Night-time raids come in different shapes and sizes.

Oliver Nash was no stranger to the domestic kind: the padding on slippered feet to the kitchen; the lure of leftovers offering recompense for being alert in the small hours, dream-remnants smeared across every surface. Tonight, though, his journey involved a sudden start at the foot of the stairs, when a shadow in the living room detached itself from the furniture. With an aplomb that would have surprised those who took him at face value he recovered instantly, nodding at his uninvited guest and continuing into the kitchen, where he turned the light on. “I assume you used the spare key,” he said, without looking round. “I must find a better hiding place.”

“You must join the twenty-first century. This is London, Oliver. Not The Archers.”

“But as you’re here anyway, we might as well be comfortable.” He reached for the thermostat and adjusted it several degrees. From upstairs came the comforting noise of organised heat awakening: a dull thunk, a whispered whoosh. Nash tightened his dressing gown cord. “You’ve caused quite the hullaballoo.”

“I have?”

“What would you call it? You left a pack of Dogs in a heap on a staircase and used the lone survivor as an Uber. He’s taking some hard knocks, by the way. When he returned Ms. Kelly’s gun to her, I thought she’d use it on him.”

“He knew it was a long-term investment,” Diana said.

“And then you vanished like a woodland sprite. Down on the hub, they don’t know whether to build you a crucifix or find you a crown. Coffee?”

“Please.”

“And there’s a rather good seeded sourdough. I could run us up some toast?”

“Who’s been parachuted into the Park?”

“Home Office man, bit of a donkey. Name of Malahide.”

Diana pursed her lips.

“Needless to say, he takes your disappearing act as a sign of guilt.”

“If I’d shown up, it would have been game over. You know that.”

“Indeed I do, but you know what that department’s like. They’ve got so used to pretending they’re not as smart as their boss, some of them have actually got that way.” With an economy of motion belying his size, Nash dropped four slices of bread into the toaster and attended to the Nespresso machine. “And he hasn’t learned from you how to think round corners.”

“What did Sparrow offer?”

“What you’d expect.” Nash opened a cupboard, and began excavating little tubs of jam, the size that come with hotel breakfasts. “The Park’s to be, what shall we call it, streamlined? More oversight, less, ah initiative. Committee-led. With Yours Truly at the helm.”

“I hadn’t realised your ambitions lay in that direction.”

“Upwards? Everyone’s ambitions lie in that direction. Law of physics. Besides, once he’d played the waterproof card, the next step was inevitable. Either I went along, or I’d be squashed against the tiles. Though, as you’ll remember, I did give you advance warning.”

Red Queen, Red Queen, he’d whispered down her phone.

“Playing both ends against the middle.”

“Oh, please. I’d never turn against the middle. Black, yes?” He placed a coffee cup in front of her. “Sparrow doesn’t know you like I do. He thought activating Candlestub would render you harmless. Whereas I knew that putting you in a corner would get your dander up.” He barked, unexpectedly. “Which, come to think of it . . .” Reaching into his dressing gown pocket, he produced his iPhone. A few taps later he passed it to her. “That came in an hour ago. Woke me, as it happens.”

Diana read the activity report he’d opened. “An attack on the San? This was Sparrow?”

“He seemed to think de Greer was being held there. On your instructions.”

“I approved a placement there a few days ago. For one of Lamb’s misshapes.”

“Shirley Dander.”

“Who Sparrow thought was de Greer, right? Because Whelan steered him that way.”

“Claude put two and two together and made five.” He held out his hand, and she returned the phone. “Though I can’t help wondering if your Lamb didn’t nudge him in that direction. Bit of a disruptor, that man.”

“He’s been called worse. But either way, where did Sparrow find a wrecking crew?”

The toast popped up, as if it too were eager to hear this part.

Nash used wooden tongs to place the slices in a rack. “He appears to have allied himself with, I believe they call themselves Ultras? A collective of over-enthusiastic football fans.”

Diana had pulled a chair out. “And where did this information come from?”

“Field work. My own, actually.”

“You’re a joe now?”

“I appreciate that you find that amusing. Though you might care to ask yourself which of us is seeking help.”

“Help? I’m not yet holding your feet to the fire, Oliver. But the moment might come.”

Nash, seated, carefully buttered his toast. “There’s a restaurant called La Spezia, off Wardour Street. Sparrow has been seen—by me—visiting its premises, and it’s not somewhere you’d expect to find him. So after a little, ah, surveillance, I asked the very able Josie to do some digging, and she informs me that the under-manager there, one Alessandro Botigliani, is what I believe they call a capo of a branch of these so-called Ultras, affiliated in his case to Lazio.” Nash applied jam, and ferried the result to his mouth. The resulting expression was one frequently sought by Renaissance artists, reaching for tokens of religious ecstasy. Then: “They’re of a far-right persuasion, though there’s grounds for suspecting that ideology, and indeed the beautiful game, is of less concern to them than kicking many kinds of carrots out of opposing fans. A ready-made wrecking crew, as you put it.”

“And Sparrow persuaded them to do his dirty work?”

“Persuaded, paid, blackmailed. Nobody ever accused Sparrow of being unable to get others to grubby their hands on his behalf.”

“I’m sure ten minutes in a basement will have any number of them clarifying the situation.”

“Careful. It was whispers of strongarm tactics that started all this in the first place. Besides, you’re in no position to dictate events. When you failed to surrender yourself, Sparrow pulled strings at the Met. There’s a warrant out for your arrest, Diana. Not to mention an emergency meeting of Limitations scheduled for ten a.m., where your suspension will be ratified and Malahide confirmed as pro tem First Desk. He will, of course, be taking instruction from the Home Secretary, which is to say that Sparrow himself will be effectively controlling the Park by coffee time. And I somehow doubt that an investigation into his own guilt will be top of his to-do list.”

“On the other hand,” Diana said, “should I arrive in person at the Limitations meeting with Dr. de Greer in tow, where she can testify not only to the absence of anything resembling Waterproof having been instigated, but to her own status as an agent of the GRU, hired wittingly or otherwise by Anthony Sparrow in order to influence national policymaking—well. How do you think that would play?”

Nash helped himself to another slice of toast, and seemed to be addressing the array of jam jars rather than Diana when he replied.

“I imagine you could sell tickets,” he said.

Even given his status as quondam First Desk, it had been hours before Claude Whelan had managed to extricate himself from the chaos at the San, and such release only came with the promise of a thorough debriefing once the Park had its ducks in a row. Though judging by the calls the senior agent at the scene had been getting, those ducks were currently in a flap, causing Whelan to suspect that the hostilities he’d divined between Taverner and Sparrow had ignited. Reason enough to keep his head down. He’d had cause to regret becoming involved in dirty politics before.

