Catherine said, “Perhaps, when you’re giving instructions, you could aim for more clarity?”
“Christ. I should use flashcards.” He leaned forward, and all present, bar Ashley, braced. Sudden changes of position often signalled an oncoming fart. “The Russian Embassy—Russian, bear, get it?—the Russian Embassy’s hosting a shindig this evening. And I’d like Kung Fu Panda here to provide a list of those turning up for caviar and chips. Is that clear enough? Why are you all retreating?”
“Eager to get on with the job,” said Louisa.
“Nice to see some enthusiasm for a change. I’m pretty sure I’m due a tea break myself. Oh, wait. One more thing.” He paused. They waited. He farted. “No, sorry. Forgot what I was about to say.”
Lech and Louisa stopped off in the kitchen before heading to their offices: she put the kettle on; he leaned against the fridge and groaned.
“Take more painkillers,” she suggested. “Has Bachelor been in touch?”
“Thanks for the sympathy. He called, yes.”
“Everything okay?”
“I’d have said if it wasn’t. Catherine doesn’t know about any of this, does she?”
“Doesn’t appear so.”
“And he normally tells her stuff. You think this Russian Embassy do is connected?”
“I think Lamb wasn’t kidding when he told us to keep quiet about it.”
Or I’ll do for both your careers what he’s already done to his face, had been Lamb’s codicil.
The kettle boiled as Ashley came in, still wearing her mask, and carrying a Tupperware box with a sticker attached. hands off, it read. “It smells like wet dog in his office,” she said.
“I’ve stopped noticing,” Louisa said.
“You do realise that’s not a good thing? Can I get in there?” The fridge, she meant. Lech moved aside, and she bent to deposit the box, apparently trying to conceal it behind a tub of margarine.
“Is that your lunch?” Louisa asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Because the chances of Lamb not stealing it are up there with the chances of him going on a diet.”
Ashley shrugged and shut the fridge door, then shut it again when it swung open. “Did he really make you all come in during lockdown?”
Lech said, “His point was, we’re in the security service. If it got out that we’re not remotely key workers, it might be bad for public morale.”
“Because that’s a priority with him,” said Ashley.
“You have to understand,” Louisa told her, “most of what he says and most of what he does is just to wind us up. That’s what being at Slough House is all about.”
“If the boredom of the work doesn’t see you off,” Lech said, “the stress of his constant goading might do the trick.”
“Well when I’m back at the Park,” Ashley said, “he’s going to face the stress of some serious grievance procedures. Lots of them. He smokes in here. That’s not even legal.”
Louisa and Lech shared a glance.
“What? It isn’t. There’s a law.”
“You do realise this isn’t a temporary posting?”
“That’s only when you’ve messed up. And I didn’t. That bastard broke my arm. He’s the one should be reassigned.”
“That should matter,” Lech said, “but it doesn’t. Once you’re here, you’re here.”
“It’s like the Hotel California,” Louisa elaborated. “Only for demoted spooks instead of cokehead clubbers.”
“Well, Shirley,” Lech said.
“Yeah, okay, Shirley. But my point stands. You don’t get passage back to where you were before.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. What’s California got to do with it?”
“Never mind. But forget about the Park. If you hate it here, quit. That’s your only option.”
“Well you both obviously hate it,” said Ashley. “So why do you stay?”
The kettle turned itself off, bubbling steam into the air.
“In case we’re wrong,” Louisa said at last.
The file on Dr. Sophie de Greer was slender, and an hour spent on Google hadn’t fleshed it out much. De Greer was an academic, attached to the University of Berne but on sabbatical these past six months, working in London with a group chaired by Anthony Sparrow, codenamed—or possibly just named—Rethink#1. Her discipline was political history, but her attraction for Sparrow was her status as a superforecaster; someone with a knack for accurate predictions, particularly, in her case, regarding electoral responses to policy initiatives. Such talents were assessed, Whelan knew, in clinical conditions: in de Greer’s instance, in a string of tests carried out in Switzerland and France. One result gave her ninety-two per cent accuracy in forecasting voting swings in a series of local elections across four European states, an achievement, the file suggested, on a par with scoring a hat trick in a World Cup final. It would have impressed Whelan no end, if he’d admired conjuring tricks.