Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London

‘Over here, squire,’ hissed Nicholas. ‘Before he comes back.’ He drew me behind the pillar where, among the shadows, Nicholas seemed more solid and less worrying. ‘Do you know what manner of man you’re keeping company with?’

‘You’re a ghost,’ I said.

‘Not myself,’ said Nicholas. ‘Him with the nice suit and the silver cad-walloper.’

‘Inspector Nightingale?’ I asked. ‘He’s my governor.’

‘Well, I don’t want to tell you your business,’ said Nicholas. ‘But I’d find myself another governor if I was you. Someone less touched.’

‘Touched by what?’ I asked.

‘Just you ask him about the year of his birth,’ said Nicholas.

I heard Toby bark, and suddenly Nicholas wasn’t there any more.

‘You’re not making any friends here, Nicholas,’ I said.

Nightingale returned with Toby, and with nothing to report. I didn’t tell him about the ghost or what the ghost had said about him. I feel it’s important not to burden your senior officers with more information than they need.

I picked up Toby and held him so that his absurd doggy face was level with mine — I tried to ignore the smell of PAL Meaty Chunks in gravy.

‘Listen Toby,’ I said, ‘your master is dead, I’m not a dog person and my governor would turn you into a pair of mittens as soon as look at you. You’re looking at a one-way ticket to Battersea Dog’s Home and the big sleep. Your one chance to avoid the big kennel in the sky is to use whatever doggy supernatural senses you have to track … whatever it was murdered your owner. Do you understand?’

Toby panted and then barked once.

‘Close enough,’ I said, and put him down. He immediately trotted over to the pillar and lifted his leg.

‘I wouldn’t turn him into a pair of mittens,’ said Nightingale.

‘No?’

‘He’s a short-haired breed — they’d look terrible,’ said Nightingale. ‘Might make a good hat.’

Toby snuffled around a spot close to where his master’s body had lain. He looked up, barked once and shot off towards King Street.

‘Damn,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘Get after him,’ said Nightingale.

I was already on my way. Detective Chief Inspectors don’t run — that’s what they have constables for. I sprinted after Toby who, like all rat-like dogs, could really shift when he wanted to. Past the Tesco’s he went, and down New Row with his little legs whirring like a low-budget cartoon. Two years running down drunks in Leicester Square had given me some speed and stamina, and I was gaining when he crossed St Martin’s Lane and into St Martin’s Court on the other side. I lost ground when I had to dodge around a crocodile of Dutch tourists leaving the Noël Coward Theatre.

‘Police,’ I yelled, ‘get out of the way!’ I didn’t yell ‘stop that dog’ — I do have some standards.

Toby whirred past the J. Sheekey Oyster Bar and the salt-beef and falafel place on the corner, and shot across the Charing Cross Road, which is one of the busiest roads in central London. I had to look both ways before crossing, but luckily Toby had stopped at a bus stop and was relieving himself against the ticket machine.

Toby gave me the smug, self-satisfied look employed by small dogs everywhere when they’ve confounded your expectations or messed on your front garden. I checked which buses used the stop — one of them was the 24: Camden Town, Chalk Farm and Hampstead.

Nightingale arrived, and together we counted cameras. There were at least five that had a good view of the bus stop, not to mention the cameras that Transport for London routinely mounts in its buses. I left a message on Lesley’s phone suggesting she check the camera footage from the 24 bus first. I’m sure she was thrilled when she got it.

She got her revenge by calling me at eight o’clock the next morning.

I hate the winter; I hate waking up in the dark.

‘Don’t you ever sleep?’ I asked.

‘Early bird gets the worm,’ said Lesley. ‘You know that picture you sent me, the one of Brandon Coopertown? I think he boarded a number 24 at Leicester Square less than ten minutes after the murder.’

‘Have you told Seawoll?’

‘’Course I have,’ said Lesley. ‘I love you dearly, but I ain’t going to fuck up my career for you.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘That I had a lead on WITNESS A, one of several hundred generated in the last two days, I might add.’

‘What did he say?

‘He told me to check it out,’ said Lesley.

‘According to Mrs Coopertown he should be back today.’

‘Even better.’

‘Can you pick me up?’ I asked.

‘’Course,’ said Lesley. ‘What about Voldemort?’

‘He’s got my number,’ I said.

I had time for a shower and a coffee before meeting Lesley outside. She arrived in a ten-year-old Honda Accord that looked like it had been used in one too many drug raids. She gave me a sour look as Toby scrambled onto the back seat.

‘This is just a borrow, you know,’ she said.

‘I wasn’t about to leave him in my room,’ I said as Toby snuffled God knows what from the gaps between the seats. ‘Are you sure it was Coopertown?’

Lesley showed me a couple of hard copies. The bus security camera was angled to get a good shot of anyone coming up the stairs and there was no mistaking the face — it was him.

‘Is that bruising?’ I asked. There appeared to be blotches on Coopertown’s cheeks and neck. Lesley said she didn’t know but it had been a cold night, so it could have been from drink.

Because it was Saturday the traffic was merely horrendous, and we made Hampstead in just under half an hour. Unfortunately as we pulled into Downshire Hill I spotted the familiar silver shape of the Jaguar nestled among the Range Rovers and BMWs. Toby started yapping.

‘Doesn’t he ever sleep?’ asked Lesley.

‘I reckon he was on obbo all night,’ I said.

‘He ain’t my governor,’ said Lesley, ‘so I’m going to go do the job. Coming?’

We left Toby in the car and headed for the house. Inspector Nightingale got out of his Jag and intercepted us just short of the front gate. I noticed he was wearing the same suit he had been in the night before.

‘Peter,’ he said, and inclined his head to Lesley. ‘Constable May. I take it this means your search was successful?’

Even the Queen of Perky wasn’t going to defy a senior officer to his face, so she told him about the CCTV footage from the bus and how we were ninety per cent certain, what with the evidence from our ghost-hunting dog, that Brandon Coopertown, at the very least, was WITNESS A if not actually the killer.

‘Have you checked his flight details with Immigration yet?’ asked Nightingale.

I looked at Lesley, who shrugged. ‘No sir,’ I said.

‘So he could have been in Los Angeles when the murder was committed.’

‘We thought we’d ask him, sir,’ I said.

Toby started barking, not his usual annoying yap but proper furious barks. For a moment I thought I felt something, a wave of emotion like the excitement of being in a crowd at a football match when a goal is scored.

Nightingale’s head snapped round to look at the Coopertowns’ house.

We heard a window break and a woman screaming.

‘Constable, wait!’ shouted Nightingale, but Lesley was already through the gate and into the garden. Then she stopped so suddenly that Nightingale and I nearly piled into her back. She was staring at something on the lawn.

‘Jesus Christ, no,’ she whispered.

I looked. My brain kept trying to slide away from the idea that someone had thrown a baby from a first-floor window. Tried to convince me that what I was seeing was a scrap of cloth or a doll. But it wasn’t.