Мик Херрон - Real Tigers

She seemed unnaturally bright; her volume a touch awry. On the other hand, Lamb had told them they’d gone live: maybe, Louisa thought, this was just what Shirley was like, with the prospect of action looming.

“Where’s Marcus?” she asked.

Shirley shrugged. “Went for a bagwich. A sandwich. Baguette sandwich.”

Louisa and River exchanged a glance.

Ho said, “He said five. He’ll be mad if we don’t go in.”

“After you,” River suggested.

Way down below the back door scraped open and slammed shut, and they all thought Catherine . But it was Marcus, stomping up the stairs as if they’d done him personal injury. He arrived at the top to find the others huddled there like a praetorian guard.

“What?”

“You’re late for the meeting,” Ho said.

“So are you,” said Marcus. “Unless this is it.”

“Where’ve you been?” asked Shirley.

“Out.”

“I had to do all the research on my own. You know what that’s like?”

“If it’s like working, yeah. Here.” He handed her a paper bag of indeterminate shape.

She squinted at it suspiciously. “Did this used to be a baguette?”

“Do you want it or not?”

“Whatever.”

Louisa watched fascinated as Shirley tugged a squashed object from the paper bag, and peeled away its cellophane membrane. It was so much no longer baguette-shaped, she was able to eat it sideways.

River asked Marcus, “You okay?”

“Why?”

“You look . . . peeved.”

“‘Peeved’? What is this, Hogwarts?”

“Pissed off, then.”

“I’m fine.”

“This is actually pretty tasty,” said Shirley, or so the others assumed. Her mouth was too full to be sure.

“Good,” said River to Marcus. “Because you might want to be on your game tonight.”

“Trust me, Cartwright. I get the opportunity to shoot anyone, I’ll be on my game.”

“Nice to know.”

“Not fussy who, either.”

“I think they put paprika in it or something.”

“Christ,” Louisa said. “Nobody said anything about shooting. We’re a glorified escort service, that’s all.”

“For a crew who took Catherine,” said River.

“Precisely. Until we know she’s safe, no one’s shooting anybody.”

“I nearly asked you to get me a tuna, but I’m glad I didn’t now. Chicken’s definitely my favourite.”

“I think we should go in,” said Ho.

“I think you’re right,” said River, pushing him through the half-open door.

Ho went sprawling onto the carpet.

Without opening his eyes Lamb said, “You’re ten minutes late.”

“Five,” said Ho.

Lamb pointed at the clock on his shelf.

“That’s fast,” Ho objected.

“It’s always fast. Do I have to specify local time?” Lamb opened his eyes, and his tone changed to a roar. “Get in here.”

They trooped in while Ho scrambled to his feet, shooting daggers at River.

“Jesus,” said Lamb, wiping a paw across his face, blurring his features to a screaming pope’s. “One of these days I’m gonna wake up and it will all have been a bad dream.”

“That happened to me once,” Shirley said, her mouth full.

“What are you eating?”

“. . . Chicken baguette.”

“Give.”

Shirley looked at what was left of her lunch, then at Lamb’s implacably outstretched hand. She glanced at Marcus for support, but he was having none of it.

“Don’t look so glum,” said Lamb. “You could do with skipping a few.”

“Are you even allowed to say stuff like that?” she complained, surrendering the sandwich.

“Not sure. Haven’t read the manual.” He examined her offering suspiciously. “Did this get hit by a bus or what? You can buy them new, you know.” He took a bite out of it anyway, reducing it by about half. “All done your homework?”

There was a muttered chorus of assent.

“Right. Cartwright first. Sean Donovan. What have you got?”

“Sean Donovan,” River said. “He’s a career soldier, a combat veteran. Sandhurst, tour of duty in Northern Ireland, then an attachment to the Ministry of Defence. After that, he served with the UN Protection Force in the Balkans, then with NATO during the Kosovo War. He was a lieutenant colonel once that was over, and reckoned to be in the running for higher things.”

“How high?” Shirley asked, then giggled abruptly.

Lamb stopped chewing to train a basilisk stare in her direction.

River said, “He was well thought of at the MoD. Sat on some high-level commissions, including one on domestic terrorism which had Regent’s Park connections, and was on an advisory body to the UN in ’08. A newspaper profile of him that year called him the perfect modern soldier, part warrior, part diplomat.”

“I do like a man without faults,” Lamb said, scrumpling greaseproof paper into a ball and tossing it over his shoulder. “Reminds me of me.”

“Only he had a reputation for being a drinker.”

“There you go,” said Lamb. “A real prince.”

“What,” said Marcus, “he’s in the closet? In the arms trade? Or likes dressing up as a Nazi?”

Lamb glared. “What’s your problem? You look like you’ve lost a fiver and found a button.”

“. . . A button?”

“Forgive my folksiness. Woodstock generation.”

River trundled on. “Donovan’s career went to hell overnight. Not long after his UN stint he visited an army base in Somerset to give a lecture to an audience of cadets. Apparently there was a party afterwards, a knees-up in the mess, following which Donovan left the base in a car. He lost control, wrote the vehicle off, and his passenger, a Captain Alison Dunn, was killed. He was tried before a military court, and served five years, dishonourably discharged upon release. That was a year or so ago.”

“Okay,” Lamb conceded. “Maybe not entirely without faults.” He held up one fat finger: “So. He has a Regent’s Park connection.” And a second: “And he’s a drinker. Well?”

Nobody offered a comment.

“Jesus, do I have to do everything? He didn’t pick Standish at random. He already knew her.” He pointed at River. “How’d Sergeant Rock end up with Black Arrow?”

“Remember the Spider-Man incident?”

“Some idiot dressed as a cartoon fell off a building,” Lamb said.

This had happened back in the winter, not far from Slough House. It had made headlines for a few days, and had figured in a few comedy routines too, because the guy hadn’t actually died and, well, had been dressed as Spider-Man.

“Was thrown off a building,” River said. “It was a demo, fathers for justice sort of thing. He was divorced, and had been denied his visiting rights.”

“Was he complaining or celebrating?”

River ignored that. “Name of Paul Lowell, one-time DI with the Middlesex Constabulary, and more recently Sylvester Monteith’s second-in-command at Black Arrow. He never knew who threw him onto London Wall. They’d made contact through the Fair Deal for Fathers website, and whoever it was came dressed as Batman. He was never caught.”

“Well well well,” said Lamb. “Wonder who that could have been?”

“Donovan,” said Shirley.

“Yeah, that was rhetorical. Jesus, if I didn’t know the answer to something, you think I’d ask you lot?”

When he was sure Lamb had finished, River said, “Monteith hired Sean Donovan the same week.”

“Nothing like creating a job vacancy. Hope none of you think that’s the way to the top.”

“We’d never fit you through the window,” Louisa muttered.

Lamb rubbed the palm of his hand on his whiskery chin. Which he was scratching was open to question. “Okay, that’s who he is. What’s he want with the Grey Books? You.” He pointed at Louisa. “Go.”