Dead Lions / C00
Chapter 0
Summary
A prologue. A fuse blows at Swindon and the south-west rail network stops, stranding a Worcester-bound express outside London with a view of the Thames. Among the passengers is Dickie Bow, an ageing ex-Service man with no ticket, no watch and no destination: in a Soho pub he recognised a bald Muscovite he had last seen in Berlin, and he is following him. When the train reverses into Reading and the passengers are herded onto replacement coaches, Dickie keeps the man in view and boards the third bus. On the coach he takes stock of a life of black coffee, Guinness and whisky chasers, ex-wives, and a Service career that ended when the Wall came down and nobody needed his skills any more. He thinks about the slow horses, Jackson Lamb’s annex of the useless, and about the mobile phone in his hand, which has no messages and nobody waiting on them. There is an important message to deliver, but he does not know what it is or who should receive it. The bus pulls away towards Oxford, and Dickie dies in his seat, one soul short of the number it collected in the rain.
Beats
- C00S01 · Dickie Bow — When a trackside failure outside Swindon halted the Worcester-bound train, Dickie Bow, an ageing ex-spook carrying no ticket, fell in behind a bald Moscow hood he had recognised in Soho and followed him onto a replacement coach at Reading. Kept in sight through the crush of stranded passengers, Dickie took stock of a life of drink and tradecraft and died in his seat as the coach ran on towards Oxford. It arrived carrying one passenger fewer than it had collected in the rain.
People
- Richard Bough — Ageing, heavy-drinking ex-Service man following a face from his Berlin past; he dies on the replacement coach.
Lines worth keeping
“This is your train manager speaking. I’m sorry to have to inform you we can’t go any further due to trackside equipment failure outside Swindon.” — Train manager, announcing the stranded train
“Deadly weapons, he thought. Your nine-to-fivers carry deadly weapons.” — Dickie Bow, crowded off the train
“The world had moved on. It had left him behind.” — Dickie Bow, alone on the coach
Threads
- Plants: Two frail canoes are glimpsed on the Thames below the stalled train, whipping out of sight before Dickie can register them properly.; The hood is only a bit player — the man who once held the bottle — and the face Dickie actually remembers is never described.; Dickie dies with an unsent, undelivered message on him and no clear idea who it is for.
- Continuity: Dickie Bow died of a heart attack on a replacement coach running from Reading to Oxford on a wet March evening; he had no ticket.; The Worcester-bound HST was halted by a trackside equipment failure outside Swindon and reversed into Reading, where coaches took passengers onward.; Dickie had roughly sixteen pounds on him and a phone whose battery was failing.; Dickie knew Jackson Lamb from Berlin, and knew of the slow horses as the Service’s dumping ground.