Slow Horses

by Mick Herron

  She should quit. That’s what she should do. She should just quit.

  But if she quit, that would make her a quitter. She hadn’t joined the Service to be a quitter, either.

  The screen-watching was virtual surveillance, trolling among the mutant hillbillies of the blogosphere. Some of the websites she covered were Trojan horses, Service-designed to attract the disaffected; others might have belonged to other branches of the State—she sometimes wondered if she were lurking in chatrooms peopled entirely by spooks; the undercover equivalent of teen-sites populated entirely by middle-aged men. Genuine or not, the sites covered a range of mood, from the in-your-face (how to make your own bomb) to the apparently educational (‘the true meaning of Islam’) to the free-for-all forums where argument spat like a boiling chip pan, and rage brooked no grammar.

  To pass for real in the world of the web she’d had to forget everything she’d ever known about grammar, wit, spelling, manners and literary criticism.

  It felt pointless. Worse, it felt undoable … How could you know when something worse than words was meant, when all you had to go on were the words? And when the words were always the same: angry, vicious, murderous? Several times she’d decided that a particular voice rang darker than the rest, and had passed the information upstream. Where, presumably, it was acted upon: ISP addresses hunted down; angry young men tracked to their suburban bedrooms. But perhaps she was kidding herself. Maybe all the potential terrorists she ever identified were as ghostly as herself; other spooks in other offices, who were sending her own webname upstream even as she was sending theirs. It wouldn’t be the only aspect of the War on Terror that turned out to be a circle jerk. She should be out on the street, doing actual work. But she’d tried that already, and had screwed it up.

  Every time she thought about this—which was a lot—her teeth clamped together. Sometimes she found herself thinking about it without realizing that’s what she was doing, and the clue was the grinding of teeth, and an ache in her jaw.

  Her first field op, a tracking job: the first time she’d done it for real. Following a boy. Not the first time she’d done that for real, but the first time she’d done it like this: at a distance, keeping him in sight at all times, but not so close he’d sense her presence.

  Tracking jobs were done in threes, minimum. That day there’d been five: two ahead, three behind. The three behind kept changing places, as if engaged in a country dance. But it all took place on city streets.

  The boy they were following—a black youth as far from the tabloid image as you could get: he wore a pinstripe and plastic-rimmed corrective glasses—was point man in a gun drop. A cache of decommissioned handguns had been hijacked the previous week, en route to a furnace. ‘Decommissioned’ was like ‘single’ or ‘married’: a status liable to abrupt change. The handguns hadn’t been hijacked because they’d make nice paperweights. They’d been hijacked to be retooled, and released into the community.

  ‘Three? Take point.’

  An instruction through an earpiece, propelling her to the front of the queue.

  The agent who’d had the target’s heels peeled away: he’d hover by a newspaper stand for a while, then rejoin the procession. Meanwhile, she had the wheel. The target was maintaining an unbroken pace. This either meant he had no idea he was under surveillance, or was so used to it that it didn’t faze him.

  But she remembered thinking: He has no idea.

  He has no idea. He has no idea. Repeated enough, any phrase ceases to have meaning. He has no idea.

  Less than a minute later, the target stepped into a clothes shop.

  This wasn’t necessarily significant. He liked his threads: you could tell. But shops made good meeting places. There were queues, occasional crowds. There were changing rooms. There were opportunities. He stepped into the shop, and she followed.

  And lost him immediately.

  In the follow-up, which began later that day and went on for weeks, the unspoken accusation was of racism. That she could not tell one black youth from another. This was not true. She had had a firm mental picture of the target, and retained it even now: the slight dint in his jaw; his razor-sharp hairline. It was just that there were at least six other young men in the shop—same size, same colour, same suit, same hair—and they’d all been put in play.

  Afterwards, it became clear he’d spent less than three minutes in the shop. Into a changing room, out of his suit. When he walked back on to the street, he was dressed like he belonged there: shades, a floppy grey top, baggy jeans. He’d walked straight past Two, who was heading inside to back Louisa up, and passed One, Four and Five unnoticed. Louisa—Three—was just starting to feel the panic. Not a good day at the office.

