Ben Aaronovitch - Moon Over Soho

“You just had this lying about?” I asked.

“I like to be prepared,” she said.

“Did you know Casanova used to live around here when he was in London?” I said. “When he went out for an assignation he used to carry a little valise with eggs, plates, and a spirit stove in it.” I slipped my hand around the warm heavy curve of her breast. “That way wherever he ended up he could still have a fried egg for breakfast.” I kissed her — she tasted of chocolate.

“I never knew Casanova was a Boy Scout,” she said.

We sat under the duvet and watched the moon setting behind the roofs of Soho, we ate Battenberg cake and listened to the police sirens whoop up and down Charing Cross Road and Oxford Street. When we were suitably refreshed we had mad sex until what passes for the dawn chorus in Soho was welcoming the first blush of the new day.

I like to think old Giacomo would have approved.

SIR ROBERT Mark was commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1972 to 1977 and is famous for two things — the Goodyear tire adverts where he said the words “I believe this to be a major contribution to road safety,” and “Operation Countryman,” an investigation into corruption within his own force. Back in what the Daily Mail calls the good old days a conscientious copper could triple his income just by sticking his hand out at the right moment, and an armed blagger could walk away from a collar for just a modest consideration. Though to be fair they always tried to make sure that someone was charged with the offense so at least justice was seen to be done and that’s the main thing. Commissioner Mark, who took a dim view of this, initiated the most sweeping anticorruption drive the Met had ever seen, which is why he’s the figure that police parents use to keep their little baby police officers in line. Behave or nasty Sir Robert Mark will come around and boot you off the force. This is probably why the current commissioner had a portrait of Mark hanging in the atrium of his office strategically placed so that he faced the row of uncomfortable fake green leather seats that Nightingale and I were forced to wait on.

When you’re a lowly constable nothing good can come of getting this close to the big man himself. Last time I’d been there I’d been sworn in as an apprentice wizard. This time I suspected it was going to be mostly swearing. Next to me Nightingale seemed relaxed enough, reading the Telegraph in a tan lightweight Davies & Son suit that was either brand-new or, more likely, coming back into style from some earlier epoch. I was in my uniform because when confronted with authority a uniform is a constable’s friend, especially when it has been ironed to razor-sharpness by Molly, who apparently regarded a trouser crease as a conveniently located offensive weapon.

A secretary opened the door for us. “The commissioner will see you now,” she said and we stood up and trooped off to face the music.

The commissioner’s office is not that impressive, and while the carpet isn’t that budget-conscious no amount of wood paneling could disguise the dull gray mid-1960s concrete bones of the New Scotland Yard building. But the Metropolitan Police has over fifty thousand personnel and a working budget of four and a half billion quid and is responsible for everything from antisocial behavior in Kingston to antiterrorism in Whitehall, so the commissioner’s office doesn’t really need to try that hard.

The commissioner sat waiting for us. He was wearing his uniform cap and that was when I truly knew we were in deep shit. We stopped in front of the desk and Nightingale actually twitched as if suppressing the impulse to salute. The commissioner stayed in his chair. No handshakes were offered and we were not invited to sit.

“Chief Inspector Nightingale,” he said. “I trust you’ve had a chance to acquaint yourself with the reports pertaining to the events of last Monday night.”

“Yes sir,” said Nightingale.

“You are aware of the accusations levied by members of London Ambulance Service and the preliminary report by the DPS?”

“Yes sir,” said Nightingale.

I flinched. The DPS is the Directorate of Professional Standards, fiends in human form that walk among us to keep the rank and file in fear and despondency. Should you feel the cold damp breath of the DPS on your collar, as I did then, the next thing you need to know is which bit is doing the breathing. I didn’t think it would be the ACC, the Anti-Corruption Command, or the IIC, the Internal Investigations Command, because hijacking an ambulance would best be categorized as criminally stupid rather than stupidly criminal. Or at least I was hoping that’s the way they would see it, and that I’d be done by the MCAV, the Misconduct Civil Actions and Vetting Command, whose job it was to deal with those officers who have laid the Met open to being sued in the courts — by traumatized paramedics for example.

“Do you stand by your assessment of Constable Grant’s actions that night?”

“Yes sir,” said Nightingale. “I believe that Constable Grant, faced with difficult circumstances, evaluated the situation correctly and took swift and decisive action to prevent the death of the individual known as Ash Thames. Had he not removed the cold iron from the wound or, having removed it, not transported Ash to the river, I have no doubt that the victim would have died — from loss of blood at the very least.”

The commissioner looked directly at me and I actually found myself holding my breath until he looked back at Nightingale.

“You were left in a supervisory position despite your medical condition because I was assured that you remain the only officer qualified to handle ‘special’ cases,” he said. “Was this a mistake on my part?”

“No sir,” said Nightingale. “Until such time as Constable Grant is fully trained I remain the only suitably qualified officer currently serving in the Metropolitan Police. Believe me, sir, I am as alarmed at this prospect as you are.”

The commissioner nodded. “Since it appears that Grant had no choice but to act as he did, I am willing to chalk this up to a failure of supervision on your part. This will be considered a verbal reprimand and a note will be entered into your record.” He turned to me, and I kept my eye on a nice safe patch of the wall an inch to the left of his head.

“While I accept that you are inexperienced and being forced to use your own judgment in circumstances that lie — ” The commissioner paused to choose his words. “ — outside of conventional police work, I would like to remind you that you swore an oath both as a constable and as an apprentice. And you were warned when you did so that extraordinary things were expected of you. At this point no disciplinary action will be taken and no note will be appended to your record. However, in the future I wish to see you exercise more tact, more discretion, and to try to keep the property damage to a bare minimum. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” I said.

“The property damage,” said the commissioner, turning back to Nightingale, “including that to the ambulance, will be paid for out of the Folly’s budget, not the Met’s general contingency fund. As will any legal costs and damages that arise out of civil litigation taken against the Metropolitan Police. Is that understood?”

We both said yes sir.

I was sweating with relief. The only reason that I wasn’t facing a serious disciplinary hearing was because the commissioner probably didn’t want to explain to the Metropolitan Police Authority why a lowly constable was currently de facto head of an Operational Command Unit. Any advocate I called in from the Police Federation would have had a field day with my lack of effective supervision by a senior officer — Nightingale being on sick leave, remember. Not to mention the health and safety implications of being forced to jump into the Thames in the middle of the night.