Read Online Real Tigers by Mick Herron - Free Book Online Page B

said Shirley. “You?”
    â€œNope.” He paused, allowing River one last opportunity to reveal himself, then said, “Fancy an ice cream?”
    â€œYeah, all right,” Shirley said.
    They headed off towards Smithfield, where they were less likely to be spotted.
    The man on the bridge had disappeared from sight.

C atherine kept a spare set of doorkeys in a matchbox taped to the underside of her desk, where Louisa had stumbled upon them quite early in her Slough House career. She collected them now, and headed off to St. John’s Wood by cab. It was into the twenties already, bright sunlight blindly bouncing off glass and metal surfaces: enough to make you want to sit in a dark room, even if you didn’t want to do that anyway. She’d never been to Catherine’s flat before. For a while she wondered what that said about her, about the whole of the Slough House crew, and the paper-thin friendships their daily lives were scribbled on, but mostly she concentrated on not thinking; on simply moving in a bubble through London; not being at her desk, not filling the space left by Min.
    The flat was in an art deco block, shielded at the front by a well-maintained hedge. Louisa paid the taxi and pocketed the receipt. The block’s rounded edges and metal-framed windows lent it a science-fiction air: this had once been how the future would look. Its tiled and shiny lobby made her sandals clack, but that was the only obvious noise. The whole block seemed unnaturally quiet, as if Catherine weren’t the only occupant to have gone missing. It was a fate Louisa would cheerfully have wished on her own neighbours. Unnatural quiet wasn’t so much of a thing around her way.
    Catherine lived on the topmost floor. Louisa rang the bell and waited a full minute before letting herself in, calling Catherine’s name as she did so. No reply. She did a quick scoot through, making sure the place was empty. The bed was made, but that was no surprise—Catherine made a place look neater just by being in it. She was never likely to leave havoc in her wake. There was a landline in the sitting room, but no pad for taking messages; a calendar on the kitchen wall, but nothing marked for the month save a hairdresser’s appointment two weeks hence. A shopping list on the fridge door gave nothing away, and while a pile of books four deep on the bedside table suggested Catherine was a restless reader, none of the scraps used as bookmarks taught Louisa anything. It wasn’t a sterile environment—was a lived-in space—but it held no clues as to where its occupant might have gone. The wardrobe was full, resembling a dresser’s rack from a Merchant-Ivory production, and there was an empty suitcase in the hall closet. Nor was there any sign of those things Catherine might be expected to carry round with her: purse, phone, sunglasses, travel pass. At first glance, it looked like Catherine had had an ordinary morning: had got up and left for work as usual, and whatever had kept her from arriving there had happened en route. But when Louisa checked the dishwasher, she found it full of clean dry crockery long since cooled to normal, and there were no breakfast dishes stacked and ready for the next loading. A palm on the kettle came away stone cold. Either Catherine had left without breakfast, or she hadn’t been here last night.
    â€œDirty stop-out,” Louisa muttered, but without conviction.
    She’d stopped out herself last night, of course. Had got home at seven, time enough to shower and change for work. More than once last year she and Min had spent an evening in a bar, passing comment on the hook-ups happening around them, encounters that increased in desperation the later they occurred, and had congratulated each other on being out of that game. Louisa had been careful never to add “for good” because fate was the kind of attack dog you didn’t want to taunt. But tempting