Read Online Real Tigers by Mick Herron - Free Book Online

Standish!”
    He bellowed this loudly enough, and unexpectedly enough, that Shirley actually felt her bladder release, just a tiny bit. But there was no reply from downstairs, and no Catherine Standish appeared.
    â€œWhere’s Cartwright gone?” Lamb said suspiciously.
    â€œBathroom?” said Shirley.
    â€œThat’s your answer for everything this morning. Something you want to share with us?”
    â€œI’ll go look.”
    â€œStay bloody there! Another member of staff goes missing, I’ll lose my deposit.” He bellowed again, this time for River, but River didn’t appear either.
    In the quiet that followed, Louisa thought she could hear the windowpanes ringing.
    â€œJesus wept,” said Lamb at last. “It’s not like I’m not glad to see the back of you, but we’re supposed to be a functioning department.”
    Marcus snorted, but it might have been hay fever.
    â€œRight,” said Lamb. “Enough of this. You”—he indicated Louisa—“go find Standish. And if she’s face down in a pool of sick, I want photos. And you two”—this was Marcus and Shirley—“find out where Cartwright’s got to and bring him back.”
    â€œBy force?”
    â€œShoot him if you have to. I’ll sign off on it.”
    Leaving Roderick Ho.
    â€œI’ll go with Louisa,” he said.
    â€œNo you won’t. She can screw up on her own. With you to help, it’ll just take longer.”
    The others were already heading downstairs, but Ho lingered at the door and looked back.
    â€œWhat?”
    Ho said, “That’s because an idiot wouldn’t have checked as carefully as I did.”
    â€œWell, you’ve saved yourself a stamp. Feeling better?”
    Ho nodded.
    â€œGood,” said Lamb. “Now fuck off.”
    The incoming message had been from Catherine’s phone, and River had opened it heading down the stairs, still congratulating himself on a neat escape. He was expecting a brief explanation for absence: late-running tube, sudden illness, alien invasion. What he read instead was an even briefer summons—
    Pedestrian bridge. Now.
    Which didn’t sound like the Catherine Standish he knew.
    An attachment came with it and he paused on the landing while it effortfully opened—it took half a second to work out what he was looking at: a woman, handcuffed, gagged, like a come-on for an amateur porn site except she was fully clothed and, Jesus, it was Catherine . . .
    Why the hell would anyone take Catherine?
    Pedestrian bridge.
    Now.
    There was only one pedestrian bridge it could be; not a dozen yards away, spanning the road between the tube station and the Barbican. And before checking it out there were alarm bells to ring: slow horse or not Catherine was an agent of the security service, and Regent’s Park ran a full-court press when one of their own came under threat . . . As for Lamb, he’d hang River out to dry if he took another step without putting him in the picture. That was something to think about, so River thought about it as he stuffed the phone away, and took the rest of the stairs three at a time.
    It was already stifling outside, the heat much worse in the mouldy backyard. Round the alley and out on the street, and there was a man on the bridge, looking down on the traffic like all this activity amused him . . . Too far away to make out his face, but that was the impression River gained, as he ran up the road, through the station entrance, up the stairs and onto the bridge.
    One hand on its railing, the man was waiting for him, and River had been right: he did look kind of amused. He was fiftyish, lean, in a suit the colour of early mist; his dark hair tinged with silver. His yellow tie might have come from a club; his superior smirk, he’d have had drummed into him about halfway through Eton or wherever. And he wore rings on both little fingers, confirming one of