Slow Horses

by Mick Herron

  Ho plucked the can from the holder screwed to his desk.

  Thank you, flunkey.

  He contemplated swapping the birth dates of some of the higher-ranking apparatchiks, which would mess up a pension plan or two, but was distracted by a link to an external site, which led him to another, and then another. It was surprising how quickly time passed: next time he looked up it was midnight, and he was miles from the Home Office; was navigating his way round a small-time plastics factory with deep-cover links to the MoD. More secrets. This was the playground he’d been born to run around in: didn’t matter where his parents ended up. This was his element, and he’d dig in it until time healed over; like a miser sifting heaps of dust, in search of the nugget of gold.

  And all of it was practice, nothing more. None of his trawling had brought him anywhere near uncovering the mystery that really tormented him.

  Roderick Ho knew exactly what sins had brought his colleagues to Slough House; the precise nature of the gaffes and blunders that had condemned them to the twilight of the second-rate. He had calibrated their wrongdoings to the minutest detail, knew the dates and places where they’d fallen, and understood the consequences of their screw-ups better than they did themselves, because he’d read the arse-covering e-mails their superiors had subsequently penned. He knew exactly whose hand had given the thumbs-down in every instance. He could quote chapter and verse, chapter and verse.

  For every sin but two.

  One was Sid Baker’s, and he was starting to have his suspicions about that.

  As for the other, it remained as elusive as that hidden nugget.

  Ho raised the can once more, but it was empty. Without looking behind, he tossed it over his shoulder; had forgotten about it by the time it hit the wall.

  Kept his eyes glued to his screen.

  Every sin but two.

  * * *

  The days when he’d been a creature of instinct were in Jackson Lamb’s past. They belonged to a slimmer, smoother version of himself. But previous lives never really disappear. The skins we slough, we hang in ward-robes: emergency wear, just in case.

  Approaching his house, he became aware of a figure lurking in the shadow of the adjoining lane.

  A shortlist of suspects wouldn’t have been hard to draw up. Lamb had made enemies over the years. Lamb, to be frank, had made enemies over the days—it never took him long. So he rolled his Standard into a baton as he neared the junction; rotated it hand to hand, as if conducting music in his head. He must have looked oblivious to the world. He must have looked an easy target.

  He must have looked a lot less friendly two seconds later.

  His arms knew the movement. Like falling off a bike.

  ‘Jesus mister—’

  And then the voice was cut off by the Standard: a brief taste of the thrills you could expect if you poked a sleeping beast with too short a stick.

  A light went on nearby. It wasn’t a neighbourhood where anyone was likely to step outside to question events, but it wasn’t unusual for residents to want a closer look.

  In the brief yellow glow before a curtain was drawn, Lamb saw he’d netted a kid; just another teenage hustler. His face so dappled with acne, someone might have carved him with a knife.

  Slowly, he removed the newspaper from the boy’s mouth. The boy promptly threw up.

  Lamb could walk away. It wasn’t like the boy would follow, seeking vengeance. But on the other hand, he didn’t have far to walk. The kid would see which house he went into. Lamb’s life was built up of moments in which he decided who should know what. In this particular instance, he decided he didn’t want this kid learning anything new. So he waited, right hand clutching the kid’s collar. The left had discarded the Standard, which had reached its use-by date even more swiftly than usual.

  At length, the kid said: ‘Jesus Christ—’ Lamb let him go.

  ‘I was mindin me own business.’

  Lamb was interested to find that he was only mildly out of breath.

  ‘You some kind of fuckin lunatic?’

  Except that, now he thought about it, his heart was racing, and he could feel a strangely unpleasant heat pulsing at his forehead, and through his cheeks.

  The kid was still speaking. ‘Not doin any harm.’

  There was a self-pitying twang to this assertion, as if it were a temporary victory.

  Lamb rode over his body’s complaints. He said, ‘So what are you doing?’