  It got worse when the guns started turning up: in bank raids, in hold-ups, in street corner shootings …

  Among the casualties was Louisa Guy’s career.

  She thought about pouring another drink, then decided to turn the TV off and get to bed instead. It would bring the morning sooner, but at least there’d be oblivion between now and then.

  It was a while coming, though. For at least an hour she lay in the dark, stray thoughts nipping and nagging at her.

  She wondered what Min Harper was doing.

  * * *

  Jed Moody edged his way past the crowd by the door and bagged a pavement table where he smoked three cigarettes with his first pint. The shops opposite were a High Street palindrome—Korean grocery, courier service, letting agents, courier service, Korean grocery—and buses passed with noisy frequency. When he’d finished his pint he went back in for a second, but this time carried it upstairs, where tables lined along an internal balcony allowed a view of the stewing masses below. He was halfway through it when Nick Duffy joined him. ‘Jed.’

  ‘Nick.’

  Duffy sat.

  Nick Duffy, late forties, had been an exact contemporary of Moody’s: they’d finished training at the same time, both winding up in the Service’s internal security system—the Dogs—a dozen years later. The Dogs were kennelled at Regent’s Park, but had licence to roam. The furthest Moody had ranged was Marseilles—a junior operative had been knifed to death by a transsexual prostitute in what turned out to be a case of mistaken identity—but Duffy had made it as far as DC. He had close-cropped grey hair these days and, like Moody, wore a jacket but no tie. They must have resembled a pair of off-duty whatever, Moody thought. Accountants, estate agents, bookies; perhaps, to the more astute observer, cops. Maybe one in a million would have guessed Five. And Moody would want a background check on that particular bastard.

  ‘Keeping busy?’ he asked.

  ‘You know.’

  Meaning he didn’t. And wasn’t allowed to.

  ‘I’m not after classified, Nick. I’m asking how things are.’

  Duffy tilted his head to the bar below. ‘Far end. Check it out.’

  He’d been followed, was Moody’s first thought. His second was: Oh. Okay. At the far end of the bar sat two women whose skirts, combined, would have made a decent lens cloth.

  One was wearing red underwear.

  Duffy was waiting.

  He said, ‘Jesus, you’re kidding, aren’t you?’

  ‘Feeling old?’

  ‘I didn’t ask you out on the pull.’

  ‘Why is that not a surprise?’

  ‘And if I had, I wouldn’t trawl this place. Not without penicillin.’

  ‘You’re a laugh a minute, Jed.’ As if testing this assertion, Duffy checked his watch, then took a long steady pull on his pint.

  So Moody cut to the chase. ‘You have much to do with Taverner?’

  Duffy realigned his beer mat, and set his glass upon it.

  ‘Is she approachable?’

  Duffy said, ‘You want to talk approachable? That blonde’s sending out smoke signals.’

  ‘Nick.’

  ‘You really want to do this?’

  And that was it, before they’d even started. Six words, and Duffy ha
d told him he might as well shut up now.

  ‘I just need a chance, Nick. One small chance. I won’t screw up again.’

  ‘I hardly ever see her, Jed.’

  ‘You get ten times as close as I do.’

  ‘Whatever you want from her—’

  ‘I don’t want from her—’

  ‘—it’s not going to happen.’

  Moody stopped flat.

  Duffy went on: ‘After that mess last year, they needed someone to throw to the wolves. Sam Chapman handed his hat in, and that was a start, but they wanted an unwilling victim. That would be you.’

  ‘But they didn’t kick me out.’

  ‘You reckon you’re in?’

  Moody didn’t reply.

  Duffy, because it was his job, put the boot in. ‘Slough House is not in, Jed. Regent’s Park, that’s the centre of the world. The Dogs—well, you know. We roam the passageways. Sniff whoever we like. We make sure everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and nobody’s doing what they’re not. And if they’re not, we bite them. That’s why they call us the Dogs.’

