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  “Especially when things are dodgy at home,” Min couldn’t stop himself saying.

  Louisa shook her head: I have to work with this?

  But Webb pursed his lips. “It’s true the Park’s a bit manic right now.”

  Yeah. You’re touching toes for the bean-counters, thought Min. That must make for fun moments round the watercooler.

  Webb said, “Every organisation needs the odd shake-up. We’ll see how things stand once the dust settles.”

  And in the same instant, both Min and Louisa realised Webb was intending to emerge from this shake-up behind a desk with a number on it.

  “But meanwhile, it’s mend and make-do. Background’s busy, as you might imagine, running checks on the Park’s own staff. Which is why we find ourselves forced to, ah …”

  “Outsource?”

  “If you like.”

  “Tell us about this babysitting,” Louisa suggested.

  “We’re expecting visitors,” Webb said.

  “What kind?”

  “The Russian kind.”

  “That’s nice. Aren’t they our friends now?”

  Webb chuckled politely.

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “Talks about talks.”

  “Guns, oil or money?” Min asked.

  “Cynicism’s an overrated quality, don’t you think?” Webb marched onwards, and they fell into step, flanking him. “HMG rather feels the wind of change from the East. Nothing imminent, but you have to prepare for the future. Always an idea to extend a friendly hand to those who might one day be, ah, influential.”

  “Oil, then,” Min said.

  “So who’s the visitor?” Louisa asked.

  “Name of Pashkin.”

  “Like the poet?”

  “Very nearly like the poet, yes. Arkady Pashkin. A century ago, he’d have been a warlord. Twenty years ago, Mafia.” Webb paused. “Well, twenty years ago he was Mafia, probably. But these days, he’s mostly a billionaire.”

  “And you want us to vet him?”

  “Christ, no. The man owns an oil company. He could have whole bloody boneyards in his closet, HMG wouldn’t care. But he’ll be bringing staff, and there’ll be high-level talks, and all of this needs to run smoothly. If it doesn’t, well, the Park’ll obviously need someone to blame.”

  “And that would be us.”

  “That would be you.” He gave a brief smile which might have indicated humour, but neither Min nor Louisa were convinced. “Any problems with that?”

  “Sounds like nothing we can’t handle,” Min said.

  “I’d hope not.” Webb came to a halt again. Min was starting to have flashbacks to walking his two boys when they were younger. Getting anywhere was a struggle: anything in their path that snagged their interest—a twig, a rubber band, a till receipt—resulted in a five-minute delay. “So,” Webb went on, too casually. “How’s things over your manor, then?”

  Our manor, Min wanted to parrot. Innit.

  Louisa said, “Same old same old.”

  “And Cartwright?”

  “No different.”

  “I’m surprised he sticks it out. No offence. But he was always full of himself. He must hate it over there. Away from the action.”

  There was barely disguised satisfaction in the pronouncement.

  Min had decided he wasn’t a fan of Spider Webb. He wasn’t a particular fan of River Cartwright come to that, but there was a base line these days that hadn’t always been there, and it was simply stated: Cartwright was a slow horse, same as himself, same as Louisa. Once, that hadn’t meant more than being tarred with the same brush. But now, if they didn’t stick together exactly, they didn’t piss on each other in front of others. Or not in front of Regent’s Park suits, anyway.

  He said, “I’ll pass on your regards. I know he has fond memories of your last meeting.”

  At which River had clubbed Webb unconscious.

  Louisa said, “Does Lamb know you’re, ah, seconding us?”

  “He will soon. Is he likely to kick up a fuss?”

  “Well,” Louisa said. “If it annoys him, I’m sure he’ll keep it to himself.”

  “Yeah,” said Min. “You know Lamb. Natural born diplomat.”

  “Oh Christ,” said Lamb. “Not you again.”

  Back at Oxford station, after another half-hour wait for a train, Lamb was looking for someone to tell him where the lost property office was, and the first face he saw was the weasel’s: still twitchy, still officious, and definitely not happy to cast eyes on Jackson Lamb.

  He made to walk straight past, but Lamb’s cover as just another member of the public was wearing thin. He caught hold of a uniformed elbow. “A word?”