Driving his own car was out of the question, so after cleaning himself up as best he could in a San bathroom, he squeezed what was left from his former rank and commandeered one of the enemy vehicles, which was grubby but unscathed by combat. As he pootled up the drive towards the broken gates, manouvering round various vans into which cuffed figures were being bundled, he could see torches flickering in the woods beyond the stables as the last marauders were hunted down, and it was as much to the runners as the chasers that he sounded his horn in farewell, a thoroughly uncharacteristic action. On the other hand, everything he’d done in the last few hours had been out of character, as if, having been badly miscast, he’d thrown himself into the part regardless, and was now coming offstage expecting acclaim. He’d received precious little so far. Some things, you had to organise for yourself.

He adjusted the rearview mirror and glanced into it. “So. How did I do?”

In reply, all he heard was the noise of the engine, and the dark road unravelling beneath the tyres.

“Did you think I was talking to myself?”

From the footwell behind the passenger seat, Shirley Dander said, “Got anything to eat?”

. . . John

John

“John?”

His name approached him as if down a long corridor, the door at the end of which was ajar, and as usual his waking feeling was one of fear: What would happen next? It would involve that door opening wide. But there was a soft hand on his shoulder, and Sophie was bending over him. The light breaking through the curtains was the now-familiar glow of the sole streetlight that graced the mews.

“Are you awake?”

It was a whisper, so he replied in kind. “Yes.”

“Get dressed.”

He already was.

In the dim light, he could make out the gross and sour-smelling form of a creature that might have slipped through the door in his dreams, but was actually Jackson Lamb. Since he was neither eating nor smoking he was presumably asleep. Bachelor gazed for some seconds before shaking himself free and slipping his feet inside his shoes. His mouth tasted like an abandoned nest, and his bones ached from sleeping in a chair.

Sophie, taking no chances, pointed at the door rather than spoke.

It was what, three in the morning? Bachelor had already been exiled twice tonight, sent walking the streets rather than hear ongoing discussions. On the other hand, this was Sophie inviting him. He risked a taste of his own breath in a cupped hand, and made a mental note to avert his head when speaking. She opened the door so quietly, she might have spent their captivity practising.

Outside was colder than he’d expected. Little clouds accompanied each breath; his own heavier, more pungent, than hers.

“We need to leave now.”

He’d been expecting this moment.

Keep her here. No contact with anyone other than me, Louisa or Lamb.

Lech’s instructions, back when his own first concern had been the per diems.

And Lech was his friend, who’d stuck by him through thin times, even though their association had cost the younger man dear. It would be the act of a rogue to betray his trust. So he averted his head to shield Sophie from his phosgene breath before replying, and to the neutral observer must have looked as if he were addressing the terracotta pots and their sleeping citizens when he whispered, “Okay.”

They left the mews in a quiet hustle. Neither looked back, so neither saw the shape at the window, watching; his bulk briefly illuminated, on and off, by the repeated clicking of a lighter which seemed reluctant to burst into flame.

“I always get hungry after a ruck.”

“Me too,” Whelan said.

She shot him a sideways glance.

“Or so it would appear,” he added.

He’d stopped the car and she’d climbed into the front, where the first thing she’d done was snap open the glovebox and peer inside. She was Shirley Dander, and had never, it transpired, been Sophie de Greer, nor even knew who de Greer was. “Does she live in Wimbledon?”

Whelan had always been good at keeping a file in his mind. “Yes.”

“Figures.”

“I owe you an apology,” he said. “All of what just happened, the violence, everything—it was my fault.”

“What did you do?”

“I jumped to a conclusion.”

This, judging by her expression, was a feeble way of kicking off a riot.

I rescued you, he wanted to say. I jumped onto a moving vehicle. Remember that part? I was an action hero.

“Can we stop somewhere?”

“What, you mean . . . a bush or something?”

“Do I look like I want to eat a bush?”

“Oh. Right. No.”

“I meant like a service station.”

“I expect there’ll be one somewhere.”

“Could do with a crap too, to be honest, but mostly I need a burger or something.”

“. . . Yes. Fine.”

“Or chocolate. Minimum.”

There was little traffic about, but a light shone way behind them: a single headlight. Motorbike, he thought.

“Why were you there?” he asked abruptly. “In the San?”

Fields crawled past. In the hedgerows, tiny lifecycles churned their way through insect millennia.

At last Shirley said, “People keep dying.”

He didn’t know how to reply to that.

“I don’t mean in general, though that too. It’s just that, every time I get close to someone . . . they die.”

She was staring out of the window on her side, though he guessed she wasn’t seeing anything.

“So don’t get paired with me. Not a good idea.”

He said, “I’m sure that’s . . .” but he wasn’t, when it came down to it, sure of much, and whatever he was going to say threatened to dissolve in the space between them. He hauled it back. “I’m sure none of it’s your fault.”

“Keeps happening. So it doesn’t really matter whose fault it is.”

This with the air of one who has reached a conclusion, and accepted that no other was viable.

A few moments later, she added, “I suppose, sooner or later, I’ll be the one drawing the short straw.”

Whelan said, “There’s some kind of service station soon. An all-night garage. They might do sandwiches.”

Shirley nodded.

The fields grew wider apart as the road morphed into a dual carriageway. Not long after he’d spoken, they passed a sign promising a garage, toilets, food, not far ahead.

When the taxi dropped Diana off, two hundred yards from the mews, she waited until its taillights had diminished to pixels before heading for the safe house. The note of grim humour in that name tolled loudly tonight—the safe house was tainted by the funds which had provided it, and if its existence were brought to the attention of the Limitations Committee, which would be pondering her career in a few hours, it would go from des res to memento mori in no time flat. But in her defence—and there was never a time when some part of her mind wasn’t working on her defence—in her defence, her job demanded compromise. It was her ability to function despite its constant presence that made her an effective First Desk.

A role she planned to continue filling for the foreseeable future, and Anthony Sparrow be damned.

The cottage was in darkness, but she sensed company even as she turned the key. That was Lamb, flat on the sofa, cigarette in mouth, one hand rummaging between the buttons on his shirt. A hollow space opened inside her, one that grew as she scanned the rest of the room, and the lightless kitchen through its open door. “Where’s de Greer?”

His gaze remained fixed on the ceiling. “What did Nash say? Apart from the obvious?”

“. . . Which is?”

“That he’s the one gave you the heavy-breath warning?”

