S1E1 (2)
Speaker 4
Tough not to crack like Catherine, but I'll get there. Forget it. She never lightens up.Would you? If I was Lamb's lackey, no.
Speaker 3
No, I meant what happened before. Before she came here.
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, I wish Lamb would go that way.
Speaker 1
It's the day-to-day you finally give me something remotely challenging.
Speaker 5
Slice enquiries to Syria from the previous decade.
Speaker 1
No, it isn't. Well, I'll set up an algorithm for that and treat the remaining nine hours of the day as my own time.
Speaker 5
Jed, transport police are asking if you can stop scaring people away from that bus stop.
Speaker 7
They could be watching us.
Speaker 5
Or they could be waiting for a bus. Also, Lamb says there's a new hire at the Chinese... Oh, fuck me.
Speaker 7
And he'd like... I know, I know. Interview and background.And if he happens to be undocumented, it's five free meals to look the other way.
Speaker 4
No, I'm keeping my eyes on the water. I'm just waiting for a thing to surface. But I need you to guarantee me 2,000 words.Once it breaks, it's like a water gate. You know what? I can't tell you now, because...
Speaker 3
Sorry. The reason I interrupted before was because I spent a year studying in Greece and the name caught my ear.
Speaker 4
It's a great country. I was there a couple of thousand years ago.
Speaker 3
Yeah. And I'm interrupting now cos I was hoping I could borrow your times.
Speaker 4
Fine. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Oh! Oh, my God! I am so...I am so sorry. I'm so sorry. Sorry.
Speaker 4
Matt, Matt, tell them to get a napkin. Just... Some serviettes.No, I need more serviettes.
Speaker 3
I'm so... Um, yeah, napkins. Can we get some more?
Speaker 4
Thank you. Matt. There's not enough.Have you got any more serviettes? Take this.
Matt, pass me that.Take this. Just leave it. It's so, so clumsy.
Speaker 3
Just leave it. No, I feel so bad. It's your laptop.It's OK. Let me clean it up. Fuck.
Speaker 1
You thumped?
Speaker 2
Did you find anything? I don't know what I'm looking for. The remnants of a once-promising career.
Speaker 1
Are we actually acting on any intel or are we just fishing?
Speaker 2
No, you don't get to ask questions. That's for spies who haven't shat the bed. So, what did you find?Any old notebooks?
Speaker 1
The cardboard backing of one, but no pages. Evidence of drug use? Empty box of paracetamol.Empty boot box? In his recycling bin, I imagine.
Speaker 2
Oh, Christ. Was it me or did all the fun go out of everything around 1979? Are we looking for something or are we just wanting him to know that we're looking for him?I'm not telling him it's we. There's no we. There's just me telling you what to do.
Speaker 1
OK, do you want to tell me to put him under surveillance?
Speaker 2
Who? Hobden. What you would be doing the surveillance?
Speaker 5
Yeah.
Speaker 2
You? Yeah. Well, that's an interesting proposition, considering the last time you were given any sort of responsibility.A load of minister people got blown to bits. There it is.
I'm sorry you find it so tiresome, Cartwright, but it's not the social faux pas you seem to think it was.You didn't break wind during someone's wedding night. What was it? 149 dead, 212 injured, three million in damages, half a billion in lost revenue.It was a training exercise. If a pilot crashes a simulator, he doesn't then brush it off and go, well, sorry, it was a fucking exercise, and then expect to be put behind the wheel of a 747.
It's not the same thing.No, it's worse, you tip. You're going to do this every day, then? If I didn't make the sight of you, I'd come to your home and do it at the weekends too.I am surrounded by fuck-ups in this building, but you are the gold standard of fuck-ups. By all rights, you shouldn't even be here.
You should have skipped this purgatory and gone straight to hell, mullied down for glue, but you avoided that because your name is Cartwright.So when you wonder why I have you going through the rubbish of a disgraced right-wing journo, wonder no more. It's because I don't like you. And I want you to quit.
Speaker 1
I'll just get back to retching then, shall I?
Speaker 2
Oh, nice one, Sid. Standish! Flashbox!
Speaker 3
Is this old? It's mine. He has a USB stick on his key ring.I distracted him and copied the contents onto here.
Speaker 2
He noticed?
Speaker 3
Never looked at his keys, never looked at my laptop.
Speaker 2
You see, Cartwright, she is a good agent, and this is why I put Sid on surveillance and not you. You still want me to itemise his rubbish, though, do you? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.And when you're done, same with the bottom, I'll chuck it all in the bin. What was on the stick?
Speaker 3
I don't know, it's on my remit.
Speaker 2
What do you mean, not you? Just tell me what was on the stick. I've got a quarter, mate, so if the pair of you wouldn't mind, you know, fucking off.I get me lazy, don't I?
Speaker 1
Why did they have us both on Ogden?
Speaker 3
Well, you weren't really on it.
Speaker 1
No, but two agents on a has-been journalist, that just feels like overkill, especially when we don't run ops from Slough House.
