Catherine said, “And that’s your mission. Should you decide to accept it.”

“Leg it to Cheapside, locate Taverner, extricate her from . . . malefactors, and get her to Chelsea,” said Louisa.

“That’s right.”

“Except she didn’t say ‘malefactors,’” Lech suggested.

“No,” said Catherine. “She didn’t say ‘malefactors.’”

“And what’s in it for us?” asked Louisa.

“I’m tempted to suggest Taverner’s undying gratitude. But I think we all know the concept’s alien to her.”

“What’s Lamb say?”

“He said, ‘This is going to be good.’”

Louisa was at her desk; Lech by the window. Catherine had closed the door behind her, and stood regarding the pair of them. She didn’t appear to be enjoying the moment, probably because she knew what their response would be.

“So what are we waiting for?”

She said, “I should remind you that it’s only a few days since your last adventure. And,” looking pointedly at Lech, “you’re still walking like somebody stole your stretcher.”

“A bit stiff, that’s all. Besides, that was Ho’s fault. And he’s not joining us, is he?”

“No,” said Catherine. “Lamb had something else in mind for Roddy.”

Of all the reasons Diana had for wanting to run Sparrow’s head up a pole, here was number one: that she’d been forced to enlist the slow horses for aid and succour. The only upside she could see was they’d be bound to fuck things up, and the way things stood, even that wasn’t actually an upside.

She was on the roof. On the street below, a black SUV—a Service car—was illegally parked outside Rashford’s door, its team, bar the driver, now in the building. Theoretically this should have been a source of gratification—her boys and girls on the hub could track a warm body through London’s streets as easily as if she had a red balloon tied to her sleeve—but just once, she’d have found ineptitude welcome. Because the Dogs were here to take her back to the Park, and from that moment on she’d be officially suspended, a career limbo from which few emerged intact. And if she were relying on Slough House for rescue she’d be better off with an actual red balloon, one she could float away on.

Meanwhile, she was still carrying her secret mobile, and the last thing she needed to be found in possession of was a link to Peter Judd. Stepping back from the edge, she was removing the sim card when the mosquito buzz that had been nagging away in the background penetrated her consciousness.

Looking up, she saw the drone hovering twenty yards overhead.

This doesn’t get covered in the style mags, but good-hair days bring their own problems. Running a comb through his locks, Roddy offered his reflection a steely glance, then mussed himself up again and activated the engaging, puppyish grin. Then tried a steely/tousled combo, which was a bit of a mixed message frankly, before opting for the side-parting/puppyish look.

Check. It. Out.

Roddy Ho is in the house.

He’d decided, after some magnificent brooding on the matter, to nix the phone call and go for Zoom. Play to your strengths, dude—he’d be an idiot not to put the goodies on the counter. Face it, he’d dazzled her during the audition; she’d seen the role, not the man, and figured him for some charismatic crumbly. Her bolshiness had been down to understandable disappointment. Only fair to let her see what lay beneath the Hobi-Wan robes. And let’s not forget what you’re playing for: Any woman desperate enough to dress up as a cartoon character is looking to get laid.

Here we go.

“Babes, I can’t be the only one who felt a little friction the other night—and friction’s what it’s about, ya feel me? I push a little, you push back . . .”

(Miming this, so she got the picture.)

“Am I right or am I right? I mean, I could definitely be into you.”

This being the chief objective, when you got down to it.

But his rehearsal was interrupted by noises on the staircase.

He waited until they’d gone—Louisa and Lech; off skiving—and decided: okay. No time like the now. It was after four so those wasters wouldn’t be back, and he was unlikely to be interrupted. So: Zoom invite—“Important Follow-Up”—twenty minutes from now—despatched. Roddy leaned back and cracked his knuckles. Then thought: Hang on—was it Leia Six or Leia Seven who’d been the bolshy one? Because he’d just sent the invite to Leia Six, and—

“Roddy?”

And here was Catherine, crashing his train of thought.

“I’m busy.”

“So I see. But this takes priority.”

He shook his head wearily. That was the trouble with being indiroddyspensable: you were first port of call for the pea-brained.

“There’s something Lamb needs you to do.”

