Bad Actors (Slough House, #8)(49)



“And who before that?”

“Can’t remember.”

“You ever had a partner?”

“A what?”

“Forget it.” She gestured towards his desk. “You’ve got these tracing apps, right?”

Roddy rolled his eyes.

“Can you find Louisa’s car?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On what happens if I do.”

“Maybe people don’t get to hear about your little Star Wars production.”

“‘Maybe’?”

“Tell me where she is, and I won’t say anything.”

“. . . How do I know I can trust you?”

She laughed. “It’s Slough House. You can’t trust anyone.”

Oddly, this seemed to reassure him.

He went back round his side of the desk and by the time she’d joined him had set something in motion: a little icon that looked like a silverfish trying to eat itself was toiling away on his largest screen. A blink or two later and this coloured itself in: they were looking at a skeletal street map, laid out in straight lines as if someone had tidied the city up in a burst of optimism. Pulsing dead centre was a red circle, like a pimple waiting to explode.

Shirley said, “Isn’t this just Find My Friends?”

“. . . So?”

“So how come you and Louisa are sharing that?”

Because Louisa didn’t know was the strictly accurate answer. Some apps wormed their way into your phone as soon as you clicked on the email. Or they did if you knew what you were doing.

“Where is this, anyway?”

He zoomed out, so they could see the bigger picture. “Wimbledon.”

“What’s in Wimbledon?” Shirley said, but she was talking to herself.

The car was parked not far from the common, though she supposed you were never that far from the common if you were in Wimbledon to start with.

“What are they looking at?”

“‘They’?” said Roddy.

“She’s with Lech. They’re up to something. What are they looking at?”

Roddy shrugged, and opened another browser. A quarter minute later they were looking at a street scene, broad daylight; a residential pavement. Most of it was houses, but there was an apartment block at a junction; a brick building with glass front doors showing a lobby with what looked like a cheese plant in its centre. Big green leaves, anyway. Shirley marvelled, briefly, that here they were on one side of the city looking at a building on the other, trying to recognise a pot plant in its lobby, and then reminded herself that this was film, not a live broadcast. Clues included that it was broad daylight and that Louisa wasn’t in sight, though the other screen indicated that her phone remained close by.

And was, in fact, in Louisa’s hand, and Louisa herself in her car. Lech was beside her, and they were across the road from the apartment block Lech had identified as Sophie de Greer’s address. Without being confident she was in her flat, they knew she hadn’t left it while they were watching. Louisa had suggested—several times, by this point—that the odds were she hadn’t come home yet: politicos, she maintained, worked ungodly hours, and it was only just after nine. Lech had countered by pointing out that de Greer was Swiss, and as such perhaps adhered more strictly to an acceptable timetable.

“Except if you’re right, she’s not Swiss. She’s Russian.”

“Such a thing as cover.”

Since this exchange Louisa had mostly been reading the news on her phone, wondering at what point she’d kick Lech out and head home. He had the air of one who wasn’t going anywhere until he’d been proved right. Which was possibly just another way of pointing out that he was male.

She put her phone away. “How pissed off was Roddy?”

“Don’t know.”

“Hard to tell?”

“Hard to care.”

“He has his uses, you know. Maybe we should be nice to him for a change.”

“Yeah,” said Lech. “We could scrape a few quid together and rent him a girlfriend experience.”

“I’m not that sorry.”

“How expensive could it be? To have someone stand him up, then laugh about it on Instagram.”

“Bitter, much?”

“You don’t know the half of it. Is this her now?”

It was, or seemed to be: a tracksuited figure, emerging from the apartment block and pausing on the threshold, fiddling with something on her wrist. She was blonde, but wearing goggles that obscured much of her face. Still: right approximate height, right approximate age. She bounced up and down on the spot for some seconds in a manner that had Lech nodding thoughtfully, though offered no conclusive evidence as to her identity. The tracksuit was grey, with reflective bright orange piping that matched her trainers.

“It’s about mileage, not stylage,” Louisa muttered.

“What?”

“I said, what do we do?”

Lech said, “Follow her?”

“Because obviously she’s on her way to a secret meeting.”

“Well we won’t know that until she gets there.”

She’d already made a start, bounding down the street with an ease which belied Louisa’s suggestion that she was all kit, no grit. Louisa started the car and pulled out into the empty road. Lech kept his eyes on the running woman.

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