Verwandte Artikel zu Slow Horses

9781569476437: Slow Horses
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1569476438 ISBN 13: 9781569476437
Verlag: Soho Constable, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Intelligence agent River Cartwright, after being banished from high-profile work for incompetence, suspects a prominant British journalist with ties to an extremist party of being behind the kidnapping of a Muslim teenager.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Mick Herron is a British novelist and short story writer who was born in Newcastle and studied English at Oxford. He is the author of six books in the Slough House series (Slow Horses, Dead Lions, Real Tigers, Spook Street, London Rules, and the novella The List) and four Oxford mysteries (Down Cemetery Road, The Last Voice You Hear, Why We Die, and Smoke and Whispers), as well as the standalone novels Reconstruction, Nobody Walks and This Is What Happened. His work has won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel, the Steel Dagger for Best Thriller, and the Ellery Queen Readers Award, and been nominated for the Macavity, Barry, Shamus, and Theakstons Novel of the Year Awards. He currently lives in Oxford and writes full-time.

Mick Herron was born in Newcastle and has a degree in English from Balliol College, Oxford. He is the author of two books in the Slough House series, Slow Horses and Dead Lions, as well as the standalone thriller Nobody Walks, and the novella The List. His work has been nominated for the Macavity, Barry, and Shamus Awards, and he has won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel. He lives in Oxford and works in London.

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Chapter 1

This is how River Cartwright slipped off the fast track and joined the slow horses.

Eight twenty Tuesday morning, and King’s Cross crammed with what the O.B. called other people: ‘Non-combatants, River. Perfectly honourable occupation in peacetime.’ He had a codicil. ‘We’ve not been at peace since September ’14.’
        The O.B.’s delivery turning this to Roman numerals in River’s head. MCMXIV.
       Stopping, he pretended to check his watch; a manoeuvre indistinguishable from actually checking his watch. Commuters washed round him like water round a rock,
their irritation evident in clicking of tongues and expulsions of breath. At the nearest exit – a bright space through which weak January daylight splashed – two of the blackclad achievers stood like statues, their heavy weaponry unremarked by non-combatants, who’d come a long way since 1914.
       The achievers – so called because they got the job done – were keeping well back, as per instructions.
       Twenty yards ahead was the target. ‘White tee under a blue shirt,’ River repeated under his breath. Adding details, now, to Spider’s skeleton outline: young, male, Middle Eastern looking; the blue shirt’s sleeves rolled up; the black jeans stiff and new. Would you buy new trousers for a jaunt like this? He stuffed the information away; a question to be asked later.
       A rucksack on the target’s right shoulder listed, suggesting weight. The wire coiled into his ear, like River’s own, might have been an iPod.
       ‘Confirm visual.’
       River, touching his left ear with his left hand, spoke quietly into what looked like a button on his cuff. ‘Confirmed.’
       A gaggle of tourists crowded the concourse, their distribution of luggage suggesting they were circling the wagons. River skirted them without taking his eyes off the target, who was heading for the annexe platforms; those which waved off trains towards Cambridge, and points east.
       Trains generally less packed than the northbound HSTs.
       Unbidden images arrived: of twisted metal scattered along miles of broken rails. Of trackside bushes lit with flame, and hung with scraps of meat.
       ‘What you have to bear in mind’ – the O.B.’s words – ‘is that worst sometimes does come to worst.’
The worst had increased exponentially over the last few years.
       Two transport cops by a ticket barrier ignored the target but studied River. Don’t approach, he warned silently. Don’t come anywhere near me. It was the small details on
which enterprises foundered. Last thing he wanted was an audible altercation; anything that startled the target.
       The cops went back to their conversation.
       River paused, and mentally regrouped.
       He was of average height, this young man River Cartwright; was fair-haired and pale-skinned, with grey eyes that often seemed inward-looking, a sharpish nose
and a small mole on his upper lip. When he concentrated, his brow furrowed in a way that led some to suspect him of puzzlement. Today he wore blue jeans and a dark jacket. But if you’d asked him that morning about his appearance, he’d have mentioned his hair. Lately, he’d favoured a Turkish barber, where they go in close with the  scissors, then apply a naked flame to the ears. They give no warning that this is about to happen. River emerged from the chair scoured and scalded like a doorstep. Even now, his scalp tingled in a draught.
       Without taking his eyes off the target, now forty yards ahead – without, specifically, taking his eyes off the rucksack – River spoke again into his button. ‘Follow. But give him room.’
       If the worst was a detonation on a train, next worst was one on a platform. Recent history showed that people on their way to work were at their most vulnerable. Not
because they were weaker. But because there were a lot of them, packed in enclosed spaces.
       He didn’t look round, trusting that the black-clad achievers were not far behind.
       To River’s left were sandwich outlets and coffee bars; a pub; a pie stall. To his right, a long train lingered. At intervals along the platform travellers negotiated suitcases through its doors, while pigeons noisily changed rafters overhead. A tannoy issued instructions, and the crowd on the concourse behind River swelled, as  individuals broke away.
       Always, in railway stations, there was this sense of pent-up movement. A crowd was an explosion waiting to happen. People were fragments. They just didn’t know it yet.
       The target disappeared behind a huddle of travellers.
       River shifted left, and the target appeared again.
       He passed one of the coffee bars, and a sitting couple triggered a memory. This time yesterday River had been in Islington. His upgrading assessment involved compiling a dossier on a public figure: River had been allocated a Shadow Cabinet Minister who’d promptly had two small strokes, and was in a private ward in Hertfordshire. There seemed no process for nominating a substitute, so River had picked one off his own bat, and had followed Lady Di two days straight without being spotted – office/gym/office/wine bar/office/home/coffee bar/office/gym . . . This place’s logo sparked that memory. Inside his head, the O.B. barked a reprimand: ‘Mind. Job. Same place, good idea?’
       Good idea.
       The target bore left.
       ‘Potterville,’ River muttered to himself.
       He passed under the bridge, and turned left too.
       A brief glimpse of overhead sky – grey and damp as a dishcloth – and River was entering the mini-concourse that housed platforms 9, 10 and 11. From its outside wall half a luggage trolley protruded: platform 93/4 was where the Hogwarts Express docked. River passed inside. The target was already heading down Platform 10.
       Everything speeded up.
       There weren’t many people around – the next train wasn’t due to leave for fifteen minutes. A man on a bench was reading a paper, and that was about it. River picked up his pace, closing the gap. From behind him came a shift in the quality of the noise – from all-over babble to focused murmur – and he knew the achievers were drawing comment.
       But the target didn’t look back. The target kept moving, as if his intention was to climb into the furthest carriage: white tee, blue shirt, rucksack and all.
       River spoke into his button again. Said the words – Take him – and began to run.
       ‘Everybody...

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Verlag
Soho Constable
Erscheinungsdatum
2010
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1569476438
ISBN 13 
9781569476437
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
329
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