She forced herself to wait in the darkness, breathing through her mouth to make less noise. Someone was coming up the stairs. The doorknob turned and the door rattled, Diana’s darkness momentarily broken by its outline, sketched in light. There was a pause. It happened again. Then the second door was tried, and its contents silently inventoried: cleaning fluids, broom, pail. Those mutely screaming lightbulbs. A metal rattle as the box was opened. She braced. Anyone on their game would join these dots: a locked door, a row of keys. A Dog discovering which key wasn’t there would kick her door down in a second or two. She counted them. And then someone was heading downstairs again. She gave it another moment, then found her phone. By its light she went up eleven stairs, unbolted the next door, and stepped onto a flat stretch of roof.
Diana hadn’t spent long in the dark, but London’s light was still at first staggering; buildings seen from unaccustomed angles, the smell of the Thames on the sunlit wind. She thought what every joe thinks, after a close encounter with discovery: I’m alive. And then she regarded the burner phone in her hand, with its single contact listed, and tapped out the only number she had by heart.
Catherine had the sense of following an instruction she’d written for herself, possibly in a dream. It’s not complicated. The phone is on his desk. Sometimes it rings. She was at her own desk, and Lamb was who knew where? If he’s out and it rings and I hear it, I’ll answer it. If I get there in time. And as she reached the receiver a strange thought occurred: How many more times would she answer a ringing landline? It almost never happened anymore.
“Where is he?”
“I have no idea.” She’d heard Diana Taverner’s voice often enough to recognise it. “Can I take a message?”
Silence. Or not quite: for some reason Catherine could hear an airy nowhere breathing loudly in her ear.
Candlestub had been initiated, and in all likelihood—she did not, whatever her colleagues thought, have total recall of the Service handbook—she should terminate this call, then report it. First Desk was tainted. But there were occasional advantages to being a slow horse, one of which was, it was unlikely that anyone would follow up her actions, so instead, she waited for Taverner’s response.
“I need some help.”
She wished she’d recorded that. Diana Taverner, seeking her help. The woman who’d done her best, some years ago, to drive a double decker bus through her sobriety: Tell me, Catherine. Something I’ve always wondered. Did Lamb ever tell you how Charles Partner really died? Now could be the moment to discover what it felt like, pressing a heel down on someone else’s throat, but even as that thought stirred she was listening to Taverner, mentally prioritising the tasks ahead. Was it habit or weakness that made her act like this? In the end, she supposed, it didn’t matter. You played the part you were given, and it was never in her to be a bad actor.
The call over, she stood for a while in Lamb’s musty office, trying not to picture the possible calamities Taverner’s requirements might provoke.
Then she phoned Lamb, and put him in the picture.
“Okay, you can uncover your ears now.” Lamb put his phone away. “Where were we?”
“I was easing your First Desk out of a job,” said de Greer. “And you were offering congratulations.”
“That right? Could have sworn you mentioned a cup of tea.”
“You may have mistaken me for your housemaid.”
“Nah, she’s shorter, and wears a leather basque.” He stood abruptly and headed into the kitchen, leaving her no choice but to follow. “Attacking the Service was your brief, wasn’t it? Reminding Sparrow the Park’s a little too independent, with Taverner at the wheel.” He located the kettle, flicked its switch, and leaned against the counter. “So when Rasnokov let him know he was nursing a viper to his tits, he was nicely primed. Sparrow knew the Park would rip him to shreds first chance it got, so he went straight on the attack.”
De Greer reached past him, turned the kettle off, and lifted it from its base. “Sparrow already hated the Park. A smoking ruin, he called it.” She filled the kettle at the sink, then put it back and flicked its switch once more. “And he hates Taverner the way all weak men hate powerful women.”
“Only he tried to deal with you first,” said Lamb.
“He had people following me,” she said, dropping teabags into a pot. “They were so bad at it, I thought they were your people at first. Slough House.”