She was long past showing surprise at Lamb’s crystal-ball readings. “The court-martial’s set for ten, the firing squad for ten past. Except I’ve a trump card which blows Sparrow’s gunboat out of the water, or I did have. Where is she?”

“Nice to hear ‘trump’ in a positive context,” Lamb offered. “I’d forgotten what that sounded like.”

“Stop arsing about. Where is she?”

Somehow, he managed to shrug without levering himself up. The sofa shifted an inch. “Must’ve dropped off. Woke up and the place was empty.” He removed his cigarette long enough to adopt a rueful expression for the ceiling’s benefit. “I blame myself.”

Approaching the sofa, she was entering the heat-fug of his body. The anger her own was generating was a match for it. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m generally a ball of fun, yes. But this time, no. She’s gone.”

“. . . You’ve been waiting for this, haven’t you?”

“Been waiting for what now?”

“The chance to shaft me.”

Tilting his head, he cast a critical eye. “That ship sailed.” He resumed his study of the ceiling. “And all things considered, your future prospects matter less to me than whether my next dump’s a floater or a stone.”

“Oh, they matter. You’d do anything to fuck a First Desk over, because you think it should have been you. And that’s why you’ve become a stinking useless wreck. It’s not the dead weight of your history behind the curtain or over the wall or under the carpet or whatever metaphor your fucking mythology prefers, it’s wounded pride. Because the Service used you up and shat you out.” None of this seemed to be getting through. But Diana wasn’t finished. “You thought you had it made back when you were Charles Partner’s blue-eyed boy, you thought all you had to do was serve your time and it would be handed to you on a plate. And look at you now. Burnt out doesn’t begin to cover it.”

“Done yet?”

“Yes. No. You’re a fucking arsehole. Now I’m done.”

Lamb removed his cigarette and studied the glowing tip while it faded to grey. “Last time I saw Charles Partner, he was using the contents of his head as bubble bath. Being his blue-eyed-boy didn’t look so clever then, I can tell you. As for you, I’ve pulled your dick out of more slamming drawers than I can count. Any time you want me to stand back and watch, just say the word.”

“Where is she?”

“Like I said. Gone.”

“I need her, Jackson. I need her singing before that Committee. What if she goes back to Sparrow? Because right now, he’s got to be thinking about making her a better offer, and if that happens—and she takes it—what then? She’ll deny being a plant, I’m a lame duck, and the PM’s string-puller’s still in place, with a hard-on for the Service.” She was staring down at Lamb’s upturned face. “And once it looks like I’m on the skids, Judd’ll drop his China bomb, and that’s when they’ll send the carpet cleaners into Regent’s Park. Every decision made for a decade, every operation I’ve ever had a hand in, it’ll all be under a spotlight. And tell me this, how long do you think Slough House will last then? How long before questions are asked about your own career?”

Lamb was quiet for a moment. Then he squinted at his dying cigarette, and flicked it towards the nearest takeaway carton.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “If that happens, we might have a problem.”

It wasn’t much of a service station—a garage with a four-pump forecourt, and a car wash shrouded in darkness—but it had a shop which, alongside its array of pasties and sandwiches, had a mini rotisserie, and even more importantly was open. Shirley wouldn’t have been averse to a spot of ramraiding had it been otherwise, but Whelan might have objected. He’d been through enough trauma this evening, and even her aversion to vehicles travelling any less than slightly more than the prevailing speed limit had to be modified in face of this. Another triumph for her self-imposed programme of dignified silence; she’d barely mentioned their lamentable speed more than two or three times before they pulled up by the pumps.

“I don’t have any money,” she said, getting out of the car.

“I can get this.”

“Yeah, you’ll need to.” Because she didn’t have any money. Whelan obviously needed things spelt out.

There were no customers inside, and one bored youth at the till. While Whelan filled the tank, Shirley collected half a dozen chocolate bars, a family bag of Doritos, a two-litre bottle of Coke and the two least small roast chickens on the electric spit. She waited by a window while the youth dragged himself away from his phone to pack her catch in a cardboard punnet, and watched a motorbike pass at about half the speed it should have been doing. Whelan joined her as the boxed chicken was being placed on the counter, alongside a spork and, at Shirley’s insistence, seven sachets of barbecue sauce.

“Do we need a whole chicken each?” he asked.

She made a face. “Oh. Did you want one?”

There was no eating area so they went back out, where Whelan suggested that they eat before setting off again, or, indeed, getting into the car. Something about the smell: Shirley wasn’t paying attention. She was literally starving. There were children featured on charity envelopes who weren’t as hungry right now. Perched on a wall next to the car wash, she opened a couple of sauce sachets, squirted their contents over the first chicken, then pulled a leg free. Whelan seemed to be trying not to watch. He’d opted for a sandwich, cheese and pickle. Shirley gestured towards the Doritos in case he fancied a side, but he didn’t seem keen.

She didn’t normally open up like she’d done in the car, and had to put it down to the blow on the head. Still, getting stuff off her chest hadn’t felt bad. Maybe the touchy-feely types had a point, and it was good to share—especially with someone who didn’t share back. One-way therapy. Best of both worlds.

He said, “My wife left me.”

Shit.

After a moment, her lack of response growing awkward even to her, Shirley said, “So, what, she found someone else?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

That was annoying, when people did that: took a simple question and turned it into a fucking enigma.

He said, “She found God.”

Shirley couldn’t help it. “Ha!”

“It’s not funny.”

It was a bit funny. “Yeah, that wasn’t a laugh. I just thought, you know. God. Stiff competition.”

“I hadn’t looked at it that way.”

Shirley took advantage of the pause to toss a bone over her shoulder.

“She joined an order, a closed community. Nuns. It was supposed to be for a limited time, a retreat, but she hasn’t come back. And she won’t speak on the phone, or answer letters. No email, obviously.”

“Sounds like a cult.”

“Not really. They just live an enclosed life. Grow vegetables, that sort of thing. There are bees, I think.”

“Bees?”

“For honey.”

“Yeah, I know what bees do. I just didn’t know nuns were into that.”

“These ones are.”

Shirley had a vision of a nun in a beekeeper’s outfit, like someone going to a fancy dress party twice.

Then the motorbike that had passed earlier returned, its headlight picking out Shirley and Whelan on their wall by the car wash before it pulled onto the forecourt, and Shirley felt a familiar lurch inside as she realised the night wasn’t over yet.

Sparrow—head on his desk, laptop humming—was woken by his phone. The blogpost he’d been writing had run out of steam around the 3,000-word mark, though tendrils of it still shimmered, phrases aglow with meaning as he’d slept, but rendered incomprehensible by the interruption. This vegetable abrogation. He looked at his phone.