Roddy adjusted his expression to read “Born Ready,” tried to crack his knuckles again, and winced.

“And if you can manage to listen without hurting yourself,” Catherine continued, coming into the room, “this is what he’s after.”

“She’s on a rooftop in Cheapside.”

“And is she planning unassisted flight?”

Nash said, “I’d have thought that unlikely.” Malahide’s company was beginning to grate, his demeanour towards those they’d interviewed so far—the hubsters whose worksheets showed recent one-to-ones with Diana—having proved borderline hostile. When challenged, he’d raised an eyebrow. “Gone native, old boy?” A salutary reminder, Nash thought, that you always had to be on one side or another in the Whitehall Kush.

He glanced at the memo he’d been handed by Josie. “A wine bar, Rashford’s?” He made it a question, though was aware of its existence, its name having made it popular with backbenchers. “She was picked up on camera, there’s a crew at the premises now.” He looked at his watch. “They’ll have her here by five.”

“And this wine bar has a rooftop terrace?”

“I think it’s clear she’s evading, ah, capture.”

“Like I said. An admission of guilt.” Malahide clasped his hands behind his head, and rocked back in his chair. “This famous window of hers, the one that frosts when you press a button. What do you suppose she got up to in her office when no one could see her?”

“We’re conducting a preliminary enquiry,” said Nash. “Not inventing scurrilous rumours.”

“If you say so,” said Malahide. “If you say so.” He sat up straight. “Well, I suppose we’d better put Sparrow in the picture.”

“Leave that to me,” said Nash.

He left the office holding his phone to his ear, but without making a connection.

As he passed Josie’s desk, unseen by Malahide, he made a follow-me gesture with his eyes, an invitation Josie accepted a few moments later.

“Remind. Me. Why. We’re. Running?”

This was necessarily a conversation Lech was having in his head because, well, they were running . . .

And the answer, besides, was obvious. Cheapside was about a quarter mile from Slough House, or, by car, maybe three times that. Add roadworks, traffic lights, and you were looking at a half-hour minimum.

“She’s on the roof,” Catherine had said, and Lech had wondered if this were like the joke about the cat, and she was gently breaking the news that Taverner was dead.

Louisa was way ahead, but she was a runner. Give Lech the streets after dark, he could pace ten miles and barely notice, but speed was a different story. Besides, there were people about, staring as he passed. Facial scarring made him the automatic villain. He was basically a trigger warning; a horror-meme waiting to happen.

Sod it.

A team of Dogs, Catherine had said. There for a Safe Collect—Taverner wasn’t armed, and was anyway unlikely to initiate a gun battle on the streets of London. Had he imagined it, or had Catherine laid a slight stress on unlikely? But whatever the outcome, this had to do with Sophie de Greer, and the last time he’d left Slough House on a mission involving her, Roddy bloody Ho had ploughed him down on a dark common. What delights awaited him today?

Panting round the long curve below the Museum of London he could see Louisa at the Cheapside junction, so ignoring the pain in his thighs he increased his speed, the pavement’s damp calligraphy blurring beneath his feet.

Roddy leaned back and made one of his expressions. He had several of these, and Catherine was familiar with all, but was never sure what he was attempting to convey, beyond some brand of superior weariness.

“So this Ronsakov—”

“Rasnokov,” she said. “Vassily Rasnokov.”

“What I said. This Ronsakov dude was at the Grosvenor two nights, only nobody knew it was him at first so he was, like, totally off radar.”

“. . . Yes.”

“And Lamb wants to know what he got up to.”

“. . . Yes.”

“In London.”

“That’s the size of it, yes. I’m sorry.”

In the circumstances, she had to admit, weary superiority wasn’t entirely without foundation.

Roddy reached for his energy drink.

“He might have been asleep,” he said.

“Yes,” Catherine agreed. “He certainly wasn’t watching TV or using wifi. But he ordered two bottles of The Balvenie from room service.”

Roddy looked blank.

“It’s a brand of whisky.”

“Yeah, I knew that.”

“The empties weren’t left in his room, and he didn’t take them back to Moscow.” Give her credit, Catherine delivered this information as if it were an important part of a soluble puzzle, and not, as it had appeared to her fifteen minutes previously, random facts plucked from an inconsequential blizzard. “So there’s a chance he met with someone. Because the Balvenie might have been intended as a present.”

