Chapter 4

Summary

River Cartwright bluffs his way past the Regent’s Park front desk by asking for Diana Taverner, who meets him on the staircase. He tells her that James Webb is in a vegetative state and that Webb once said he would want the machines switched off; Taverner says the Park will have to decide if there is no family, promises to look into it, and warns him not to turn up unannounced again. River then doubles back, claims he needs her signature, and phones Security with a false report of an armed man in a car outside, hoping to draw the Dogs away. He takes the lift down to the records level, intending to photograph a file.

Molly Doran, the Park’s archivist, intercepts him among the stacks. She has no patience for his story, places him as one of Jackson Lamb’s and as David Cartwright’s grandson, and remarks that the file number he gives her belongs to the Prime Minister and is very much live. Security then takes him.

Elsewhere, Sylvester Monteith — the man from the bridge — waits in Postman’s Park and orders Sean Donovan to put a scare into their prisoner. Donovan drives into London. In an attic, Catherine watches him leave and cannot work out why she was taken, while Marcus Longridge and Shirley Dander eat ice cream and agree to be partners.

Beats

• C04S01 · River Cartwright — River gave his Service card at the Regent’s Park front desk and asked for Diana Taverner, an all-or-nothing bluff he hoped she would indulge out of curiosity. He took in the building’s Oxbridge front and its buried lower levels, and was told to meet her on the staircase.
• C04S02 · Marcus Longridge — Marcus Longridge and Shirley Dander ate ice cream in an Italian place near Smithfield while Shirley fended off questions about being dumped. Marcus reasoned from her refusal to say whether her partner was a he or a she that her girlfriend had left her, and got her to agree to drop the angry-victim act. They settled that they were partners, and he went to buy her more ice cream.
• C04S03 · River Cartwright — On the staircase River told Taverner that James Webb’s condition was hopeless and that Webb had once said he would want the machines switched off. Taverner said the Park would have to take the decision if there was no family, promised to look into it, and warned him not to turn up unannounced again or he would end up downstairs. She sent him off with thirty-one minutes left.
• C04S04 · Sylvester Monteith — Sylvester Monteith drank iced tea in Postman’s Park beneath the tiles commemorating heroic self-sacrifice and reflected that he had lit the cannon rather than thrown himself in front of it. He rang Sean Donovan, confirmed the van was on its way, and instructed him to give their guest a scare in the meantime so that he would have caused a woman to squeal. He then took a taxi.
• C04S05 · River Cartwright — River talked his way back up the stairs by claiming he needed Taverner’s signature, then slipped out of the desk’s sight and found the lifts. From the empty lobby he phoned the Park’s front desk and reported an armed man in a car outside, urging an immediate response. He pocketed his visitor’s laminate and stepped into the lift.
• C04S06 · Sean Donovan — Sean Donovan drove into London from the west and called Benjamin Traynor to confirm the schedule and pass on the instruction to scare the woman. Traynor reported that the kid, Bailey, was posted out front, and Donovan reckoned the next twenty minutes were the part that would not go wrong.
• C04S07 · River Cartwright — Riding the lift down, River recalled his grandfather’s lectures on why the Service still ran on paper: computers store information only in order to divulge it. He knew the Prime Minister’s vetting history was held off-line in the personnel archive, on the level he was descending to.
• C04S08 · Catherine Standish — Catherine watched from the attic window as Donovan drove off in the van, past a parked double-decker bus and three windowless outbuildings. She reasoned that she had been taken for what she did rather than for who she was, and could find nothing in Slough House’s recent work that would explain the trouble.
• C04S09 · River Cartwright — Molly Doran confronted River among the rolling stacks, refused his story, and observed that he had no requisition and no laminate. She told him the file number he had given her belonged to the Prime Minister and was therefore live, and let him talk his way into a tale about a bet. Security then took him, and she watched in silence.
• C04S10 · Catherine Standish — Catherine heard the padlock shift and sat up expecting Bailey, but the second soldier came in instead. He swept the room with a glance, rested his eyes on her and began to apologise. He did not look sorry.

People

• River Cartwright — bluffs into the Park and is caught in the records room
• Diana Taverner — hears him out on the staircase about Webb
• Marcus Longridge — eats ice cream with Shirley and calls out her break-up
• Shirley Dander — newly dumped, agrees to be Marcus’s partner
• Molly Doran — the Park’s archivist, who refuses River the file
• Sylvester Monteith — the man from the bridge, directing the operation by phone
• Sean Donovan — drives the van into London and relays the order
• Ben Traynor — guards Catherine’s house, spoken to by phone
• Catherine Standish — watches her captors from the attic
• Craig Dunn — the young guard Catherine expects at the door

Places

• Regent’s Park — the staircase, the records level
• The farmhouse — isolated house where Catherine is held

Lines worth keeping

““That’s a stupid combination. Strawberry and pistachio don’t go.”” — Shirley Dander, criticising Marcus’s ice cream

““You’ve been dumped, haven’t you?”” — Marcus Longridge, reading Shirley’s mood

““Not that there’s any harm in giving her a little scare in the meantime.”” — Sylvester Monteith, ordering the prisoner frightened

““Jackson Lamb’s lived so long under the bridge he’s half-troll himself now. But you should have met him a lifetime ago.”” — Molly Doran, remembering Lamb as a young man

Threads

• Plants: Molly Doran now knows River came for the PM’s vetting file; River’s false report sends Security out to a car containing two armed men; Taverner has promised to look into switching Webb’s machines off; Monteith expects a call once the operation is complete
• Payoffs: the man from the bridge is named as Sylvester Monteith; the file River must photograph is identified as the Prime Minister’s vetting file
• Continuity: Molly Doran runs the Park’s personnel archive and knew Lamb when he was young; River is David Cartwright’s grandson; Catherine is held in an attic of an isolated house with a parked double-decker bus outside; River has left his visitor’s laminate in the lift

Characters

• River Cartwright
• Diana Taverner
• Marcus Longridge
• Shirley Dander
• Molly Doran
• Sylvester Monteith
• Sean Donovan
• Ben Traynor
• Catherine Standish
• Craig Dunn

Places

• Regent's Park
• The farmhouse