Chapter 1

Summary

Two days after the Westacres bomb, which killed upwards of forty, Slough House wakes to a cold January morning and a heating system that knocks and gurgles. Jackson Lamb’s office is empty. Moira Tregorian, on her second day, is sorting the paper mountain Catherine Standish left behind, finds Standish’s discharge papers still awaiting Lamb’s signature, and resolves to speak sharply to a man she has never met. Downstairs Louisa Guy describes her new flat while River Cartwright broods; JK Coe, River’s room-mate of two months, silently mimes a Keith Jarrett recital at his desk; Roderick Ho gloats over a new jacket, a new girlfriend and his beard; and Marcus Longridge waterboards Shirley Dander with a jug and a flannel, which becomes an argument about whether he would do it to a real suspect. Moira comes down, meets River and Louisa, and lets slip that Lamb has emailed her an invitation to lunch “soon”; the pair scatter. In Kent, David Cartwright fixes the date as 4 January, loses his thread, walks to the village, reads a dark neighbours’ house and a flickering lamp as surveillance, and reaches the shop in his pyjama trousers. Lamb never appears; the horses leave at dusk, River and Louisa to a pub, Moira last, after peering into Lamb’s office.

Beats

• C01S01 · Narrator — The chapter opens on Slough House’s dying heating system on a cold January morning, two days after the Westacres bomb, with Lamb’s office standing empty. Moira Tregorian, on her second day, is alone in Catherine Standish’s old room, sorting papers Lamb dumped there and getting nowhere. In the kitchen Louisa Guy talks about her new flat while River Cartwright broods; in River’s office JK Coe silently mimes a Keith Jarrett recital, and one floor down Marcus Longridge is waterboarding Shirley Dander.
• C01S02 · Marcus Longridge — Shirley, tied to a chair with belts and scarves, lasts, by Marcus’s reckoning, under seven seconds under the flannel and gives the wrong word instead of the agreed safety word. Marcus says he would do it for real to a terrorist and drown him, and Shirley answers that it would be murder; he calls it housekeeping. They agree the broken chair must be shifted into Ho’s office, and that Ho will keep quiet for fear of his beard.
• C01S03 · Roderick Ho — Ho arrives in a new black leather jacket, delighted with himself, and rehearses a fantasy in which Lamb agrees to upgrade his equipment. He posts a one-star Amazon review, grooms his beard, and recalls fending off what he took to be Louisa’s interest. He has a girlfriend now, singular, and returns to the Dark Web deaf to his leaking radiator.
• C01S04 · Moira Tregorian — Moira takes stock of the top-floor office she has inherited: Catherine’s pens, paperweight and a full bottle of whisky boxed up, condensation and mould on the frames. Among the forms she finds Standish’s discharge papers, needing only Lamb’s signature, and reflects on her own record keeping the Queens of the Database in trim at Regent’s Park. A thump from below sends her down to investigate.
• C01S05 · Louisa Guy — Louisa and River size Moira up—fifties, five-three, red cardigan—and River calls her a replacement for Catherine, one in and one out. Moira interrupts to say that two days after a terrorist incident they might be doing something useful, then reveals that Lamb has emailed her an invitation to lunch “soon”. River and Louisa treat that as imminent and scatter, but not before River asks Louisa for a quick drink, saying he is worried about his grandfather.
• C01S06 · David Cartwright — In Kent, David Cartwright ties his tie in the hall and fixes the date as 4 January, holding on to the habit of knowing where and when he is. He remembers that River was seven when they first met, that Rose is dead, and that his own career was nothing like the version his grandson imagines. He loses the thread of what he was about to do, recovers it—bread and bacon, in case River calls—and checks his tie again before leaving.
• C01S07 · Marcus Longridge — Marcus and Shirley discuss Ho’s improbable girlfriend while posing at their screens, Marcus’s showing five years of burnt-out vehicles that he suspects Lamb invented as busywork. His thoughts slide to the final demands in his drawer, Cassie’s talk of taking the children to her mother’s, and his gambling. He calculates that his death-in-service payout would clear everything, and is pulled out of it by Shirley attacking her keyboard.
• C01S08 · David Cartwright — David pulls on his wellingtons, remembering the morning he called River out to splash in puddles and taught him what “stoats” meant. He recognises that the voice he used belongs to the years when River was a boy, and that watchers now use drones and cameras rather than bent grass. He admits he sometimes wakes from a doze unsure what has changed, and the Westacres bomb surfaces as a loss he might have prevented before the thought slips away.
• C01S09 · JK Coe — Coe lets the Jarrett recital erase his thoughts for half an hour, and recalls the HR conversation about whether he was happy in his work. He remembers a bus on Regent Street where a stranger noticed his hands moving, and traces his route from banking to the Service’s Psych Eval section to Slough House. The ordeal behind it—tied naked to a chair, another naked man with an electric carving knife—is given in detail; River, watching from across the room, decides not to interfere.
• C01S10 · David Cartwright — David skirts the flooded driveway, takes a bootful of water from the hedge, and notes his neighbours’ dark windows, a newspaper of parental grief and a streetlamp flickering as if tampered with. In the wood he remembers teaching River that the way to survive a trap is to seem oblivious and vanish when they blink, and a bird-whistle is answered by another. He goes on towards the village, watching the leaves for snares.
• C01S11 · Marcus Longridge — Shirley and Marcus sort the staff into “issues” (his gambling, her irritability) and “fuck-ups” (River, Louisa, Min), with Catherine filed as an issue. Shirley asks what JK Coe is; Marcus tells her to ask Coe himself. She recounts the rabbit-costume assault that sent her to Anger Fucking Management twice a week in Shoreditch. She ends on the thought that a youngish white man, fucked up and seething, is already on the staff: River is being replaced.
• C01S12 · David Cartwright — A car slows at the sight of him, seems about to stop, then speeds up, which David takes as meant to provoke a reaction. He rehearses the shopkeeper’s recent questions—chatting less, listening more—and concludes that his neighbours, and possibly even River, could have been replaced. In the shop the woman stares at him with horror and pity: he has walked to the village in his pyjama trousers.
• C01S13 · Narrator — Lamb never appears; the horses leave one by one, Louisa and River together for a pub where they will know nobody. Moira is last out, and gives in to curiosity in Lamb’s office—dank, blind-drawn, lit by one lamp on a stack of telephone directories, empty bottles about. She resists the urge to tidy, turns the lamp off, and lets herself out into Aldersgate Street.

