Slow Horses

River is the character through which much of the novel’s action and mystery is portrayed. The narrative often follows his perceptions of others and his attempt to puzzle out their motivations and intentions and the plot’s intrigue.

River—so named because his mother is an irreverent iconoclast—was raised by his grandfather after the age of nine. Thus, he was indoctrinated into the ways of the Service from a young age. David Cartwright, usually referred to as the O.B., is a somewhat legendary figure within MI5; he harbors secrets that not even his grandson, with whom he is close, knows. River is ambitious and talented, and he chafes against his banishment to Slough House: He knows that he is clever and capable, that he is destined to be a legendary joe himself. This often leads him to engage in risky behavior, like taking the journalist’s memory stick from evidence. He also knows that he was set up to fail during the training exercise that got him expelled from Regent’s Park. He really should not be a slow horse.

River is a foil to Spider Webb, his antagonist: “They were of an age, River Cartwright and James Webb, and similar sizes: both slim, with good bones. But Webb was dark to River’s sandy lightness” (51). The dark/light description serves to symbolize their internal characters: Spider is self-interested and deceptive, whereas River is genuinely committed to helping others and serving his country—though he, too, has a healthy dose of ambition. His risk-taking reveals his impatience with Jackson Lamb and Slough House but also the correctness of his self-confidence. As he sits outside the journalist’s house (without permission), he thinks about his withering career: “Sometimes, River Cartwright felt like a career soldier who’d never seen action” (154). His grandfather’s protégé, he understands the Service inside and out; in some ways, he has trained for this job since he was a child. Thus, when a chance to jump into the action presents itself, River immediately leaps. It is his talent—clandestinely following Taverner without notice—that leads to the information tying Taverner to the hostage situation, which, in turn, exonerates the slow horses.

River is also a foil to Jackson Lamb and a suggestion of what Lamb may have been in his own youth. With his boundless enthusiasm, still untarnished idealism, and aptitude for risk, River could easily represent what a young Jackson Lamb might have been. It is clear that Lamb takes River under his guidance, so to speak, even as he constantly goads and insults the younger agent. By the end of the novel, River begins to respect Lamb and to view him a mentor. Lamb gets the better of Taverner with River as aid and witness, and River now has a second older mentor.

Catherine, unlike the other slow horses, is an administrator, not a field agent. This difference in her fictional role traces the novel’s portrayal of her as distinct from them. Catherine is symbolically the mother to the dysfunctional slow-horse family, as Lamb, with whom she has a longstanding pre–Slough House connection, is the “father.” Indeed, of all of the slow horses, Catherine changes the most over the course of the novel and is part of the novel’s treatment of second chances and mistaken identity. The irony of Catherine’s character is that she mistakes her own potential, as others do, seeing herself as defined and thwarted by loss and guilt. In the beginning, she is quiet and, as Roderick Ho puts it, “easy to forget” (23). Typically, the novel casts “easy to forget” as dismissive, but it is, of course, an essential skill of espionage. River compares her to Miss Havisham in Great Expectations: a perpetual spinster who lives in an abject past. She herself notes her aging face, “[a] process accelerated by unwise choices” at the cusp of 50 (30). The reader soon discovers that she is a recovering alcoholic and that she still mourns the death of her boss, Charles Partner. From her perspective, Partner had committed suicide, and Catherine should have seen it coming. The truth, however, is more complicated: Partner was selling secrets to foreign entities, and Jackson Lamb assassinated him. Catherine herself was almost accused of treason in the process, but Lamb protected her and brought her to Slough House with him. For Catherine, this feels like unnecessary punishment, and her relationship with the slovenly Lamb is fraught at best.

As the novel develops and the slow horses are inexorably pulled into the action, Catherine proves herself equal to any agent. For example, Lamb trusts her with his gun, and she levels it at Spider Webb with confidence; thus, she and Lamb escape the Dogs and the questioning at Regent’s Park. She reflects on her own personal journey as she follows Lamb into the unknown: “For a long while she’d thought herself a coward. It had taken some time to understand that becoming dry involved bravery” (259). Others on the team, including Lamb, begin to recognize this quality in her. Far from the easily forgotten spinster of their initial impressions of Catherine, she was capable and calm under pressure, smart and well-informed. As Lamb puts it, “You’re full of surprises, you know that?” (262). When the remains of the team search for the hostage, as Lamb and River leave to confront Taverner, Catherine “assumed the leader’s role” (295). Louisa remembers that Catherine had been Charles Partner’s “Miss Moneypenny” (295), a reference to the efficient and knowledgeable assistant in the James Bond novels. It is no surprise that she more fully understands the nature of the spy game.