“Let me out. We’ll forget this ever happened.”
“Of course, not many of my crew were available, on account of last night’s activities. But the Stefanos here—they’re both called Stefano. I hope that’s not confusing for you?”
“Stop the car!”
“Because arguably, it’s simpler. Anyway, the Stefanos here didn’t join in last night’s fun on account of a previous engagement. Which is lucky for me and also for you, because—”
“Stop the car!”
“Please,” said Benito.
One of the Stefanos clamped a hand round Sparrow’s mouth, while the other brought a hammerlike fist down on his testicles. This combination of events occupied Sparrow for a while, but Benito was considerate enough to give him some minutes before continuing.
“As I was saying. This is lucky for both of us. For me, because I like my crew to have a part in the decision-making process.”
Sparrow still couldn’t speak.
“And for you because I know how much you enjoy the fun and games we have in the woods.”
“Where are you taking me?” Sparrow managed to say.
“What was that expression you used? ‘Going to live on a farm’？”
He couldn’t be serious.
“In any case, it’s nowhere you haven’t been before.”
Stefano tightened his grip on Sparrow’s shoulder, in what might have been a gesture of reassurance and support.
But might not.
The sun was coming up before they reached the woods. It silvered the branches like a dusting of snow, or a tinkling of bells, or a promise kept.
In the days to come, news will find its way to Slough House from various corners of the wider world, one a continent away. There has been a boating accident on the Barents Sea, four friends on a fishing trip having come unstuck in wild weather, and rumours are beginning to circulate that Vassily Rasnokov, Moscow’s First Desk, was involved. No body has been recovered, but that’s not an uncommon outcome in such circumstances: the wind whips up the waves, and the water reveals its depths, and what happens in the gap between can remain forever an undisclosed secret. And if other possibilities exist—that, for example, Vassily has pulled off a vanishing act, the better to slip into anonymous retirement—that’s a problem for his own Service to ponder, and is presumably unconnected with the recent off-the-books purchase by Regent’s Park of an undistinguished flat on the Holloway Road. Here, a small but operationally experienced team has assembled; its codename Rosebud; its remit, to discover the identity of the man who burned to death in a dosshouse near the Westway, and to wait by the open door of his vacant life, to see who, if anyone, steps through it. It’s a job requiring a humdrum dedication to detail, a million miles removed from high-tech movie-spookery, yet nor is it the daily trudge that the minions of Slough House endure. Because for Rosebud, a positive result to their investigation might lead them into the realms of gold, whereas for the slow horses, the end result of unvarying labour tends to be reams of dross, and no matter how much shit they shovel, they always remain in the stables.
On a more prosaic level, the Extraordinary Meeting of the Limitations Committee called to inquire into Diana Taverner’s suitability as First Desk is an unexpectedly meek affair, there being no one to present a prosecution case. Mention is made of whispers on Westminster Corridors—that old chimera Waterproof has been bandied about—but since the supposed victim of the Park’s machinations, one Sophie de Greer, makes a brief online appearance apologising for her failure to follow the procedure for taking sick leave, such mention is swiftly dismissed as groundless gossip. Following a short address by Taverner herself, in which she recommends that any future such sessions be preceded by the Park’s own assessment of the evidence, the Committee, under the careful stewardship of Oliver Nash, bemoans the unexplained absence of the meeting’s instigator, one Anthony Sparrow, before declaring the proceedings, in effect, a waste of time. The company deconvenes, the firing squad remains unassembled, and when Diana re-enters the hub that morning, it is to a standing ovation from supporters and detractors alike, who can at least find common ground in their appreciation of a skilled operator. Diana herself doesn’t mind why anyone applauds, so long as they do so on their feet. Not that she is unaware of how differently things might have gone. “For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble,” she murmurs in passing, but only Josie hears, and, since she isn’t sure she’s meant to, that young woman makes no reply. For the rest of that day, Diana fulfils promises made on her behalf by Jackson Lamb: resettlement arrangements for Sophie de Greer; the ironing out of administrative wrinkles for the multifarious friends of Alessandro Botigliani; and while this is small enough recompense for how things have turned out, finds such busywork irksome all the same.