Speaker 3
Apparently we do, River, or I do.
Speaker 1
You never call me River.
Speaker 3
Never call anyone River.
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, thank my mother, it was her hippie phase.
Speaker 2
I got what you wanted. All of it? Well, there's nothing in the rubbish, but we got his laptop files.
Speaker 6
And you're sending a courier? I'm not going to waste one of my grown-up spies. Send one of your donkeys.OK, but I can't guarantee I'll get the... Send Sid Baker, she's the most capable.
Speaker 5
Oh, you mean the least shit.
Speaker 2
And just to be clear, Diana, you own me.
Speaker 6
Whatever you say, Jackson.
Speaker 2
Who's it going to?
Speaker 3
Are you going to clean this rubbish up? No, no, I thought we'd just leave it there.
Speaker 1
Yes, of course I'm going to clean it up.
Speaker 3
When?
Speaker 1
When you give me a chance. I've literally just sat down.
Speaker 3
OK, well, here's your chance. I'm going for a coffee.
Speaker 1
You've already had a coffee.
Speaker 3
Well, I'm more than one, I'm a big girl. The gloves really suit you, by the way.
Speaker 1
Take it to piss.
Speaker 3
I just wouldn't know what to do. I just wouldn't know where to start. Bye.
Speaker 2
I was stumping for Sid. Sid's gone for coffee. Yeah, she's already had coffee.She was getting away from you. Failure's contagious. Deliver this...
Speaker 1
Where?
Speaker 2
Regis Park.
Speaker 1
So this Hopton thing is Regis Park? Yeah, of course it bloody is.
Speaker 2
We don't run off from Slough House.
Speaker 1
Why would they get us to do it? And why do they want me to deliver it?
Speaker 2
They don't. They want Sid, but she's not here, so I'm sending you. Who's the contact?Webb. Isn't he an old mate of yours? Ouch.Don't leave me on the bus!
Speaker 1
Hi. River Cartwright delivering for James Webb. You were with...? With MI5. Same as you.
Speaker 5
I'm not showing up.
Speaker 1
I'm over at Aldersgate.
Speaker 5
Aldersgate.
Speaker 1
Slough House.
Speaker 5
You'll need a visitor's pass looking to here.
Speaker 3
Thank you. Sorry, can you sit over there? You have to wait for an escort.This way. Come.
Speaker 1
River. Didn't know it'd be you. Let's not make this awkward.Someone throwing up on your tie? Okay.
Awkward it is.It's carb hunger. Peasant. Got yourself shaving as well, that's annoying.Yeah, well, technically it wasn't me. I get a wet shave most mornings.
True fit in hell.True fit in hell. Keep a lot of hard copy in here, don't you? Bit above your pay grade, mate.Oh, my God, you're in HR. It's not HR, it's vetting.
Call it what you like, it's still not really being an agent, is it?Laptop. What's this? No flash box?Uh, no. Heard of those, but I mean, it's Slough House.
Frank came to meet you, still got Jeffy bags.You want this back? Are you ever gonna admit that you made a mistake? Yeah.Still on that. Blue shirt, white tee.
That's what you said.You fucked up. Yes, you did. Not me, you.And you let me take the fall. Own your mistakes, River.
Stansted was your fiasco.Well, I mean, I get it, I get it. I was clearly Taverner's favourite player.
Speaker 3
Really?
Speaker 1
Yeah, and that really annoyed you, really got under your skin, didn't it? So you not only covered for your fiasco, you got me out of the way. It's always about you, isn't it?What about the people who lost their lives in there?
Speaker 7
It wasn't real.
Speaker 1
What is this then? Other than a new training module entitled, how to avoid a fucking fiasco. It didn't fuck off.It wasn't a... He's dead. She's dead.Injured.
Dead. Maimed, that one.Actor. Mortally injured. Maimed.He's dying.
It was a training exercise. Yeah, it was.It was an exercise. But if it had been real, they'd have died. You fucked up.Massively.
Un-fucking-forgivably. And you did genuinely injure some of them.Wait, where is it? I love this bit. My favourite.Here he comes.
Here he comes. Painful.He won't dance again. Yeah, well, there's no lives in your hands here in HR, is there? Yeah, and what have you got in your hands at Slough House apart from your dick?Escort.
You know why they call it Slough House? Yes.But I imagine you're going to tell me what it is. It's because, while it may only be three miles from where I sit, it is so far from the beating heart of the service, it might as well be in Slough. Yeah, you see, if you have to explain a joke, it's because it's not working.I heard your grandfather, he had to pull whatever strings he still had access to to stop you being kicked out altogether.
That must have hurt him, having to beg for his grandson like that. Fuck you, Spider.This is a professional work environment. I don't go by that anymore. Oh, OK.Thanks, Spider.
It's all done here, shut him out. Thanks, Spider, thanks.He loves being called that, by the way. Thanks, Spider. Never call me that.
Speaker 5
Excuse me. Your pass.
