Bad Actors (Slough House, #8)(66)

Here, too, he understood her. There was nothing for him in London, but this was where he’d been sent, or at any rate, this was where he was.

When he assured her she wouldn’t have to go anywhere she didn’t want to, she gave a sad smile, and briefly rested her head on his shoulder.

It wasn’t as if he were under any illusions. He was looking at sixty—could feel its breath on his eyebrows—and wasn’t one of those self-deceiving Lotharios whose mirrors were twenty years out of date. His best days were behind him, an even more melancholy thought when he weighed up how feeble they’d been at the time. He’d barely hit his middle years before the mould started showing through the wallpaper, and then there was no stopping it: the capsized marriage, the punctured career, the lack of anything you could mistake for loyalty, support or money.

This, though; this could go on for as long as it wanted. He’d happily while away months coaxing life out of ageing teabags and cooking up suppers from a cupboard-load of tins; spending daylight hours on the landing, Sophie beside him, like a vision dredged out of someone else’s memory. Months hoping not to hear words like: “He’s coming here, isn’t he?”

It was the afternoon of the fourth day, the cobbles not yet dry from their drenching, and the pair were at their posts, looking down on the mews from the narrow window. One empty tea cup sat by Bachelor’s chair; Sophie cradled the other in her hands. Without her glasses, he noticed—not for the first time—she seemed younger. He would have happily continued to study her, but forced himself to shift his attention instead to the figure she had seen through the window, pausing in the archway to the mews; a bulky mess in a shabby overcoat, lighting a cigarette before stepping into the sunshine.

“Isn’t he?” she repeated.

“Yes,” Bachelor said. “I’m afraid he is.”

Lech said, “Let’s run through that again. You brought in a homemade curry for lunch, and spiced it up with this superpowered chili—”

“A Dorset Naga.”

“A Dorset Naga, right.”

“Which scores, like, 923,000 on the Scoville scale.”

“Okay.”

“Which is the Richter scale, only for chilis.”

“Okay. So you brought this in and left it in the fridge so that if—when—Lamb stole it, it’d blow his head off.”

“Yes.”

“And what do you usually bring in for lunch?” Louisa said.

“I usually buy it.”

“Yeah, okay, and you buy . . . ?”

“A salad.”

“So you usually eat a shop-bought salad until one day you make yourself a curry instead.”

“Well, that’s what he’d expect, isn’t it? The fat bigot.”

Lech and Louisa exchanged a look.

“I mean, obviously I make my own curry.”

They exchanged it back again.

“What?”

“Lamb’s fat,” said Louisa. “And bigotry is his preferred mode of communication, yes. But he’s not stupid. You might as well have labelled your lunchbox ‘Bait.’”

“But he took it!”

“When a rat takes your poison, that’s job done,” said Lech. “When Lamb does, that’s research.”

“I was you,” said Louisa, “I wouldn’t go biting into anything you didn’t prepare yourself.”

And even then, not if you’ve turned your back on it for ten seconds, she mentally added.

“Where is he, anyway?” Lech asked, but no one knew.

They were in the kitchen, because it was that time: Louisa’s need for coffee, always imminent, was at its peak early afternoon, and Lech’s desire to be nowhere near his desk was at its peak most of the time. As for Ashley, neither had gauged her daily requirements yet, because this seemed an unnecessary effort until her ongoing presence had been established. Investing in a fellow slow horse was far from automatic.

Current assessment, though: attempting to kill Jackson Lamb with a turbo-charged curry showed initiative and imagination, indicating that Ashley Khan might be worth getting to know. It was just a pity the same resourceful outlook rendered her long-term prospects negligible.

Roddy Ho entered, opened the fridge, and removed a plastic bottle of radioactive-coloured drink. When he closed the door it slowly swung open again, but he didn’t notice. Instead he leaned against the only length of kitchen counter not already occupied and applied himself to the task of removing the plastic screw-cap with his teeth. This took him, by Louisa’s fascinated count, twenty-two seconds. Then he tilted the bottle back, took a large gulp and shook his head, as if he’d just performed some feat of athleticism out of the reach of lesser divinities. Only then did he address the other three. “’Sup?” he asked.

“You forgot to say ‘dude,’” Lech pointed out.

“Yeah, well, you forgot to say . . .”

They waited.

“. . . Fuck off.”

“Sorry,” said Lech. “Fuck off.”

Louisa kicked the fridge door shut.

“He might just think I like really hot curry,” Ashley said.

“Or you could rely on his famously forgiving nature,” said Lech. “That might work.”

Roddy said to Louisa, “That du—that guy, the one at the embassy? Who wouldn’t look at the cameras?”