Behind him someone else ran too, calling his name, but that didn’t matter. River was racing a train. Racing it and winning—drawing level with it, outpacing it; he could hear its slow motion noise; a grinding mechanical feedback underpinned by the terror growing within. He could hear thumping on windows. Was aware that the driver was looking at him in horror, thinking he was about to hurl himself on to the tracks. But River couldn’t help what anyone thought—River could only do what he was doing, which was run down the platform at exactly this speed.
Up ahead—blue tee, white shirt—someone else was also doing the only thing he could do.
River didn’t have breath to shout. He barely had breath to push himself onwards, but he managed …
Almost managed. Almost managed to be fast enough.
Behind him, his name was shouted again. Behind him, the tube train was picking up pace.
He was aware of the driver’s cabin overhauling him, five yards from the target.
Because this was the target. This had always been the target. And the swiftly narrowing distance between them showed him for the youngster he was: eighteen? Nineteen? Black hair. Brown skin. And a blue tee under a white shirt—
The train pulled level with the target.
River stretched out an arm, as if he could bring the finishing line closer.
The footsteps behind him slowed and stopped. Someone swore.
River was almost on the target—was half a second away.
But close wasn’t nearly enough.
The target pulled a cord on his belt.
And that was that.
Let us be clear about this much at least: Slough House is not in Slough, nor is it a house. Its front door lurks in a dusty recess between commercial premises in the Borough of Finsbury, a stone’s throw from Barbican Station. To its left is a former newsagent’s, now a newsagent’s/grocer’s/off-licence, with DVD rental a blooming sideline; to its right, the New Empire Chinese restaurant, whose windows are constantly obscured by a thick red curtain. A typewritten menu propped against the glass has yellowed with age but is never replaced; is merely amended with marker pen. If diversification has been the key to the newsagent’s survival, retrenchment has been the long-term strategy of the New Empire, with dishes regularly struck from its menu like numbers off a bingo card. It is one of Jackson Lamb’s core beliefs that eventually all the New Empire will offer will be egg-fried rice and sweet-and-sour pork. All served behind thick red curtains, as if paucity of choice were a national secret.
The front door, as stated, lurks in a recess. Its ancient black paintwork is spattered with roadsplash, and the shallow pane of glass above its jamb betrays no light within. An empty milk bottle has stood in its shadow so long, city lichen has bonded it to the pavement. There is no doorbell, and the letterbox has healed like a childhood wound: any mail—and there’s never any mail—would push at its flap without achieving entry. It’s as if the door were a dummy, its only reason for existing being to provide a buffer zone between shop and restaurant. Indeed, you could sit at the bus stop opposite for days on end, and never see anyone use it. Except that, if you sat at the bus stop opposite for long, you’d find interest being taken in your presence. A thickset man, probably chewing gum, might sit next to you. His presence discourages. He wears an air of repressed violence, of a grudge carried long enough that it’s ceased to matter to him where he lays it down, and he’ll watch you until you’re out of sight.
Meanwhile, the stream in and out of the newsagent’s is more or less constant. And there’s always pavement business occurring; always people heading one way or the other. A kerbside sweeper trundles past, its revolving brushes shuffling cigarette ends and splinters of glass and bottle tops into its maw. Two men, heading in opposite directions, perform that little avoidance dance, each one’s manoeuvre mirrored by the other’s, but manage to pass without colliding. A woman, talking on a mobile phone, checks her reflection in the window as she walks. Way overhead a helicopter buzzes, reporting on roadworks for a radio station.