Unknown number.

He answered, and heard nothing.

“Hello?”

Still nothing.

“Timewaster.” He disconnected.

It was after four.

Sparrow didn’t need much sleep. He prided himself on this, as he did on other habits, traits, thoughts and words, each of which did their bit to elevate him above the herd. Phone down, he looked to his screen again, and tried typing this vegetable abrogation, to see if concrete shape would restore impact to the phrase. It didn’t.

Blogging was a displacement activity; a way of dispelling the white noise in his head, of which there’d been plenty tonight. Word had arrived of the fiasco at the San, and the Ultras’ failure to extricate Sophie de Greer. It was true that this failure didn’t have Sparrow’s name on it—Benito hadn’t taken part himself, and he alone knew of Sparrow’s involvement—so in political terms could be judged a success, but Taverner also remained at large, and if she turned up before the Limitations Committee with de Greer in tow, Sparrow’s future would become difficult indeed. Hence the displacement activity: a takedown of the government’s adviser on ministerial standards, who’d recently suffered a second nervous breakdown. With luck, this blog might trigger a third. Thus melt all snowflakes, he thought, and his phone rang again. This time, his caller got through.

“Anthony?”

For a moment, he was too busy savouring her voice to reply, enjoying the way the difficulties he’d been contemplating had just whispered into silence.

A silence she broke by repeating herself. “Anthony?”

“Sophie,” he said. “About time. What can you do for me?”

Shirley passed the cardboard punnet of chicken to Whelan.

“No, really, I—”

“He followed us.”

At a distance. Despite the careless frenzy of the attack on the San, this character must have noticed that payback came with truncheons, so was exercising caution, making sure they were alone before doubling back to confront them. Well, that or he’d not initially noticed they’d stopped here, but Shirley was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Best to treat an opponent with respect until it proved unnecessary.

Right now, the opponent-to-be was dismounting and pushing his visor up, and in the yellow forecourt light Shirley recognised one of the crew she’d faced down on the landing, the one whose comrade had gone through the window. Couldn’t remember his number but he’d been there, and must have slipped away in the following chaos. And here he was, disturbing her meal, the bastard, which would be cold before this was done. Which might be counting chickens, but hell: she’d seen this joker off once already, and he’d been in company then. And Shirley had a partner now, even if only to hold her dinner.

Breakfast?

Whatever.

She rose to her feet, ignoring whatever Whelan was about to say.

In the shop, the kid was pressing his face against the window, some sixth sense for aggravation pulling his attention away from his iPhone.

Shirley said to the biker, “You lost?”

He shook his head.

“I’m making a call,” Whelan said behind her.

He could do what he liked. Because there were drugs and there was dancing, sure, but what there mostly was was this, the prospect of action and the way it lit a spark inside her, which apparently was what she was supposed to be cured of. But that would be curing her of being Shirley. So Whelan could make a call, and reinforcements could arrive, but if anyone thought the interim was going to be spent shouting insults across a garage forecourt, they’d wandered into the wrong opera.

Just to make sure they were all reading from the same script, she said, “If you want to get back on your bike, I won’t stop you.”

The newcomer’s grin widened while, to make things interesting, his hand delved into his jeans pocket and came out wielding a knife.

Shirley looked down at her fist. Just like a slow horse, she thought. Bringing a spork to a knife fight.

Then it started.

There was an all-night café off Glasshouse Street, one John Bachelor was familiar with: he hadn’t been in years, but it came to mind when Sophie needed a potential meeting place at four thirty in the morning. And he was a milkman, not a handler, his experience of late-night rendezvous limited to movie images; he wasn’t wearing the right coat, there was no mist creeping along the pavements. But he did his best, making Sophie wait in the lee of a car-park wall while he performed lamplighter duty, assessing the café from the opposite pavement—just the one customer—trying to take a photograph with his eyes.

“It looks safe enough,” he admitted.

“I’m going to be fine.”

But what if you’re not? What happens to me then?

She’d made the arrangement on the world’s last payphone, and he hadn’t been allowed to listen but knew who she was meeting, and wasn’t happy about it. His own world had collided with the powerful in the past, one of the reasons its pillars were shaky. The last thing he needed was a similar collision now, just when he’d glimpsed a sunset ending. . .

Look at yourself, a voice in his head chided, but he knew better than to listen to that.

“What was the second call you made?” he asked.

Sophie was looking down the street. The pavements were quiet, illuminated by blocks of light spilling from uncluttered windows. She looked different from the woman he’d been cloistered with in the safe house, more confident, as if she’d shed a layer of nerves between there and here.

“Don’t worry about it,” she told him.

“I just want to be sure—”

“I wouldn’t hand you a job like this if you weren’t up to it.” For a moment, the old Sophie shone through. “Just wait. Please, John?”

He nodded, and she leaned forward and kissed his cheek, the contact leaving a scorch-mark. But Bachelor forbore from touching it, and simply watched as she made her way down the road, and stepped through the door into the café.

Whelan couldn’t tear his eyes away.

He’d called it in, and been assured of a swift response, but here they were, middle of the night, and Shirley Dander was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a knife-carrying thug. Who hadn’t removed his helmet, the effect of which—a shiny black head, glinting under the lights—was science fiction, as if this newcomer were an alien killing machine, recently uncoiled from a heap of pumps and hoses. He only hoped the creature wouldn’t notice that Dander’s weapon was a piece of plastic cutlery.

But Dander was weaving, dancing, footloose; making quick, dainty jabs that never connected—her body language suggesting that if one did, the biker would deliquesce on contact—before whipping the spork out of sight behind her back. He’d call it bravery, if it weren’t the stupidest thing he’d ever seen. And he remembered Shirley had been in the San, a sanctuary for trauma and addiction survivors, true, but also where the Service kept those of its soldiers who’d come mentally unglued.

“I’ve called the police.”

The boy from the garage had joined him.

“They said keep right away. Keep inside.”

Whelan nodded. It was the sensible thing to do.

He was hoping for blue lights, or better yet, the whump whump of that useful helicopter, because if help didn’t turn up soon he was going to have to get involved, and he couldn’t see that ending happily.

Don’t get paired with me. Not a good idea.

Whelan didn’t believe in jinxes.

But the fact that Shirley Dander did was keeping him on the sidelines for now.

