But memory didn’t serve. It was the next hill but one that allowed the remembered view, and when it arrived, it had altered. Whelan’s car dipped, and its headlights picked out the long wall, but in place of the iron gates was a twisted mess: one still hung on a hinge, badly buckled, and the other was no longer there. The red tail lights of a large vehicle, a truck or a bus, were heading up the elegant driveway at speed. Whelan had the sense of other shadows, swarming in the darkness. All this in the half-second or so that his lights illuminated the scene. And then the lane curved again, showing him only the darkness ahead, which would in another minute reach those broken gates. Before he’d driven half that distance a bright light appeared at the side of the lane, directed straight at him, and a silhouette flagged down his car.
“Shirley Dander. Just give me her room number, and we’re all good.”
“I’m calling security now.”
“Okay,” the man said, but not to her; he was speaking into the mobile he’d produced from his pocket.
“Would you put that away?”
“Sure,” he said, but instead leaned forward and hit her in the face.
The same moment the woman toppled backwards, Shirley heard a distant revving followed by an elongated crash, one which started with a metallic crunch and continued for some while as a twisted, scraping form of torture.
The woman was shrieking, and on the floor, but Shirley didn’t think she’d reached that button. No alarm was sounding. Or not until Shirley jabbed her elbow into the little glass panel at the top of the staircase, triggering an electronic howl that came from everywhere at once. The man froze, then froze again as Shirley took the stairs three at a time—can you freeze twice? Don’t ask me, I’m busy—sweeping a vase from its sidetable as she reached ground level and sending it hurtling at his head: it would have been nice if it hit him. But it struck a wall and shattered: water pooled on the floor, flowers rearranged themselves. Someone else was coming through the door, and he didn’t look like security. The first man pointed at Shirley and shouted an instruction she couldn’t hear. But she wasn’t an idiot: she spun and ran back up the stairs.
. . . He used my name. No particular shock attached to the knowledge. There was, if anything, a sense of comfort. Here she was, miles from anywhere—exiled, even, from Slough House—and she was still the centre of events. Still pursued by bad actors.
Of whom this particular example turned on some speed, enough that he could grab her by the ankle. As she reached the top of the stairs, Shirley hit the floor face first.
“What seems to be the problem?”
Odd how he fell into deferential mode as he lowered his window and craned his neck to address the shadow. Something to do with being English, he supposed. Or everything to do with being Claude Whelan.
It was a young man with a long face, sideburned and stubbled. Whelan could smell alcohol as he crouched to speak through the window.
“Accident.”
“Is anyone hurt?”
“。 . . Eh?”
“Is. Anyone. Hurt?”
The young man nodded vigorously.
“Many. Yes. Big accident.” He put his hands together then moved them apart slowly, to indicate the violence of whatever had just occurred. “Boosssshhhhhhhh . . .”
From the direction of the San a fire alarm burst into life.
“Well, that should bring help,” Whelan said, and pressed the button to raise the window.
The young man put his hand in the gap, preventing it from closing.
“What are you doing?” said Whelan.
“You have to go back.”
“The road seems clear.”
“No. All blocked. Go back the way you came, yes? No worries.”
“I see. Yes, fine. All right, then. I’ll go back the way I came.”
He studied his wing mirror for traffic, then made doubly sure by looking over his shoulder, one or other of which actions satisfied his new friend that he intended to reverse to a passing place and turn the car around. The hand was removed from the window.
Whelan nodded politely, closed the window and drove forward, the car leaping a little as if eager to be on its way. In his mirror, he saw the young man prancing about: Was he shaking his fist at the car? Whelan rather thought he was. That was pleasing. His own arms were tingling in a way that might have been worrying in another context, but in this one spelt energy, coming off him like sweat.
He turned where the gates used to be, and there was the San at the end of the driveway, its ground floor lit. The truck that had ploughed through the gates had parked by its entrance; it was in fact a people carrier, now flanked by a pair of cars, their doors wide. A number of motorbikes were lined up behind, like an honour guard. And meanwhile a fire alarm pulsed steadily, beneath which Whelan could make out a different rhythm, one he had no name for, but recognised from crowd scenes: demonstrations turning edgy; railway stations when trains refused to arrive. Even inside the car he could feel the drumbeat. It was the wrong place to be—like the moment you drop a cup, before it hits the floor. Something’s going to break. He stopped abruptly just short of the other vehicles, and changed gear. Then flinched as a face appeared by his window.