He said, ‘If Hassan Ahmed dies, I’ll watch Cartwright’s back while he does whatever he thinks necessary.’

And River learned something else about suits and joes; that when a joe wants to be noticed, he is.

After a while, Taverner said, ‘What if the boy’s rescued?’

Lamb gave her his shark’s grin. ‘That happens, maybe we’ll keep it between ourselves. There’s bound to be favours we can do each other.’

The grin made it clear in which direction the favours would flow.

‘We don’t know even where he is,’ she said.

‘Well, my crew’s on it, so I’d call it sixty-forty he’s toast.’ He looked at River. ‘What do you reckon?’

River said, ‘I don’t think it’s a joking matter.’

But he was thinking: fifty-fifty. Absolute tops, he’d give Hassan fifty-fifty of seeing lunchtime.

Curly was moaning, a long low keening sound, and his foot was twisted at a peculiar angle. Perhaps, Hassan thought, it was broken. One broken ankle versus two bound hands—that made for a level playing field. Or would have done, except that Hassan now had an axe.

On the whole, that gave him the edge.

Placing one foot heavily on the fallen Curly’s hand, Hassan rested the blade on the fallen Curly’s head.

‘Give me a reason not to kill you,’ he said.

Whatever Curly answered was lost in a mouthful of earth and a whimper of pain.

‘Give me a reason,’ Hassan repeated, lifting the axe an inch.

Curly turned his head aside and spat grit and leaf. ‘Foo’s ur.’

‘I’m supposed to understand that?’

He spat again. ‘My foot’s hurt.’

Hassan lowered the axe once more, so the blade touched Curly’s temple. He pressed down, and watched Curly’s eyes close and his features tighten. He wondered if the fear Curly felt was the same fear he’d felt himself. Since it seemed to have departed him now, he suspected it probably was. And how’s that for a joke, he wondered? How would that work with an audience? That the same fear Curly had set loose in Hassan’s gut was now burying its snout in his own bowels? But maybe not everyone would get it. Maybe you had to be there.

Another push on the axe loosed a trickle of blood down Curly’s face.

‘Did you say something?’

Curly had made a noise.

‘Did you?’

He made another one.

Wrapping his bound hands tightly round the axe handle, Hassan dropped into a crouch. The blade pressed heavily on the side of Curly’s head. He said, ‘Did you have something to say?’, and gave equal weight to each syllable.

Curly said, ‘D—do it.’

Or he might have said, ‘Don’t do it.’

Hassan waited, his eyes six inches from Curly’s. He wished there were some way he could see inside Curly’s head; some way he could allow light into Curly’s brain in a way that didn’t involve brute surgery. But there wasn’t. He was sure there wasn’t. So he leant a little closer.

‘You know what?’ Hassan said. ‘You make me ashamed I’m British.’

Then he stood and walked away.

* * *

He walked back to the car and then along the track that led to the distant road. He had no idea how far away it was. He didn’t care. He was thirsty, hungry and tired, which were all bad things; he was cold and filthy, and that was bad too. But his hands were no longer bound, because he had severed the cord with the blade of the axe; and fear was no longer chewing at his innards, because he’d left it behind in the woods. He was alive, and nobody had rescued him. He was alive because of who he was.

And maybe because Joanna Lumley had come through, too.

He saw no sign of Larry, and that didn’t matter. He saw no rabbits, either, nor heard any birds, and his sense of time had long deserted him, but before Hassan reached the road lights bloomed way ahead of him: flashing ovals which painted the trees blue and then blue and then blue. And soon people were rushing towards him in a fever of noise and motion.

‘Hassan Ahmed?’

The axe was taken gently away, and arms were holding him up.

‘You’re Hassan Ahmed?’

It was a simple enough question, and it didn’t take him long to find an answer.

‘Yes,’ he told them. ‘Yes, I am.’

And then he added, ‘I’m alive.’

They were very glad to hear it, he learned, as they carried him back to the world.

Chapter 18

The roadworks have eased on Aldersgate. Traffic flows freely once more. If our inquisitive bus passenger of earlier acquaintance were to gaze at Slough House today on her way past, she might find its passage too swift for concentrated study, though on a London bus there always remains the possibility of inexplicable delay. But that aside, a glimpse is all that the new dispensation permits; one brief view of a young Chinese man with heavy-framed spectacles behind a monitor, and Slough House is in the past. Whatever used to happen there presumably continues to do so. Whatever haunts its fading paintwork doubtless still abides.

But fresh opportunities have arisen since our voyeur’s first journey. She can alight at the bus stop opposite, for instance, and take a seat, and gaze all day at the never-opening front door of Slough House, with no possibility that Jed Moody will emerge to encourage her departure. Such a vigil, though, would offer little in the way of entertainment, and besides, other views await: across the road, up the staircase at Barbican Station, over the pedestrian bridge, a brief sortie along a bricked-walkway, and—weather permitting—she’ll find a dry low wall on which to perch, and perhaps light a cigarette, and feast at her leisure on what she can see through the waiting windows.