Ben Aaronovitch - Moon Over Soho

I thought it was all over but it wasn’t. The commissioner touched his intercom. “You can send them in now, please.”

I recognized the guests. The first was a short, rangy middle-aged white man looking surprisingly dapper in an M&S ready-to-wear blue pin-striped suit. No tie, I noticed, and his hair was as resolutely comb-resistant as a hedgerow. Oxley Thames, wisest of the sons of Father Thames, his chief counselor, media guru, and hatchet man. He gave me a wry look as he took the seat offered by the commissioner to the right of his desk. The second was a handsome fair-skinned woman with a sharp nose and slanted eyes. She wore a black Chanel skirt suit that, had it been a car, would have done zero to sixty in less than 3.8 seconds. Lady Ty, Mama Thames’s favorite daughter, Oxford graduate and ambitious fixer, she seemed pleased to see me — which didn’t bode well. As she joined Oxley I realized that the bollocking wasn’t over, and this was to be The Bollocking 2: This Time It’s Personal.

“I believe you know Oxley and Lady Tyburn,” said the commissioner. “They’ve been asked by their ‘principals’ to clarify their position with regard to Ash Thames.” He turned to Oxley and Ty and asked who wanted to go first.

Ty turned to the commissioner. “I have a question for Constable Grant. If I may?” she asked.

The commissioner made a gesture that suggested that I was all hers.

“At any point,” she said, “did it cross your mind what would have happened to my sister had Ash been killed?”

“No ma’am,” I said.

“Which is an interesting admission given that you helped negotiate that agreement,” she said. “Were you unaware of the exact nature of an exchange of hostages perhaps? Or did you just forget that should death befall Ash while he was in our care, my sister’s life would have been forfeit? You do know what the word forfeit means?”

I went cold, because I hadn’t given it a thought, not when recruiting Ash for the surveillance job or even when I was sailing down the Thames with him. If he’d been killed then, Beverley Brook, Lady Ty’s sister, would have faced the ultimate forfeit. Which meant I’d nearly killed two people that night.

I glanced at Nightingale, who frowned and nodded for me to reply.

“I do know what the word forfeit means,” I said. “And in my defense, I’d like to say that I never expected Ash to put himself in harm’s way. I considered him a sober reliable figure, like all his brothers.”

Oxley snorted, which earned him a glare from Lady Ty.

“I hadn’t counted on him being quite so brave or quick-witted,” I said and got a look from Oxley that conveyed the notion that there’s such a thing as laying the blarney on too thick. It didn’t matter, because the reason you don’t fight with Lady Ty is she just waits for you to finish dancing about and then gives you a smack.

“While I’m of course aware of the role played by Inspector Nightingale and Constable Grant in facilitating a conciliation framework,” said Lady Ty, “I think it would be better, in light of recent events, if they took a less proactive stance with regard to matters relating to riverine diplomacy.”

I was moved almost to applause. The commissioner nodded, which just proved that the fix was in — probably with the Greater London Police Authority and the Mayor’s Office. He probably felt he had enough on his plate without us dishing out any more. He turned to Oxley and asked whether he had anything to add.

“Ash is a young man,” said Oxley. “And it’s well known that boys will be boys. Still, I don’t think it would hurt if Constable Grant were to exercise a hair more responsibility when dealing with him.”

We waited a moment for more but Oxley just looked bland. Lady Ty didn’t look happy so maybe the fix wasn’t as firmly in place as she would like. I gave her my secretive little boy smirk, the one that I’ve been using to drive my mum berserk since I was eight. Her lips thinned, but she was obviously made of sterner stuff than my mum.

“That seems reasonable,” said Nightingale. “As long as all parties stay within the agreement and the law, I’m sure we can agree to a hands-off approach.”

“Good,” said the commissioner. “And while I’m always glad to have these little chats, let’s try to keep them out of my office in the future.”

And with that we were dismissed.

“That could have been worse,” I said as we walked past the eternal flame of remembrance that burns in the New Scotland Yard foyer. It’s there to remember those brave men and women who have fallen while doing their duty and to remind us, the living, to be bloody careful.

“Tyburn’s dangerous,” said Nightingale as we headed for the underground car park. “She thinks she can define her role in the city through bureaucratic maneuvering and office politics. Sooner or later she’ll come into conflict with her own mother.”

“And if that happens?”

“The consequences could well be mythic,” said Nightingale. “I think it would be in your interests not to be standing between them when that happens.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “Or anywhere within the Thames Valley for that matter.”

Nightingale was due for a checkup at the UCH so he dropped me off in Leicester Square and I called Simone.

“Give me an hour to clean up,” she said. “And then come over.”

I was still in my uniform, which would have made drinking in a pub a bit of a problem, so I grabbed a coffee in the Italian place on Frith Street before proceeding at a leisurely place up Old Compton Street. I was just thinking of picking up some cakes from the Patisserie Valerie when my highly tuned copper’s senses were irresistibly drawn, like those of a big-game hunter, by the subtle clues that something was amiss in Dean Street.

And also the police tape, the forensics tent, and the uniformed bodies who’d been given the exciting task of guarding the crime scene. My professional curiosity got the better of me, so I sidled up to have a look.

I spotted Stephanopoulis talking to a couple of other DSs from the Murder Team. You don’t just step into someone else’s crime scene without permission so I paused at the tape and waited until I could catch Stephanopoulis’s eye. She stamped over a minute later and clocked the uniform.

“Back on patrol with us mere mortals, are you?” she said. “I think you got off lightly. The even money in the incident room was that you were going to be suspended with extreme prejudice.”

“Verbal warning,” I said.

Stephanopoulis looked incredulous. “For hijacking an ambulance?” she said. “You get a verbal warning? You’re not making any friends among the rank and file, you know.”

“I know,” I said. “Who’s dead?”

“Nothing to do with you,” said Stephanopoulis. “Construction foreman from Crossrail. Found this morning in one of his access shafts.” Although the bulk of the new Crossrail station was finished, the contractors still seemed intent on digging up the streets. “Might just be an accident anyway, health and safety on these sites is almost as bad as it is in the Met.”

Health and safety was the current obsession of the Police Federation. Last year it had been stab vests but lately they felt that police officers were taking unnecessary safety risks while pursuing suspects. They wanted better H&S guidelines to prevent injury and, presumably, remote-controlled drones to do the actual chases.

“Did it happen in the dark?”

“No, at eight o’clock this morning in full daylight,” said Stephanopoulis. “Which means he was probably pushed but, and this is the important bit as far as you’re concerned, there is definitely nothing remotely supernatural about the scene, thank God. So you can just bugger off.”