  ‘Hangin.’

  ‘Why here?’

  A sniff. ‘Everybody’s gotta be somewhere.’

  ‘Not you,’ Lamb said. ‘You go be nowhere, somewhere else.’ He found a coin in his pocket: two quid, two pee; he didn’t know and didn’t care. He tossed it over the kid’s shoulder. ‘Okay?’

  When the kid had disappeared from view, he waited a few minutes more.

  His heart slowed to its normal rate. The sweat on his forehead cooled.

  Then Jackson Lamb went home.

  Not everyone was so lucky that night.

  He was nineteen years old. He was very frightened. His name didn’t matter.

  You think we give a toss who you are?

  He’d parked the car two streets away, because that was as close as you could get. This area of Leeds was slowly overcrowding—too many immigrants, his father had laughed; too many Poles and East Europeans, coming over here, ‘taking our jobs’: ha ha, dad—and as he’d walked back he’d been working on a riff about how it was a funny thing with cars: there wasn’t anything else you owned which you’d leave overnight two streets away and expect to find in the morning. There was something there, he knew. Throw in a two-beat pause …

  ‘Mind you, round our way, that’s gunna happen.’

  The thing about punchlines, they had to slide into the socket. No room for ambiguity. And never use two words when one will do, but that one word had to do its job. That’s gunna happen. By which he meant: of course, round our way, if you leave your car out overnight, it’ll get stolen. Would an audience pick that up straight off? It was all in the delivery.

  ‘Mind you, round our way, that’s gunna happen.’

  Pause.

  ‘Round our way, you leave your house on the street overnight—’

  And then the first shape appeared, and he’d known he was in trouble.

  He was in the back lane. He shouldn’t have taken the shortcut, but that was what happened when he was riffing: his feet took over while his brain went AWOL. Creativity was like being drunk, when you got down to it. He should make a note of that, but there was no time now because the first shape had stepped out of a garage doorway where he could have been taking a leak, or lighting up, or doing anything essentially innocent except for this one detail: he wore a stocking over his head.

  Fight or flight? Never in question.

  ‘If you ever find yourself in trouble … street hassle?’ Something his father had once said to him.

  ‘Dad, don’t even try.’

  ‘Aggro?’

  ‘Dad—’

  ‘A rumble?’

  ‘I know what you’re trying to say, dad. Use your own words to say it, okay?’

  ‘Run like hell,’ his father had said simply.

  Words to live by.

  But there was nowhere to run, because the first shape was just that: the first. When he turned there was a second. Also a third. They too wore stocking masks. The rest of their wardrobes faded into insignificance.

  Run like hell.

  Trust this: he tried.

  He got three yards before they put him on the ground.

  Next time he opened his eyes, he was in the back of a van. A foul taste in his mouth, and the memory of cotton wool. They’d drugged him? The van’s bouncing went on forever. His limbs were heavy. His head hurt. He slept again.

  Next time he opened his eyes, there was a bag on his head and his hands were tied. He was naked, except for his boxers. The air was damp and chill. A cellar. He didn’t have to see it to know. Or hear th
e voice to know he wasn’t alone.

  ‘You’re gunna be good, now.’

  It wasn’t a question.

  ‘You’re not gunna make any problems, and you’re not gunna try to escape.’ A pause. ‘No fuckin chance of that anyway.’

  He tried to speak, but all that came out was a whimper.

  ‘You need to piss, there’s a bucket.’

  And this time he managed to find a voice. ‘Wh—where?’

  His reply was a tinny kick over to his left. ‘Hear that?’

  He nodded.

  ‘That’s where you piss. Shit. Whatever.’

  Then something was dragged across the floor; something he couldn’t see but which sounded monstrous and punitive; a device they’d strap him to before applying sharp tools to his softer parts …

  ‘And here’s a chair.’

  A chair?

  ‘And that’s your lot.’

