Slow Horses

by Mick Herron

  ‘It’s not a theory once it’s proved. After that, it’s just a conspiracy.’

  ‘And sitting outside Hobden’s flat helps how?’

  ‘Let me get back to you in the morning.’

  ‘You’re seriously planning on sitting here all night?’

  ‘I hadn’t got as far as making it a plan.’

  She shook her head, then sipped from her cup. ‘If nothing happens, you’re buying breakfast.’

  He didn’t know what to say to that, but before it became obvious, another thought occurred to her.

  ‘River?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know you’re an idiot, don’t you?’

  He smiled but turned away first, so she wouldn’t notice.

  That was at ten. For the next hour, it seemed breakfast was on River; there was almost no movement on the street, and none involving Hobden. The light at his window remained steady. An occasional shadow on the curtain proved he was still in there, or that someone was—perhaps River should knock on his door. That might provoke a reaction.

  But provocation was a no-no. It distorts the data. Spider Webb, speaking up during a seminar: It distorts the data to provoke the target into a course of action he might not otherwise adopt. No doubt Spider had been parroting somebody who knew what he was talking about. On the other hand, if Spider was against it, River was for it.

  An argument he’d had with himself five times now, and wasn’t close to resolving.

  He stretched his legs as best he could, trying not to make it obvious. He was wearing everyday gear: blue jeans, a white collarless top under a grey V-neck. Sid wore black jeans and hooded sweater. Tradecraft, but she looked good in it. She’d pushed the car seat back and was mostly in shadow, but every so often her eyes picked up light from a nearby streetlamp and threw it in his direction. She was thinking about him. When a woman was thinking about you, it was always either a good thing or a bad thing. River had no idea which in this case.

  To put an end to it, he said, ‘So what made you sign up?’

  Now she held his gaze. ‘What else? The glamour.’

  ‘You’ve seen the show. Now live the life.’

  ‘I’m not stupid, you know.’

  ‘Didn’t think you were.’

  ‘I took a first in Oriental Languages.’

  ‘That’s got to be a comfort.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘It’d be a greater one if you’d shut up.’

  So he shut up.

  On the street the pavements stayed empty, and there was little traffic.

  Prowling his apartment … Hobden could be issuing orders on his mobile, or e-mailing confederates. But River didn’t think so. He didn’t think Hobden would be doing anything that rendered him vulnerable to electronic eaves-dropping. He was just prowling like a cat in a cage; waiting for something to happen.

  River could relate to that.

  Sid said, ‘You’re Service family.’

  He nodded.

  Once, it hadn’t been uncommon; the same way some families go in for police or plumbing. Even now, you’d encounter third- or even fourth-generation spooks; roles in life handed down like family silver. With a grandfather a Service legend, River had never stood a chance. But this was Sid’s story, so he said nothing.

  ‘I don’t have your pedigree. Never gave the Civil Service a thought, let alone this branch. I was heading for banking. Mum’s a barrister. I was going to be an even higher-paid banker. That’s how you measure success, isn’t it? Earning more than your parents.’

  He nodded again, though the thought of his mother earning money was quite funny.

  ‘But I was still at uni when the bombs went off.’

  And this was no surprise either. No one had joined the Service since the bombs without the bombs being part of the reason.

  He listened without looking at her. People talked about that day in different ways. Either it was a story about them in which bombs happened, or it was a story about the bombs, and they’d just happened to be there. Whichever this turned out to be, it would be easier for her if he wasn’t watching.

  ‘I was temping at a bank in the City. It was a holiday job, and I was pretty new, and I didn’t know you should wear trainers for the commute. And keep a pair of shoes in the office, you know? So anyway, I was coming out of Aldgate, and I heard it happen. It wasn’t just a noise, it was a … a sort of swelling. Like when you open a vacuum-packed jar, that release of air you get? Only bigger. And I knew what had happened—everyone knew what had happened. As if we’d all spent three and a half years waiting for it. And hadn’t realized it until that moment.’

