“。 . . Mirror mode?”
Roddy tapped a key, and the screen flipped to a gif of Yoda performing a backflip. Then he grabbed a comb from the desk and dropped it in a drawer.
“I don’t like you being this side,” he said.
“I’d noticed.”
“And I’ve got this thing happening—”
“Your Zoom call.”
“It’s private.”
“Yeah, I don’t care. What have you done to trace Rasnokov?”
“Apparently you’re the expert,” Roddy said sulkily.
“More than you are. On the other hand, you’re supposed to be good at this shit.” She waved a hand at the glass and plastic world in front of them. “So impress me.”
Roddy made a face.
“Are you in pain? Or was that your Tom Cruise impression? Now, let’s start. Vassily Rasnokov is sixty-two years old.”
Roddy rolled his eyes.
“Do you want my help or not?”
“Not.”
“Too bad. We’re doing this. He’s sixty-two years old, and—”
Roddy trilled on his keyboard some more, and one of the Service log-in pages turned into a screenshot of Rasnokov’s passport. He rolled his chair sideways, hit more keys on a separate board, and a second screen came to life, on a template familiar to Ashley. On text, indeed, that she knew by heart.
“There,” said Roddy. “His Service file. Which gives me his age and his weight and his photograph. His career to date, his regular contacts, his family life, his pet dog. But guess what?” He asked a quick question, with fingers too fast for Ashley to follow, his search terms masked by asterisks. No results found. “None of that tells me what he was doing with two bottles of whisky on Tuesday night.”
“Are you always such a dick?”
“Are you always such a . . .”
She waited.
“。 . . moron?”
“I’m a woman, I’m brown, I’m younger than you. Is that the best you can do?”
“Spreader,” muttered Roddy.
“That’s not a thing. Now. Rasnokov’s file can’t show us what he was up to Tuesday night, but what about stuff that’s not on his file? Because like I said, some of the data I found isn’t on the mainframe.”
“Aren’t, not isn’t.”
“What?”
“Data’s plural.”
“True,” Ashley conceded. “But also, and I can’t stress this enough, fuck off.”
Roddy sighed.
Then the alarm on his phone went off, alerting him to his Zoom call.
The stairs were reasonably wide, but there was an etiquette, post-virus: you didn’t start up them if there was someone coming down. So of the four people descending from Rashford’s, three weren’t expecting the newcomer to step onto the staircase, the fourth being Diana Taverner, who’d recognised Louisa Guy.
Who was weaving, as if drunk.
This wasn’t going to work for long, because while she could move drunk and sound drunk Louisa didn’t smell drunk. But it only had to get her up four steps, at which point she’d be level with Dog Two, who was behind Dog One: then she’d stumble, grab hold of one or the other and—well—as Lech had implied, plans weren’t a strong point. But once there was a free-for-all on the stairs, then whatever plan the Dogs had clearly wasn’t running to order either. And Louisa would at least have the element of surprise on her side.
Which remained true up until the moment Diana Taverner said, “Watch her. She’s Slough House.”
Louisa was barely out of sight before Lech approached the driver, saying, “This is Rashford’s, right?”
The driver glanced at him, looked away, and then looked back, something between horror and fascination painting his face.
“I mean, you’d think they’d put a sign up. It’s like they don’t want you to know it’s there.”
“I’m busy right now.”
“That’s weird because you don’t look it. Is this your job? Standing next to a black car?”
“I’m going to ask you to move away, sir.” He’d managed to recompose himself, but it was clear Lech’s appearance had touched a nerve.
Which was Lech’s only advantage, so far as he could see. The man wasn’t any taller than him but he was broader, and if violence broke out Lech was clearly going to get his arse kicked. Then again, Lech could have had six inches on him and it wouldn’t have made a difference: Lech had been an analyst back in the day, and while his training had included a certain amount of physical activity, Dogs were coached to a higher standard. On the other hand, Louisa’s instruction, Make sure he’s not watching the door, didn’t necessarily involve getting physical. He could just point in the opposite direction.