Spook Street Quotes
"Feet wore sandals or flipflops, faces wore wide-eyed content, and body language was at once mute and expressive, capturing a single moment of wellbeing and beaming it everywhere."
"If Westacres was a temple, as he’d heard it described, its worshippers were lax in their observations."
"For the rest of the time he offered directions, helped locate wandering infants, and once—he still thought about this, often—chased and apprehended a shoplifter."
"Ideally, they should turn up, hand over their money, and bugger off."
"Every single one of them, it seemed, stripped off their jackets and coats to reveal bright happy shirts beneath, all lurid primaries and swirls of colour."
"This fountain was the centrepiece of a hub at which corridors from each point of the compass met, and sooner or later everyone using Westacres passed by it."
"It’s a wasteful, unworkable mess, but then this shabby set of offices wasn’t exactly noted for its efficiency, of equipment or personnel."
"All the while, behind him, the door to his office creaks on a squeaky hinge, not because anyone is currently using it, but in general protest at the draughts that haunt Slough House."
"Waterboarding a suspected terrorist to death, that’s housekeeping."
"A former senior spook—I mean, seriously, this guy knows more secrets than the Queen’s had chicken dinners—blows his grandson’s face clean off then disappears into the night, armed."
"At least we picked the right week to bury bad news."
"The next sound you hear will be me, expressing confidence."
"So you’re the boss of the famous Slough House, isn’t that where they keep the rejects?"
"Christ, not you too. Sexism, sexism, blah blah blah. It’s like you’re all constantly on the rag."
"Sometimes you see him at the market, in the café. He looks at people like they are a different species."
"Once there was a rumour that bad things had happened."
"I became a prostitute, and that is not something I feel shame for."
"Trust me, if I shut my eyes, it’s like listening to one of the Reith lectures."
"We have a drink once in a while. We’re not Batman and Robin."
"You’re gunna let him go just ’cause I said to pick him up?"
"Never here," Miguel agreed as Bad Sam slipped past him.
"Turned out it was only a traffic warden, but that wasn’t Patrice’s fault."
"Libraries, too, were prepared for sudden impact."
"Hunting someone unlucky, you could just pick your spot and wait."
"All political lives end in failure, someone once said."
"You could stay up late brooding, or you could stay up late brooding drunk."
"Bad Sam hoped like hell he’d find Chelsea Barker."
"She said into her phone, 'He’s going through a building,' though Marcus had already gathered as much."
"‘Project Cuckoo,’ he said. ‘He wished he’d never heard of Project Cuckoo.’"
"Catch the bad people, he thought, and the problem goes away."
"If I make a break for it, will he shoot me in the back?"
"You like to talk," Patrice said. "Maybe you should talk about Bertrand."
"Last time someone hurt me like that... I knocked half his brains out with a length of lead pipe."
"Westacres happened. There’s nothing we can do about that."
"Because believers were always on a quest, for one Holy Grail or another."
"It’s like, lesson one. Don’t let your guard down just because the target appears harmless."
"And if I’m a ghost, I’ll tell you this. I go whoo, you fucking jump."
"Seriously, two free shots, and that’s the best you can do?"
"Secrets don’t stay secret, not on Spook Street."
"Maybe not a survival instinct, then. Maybe her internal idiot."
"She stepped up onto the wall, made the beginner’s error of looking down."
"You’re under arrest," she told him. He punched her in the face."
"I should have fucking mentioned," she said. "Stop or I shoot."
"Take it from me, it’s really not. Sometimes it’s the only thing that can get you out of bed in the morning."
"Anger Fucking Management. Marcus would be proud."
"In future," she told him, "pick up a fucking phone, yeah?"
"I mean, we’re supposed to be protecting the citizenry. Not providing the wherewithal for lunatics to massacre it."
"He was doing a job. You think I was going to watch that French punk taken away in a Black Maria?"
"I like it when you talk dirty. Are you going to drink that?"
"I’d lock ’em in a room and let ’em fight for the gun."
"And one thing joes learn quickly is that those who write the rules rarely suffer their weight."