Bad Actors (Slough House, #8)(41)

“Shirley—”

“What?”

Not a polite What? either; more a challenge. The best way to deal with Shirley was to tread softly, everyone knew that. Shirley had issues. Catherine, who had issues of her own, was the last person to want to make her life difficult, but on the other hand, she couldn’t have Shirley making everyone else’s life difficult too. It probably didn’t matter much that Shirley was ironing a T-shirt in her office, but whatever she got up to in here, legitimate business or not, she shouldn’t be doing it high. And Shirley was high.

Not a moment to be treading softly, then. Sometimes you had to stamp.

“What are you on?”

“On? What sort of question’s that?”

“A straightforward one. You’re high, you think I can’t tell? What have you taken?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Shirley, you’re at work. You work for the Service, for God’s sake. You’ve got a boss upstairs who’ll throw you out of your job without a thought if you give him an excuse.”

Job? He’d throw her out of a window.

“He won’t notice. He’s probably drunk. Besides, I took some cough mixture, that’s all. I’ve a bad throat. You can’t be too careful.”

Shirley was saying all this holding the iron at chest height, which in her case wasn’t that high, but still. With steam pouring from it, she looked like she was standing behind a special effect.

But her eyes were pinholes. If that was cough mixture, there’d be big demand for it.

Catherine said, “And why ironing, anyway? Why aren’t you doing that at home?”

“Saves time.”

“You’re not supposed to be saving time, you’re—oh, I can’t stand this. Put that away. Drink some water or whatever it is you do to bring yourself down. And do not take any more . . . cough medicine.”

“You should loosen up,” Shirley told her. “You’re too uptight. You’ll give yourself a seizure.”

“It’s not so long ago you assaulted a fundraiser in the street. And then there’s the man in the toilet at the tube station—”

“That was Lech.”

“Lech was there. There’s a difference.”

“I get blamed for everything!”

“Not without reason. And do you really think ironing on a desk is going to work?”

“I was doing fine till you butted in.”

“You’re doing lots of things, Shirley. But trust me, ‘fine’ is not among them.” Catherine realised she’d adopted a posture she was always warning herself against: arms folded, brow knitted. Damn. But she couldn’t stop now: “Like I said, you’ve got a history of doing the wrong thing. And yet you’re still with us. Which means you’ve been seriously lucky so far, and that won’t go on happening forever.”

“I’ve been lucky? Being in Slough House is lucky?”

“You know exactly what I mean. So put a lid on it. If I send you home, I’ll have to tell Lamb why. And that’ll mean you don’t get to come back.”

“Like this is where I fucking want to be!”

“Your choice.” Catherine left, her heart beating rapidly. When she’d heard that metallic crunch, she’d almost thought it a gunshot—a buried terror: guns had been fired in Slough House before. She was glad, mostly, that Lamb hadn’t stirred, but this wasn’t a source of long-term comfort. When Lamb failed to be furious now, he might be planning incandescence later. And Shirley was so far beyond last chances, her suitcase should be packed.

“What’s going on?” Lech called as she passed Louisa’s room.

“Shirley,” Catherine said.

“. . . Figures.”

Louisa, irritated by the interruptions, said, “Counting down from ten now.”

“What makes it interesting is where he says he saw her,” Lech said. “He was watching TV. She appeared on the news.”

“What’s she done?”

“It wasn’t about her. It was about the Home Office. About the team of ministerial aides being disbanded to ensure, what was the phrase?—a cleaner line of authority from Number Ten. All part of the ongoing power grab by Anthony Sparrow, you know?”

“The PM’s enforcer.”

“One way of putting it. And while they’re saying this, there’s footage of Sparrow coming out of Number Ten like he owns the place, with a folder under his arm and a couple of aides trotting at his heels.”

He paused, except it wasn’t quite a pause. He was waiting.

Louisa said, “Ah . . .”

“Yeah, ah,” Lech agreed. “So what John wants to know is, why is the daughter of a one-time KGB colonel carrying bags for the PM’s special adviser?”

It was Louisa’s turn to pause. Then she said, “That Swiss woman?”

“Sophie de Greer. Doctor Sophie de Greer. Sparrow’s superforecaster, so-called. She’s been on Sparrow’s team since Christmas. There was a profile of her in one of the Sundays.”

“And this didn’t mention mummy being in the KGB?”

“It said little was known of her personal background. She’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma, yada yada yada. Sparrow recruited her after she scored in the top two per cent in a superforecasting tournament. That’s when you make accurate predictions about real-world outcomes—”