People

• Jackson Lamb — head of Slough House, absent all day; he has emailed Moira an invitation to lunch “soon”.
• Catherine Standish — Moira’s predecessor, gone abruptly; her boxed belongings and unsigned discharge papers are still in her old office.
• Moira Tregorian — new office manager on her second day, excavating the paperwork and resolving to speak sharply to Lamb.
• River Cartwright — in the kitchen with Louisa, brooding, then asks her for a drink because he is worried about his grandfather.
• Louisa Guy — describes her new flat to River and tries to head off whatever he is working up to saying.
• JK Coe — River’s room-mate and a slow horse of two months, silently playing an imaginary piano at his desk.
• Roderick Ho — cheerful in a new leather jacket, grooming his beard and nursing news of a girlfriend.
• Marcus Longridge — waterboards Shirley as an experiment, then broods on gambling debts, red letters and his wife’s patience.
• Shirley Dander — volunteers as the waterboarding subject, then argues the morality of it with Marcus.
• David Cartwright — River’s grandfather in Kent, losing his thread and reading his village as a surveillance target.

Places

• Slough House — the Service’s exile office near the Barbican, on Aldersgate Street in Finsbury, where the office scenes take place.
• Regent’s Park — the Park, Service headquarters, where Moira previously kept the Queens of the Database in trim.
• Westacres — the shopping centre bombed two days before, referred to throughout the day.

Lines worth keeping

“Blowing up forty-two kids in a shopping centre is murder. Waterboarding a suspected terrorist to death, that’s housekeeping.” — Marcus Longridge, Justifying waterboarding to Shirley: he would keep going until a suspect told him everything.

“shoot me like a horse.” — David Cartwright, His standing instruction to River, repeated more than once, for when he loses his mind.

“Because he was not quite defenceless, as they would discover to their cost.” — Narrator, David, having walked to the village in his pyjamas, reassures himself he is armed with more than dignity.

“I’m worried about my grandfather.” — River Cartwright, The real reason he wants a drink with Louisa, after the business about Lamb’s lunch.

Threads

• Plants: Standish’s discharge papers sit unsigned on Moira’s desk and her belongings are boxed: her departure is unexplained and unfinished.; Lamb emails Moira an invitation to lunch “soon” and then fails to appear all day.; Coe’s nightmares—tied naked to a chair, a naked man with an electric carving knife—are given in detail and left unexplained.; Ho has a girlfriend, unnamed and unseen, and is anxious about being caught “providing consolation to another woman”.; Marcus reflects that his death-in-service payout would solve all his problems.; Shirley says River is “being replaced” by Coe.; “Stoats” is introduced as David’s word for watchers, alongside his insistence that he is “not quite defenceless”.; David remembers his daughter leaving River with them at seven and taking off for two years with a man, the only hint here about River’s father.
• Payoffs: The Westacres bomb of the prologue drives the whole day: the alert level, Marcus’s argument about torture, David’s sense of a loss he might have prevented.; Catherine Standish’s absence is visible in her empty office, her boxed belongings and her unsigned discharge papers.; Min’s death is recalled when Marcus classes him a “fuck-up”.
• Continuity: David dates the day 4 January; the Westacres blast was two days earlier; Lamb’s office is empty from first light to dusk.; Moira Tregorian is on her second day, has never met Lamb, and has taken over Catherine Standish’s top-floor room next to his.; Coe has been a slow horse for about two months and shares River’s office; River has a new room-mate.; David is twenty years retired, lives in Kent, is widowed, and his cover was the Ministry of Transport.; Marcus is married to Cassie and has children; his car was repossessed; he is gambling and hiding final demands.; Shirley attends Anger Fucking Management twice a week in Shoreditch after breaking a charity collector’s nose.; Louisa has bought a flat; Ho believes she once pursued him and that he fended her off.

Characters

• Jackson Lamb
• Catherine Standish
• Moira Tregorian
• River Cartwright
• Louisa Guy
• JK Coe
• Roderick Ho
• Marcus Longridge
• Shirley Dander
• David Cartwright

Places

• Slough House
• Regent's Park
• Westacres