  The weasel looked down at Lamb’s hand, up at Lamb’s face, and then, slowly, deliberately, at the transport policeman a few yards away, showing a pretty blonde woman how to read a map.

  Lamb released his grip. “If it’s of any interest,” he said, “I still have that twenty pound note.” In the teeth of the expectations of a Reading bus driver, he might have added. “So there’s no reason we can’t proceed in a friendly fashion.”

  He smiled to illustrate ‘friendly fashion,’ though the yellow-stained result might have passed for ‘evil intent.’

  It was more probably the mention of money than the amiable overture that worked. “What is it this time?” the weasel asked.

  “Lost property. Where is it?”

  “That would be in the lost property office.”

  “This is going splendidly,” Lamb said. “And where’s that?”

  The weasel pursed his lips and looked pointedly at the spot where Lamb’s wallet nestled in his inside pocket. It was clear that mere promises were no longer cutting ice.

  Finishing his geography lesson, the policeman glanced across. Lamb nodded at him, and received a similar nod back. Then he asked the weasel: “Worked here long?”

  “Nineteen years,” the weasel said. His tone suggested this was something to be proud of.

  “Well if you want to make it to nineteen years and a day, start playing nice. Because I’ve spent nineteen years and then some finding things out people don’t want me to know, so a bit of publicly available information from a turd in a uniform really shouldn’t be this hard to acquire. Don’t you think?”

  The weasel looked round for the policeman, who was now ambling towards a coffee booth.

  “Oh, seriously,” Lamb said. “Can he get here before I break your nose?”

  Nothing in his physical appearance suggested Lamb could move quickly, but something about his presence suggested you’d be unwise to dismiss the possibility. He watched this calculation crawl across the weasel’s face, and, while it was struggling to its conclusion, yawned ferociously. When lions yawn, it doesn’t mean they’re tired. It means they’re waking up.

  The weasel said, “Platform two.”

  “Lead the way,” Lamb said. “I’m looking for a hat.”

  In St. James’s Park, Webb had handed over a pink cardboard folder, its flap sealed with a sticky label, and taken his leave. Louisa and Min were now heading for the City, but were walking round the lake first, in case this turned out to be a short cut.

  “If he’d said HMG once more, I’d have had to LOL,” Louisa said.

  “Mmm. What? Oh, right. Good one.”

  He sounded miles away.

  “The wheel is turning,” she noted. “But the hamster’s dead.”

  Min proved her point by grunting in reply.

  She took his arm because they could always pretend this was cover. On a rock in the middle of the lake, a pelican stretched its wings. It was like watching a golf umbrella do aerobics.

  She said, “You’ve been eating your wheaties, haven’t you?”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I thought you were gunna challenge him to a wrestling match.”

  This earned a sheepish grin. “Yeah. Well. He got on my tits.”

  Louisa smiled, but kept it on the
inside. Min had changed these past few months, and she was aware that she was the cause of it. On the other hand, she was equally aware that any woman would have done: Min was having sex again, and that would put a spring in anyone’s step. Like her own, his life had gone down the pan a few years back: in Min’s case, the pivotal moment had been leaving a classified disk on a tube train. His marriage had been collateral damage. As for Louisa, she’d screwed up a tail-job, an error which had put guns on the street. But a few months ago they’d stirred themselves out of their individual torpors enough to start an affair, at the same time Slough House had gone briefly live. Things had settled since, but optimism hadn’t entirely died. They suspected Jackson Lamb now had serious dope on Diana Taverner; enough that, if she wasn’t his sock puppet, she was at least in his debt.

  And debt meant power.

  Louisa said, “Webb’s the one River put on the floor, isn’t he?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m surprised he got up again.”

  Min said, “You think River’s that tough?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not especially.”

  She barked a little laugh.

  “What?”

  “You. That shoulder roll you gave when you said that.” She gave an exaggerated imitation. “Like, not as tough as me.”

  “I did not.”

  “Yes you did.” She gave the roll again. “Like that. Like you were on World’s Strongest Man or something.”

  “I did not. And all I meant was, sure, River can probably handle himself. But he’s hardly likely to dismantle Lady Di’s lapdog, is he?”