  A car appeared at the far end of the road, its headlights pinning them into their seats.

  ‘The funny thing was, there was little panic. On the street, I mean. It was as if everyone knew this was a time for good behaviour. For not indulging in fake heroics … Letting the professionals do their job. And all the while, stories were spreading about other bombs, and buses blowing up, and something about a helicopter crashing into Buckingham Palace—I don’t know where that one came from.’

  There’d been other rumours too, spun at the speed of the web. For all the sangfroid on show, it had been a day on which you could peer through the fabric of the city itself, and see how fragile its underpinnings were.

  ‘Anyway, my office was being evacuated by the time I got there. We’d rehearsed for this. We used to gather outside, and everybody would look grim and check their watches while fire marshals counted heads. But I never even got inside the building that morning. You could see their point. That would have been a hell of a good time to rob a bank.’

  Her voice had settled into that pattern people fall into when they know they’ll not be interrupted; when a tale they’ve rehearsed in their head is finding an audience. If they were anywhere but in a car, River thought, he could sneak quietly away, and Sid would keep talking.

  She said, ‘Anyway. I keep saying that, don’t I? Anyway. Anyway, I walked home. A lot of Londoners did that on the seventh of July. It was walk home from work day. And by the time I got home, my feet were in ribbons … I’d been wearing heels for work. Because I was new, and because I wanted to look smart and feel sexy, because this was the City, after all … And because nobody told me that my second week on the job, a bunch of murderers were going to take their lunatic grievances into the underground, kill fifty-six people and close London for half a day.’ She blinked. ‘I got home and put my shoes in a cupboard and that’s where they’ve been ever since. Everybody’s got their own memorial, haven’t they? Mine’s a pair of ruined shoes in a cupboard. Every time I look at them, I think about that day.’ Now she looked at River. ‘I’m not being very clear, am I?’

  ‘You were there.’ It came out a croak. He cleared his throat. ‘It’s your memory. It doesn’t have to be clear.’

  ‘What about you?’

  Where’d he been when the bombs went off, she meant.

  As it happened he’d been on leave; a make-or-break Italian jaunt with his last serious girlfriend, a civilian. So he’d watched the day unfurl on CNN, when not frantically altering his flight home. ‘His’ flight, because she’d stayed. He wasn’t certain she’d ever returned.

  Sometimes, River Cartwright felt like a career soldier who’d never seen action.

  Instead of answering, he said, ‘So that’s why you joined. To stop anything like that happening again.’

  ‘Makes me sound naive, doesn’t it?’

  ‘No. It’s part of the job.’

  Sidonie said, ‘What I thought was, even if I’m only filing cards. Trawling through websites. Even if I’m just making cups of tea for the people who are stopping it happen again, that’ll be enough. Just to be part of it.’

  ‘You are part of it.’

  ‘So are you.’

  But making cups of tea is not enough, he didn’t say.

  Down the road, another car turned off the main drag and almost immediately pulled into a space. For a moment it
sat, lights on, and River could make out the purr of its engine. Then it died.

  ‘River …’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You wanted to know why I was assigned to Slough House.’

  River said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘I have been.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t need the details.’ Because when you got down to it, it didn’t take a genius. Sid must have embarrassed the wrong person, either by not sleeping with him—or her—or by sleeping with him or her, and still being there in the morning. She didn’t belong in Slough House. But that wasn’t a reason to make her tell him about it. He said, ‘I’ve messed up plenty myself.’

  Bombs on underground trains had propelled Sid into the Service. A non-existent bomb on an underground platform had all but propelled River out of it. One day he might be able to say something like that out loud, and hear her laugh; hear himself laugh, even. But not yet.

  ‘I didn’t mess up, River.’

  River’s view of the newly parked car was mostly blocked by the car in front, but he could tell nobody had got out of it.

  ‘I mean, there’s a reason I’m there.’