“Balvenie?”

They turned. Ashley Khan was hovering on the threshold. She had her coat on, and her bag over her shoulder, but her departure had evidently snagged on the overheard word, so there she was, repeating it in the doorway.

“The Balvenie,” she said again. “That’s Vassily Rasnokov’s brand.”

The drone hovered insolently, and for a short while Diana saw the world from a different perspective—as one of the monitored, one of the watched—and in so doing understood the impulse the ordinary citizen has when confronted with the unceasing intrusions of daily life, “in the interests of security.” So she did what every ordinary citizen does, most often internally but in this case with a kind of slow-motion deliberation: she raised her middle finger, and invited the unseen watchers to go fuck themselves. Then she turned her back on it and put the sim card in her mouth.

The drone rose higher, its buzz-saw whine diminishing, allowing her to hear more noises: a door being forcibly opened; feet coming up a dark staircase. She dropped the mobile and ground it underfoot, and was just swallowing the sim card when the rooftop access door opened, and the first of the Dogs stepped out into cold sunshine.

“One with the car. Three on the stairs.”

“Stairs?” said Lech.

“There’s always stairs,” Louisa told him.

And there were always four Dogs, or that was how she remembered it. Though it was true that nobody kept Slough House up to date when procedures were modified.

They were on Cheapside, approaching Rashford’s, outside which a black SUV was parked. A man easily identifiable as Dog leaned against it, his gaze directed at the bar’s doorway. Lech was breathing hard, which was his own fault. No excuse for being out of shape.

Reading her thoughts, or perhaps her expression, Lech said, “I was run over a couple of days ago, remember?”

“At, what, ten miles an hour?”

“Still counts.”

“In which case, you’d better take it easy. You can have the driver.”

“In the sense of . . . ?”

“Keep him busy. So he’s not watching the doorway when I come back out.”

“Okay . . . So what’s the plan?”

“Plan?”

“Great,” said Lech. “Situation normal.”

Waving two fingers Louisa left him there, a hundred yards short of their destination, and—ignoring the car parked outside—disappeared through Rashford’s door.

“So your written assignment—”

“They call it a hand-in.”

“Hand-in, right.”

“I’ve no idea why.”

Because you handed it in, presumably. Which didn’t matter. Catherine said, “So your twenty-thousand-word hand-in was on Vassily Rasnokov.”

The hand-in was part of every fledgling spook’s first six-month assessment, regardless of whether their ambitions lay in field work or analysis. Most chose to critique an op from years gone by—a safe enough topic provided the career-blighting embarrassment of, say, picking an operation handled by Diana Taverner was avoided—and it had been some while since the straightforward biographical essay had been in vogue. This was largely because nothing boosted a mark like fresh information, and there was little chance of this being captured by a beginner.

Then again, there was fresh and fresh.

“I found a cross reference to a pre-digital source,” Ashley said. “A case report from the late seventies.”

“I didn’t know Rasnokov was KGB back then. Wouldn’t he have been a child?”

“A teenager,” said Ashley. “And he wasn’t official.”

Which was a detail missing from Rasnokov’s Service file: that prior to his recruitment, he’d carried a shovel on several KGB cases involving the harassment of known dissidents. The oversight was down to a misspelling—“Ronsakov” for Rasnokov—whose handwritten emendation had never been carried over to the master document. So a few small facts about his early career had been lost to history, buried in a cardboard folder deep in Molly Doran’s domain, to which baby spooks were granted access while completing their hand-ins.

“Good work,” Catherine said, meaning it. “That—well. It would have been noticed.”

If Ashley’s training wheels hadn’t come off altogether, that was. If she’d finished her hand-in and handed it in.

Roddy said, “Yeah, fascinating. But if this reference didn’t mention what he was doing the other night, it’s not much help, ya get me?”

The women shared a look.

Catherine said, “How many pieces of information did we have two minutes ago?”

He counted them in his head. “One?”

“And now we have more. How is that a hindrance?”

Something blipped: an incoming email.

