“It’s one of them,” Diana agreed. “Look, Claude was being a nuisance, so I threw a stick for him. Gave him something to chase.”
“In my direction.”
“I thought you might have fun wrestling him for it.”
She could picture him breathing out smoke.
“It’s not like he’d have been disturbing anything important. Slough House, for God’s sake. You’re already a joke. I was just adding a punchline.”
“Happy to help,” said Lamb. “But the thing is, it’s a bit more complicated than you thought.”
That didn’t sound good.
“So your stand-up routine needs work. Let’s talk it over. Tomorrow morning.”
“I’ve got meetings.”
“Yeah, I had a nap scheduled. We all make sacrifices.”
He told her when and where, and rang off.
Diana put her phone away, took one last look at Her various Majesties, and left, mentally kicking herself for overlooking Lamb’s talent for taking the straight and narrow and installing an Escher staircase. She should have considered that before she’d had Josie mess with the telephone data, adding a call to Lamb’s number from de Greer’s mobile—a bit of harmless fun; or at any rate, any ensuing harm would befall Claude Whelan, which amounted to the same thing. But now there was a possibility she’d loosed a cannon. And she had enough to worry about without conjuring extra problems out of nowhere.
Still, upsides: Lamb wanted to meet in the open air, which would make a change from spending her day in a series of sterile offices.
And let’s face it, like everyone else, she could do with a break.
Intermission
Lamb bought two ice creams from the nearby van—double scoops, chocolate flakes, sprinkles—and carried them to the bench where Diana was waiting.
Still halfway through the first, he began the second as he sat down.
“Don’t mind me,” she said.
The remark appeared to puzzle him.
The park was barely that: a scrap of green space wedged between housing estates east of Aldersgate Street. There was a children’s play area, a wooden shelter for drug dealers, and a gate onto a sidestreet where the ice cream van was parked, milking what custom it could from summer’s last flourish—a strictly nine-to-five deal. The jacket you wore in the morning would leave you shivering on your way home. Though Lamb’s jacket would make Diana shiver wherever she was heading: a spongy blue mess a charity shop would spurn.
As she watched, he added to the allure by allowing a dollop of ice cream to land on his lapel, leaving a spatter-trace unnervingly like birdshit. Holding both cones in one hand, he scraped at this with a finger he then licked and rubbed dry on his trousers. Then, mouth full, he yawned magnificently and said:
“We’re old friends, so you won’t mind me saying, but you look rough as fuck. Like you were up half the night being gang-banged and the rest writing thank-you notes.”
“As always, I’m touched by your concern.”
“Yeah, well, you want any other part touching you, you’ll need to smarten your act up.” He belched. “A man my age is coming into his prime. But a woman of yours, it’s pretty much over. So a little effort, you know?”
Resisting several urges, she said, “It’s been a long week.”
“Yeah, I heard about the genius on the security detail.”
Diana stifled a groan. The genius in question had left his gun and the PM’s passport in an aeroplane toilet, where it had been found by cabin crew on a flight home from Geneva. These things were usually hushed up, but the attendant doing the finding had been French.
“I assumed he was putting out to tender,” Lamb said. He pushed the remains of his first cone into his mouth, and went on: “Picture of the target, tool to do the job.” He made a gun of finger and thumb, and squeezed an imaginary trigger. “I’m surprised a queue didn’t form.”
“You can laugh. But if he doesn’t get fired, you’ll be finding desk space for him.”
“Up your bum. I’ve barely room for the moody tossers I’m saddled with now.”
“What about Cartwright’s desk?”
“I’ve converted it into a shrine.”
“You’re missing him.”
“I’ve had kidney stones I miss more. And as for your latest reject, No Khan Do? If it wasn’t against the rules, I’d give her back.” He looked at what was left of his second cone, grimaced, tossed it over his shoulder and visibly ran a tongue round his gums. “She’s trouble.”