Slough House

London Rules / C06

Chapter 6

Book 5 Part One 15331 words POV: Jackson Lamb, Claude Whelan, Dennis Gimball, River Cartwright

Summary

At Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner and Claude Whelan watch the hunt for the Abbotsfield killers stall: CCTV had traced the killers’ jeep as far as Sheffield before it vanished. A white-labelled file on Dennis Gimball, flagged in Molly Doran’s archive, reaches Whelan, who reads it and rearranges his afternoon. Before leaving he asks about Roderick Ho, held in a basement room and left to sweat; Whelan orders another couple of hours of soft time, weighing the risk of provoking Jackson Lamb.

Ho, believing himself in protective custody, complains about the plumbing and balances his chair. In Lamb’s office J.K. Coe reports a bomb found and disabled on an HST from Bristol to Paddington, then counts out the stages of a plan: destroy the village, poison the watering hole, cripple the railway. The slow horses deduce that the attacks reproduce a British black-op template for destabilising a small developing nation, and that Ho’s girlfriend Kim was the likely conduit. Coe says the next stage is to assassinate a populist leader.

Dennis Gimball, dressing at home, hears of the bomb and takes a call from Whelan, who asks to meet. The horses debate targets, Jaffrey and Gimball, and Lamb leaves, returning with Marcus’s gun wrapped in a newspaper. Whelan visits the Gimballs’ mews flat, warns Dennis off his speech, then names Dancing Bear and produces a photograph of Gimball in a flapper dress. Alone in his garden afterwards, Gimball decides to defy the threat and cast himself as a martyr.

Lamb aims the gun at Emma Flyte and has her handcuffed, then sends River with Coe after Gimball and Louisa with Shirley after Jaffrey. Catherine keeps Flyte company over tea; Lamb releases her, warning that joes are expendable. River drives Ho’s car, brooding on Coe, Sid Baker and his father; Coe rates the hit three in ten and their chances of stopping it below zero. Louisa and Shirley drive to Birmingham playing Yellow Car.

Flyte, in her car, decides to cover herself and phones Devon. Lamb drinks whisky with Catherine. In a van, Danny sits with three comrades and Joon’s cling-film-wrapped corpse.