  Throughout this, he kept his voice light and breezy. Anyone watching would think he was telling a joke.

  ‘Whereas over at Slough House, you get to—what is it you get to do again, Jed? You get to frighten people if they lurk at the bus stop too long. You make sure nobody steals any paper clips. You hang around the coffee machine listening to the other screw-ups. And that. Is. It.’

  Moody said nothing.

  Duffy said, ‘Nobody followed me. I know that, because I’m the one says who follows who. And nobody followed you, because nobody cares. Trust me. Nobody’s keeping an eye on you, Jed. The boss made a mark on a piece of paper, and forgot you ever lived. End of story.’

  Moody said nothing.

  ‘And if that’s still bothering you, try another line of work. When cops get the boot, they pick up security jobs. Given that any thought, Jed? You’d get a uniform and everything. Nice view of a car park. Move on with your life.’

  ‘I wasn’t given the boot.’

  ‘No, but they figured you’d quit. Have you not worked that out yet?’

  Moody scowled and reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, before contemporary reality kicked in. When was the last time he’d enjoyed a smoke in a pub? Then again, when was the last time he’d had a drink with a colleague, and joked about the job? Or the last time he’d felt okay about being Jed Moody? Inside his pocket, his hand curled into a fist. He loosened it, stretched his fingers, laid both hands on the table in front of him.

  ‘He’s up to something,’ he said.

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Jackson Lamb.’

  Duffy said, ‘Last time Jackson Lamb stirred himself to do anything more strenuous than break wind, Geoffrey Boycott was opening for England.’

  ‘He sent Sid Baker on an op.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘A real one.’

  ‘Jed, we know, okay? We know. You think Lamb farts without permission?’ He raised his glass to his lips again, but it was empty. He put it down. ‘I’ve got to go. Early meeting in the morning. You know how it is.’

  ‘Something to do with a journo.’ Moody tried to keep desperation out of his voice. To keep it on a level Duffy would understand: that if an op was being run from Slough House, Moody should be part of it. Christ knows, he had more experience than the rest of them put together. Sid Baker was barely out of a training bra, Cartwright had melted King’s Cross, Ho was a webhead, and the others were fucking fridge magnets. Moody alone had kicked down doors in earnest. And don’t tell him it wasn’t about kicking down doors. He knew it wasn’t about kicking down doors. But when you were running an op you wanted someone who could kick down doors, because sooner or later that’s what it would be about after all.

  Duffy said, ‘Jed, a word of advice. Jackson Lamb’s got the authority of a lollipop lady. You’re three rungs below that. We know what Baker was doing, and only a rank amateur would call it an op. It was an errand. Get the difference? An errand. You think we’d trust him with anything bigger?’

  Before he’d finished speaking he was getting to his feet.

  ‘I’ll put one behind the bar. No hard feelings, okay? If anything comes up, I’ll let you know. But nothing’s going to come up.’

  Moody watched as Duffy vanished down the stairs then reappeared in the bar below, gave money to the barman, pointed a thumb in Moody’s direction. The barman glanced up, nodded, and fed the till.

  On his way out Duffy paused by the short-skirted blonde. Whatever he said caused her to open her eyes wide and give a little scream of laughter. Before Duffy left she was huddling up, passing his words on to her friend. A little ripple of friendly filth; just another hit-and-run on a weekday evening.

  Jed Moody drained his pint and leant back in his seat. Okay, you son of a bitch, he thought. You know everything, I know nothing. And I’m stuck in the wilderness while you’re having early meetings and deciding who follows who. I got the shitty stick. You got the whole of the moon.

  But if you’re so clever, how come you think Sid Baker’s a man?

  He didn’t bother collecting the pint Duffy had paid for. It was a small victory, but they added up.

  Years ago—and he wouldn’t thank you for reminding him—Roderick Ho had worked out what his Service nickname would be. More than that, he’d settled on his possible responses first time it was used. Yeah, make my day, he’d say. Or Feeling lucky, punk? That’s what you said when people called you Clint.

  Roderick Ho = Westward Ho = Eastward Ho = Clint.

