Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London

‘But you weren’t happy?’ I asked.

‘It’s not a question of happy,’ said Mrs Coopertown. ‘If a dog bites a man, what’s to stop it from biting a child or a baby?’

‘May I ask where you were last Tuesday night?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Where I am every night,’ she said. ‘Here, taking care of my son.’

‘And where was your husband?’

August Coopertown, annoying yes, blonde yes, stupid no, replied, ‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked.

‘It’s not important,’ said Nightingale.

‘I thought you were here about the dog,’ she said.

‘We are,’ said Nightingale. ‘But we’d like to confirm some of the details with your husband.’

‘Do you think I’m making this up?’ asked Mrs Coopertown. She had the startled-rabbit look that civilians get after five minutes of helping the police with their inquiries. If they stay calm for too long it’s a sign that they’re professional villains or foreign or just plain stupid. All of which can get you locked up if you’re not careful. If you find yourself talking to the police, my advice is to stay calm but look guilty; it’s your safest bet.

‘Not at all,’ said Nightingale. ‘But since he’s the principal victim we’ll need to take his statement.’

‘He’s in Los Angeles,’ she said. ‘He’s coming home late tonight.’

Nightingale left his card and promised Mrs Coopertown that he, and by extension all right-thinking policemen, took attacks by small yappy dogs very seriously and that they would be in touch.

‘What did you sense in there?’ asked Nightingale as we walked back to the Jag.

‘As in vestigium ?’

‘ Vestigium is the singular, vestigia is the plural,’ said Nightingale. ‘Did you sense vestigia ?’

‘To be honest,’ I said, ‘nothing. Not even a vestige.’

‘A wailing child, a desperate mother and an absent father. Not to mention a house of that antiquity,’ said Nightingale. ‘There should have been something.’

‘She seemed a bit of a neat freak to me,’ I said. ‘Perhaps she hoovered up all the magic?’

‘Something certainly did,’ said Nightingale. ‘We’ll talk to the husband tomorrow. Let’s get back to Covent Garden and see if we can’t pick up the trail there.’

‘It’s been three days,’ I said. ‘Won’t the vestigia have worn off?’

‘Stone retains vestigia very well. That’s why old buildings have such character,’ said Nightingale. ‘That said, what with the foot traffic and the area’s supernatural components, they certainly won’t be easy to trace.’

We reached the Jag. ‘Can animals sense vestigia ?’

‘It depends on the animal,’ said Nightingale.

‘What if it was one that we think might already be connected to the case?’ I asked.

‘Why are we drinking in your room?’ asked Lesley.

‘Because they won’t let me take the dog into the pub,’ I said.

Lesley, who was perched on my bed, reached down and scratched Toby behind the ears. The dog whimpered with pleasure and tried to bury its head in Lesley’s knee. ‘You should have told them it was a ghost-hunting dog,’ she said.

‘We’re not hunting for ghosts,’ I said. ‘We’re looking for traces of supernatural energy.’

‘Did he really say he was a wizard?’

I was really beginning to regret telling Lesley everything. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I saw him do a spell and everything.’

We were drinking bottles of Grolsch from a crate that Lesley had liberated from the station’s Christmas party and stashed behind a loose section of plasterboard in the kitchenette.

‘You remember that guy we arrested for assault last week?’

‘How could I forget.’ I’d been shoved into a wall during the struggle.

‘I think you hit your head much harder then you thought,’ she said.

‘It’s all real,’ I said. ‘Ghosts, magic, everything.’

‘Then why doesn’t everything seem different?’ she asked.

‘Because it was there in front of you all the time,’ I said. ‘Nothing’s changed, so why should you notice anything?’ I finished my bottle. ‘Duh!’

‘I thought you were a sceptic,’ said Lesley. ‘I thought you were scientific.’

She handed me a fresh bottle and I waved it at her.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You know my dad used to play jazz?’

‘’Course,’ said Lesley. ‘You introduced me once — remember? I thought he was nice.’

I tried not to wince at that and continued, ‘And you know jazz is about improvising on a melody?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I thought it was when you sang about cheese and tying up people’s gaiters.’

‘Funny,’ I said. ‘I once asked my dad’ — when he was sober — ‘how he knew what to play. And he said that when you get the right line, you just know because it’s perfect. You’ve found the line, and you just follow it.’

‘And that’s got the fuck to do with what?’

‘What Nightingale can do fits with the way I see the world. It’s the line, the right melody.’

Lesley laughed. ‘You want to be a wizard,’ she said.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Liar,’ she said, ‘you want to be his apprentice and learn magic and ride a broomstick.’

‘I don’t think real wizards ride broomsticks,’ I said.

‘Would you like to think about what you just said?’ asked Lesley. ‘Anyway, how would you know? He could be whooshing around even as we’re speaking.’

‘Because if you had a car like that Jag you wouldn’t spend any time mucking about on a broomstick.’

‘Fair point,’ said Lesley, and we clinked bottles.

Covent Garden, night time again. This time with a dog.

Also a Friday night, which meant crowds of young people being horribly drunk and loud in two dozen languages. I had to carry Toby in my arms or I’d have lost him in the crowd — lead and all. He enjoyed the ride, alternating between snarling at tourists, licking my face and trying to drive his nose into passing armpits.

I’d offered Lesley a chance to put in some unpaid overtime, but strangely she’d declined. I did zap her Brandon Coopertown’s picture and she’d promised to put his details on HOLMES for me. It was just turning eleven when Toby and I reached the Piazza and found Nightingale’s Jag parked as close to the Actors’ Church as you could get without being towed away.

Nightingale climbed out as I walked over. He was carrying the same silver-topped cane as he had when I’d first met him. I wondered if it had any special significance beyond being a handy blunt instrument in times of trouble.

‘How do you want to do this?’ asked Nightingale.

‘You’re the expert, sir,’ I said.

‘I looked into the literature on this,’ said Nightingale, ‘and it wasn’t very helpful.’

‘There’s a literature about this?’

‘You’d be amazed, Constable, about what there’s a literature on.’

‘We have two options,’ I said. ‘One of us leads him around the crime scene, or we let him go and see where he goes.’

‘I believe we should do it in that order,’ said Nightingale.

‘You think a directed first pass will make a better control?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Nightingale, ‘but if we let him off the lead and he runs away, that’s the end of it. I’ll take him for his walk. You stay by the church and keep an eye out.’

He didn’t say what I should keep an eye out for, but I had a shrewd idea that I knew already. Just as I’d suspected as soon as Nightingale and Toby vanished around the side of the covered market. I heard someone psst ing me. I turned around and found Nicholas Wall-penny beckoning me from behind one of the pillars.