Slow Horses полностью

Hassan was in the boot. They’d pulled the hood over his head, and tied his wrists. If you shout or make a noise, I’ll cut your fucking tongue out.

‘How did you know?’

‘Know what?’ Curly asked.

‘That he was a … spook.’

Curly tapped the breast pocket of his denim jacket, where his mobile nestled. ‘Got a call, didn’t I?’

‘You weren’t supposed to have a phone.’

‘Good job I did. Else we’d still be back there with that fucking traitor. Waiting for the SAS.’

He wasn’t supposed to have a phone, it was true. Mobile phones could be traced: Larry’s rule. But before they could trace you via your phone, they had to know it was yours. Otherwise it was only a mobile signal, and everyone had one of those. So he’d bought a pre-pay, and had used it to call Gregory Simmonds, the Voice of Albion, every couple of hours. Because any time Simmonds stopped answering his phone, that meant the cops were on to them.

Curly had encountered Simmonds through the British Patriotic Party’s website, where he’d posted messages as Excalibur88, the 88 meaning HH, Heil Hitler. This was just after the Lockerbie bomber had been sent home. There’d been scenes on TV of him meeting a hero’s welcome: happy flag-waving crowds. Meanwhile the BNP was being taken to court, because it was against the law to have a party only for true Englishmen, and believers’ names were being plastered on the internet, an invitation to left-wing thugs to throw bricks through windows, and threaten wives and families.

The issue, Curly posted, was simple. White man dies in a bomb attack? String up a Muslim from a lamppost. Right here, right now. Didn’t matter who. It wasn’t like the tube bombers had checked out their victims in advance, making sure there weren’t kids or nurses on the trains. You string one up and then another, to show them who they were dealing with. Kick me once, I kick you twice. And then jump on your head. That’s how you win a war, and this was a war.

So then he’d been contacted by Gregory Simmonds, the Voice of Albion. A short man with tall opinions, Simmonds had made his money in long-haul logistics, what used to be called removals. He’d founded the Voice because he was sick of seeing this once-proud country dragged downhill by scumbag politicians in the pockets of foreign interests—conversation with him was like listening to a party broadcast, but he wasn’t all talk. Voice of Albion was about action. There were a couple of other guys Simmonds knew, a plan coming together. Was Curly interested in action?

Curly was. Curly would have liked to be a soldier. Never worked out, so he was mostly unemployed, but he did a weekly off-the-books stint as an exit-coordinator at a club, what used to be called bouncing. This was in Bolton. There were more exciting cities, more exciting lives.

So anyway. Officers stayed behind the lines, but Simmonds was putting the plan together, with help from these other guys, Moe and Larry.

What they had in mind was an internet execution.

Most people would have chickened out hearing that. Most people would have thought Simmonds was out of his mind. But Curly, because he knew Simmonds was expecting him to say something, and he hated doing what he was expected to do, just drank the lager Simmonds had been buying all evening, and waited.

Until Simmonds said: Thing was, they didn’t actually have to cut anyone’s head off. They just had to make it look like they were going to. Show the world it could be done. That was the point. Show they could do it if they wanted. That if there was a war, it would be fought on both sides. Was Curly in?

Curly thought about it, but not for long. He was in.

The only part he’d had trouble with was the bit about not actually doing it.

And because he didn’t know Larry or Moe, which meant he didn’t trust them, he’d played stupid in their company and kept in touch with Simmonds behind their back. Which was how he’d got the call forty minutes earlier, the Voice of Albion ringing him for a change, breathy and terrified. Compromised was the word he used. It had filtered down through a contact in the BPP. The mission was compromised. They should get out. They should disappear.

Simmonds didn’t use Larry’s name. Didn’t have to. If one of them was a spy, it had to be Larry, who’d managed to make every decision sound like his own.

‘Which way?’

Rising panic in his voice. Curly kept his own flat: ‘Just keep driving.’ They were still south of the river. But not turning back was the main thing.

He could have run when Simmonds’ call came through. He could have been down the stairs and out the front. The others didn’t know his real name. He could have been part of the nightlife in minutes, miles away.

Instead he’d stood and run a finger along the grimy bedroom wall. Adapted himself to the moment; let these new circumstances sink in. And then he’d left the room and walked downstairs and along the hallway into the kitchen.