Slough House

Joe Country / C14

Chapter 14

Book 6 Part Two 7692 words POV: Martin Kreutzmer, Diana Taverner, Catherine Standish

Summary

Martin Kreutzmer, reading the Daily Mail in Fischer’s under his cover name Peter Kahlmann, is joined by Jackson Lamb, who needles him about his health and his salad and then explains how he found him: Molly Doran, the name Peter Kahlmann that Lech Wicinski had mentioned, and a database that remembered it. Lamb accuses him of having Wicinski’s laptop seeded with pornography and Wicinski himself beaten, to keep attention off the name. On the street Kreutzmer has a second stroke; Lamb lowers him onto a bench, tells him Wicinski finished the job Kreutzmer started, and demands he carry a message to someone formerly on the BND’s books. Kreutzmer agrees. Diana Taverner then meets Peter Judd in a café off Fleet Street, where he reports that the Welsh deaths have been written off and that the boy has memory-wiped himself, and proposes a Service funded by private partners and independent of government, with himself as broker. She calls it a coup and leaves. On Monday Catherine Standish, having poured her drink away, finds Lamb in the dark with the news that Harkness was shot in a parked car in Poitiers by Anton Moser, whom Lamb turned through Kreutzmer. Roderick Ho then discovers that every Slough House record has been erased.

Beats

  • C14S01 · Martin Kreutzmer — Martin Kreutzmer was reading the Mail in Fischer’s, puzzling over how quickly the Pembrokeshire deaths had dropped out of the papers, when Jackson Lamb dropped into the seat opposite and insulted his salad, his age and his stroke. Lamb laid out how he had found him: Molly Doran, the name Peter Kahlmann, and Lech Wicinski’s search. He accused Kreutzmer of having Wicinski’s laptop doctored and Wicinski beaten to bury that name. Outside, Kreutzmer had a second stroke, and Lamb, holding him up, demanded he carry a message.
  • C14S02 · Diana Taverner — Diana Taverner met Peter Judd in a café off Fleet Street, fresh from an Oversight meeting where her Fugue revelation had been read as bad faith and Oliver Nash had repeated the words in Wales with relish. Judd said the Welsh deaths had not happened: the boy had reported a memory-wipe and his clients wanted the episode buried. Then he proposed a Service funded by private partners, acting without government approval, with himself as broker. Taverner called it a coup, refused to engage, and left without another word.
  • C14S03 · Catherine Standish — Catherine Standish walked the long way to Slough House on a wet Monday, having emptied every bottle into her bath over the weekend, and found Jackson Lamb in the dark with a bottle of vodka and a scrunched pyramid of tissues. They argued about the dead. Lamb showed her a Times paragraph from Poitiers: a body in a parked car, one bullet to the head. He said Kreutzmer had passed his message to Anton Moser. Then Roderick Ho arrived with news that all their records were gone.

People

  • Martin Kreutzmer — BND officer working under the cover name Peter Kahlmann; runs Hannah Weiss in London and is confronted by Lamb.
  • Jackson Lamb — Head of Slough House; extracts a messenger from Kreutzmer, then tells Catherine Standish how Harkness died.
  • Molly Doran — Park records keeper kept in the basement, her legs lost in Berlin; her memory and files identify Kahlmann.
  • Lech Wicinski — Slow horse whose search turned up the Kahlmann name and whose laptop was seeded with pornography to discredit him.
  • Peter Judd — Former Home Secretary; proposes a privately funded, self-sufficient Service and offers himself as broker.
  • Diana Taverner — First Desk; sits through the Oversight meeting and Judd’s pitch, and walks away without agreeing.
  • Oliver Nash — Oversight member who suggests Taverner’s Fugue application was made in bad faith and demands Slough House be looked at.
  • Emma Flyte — Dead; her resignation is being ascribed to personal problems and her death to gang violence.
  • Richard Pynne — The officer Taverner tasked with establishing who Peter Kahlmann was.
  • Hannah Weiss — The Brexit Office civil servant run by Kreutzmer; believed by the Park to be its own agent, in fact a triple.
  • Frank Harkness — Found shot once in the head in a parked car in Poitiers; killed on Lamb’s instruction.
  • Catherine Standish — Slough House administrator; sober again, confronts Lamb about the deaths and leaves him in the dark.
  • JK Coe — Dead nine days; his empty desk by the window is still there.
  • Roderick Ho — Slow horse; researching Wicinski’s wiped file, he discovers that every Slough House record has been erased.
  • Louisa Guy — Slow horse; blames herself for the deaths, has spoken to Lucas and his mother, and tells River she is fine.
  • River Cartwright — Slow horse; angry that Harkness slipped away, phones his mother and looks at Coe’s empty desk.
  • Shirley Dander — Slow horse; sits behind a frozen screen and thinks she was not really ready to die.
  • Anton Moser — Former BND head-breaker turned freelancer with Harkness; identified by Coe, and bought back by Lamb to shoot Harkness.
  • Lucas Harper — The boy from the Welsh hillside; Louisa has spoken to him on the phone.
  • Devon Welles — Worked closely with Emma Flyte; Louisa has spoken to him.
  • Marcus Longridge — Named as the colleague Shirley thought she was avenging behind the barn.