Even without her Westminster power-suit, de Greer looked out of place. The café was the 1970s’ last foothold on the capital: yellow-tiled floor, Toulouse Lautrec posters, and two-seater tables graced with vases that looked fashioned by out-patients, each boasting a plastic sprig of ferns. To blend in, she’d have had to be wearing an afghan and tinted granny-specs rather than jeans and black jacket. The man behind the counter, his ponytail presumably a job requirement, kept throwing her the odd glance, but the only other customer was buried in an almost tangible fog of misery, staring into an abyss disguised as a tea cup.

So effectively she was alone, thought Sparrow, exactly as she’d said.

A bell above the door tinkled, as if he were walking into a sit com. Ignoring the counter, he took the spare seat opposite Sophie without uttering a greeting.

“No table service, pal,” said the man at the counter.

“Cup of tea,” said Sparrow, not taking his eyes off Sophie.

Who wasn’t wearing her glasses. Perhaps they were part of her costume: this is what a wonk looks like. His mind scanned through various discussions she’d taken part in—decisions she’d helped steer—and knew that once it became known she’d been planted by the Russian secret service, he’d become a joke. The party would survive, because it always did; the PM would remain unscathed, because he’d gaslit the electorate often enough to get away with anything, but he—Anthony Sparrow—might as well start wearing a jester’s motley and bells. Or a fucking ponytail, come to that.

He hadn’t mentioned this train of thought when they’d spoken on the phone.

The cup of tea was waiting, some of its contents carefully slopped over the rim. When it dawned on Sparrow that he was expected to fetch and pay for it he did so with a heavy sigh, but when he returned to the table Sophie said, “You mentioned a lobbying job.”

Game over, thought Sparrow.

Once they started negotiating, it was game over.

She raised her mug to her lips, and he mirrored her action before replying. It was something you learned to do when you wanted people to think you were on the same page. By the time they realised you were holding a different book, the ink was dry on the deal.

“Why did you drop from sight?”

“I wanted to worry you.”

“But now you’re back.”

“Like I said. You mentioned a lobbying job.”

“I can fix that.”

“And resident status.”

“Piece of cake.”

“And protection in the event that my, ah, former employers object to my new career.”

“Your former employers won’t want to embroil themselves in a diplomatic headbutting contest.”

“Diplomatic doesn’t worry me. But they have been known to adapt a more forthright approach.”

“Only towards those who’ve been a public irritation. This will be a private arrangement. You appear before Limitations this morning and categorically deny any rumours about your affiliation to the Russian secret service. That’s all I require.”

She half-smiled. “To make a rumour go away?”

“It will make Diana Taverner look desperate. Desperation and First Desk don’t mix. Once that’s minuted, she’s history. And given that it’s Limitations decides her successor, and I’ve enough pull to determine who appears on the shortlist, yes, I can make the rumour go away. Because I’ll be dictating the outcome of the inquiry.”

“If you’ve got that much pull, why do you need me at all?”

“We both know there are processes to be gone through.”

She nodded, thoughtfully. “Tell me more about this job.”

And there was the deal, done and dusted.

It wasn’t altogether that shaky, either, and might even work, with a following wind. But why take the risk? A car pulled up outside, and a man got out.

Sparrow said, “There are several options. We’ll go through them. Meanwhile, I’d feel happier if you were somewhere secure. And to that end, I’ve enlisted help.”

Sometimes, the timing just works.

The bell above the door jangled again, and Benito walked in.

It was a small but wicked knife. Any longer, and he’d have cut her by now.

She must have the magics tonight, or he’d have reached out and cut her anyway. But the Daft Punk look wasn’t doing him any favours, limiting his peripheral vision, blurring his colour control, and as long as she kept dancing he wouldn’t see that her own blade was a plastic toy. Besides, he knew what she was capable of. He was probably worried there was a window he hadn’t noticed yet, that he’d be going through if she got too close.

All the same, he didn’t seem to be tiring, whereas the evening’s adrenalin had scorched Shirley’s system, and the blow to her head—that sucker-thump with the dumbbell—had knocked some fight out of her. True, she had more fight in her to start with than the average ice hockey team, but it had been a long week. And this guy was psyched up.

It struck her again what a strangely amateur attack that mess at the San had been.

He made a lunge and she jumped back, but scored a kick to the knee before he’d regained balance. She might have had him then, but caution held her back: he had a helmet, his knife was sharp. Three inches was laughable in most situations, but on this particular date, anywhere he stuck it was going to cause grief. That thought made her snarl, which had been known to inspire consternation, but all she was getting from him, safe in his helmet, was her own reflection, and she was still looking at that when he lunged again, and she almost slipped. Recovering, she moved sideways, putting the pumps between them. And there was an idea: soak him with petrol, apply a match. Give him a movie-style ending.

Shit: the trouble she’d be in if that happened.

When he moved left, she mirrored with a shuffle to her right. This wasn’t something she wanted to play for long, because if he got the idea she was scared, that was the fight lost then and there . . . His crew at the San, they’d had no tactics. Or at best, a three-word plan: Smash it up. They’d not been expecting fightback, so what the fuck had they been doing, attacking a Service facility?

Unless they hadn’t known it was a Service facility.

So how come they’d been looking for her?

Before she could disentangle herself from that thought, he jumped through the gap between pumps and was almost on her, an arm’s reach away, and she leaped backwards, landing on her heels, ready to lunge left or right depending on which way he flickered—she could read him like a script—though he seemed focused now, staring at her hand, and the little plastic orange threat it wielded.

Idiot move.

Shirley turned and ran into the dark and silent car wash.

“On the other hand,” said Lamb, and paused to scratch his chest, a sandpaper moment. When his hand re-appeared, it was, to Diana’s surprise, not holding a cigarette. “De Greer, it turns out, is like you. She might be a backstabbing spider-minded vampire, but she’s not stupid enough to piss on her own sausages.”

“Is there a compliment in there?”

“Christ, I hope not.” Still on his back, he raised both knees, like a man preparing to perform an abdominal crunch. This, it turned out, was not what he was preparing to perform. Diana took a step backwards. “De Greer knows Sparrow’ll promise her anything not to go public with who she really is. But she also knows he tells the truth about as often as he gets his eyes tested, and she’s not about to hand her future to a man who’d sell your medical records to a tree surgeon.”

“You’re up to something.”

He said, “Wheel de Greer before Limitations, she’ll spike Sparrow’s guns, but she’ll also spill everything else she knows. Including about Rasnokov having an understudy.”

“And?”

“And Limitations leaks like a Catholic condom. So you’ll blow Rasnokov’s game, and in a month or two we can light candles for him. But keep her quiet, let him get away with it, and you’ve got a former Moscow First Desk in hiding from his ex-employers, who won’t bother changing the locks on their filing cabinets because they’ll think he’s dead. You’ll own him, body and soul, and all his secrets will still be current.”

