Curly
Who they are
The youngest and least stable of the three: called “the stupid one” by the others, the one who wants the webcam, the one who takes a warning call from Gregory Simmonds of the Voice of Albion and turns a staged abduction into an actual beheading.
What they want
To be taken seriously, and to be the one who does the thing the others only talk about. The novel lets him be pathetic and murderous at once.
Book 1 — Slow Horses
- C06 — Proposes a live webcast, is overruled, then makes a quiet call on a phone he should not have.
- C11 — Having already buried an axe in Alan Black’s back and cut off his head for the camera, he drives on with Hassan Ahmed bound in the boot.
- C15 — Overrules Larry, abandons the deadline, and decides to kill Hassan wherever they feel safe.
- C16 — Hits Hassan with the axe handle, is left alive when Hassan spares him.
Tells
The need to be seen deciding. He kills to prove he is not the stupid one, which is how Slow Horses makes stupidity a motive rather than an insult.
Open questions
Who told him to go live, and what he expected to get from it.