  But nobody had ever called him Clint. Perhaps political correctness wouldn’t allow them to make the oriental elision from Westward to Eastwood.

  Or perhaps he was giving them too much credit. Perhaps they’d never heard of Westward Ho!

  Actually, bunch of morons. He worked with a bunch of morons. Couldn’t make a pun with a dictionary and a Scrabble board.

  Like Louisa Guy, like Min Harper, Ho was at home this evening, though his home was his own, and a house not a flat. It was an odd house, though that was none of his doing: it had been odd when he’d bought it. Its oddness lay in its upstairs conservatory; a glass-roofed, tiled-floor mezzanine. The estate agent had made much of this feature, pointing out the array of plants that created a micro-climate there; natural and green and eco-whatever peppering her spiel. Ho had nodded like he cared, calculating how many electronics he could fit into here once this eco-shit was off the premises. Quite a lot had been his estimate. This turned out to be the precise exact amount.

  So now he sat surrounded by quite a lot of electronics, some quietly awaiting his touch; others humming pleasantly in response to pre-set commands; and one blasting out death metal at a volume that threatened to make the genre literal.

  He was too old for this music, and he knew it. He was too old for this volume, and knew that too. But it was his music, his house, and the neighbours were students. If he didn’t make his own noise, he’d have to listen to theirs.

  Currently, he was virtually crawling through Home Office personnel files. Not looking for anything in particular. Just looking because he could.

  Ho’s parents had left Hong Kong ten years before handover, and Ho—who obsessed about what-ifs; who’d devoured you-make-the-decisions books as a teenager, when not playing Dungeons and Dragons relentlessly, unsleepingly—often wondered how he’d have turned out if they’d stayed. Odds on he’d have been a webhead in a more commercial area, software design or SFX, or lackeying for some vast faceless corporation whose tendrils touched every corner of the known world. Odds on he’d be pulling down more money than he was now. But he wouldn’t have these opportunities.

  The previous evening he’d been on a date with a woman he’d met on the tube that morning. They hadn’t spoken. First dates were like that.

  She’d been mousy blonde, and wore a regulation City outfit—charcoal jacket and skirt, white blouse—but what attracted Ho was her
building pass, which dangled on a chain round her neck. Strap-hanging eight inches away, he had no trouble reading her name; ten minutes after reaching Slough House, he’d established her address and marital status (single); her credit history (pretty good); her medical records (usual female stuff); and was wandering through her e-mails. Work. Spam. A bit of flirting with a colleague, which was going nowhere. Plus, she was looking to buy a second-hand car, and had responded to an ad in her local free press. The owner hadn’t replied.

  So Ho gave him a call, and established that he’d already sold the car but hadn’t bothered informing the unlucky enquirers. That was fine Ho assured him before calling the woman himself, to see if she was still interested in a six-year-old Saab. She was, so they arranged to meet that evening in a wine bar. Ho, established in a corner before she turned up, had watched her grow visibly more frustrated over the following hour; had even thought of approaching her; sitting her down and explaining that you couldn’t be too careful—that you could not. Be. Too. Careful. A security pass on a chain round her neck? Why not sport a badge reading Rape My Life? Financial details, favourite websites, numbers dialled, calls received. All it took was a name, and one other bite: place of work did fine. Tax codes, criminal records, loyalty cards, travel passes. It wasn’t simply that these things could be found, along with everything else. It was that they could be changed. So you leave home one morning, security pass like a cowbell round your neck, and by the time you reach work your life’s not your own any more.

  Roderick Ho was here to tell this woman that.

  But hadn’t, of course. He’d watched until she’d given up and left in a storm of silent fury, and then finished his alcohol-free lager, and walked home satisfied that he’d had her in the palm of his hand.

  His secret.

  One among many.

  So now he sat in front of his screen, not hearing the music blasting through his room; not even blinking. A Home Office flunkey might as well be standing by his monitor, ushering him in; leading him to the filing cabinets. Offering him a key. Would sir like an alcohol-free lager while he prowled? Why, yes. Sir would.