  Could be making a phone call. Or waiting for someone. Maybe here was a rare example of someone who’d pull up near a friend’s house after dark, and refrain from blowing their horn to announce their presence.

  ‘River?’

  He didn’t want to hear it. Might as well come clean; he didn’t want to hear about Sid’s sexual history. Months of pretending she barely existed; it had been a way of guarding against rejection, because Christ knew, he was already a reject. The whole world knew about him crashing King’s Cross. The footage was used for training purposes.

  ‘Christ …’

  There might have been movement down the road. Did one shadow leave the parked car, and join the larger shadows on the pavement? He couldn’t tell. But if it had, it had been too clean to be an accident.

  ‘Will you pay afuckingttention?’

  ‘I’m listening,’ he said. ‘So what’s the reason? For you being at Slough House?’

  ‘You are.’

  And now he did pay afuckingttention. Sid, half her face in shadow, the other half white as a plate, said, ‘I was put there to keep an eye on you, River.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  The one eye he could see gazed steadily back. He’d known good liars, and maybe Sid was one. But she wasn’t lying now.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re not supposed to know about this.’

  ‘But you’re telling me. Right? You’re telling me.’

  This choking feeling was nothing new. He felt it every morning, familiar as an alarm clock. It was what dragged him out of sleep. White shirt. Blue tee. Blue shirt. White tee … Some days he couldn’t remember which way round Spider had said it, and which way round the guy was dressed; all he knew for certain was that Spider had set him up, but underlying that was a layer of puzzlement. Spider had screwed him to clear his own career path? It wasn’t that he didn’t think Spider that kind of bastard. Spider was exactly that kind of bastard. But Spider wasn’t a clever enough bastard. If he had been, he wouldn’t have had to do it. He’d have had the edge over River to start with.

  And now here was Sid telling him someone else had been responsible—that someone had been pulling River’s strings. Sid had been put in Slough House to keep an eye on him. And who could have done that, except whoever had put River there to start with?

  ‘Sid—’

  And now her eyes were widening and she was pointing over his shoulder. ‘River? What’s that?’

  He turned in time to glimpse a black shape disappearing over the five-foot wall to the right of Hobden’s window.

  ‘Sid?’

  ‘Looked like—’ Her eyes widened. ‘One of the achievers?’

  Black-clad. Heavy weaponry. So called because they got the job done.

  River was out of the car before she’d finished. ‘Watch the door. I’ll take the wall.’

  But pretty much hit the wall, in fact, misjudging his vault. He had to back up and try again. An undignified scramble dropped him into a garden: mostly lawn, trimmed by a narrow flowerbed. Plastic furniture here and there; a table with a forlorn, dripping umbrella. And nobody in sight.

  How long since that shape had appeared? Fifteen seconds? Twenty?

  The building had a shared lobby round the back. This had a double-fronted, glass-panelled door, which hung open. Down the corridor to River’s left another door closed as he stepped into the lobby, cutting in two a noise that had barely begun. Half a syllable. A note of shock.

  River’s boots click-clacked on the lobby’s tiles.

  There were two doors to choose from, but if his mental map was accurate, Hobden’s was on the left. He guessed the man in black had gone straight in—skeleton key or pick. But was this really an achiever? And if it was, what did River think he was doing … But it was too late, time was happening too fast; he was here and now, bracing himself against the corridor wall. The same boot that had click-clacked across the lobby hit the door with a splintering thud, and the door broke open, and River was inside the flat.

  A short corridor, more doors to either side, both ajar, bathroom and bedroom. The corridor ended in a sitting room, on the far side of which was the front door he’d been watching from across the road; the rest of the room was books, papers, portable TV, shabby sofa, table strewn with leftover takeaway, curtained window through which he’d watched Hobden’s shadow prowling, prowling; a restless movement suggesting he’d been expecting something. And here he was, the shadow’s owner.

