Slow Horses (Slough House, #1)

by Mick Herron

After his encounter with Jackson Lamb at the hospital, he’d come to on the floor; no obvious bruising, but he felt like he’d been trampled underfoot. The storeroom door hung open. River Cartwright was gone. Hobbs had got to his feet and made his way upstairs, where the first person he’d encountered was the newly arrived Nick Duffy. And Hobbs learned the hard way that shit travels downwards. “He was just this fat guy. How was I to know—” “Remember Sam Chapman? Bad Sam?” Hobbs did. “Bad Sam once said he wasn’t frightened of anyone except overweight guys with bad breath and ill-fitting shirts. You know why?” Hobbs didn’t. “Because once in a nun’s nightmare, one of them would turn out to be Jackson Lamb. And by the time you’d realized that, you’d lost your lunch, your boots and most of your teeth. Now fuck off back to the Park.”