Мик Херрон: Real Tigers

In abar near Slough House, Roderick Ho was contemplating romance.

He’d been doing this a lot lately, with good reason. The simple truth was, everyone thought Roddy and Louisa Guy should have coupled off by now. Her thing with Min Harper was history, and if the internet had taught Ho anything, it was that women had needs. It had also revealed that there was no scam so risibly transparent that someone wouldn’t fall for it, and that if you wanted to cause a shitstorm on a message board, you simply had to post something mildly controversial about 9/11, Michael Jackson or cats—yep: one way or the other, the internet had made Ho the man he was. Roddy was a self-taught citizen of twenty-first-century GB, and all clued up on how to conduct himself therein.

Bitch was ripe was how he read it.

Bitch was ready .

All he had to do was reach out and pluck it.

But while theory was nine tenths of the game, he was having trouble with the remaining fraction. He saw Louisa most days, and had taken to appearing in the kitchen whenever she was making coffee, but she kept misreading his signals. He’d actually commented, and this was over a week ago, that since they were driven by the same caffeine needs it made excellent sense for her to make enough for two, but this had gone whistling over her head and she was still carrying the pot back to her office. You had to laugh at her feeble grasp of mating rituals, but in the meantime he was stumped for ways to get down to her level.

Ho didn’t even like coffee. These were the lengths he was prepared to go.

There were strategies he’d come across, heard about: be kind, be attentive, listen. Jesus—did these people still live in wooden houses? That crap took ages, and it wasn’t like Louisa was getting any younger. As for Ho himself, frankly, he had his own needs, and while the internet catered for most of them, he was starting to feel a little tense. Louisa Guy was a vulnerable woman. There were men might seek to take advantage. He wouldn’t put it past River Cartwright, for a start, to try it on. And while Cartwright was an idiot, there was no second-guessing what a vulnerable woman might do, especially one misreading the signals.

So Ho figured he needed a little practical assistance. Which was why he was in this bar with Marcus Longridge and Shirley Dander, who shared the office next door.

“Spoken to Louisa lately?” he asked.

Marcus Longridge grunted.

They were the newest of the slow horses, this pair, which accounted for their not saying much. Slough House had no rigid hierarchical structure, but it was pretty clear that once you’d ticked off Lamb at the top, you were looking at Roddy Ho—the place ran on brains, not muscle. So these two must regard him as their natural superior, hence their being overawed. Ho’d have felt the same in their shoes. He took a sip of his alcohol-free lager and tried again.

“At all? In the kitchen or anywhere?”

Again, Marcus grunted.

Marcus was into his forties, Ho knew, but that didn’t mean you could rule him out entirely. He was tall, black, married, and had definitely killed at least one person, but none of that stopped Ho figuring Marcus probably looked on him, Ho, as a younger version of himself. There must be practical stuff he’d be happy to pass on, which was the reason he’d elected Marcus to join him for a guys’ night out. A few jars, a few laughs, and then some opening up. But reaching that stage was an uphill struggle with Shirley Dander sitting the other side of him, like a malevolent fire hydrant. He had no clue why she’d tagged along, but she was cramping both their styles.

She had a packet of crisps in front of her, opened up like a picnic blanket, except when he’d reached to take one she’d slapped his hand. “Get your own.” She was levering about 15 percent of the total quantity into her mouth now, and once she’d done that she chewed briefly and said, “What about?”

Ho gave her a look that meant men talking .

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Lemonade go down the wrong way?”

“It’s not lemonade.”

“Yeah, right.” She used some of her own, definitely non-alcohol-free lager to sluice the crisps down her throat, then returned to topic. “Talk to Louisa about what?”

“Just, you know. Anything.”

Shirley said, “You’re kidding.”

Marcus stared into his pint. He was drinking Guinness, and Ho had spent a few minutes working up something to say about this, about Marcus and his drink being the same colour—observational comedy—but had shelved it until the moment was right. Which might be soon if Shirley shut up.

She didn’t.

“You have got to be kidding.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“Louisa. You think you’ve got a chance with Louisa ?”

“Who said anything about—”

“Ha! That is fantastic. You seriously think you’ve got a chance with Louisa?”

Marcus said, “Oh God. Shoot me now,” but didn’t seem to be addressing either of his companions.

Not for the first time, Roderick Ho wondered if he’d made a tactical error in his social life.

Sean Donovansaid, “You’re not at the Park any more.”

As this wasn’t a question Catherine didn’t answer it, instead saying, “I’m glad you’re out, Sean. I hope life’s treating you better.”

“Water under the bridge.”

But he said this with the air of one who spent a lot of time on bridges, waiting for the bodies of his enemies to float past.

They were approaching the junction, where small queues of cars, mostly taxis, waited. Through the windows of the pub opposite she could see heads bobbing in conversation and laughter. It wasn’t a pub for serious drinkers; was strictly for casuals. She was very conscious of Sean Donovan at her side; of his thick soldier’s body. Still a physical presence, well into his fifties. Behind bars, he’d have haunted the gym. In his cell he’d have done push-ups, sit-ups, all those crunching exercises which kept the muscles strong.

A row of buses trundled past. She waited until their noise abated before saying, “I have to be going, Sean.”

“I can’t tempt you to a drink?”

“I don’t do that any more.”

He gave a low whistle. “Now we’re really talking hard time . . . ”

“I get by.”

But she did and she didn’t. Most days she did. But there were difficult passages, in the early summer evenings—or the late winter nights—when she felt drunk already, as if she’d slipped without noticing and woken enmeshed in her old ways, doing that some more. Drinking. Which would start an unravelling that might never end.

Taking another drink was not about lapsing. It was about becoming someone she planned never to be again.

“A cup of coffee then.”

“I can’t.”

“Jesus, Catherine. It’s been how long? And we were . . . close.”

She didn’t want to think about that.

“Sean, I’m still with the Service. I can’t be seen with you. I can’t take that risk.”

She regretted the phrase as soon as it escaped her.

“Risk, is it? Touching pitch and all?”

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. But the truth is, I just can’t be with you. Spend time with you. Not because of . . . your troubles. Because of who I am. What I am.”

“‘Your troubles.’” He laughed and shook his head. “You sound like my mother, rest her soul. ‘Your troubles.’ A phrase she’d trot out to a grieving widow or a fussing child. She was never one for making fine distinctions.”

That phrase again. Making distinctions.

“I’m glad to see you’re well, Sean.”

“You’re looking grand yourself, Catherine.”