“Only they were even worse,” said Lamb. “Which, fair dos, I wouldn’t have seen coming either.” He opened the fridge, eyeing de Greer speculatively. “You look to me like a MILF.”
“。 . . I beg your pardon?”
“Milk in first?” He removed a carton. “Or have I got that wrong?”
She took two mugs from a cupboard and set them on the counter. Lamb divided about a twentieth of a pint equally between them and the surface, and said, “You think he was planning on having you killed?”
“No. I think he was hoping to convince me to deny I was a plant.”
“How hard would that have been?”
“Maybe not as much as you might think.”
“Depends on what he was offering, right? Head girl in the PM’s pole-dancing troupe?” He reached for the kettle as it boiled. “And what would Rasnokov have made of that?”
“He’d have thought I was doing my job.”
“But instead you jumped into our arms when Sparrow’s thugs tried to snatch you.”
“If that’s what they were trying to do. They seemed a little . . . uncoordinated.”
“Compared to my lot,” said Lamb. “Who managed to get arrested and run themselves over.” Steam furrowed the air as he poured water into the pot. “Still, better the dickheads you know. Bring that.” He marched back into the sitting room, leaving de Greer to carry teapot and mugs.
By the time she’d done so, Lamb had kicked his shoes off and arranged himself on the sofa in what might have passed as an alluring pose in someone with inoffensive socks. “Your disappearance must have given Sparrow a fright. One thing worse than having a tarantula appear in your cornflakes is having it vanish again. I mean, where the fuck’ll it show up next?”
“If you’re trying to flatter me, you’re not doing a very efficient job.”
“I leave seduction to the professionals. Speaking of which, you planning on screwing Bachelor? Because the excitement might kill him. And you could get him to do whatever you want by just dropping ‘hand-job’ into the conversation.”
De Greer lifted the teapot and filled both cups.
“But here’s me bimbosplaining,” said Lamb. “Anyway. Sparrow recovered, because next thing we know he’s playing the waterproof card and sending a former First Desk out looking for you. Which puts Taverner in the hot seat. So far, so very Westminster. When you’ve got a guilty conscience, scream loudly and point at someone else.”
“They prefer to think of it as reframing the narrative.”
“Whatever they call it, it’s done the trick. Because the Park’s overflowing with Biro-bashers, and according to my Miss Havisham, Taverner’s hiding on the roof of some wine bar off Cheapside.” He slurped some tea, and scowled. “That’s gunna taste better coming back up.”
“The teabags are very old.”
“Anyway, point is, you’re in demand. Diana needs you to prove you’ve not been waterproofed, and Sparrow needs you so he can, yeah, reframe your narrative. Well, that or bury you somewhere. And as for me, you know what I want?” Lamb put his cup down. The hand that had held it was now wielding a cigarette. “I want to know why you made that little startled movement when I said Rasnokov burned you. Because if that was always the plan, then why the surprise?”
“I wasn’t surprised.”
“But you twitched.”
He pulled the lighter from his breast pocket, and tossed it at her. She caught it, shook it, clicked it, and lit his cigarette. Then said, “How many of these do you get through?”
“I’m supposed to keep count? They’re called disposables for a reason.”
She clicked again, and as the flame burst into life held it up, so she was staring straight into it. An act of self-hypnosis, perhaps. She said, “How much do you know about Rasnokov?”
“My Top Trumps set’s out of date. But I know he can plot round corners.”
She laughed softly. “This was never Rasnokov’s plan, Mr. Lamb. Back when he was what you’d call a joe, he had a handler. And it’s her he still looks to for his brightest ideas.”
“‘Her?’”
“My mother.”
Through the window, a figure appeared in the mews: John Bachelor. For a moment he wavered on the threshold, as if keeping balance on the cobbles were as much as he could focus on. And then he reached out and knocked on the door, and Sophie de Greer faded back into the nervous, twitchy victim he was expecting before going to let him in.