He said, “You were Charles Partner’s PA before transferring to Slough House, am I right?”
People didn’t ask if they were right without knowing they were. She gave a single nod, and he went on: “While Partner was in office he instigated a protocol. An illegal one.”
“I wasn’t privy to all that went on behind Charles’s door.”
“I thought you were close.”
“So did I.”
He waited, but Catherine had nothing to add.
“The protocol was called Waterproof. Does that ring bells?”
“Well, it’s not an unfamiliar word. But I don’t recall encountering it professionally.”
“It involved disappearances.”
That made sense. Much of her Service career had involved disappearances of one sort or another.
“There’s been a suggestion that the protocol is still in use,” said Whelan.
“I see,” Catherine said. “So you think this—de Greer?”
“De Greer.”
“You think this de Greer woman has been the subject of an historic, not to mention illegal, Service protocol? Based on a phone call she apparently made to Slough House?”
“It’s a line of enquiry.”
“For her sake, I hope you have others. Because anything on the scale you’re suggesting requires organisation and resources. We have a fridge whose door won’t close properly. Does that sound like we fit the bill?”
“It sounds like that’s the way someone wants you to look. Slough House may be a damp and draughty teardown, but it’s outlasted sturdier institutions. Not to mention my career, as you’re well aware.” He rested a finger on the rim of his glass. “Lamb and Taverner saw to that between them. In fact, any time Taverner wants a dirty deed done, it seems to me it’s Lamb she turns to. And you know what they say about old spooks like Lamb. The past’s their playbook. Partner was his mentor, don’t forget. So yes, adapting one of his historical—illegal—schemes, that sounds right up his alley.”
Or his passage even, was Catherine’s involuntary thought, as a street sign not far from here came to mind. That “Lamb’s Passage” seemed a vulgarity was an occupational hazard, one she wondered if the other slow horses suffered from: a Lamb-style Tourette’s, brought on by proximity. Face masks no protection.
She said, “I won’t pretend to have full knowledge of everything he’s up to at any given time, but I can tell you Lamb wouldn’t implement anything Charles Partner ever dreamed up. Or cooperate with Taverner, unless there was something in it for him.”
“Taverner controls a large budget.”
“He’s not interested in money.”
“Really?”
“Well, I wouldn’t leave the petty cash where he could find it. But if I had a Swiss bank account, I wouldn’t need to hide the number from him.”
Whelan nodded, as if this confirmed something he suspected. Which irritated Catherine, who was pretty sure it was an act. She said, “Does that give you enough background? Because when you’re ready to talk to Lamb, please let me know. I might bring popcorn.”
“The call was Monday afternoon. Has anything out of the ordinary happened since?”
Well, this could go either way. What was ordinary for Slough House was everything but in most places. So it was tempting to tell him no, that the even tenor of slow-horse life had continued uninterrupted for months, but there was a point of principle here, one Lamb himself would endorse. Don’t try to hide something from someone who might already know about it.
Catherine wasn’t the world’s best liar, anyway.
She said, “We’ve had an employee issue.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of my colleagues had an . . . episode.” Catherine reached for her glass, and took a sip. Water tasted wrong. “A rather violent one. She was arrested.”
“When did this happen?”
“Monday evening.”
“So it might have been related to the phone call.”
“I don’t see how.”
“It’s a matter of patterns, though, isn’t it?” As if to underline the thought, he mirrored Catherine’s recent action: reaching for his drink, tasting it. “What was the nature of this, ah, episode?”
She gave him the bullet points: the iron, the bus, the traffic jam of witnesses.
“Were the Dogs called in?”
The Dogs being the Park’s internal police force, generally first on the scene when Service-related shit was hitting taxpayers’ fans.