Places

  • Regent’s Park — The Park, Service headquarters; Taverner walks back to it more slowly than usual.
  • Slough House — The department; Lamb’s dark office, the landing where the staff gather, Coe’s empty desk by the window.
  • Caerwyss Hall — The house whose party preceded the deaths in Wales.

Lines worth keeping

“You got fat and old.” — Martin Kreutzmer, Kreutzmer’s greeting to Lamb across the table in Fischer’s.

“Acting in the interests of the nation. The best interests, because it alone has a full understanding of where the current sources of danger lie, and the best way of dealing with them.” — Peter Judd, Judd sets out what an autonomous Service would do, having denied that he is describing a coup.

“Effectively, you’re talking about a coup.” — Diana Taverner, She names what Judd’s proposal amounts to.

“I said I promised him one. I never said I gave him one.” — Jackson Lamb, Catherine asks how he could give Kreutzmer a free pass for running an agent in London.

“Emma Flyte, too. She was a good woman. They’d still be alive if you hadn’t gone after Harkness.” — Catherine Standish, Catherine, standing in Lamb’s dark office, refuses to let the account of the operation stand without the dead.

“But Lamb, in his monstrous calm, says nothing.” — Narrator, The staff crowd the landing after Ho reports that all their records have been erased.

Threads

  • Plants: Lamb tells Kreutzmer he wants a message carried to someone formerly on the BND’s books, and the content of that message is not given.; Judd’s proposal of a privately funded, autonomous Service, with himself as broker, is left open; Taverner’s answer is silence and a slow walk back.; Kreutzmer returns to Munich believing he has a free pass, while Lamb has already told Taverner about the mole.; Roddy Ho’s research into Wicinski’s wiped Service history is unfinished when he finds that everyone’s record has been erased.; The fresh cross-hatching of cuts on Wicinski’s cheeks, obliterating the word carved underneath, is unexplained.
  • Payoffs: Harkness’s fate is settled by the Times paragraph: body in a parked car in Poitiers, single bullet to the head.; The seeded pornography on Wicinski’s laptop is accounted for: Kreutzmer arranged it to bury the Kahlmann name.; The Welsh deaths are given a public explanation, drug-related gang warfare, and the Oversight meeting treats them as already closed.; Molly Doran’s earlier identification of Peter Kahlmann is confirmed as the route by which Lamb found Kreutzmer.
  • Continuity: J.K. Coe has been dead nine days; his desk by the window is empty and the window newly bespattered.; Catherine Standish is sober: she emptied every bottle into her bath over the weekend.; Lamb has been in his office all night drinking vodka, has had a coughing fit, and stubs his cigarette out on his desk.; Kreutzmer has had a stroke before, known to only three people, and suffers a second one on the bench.; Harkness was killed by Anton Moser, formerly BND, who was offered a return to the fold for doing it.; The Wales operation is now officially not an event; Emma Flyte’s resignation is put down to personal problems.; Time: a few days after the Welsh killings, then Monday morning, thin grey rain, no snow left in London.

Characters

Places