“You’ve got a Zoom booked?” said Ashley, who was by Roddy’s desk now, with a partial view of his screens.

“No.”

“Because that looks like—”

“Yeah, right, it’s nothing.”

Catherine said, “Well in that case it won’t distract you.” She looked at Ashley. “I’m sure you won’t mind giving Roddy a hand.”

“Lamb says I’m not supposed to do anything.”

“He’ll make an exception for this,” Catherine said.

“You think? Because—”

“I’m making an exception for this.”

Ashley paused, then nodded.

Roddy said, “Look, I’ve got this thing—”

“I’ll be back in half an hour,” said Catherine. She moved towards the door. “Play nicely,” she said, over her shoulder, and was gone.

It was all very courteous. They’d tarried on the rooftop while the more junior of the Dogs scraped the remains of Diana’s shattered mobile together and put them in an evidence bag, and then they’d processed back into the building: Dog One, then Diana, then Dog Two. Dog Three—whom Diana knew by name; Nicola Kelly—was waiting on the landing.

“Sorry about this, ma’am.”

Not as sorry as she would be, Diana’s answering smile promised.

She took Diana’s bag and rifled through it. Finding the envelope stuffed with cash, she raised an eyebrow at nobody in particular.

“I know how much is in there,” Diana said.

Kelly replaced the envelope in the bag, which she didn’t return.

On their way past the bar Diana looked for Nathan, but he wasn’t in sight. He’d be on the phone to Peter Judd, reporting her capture. And Judd would be unsurprised. I’ll splash every last detail of our association across the national breakfast table, he’d said, and while Judd wasn’t what you’d call reliable, that was a promise he’d keep. After which, Sophie de Greer was a sideshow: Diana could have her lap dance the entire Limitations Committee for all the good it would do. Proving herself innocent of instigating Waterproof while Judd was revealing that she’d colluded with Chinese backers would be like standing up to her elbows in blood, indignantly explaining that she’d never shoplifted in her life. Meanwhile, Sparrow would be taking cover behind the hostile headlines, his role in employing de Greer reduced to an anodyne soundbite: Clearly, there are lessons to be learned. The ability to bury bad news was bullet-point one on the Westminster CV, practised by interns, perfected by PMs. Produce your mea culpa on the weekend a major royal dies. Nastier cowards than Sparrow had pulled this trick.

As for expecting aid and succour from the slow horses, that just went to show she was losing her grip. Might as well pray for divine intervention.

But as they trooped down the final staircase, Nicola Kelly bringing up the rear, the sunshine falling through the doorway was blocked for a moment by a silhouetted figure.

“So he was staying at the Grosvenor,” Ashley said. “And ordered two bottles of The Balvenie.”

She’d removed her coat and dragged a chair across so she was next to Roddy, the pair of them flanked by his screens, three of which currently displayed the Service log-in page. One of the others was downloading something; a second showed columns of figures absent any headings, and was quite possibly intended to suggest a heavy workload rather than achieve a specific result; and the third showed Ashley and Roddy, flanked by screens.

“. . . 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.

At, for instance, the traffic warden crossing the road, already snapping the SUV on her phone.

Lech said, “You know how, sometimes, there’s something you need to do, and then someone else comes along and does it for you?”

“What are you on about? Sir?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Lech.

“Is this your car?” asked the approaching warden.

The driver turned.

Lech moved away, towards Rashford’s open door, so he was the only one watching when Taverner came out.

A moment after Diana had spoken Louisa was flat against the wall, her right arm halfway up her back, and while the element of surprise had certainly made an appearance, it hadn’t done so in the way she’d expected. Which, come to think of it—

But Louisa didn’t have time to think of it; she was busy being pinioned and shouted at.

“Are you armed?”

“Does she have a gun?”

“Check her shoes.”

My shoes? . . .

She was still puzzling over that when Diana hooked a foot round Nicola Kelly’s ankle and pushed her down the stairs.

And here was the element of surprise again. This time Louisa embraced it, throwing herself backward and dislodging one of the pair restraining her, who promptly tripped over the tumbling Kelly, and pushing the other back against the opposite wall, where they both teetered for a moment before they too succumbed to gravity, and joined the sprawl at the foot of the staircase. A mêlée which didn’t seem to inconvenience Diana, who picked her way past it untroubled, bending to retrieve sundry articles on her way.

