They said the package arrived at 11:32 a.m., according to the time-stamped CCTV footage from the little post office off Regent's Canal. The delivery driver, bored out of his skull, handed it to the postmaster, who signed with barely a glance at the label: G. Cartwright. As far as anyone was concerned, it was just another parcel among hundreds, wrapped in cheap brown paper and tied with thin twine. No one thought twice about it. No one cared.
Except for one person: Diane Taverner, former First Desk of Regent's Park.
By the time the delivery had been made, she was sitting in a pub in Camden, nursing a whiskey sour and pretending not to notice the man across the room pretending not to notice her. It had been two months since the last time they tried to kill her, which was about six weeks longer than expected. Diane considered it a testament to her survival instincts, or at the very least, her uncanny ability to piss off the right people at precisely the wrong times.
"Your boy screwed up again," Jackson Lamb said as he flopped down across from her, his bulk pushing the table forward a few inches. He smelled like sweat, cigarettes, and stale fish-and-chips. In other words, the usual.
"What, just now? Or at birth?" she asked, lifting her glass to her lips. "You'll have to be more specific, Lamb."
"Last night," Lamb growled. He scratched his belly, which threatened to spill out from beneath his shirt at any moment. "Missed the drop. Cartwright got cold feet."
Diane sighed and set her drink down. "What do you mean cold feet? He's an asset, not a bloody wedding guest."
"Tell that to his therapist," Lamb said with a snort. "The poor bastard's gone AWOL. And now your little package has turned up on my doorstep."
Diane narrowed her eyes. She didn't like this—Lamb showing up in person, talking in riddles, and reeking worse than usual. Something was off. She glanced at the man across the room again, who was doing a miserable job of blending in. Even for MI5 standards.
"What package?" she asked.
Lamb leaned forward, lowering his voice as if sharing some state secret, though the pub was too noisy for anyone to care. "The one addressed to Cartwright. Left it on my desk this morning like it was my birthday or something. Only difference being, I didn't ask for anthrax."
Diane's stomach tightened. "Anthrax?"
Lamb waved a hand dismissively. "Metaphorically speaking. But the bomb squad's sniffing it over as we speak."
She leaned back, eyes scanning the room, wondering how much worse this was going to get. Her job—her old job—had involved making messes disappear. But Lamb? His job was running Slough House, the graveyard of MI5's most useless and damaged rejects. The fact that he was sitting here, bothering her with anything, meant the mess wasn't his alone to clean up.
"Lamb," she said carefully, "where's Cartwright now?"
Lamb grinned, a toothy thing that might have passed for humor if he weren't so consistently unpleasant. "Funny you should ask. He's missing. Properly, this time. No postcard, no middle finger on his way out."
Diane glanced at her drink, suddenly not thirsty. Cartwright might've been a screw-up, but he wasn't stupid. If he'd gone off the grid, something had spooked him. And that package—whatever it was—had landed squarely in Lamb's lap like an open invitation for disaster.
"Let me guess," she said. "You want me to fix this?"
Lamb chuckled, the sound like gravel in his throat. "Oh no, love. You're just the friendly consultant. If this goes tits up, it's not your name in the papers. But between you and me..." He leaned even closer, his breath like an ashtray. "I'd keep an eye on your mail."
Diane stared at him for a long moment, weighing her options. But she knew, just as Lamb did, that there weren't any. Not anymore. Cartwright was gone, and whatever he'd been holding onto—whatever that parcel was meant to hide—was now in play. And that meant someone was about to get very, very dead.
She stood, leaving her drink untouched. "Next time," she said, pulling on her coat, "bring flowers. Or don't come at all."
Lamb smiled again, that same oily grin. "No promises."
As Diane left the pub, she could feel the weight of the situation pressing down on her, like a noose tightening around her neck. Somewhere in the city, someone was moving pieces on a board she hadn't even known existed, and the next move was hers.
She just had to figure out what the hell the game was.