London Rules (Slough House, #5)

by Mick Herron

Eight months of anger fucking management sessions, and this evening she’d officially be declared anger free. It had been hinted she might even get a badge. That could be a problem – if anyone stuck a badge on her, they’d be carrying their teeth home in a hankie

But that was London Rules for you: force others to take you on your own terms. And if they didn’t like it, stay in their face until they did.

The biggest threat Parliament faces is democracy. It’s been a necessary evil for centuries, and for the most part we’ve been able to use it to our advantage. But one fucking referendum later and it’s like someone gave a loaded gun to a drunk toddler.’

‘Make an educated guess.’ ‘… Yes?’ ‘I said educated,’ said Lamb. ‘That guess left school at fifteen for a job at Asda.’

‘You look like all your birthdays came at once.’ ‘I look happy to you?’ ‘No, old. Am I the only one round here speaks English?’

You lived in a democracy, and accepted that certain freedoms came hand in hand with certain dangers, or you opted for full-scale oppression, which severely curtailed the opportunities for unofficial slaughter, but potentially maximised the official kind.

‘We’re talking about a bunch of mindless bottom feeders whose general ignorance of our way of life is tempered only by their indifference to human suffering, we’re all agreed on that?’ ‘Is this the politicians or the killers?’

Ethical behaviour’s like a vajazzle on a nun. Pretty to picture, but who really benefits?’

That said, she wasn’t deluded enough to think she outshone Flyte, for whom looking rough was on a par with Trump looking presidential: all the wishful thinking in the world wasn’t going to make it happen.

‘State I’m in? I’d be about as effective as Donald Trump junior.’ ‘There’s a Donald Trump junior? Christ. Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse.’