When she stepped out onto Cheapside, in full view of Lech, she was carrying her bag, and also Kelly’s gun.

All she needed was a pair of shades, as Lech put it afterwards, and she’d be Bonnie Parker.

Diana emerged into sunshine feeling like Clyde Barrow. A slow horse—the one who’d been through the grinder—was waiting on the pavement, his jaw slack.

“Your colleague needs assistance,” she told him. When he didn’t move, she said, “Now,” and he made to speak, changed his mind, and hurried into Rashford’s, where he’d discover the impromptu game of Twister at the foot of the stairs.

The SUV was still double-yellow parked, an infraction being investigated by one of London’s traffic enforcers, a paramilitary-uniformed Nigerian woman. She had her phone out, taking details, but froze like Elsa at the sight of a well-dressed middle-aged woman accessorised with hat and gun.

Diana, coming within three inches of her, said quietly, “Check it against your don’t-even-think-about-it list, bury the paperwork, and find somewhere else to monitor. Clear?”

The woman nodded.

“Excellent.” She waited another beat, and the warden scurried away.

And now the remaining Dog. It was presumably the gun, she thought—it couldn’t be the tote bag, classy as it was—that was reducing everyone to marble. Instead of approaching him, she crooked a finger. He came to her with the air of one summoned by dread. She spoke.

“Your boss is in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, this Candlestub bullshit will be history by bedtime, and I’m First fucking Desk. You have two seconds to decide where your loyalties lie, and by loyalties I mean career prospects.”

“Ma’am,” he said.

“Good choice. Here.” She handed him Kelly’s gun. “Now, door.”

He put the gun in his pocket and opened the back door for her.

“Quick as you like.”

The others were piling out of Rashford’s as the SUV took off down Cheapside, a motley looking bunch, dim and ragged, as if a trip to see the wizard hadn’t paid off the way it ought. But Diana didn’t look back. She was too busy instructing her driver.

“This is private,” Roddy whispered furiously.

“It’s not as private as all that,” Ashley pointed out. “I’m here, for a start.”

He’d dialled into his Zoom call because obviously—obviously—as soon as he’d done that she’d make herself scarce: go make a cup of tea or whatever. But she’d just pushed her chair back and settled in to watch: cramping his style. Which was a lot of style to cramp, but she was putting effort into it.

“Is there someone with you?” Leia Six asked.

Which was another problem: he’d got his Leias mixed up. Six was definitely not the Leia he’d experienced the meet-cute tension with.

“No,” he told her.

“Yes,” said Ashley, leaning into shot. “Hi. Are you Roddy’s girlfriend?”

“No. Are you?”

Ashley made a fingers-down-the-throat gesture, and Leia laughed.

“Do not talk to her!”

“He means you,” Ashley said.

“He means you!”

“Dick move either way.”

“Out of my room,” Roddy ordered.

“You’re in his room?”

“It’s an office,” Ashley said. “We work together.”

“What’s he like?”

“You can do better.”

“Now!”

“Is he always like this?”

“I’ve only known him, like, a week. But yeah, appaz.”

Roddy seized a cable and pulled it from the monitor, to no obvious effect.

“I’d better go,” Ashley said. “He’s disconnecting printers now.”

“We should do this again,” Leia said, and vanished from Roddy’s screen.

“Look what you did!”

“What?” said Ashley. “We were just chatting.”

“She was supposed to be chatting to me!”

“Whatever. Anyway, she’s cool. You should date her.”

“. . . You think?”

“Definitely.”

Roddy smirked.

“I mean, she can tell you’re a prat. But if we ruled prats out, we’d never get laid. Are we doing some work now? Catherine’ll be down in a minute.”

Roddy flexed his fingers.

“So tell me something about Vassily Ronsakov I don’t already know,” he said.

“Well, for a start, he’s called Vassily Rasnokov.”

“That’s what I said.”

“But his nickname as a teenager was The Fireman.”

“Because he used to put fires out?” said Roddy.

“No,” said Ashley. “Because he used to start them.”

