Dead Lions

“Not like it was the first time.”

Lamb quizzes the bus driver about the circumstances of Dickie’s death aboard the rail replacement bus. The driver is increasingly uncomfortable, so he assures Lamb that it was mostly a typical day. The failure of the rail network is a familiar feature of his life, something he believes can appeal to Lamb’s understanding and create common ground. He believes that the slow decline of British infrastructure is a fact of life.

“Birth certificates were then claimed lost and copies sought; after that, you simply traced the life the infant might have led, with all its attendant paperwork.”

On different floors, River and Ho work through the same process. Ho is assembling a fake version of himself on social media while River is examining old records to determine whether any dead people may have had their identities stolen decades ago. The process and the technologies are different, but they work toward the same perpetual need for a false identity, gesturing toward the duplicitous, false nature of the spy world, in which nothing can quite be trusted. The technology evolves, but the fundamental tenets remain the same.

“What enormous things must have happened, River sometimes thought, to make sure that nothing ever changed.”

River is desperate to take a more action-orientated approach to his work and resents being stuck in Slough House. His grandfather was a notable spymaster, though he claims to have striven to make sure that—to the public—nothing ever seemed to change, illustrating the contrast between the action and vindication that River seeks and the quiet sense of duty that his grandfather advocates for. Until River accepts a more subtle approach to his profession, he may never measure up to his grandfather’s legend and he may never even be given the opportunity.

“The streetlight at the end of the lane’s gone. There’s a dark stretch between there and the station.”

River and his grandfather have a close relationship and when his grandfather warns him to be careful, River finds it unlike the old spymaster. However, his grandfather follows up with a less general, more practical explanation for the warning which has nothing to do with the Russian legend they have been discussing. The O.B. wants to warn his grandson, but the need to maintain his stoic demeanor means that he cannot be direct. Anything as candid and sincere as an explicit call for care cannot be allowed to remain in the open, and the O.B. trusts his grandson to notice the subtext of the statement.

“The Cold War was the natural state of affairs.”

For men like Lamb and the O.B., the Cold War represents a simpler time. Not only were they much younger men working in an exciting field but they also understood the state of the world better. They worked for one side against another side, a dichotomy that seems like a “natural state of affairs.” These men miss not only their youth but also the moral clarity of the past.

“And at the same time, I imagined I was the kind of, ah, compulsive personality type who it wouldn’t occur to to build a little slack into the system.”

Catherine is a quiet presence in Slough House. For someone like Ho, her quietness and her age mean that she is to be looked down upon. Catherine proves that she has talent as a spy by using her knowledge of people to correctly diagnose Ho’s laziness. She does not need his gadgets and technology to be talented at his job as she possesses a level of human insight that Ho can never match. In this interaction, Catherine reveals that she possesses a talent that is as inscrutable to Ho as the intricacies of his talents are to her.

“It was so obviously a place where a spook might sit and think spook thoughts that nobody who knew the first thing about spooks would imagine any spook stupid enough to use it.”

Lamb is a cynical man, a quality that helps him as a spy. Reasoning that no sensible, intelligent spy would ever pick a bench beside a canal as a place for a meeting, he makes that exact selection. Lamb operates by working relentlessly against expectation, working in the shadow space between expectation and assumption. He plays on people’s scorn and comes out ahead.

“It was here that Min decided he’d wallowed in enough self-pity.”

Min is a pitiable figure whose momentary lapse of concentration cost him his career and his family. He is sent to Slough House and publicly mocked for his failure, but his own self-criticism is more cutting than anything external. The tragedy of his death is that it comes shortly after he resolves to abandon his self-pity and take control of his life. Min puts aside self-pity but does not live long enough to enjoy the results.

“He’s your white whale, isn’t he? Popov?”

The literary reference is seemingly lost on Lamb, but Catherine demonstrates her understanding of the human psyche again by identifying that this case is personal for Lamb. The pursuit of a white whale carries tragic implications, with the pursuer willing to do anything to catch their elusive target. Catherine’s ominous words are proved right a short while later when Min is found dead. The character may be as much of a literary creation as Ahab and his white whale, but the consequences are nevertheless real.

“That was a good thing.”

As the operation becomes increasingly complex, Webb assures himself that everything is going according to plan. He reiterates this phrase like a mantra, telling himself everything is “a good thing” without clarifying, however, what the thing is good for. His career, his country, or his colleagues could all be affected. The self-centered Webb is only looking out for himself. When something is good, it is because it is good for James Webb, rather than anyone else.

“If you carried on looking like you were holding it all together, pretty soon you were holding it all together.”

Louisa is still grieving for Min but wants to convince the world that she is not flustered. She hopes that the performance of wellbeing will trick people, and perhaps even herself. The world of spies is almost entirely a performance, to the point where actual emotions are feigned in service of a bigger, more complicated plan. Nothing is quite real except the performance, even when the performer knows that they are trying to trick themselves.

“Nice suit, nice manners, and his English is better than mine. And he owns an oil company. But he’s a gangster.”

Marcus’s comments about Pashkin could be applied to many of the people in Slough House. Everyone is performing a role, including Marcus and Louisa. Whereas they are hiding personal secrets, Pashkin is potentially hiding state secrets. The world of espionage is built of so many layers of deceit and performance that nothing can ever be assumed to be true. The difference between performance and reality, between businessperson and gangster, Marcus believes, is simply a matter of perspective.

