Bad Actors (Slough House, #8)(77)

If Ashley’s training wheels hadn’t come off altogether, that was. If she’d finished her hand-in and handed it in.

Roddy said, “Yeah, fascinating. But if this reference didn’t mention what he was doing the other night, it’s not much help, ya get me?”

The women shared a look.

Catherine said, “How many pieces of information did we have two minutes ago?”

He counted them in his head. “One?”

“And now we have more. How is that a hindrance?”

Something blipped: an incoming email.

“You’ve got a Zoom booked?” said Ashley, who was by Roddy’s desk now, with a partial view of his screens.

“No.”

“Because that looks like—”

“Yeah, right, it’s nothing.”

Catherine said, “Well in that case it won’t distract you.” She looked at Ashley. “I’m sure you won’t mind giving Roddy a hand.”

“Lamb says I’m not supposed to do anything.”

“He’ll make an exception for this,” Catherine said.

“You think? Because—”

“I’m making an exception for this.”

Ashley paused, then nodded.

Roddy said, “Look, I’ve got this thing—”

“I’ll be back in half an hour,” said Catherine. She moved towards the door. “Play nicely,” she said, over her shoulder, and was gone.

It was all very courteous. They’d tarried on the rooftop while the more junior of the Dogs scraped the remains of Diana’s shattered mobile together and put them in an evidence bag, and then they’d processed back into the building: Dog One, then Diana, then Dog Two. Dog Three—whom Diana knew by name; Nicola Kelly—was waiting on the landing.

“Sorry about this, ma’am.”

Not as sorry as she would be, Diana’s answering smile promised.

She took Diana’s bag and rifled through it. Finding the envelope stuffed with cash, she raised an eyebrow at nobody in particular.

“I know how much is in there,” Diana said.

Kelly replaced the envelope in the bag, which she didn’t return.

On their way past the bar Diana looked for Nathan, but he wasn’t in sight. He’d be on the phone to Peter Judd, reporting her capture. And Judd would be unsurprised. I’ll splash every last detail of our association across the national breakfast table, he’d said, and while Judd wasn’t what you’d call reliable, that was a promise he’d keep. After which, Sophie de Greer was a sideshow: Diana could have her lap dance the entire Limitations Committee for all the good it would do. Proving herself innocent of instigating Waterproof while Judd was revealing that she’d colluded with Chinese backers would be like standing up to her elbows in blood, indignantly explaining that she’d never shoplifted in her life. Meanwhile, Sparrow would be taking cover behind the hostile headlines, his role in employing de Greer reduced to an anodyne soundbite: Clearly, there are lessons to be learned. The ability to bury bad news was bullet-point one on the Westminster CV, practised by interns, perfected by PMs. Produce your mea culpa on the weekend a major royal dies. Nastier cowards than Sparrow had pulled this trick.

As for expecting aid and succour from the slow horses, that just went to show she was losing her grip. Might as well pray for divine intervention.

But as they trooped down the final staircase, Nicola Kelly bringing up the rear, the sunshine falling through the doorway was blocked for a moment by a silhouetted figure.

“So he was staying at the Grosvenor,” Ashley said. “And ordered two bottles of The Balvenie.”

She’d removed her coat and dragged a chair across so she was next to Roddy, the pair of them flanked by his screens, three of which currently displayed the Service log-in page. One of the others was downloading something; a second showed columns of figures absent any headings, and was quite possibly intended to suggest a heavy workload rather than achieve a specific result; and the third showed Ashley and Roddy, flanked by screens.

“. . . Mirror mode?”

Roddy tapped a key, and the screen flipped to a gif of Yoda performing a backflip. Then he grabbed a comb from the desk and dropped it in a drawer.

“I don’t like you being this side,” he said.

“I’d noticed.”

“And I’ve got this thing happening—”

“Your Zoom call.”

“It’s private.”

“Yeah, I don’t care. What have you done to trace Rasnokov?”

“Apparently you’re the expert,” Roddy said sulkily.

“More than you are. On the other hand, you’re supposed to be good at this shit.” She waved a hand at the glass and plastic world in front of them. “So impress me.”

Roddy made a face.

“Are you in pain? Or was that your Tom Cruise impression? Now, let’s start. Vassily Rasnokov is sixty-two years old.”

Roddy rolled his eyes.

“Do you want my help or not?”

“Not.”

“Too bad. We’re doing this. He’s sixty-two years old, and—”

Roddy trilled on his keyboard some more, and one of the Service log-in pages turned into a screenshot of Rasnokov’s passport. He rolled his chair sideways, hit more keys on a separate board, and a second screen came to life, on a template familiar to Ashley. On text, indeed, that she knew by heart.