Ben Aaronovitch - Moon Over Soho

Nightingale examined the cane ruefully. “Although I may be demonstrating how it’s done in the next couple of months,” he said. “That being the case, we may as well provide you with a training staff while we’re at it.”

“The demon trap,” I said. “Did you recognize the signature?”

“The signare ?” he asked. “Not the individual, but I think I know who trained the vicious little so-and-so.”

“Geoffrey Wheatcroft?” I asked.

“The very same.”

“Could he have been the original magician?”

“That’s something we’re going to have to look into,” said Nightingale.

“He’d have to have schlepped back and forth between here and Oxford,” I said. “If he was doing that, then he must have had an assistant.”

“One of his pupils?”

“Who might have gone on to be our new magician,” I said.

“This is all terribly speculative,” he said. “We need to find the assistant.”

“We should start interviewing all the people who had contact with Geoffrey Wheatcroft or Jason Dunlop.”

There was an ironic cheer as one of the portable floodlights was restarted.

“That’s an ambitious list of suspects,” said Nightingale.

“Then we start with the ones who knew both of them,” I said. “We can do it under the pretext of investigating Jason Dunlop’s murder.”

“First,” said Nightingale, “I want you to go and secure Smith’s office.”

“You don’t need me here then?” I asked.

“I’d rather you didn’t see what’s in there,” said Nightingale.

For a moment I thought I’d misheard him. “What is in there?” I asked.

“Some very beastly things,” said Nightingale. “Dr. Walid has people coming in who’ve handled this sort of situation before.”

“What sort of situation?” I said. “What sort of people?”

“Forensic pathologists,” he said. “People who’ve worked in Bosnia, Rwanda — that sort of situation.”

“Are we talking mass graves here?”

“Among other things,” he said.

“Shouldn’t I — ”

“No,” said Nightingale. “There’s nothing in there that it would profit you to see. Trust me in this, Peter, as master to apprentice, as a man who’s sworn to protect and nurture you. I don’t want you going in there.”

And I thought — do I really want to go in there?

“I can see whether No-Neck Tony knows anything while I’m at it,” I said.

Nightingale looked relieved. “That is an excellent idea.”

Stephanopoulis lent me the Somali ninja girl whose name was Sahra Guleed and who turned out to be from Gospel Oak, which is just up the road from where I grew up — different school, though. When two ethnic officers meet for the first time the first question you ask can be about anything but the second question you ask is always, “Why did you join?”

“Are you kidding?” said Guleed. “You get to legally rough people up.”

The answer is nearly always a lie — I knew an idealist when I saw one. Despite the drizzle, the Saturday-night crowds were thick on Old Compton Street and we had to dodge our fair share of drunks. I spotted my old mate PC Purdy loading a dazed-looking middle-aged man into the back of an IRV. The man was dressed in a pink tutu and I was sure that I knew him from somewhere. Purdy spotted me and gave me a cheery wave as he climbed into the front of the car — that was him out of the rain for the next couple of hours.

Since, with a bit of persuasion earlier, Alexander Smith had given permission for us to search his office, I had his keys. But when we got to the door on Greek Street it was ajar. I looked at Guleed, who flicked out her extendable baton and gestured for me to take the lead.

“Ladies first,” I said.

“Age before beauty,” she said.

“I thought you liked roughing people up.”

“This is your case,” she said.

I extended my own baton and went up the stairs first. Guleed waited and then came padding up a few feet behind me. When there’s just two of you it’s always wise to maintain a decent interval. That way should anything happen to the copper in front, the copper behind has time to react in a calm and rational manner. Or, more likely, run for help. When I got to the first landing, I found that the interior door to Smith’s office was open and the cheap plywood around the lock was splintered. I waited until Guleed had caught up and then gently pushed the door open with my left hand.

The office had been ransacked. Every drawer had been pulled out, every box folder emptied. The framed posters had been yanked off the walls and the backs slashed open. It looked messy, but very thorough and systematic. This being Soho it’s possible to make a lot of noise before somebody dials 999 but I did wonder where No-Neck had been while the office was getting trashed. I found out when I stepped on his leg. Stepping on some poor bastard has got to be about the worst way to discover a body — I backed off.

No-Neck had been half buried under a pile of papers and glossy magazines. All I could see was the leg I’d stepped on and enough of his face to make the identification.

“Oh dear,” said Guleed when she saw the body. “Is he dead?”

Carefully, so as not disturb the crime scene, I squatted down and felt for a pulse where on somebody normal-shaped there’d be a neck — there was nothing. While Guleed called Stephanopoulis, I pulled on my gloves and checked to see if there was an obvious cause of death. There was. Two entry wounds on his chest, hard to spot because of the black T-shirt; they’d gone in just after the Z and the second P in ZEPPELIN. The wounds showed what might have been powder burns from a close-range discharge. But since this was my first possible gunshot victim, what did I know?

According to Guleed, the first thing we needed to do was get out of the office and stop contaminating the crime scene. Since she was a fully paid-up member of a Murder Team I did what she said.

“We have to check upstairs,” she said. “In case any suspects are still in the building.”

“Just the two of us?” I asked.

Guleed bit her lip. “Good point,” she said. “Let’s stay where we are. That way we stop anyone trying to leave or get into the crime scene.”

“What if there’s a fire escape at the back?”

“You just had to say that, didn’t you?” She tapped her baton against her thigh and gave me a disgusted look. “Okay,” she said. “You go secure the fire escape and I’ll stay here and guard the scene.”

“On my own?” I asked. “What if there isn’t a fire escape?”

“You’re taking the piss, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I am.”

Her airwave squelched. It was Stephanopoulis. “Yes, boss,” said Guleed.

“I’m coming up Greek Street,” said Stephanopoulis. “Just the one body then?”

“So far,” I said.

“So far,” said Guleed into the airwave.

“Tell Grant that I’m going to ban him from Westminster,” said Stephanopoulis. “I really don’t need the overtime this badly. Whereabouts in the building are you?”

“We’re on the second-floor landing.”

“Why isn’t one of you covering the fire escape?” asked Stephanopoulis. “If there is a fire escape.”

Me and Guleed engaged in one of those silent, pointing arguments that you have when you’re trying to sort something out without alerting someone on the other end of the phone. I’d just emphatically mouthed I’ll go at Guleed when we heard the front door being pushed open.

“Don’t bother,” said Stephanopoulis. “I’m already here.”

She stamped up the steps, pushed past us, and had a look around from the doorway.

“What his name?” asked Stephanopoulis.