  River hadn’t laid eyes on Hobden before, but this had to be him: average height, thinning brownish hair, look of terror as he turned to face this new intrusion even while crushed in an arm-lock by the previous invader, the achiever—except this wasn’t an achiever: he was blackclad, wore a balaclava, had a utility belt round his waist, but the ensemble lacked the hi-tech tailoring of the genuine article. Besides, what he held to Hobden’s head was a .22: small, and non-Service issue.

  And now the gun swung towards River, and its size became insignificant. He held out an arm, as if trying to placate an upset dog. ‘Shall we put that down?’ Astonishing himself with his banality of expression and evenness of tone. Hobden erupted, an unpunctuated gabble—‘What’s going on who are you why’—and the black-clad man silenced him with a tap on the head, then made an on-the-floor gesture at River. Disconnected thoughts held a confab in River’s head. This isn’t an op. Take him down. What makes you sure he’s alone? Their meeting done, his thoughts scattered. River knelt, measuring the distance between his hand and the heavy-looking ashtray on the nearby table. Still the man didn’t speak. Arm round Hobden’s throat, he swung him towards the front door, gun still levelled at River. Briefly, he released the journalist while opening the door. Cold air rushed in. Grabbing Hobden again he backed out, attention trained on River. Whatever his plan was, it didn’t take Sid into account, who was waiting outside. She grabbed Hobden’s arm, and River seized the ashtray and leaped forward, intending to club the gunman. Hobden fell to the pavement. River reached the other pair in moments; the third part of a triangle which proved anything but eternal. The gun made a quiet cough. The trio dispersed.

  Of them, one fell to the ground, landing perfectly in a puddle which hadn’t been there a moment ago. It swarmed, spread, and formed an inky stream to the gutter, hardly disturbed at all by the sounds of flight and fear and grief now gathering round it.

  Part Two

  Sly Whores

  Chapter 9

  Now that he knew he was going to die, a sense of calm had settled upon Hassan. It was almost surreal, though surreal wasn’t quite the word. Transcendental, that was it. He had achieved an inner peace, the like of which he’d never known. When you got down to it, life was a rollercoaster. The details of the excitement escap
ed him now, but there must have been plenty of it, or this feeling of release wouldn’t be so welcome. He wouldn’t have to go through any of it again, whatever it had been. Dying seemed a small price to pay.

  And if he could have remained in that state he might have cruised through his remaining hours, but every time he reached this point in the argument, when dying and price made their ugly meanings felt, his mind emptied of peace and calm and swarmed instead with panic. He was nineteen years old. He’d never been on an actual rollercoaster, let alone known life to be one. He’d had little of anything he had a right to expect. Had never stood in a spotlight, unreeling one-liners for an adoring crowd.

  Larry, Moe and Curly.

  Curly, Larry and Moe.

  Who were these people, and why had they chosen him?

  Here was the story: Hassan was a student who wanted to be a comedian. But the fact was, he’d probably end up doing something totally usual; utterly office-based. Business Studies, that was Hassan’s course. Business fucking Studies. It wasn’t entirely true to say that his father had chosen it for him, but it was true that his father had been a lot more supportive of this than he would have been of, say, drama. Hassan would have liked to study drama. But he’d have had to fund it himself, so where had the harm been in going with the flow? That way, he’d had the flat, and the car, and, well, something to fall back on. That was Business Studies: something to fall back on if the career in stand-up crashed and burned.

  He wondered now how many people there were, including those not under threat of execution in a damp cellar, who were living their back-up plan; who were office drones or office cleaners, teachers, plumbers, shop assistants, IT mavens, priests and accountants only because rock and roll, football, movies and authordom hadn’t panned out. And decided that the answer was everyone. Everyone wanted a life less ordinary. And only a tiny minority ever got it, and even they probably didn’t appreciate it much.

  So in a way, Hassan was sitting pretty. A life less ordinary was what he now had. Fame was waiting in the wings. Though it was true that he wasn’t appreciating it much, except during those transcendental moments of inner peace, when it was clear that the rollercoaster ride was over, and he could let go, let go, let go …