Read Online Dead Lions by Mick Herron - Free Book Online

on a reason for disliking her. Since this put her in a select category, he decided to see what they wanted before telling them he was busy.
    River made a space on the spare desk, and perched on its corner. Catherine pulled out a chair and sat. “How are you today, Roddy?”
    His eyes narrowed with suspicion. She’d called him that before. He said to River, “Don’t move my stuff.”
    “I haven’t moved anything.”
    “My stuff on the desk there, you just rearranged it. I’ve got everything sorted. You put it out of order, I won’t be able to find it.”
    River opened his mouth to make a number of points, but Catherine caught his eye. He changed direction. “Sorry.”
    Catherine said, “Roddy, we were wondering if you could do us a favour.”
    “What sort of favour?”
    “It involves your area of expertise.”
    “If you want broadband,” Ho said, “maybe you should just think about paying for it.”
    “That would be like asking a plastic surgeon to do ingrown toenails,” Catherine said.
    “Yeah,” said River. “Or getting an architect to wash your windows.”
    Ho regarded him suspiciously.
    “Or a lion tamer to feed your cat,” River added.
    The look Catherine flashed him indicated that he wasn’t helping.
    “The other day, in Lamb’s office,” she began, but Ho wasn’t having it.
    “No way.”
    “I hadn’t finished.”
    “You don’t need to. You want to know what Lamb wanted, right?”
    “Just a clue.”
    “He’d kill me. And he could do it, too. He’s killed people before.”
    “That’s what he wants you to think,” River said.
    “You’re saying he hasn’t?”
    “I’m saying he’s not allowed to kill staff. Health and safety.”
    “Yeah, right. But I’m not talking killing killing.” Ho turned back to Catherine. “He’d kill me on a daily basis. You know what he’s like.”
    “He doesn’t need to find out,” she said.
    “He always finds out.”
    River said, “Roddy?”
    “Don’t call me that.”
    “Whatever. A few months ago, we did a good thing. Yes?”
    “Maybe,” Ho said, suspiciously. “So what?”
    “That was teamwork.”
    “It was kind of teamwork,” Ho admitted.
    “So—”
    “The kind where I had all the ideas. You did a lot of running around, I remember.”
    River bit back his first response. “We all play to our strengths,”he said. “My point is, for a while there, Slough House worked. Know what I mean? We played as a team, and it worked.”
    “So now we do it again,” Ho said.
    “That would be good, yes.”
    “Only this time, instead of running around, you just sit there. While I do all the work again.” He turned to Catherine. “And then Lamb finds out and kills me.”
    River said, “Okay, how about this. You don’t tell us anything, but we find out anyway, and tell him you told us. Then he kills you.”
    Catherine said, “River—”
    “No, seriously. Lamb never locks his computer, and we all know what his password is.”
    Lamb’s password was “Password.”
    Ho said, “If you were gunna do that, you’d have done it. You wouldn’t be bothering me.”
    “No, well, it hadn’t occurred to me till now.” He looked at Catherine. “What’s the opposite of teamwork?”
    She said, “It’s not going to happen, Roddy. He’s kidding.”
    “It doesn’t sound like he’s kidding.”
    “Well he is.” She looked at River. “Isn’t that right?”
    He surrendered. “Whatever.”
    She said to Ho, “You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to.”
    As an interrogation technique, thought River, this lacked bite.
    Ho chewed his lip and looked at his monitor. This was angled so River couldn’t see it, but reflected in Ho’s glasses he could make out a thin tracery of lines cobwebbing the screen, and green lights blinking on a black background. Ho could be navigating his way through an MoD firewall, or playing Battleship with himself, but either way, he seemed to be contemplating something else altogether at the