  “Depends what the lapdog did to him.”

  They rounded the lake. Padding about on the grass, on feet too big for their legs, were two annoying birds neither could identify, while a short distance away a black swan glided. It looked cross.

  “You okay with this?”

  She shrugged. “Babysitting. Hardly high excitement.”

  “Gets us out of the office.”

  “When it’s not keeping us there. There’ll be paperwork. Wonder what Lamb’ll say.”

  Min stopped so Louisa, her arm still through his, came to a halt too. Together they watched the swan patrol the choppy fringe of the lake, and jab without warning at something below the surface; its neck momentarily becoming a bar of black light beneath the water.

  She said, “Black swans. I was reading about them the other day.”

  “What, they’re on a takeaway menu? That’s kind of sick.”

  “Behave. It was in one of the Sundays. It’s a phrase, black swan,” she said. “Means a totally unexpected event with a big impact. But one that seems predictable afterwards, with the benefit of hindsight.”

  “Mmm.”

  They walked on. After a while, Louisa said, “So what were you thinking back then? When you were so far away?”

  He said, “I was thinking last time we got dragged into a Regent’s Park op, someone was looking to screw us over.”

  The black swan dipped its neck once more, and buried its head in the water.

  Shirley Dander lifted her take-out coffee cup, found it cold, and drank from it anyway. Then said, “Standish?”

  “The Lady Catherine …” Marcus made a swigging gesture with his right hand. “She likes the bottle.”

  That didn’t sound right. Catherine Standish was wound pretty tight, and with her curiously old-fashioned way of dressing resembled Alice in Wonderland grown middle-aged and disappointed. But Marcus seemed sure:

  “She’s dry now. Years, probably. But if I know drunks, and I’ve known a few, she could have put me under the table in her day. You too. Sequentially.”

  “You make her sound like a boxer.”

  “Your really serious drunk approaches booze like it was a barfight. You know, only one of you’s going to be left standing. And the drunk always thinks that’ll be him. Her, in this case.”

  “But now she’s hung up her drinking shoes.”

  “They all think they’ve done that too.”

  “Cartwright? He crashed King’s Cross.”

  “I know. I saw the movie.”

  Video footage of River Cartwright’s disastrous assessment exercise, which had caused a rush-hour panic in one of London’s major railway stations, was occasionally used for training purposes, to Cartwright’s less-than-delight.

  “His grandfather’s some kind of legend. David Cartwright?”

  “Before my time.”

  “He’s Cartwright’s grandfather,” Marcus said. “He’s before all our times. But he was a spook back in the dark ages. Still alive, mind.”

  “Just as well,” Shirley said. “He’d be turning in his grave otherwise. Cartwright being a slow horse and all.”

  Marcus Longridge pushed further back from his desk and stretched his arms wide. He could block doorways, Shirley thought. Probably had, back in Ops: he’d been on raids; had closed down an active terrorist cell a year or so back. That was the story, anyway, but there must have been another story too, or he wouldn’t be here now.

  He was staring at her. His eyes were blacker than his skin: a thought that reached her unprompted. “What?”

  “What was your edge?”

  “My edge, huh?”

  “That meant they couldn’t sack you.”

  “I know what you meant.” Somewhere overhead, a chair scraped on a floor; footsteps crossed to a window. “I told them I was gay,” she said at last.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “And no way were they gunna fire a dyke for punching out some arsehole who felt her up in the canteen.”

  “Is that why you cut your hair?”

  “No,” she said. “I cut my hair because I felt like it.”

  “Are we on the same side?”

  “I’m on nobody’s side but my own.”

  He nodded. “Suit yourself.”

  “I intend to.”

  She turned back to her monitor, which had fallen asleep. When she shifted her mouse it grumpily revealed a screen frozen on a split-image of two faces so obviously not a match that the program must have been taking the piss.

  “So are you actually gay? Or did you just tell them that?”

  Shirley didn’t reply.

  On a bench at Oxford station sat Jackson Lamb; overcoat swamping him either side, undone shirt button allowing a hairy glimpse of stomach. He scratched this absently, then fumbled with the button before giving up and covering the mound instead with a black fedora, on which he then concentrated his gaze, as if it held the secret of the grail.

