Glossary

This page explains the words the books use without stopping to explain them: Service slang, tradecraft, file classifications and the places the action happens in. It covers books 1–4, and it is written for someone who has just finished one of them and hit a term that made no sense. Entries are alphabetical within each section; where a term has its own page, the entry gives the meaning in one line and links to it, and where a place is real rather than invented, the entry says so.

The Service

COBRA — real: the government’s civil contingencies committee, which meets in a Cabinet Office briefing room and coordinates the official response to a terror attack or other emergency. In book 4 it is where Claude Whelan, in his first week as First Desk, is briefed on Westacres.

The Dogs — the Service’s internal-security squad, its own police: they search flats, take guns and collect people before dawn. Nick Duffy runs them in books 1–3; in book 4 Emma Flyte is the new Head Dog, appointed to a unit still in the doghouse after Tearney used its offices for her own ends. See The Dogs.

Down the Corridor — Service slang for Westminster, the political world the Park answers to; “Over the River” is the intelligence community on the other bank.

First Desk — the head of the Service; in book 4 the post also carries the title Chief Executive. Charles Partner held it before Ingrid Tearney, who held it through book 3 and has retired by the start of book 4, when Claude Whelan is in his first week. See Claude Whelan.

Galahad — Claude Whelan’s codename before he was promoted: the intelligence staff “over the river” were given knightly codenames, and his wife Claire loved it. On elevation to First Desk it was replaced with RP1, which he finds functional but boring.

Head Dog — the officer in charge of the Dogs: Bad Sam Chapman held it before Nick Duffy, who runs them through books 1–3, and Emma Flyte, eleven years in the Met, takes over in book 4. The rest of the Dogs are, inevitably, “underdogs”. See Emma Flyte.

The Home Office — the government department the Service belongs to; its minister, the Home Secretary, is the Service’s political master. Peter Judd takes the job in book 3 and has retired into private life by book 4.

Joe — Service slang for one of its own officers, the person who does the work rather than the desk. “All joes go to the well,” Lamb says.

Joe country — the territory beyond Spook Street, meaning anywhere its habits and protections do not reach: “there was no telling what came next.” River, crossing France on a dead man’s passport in book 4, knows he is in it.

Limitations — the committee that holds the Service’s purse strings, formerly Steering & Oversight; an op it has not cleared is an op that runs out of money.

MI5 / the Service — real: Britain’s Security Service, normally “the Service” or “Five”. MI5 is the UK’s domestic intelligence agency; here it is the institution everyone serves, fears or despises.

Number Ten — real: 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s office; in book 3 it is the prize Peter Judd is manoeuvring for.

The O.B. — River’s grandfather, David Cartwright: a retired senior officer, “Old Bastard” in his daughter’s phrase, who raised River on Service stories. See David Cartwright.

Officer / agent — both mean a member of the Service here; “officer” is the formal word, “agent” is used loosely for the same people. (Real services distinguish them: officers run agents.)

Records — the Park’s records department, downstairs, where the old files live and Molly Doran works; Lamb visits when he wants something the building has forgotten, and in book 4 the horses phone her for personnel and travel records.

Regent’s Park / the Park — Service headquarters, and the centre of the world for anyone exiled to Slough House. See Regent’s Park.

RP1 — the designator Claude Whelan is given on elevation to First Desk, replacing his codename Galahad: functional, he thinks, but boring.

Second Desk — the deputy’s post, though book 1 notes there are now several Second Desks. Diana Taverner holds the one that matters — Ops — and is still Second Desk under Whelan in book 4. See Diana Taverner.

Slough House — the Service’s dumping ground in Finsbury, above a newsagent’s: a way of losing people without sacking them. See Slough House.

Slow horse — the Service’s insult for Slough House staff: still a horse in the race, but one that cannot come first. The dream is going “back among the thoroughbreds”. See The slow horses.

Spook — informal word for an intelligence officer, used by journalists, politicians and the books’ narration alike.

Spook Street — the Service’s world and its folklore, and in book 4 David Cartwright’s own phrase for it: “When you lived on Spook Street you wrapped up tight: watched every word, guarded every secret.” A retiring officer is described as “leaving Spook Street for civilian life”; beyond it lies joe country. See Spook Street.

Vetting — the background checks run on staff and anyone with access; a botched vetting is a useful thing to hold over a rival, which is how Lamb gets past Duffy in book 3.

Tradecraft and operations

Black-bagged — seized and removed without charge or paperwork; the thing Lamb says should happen to Taverner before she reaches a cell.

Cicada — the books’ word for a sleeper left buried for years, after the insect that spends seventeen years underground and then “bursts out and sings”. See The cicada network.

Cold body — a ready-made identity: birth certificate, passport, bank account, credit rating, built over years through official channels rather than forged, so that it renews like any real document. Add flesh and blood and you have a fully documented life; the wardrobe department kept them current until the Cold War was declared won, and the passport found in book 4 was issued for a two-year-old. Taverner renames them “product” so the term gives nothing away. See Cold bodies.

Cover — the identity an officer lives under while working; River’s cover in Upshott is “Jonathan Walker”, a thriller writer with an Amazon page to prove it.

Dry run — a rehearsal staged to look like the real thing but with nothing live: Harkness’s team left unarmed but functional bombs in European cities and “poisoned” water supplies with harmless pollutants, then watched the security tighten. In book 4 Frank Harkness calls the bombing of Westacres “an exercise in what’s possible” and blames a man who went over the edge.