Beats

  • C06S01 · Claude Whelan — Claude Whelan stood on the hub at Regent’s Park beside Diana Taverner, watching the hunt for the Abbotsfield killers stall: the jeep had last been seen on CCTV outside Sheffield. Upstairs the afternoon light fell through blinds, but the work happened below. Meanwhile, in Molly Doran’s archive, a file on Dennis Gimball surfaced, marked with a white label and a hand-drawn cross, and was passed up for First Desk’s attention.
  • C06S02 · Claude Whelan — Claude Whelan, who rarely left the building, read the Gimball file and rearranged his afternoon. Before going he asked about Roderick Ho, held in a basement room and left to sweat. Diana Taverner had suggested Ho might be a loose end the killers wanted cut, and Whelan weighed the difficulty of squeezing him without provoking Jackson Lamb. He ordered another couple of hours of soft time, then left to see Gimball.
  • C06S03 · Roderick Ho — Roderick Ho sat alone in the Park’s basement, convinced he was in protective custody and aggrieved at the single tap, the wonky floor and the forgotten energy drink. He thought about the attempt on his life the night before, and about Kim, his girlfriend, and Lady Di’s supposed distraction by him. He dragged his chair into a corner and passed the time seeing how far he could tip it before falling.
  • C06S04 · Jackson Lamb — Jackson Lamb’s office filled with the crew as J.K. Coe reported a bomb, found and disabled, on a train from Bristol to Paddington. Coe then counted three stages—destroy the village, poison the watering hole, cripple the railway—and the horses worked out that the attacks followed a British template for destabilising a small nation. Catherine Standish and Louisa Guy saw the watering hole as the giveaway; Coe said Ho had supplied the plan, and that the next stage was assassinating a populist leader.
  • C06S05 · Dennis Gimball — Dennis Gimball posed before a full-length mirror in his maroon blazer while Dodie, his wife, told him a bomb had gone off on a train and nobody had been hurt. She coached him to sound as though he knew more than he said. Then Claude Whelan telephoned and asked to meet; Gimball, flustered, agreed to see him at the flat and told Dodie who had called.
  • C06S06 · River Cartwright — River Cartwright pressed J.K. Coe for details while the others argued over which populist leader was meant; Catherine Standish named Dennis Gimball, and Shirley Dander said she would kill Peter Judd. Coe admitted the blueprint had five stages but could not say what the fifth was. Emma Flyte wanted the Park informed; River refused. Lamb returned from the toilet with a newspaper, unfolded it, and showed Flyte Marcus’s gun.
  • C06S07 · Claude Whelan — Claude Whelan arrived at the Gimballs’ mews flat, where Dodie let him in and warned him off. He told Dennis to abandon the speech accusing Zafar Jaffrey, and when Dennis blustered, Whelan said one word: Dancing Bear. He described the club’s video archive, then handed over a photograph of Gimball singing in a flapper dress. Dodie looked at her husband with sympathy and at Whelan with hatred; Whelan left for his car.
  • C06S08 · River Cartwright — River Cartwright and Louisa Guy collected their cars, River taking Ho’s, and recalled the last hour: Lamb aiming Marcus’s gun at Emma Flyte, Shirley’s handcuffs, and Lamb’s warning that the Park would black-ribbon them or worse. Lamb had split them into pairs, River with Coe and Louisa with Shirley, and named two possible targets. A coin toss gave River Gimball and Louisa Jaffrey. They parted, Louisa welcoming him to Slough House.
  • C06S09 · Dennis Gimball — Dennis Gimball smoked in his handkerchief-sized garden and rehearsed his ruin: a leadership bid collapsed into public climbdown. He took out the Dancing Bear photograph and argued himself round—nobody was hurt by it, he had done nothing criminal—until he concluded he could pose as a persecuted pioneer. He decided to reshape that night’s speech around the Service’s blackmail attempt, imagining the cheers, and looked forward to Whelan’s face.
  • C06S10 · Catherine Standish — Catherine Standish stayed in the office with Emma Flyte, handcuffed to a chair, and made her tea, holding the cup to her lips. They argued about Lamb, the Park and Flyte’s career; Catherine said Taverner would bin any warning Slough House produced. Lamb returned, ate Haribo, and set out Flyte’s choices: if Coe was right, killers were poised for a hit, and if he was wrong her career was finished anyway. Catherine unlocked the cuffs.
  • C06S11 · River Cartwright — River Cartwright drove Ho’s electric-blue car towards Slough with J.K. Coe beside him, thinking about Coe’s knife, his silence and the man he had shot. He thought about Sid Baker, his father and the O.B., who was dying, and decided Slough House could no longer hold him. When Coe woke, River asked how likely the attack was; Coe said three out of ten, and put their chances of stopping it below zero.
  • C06S12 · Louisa Guy — Louisa Guy drove Shirley Dander towards Birmingham, where Zafar Jaffrey was giving a talk in a library that evening, and endured Yellow Car, stolen sunglasses and ancient gum. Shirley asked why they were bothering if Coe was probably wrong; Louisa said it got them out of the office. She raised Marcus, and Shirley deflected. Louisa privately counted the trip as penance for letting Ho be attacked, and for shutting River down.
  • C06S13 · Emma Flyte — Emma Flyte sat in her car outside Slough House, hair tied back, rage running through her. She weighed her options: Whelan had enough on his plate, Taverner would use any report to bring her down as well as Lamb, and if the Abbotsfield killings were self-inflicted, anyone who knew might be expendable. She decided that London Rules began with covering her arse, hated that Lamb would expect it, and phoned Devon.
  • C06S14 · Catherine Standish — Catherine Standish drank whisky in Jackson Lamb’s office while the afternoon died outside, and told him Flyte would be rounding up her Dogs. Lamb argued Flyte would not complain, because a complaint would advertise her failure, and because Coe might be right. Catherine pointed out the crew were unarmed; Lamb said the killers were amateurs who had twice failed to kill Ho. He expected it all to go to shit as usual, and reached for her glass.
  • C06S15 · Danny — Danny sat in the killers’ van with Shin, An and one other, and the corpse of Joon, wrapped in cling film after falling neck-first through a window. He counted their failures since Abbotsfield—Ho twice, the train bomb—and blamed Shin’s flabby leadership and the loss of their uniforms. He resolved to report Shin once the plan was complete, and told himself the group needed only to keep their cool.

People

  • Diana Taverner — Second Desk (Ops) at Regent’s Park; has Ho brought in and suggests he may be a loose end the killers want cut.
  • Claude Whelan — First Desk and Head of the Secret Service; orders Ho kept sweating, then confronts Gimball with Dancing Bear.
  • Molly Doran — Park archivist whose collection holds the white-labelled file on Gimball.
  • Dennis Gimball — MP planning a speech against Zafar Jaffrey; blackmailed by Whelan and left deciding to defy him.
  • Roderick Ho — Slow horse and tech specialist, held in a Park basement and unaware he is a suspect.
  • Jackson Lamb — Head of Slough House; reads the pattern in the attacks, arms himself with Marcus’s gun and sends the crew out.
  • JK Coe — Slow horse and former psych-eval analyst who recognises the black-op template and predicts the assassination.
  • Emma Flyte — Head Dog; handcuffed by Lamb, released, then resolves to protect herself.
  • Catherine Standish — Slough House administrator; keeps Flyte company, unlocks her cuffs and drinks whisky with Lamb.
  • Shirley Dander — Slow horse paired with Louisa for Birmingham; supplies the handcuffs and deflects questions about Marcus.
  • River Cartwright — Slow horse paired with Coe; drives Ho’s car towards Gimball’s constituency.
  • Louisa Guy — Slow horse paired with Shirley; drives to Birmingham to find Jaffrey.
  • Dodie Gimball — Dennis’s wife and a columnist; present at Whelan’s visit and promises the power of the press.
  • Zafar Jaffrey — Politician named as the likely populist target; speaking at a library in Birmingham that evening.
  • Kim Park — Ho’s girlfriend, identified by the horses as the probable point of contact between Ho and the killers.
  • Peter Judd — Politician waiting out a hiccup in his career; named by Shirley as someone she would kill.
  • Ingrid Tearney — Whelan’s predecessor, cited for her time on the Washington circuit.
  • Marcus Longridge — Dead colleague whose gun Lamb keeps and uses to threaten Flyte.
  • David Cartwright — River’s grandfather, the O.B., who is dying.
  • Sid Baker — River’s former office-mate, shot in the head, her fate unknown to him.
  • Isobel Dunstable — River’s mother, named in his thoughts about his father.
  • Claire — Whelan’s wife, whose judgement he imagines.
  • Devon Welles — The ally Flyte phones at the end of the chapter.
  • Danny — One of the killers; despises Shin’s leadership and resolves to report him.
  • Shin — Leader of the killer group, blamed by Danny for the failures.
  • An — Killer who failed to run Ho over the previous morning.
  • Joon — Killer killed falling neck-first through a window; his corpse is wrapped in cling film.