  And then he was alone again. Footsteps receding. A door shutting. A lock being thrown: that was the verb, thrown, as if any chance of opening that door had been heaved out of reach.

  His hands, tightly bound, were at least in front of him. He raised them to his head and pulled the sack off, nearly throttling himself in the process, but managing it. That was one small victory at least. He threw it to the floor, as if it were responsible for all that had happened these last—what? Hours?

  How long since they took him in the lane?

  Where was he now?

  And why? What was this about? Who were they, and why was he here?

  He kicked at the rag on the floor. Tears were running down his cheeks: how long had he been crying? Had he started before the voice left the room? Had the voice heard him crying?

  He was nineteen years old, and very frightened, and more than an audience—more than a roomful of people laughing at his routines—what he wanted was his mother.

  There was a chair in front of him, an ordinary dining-room chair, and with one swift kick he laid it flat on the floor.

  And there was a bucket in the corner, exactly as promised. He might have kicked that too, if the phrase didn’t have disturbing connotations.

  Wh—where?

  He hated himself that he’d said that. ‘Where’s the bucket?’ As if he’d been asking about the amenities in a guest-house. As if he’d been grateful.

  Who were these people? And what did they want? And why him?

  That’s where you piss. Shit. Whatever.

  They were going to keep him here long enough he’d need to take a crap?

  The thought buckled him at the knees. Crying took it out of you. He sank to the cold stone floor.

  If he hadn’t kicked the chair over, he’d have sat on it. But the task of putting it back on its legs was beyond him.

  What do they want from me?

  He’d not spoken aloud. But the words crawled back to him anyway, from the edges of the room.

  What do they want?

  There were no answers handy.

  A single lightbulb lit the cellar. It dangled, shadeless, three feet or so above him, and he became aware of it now mostly because it went out. For a few seconds, its glow hung in the air, and then it too went wherever ghosts go in the dark.

  He thought he’d felt panic before, but that was nothing to what he felt now.

  For the next moments he was entirely inside his own head, and it was the scariest place he’d been. Unspeakable horrors hid there, feeding on childhood nightmares. A clock struck, but not a real one. It was a clock he’d woken to once aged three or four, that had kept him awake the rest of the night, terrified that its tick-tick-ticking was the approach of a spindly-legged beast. That if he slept, it would have him.

  But he’d never be three or four again. Calling for his parents would have no effect. It was dark, but he’d been in the dark before. He was frightened but—

  He was frightened but alive, and angry, and this might be a trick; a rag-week stunt pulled by the cooler kids on campus.

  Angry. That was the thing to hold on to. He was angry.

  ‘Okay, guys,’ he said out loud. ‘You’ve had your fun. But I’m tired of pretending to be scared.’

  There was a tremor in his voice, but not much of one. Considering.

  ‘Guys? I said I’m tired of pretending.’

  It was a prank. A Big Brother-influenced routine he’d been made the butt of.

  ‘Guys? You’re pretty cool, okay. You think. But you know what?’

  He couldn’t see his own tied hands as he raised them to the level of his face, and extended both middle fingers.

  ‘Sit and spin, guys. Sit. And. Spin.’

  And then he set the chair on its feet once more, and sat, hoping that his shoulders didn’t betray how ragged his breathing was.

  It was important that he get himself under control.

  The thing to do was not lose his head.

  Chapter 4

  Earlier that evening, River had joined the commuter shuffle from London Bridge; by eight, he’d been on the outskirts of Tonbridge. A phone call on the move had been the only notice he gave, but there was no sense he’d caught the O.B. on the hop: supper was a pasta bake, and a big salad that hadn’t come from a bag.

  ‘You were wondering if you’d find me with a tin of beans in front of the telly.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘I’m all right, you know, River. At my age, you’re either alone or dead. Either way, you get used to it.’

  River’s grandmother had died four years ago. Now the Old Bastard, as River’s mother called him, rattled around the four-bedroomed house on his own.

