Roddy rolled his eyes. “Double-duh.”
Ashley said, “It means—”
“No, really,” said Lech. “I want to hear Roddy explain it.”
“Me too,” said Louisa.
“Yeah, no,” Roddy said. “It’s her story, not mine.”
“That’s okay,” said Ashley. “You can tell them.”
“Yeah. You can tell us, Roddy.”
“Well, it’s like—it’s like Red Queen. You know?” He looked at Ashley, shaking his head. “Unbelievable.”
“Ho, you’re a waste of bandwidth,” Lech said.
“Amusing as this is,” said Catherine, “a little clarity would be nice.”
“Red Queen’s what they call the Candlestub Protocol on the hub,” Ashley said. “Sort of a nickname.”
And now she got the shocked silence she’d been expecting.
“Candlestub,” Catherine repeated at last. “Well well.”
“Ding dong,” said Lech.
“Taverner’s gone?” said Louisa.
“Candlestub’s a suspension,” said Catherine. “Not a dismissal. Or that was the original protocol. It might have been amended.”
“What are the triggers?” Louisa asked.
Catherine frowned, recalling. “The usual. Conduct unbecoming. Criminal activity. Misuse of powers.”
“So strike three,” said Lech.
“Who’s on First?” Roddy asked. Then: “What?”
“If First Desk leaves office unexpectedly, dies or is otherwise incapacitated, interim control passes into the hands of the most senior Second Desk,” Catherine said, with the air of one quoting. “That’s traditionally been Operations. But in the case of a suspension, the chair of Limitations takes the helm. In other words, Oliver Nash. Under close supervision of the Home Office.”
“Well, this’ll be a train wreck.”
“Though not necessarily the Home Secretary herself.”
“Small mercies.”
Louisa looked down into her empty coffee cup, as if reading the future in its grounds. Diana Taverner had been around forever; had been Second Desk （Ops） when Louisa signed on, and First Desk in all but name during Claude Whelan’s tenure, whose ending she’d helped engineer. Her suspension from duty would send shock waves through the Service. And Lamb had, variously, been in Taverner’s coterie, confidence and crosshairs. If she went, there was no guarantee he’d survive her departure. And if Lamb went Slough House fell, and there’d be no safe harbour for any of them. And where was he, anyway?
She hadn’t spoken aloud, but Catherine partially answered her. “Lamb was meeting her this morning. I’ve no idea what about.”
Lech and Louisa glanced at each other.
“Though I daresay some of you have a better idea than I do. If Taverner’s suspension is fallout from whatever you’ve been up to lately, I’d be seriously worried. If she goes, everyone involved is on shaky ground. And if she stays, well. I don’t expect she’ll be looking back fondly on this episode, do you?”
Louisa said, “Nothing we’ve done has anything to do with Taverner.”
“In that case, you must be feeling particularly relaxed right now.”
She wasn’t used to Catherine being acerbic.
Roddy said, “Told you,” and they all looked at him. “Taverner,” he said. “At the Russian embassy yesterday. Taking a secret meeting, like I said. Simples.”
“First Desk, spying for the Russians?” said Catherine. “That’s quite the merry-go-round.”
Her eyes had grown dark, but no one dared ask.
Somewhat numbed, they set about returning to their rooms, Louisa first rinsing her cup out; Roddy hunting for the plastic top of his unfinished energy drink; Lech putting something in the bin. Ashley paused on the landing. “I’ve never asked why it gets called Red Queen,” she said. “Instead of its proper name.”
“Oh, I’d have thought that was obvious,” said Catherine.
“‘Off with her head,’” said Oliver Nash.
“There’s a process to be undergone,” said Toby Malahide. “Underwent? Either way, we’re hardly hauling her off to the guillotine.”
“No, I meant that’s why they call it Red Queen. You know. Alice in Wonderland.”
“Hmph.”
Malahide was one of that army the Civil Service call upon when asked to put a body in harm’s way: it wasn’t that he was expendable, necessarily; more that his ingrained sense of entitlement rendered him impervious to damage. Early sixties by a mortal calendar, but managing to exude the impression that he’d overseen the Siege of Mafeking, he was the Home Secretary’s choice of point-man for what might turn out to be a tricky undertaking, one of those shitstorms that blow up out of nowhere. The Limitation Committee’s hurried assembly, its single-issue emergency meeting, its unanimous decision that Diana Taverner be relieved of her duties pending investigation of rumours that the illegal Waterproof Protocol had been instigated: all this demanded a degree of arse-covering that would require even the PM to up his game. The stake was worth playing for. If the story proved true there’d be an opportunity to overhaul the Service, the kind of power-grab that doesn’t come along every Parliament. But if it wasn’t true, and worse still didn’t stick, Taverner would burn everyone associated with its having been suggested in the first place. Hence the need for a Toby Malahide. The Home Secretary regarded herself as the consummate politician, and if this was based on little more than the fact that she was indeed Home Secretary, it was generally agreed that she at least offered a synthesis of two main schools of political theory, inasmuch as if she ever became involved in a conspiracy, she’d find a way to cock it up. But nobody disputed her ability to put a large public schoolboy-shaped barrier between herself and impending consequences when the situation demanded.