“Own him? We don’t even know where he’ll end up.”

“We’ve got his understudy’s body. And we’re supposed to be an intelligence service. How difficult can it be?”

“Do you really want me to quantify that?”

“I want you to show some balls. And instead of fighting all your battles in your own backyard, try taking on some real enemies.” He’d finagled another cigarette from somewhere, and inserted it, unlit, between his lips. Having a cigarette in his mouth had never prevented Lamb from speaking. If it had, most of his lines would go unread. “And don’t worry about Sparrow. He’s just a Westminster chancer, and he’s grown used to the people he’s stabbed in the back pissing off to run a bank. Instead of rearranging his prospects with a shovel and some plastic sheeting.”

Light dawned, if not through the curtained window. “The Ultras,” Diana said.

“My my, Nash has been earning his pastry allowance. Yes, the Ultras. Seems Sparrow gets his kicks playing soldiers in the woods with the big boys. Which makes them prime candidates for the secret army he drafted to trash the San.”

“De Greer told you this?”

“She kept a black book on her erstwhile employer. Whose dubious contacts include a Soho charmer name of Benito. Have you got a light, by the way?”

“What is this, a suicide pact? I’m not striking a match in here.”

“Chicken.” He paddled about beneath his own bulk, and when his hands reappeared, one was holding a plastic lighter. “And Benito’s the sort of ally it’s best to avoid upsetting.”

He punctuated this with a click of his lighter. The effect would have been more impressive if he’d produced a flame.

“You think he’ll want payback for tonight’s farce.”

“Like I said, Sparrow’s used to those he tramples on muttering darkly and exiting stage left. I don’t think these boys’ll go quietly.” He clicked the lighter again, this time with success. Applying the flame to his cigarette, he said, “Neither does de Greer. And she’s the fortune-teller.”

She said, “So that’s why you let her go? On condition she throws Sparrow under a hooligan bus?”

“Any objection?”

“You’re assuming this Benito won’t decide that sticking with Sparrow’s a better bet than payback. He’s virtually running the country, after all.”

He said, “We’re talking football fans, Diana. Not the type to change sides.”

“What did you promise her?”

“That you’d let her walk away. Rasnokov’s not the only one who’d like a little distance between himself and the king of the Kremlin.”

“Christ. You’ve become an idealist in your old age, is that it? Help the joes get away, no matter whose joes they are.”

“Well, exit pursued by a bear,” said Lamb. “I seem to recall what that’s like.”

She thought for a while. “Does Bachelor know about this?”

“Too much information would only confuse him.”

“But he went with her?”

“Well I wasn’t keeping him here.” Lamb drained his glass. “I strongly suspect the man has a drinking problem.”

She thought for a while. “I haven’t forgotten,” she said, “that the only reason de Greer knows about Rasnokov’s scheme is that you let her stay in the room while you told me about it.”

His hand made a wavering motion, causing smoke to spiral and squirt towards the ceiling.

“And anyway, what happens if you’re both wrong?” asked Diana. “And Sparrow’s more persuasive than you give him credit for? It’s both our careers you’re gambling with.”

“Yeah,” said Lamb. “But only one of them’s worth anything.”

The car wash was in darkness, a low-slung chain blocking its entrance, and its three big blue brushes—two vertical; one horizontal—breathing out damp cold air. Shirley hurdled the chain and ran past a keypad at car-window height while something swiped at her back—fuck—and then a brush was offering protection; the pair crouched either side of it, making darting movements left and right, the biker’s blade whittling the air. When Shirley hurled her futile spork at him, it bounced off his helmet into the shadows.

Which were plentiful. While the structure had no walls—just a series of struts supporting a roof that was once clear plastic—it was thick with obstacles: the rails the brushes moved on, lengths of cable and hosepipe, a metal bucket padlocked to a standpipe. What Shirley needed was a weapon, ideally an assault rifle, though she’d have settled for the bucket, or that metal bar against the nearest upright, a yard away . . . She reached it only to find it welded in place, a discovery accompanied by another scorching sensation down her back, this one lighting up her whole body, and she screamed in outrage—chickenshit bastard!—and span and kicked, but he was out of range. Liquid ran down her spine. Keep moving, she warned herself, because the biker’s height and helmet were handicapping him, and the more he had to dodge and weave the more frustrated he’d get. Eyes fixed on him, she slipped round a metal box on a stand, its face a slanted panel with two spherical knobs: one red, the other green.

A Hollywood solution whispered in her ear.

Shirley dropped to a crouch and the biker moved forward, knife extended, between the two huge blue brushes. Behind his visor, she knew, he was grinning.

He’d stop grinning now.

“You’re all washed up, dickhead,” she said, slamming the green button with her palm.

Nothing happened.

She did it again.

Nothing happened.

Fuck.

He pushed his visor up. “Seriously?”

“. . . What?”

“You think hitting that button’ll make the car wash start?”

Well, yeah. That’s what she’d been hoping.

“It’s not even switched on.”

“I thought that’s what I was doing.”

He was shaking his head. “There’s a code.” Even with his accent, she could tell he thought this ridiculous. “You buy a ticket at the counter, it’s got a code stamped on it, you key it into the pad at the entrance. Then the washer starts.”

“So what are these buttons for?”

“Might be a manual override,” he conceded. “But it won’t work when the whole thing’s powered down.”

“You know a lot about car washes.”

“I work at a car wash, man.” He dropped his visor. “Idiot.”

“What do you mean, you work at a car wash?” Shirley said, but he was already rushing her again, with his small but wicked knife.

Just wait.

He’d spent most of his life just waiting, and here he was, doing it still.

A car had arrived and its occupant had joined Sophie and Sparrow in the café: a hulking sort, looking like he’d be comfortable whacking a cleaver into sides of meat all day long. Bachelor could picture himself, almost, deciding this was a sinister development; deciding to intervene . . . All it would take was true grit, a smidgin of star quality, and the ability to step out from the wings and act like a hero.

He shivered, and wished he had a hip flask. Wished, while he was at it, he had ten years’ less bad luck behind him, or ten years’ more self-belief. Or even just ten minutes’ grace in which to summon up the qualities he needed, now, while the café door opened and the two men came out, Sophie sandwiched between them. She didn’t so much as glance in his direction, and afterwards he convinced himself that this was the reason he remained in the shadows; nothing to do with that new arrival, whose watchfulness as the trio crossed the road suggested professionalism, or at least experience. No: Bachelor made no move because all was evidently going according to Sophie’s plan. Which meant his role now was to just wait.

