Moon Over Soho (Rivers of London #2)

by Ben Aaronovitch

IT’S A sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.

Having four daughters meant that he had parental looming down to a fine art, and I fought the urge to ask whether Leslie could come out and play.

Leslie said that the capacity not to notice a traditional Dutch folk-dancing band walk up behind you was not a survival characteristic in the complex fast-paced world of the modern policing environment. I’d like to point out that I was trying to give directions to a slightly deaf tourist at the time and anyway it was a Swedish dance troupe.

“Are you SIO on this, ma’am?” I asked. The senior investigating officer on a serious crime was usually at the very least a detective inspector, not a sergeant. “Of course not,” said Stephanopoulis. “We have a DCI on loan from Havering CID but he’s adopted a loose collaborative management approach in which experienced officers undertake a lead role in areas where they have greatest expertise.” In other words he’d locked himself in his office and let Stephanopoulis get on with it. “It’s always gratifying to see senior officers adopt a forward-looking posture in their vertical relationships,” I said and was rewarded by something that was almost a smile.

Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, I thought. For they are soggy and hard to light.

The bungalow was a hideous redbrick structure built, if I had to guess, in the early 1980s by some hack architect who’d been aiming at art deco and hit Tracey Emin instead.

I’m fairly certain they were supposed to offer me psychological counseling at that point, but they didn’t. Which was a pity, because I would have rather liked it. Sadly the rules are very clear. As a red-blooded police officer you can only accept counseling when it is foisted on you by Guardian-reading social-worker types. I don’t need it, you protest to your mates, but you know these touchy-feely jobsworth types. Then you down your pint and soldier on—dignity intact.

For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we both remembered we were English just in time. Still, it was a close call.