Sid Baker ends Slow Horses Sayonara in Dogs custody after a chase that starts in a car, turns violent in the woods, and finishes in a lake. Jackson Lamb then ties the whole mess to Diana Taverner’s record wipe, telling her the cover-up has put Slough House in the firing line.
Jackson Lamb says Sid Baker’s name has been erased from every available list in the Service, and he warns Taverner, “If I were Russian intelligence, I’d go through every file that had been scrubbed from the records.” He follows that with the sharper point: “So when you covered your tracks by wiping every file Sid Baker’s name was ever in, you drew a great bloody arrow over my lot.”
Sid, Jane and the crash
Earlier in the episode, Sid and River are in a car with a convoy of Range Rovers behind them. Jim asks whether Sid should be hung from a tree or killed in the car, and then Sid hits Jane in the head while Jane is driving. The car flips and rolls, Jane appears to be dead, and Sid runs into the woods with Jim chasing her.
Later, River arrives while Jim is drowning Sid in a lake. Sid hits Jim on the head and helps hold him under the water with River until the Dogs arrive. After that, Sid thanks River, and River answers, “It was either him or you,” before adding, “And I’d really rather it was never you again.”
Taverner and Vassily
Taverner’s problem is not just the erased file. Vassily tells her he wants Sid Baker handed over, and he adds that he will leak that she used Cantor’s money to bankroll the Kazan hit if she refuses. That gives him leverage over both the cover-up and the people tied to it, which is why the Sid file matters now instead of later.
Natasha also tells Cantor that his talents have been recognised and that he is about to land the biggest media deal in Russian history, a separate pressure point running alongside the same mess. For Taverner, the cleanest reading is ugly: hand over Sid Baker or carry the exposure with the rest of the Service around her.