Lech and Louisa were walking back down Cheapside. “They wanted to check my shoes,” Louisa was saying. “Who’d they think I was, Rosa Klebb?”

“Well, from a certain angle . . .”

“Fuck you.”

“Consider me fucked,” said Lech. “That was cool, by the way. Getting us out of there.”

Because Kelly had wanted to arrest them.

“Good plan,” Louisa had told her. They were standing in a shabby group on the pavement, the SUV a memory in distant traffic. “You can take my statement now, if you like. It involves your target driving away in your car with your gun.”

There’d followed an exchange of pleasantries, after which the slow horses had made their departure.

“Do you think that counts as mission accomplished?”

“If we’d not turned up, Taverner would have been taken back to the Park by now,” Lech said.

“By the malefactors,” said Louisa.

“By the malefactors. Which is what she wanted to avoid.”

“Yay for us, then.”

“I’m sure she’s suitably grateful.”

“That’s funny,” said Louisa. Then winced and rubbed her shoulder and said, “I’ll have bruises tomorrow.”

“Tell me about it,” said Lech.

Roddy’s fingers blurred, and different sites opened up on different screens. Most of them, password pages suggested, were restricted to authorised users, the accompanying devices indicating that such users served the Crown, one way or another. These warnings didn’t deter him long.

Ashley said, “Pretty slick.”

“Well, duh.”

“And gracious with it.”

Roddy shrugged modestly. “What do you think of Mr. Lightning?” he asked.

“Don’t know him.”

“No, I meant the name. Mr. Lightning.”

“Sounds like a dick,” said Ashley.

“That’s what I thought.”

He muttered it under his breath. Mr. Lightning.

None of the databases had so far yielded Rasnokov’s name, nor the name he’d booked into the Grosvenor under: Gregory Ronovitch. But that had never been likely, given the undercover nature of whatever he’d been doing.

Take away the name, though, and focus on fire-related incidents, linked with the Balvenie brand-name, and—

Still nothing.

“Just put ‘whisky,’” Ashley suggested.

Various hits, on various pages.

They took them one by one, the first turning out to be a brawl in a pub involving a number of off-duty fire-officers. This covered the second and third hits also.

Ashley reached for her bag and produced her Tupperware box of nuts and berries.

“Got any proper food?”

She put the box on his desk. “Your parents should have asked for a refund.”

“Yeah, and your parents should have asked for a . . . Hang on.”

“What?”

“That fire off the Westway.” He was pointing at one of his screens: a report filed by an arson investigator the previous morning. “Look what was found in the wreckage.”

Among the cremated furniture, the collapsed ceiling, the reeking, sodden remnants: two glass bottles, probably containing whisky.

“Confirmation awaited,” Roddy read aloud.

“I saw that in the paper,” said Ashley. “Someone died.”

They looked at each other.

“You think—?”

“I think we’re cooking with leaded,” said Roddy, and reached for a handful of Ashley’s nuts and berries. Stuffing them into his mouth, he continued, “I think we’ve hit the motherlode.”

And then he threw back his head and screamed.

The day was losing the light when Diana reached the mews. The driver had discreetly dropped her at Marble Arch and continued on his way to the Park on her instructions: his subsequent admission that he’d lost her en route wouldn’t do much for his credibility, but—she’d assured him—he’d flourish once she’d rendered the current situation null and void, a guarantee she justified to herself on the ground that if she failed to do so, he’d be the least of her worries. At Marble Arch she’d dipped underground, reappeared wearing headscarf and sunglasses bought from a street trader, and had set off on foot across Hyde Park. Late summer cast a warm glaze on everything, and there was a sweet sense of liberty in the air that the young, at least, were revelling in, but Diana felt a chasm between her own and their early evenings: they weren’t being fucked over by sundry enemies, and they all had phones to play with. Still, visions of Anthony Sparrow being chewed by wild dogs amused her on the way. And now she was crossing the cobbles towards the safe house, one unknown to Park records. Opposite its front door, the tropical plants in their terracotta exile had settled into shadow.