Every extra knows the show’s about him.

Every stand-in knows she’s the star.

But John Bachelor . . . Bachelor, watching the car ferry Sophie de Greer down Glasshouse Street, understood that his marquee moment was never going to happen. The car turned at the junction, and London’s backdrop came into focus once more: its shop windows tired and garish, like a peep-show worker going off shift; its soundtrack a distant medley of overlapping noise. He was part of it, but just a small part, mostly unnoticed. His star didn’t shine as brightly as it might. Though when you thought about it, that was true of everyone.

The cardboard punnet had grown cold in Whelan’s hands, and, next to him, the boy from the garage was bouncing on his toes like an activated desk toy. Since Shirley and the biker had disappeared into the car wash they might as well have been transported to another planet. He’d heard the occasional crashing noise, plus a brief interlude of what sounded like dialogue—but he must have imagined that—and otherwise only the swooshing of tyres when a car passed.

The boy said, “I hope the police get here soon.”

Or a Service team, thought Whelan. It couldn’t be more than two minutes since this kicked off: even so his eyes kept flicking skywards, as if that helicopter might be approaching, its crew preparing to rappel earthwards, and deal with the situation. Somebody had to.

She’d been wielding a spork for Christ’s sake.

He turned to the boy. “Don’t you have a—?”

A what? A shotgun, a time machine? A cutlery set?

Then Shirley came rolling out of the car wash, her sweatshirt flapping loosely behind her, and a moment later the biker appeared too, his slow-motion swagger a statement all by itself: this fight was nearly over.

Sparrow was climbing into the back seat next to Sophie when Benito said, “What am I, an Uber?”

It took him a moment to get what was meant.

“I’d sooner be in the front anyway,” Sophie said, climbing out and into the passenger seat. That was okay. It made no difference.

“Turns out she’s not in Dorset after all,” he’d told Benito on the phone, after Sophie had made contact.

“Where most of my crew went,” Benito said. His accent wasn’t that thick, considering, but he was the most Italian Italian Sparrow had come across: the five o’clock shadow, the curly hair, the hint of volatility beneath a handsome, battered surface. The shoes. Other men might have felt themselves in the shade anywhere near him, but Sparrow felt only that two-way connectivity alphas feel.

“I was fed bad information.”

“The . . . opposition they ran into. This wasn’t a rival team.”

“No.”

“They were soldiers. Armed.”

“No one was killed.”

“But there were injuries.”

There were always injuries. Everyone knew that.

“Alessandro—”

“Benito.”

“Benito, anyone who got hurt will have another set of scars to show off. Or are you telling me your crew wet their pants?”

“They’ve been arrested. Most of them. Some got away.”

“They’ll be charged with affray.” He had no idea what they’d be charged with. “A night in the cells, a fine. Small price for a battleground memory.”

“And deportation orders all round. That’s a bigger price.”

“It won’t come to that.”

“You sound very sure.”

“I’m in a position to deliver on promises.”

There was another pause before Benito said, “And that’s why you rang, Mr. Sparrow? To assure me that you are able to clean up tonight’s mess?”

“That and . . . something else.”

Replaying the conversation in his head, Sparrow congratulated himself on how he’d explained to Benito what he needed without ever coming within shouting distance of describing how that might be achieved.

“What you’re asking, it’s quite . . . serious.”

“Yes and no. About as serious as what happened to your predecessor, Benito. Who was also called Benito, am I right? When he wasn’t being called Rico Lombardi.”

And Benito was silent again.

“‘Returned to Lazio,’ wasn’t that the story? Rico returned to Lazio. Which is marginally more convincing than ‘went to live on a farm,’ but amounts to the same thing. Stop me if your English isn’t up to this.”

Benito said, “Rico is happy and well. I spoke to him just last week.”

“You must put me in touch with your network provider. Mine have trouble reaching Norwich, let alone the afterlife.”

“You are a funny man, Mr. Sparrow.”

“And a talkative one. Maybe, when I’m securing visa extensions for your associates, I’ll ask them what they think happened to Rico. We can exchange opinions on the topic. I’m sure they’ll get back to you if there’s any confusion.”

Benito said, “Politics, politicians. And people think we football supporters are the extremists.”

“Football’s your excuse for doing the things you do, Benito. And politics is mine.”

Maybe, one day, there’d be occasion for a blog on that topic Sparrow thought now, as the car came within sight of the Thames, which flowed just as strongly—just as surely—in the dark as in the light. He looked at de Greer, who was also staring through the window at the water, but probably seeing something different. No one looks at the same river twice, he remembered reading somewhere. Or maybe it was drowns—no one drowns in the same river twice? Yeah. That sounded right. Any way you looked at it, you only drown once.

The paramedic shook his head.

Whelan couldn’t blame him.

Even with the gore on her sweatshirt, Shirley looked at peace, and might have been sleeping. Whelan couldn’t grasp the suddenness of the switch: from sixty to zero in the time it took to blow out a match. The ambulance’s blue light was still strobing, its relentless throb draining colour from them all: the paramedic himself, Whelan, the boy from the garage. The biker was long gone. Only in Shirley’s resting features did the looping splashes add life, probably because Shirley’s face alone lacked it right then, the others being in various states of visible emotion: shock, bewilderment, and a kind of resigned irritation.

This was the paramedic. He said, “You let her eat?”

Whelan could have taken issue. Even on their relatively brief acquaintance, he was pretty certain that letting Shirley Dander do anything wasn’t how those things got done. You just watched her do whatever she’d set her mind on. That or listen to her talk about it.

Besides: Eat? She’d spilled more than she’d swallowed. It was as well her sweatshirt was ruined anyway, because that barbecue sauce wasn’t coming out.

Without opening her eyes, Shirley said, “I was hungry.”

“You’re not supposed to eat,” the paramedic grumbled. “In case you need an operation.”

“Stitches.”

“You’re still not—”

“That was good, what you did,” Shirley said, this time to Whelan. “He was all washed up,” she added, a wistful note to her voice for some reason.

Whelan nodded. He could have done with a lie down himself, the previous minutes having been eventful, if not entirely as planned—when he’d trained the hose on the biker, he’d had visions of a water-cannon pinning him to a wall. The actual result was a pissed off biker, sopping wet but upright, and things might have got ugly if flashing blue lights hadn’t appeared down the road. As it was, the ambulance, still far enough away to be taken for police, encouraged departure: the biker, shinier now wet, had resembled a monstrous insect as he’d climbed onto his machine and gunned the motor, Whelan still hosing him, having raised his trajectory to ensure contact, which decreased the stream’s effectiveness but maximised its indignity. The boy was performing a rah-rah dance beside him, shouting “Aim for the wheels!,” though Whelan remained happy to mimic pissing. In its own way this was even more out of character than jumping onto a moving vehicle, but it had been a long night.

