An expression that wasn’t clear to Louisa, looking down from her room, but even if it had been she might have failed to recognise it; might have simply noticed that she could look at Lech’s scars now without thinking about what they hid: the word PAEDO, which he’d scrubbed away with a razor. Well, she was thinking about it now. But she hadn’t been a moment ago. Maybe there’d come a time when she could look at Lech and simply see him, rather than the mess he’d made of his face, but she wasn’t there yet. Nor was he. Everyone carries wounds, she thought. But they don’t always stare back at you from every reflecting surface.
She shook her head. Maybe it would be a wasted evening, no more; maybe she’d have to terminate a pass, in which case it might as well happen tonight as any other time. And maybe—just maybe—Lech wasn’t wrong, which in turn might mean they wound up in serious trouble, because whoever Sophie de Greer turned out to be, she moved in the world of chimp politics, where it was always the nastiest monkey ran the show. Anthony Sparrow, appearances notwithstanding, was currently King Kong, which made de Greer Fay Wray. If she had Kremlin connections, Sparrow either didn’t know about it or did, and either way wouldn’t look kindly on anyone digging into the matter. Would be likely, in fact, to bang his chest and start throwing faeces around. But that was a thing about life in Slough House: you grabbed any opportunity for excitement with both hands, and even knowing you were doing that didn’t stop you doing it. Hadn’t done in the past. Wouldn’t now.
Louisa powered her computer down and checked she had keys and wallet. Turned the light off. The office across the landing was where Ashley Khan had been put, and Louisa looked in before heading downstairs. Ashley had been allotted the desk furthest from the door, though she’d shifted to River’s desk instead. This might have been because it was better lit, or less susceptible to scrutiny from the doorway, or simply because it wasn’t the desk she’d been assigned, and this was her two-fingered response. Fair enough. Louisa remembered her own early days, wrapped in a fog of misery, and she didn’t have Ashley’s excuse of having had her arm broken by Lamb before she’d even started. Talk about a tough interview.
Truth was, Louisa hadn’t made an effort with Ashley, because you didn’t. That was the rule. There was no knowing how long a slow horse would survive, even leaving aside the grim mathematics of the bigger picture. You didn’t have to expect a colleague would take a bullet in the head—or a knife in the gut—or put their hand to a toxin-smeared doorknob—to know they weren’t necessarily going to be around forever. Lamb’s usual method of inducting a newby was to not give them anything to do for the first few months, which, if they took as an invitation to turn up late or knock off at lunchtime, would also be their last few months. So far Ashley had stood the course, but “so far” was still in single figures, if you were counting weeks. That wasn’t bad going—Louisa recalled counting days; hell, hours—but it was still all uphill, and wouldn’t get easier.
“Hey,” she said to Ashley, who was slumped across the desk, her dark hair pooled around her.
The young woman started. “I wasn’t asleep.”
“Didn’t think you were,” Louisa lied.
“Is he still around?”
No need to ask who “he” was.
“Yes. But dormant,” Louisa said, stepping inside and keeping her voice low. Sound followed peculiar waves in Slough House; syllables that couldn’t be heard a social distance away might yet reach Jackson Lamb’s ear. “Are you on anything yet?”
“Like her downstairs, you mean? No, not so far.”
“I meant work.” Not pharmaceuticals. “Has he given you an . . . assignment?”
There must be a better word than that for a slow-horse task. ‘Assignment’ sounded like it might have meaning somewhere down the line.
Ashley Khan said, “I’m to adjust myself to the realities of performing within attenuated parameters,” and Louisa couldn’t tell whether she was quoting, or had retreated behind irony.
“Yeah, that sounds about right. But, you know. It gets . . .”
“Better?”
“Not really.”
“That’s what I thought.”
There was a plastic box on her desk containing a mixture of nuts and dried berries. Ashley reached into it without looking and collected a palmful, then sat back and regarded Louisa with unnerving frankness. “How long have you been here?”