Bad Actors (Slough House, #8)(98)

“Own him? We don’t even know where he’ll end up.”

“We’ve got his understudy’s body. And we’re supposed to be an intelligence service. How difficult can it be?”

“Do you really want me to quantify that?”

“I want you to show some balls. And instead of fighting all your battles in your own backyard, try taking on some real enemies.” He’d finagled another cigarette from somewhere, and inserted it, unlit, between his lips. Having a cigarette in his mouth had never prevented Lamb from speaking. If it had, most of his lines would go unread. “And don’t worry about Sparrow. He’s just a Westminster chancer, and he’s grown used to the people he’s stabbed in the back pissing off to run a bank. Instead of rearranging his prospects with a shovel and some plastic sheeting.”

Light dawned, if not through the curtained window. “The Ultras,” Diana said.

“My my, Nash has been earning his pastry allowance. Yes, the Ultras. Seems Sparrow gets his kicks playing soldiers in the woods with the big boys. Which makes them prime candidates for the secret army he drafted to trash the San.”

“De Greer told you this?”

“She kept a black book on her erstwhile employer. Whose dubious contacts include a Soho charmer name of Benito. Have you got a light, by the way?”

“What is this, a suicide pact? I’m not striking a match in here.”

“Chicken.” He paddled about beneath his own bulk, and when his hands reappeared, one was holding a plastic lighter. “And Benito’s the sort of ally it’s best to avoid upsetting.”

He punctuated this with a click of his lighter. The effect would have been more impressive if he’d produced a flame.

“You think he’ll want payback for tonight’s farce.”

“Like I said, Sparrow’s used to those he tramples on muttering darkly and exiting stage left. I don’t think these boys’ll go quietly.” He clicked the lighter again, this time with success. Applying the flame to his cigarette, he said, “Neither does de Greer. And she’s the fortune-teller.”

She said, “So that’s why you let her go? On condition she throws Sparrow under a hooligan bus?”

“Any objection?”

“You’re assuming this Benito won’t decide that sticking with Sparrow’s a better bet than payback. He’s virtually running the country, after all.”

He said, “We’re talking football fans, Diana. Not the type to change sides.”

“What did you promise her?”

“That you’d let her walk away. Rasnokov’s not the only one who’d like a little distance between himself and the king of the Kremlin.”

“Christ. You’ve become an idealist in your old age, is that it? Help the joes get away, no matter whose joes they are.”

“Well, exit pursued by a bear,” said Lamb. “I seem to recall what that’s like.”

She thought for a while. “Does Bachelor know about this?”

“Too much information would only confuse him.”

“But he went with her?”

“Well I wasn’t keeping him here.” Lamb drained his glass. “I strongly suspect the man has a drinking problem.”

She thought for a while. “I haven’t forgotten,” she said, “that the only reason de Greer knows about Rasnokov’s scheme is that you let her stay in the room while you told me about it.”

His hand made a wavering motion, causing smoke to spiral and squirt towards the ceiling.

“And anyway, what happens if you’re both wrong?” asked Diana. “And Sparrow’s more persuasive than you give him credit for? It’s both our careers you’re gambling with.”

“Yeah,” said Lamb. “But only one of them’s worth anything.”

The car wash was in darkness, a low-slung chain blocking its entrance, and its three big blue brushes—two vertical; one horizontal—breathing out damp cold air. Shirley hurdled the chain and ran past a keypad at car-window height while something swiped at her back—fuck—and then a brush was offering protection; the pair crouched either side of it, making darting movements left and right, the biker’s blade whittling the air. When Shirley hurled her futile spork at him, it bounced off his helmet into the shadows.

Which were plentiful. While the structure had no walls—just a series of struts supporting a roof that was once clear plastic—it was thick with obstacles: the rails the brushes moved on, lengths of cable and hosepipe, a metal bucket padlocked to a standpipe. What Shirley needed was a weapon, ideally an assault rifle, though she’d have settled for the bucket, or that metal bar against the nearest upright, a yard away . . . She reached it only to find it welded in place, a discovery accompanied by another scorching sensation down her back, this one lighting up her whole body, and she screamed in outrage—chickenshit bastard!—and span and kicked, but he was out of range. Liquid ran down her spine. Keep moving, she warned herself, because the biker’s height and helmet were handicapping him, and the more he had to dodge and weave the more frustrated he’d get. Eyes fixed on him, she slipped round a metal box on a stand, its face a slanted panel with two spherical knobs: one red, the other green.

A Hollywood solution whispered in her ear.