Incommunicado

Roddy returns home to find Lamb waiting in his flat. His boss has taken the danger seriously enough to put himself between Roddy and whatever follows the night’s date. Their temporary domestic arrangement ends when an intruder arrives. Lamb throws bleach into the attacker’s eyes, and Roddy’s novelty sword becomes an improvised weapon. The assailant falls out through the window, leaving the room far less secure than its owner imagined.

The confrontation spreads outside. Other attackers fire towards the flat, and Shirley pursues the injured man away from the building. She gets close enough to hurt him further, but cannot stop him escaping. Lamb and Roddy survive by getting out of the immediate trap rather than solving it. The attackers have exposed the scale of the threat: this is more than a driver with a grudge, and they are prepared to use automatic weapons in a London street.

Lamb takes Roddy to a restaurant and begins the less physical task of working out what has happened. Tara is the obvious opening into his life. Her access to the flat, and the fact that the intruder had a key, connect the attack to a relationship Roddy still insists on defending. He is made to record what he knows about her. His confidence offers plenty of opinions but little reliable information, which forces the investigation towards an address somebody else can check.

River and Coe go to that address. Instead of finding Tara, they meet a Polish couple who have no connection to the story Roddy supplied. The false lead confirms that his girlfriend has concealed her whereabouts. The two agents approach the visit with different temperaments, and their awkward partnership makes an ordinary doorstep inquiry feel unnecessarily difficult. Yet the result is useful: somebody has deliberately given Roddy a life story that cannot withstand even this basic check.

Elsewhere, Peter Judd brings Taverner information about stolen weapons. His work with arms businesses has given him access to a theft that was never properly reported. He wants the useful information accepted on terms that protect his client. Whelan has a separate problem when Carl, a man working for Dodie Gimball, approaches him about a possible scandal. The Service’s leadership is dealing with private leverage while its operational investigation grows more urgent.

Ballistics links the attack on Roddy to Abbotsfield. Taverner arrives at Slough House and takes him to the Park for questioning. The remaining staff are confined to their own building under the Dogs’ supervision. Lamb anticipated the move, but that does not make the restriction harmless. Meanwhile, the attackers dispose of their wounded colleague and draw climate activists into a fuel sabotage operation. While MI5 closes doors around its own people, the next part of the plan is already moving beyond them.