Ben Aaronovitch: Moon Over Soho

I watched it as it lurched sideways over the street, wobbling while the pilot fought to get it under control. I should have been getting off the roof but I couldn’t take my eyes off it — Soho is as high-density urban as you can get. If it came down here the death toll would be in the hundreds. I heard the engine change pitch as the pilot pushed up the throttle and fought to gain altitude. There were screams and yells from the street below as people saw what was happening. There would be lots of phone-camera footage on the news that night from people with more media-savvy than brains.

I decided that the lack of brains included me when the helicopter lurched back toward me and I realized that my face was level with the landing skids. I ducked as they swept over my head in a blast of downwash that brought the smell of overheated oil. I could see where flying debris had dinged the paintwork on the underside of the fuselage and where cape-wearing boy had blown a hole the size of my fist through the housing of the sensor bubble on the nose. Then, with a clattering roar, the helicopter labored upward and away as the pilot went looking for somewhere safe to put down.

Apart from the approaching police sirens, it was suddenly much quieter. I sat down on what I still liked to think of as Simone’s and my mattress, caught my breath, and waited for more trouble to arrive.

First through the roof door was Thomas “Tiger Tank” Nightingale. He saw me and gestured at his eyes and then the blind spot behind the stairwell. I shook my head, pointed at the body of Tiger-Boy, and then made a walking motion with my fingers. Nightingale looked puzzled.

“He ran away,” I shouted.

Nightingale stepped out of cover and did a 360 just to be on the safe side. Frank Caffrey and a couple of mates followed him out. I’d expected the paras to be dressed in full-on ninja-commando rigs but of course they were still in their street clothes. If they hadn’t been armed with their service rifles I wouldn’t have given them a second look.

Two peeled off to check on Tiger-Boy, who stayed stubbornly dead even when one of them kicked him in the ribs.

Once Nightingale was sure that the roof was secure, he came over and I got up to meet him — after all, no one likes to get bollocked sitting down.

“Was that him?” asked Nightingale.

“That was the Faceless One,” I said. “Although I noticed he was wearing a mask.”

“It’s part of the spell,” said Nightingale. “Are you hurt?”

I checked. “Just bruises and twisted my knee.”

Nightingale pointed at the remains of the chimney stack. “Did you do that?”

“That was me. Didn’t work, though. He had sort of a force field thing going on.”

The police sirens reached the street outside and we heard the thump-thump of police officers slamming their car doors.

Nightingale turned to Caffrey. “Frank, you and your lads better pull back to the van,” he said. “We’ll join you once we’ve sorted out the locals.”

The paras loped off across the roofs toward the fire escape down to Duck Lane. I hoped that Simone and her sisters had been sensible enough to keep moving after they’d escaped.

“A full shield,” said Nightingale, returning to our earlier discussion.

“And he caught my fireball,” I said. “Did I mention that? Just plucked it out of the air.”

“This man has been trained by a master,” said Nightingale. “Have you any idea how many years it takes to practice at that level? The dedication and self-discipline he would have needed? You’ve just met one of the most dangerous men in the world.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “And you’re still alive. Now, that’s impressive.”

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.

From deep inside the house we heard the distinctive rumble of police feet running up the stairs.

I pointed at the late Tiger-Boy. “What do I tell them about him?”

“You don’t know who shot him,” said Nightingale. “You thought it might have been a police sniper. Isn’t that right?”

I nodded. It’s always better to tell a half-truth than a half-lie. This is London, guv, we don’t have no paramilitary-style death squads here. “We need to talk about this,” I said. “Before we do anything else.”

“Yes,” said Nightingale grimly. “I believe we do.”

Nightingale strode over to the door and called down that he was in charge and that the roof was a crime scene and that unless they were members of Murder Team they had better stay clear if they knew what was good for them.

“I am the bloody Murder Team,” shouted Stephanopoulis from below. Four flights of stairs hadn’t done much to improve her mood and she emerged onto the roof like an overdue tax demand. She glared at Nightingale and then, stepping carefully so as to preserve the scene, walked over to where Tiger-Boy lay sprawled on the flagstones. Blood had pooled under his head, slick and black in the reflected streetlight.

Stephanopoulis looked over at the body and then back at me. “Not another one,” she said wearily. “You want to watch it, son. At the rate you’re going the Department of Professional Standards is going to have your number on speed dial.” She narrowed her eyes at Nightingale. “What’s your opinion, sir?” she asked.

Nightingale indicated the body with his cane. “Clearly shot by person or persons unknown, Sergeant.” He shifted the cane to point across the road. “I’d say the shots were fired from the roof or top floor of that building over there.”

Stephanopoulis didn’t even bother to look. “Any idea who he is?”

“None whatsoever, I’m afraid,” said Nightingale. “But I doubt he has any friends or family.”

Which meant no one to raise a fuss at the inquest, no one to claim the body. Which meant, if I was to guess, that a fairly large percentage of him would end up in Dr. Walid’s freezer.

It took me an hour to get off that roof and once again I had to surrender my top layer of clothes to forensics, who now had, I calculated, more pairs of my shoes than I did. They swabbed Nightingale’s and my hands for gunshot residue and we both went downstairs to separate cars to give preliminary statements. It was three in the morning by the time Stephanopoulis released us on our own recognizance and by that time even Soho was feeling jaded.

Caffrey and the paratroopers had holed up in a side road off Broadwick Street. I’d been right about the Transit van, which was white and fitted with patently false license plates. “We don’t like paying the congestion charge,” Caffrey said when I asked about them. “The van’s kosher though — belongs to the brother-in-law.” Among them, the paras managed to furnish me with a pair of black jeans, a charcoal-gray hoodie with AGRO stenciled across the front, and a pair of generic sneakers so I could get out of the noddy suit forensics had given me. I caught a whiff of gun oil lingering in the fabric of the jeans and I had a strong suspicion that they and the sweatshirt had been in the gun bags to muffle the clank of the rifles.

Nightingale waited patiently in the drizzle while I got dressed. Before I could join him, Caffrey stopped me with his hand on my arm. “We don’t want to be here when it gets light,” he said.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “This won’t take long.”

Nightingale looked gaunt and colorless under the sodium lights; there were smudges under his eyes, and while he tried to hide it I saw the occasional shiver. He kept his expression bland.

“Would you like to go first, sir?” I said.

He nodded, but gave me a long cool look before finally he sighed. “When I took you on as my apprentice, I thought I could protect you from having to make certain ‘choices.’ I see now that I was wrong, and for that I apologize. That said, what the hell did you think you were trying to achieve?”