The door swung open before she reached it. The shabby character on the threshold was one John Bachelor; an appropriate place for him, inasmuch as he was someone you just naturally wanted to wipe your feet on. Inside, Jackson Lamb squatted in an armchair like a yeti in a biscuit tin: spilling over its edges, but not seeming to care. Last time Diana had been here, the fragrance was furniture polish and fresh paint. Now the air was muddy with the remnants of what appeared to be a four-course Indian meal for seven: tinfoil trays lay everywhere, studded with plastic cutlery, and luminous spillages glistened on every surface within Lamb’s reach, and also a fair distance away. Underneath all that, an expert nose might detect his trademark smog of cigarette smoke and damp wardrobes.

In the armchair facing him, legs folded beneath her like a resting fawn, was Sophie de Greer.

“Here’s an interesting thing,” said Lamb. “Back when he was still breaking legs for a living, our friend Vassily was known as The Fireman. Guess why.”

Diana looked at Sophie de Greer, who said, “He worked as a debt collector. There were stories that it was best to pay up when he came knocking. Or you’d find your home a pile of ashes.”

“Well, aren’t you just spilling all your secrets.”

“That would be down to my interrogative skills,” Lamb said, and farted modestly. “The good doctor’s poker face slipped when I told her she’d been burned. After that, well. You know me. Get the bit between my teeth, I’m like a dog with a boner.”

“You certainly have similar table manners.” Diana scanned the room. “Enjoy your meal?”

“Tasted better than skinny feels, I can tell you that.” One of Lamb’s hands disappeared down the back of his trousers, and he scratched energetically. “Speaking of dogs. You eluded them, I see.”

“No thanks to your idiots. Who trained them, Laurel and Hardy?”

Lamb shrugged. “They were like that when I got them.”

He raised a hand, which somehow now held a cigarette, and de Greer tossed him a lighter.

“Bring me a chair,” Diana said, without turning round, and when Bachelor carried an upright through from the kitchen, she gestured towards it for de Greer’s benefit.

After a moment, de Greer unwound herself and abandoned the armchair.

Sinking into it, Diana said, “A drink would be nice.”

“Mi casa su casa,” said Lamb, making no move towards the bottle at his elbow.

Bachelor was already fetching a glass.

Diana stared at de Greer, now perched on the kitchen chair, and looking like an applicant for a job she didn’t want. “So you’re who all the fuss is about.”

“Sorry.”

“Let me guess. You were planted to steer Sparrow in the right direction. Chip away at the democratic processes.”

“It was nothing he didn’t want to hear. You know what he calls backbenchers? Chimps.”

“When I’m ready for your input, I’ll let you know.” Accepting the whisky Bachelor poured, she took a hefty swallow. “And this included curbing the Service, did it? When I nod like this, that’s me letting you know.”

“Rasnokov would prefer you not to be First Desk. That’s a compliment, when you think about it.”

“Jesus. I’m going to enjoy wrapping you up and sending you back to him.”

An approaching cloud signalled that Lamb had lit up. “That’s if you can find him,” he said.

“I’m prepared to put her in separate parcels,” Diana said. “And send one to every address we have.”

Lamb looked at Bachelor, lurking in a corner. “That walk you took earlier?”

“. . .Yes?”

“Take it again.”

Bachelor looked like he was about to complain, but Diana’s basilisk stare dissuaded him. The air in the room shifted with the opening and closing of the door.

“You’re not very nice to him,” de Greer said.

“On the other hand, I’m not pulling him round the room by his cock. So, you know. Swings and roundabouts.”

“Why won’t I find Rasnokov?” Diana said.

“Because he burned a building down the other night with someone still in it.”

“. . . Let’s start at the beginning.”

“Rasnokov slipped out of the Grosvenor first night he was here. The same night a garden flat off the Westway burned to a cinder. Two empty bottles of whisky were found in the rubble.”

“The Balvenie.”

“Yeah.” Lamb blew a smoke ring. “Rasnokov may be a murdering thug. But he’s not cheap.”

“Who was the victim?”

“Don’t know. But I can guess.”

“So guess.”

“An understudy.”

“Right.” Diana looked at de Greer. “Did you know about this?”

“I don’t even know what an understudy is.”

“Well, there’s a body in a burnt-out flat without an identity,” said Lamb. “Which means that somewhere there’s an identity lacking a body.”

