Meanwhile, Diana Taverner, having somehow caught wind of her predicament, had disappeared into London’s brilliant parade. Her last phone call put her on City Road; her last card payment had her stepping onto a bus. But she hadn’t been on that same bus three stops down the road, when the first Dog on the scene boarded it. “So where is she now?”
“I’m told we’re working on it,” said Nash.
The Park was in a flurry, though you wouldn’t have guessed with a casual glance. The boys and girls of the hub were at their workstations, and there was hush, or what passed for it in an office environment. The usual suspects had shucked their footwear, and were padding around in stockinged feet; the local hardware issued its ambient hum. But Nash, a familiar here, recognised a fractured normality. The figures by the doorways were Dogs, officers of the Service’s internal security division; their presence on the hub spoke of the potential for heads to be thrust upon spikes. An edge had opened up the full length of the building, and all who worked there were balanced upon it. And Nash was acutely conscious of having wielded the shovel that broke the ground.
Malahide continued to harumph. As was common with the breed, he retained a certain bafflement that the position of First Desk had been allotted to a woman; the current complications could have been averted had anyone noticed this earlier and put a stop to it. “Because what the devil does she think she’s playing at? It’s admin, that’s all. A temporary suspension, as laid down in Service Regs, and applied with haste—admittedly—but in absolute accordance with procedure.” He spoke with the confidence of one who’d been in possession of the finer detail for five minutes, and without appearing to remember that Nash himself had supplied this. “What’s called for next is a hearing, at which she’ll be asked to stand down—that’s what the reg demands, that she be ‘asked’—while an investigation is carried out.” He shook his head. “And she decides to play hide and seek. She might as well have signed a confession.”
“That’s jumping the gun,” Nash said. They were in the office adjoining First Desk’s: occupying Diana’s territory would have felt an act of lèse-majesté, or at any rate premature. “Diana is innocent of wrongdoing until proved otherwise. Rather what our justice system is based on.”
“Well, if we’re talking about the justice system, old man, she might argue that one cryptic reference in the Times is hardly enough to base a prosecution on in the first place. Yes, yes. I know.” He waved away Nash’s rejoinder: that the word “waterproof,” in that context, was tantamount to an air-raid siren. “Point is, this might be hush-hush”—and here he made an expansive gesture, taking in the office, the hub, the Park, the secret world—“but it’s still government-issue. Which means appearances matter.”
“It’s not even certain she’s taken flight. Her diary’s clear for the next few hours. For all we know, she’s taking personal time.”
“Which would presume she’s ignorant that Candlestub’s been implemented.” Malahide waggled his eyebrows. “But she dumped a perfectly good phone in a bin on City Road, which is hardly the action of an unflustered woman. No, she’s aware of what’s going on. Which isn’t to say there’s not a hokey-cokey being danced down the usual corridors. And we don’t need a little birdie to tell us”—and here, the eyebrows saw action again—“who’s calling the steps. Mark me, this is Number Ten’s gnome-in-residence ploughing on with his land grab. No, if Taverner wants to fight her corner, she’d better turn up to do it. Otherwise, she’ll find all that’s left of her empire is a six-foot plot by a drainage ditch. Do they do table service here, by the way? Generally take a stiffener round about now.”
Nash said, “We should formulate a plan of action. Clearly, an investigation into Waterproof has to begin even in Diana’s absence.”
“Top of the list is this de Greer woman, I suppose. There a file on her or anything?” Malahide, who’d taken the chair on the operational side of the desk, opened a drawer, glanced into it and slammed it shut again. “If she has been rendered waterproof, I don’t suppose there’ll be much in the way of paperwork. But there’ll have been instructions. Somebody must know something.” First rule of the Civil Service, his tone implied. “We need to speak to everyone Taverner’s spoken to since the woman disappeared. Before then, in fact. In the days leading up to.”