“I’d worn him out,” Shirley said, opening her eyes.

“Yes.”

“I’d have kicked his helmet clean off his shoulders.”

“I could tell.”

“With his head still in it.”

The paramedic was maintaining his disappointed outlook. “You shouldn’t eat chicken if you need medical treatment.”

“Is that an actual law?” Shirley asked, sounding genuinely curious. “Specific to chicken?”

Speaking of actual law, there was a police car approaching, and also a black SUV, probably one of those originally dispatched to the San. Without thinking about it Whelan reached out a hand, and Shirley took it and pulled herself to her feet, leaving the punnet where it lay. The paramedic started saying something about not moving when you were injured, advice probably worth listening to, though neither were. The last hour had either contracted or expanded, whichever was the right way of indicating that it had happened in its own time zone, while other events taking place elsewhere had moved at their own pace, leaving them stranded in a moment of their own. For as long as it lasted, it seemed they were partners; and if it were already beginning to end, well, only diamonds are forever.

“Where’s my chocolate?” asked Shirley.

From the back seat, Sparrow studied de Greer. She still thought she was in for a lobbying job, a whole new life, and in normal circumstances he’d enjoy bursting her bubble, but the last thing anyone needed was an hysterical woman in a moving car.

As if reading his thoughts, she looked over her shoulder. “Where are we going?”

“Like I said, somewhere safe. Until any difficulties have been smoothed away.”

“And you’re coming too?”

“Me? No. But Benito will take care of you, so no worries on that score.”

“Where, exactly?”

Benito said, “I can’t tell you that. More secure. You understand.”

If she didn’t, she decided not to make an issue of it.

They were heading towards Elephant and Castle. Much further, and they’d be outside Sparrow’s comfort zone. He said: “Anywhere along here’s fine,” despite it being a barely peopled road at whatever time it was now—he checked. Four fifty. Anyone abroad would be poorly paid, if not actively indigent. London was hostile territory, depending on the hour and the post code. But he could take care of himself, as he’d actively demonstrated in both woodland and boardroom. Anyone accosting him—or demanding a meeting—would be dealt with in short order.

Benito said, “The corner after this one.”

“Why not this one?”

The rolling of an Italian’s shoulders can be multilingual. “Tube station.”

I’m not catching a fucking tube.

“Are they even running yet?”

De Greer said, “You won’t have long to wait.”

No longer than it takes an Uber to show. Through his window, the shopfronts, the buildings, were decelarating. He glimpsed a sleeper in a doorway, and posters boasting happy-meals, cut-price getaways, cash prizes. Two men loitered by the locked-up station entrance, and both stopped smoking at the same moment, flicking their cigarette ends in opposite directions, as if aspiring to the condition of a firework. Benito cruised to a halt.

Sparrow leaned forward, putting his head between de Greer’s and Benito’s. “You’re going to be comfortable,” he told her.

“Thanks,” she said. “Will I see you soon?”

He opened his door. “. . . No.”

“Well,” de Greer said. “You got that right.”

Before he could climb out, one of the men climbed in, forcing Sparrow into the middle of the seat.

“What the fuck? . . .”

The other man had walked round, and was getting in the other side.

De Greer said to Benito, “Thank you.” Then to Sparrow: “I was remembering something you said once. About how the true hero of Psycho was the psycho. Because he just carried on being a psycho.”

“. . . What are you on about?”

“I’ll leave you to think about it. Bye.”

Her door closed with a definitive clunk.

The men hemming Sparrow in had a familiar feel; thick legs, cable-tense arms, the kind of hard-bodied trunks you might find in a wood. Neither spoke, but sat with their big shoulders forcing him into a supplicant’s cringe, staring ahead at a road that was on the move again.

“Alessandro—”

“Benito.”

“Benito, am I missing something?”

“What makes you ask that, Mr. Sparrow?”

“Because I’m still in the car. And de Greer isn’t.”

“Right.” He changed lanes, to overtake a night bus. “An interesting woman, Dr. de Greer. We had a most enjoyable conversation.”

“. . . When?”

“Shortly before you called me. It was strange, she knew exactly how our conversation would go. They have a name, don’t they? People who can predict outcomes?”

“Benito—”

A heavy hand on his shoulder discouraged further protest.

“She knew the things you’d promise, and the threats you’d make,” Benito continued. Traffic was gathering and the streetlights had grown weary, their glow a pallid offering that seemed to drop to the ground rather than reach into the dark. “And what she wanted to know was, how about if all your promises, about dropped charges and secure visas, could be fulfilled by someone else. She mentioned Regent’s Park?”

“She was lying, Benito. She can’t deliver on any of that. Only I can.”

“I’m not sure. She was very convincing. She—”

“Of course she was convincing! That’s her job!”

“She made a reasonable point. She said, why trust you, when you’ve already had my team run into what some people might think was a trap, when I could trust her instead? I thought that was an interesting viewpoint.”

“She’s nobody. She’s a spy. She’ll be arrested by morning, none of her promises mean anything!”

“So you know what I did? I followed her advice and asked my crew what they thought about it.”

“Let me out. We’ll forget this ever happened.”

“Of course, not many of my crew were available, on account of last night’s activities. But the Stefanos here—they’re both called Stefano. I hope that’s not confusing for you?”

“Stop the car!”

“Because arguably, it’s simpler. Anyway, the Stefanos here didn’t join in last night’s fun on account of a previous engagement. Which is lucky for me and also for you, because—”

“Stop the car!”

“Please,” said Benito.

One of the Stefanos clamped a hand round Sparrow’s mouth, while the other brought a hammerlike fist down on his testicles. This combination of events occupied Sparrow for a while, but Benito was considerate enough to give him some minutes before continuing.

“As I was saying. This is lucky for both of us. For me, because I like my crew to have a part in the decision-making process.”

Sparrow still couldn’t speak.

“And for you because I know how much you enjoy the fun and games we have in the woods.”

“Where are you taking me?” Sparrow managed to say.

“What was that expression you used? ‘Going to live on a farm’?”

He couldn’t be serious.

“In any case, it’s nowhere you haven’t been before.”

Stefano tightened his grip on Sparrow’s shoulder, in what might have been a gesture of reassurance and support.

But might not.

The sun was coming up before they reached the woods. It silvered the branches like a dusting of snow, or a tinkling of bells, or a promise kept.