  ‘He should sell the place, darling,’ she’d said to River on one of her vanishingly rare visitations. ‘Get himself a nice little bungalow. Or move into one of those residential complexes.’

  ‘I can see him going for that.’

  ‘It’s not all daytime TV and abuse these day. They have,’ and she’d waved her hand airily; her standard semaphore for trivial detail, ‘regulations.’

  ‘They could have Commandments,’ River told her. ‘It wouldn’t tear him from his garden. Is it his money you’re after?’

  ‘No, darling. I just want him to be unhappy.’

  That might have been a joke.

  After they’d eaten, River and his grandfather retreated to the study, the room where spirits were drunk. Protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, the O.B. clung to the pattern his wife had designed for their lives.

  Glenmorangie in hand, firelight dancing in the corners, River had asked, ‘Do you know Robert Hobden?’

  ‘That toad? What’s your interest?’

  He’d tried to sound bored, but a glint in his eye betrayed him.

  River said, ‘Casual. My interest in him’s casual.’

  ‘He’s a spent force.’

  ‘We specialize in them. At Slough House.’

  His grandfather studied him over the top of his spectacles. The ability to do this was a fine argument for wearing glasses. ‘They won’t keep you there forever, you know.’

  ‘I was given the impression they might,’ River said.

  ‘That’s the point. If you knew it was only for six months, it wouldn’t hurt.’

  It had already been more than six months, but they both knew that, so River said nothing.

  ‘You do your time. Whatever grunt work Jackson Lamb throws your way. Then you head back to Regent’s Park, sins forgiven. Fresh start.’

  ‘What was Lamb’s sin?’

  The O.B. pretended not to hear. ‘Hobden was a star in his day. His time on the Telegraph especially. He was their crime reporter, and did a series on the drug trade in Manchester which opened a lot of eyes. Up until then drugs were an American problem, most people thought. He was the real deal all right.’

  ‘I didn’t know he’d been a reporter. I thought he was a columnist.’

  ‘Eventually. Back then, most of them had been reporters. These days, all you need is a media studies degree and an uncle on staff. But don’t ge
t me started on how degraded that profession’s become.’

  ‘Good idea,’ River said. ‘I’m only here for the evening.’

  ‘You’re welcome to stay.’

  ‘Better not. Wasn’t he a member of the Communist Party?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘That didn’t raise eyebrows?’

  ‘Things aren’t always black and white, River. A wise man once said he wouldn’t trust anyone who hadn’t been a radical in his youth, and Communism was the radicalism of choice back then. What’s wrong with your hand?’

  ‘Kitchen mishap.’

  ‘Playing with fire.’ His expression changed. ‘A hand up?’

  River helped him to his feet. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Damn waterworks,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever get old, River.’

  He shuffled out. A moment later, the door to the downstairs bathroom closed.

  River sat, his chair’s leather soft as a diary’s binding. The study ticked pleasantly as he swirled the liquid in his glass.

  The O.B. had spent his working life in the service of his country, at a time when the battle lines were drawn less crookedly than now, but the first time River had seen him he’d been on his knees at a flowerbed, and couldn’t have looked less like a fighter in secret wars. He wore an umpire’s hat not broad enough to keep the sweat from trickling down his brow, and his face shone like a cheese. At River’s approach, he rocked back on his haunches, trowel in hand, speechless. River, seven years old, had arrived a quarter of an hour earlier, deposited by his mother and the man currently keeping his mother company. They’d left him on the doorstep with careless kisses and a curt nod respectively. Until that morning, he hadn’t known he’d had grandparents.

  ‘They’ll be delighted to have you,’ his mother had told him, throwing random articles of his clothing into a suitcase.

  ‘Why? They don’t even know who I am!’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’ve sent them photographs.’

  ‘When? When did you ever—?’

  ‘River. I’ve told you. Mummy has to go away. It’s important. You want Mummy to be happy, don’t you?’