Legend — a fabricated history that makes a cover or an operation believable; in book 1 the team works one up to explain how Hobden’s files were taken.

Off the books / deniable — Catherine’s distinction: a black op is officially deniable, while one that is off the books “never happened” — no record, no budget line, nobody to blame. See Off-the-books operations.

Safe house — a property kept off the books for meetings or for holding someone; Catherine describes one whose bills were paid by standing order on a house that did not officially exist.

Sleeper — an agent planted under a false identity and left inactive for years, working solo with a call-code and no handler. Book 2’s sleepers date from the Cold War.

Slipped the leash — gone off the lead: an asset, an agent or a prisoner out of the Service’s control. Whelan’s account of Frank Harkness is that he “slipped the leash about ten minutes after hitting the street”.

Surveillance — watching and following a target, usually as a team; being good at it is the books’ basic test of professionalism.

Tail — to follow someone covertly, and the person doing the following. River tails Taverner for two days in book 1.

Tiger team — a team hired to attack your own defences as a test: hackers, a wet squad, a simulated raid. Judd hires one through Black Arrow in book 3, and it stops simulating.

Tradecraft — the professional craft of covert work: cover, surveillance, dressing to disappear, and waiting without looking like you are waiting.

Classification and paper

The Fiasco — Webb’s preferred word for River’s King’s Cross failure, and the incident that ends his career; the file the Park keeps on it is the kind of thing people hold over each other.

The flight fund — cash, a passport and a key to a bank box, kept where you can grab them: the means to run if the Service turns on you. See The flight fund.

The Grey Books — the Service’s files on conspiracy theories — 9/11, 7/7, Lockerbie, WMDs — kept because knowing what people believe makes it easier to bury the truth. See The Grey Books.

Project Waterproof — the Service’s programme for deporting “undesirables” without legal process, denied for years; in book 3 it is the secret someone was killed for. See Project Waterproof.

Scott — the highest security classification, and the level outsiders assume holds the real secrets.

Virgil — the second-highest classification, currently; a great deal of sensitive material is filed there because ministers and committees chase Scott-level instead.

The whackjob files — Lamb’s name for the Grey Books, and the name River says “they” use for them. Same files, different insult. See The Grey Books.

Places

Aldersgate Street — real: the street in Finsbury, on the City’s edge, where Slough House’s door is.

The archive — fictional: the off-site store for the Grey Books and everything graded up to Virgil, a converted bunker under wasteland west of London, entered through a drain cover. See The archive.

The Barbican — real: the Barbican Estate and arts centre next door to Slough House, a labyrinth of walkways where the shortest route is never straight.

The cellar — fictional: at Les Arbres, the lightless room with a single candle where each boy was locked in on his twelfth birthday, given a bread roll and a beaker of water a day, and released only when he asked for his freedom.

The dazzle ship — real: HMS President, moored on the Embankment on the approach to Blackfriars Bridge, wearing a modern homage to the First World War dazzle camouflage that was meant to break up a ship’s outline and spoil a submarine’s aim. In book 4 it is the place on the river where Frank Harkness waits.

The farmhouse — fictional: the house outside London where Catherine Standish is held in book 3; the bus in its yard is how Ho finds her. See The farmhouse.

Les Arbres — fictional: the walled house in France, near Poitiers, where a commune of Russian, English, German and Czech men raised boys on cover stories in the early 1990s; burned three nights before River reaches it in book 4. See Les Arbres.

The Needle — fictional: the books’ name for the City skyscraper where book 2’s meeting with Pashkin takes place — eighty storeys, a hotel below, a service lift behind the stairs. See The Needle.

St Giles Cripplegate — real: the church inside the Barbican, a tennis ball’s throw from Slough House, where Tearney and Lamb meet in book 3.

Smithfield — real: the City district around the meat market; in book 2, Shana Bellman’s temping agency is near it.

Tonbridge — real: the Kent town where the O.B. lives, and the end of River’s train ride from London Bridge.

Upshott — fictional: the Cotswold village where book 2 plants its sleepers, with a pub, a shop, a church and an MoD range on an old USAF base. See Upshott.

Westacres — fictional: the shopping centre on London’s western fringe, built round a fountain hub where four corridors meet, bombed on the first working day of the year in book 4. See Westacres.

Names that are really operations

A mixed shelf: a legend, an outfit, a network, a town, a pill and a scheme for breeding people — because in these books a name is rarely just a name.

Alexander Popov — the Soviet spymaster the Service spent the Cold War chasing: a file, a biography and a reputation, all built on a man who never existed.

Black Arrow — Sylvester Monteith’s corporate-security firm, mostly firewall-testing until Peter Judd hired it; not a Service operation, but the firm that supplied his tiger team.

The cicadas — the sleeper network in book 2, planted in Britain and left dormant for decades, answering to a legend. See The cicada network.

Project Cuckoo — the Cold War scheme, more legend than file, to breed “a perfect simulacrum of the enemy”: a fake American town where children would be born and raised as Americans. Frank Harkness took the idea and turned it round — fanatics instead of mimics, children who believed their own cover stories — and the Service refused it on paper while funding the house in France where it ran. See Project Cuckoo.

Xemoflavin — a pill sold online as a cure for liver cancer; the bottle from Katinsky’s flat turns out to be, in the Park’s assessment, “a whole lot of not much”.

ZT/53235 — the closed Soviet town in Georgia where Popov was supposedly born: a plutonium plant with a number for a name, wiped off the map after an accident.