“We’ll make a spy of you yet.”

Kelly’s flirtatious teasing plays on River’s ego in ways she cannot know. She teases that she will turn him into a spy, not knowing that he is already undercover. River, who has been consigned to an office for so long, takes pleasure in being able to work undercover and Kelly’s teasing helps him feel like a real spy, rather than a member of the slow horses, flattering him in ways she cannot comprehend.

“Christ: she sounded like a petulant schoolgirl.”

Louisa recognizes how her grief over Min is affecting her judgment but cannot help herself from acting this way. She had planned to kidnap, interrogate, and possibly kill a Russian oligarch, and now can hear herself petulantly chiding Marcus for stopping her. Louisa’s characteristic intelligence and insight give her enough self-awareness to correctly assess the foolishness of her actions, even if she cannot stop herself. She knows Marcus is right, but his rightness does not make her feel any better.

“Don’t ever tell him but that was unintentional.”

Lamb takes pleasure in being irascible and racist. He uses racism to provoke people and create an emotional distance between himself and others, and the only time he is contrite is when his racism is unintentional. This sudden regret illustrates how he weaponizes racism and offensive behavior; if this behavior is unintentional, it serves no purpose. Lamb carefully cultivates his persona to be unlikeable, and being so unintentionally is an annoyance and an oversight.

“Service life should have taught him Moscow rules, and Moscow rules should never be forgotten.”

Lamb is part of an earlier generation, an intelligence operative who understands the espionage game in a particular way. Katinsky’s behavior surprises him because the Russian is of a similar generation but is not operating according to those rules. Lamb’s surprise shows the extent to which he has internalized these rules and made them a part of his character. Acting by these rules is what it means to be Jackson Lamb and a member of a certain generation, an expectation of behavior that he then projects onto his peers.

“Your mistake was forgetting Min Harper was one of mine.”

Though he may try to hide it, Lamb is fiercely loyal to his slow horses. He avenges Min’s death by punishing the smug agents of MI5, waging his war against those who consign people like Min to places like Slough House. Lamb views Min as a casualty of MI5’s unfaithfulness, a debt that he repays through his faithfulness to the memory of the dead man. Lamb’s form of revenge also provides him with the satisfaction of annoying everyone who does not like him. Lamb’s is a calculating, self-serving type of loyalty, but it is sincere.

“All those years undercover, pretending to be someone you’re not. I think they drained you of pretense.”

Molly is correct in her assessment that Lamb’s time undercover has informed his character, but what she overlooks is that the specific character of Jackson Lamb—the rude, slovenly, unkempt figure—is just as much a false identity as everything else. This false identity shields Lamb from the outside world, a default desire for protection and safety that he has cultivated over years of lying about his true self. Lamb no longer knows who he really is but has instead created a version of Jackson Lamb which he now projects into the world. Rather than being drained of pretense, he is drained of sincerity.

“This Arkady Pashkin character?”

Ho uses the term “character” in a colloquial British manner, a slightly disparaging way of casting doubt on a person. However, his phrasing speaks to a deeper truth. Arkady Pashkin is literally a character, invented as part of an elaborate scheme and seeded into the public consciousness via duplicitous means. Ho is speaking informally, but his choice of words masks an accurate assessment of the unreality of Arkady Pushkin.

“At the entrance to the same park, Roderick Ho gripped the railings and prayed for something.”

Many of the slow horses crave action—since their relegation to Slough House, the prospect of entering the field and engaging the enemy seems like a distant dream. However, Ho is different. After being asked to run a short distance, he is in physical pain, and the novel illustrates his difference from the other slow horses through his reaction to physical exertion. Ho’s exhaustion is a reminder of the many ways in which he is alienated from his colleagues, as well as everyone else.

“Spider Webb had the air of a dinner party host waiting for a guest to shut up about their children.”

During the meeting with Pashkin, Webb slowly confronts his powerlessness. He is treating the situation like a dinner party, but Pashkin has bigger plans. As a man duped by his own arrogance into believing that he is important, Webb is a useful fool for Pashkin. When face to face with someone more intelligent than him, Webb slowly realizes how ill-prepared and out of his depth he really is. With each passing nugget of small talk, Webb confronts his own inadequacy.

“The palaces of finance were crumbling at the mob’s approach. With this news came a change of mood, spilling over into aggressive triumphalism.”

The decay of the British bureaucratic state is shown through the dilapidated state of Slough House, but this sense of decline is felt throughout the society. Protestors march against their economic alienation, and the public cheers any victory over the decaying bureaucratic classes which—they believe—ruin their lives. The visceral thrill of the crowd speaks to the broader decline of the British state, turning the entire country into a version of Slough House.

“For the first time in his life, he was facing the enemy. Not his enemy, exactly, but his grandfather’s, and Jackson Lamb’s; he was putting a face to the history that previous spooks had battled with.”

For his entire professional life, River has sought the kind of intelligence work that his grandfather told him about. He longs to fight battles in which it feels as though everything is at stake. Instead, he is given a little taste of that world in his conversation with Katinsky, but it is a faint echo of that era. River is given a glimpse into this world, but only into the tired, crumbling edifice of what it once was, and it is as close as River will ever come to following in his grandfather’s footsteps.