Slough House

The paths to power of current world leaders—paths including conspiracy to assault, knee-jerk racism, indeterminate fecundity and cheating at golf—were so askew from the traditional routes that only an idiot would have dared forecast future developments.

Cantor approved of a system which had allowed him to get rich, but he also believed in pulling the ladder up afterwards. If everyone succeeded, nobody did. Anything else was basically communism.

Funny thing. When I hear the words "trust me", I get the feeling someone's pissing in my shoe.

Most great ideas, or a lot of them anyway, were thought at the time to be rubbish, and you were reckoned an idiot for having them. This was true of stupid ideas too. Telling them apart was the tricky bit.

All that just to get Taverner’s attention?” said Catherine, once they were gone. “Well, I considered leaving a horse’s head in her bed,” said Lamb. “But the logistics are insane.

That old saw about learning from the past didn’t always mean studying monstrous historical movements to ensure they never happened again. It could indicate an intention to perfect their trajectories, in the hope that they’d triumph next time.

The political fog of the times had changed that, and political fog, as history has illustrated, is best dispelled by the waving of flags and banners, which usually foreshadows the use of truncheons and sticks.

And remember, all of us are lying in the gutter. But some of you are circling the drain.

But I came to recognise that there will always be those who will do everything in their power to maintain the status quo, even when that so obviously favours such a small section of society.

Sneaked, by the way,” Standish said. “. . . What now?” “It’s sneaked. Snuck’s not proper English.” “Do I look like I give a feaked?” said Lamb.

The silence grew closer, as if the effort someone was making to be quiet were inching through the house.

The air in the house shifted, a rearrangement she could feel even in the study.

Nothing he’d like more than to be thought a warrior leader by a roomful of generals. Who currently, you won’t be shocked to hear, regard him as a cross between a gameshow host and a cartoon yeti.

Staying put was out of the question. A hotel? But this was London, a city with more cameras than pigeons, and the Service had access to any CCTV system they chose. Showing his face in a hotel lobby would be as discreet as popping up on The X Factor. Leaving town was a better bet, but he couldn’t use his car . . .

As Judd remarked later, “History has an open-door policy. Any fool can walk right in.

there were always men in the background, imagining they were centre stage. The newer variety, who were careful to keep their inner Weinstein on a leash; older ones like Peter Judd, who wore their chauvinism like battlefield decorations; and uncategorisable miscreants like Jackson Lamb, who probably thought the glass ceiling was a feature in a Berlin brothel.

Jesus, have you learned nothing? When they tell you to take it one day at a time, that doesn’t mean do a memory wipe each morning.

Then he walked through the house. It had grown smaller as he’d reached adulthood; was bigger again now, partly because it was empty; partly because property, anyway, looked huge now he was renting a one-bed in the capital. And partly because his past grew larger every day, and this was where most of it was. Even the absences told stories. Constellations of tiny holes in the walls were all that was left of the art that had hung here. He remembered finding Rose on the landing once, gazing at an etching, a few pencil lines summing up a doorway trailing ivy, and he hadn’t asked her what she was looking at—he could see what she was looking at—but wished now he’d thought to ask her what she saw.

Catherine let that sink in. Then said, “Somebody might get hurt.” “I’m pleased you’ve grasped the essentials.” He took a magnificent slurp of tea. “Besides, Taverner’s heart’s not in it. She’s up to something, and it’s not going well.” “And this is a cause for rejoicing? We’re all on the same side, remember?” “Jesus, have you learned nothing? When they tell you to take it one day at a time, that doesn’t mean do a memory wipe each morning.” He set the mug down. It couldn’t possibly be empty yet. “If we were all on the same side, we wouldn’t have to watch our own backs.” “We can’t watch our own backs. We have to watch each other’s.” “That, sir, is arrant pedantry,” Lamb said, in a fair approximation of Winston Churchill. “Up with which you can fuck right off.” He was impossible in this mood, which was something it had in common with all his other moods.

But if there's one thing we should have learned by now, it's that once you've incited the mob, you can't turn it off again. And there's never been a mob that didn't end up eating itself.

Even I’d put me way down on a list of people worth killing. You’d have to be halfway through the Cabinet first. Not to mention whoever invented fruit-flavoured beer.

regard him as a cross between a game show host and a cartoon yeti

His own chair, the one he’d spent so many evenings in, listening to the old man conjure stories out of memory, hadn’t yet shaped itself to him. Favourite chairs were like your future; the form they would eventually take depended on your input, your commitment.

Oh, come on. What’s life without a little risk?” “Longer?

He’d moved among them earlier, introducing himself, explaining the cuts he was intending to serve, and had come this close to asking if they wanted to meet the damn cow. Diana enjoyed her food, but the rituals involved could be tiresome.

Cantor would have found out the hard way that you never feed a cat just once. You feed a cat, it owns you ever after.

This was true of stupid ideas too. Telling them apart was the tricky bit.

The shop had closed its door for the last time. It was a sad moment, but sad moments were to be celebrated as much as happy ones, or half the liquor in the world would go undrunk.