“Rasnokov has a fake identity waiting for him,” de Greer translated.

“More than that. A whole fake life someone’s been living. Probably for years.” Lamb reached for the bottle, and poured a measure bordering on obese. “Some poor bastard with a passing resemblance to our Vaseline, and with Rasnokov’s own face plastered all over his ID, has been decorating a legend. And now it’s ready for Rasnokov to move into. A vacant possession.”

“Rasnokov’s going to disappear?”

“If he’s got any sense, he’ll fake a death. You don’t just walk away from a job like his. Not with Norman Bates for a boss.”

“But he can’t just step into this . . . ready-made life. If the fake Rasnokov’s been creating a whole existence, then people will know him. And they’ll know he’s been replaced. The resemblance can’t be that great.”

Lamb looked at Diana. “Feel free to chip in.”

Diana said, “The resemblance wouldn’t need to be total. When Rasnokov steps into the dead man’s shoes, he’ll be about to relocate, somewhere far away. Somewhere nobody knows him.”

“Couldn’t he do that with a fake passport?”

“Lots of people do,” said Lamb. “Trouble is, it’s all surface tension. Put a little weight on it, your foot goes through.” He held his glass up, and stared into its amber brilliance. “Wherever Rasnokov ends up, he’ll be leaving behind an actual lived life. A quiet one, sure—our fake will have kept himself to himself, no close friends, no family—but with real roots. He’ll have real jobs behind him, real debts and savings, credit history, career map, maybe the odd drink-driving escapade. All of it paper-trailed up the arse.”

“And what about the dead man? What was in it for him?”

“Whatever Rasnokov promised him,” Lamb said. “He must have thought his time was nearly up, that Rasnokov would arrive with money and a clean passport and cut him loose. Or maybe he knew what was coming, because he’d have had to be a fucking idiot not to.” Lamb sucked hard on his cigarette, its lit end a manic glow. “Maybe that was the deal. Maybe Rasnokov plucked him from prison, offered him five years of life and all he could eat, after which . . . pfft. Might not seem so bad if the alternative’s a slow death in an icy cell. But either way, the understudy came to London as arranged, and sub-let a room for cash. And what his name was these past years, and where he lives, all the things Rasnokov plans to slip into sometime soon, no one knows.”

“Battleship Potemkin,” Diana said. “He was laughing at us.” She looked at Lamb. “How much of this is guesswork?”

“Most of it. But Rasnokov’s nickname, and firestarting habits, come from Khan as well as Doctor Toblerone here. She might have her uses after all.”

“And I assume Ho tracked down the fire and the body and the bottles.”

“He’s a treasure,” Lamb agreed. “I plan to bury him someday. Though, point of fact, I haven’t actually spoken to him. Apparently he’s suffering severe mouth burns.” He adopted a pious expression. “Can’t think how that happened.”

De Greer was looking from one to the other. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“So that when we send you back to Moscow,” Diana said, “you’ll be able to let them know your whole operation was a smokescreen. That should make Vassily popular. Not to mention dead for real, if the Gay Hussar has a hangnail that day.”

“I don’t want to go back to Moscow.”

“Too bad.” Diana stood. “I need to make a call.” She had to call Judd, to forestall him dropping any info-bombs on the Park. “And I don’t seem to have a phone.”

“There’s a landline upstairs,” de Greer said. When Diana had left the room, said, “Will she really send me back?”

“Probably.”

“They’ll think I was part of it. That I knew what he was up to.”

“Then I wouldn’t bank on them declaring a public holiday.”

“Can I have a cigarette?”

“No.”

De Greer stared, then looked towards the window. There was no sign of Bachelor returning. Her gaze fixed in that direction, she said, “You forgot for a moment, back there.”

“Forgot what?”

“Forgot to be yourself. You were too caught up in explaining what’s going on. Being clever instead of being gross.”

He sneered.

“I’d have been better off letting Sparrow’s men grab me,” she said. “At least he’d have tried to bribe me.”

“Well, he’s not gunna find you here,” Lamb said. He drained his glass. “Let’s face it. He thinks you’re somewhere else entirely.”