Places

  • Regent’s Park — MI5 headquarters; the hub, the archive and the basement rooms where Ho is held.
  • Slough House — Lamb’s office and the slow horses’ base.
  • Abbotsfield — Village where twelve people were killed.
  • Birmingham — Jaffrey’s home city, where he speaks at a library.

Lines worth keeping

“Assassinate a populist leader” — J.K. Coe, Coe names the next stage of the plan in Lamb’s office.

“It was never meant for a state the size of Britain.” — Jackson Lamb, Lamb explains that the template was designed for a small country.

“Perhaps Ho was aiding them, intentionally or not. In which case . . .” — Diana Taverner, Taverner suggests to Whelan that Ho may be a loose end.

“If you go ahead with the speech you’re planning, your career will be over before the shipping forecast’s aired.” — Claude Whelan, Whelan threatens Gimball in the Gimballs’ flat.

“I think they’re going to laugh their fucking hearts out.” — Claude Whelan, Whelan tells Gimball how the photograph will be received.

“Less than zero.” — J.K. Coe, Coe rates the crew’s chances of stopping the attack, in the car.

“Because we’re trying to prevent a disaster, not cause one.” — Louisa Guy, Louisa explains to River why Shirley and Coe must not be paired.

“There were five of them, and one was dead.” — Narrator, Opening of the section inside the killers’ van.

Threads

  • Plants: Molly Doran’s file on Gimball carries a white label with a hand-drawn cross, marking a chink a key could be turned in.; Coe says the blueprint has five stages but cannot name the fifth; only four are known.; Lamb keeps Marcus’s gun folded inside a newspaper and shows it to Flyte.; London Rules, rule one: cover your arse.; Flyte phones Devon rather than report to Whelan or Taverner.; Danny resolves to report Shin once the operation is over.; River decides he may kill his father, and that Slough House is no longer enough for him.; Shirley refuses to talk about Marcus; Louisa means to start probing.; Ho’s girlfriend Kim is identified as the link between Ho and the killers.
  • Payoffs: The Gimball file from the archive becomes the Dancing Bear threat Whelan delivers in person.; Whelan’s order to leave Ho sweating gives Lamb the window he uses, since Flyte confirms the Park will question Ho only after hours of soft time.; Marcus’s gun, produced at the end of the office scene, is aimed at Flyte in the flashback.; Coe’s earbuds and silence are explained as a barrier, and his month-long silence is why Lamb trusts his warning.; Shirley’s Haribo and the lipstick-red mouth recur when Lamb eats from her abandoned bag.
  • Continuity: Twelve people died at Abbotsfield.; The train bomb was on an HST from Bristol heading into Paddington; the device was found and disabled and nobody was hurt.; Ho has been attacked twice: nearly run over the previous morning, and a hit the night before.; The plan’s stages: one, destroy the village; two, poison the watering hole; three, cripple the railway; four, assassinate a populist leader.; Flyte is cuffed with Shirley’s handcuffs and freed with a key Catherine keeps in a dress pocket.; Coe carries a knife, according to Shirley.; River drives Ho’s electric-blue Ford Kia; Ho’s spare keys were in an envelope under his desk, and the car carries a resident’s permit in the name of a local shut-in.; Louisa’s glove compartment holds sunglasses six years out of fashion and older gum.; Gimball’s car is due in an hour when he goes into the garden to smoke.; Jaffrey is speaking at a Birmingham library that evening; Louisa’s sign reads fifteen miles.; Lamb drinks a bottle of wine, then whisky; Catherine notes he has already drained the bottle.; Lamb claims his toilet visits take at least fifteen minutes.; Ho’s basement room has one plastic chair with uneven legs, a single tap and an open drain.; Peter Judd is waiting out a hiccup in his career; David Cartwright, the O.B., is dying.

Characters

Places