The October Man (Rivers of London, #7.5)

by Ben Aaronovitch

“Police work,” said Stefan, “is ninety per cent paperwork, nine per cent bullshit and one per cent horror.”

I ended up learning magic because you can’t trust the British to keep to an agreement over the long term.

Most detective work, as my father loves to point out, is about the application of correct procedure in quantity.

“Yes,” Uncle Stefan always added. “Just like digging a ditch—the trick is to make sure you’re the one standing to one side with the clipboard.”

But I’ve always found it expedient to let the local police believe they’re in control as much as possible—it saves time and effort. My time and effort, obviously—not theirs.

My role was to surf the normal police investigation and spearfish the unnatural as I went gliding past.

The police often meet horrible things in basements,

Abteilung Geheimwissenschaften

Literally, Department of Secret Sciences (according to Google Translate)

Only the absence of a mullet or a purple Mohican saved him from a breach of the EU directive against egregious cliché embodiment.

My mother, who keeps a copy of Sun Tzu by her bed, says that a wise person knows when to act and when not to act. My father agrees.

“Know when to speak,” he says. “When to listen and, most importantly, when to call for backup.”

“But as the wise man said, life’s too short to drink bad wine. Regret is a terrible vintage.”

If it remains static and unchanging then we call it a despair. If it seeks to extend its influence then it is a malignancy. Or as the Director puts it—a despair will suck you in, but a malignancy is coming to get you.

Peter Grant would have put down a marker, I thought. He probably would have used a laser rangefinder to measure the rate of growth in millimetres per hour.

You can’t use magic against something that feeds off magic, but you can use magic to slosh petrol over a wide area if you don’t mind burning your eyebrows off. Or causing a bit of collateral damage.

Farmers make the best murderers because they have totally legitimate access to everything from plastic sheeting to industrial strength chemicals and heavy digging equipment. And, of course, stretches of land out of the prying eyes of strangers.

She also had one of those fancy desks, I noticed, that had an electric motor to raise or lower it so she could work standing up. Although why anyone would want to do desk work standing up has yet to be adequately explained to me.

I could explain it!

If I’d been there in 1982 this would have raised a definite alarm. But back then my parents were still arguing about deployment of intermediate range nuclear weapons or maybe getting down at the local discotheque—or possibly both at the same time.

The case in point—forty metres of neo-gothic sandstone with the Virgin Mary at the top adorned with a halo of small stone spheres. Not that we could see the spheres from our lowly position at the base, but presumably God would be pleased with this view.

There was an iron door which led, Vanessa explained, to a staircase up to a viewing gallery. But it had been closed for over a hundred years. “People used to throw themselves off the top,” she said. “Isn’t that a bit theologically unsound?” “It would be a lovely view on the way down.”

“How many special people. In the whole country?” “Thousands,” I said. “Hundreds of thousands, possibly as many as a million.” “You don’t know?” “They’re not all as obvious as young Gunter,” I said. “You could have gone to school with half a dozen special people and not known about it.” “In my school?” said Vanessa. “I’d have known—trust me on this.” “You were that nosey?” “Where I come from knowing everybody else’s business is a competitive sport,” she said. “Where are you from?” “Sommerscheid,” she said, and sighed. “Where everyone is a Sommer.” “Everyone?” “Nearly everyone,” she said. “And anyway, that’s not the point. Surely we need to at least identify who they are?” I’d asked the Director the same thing once. “To what end?” she’d asked me, and now I asked Vanessa the same. “In case they’re a problem,” she said, which was pretty much what I’d said. The Director had slammed her fist on her desk hard enough to break her coffee cup. “And then what?” she’d asked. “We keep files on them? Or why not make it simple and require them to carry papers or perhaps sew a symbol onto their coats. A scarlet pentagram perhaps. Would that satisfy you?”

Vanessa’s kitchen was depressingly normal for a young German living alone, in that the microwave was obviously the most frequently used device and the cupboard was bare of spices except for a jar of mixed herbs that had never even been unsealed.

Same as their American counterparts.

“One of those was directly instigated by a revenant.” “Large crowds of people?” said Vanessa. “Yes.” “So was Hitler one?” “No.” “You seem very certain of that.” “Some very clever people spent at least twenty years establishing that he wasn’t,” I said. “Neither was anyone else in the Nazi hierarchy as far as we can tell. Not even those directly involved in the supernatural side of the war.” Vanessa was about to speak but then frowned and looked thoughtful. Most people react this way when I tell them about the Nazis. Would it be more or less comforting if we could attribute that particular part of our history to the supernatural?

I used the same joke that the Director used on me when I wore the same expression. “We’re pretty certain Churchill was a werewolf,” I said. “Really?” “Not really,” I said, and dodged as Vanessa flicked some soap at me.

old Roman amphitheatre that overlooked the city. After talking my way in, I did a perimeter check around the top of the earth-covered stands before standing in the middle of the arena and shouting “Are you not entertained?” in my best Russell Crowe voice.

Papa had said that you were supposed to come home at the end of the shift to the important stuff—friends, house, hearth and dog. One day I might have those things, although I think a cat would be more practical.

Nightingale has another, junior, apprentice—who they described as ‘absolutely terrifying’,”