The Secret Hours

by Mick Herron

He reached a junction with another green lane, and without pausing turned left—sometimes the best decisions were the ones you hardly made, the ones that made themselves for you. Though it was best not to make too severe an accounting. It could start to look like the life you’d lived had been a series of accidents; of unintentional explosions, and unwilled alterations.

When you axed lower paid jobs, the average rose without anyone becoming richer.

This was Westminster, and London Rules were in play, which—right below Never apologise, never explain—stated Never admit you made a mistake.

She’d long been aware, for example, that those who’ve garnered more power than wiser minds would have allotted them tend to think themselves above the reach of law.

Always decide who’s to blame before anything goes wrong. It makes the subsequent investigation much simpler.

We’re all in it together might have been the public mantra, but everyone knew that you never took a ride in a hot-air balloon without knowing who you’d throw overboard first.

When the past meets the present the present always wins, but the victories are fleeting, mere technical knock-outs. The present wins every battle, but the past always wins the war.

Time will tell, unless it doesn’t. Time can be the best keeper of secrets of all, and hoards them inside its hours and days; places no one ever looks.

Nobody told you what a drag it was, getting older. Or at least, people did tell you, but you ignored them, because they were old.

You never know when treachery might strike, or from what quarter. This is true whatever the time, but especially true after dark, since how we act in the light of day is largely for other people’s benefit, but what we do in the secret hours reveals who we really are.