Bad Actors (Slough House, #8)(24)

Though someone did.

“Ms. Standish?”

She turned.

It was a middle-aged man, a little shorter than Catherine, with receding hair and glasses; pleasant looking—mild was the word that came to mind—wearing a fawn-coloured raincoat. There was an odd disconnect: she knew him, she did not know him. Then the name arrived. This was Claude Whelan, one-time First Desk at Regent’s Park. She had once watched him descend a flight of stairs. But they’d never stood face-to-face, had never exchanged words. If he was interrupting her journey home, accosting her on a pavement, it wasn’t because she was an old acquaintance glimpsed in passing.

He confirmed his name. Then said, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“But you did mean to follow me.”

“I’m sorry. No harm was intended. But I need to talk to you, outside your office.”

“Is this a work issue, Mr. Whelan?”

“It’s connected.”

“Because I’ve finished for the day. And unless I missed something, you’ve finished for your career.”

He acknowledged this with a nod. “It’s something I’ve been asked to look into. Unofficial, but . . .”

“But official all the same.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t want to encounter Jackson Lamb while pursuing it.”

He paused, and then said, “Not quite yet, no.”

She wondered if this were where it began, the inevitable unravelling. Not her own, but Lamb’s—sooner or later, it was bound to happen; there’d be a panel of inquiry, or a lynch mob. But it didn’t seem likely that Claude Whelan would be first in line with a pitchfork. It had been said of him, she remembered, that he was too meek to hang onto First Desk long; that the alligators were circling before his feet were on the floor.

“I’m on my way home,” she told him.

“It won’t take long.”

“And it’s turning cold.”

“There’s a place up ahead. Please. It won’t take long, and it is important.”

“And if I’d rather not?”

But he simply smiled, and said again, “Please.”

The place up ahead, which she’d already known about, was a bar. Big glass windows; socially distanced tables. The sign on the door declared a thirty-patron maximum, but that was wishful thinking; the room was all but empty. Whelan held the door, and she walked in. How long since she had been in a bar? If she put her mind to it, she could perform the mathematics. All those years and months, all those days. They stretched a huge distance in one direction; in the other, they might crash into a wall any moment.

A waitress, wearing a visor, was hovering before they were seated.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a G&T,” Whelan said.

If I ever drink again, it will be like this. No special reason, no special occasion. Someone will offer me a drink, and I will ask for a glass of wine. When I drink again, it will be like this.

Not right now, though.

“Just water.”

“Still or sparkling?” The waitress asked.

“Sparkling. Thank you.”

“Ice and a—”

“Yes.”

Whelan gave the waitress his full attention while placing his order, and Catherine remembered what else had been said about him: that while he had made much of his happy marriage, he’d had a roving eye. Something of a wandering car, too. A close encounter with an anti-kerb crawling initiative might have derailed him before those alligators had their boots on if he hadn’t managed to quash the police report, or mostly quash it. Lamb had scraped what was left together and used the information to ensure that, whatever else he did while First Desk, Whelan never messed with Slough House.

At least some of that was presumably on Whelan’s mind as they waited for their drinks, but he kept a tight lid on it, and in place of any more obvious conversational gambit recited a phone number.

When it became clear that he expected a response, she said, “That’s Lamb’s phone.”

“I know. On his own desk?”

“Where else?” she said, though it was a reasonable question. Had the phone annoyed Lamb, which it could easily have done by, say, ringing, there was no telling where it might have ended up.

“What I mean is,” he said, “if that phone rings, he’ll be the one who answers it, yes? Not you.”

“In general.”

“Why only in general?”

“It’s not complicated. The phone is on his desk. Sometimes it rings. He’ll either answer it or not, depending on what mood he’s in, and whether he’s even there. If he’s out and it rings and I hear it, I’ll answer it. If I get there in time.” It felt a little like explaining how stairs work. “I think that covers everything.”

“There was a call on Monday afternoon,” Whelan said. “To that number. At five forty-six. Did Lamb answer it himself?”

Catherine’s mind fed off static for a moment, as anyone’s would. “I imagine so,” she said. “I didn’t, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“The call was from a Dr. Sophie de Greer.”

“Am I supposed to recognise the name?”

“She’s a government adviser, a Downing Street, ah . . .”