Spook Street (Slough House, #4)

by Mick Herron

When the cat was away, Lamb had been known to remark, the mice started farting about with notions of democratic freedom. Then the cat returned in a tank. (“Remind me,” River had once asked him, “back in the Cold War—whose side were you on?”)

Medals weren’t won in the sunshine. Backs were stabbed in the dark.

Claude Whelan was a short man with a high forehead and a pinched way of speaking: words issued from him as if in perforated sheets; his full stops almost audible.