  A black hat. Left on a bus. The bus Dickie Bow had died on.

  Which didn’t in itself mean much, but Jackson Lamb wondered.

  It had been raining heavily when that bus reached Oxford, and first thing you’d do on stepping off a bus into the rain was put your hat on, if you had one. And if you didn’t have one, first thing you’d do was go back for it. Unless you didn’t want to draw attention to yourself; wanted to remain part of the crowd heading onto the platform, boarding a train, being carried away from the scene as quickly as possible …

  He was being stared at, pointedly, by a woman who was far too attractive to be doing so out of amateur interest. Except, Lamb realised, it wasn’t him she was staring at but the cigarette he now noticed he held between two fingers of his left hand, the one he was tapping the fedora with. His right was already rummaging for a lighter, a motion not dissimilar from scratching his balls. He gave her his best crooked smile, which involved flaring one nostril, and she responded by flaring both her own, and looking away. But he tucked the fag behind his ear anyway.

  The rummaging hand gave up the search for a lighter, and found instead the mobile phone he’d collected from the bus.

  It was an ancient thing, a Nokia, black-and-grey, with about as many functions as a bottle opener. You could no more take a photo with it than send an e-mail with a stapler. But when he pressed the button, the screen squeaked into life, and let him scroll down a cont
act list. Five numbers: Shop, Digs, and Star, which sounded like Bow’s local, and two actual names; a Dave and a Lisa, both of which Lamb rang. Dave’s mobile went straight to voicemail. Lisa’s landline went nowhere; was a gateway to a humming void in which no telephone would ever be answered. He clicked onto Messages, and found only a note from Bow’s service provider informing him he had 82p in his pay-as-you-go account. Lamb wondered what fraction of Bow’s worldly goods 82p represented. Maybe he could send Lisa a cheque. He scrolled onto Sent Items. That was empty too.

  But Dickie Bow had fished his mobile out shortly before dying, and had jammed it between the cushions of his seat, as if to make sure it would only be found by someone looking for it. By someone for whom he had a message.

  An unsent message, as it turned out.

  A train arrived, but Lamb remained on his bench. Not many people got off; not many got on. As it pulled away Lamb saw the attractive young woman glowering at him through a window and he farted quietly in response: a private victory, but satisfying. Then he examined the phone again. Drafts. There was a Drafts folder for text messages. He opened this, and the single-word entry of a single saved message stared back from the tiny screen.

  Near his feet a pigeon scratched the ground in imitation of a bird that might make an effort. Lamb didn’t notice. He was absorbed in that single word, keyed into the phone but never transmitted; locked forever in its black-and-grey box, alongside 82 pence-worth of unused communication. As if a dying word could be breathed into a bottle, and corked up, and released once the grim business of tidying away the corpse had been seen to: here on an Oxfordshire railway platform, with a late March sun struggling to make itself felt, and a fat pigeon tramping underfoot. One word.

  “Cicadas,” Jackson Lamb said out loud. Then said it again. “Cicadas.”

  And then he said, “Fuck me.”

  Shirley Dander and Marcus Longridge had settled back into their tasks; the atmosphere only slightly altered by their conversation. In Slough House, sound seeped easily. If he were interested Roderick Ho might have rested his head against the wall separating his office from theirs, the better to hear them, but all he registered was the familiar buzz of other people establishing relationships—he was, anyway, busy updating his online status: adding a paragraph to Facebook describing his weekend at Chamonix; tweeting a link to his latest dancemix … Ho’s name for these purposes was Roddy Hunt; his tunes were looted from obscure sites he subsequently torched; his photos were tweaked stills of a young Montgomery Clift. It still amazed Ho you could build a man from links and screenshots, launch him into the world like a paper boat, and he’d just keep sailing. All of the details that built up a person could be real. The only thing fake was the person … Constructing a mythical work-pattern for his user ID had been the most brilliant thing Ho had accomplished this year. Anyone monitoring his computertime would confirm his constant presence on the Service network, building an operations archive.