Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London

‘Could someone have stolen his magic?’ I asked. ‘Sucked it out of his brain?’

‘That’s very unlikely,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s almost impossible to steal another man’s magic.’

‘Except at the point of death,’ said Dr Walid.

‘It’s much more likely that our Mr Coopertown did this to himself,’ said Nightingale.

‘Then you’re saying he wasn’t wearing a mask during the first attack?’ I asked.

‘That seems likely,’ said Nightingale.

‘So his face was mashed up on Tuesday,’ I said. ‘Which explains why he looks blotchy on the bus cameras, then he flies to America, stays three nights and comes back here. And all that time his face is essentially destroyed.’

Dr Walid thought it through. ‘That would be consistent with the injuries and the evidence of the beginnings of regrowth around some of the bone fragments.’

‘He must have been in some serious pain,’ I said.

‘Not necessarily,’ said Nightingale. ‘One of the dangers of dissimulo is that it hides the pain. The practitioner can be quite unaware that he’s injuring himself.’

‘But when his face was normal-looking — that was only because the magic was holding it together?’

Dr Walid looked at Nightingale.

‘Yes,’ said Nightingale.

‘When you fall asleep, what happens to the spell?’ I asked.

‘It would probably collapse,’ said Nightingale.

‘But he was so badly damaged that once the spell collapsed his face would fall off. He’d have had to keep the spell up the whole time he was in America.’ I said. ‘Are you telling me he didn’t sleep for four days?’

‘It does seem a bit unlikely,’ said Dr Walid.

‘Do spells work like software?’ I asked.

Nightingale gave me a blank look. Dr Walid came to his rescue. ‘In what way?’ he asked.

‘Could you persuade somebody’s unconscious mind to maintain a spell?’ I asked. ‘That way, the spell would stay running even when they were asleep.’

‘It’s theoretically possible but, morality aside, I couldn’t do it,’ said Nightingale. ‘I don’t think any human wizard could.’

Any human wizard— Okay. Dr Walid and Nightingale were looking at me, and I realised that they were already there and waiting for me to catch up.

‘When I asked about ghosts, vampires and werewolves and you said I hadn’t scratched the surface, you weren’t joking, were you?’

Nightingale shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Shit,’ I said.

Dr Walid smiled. ‘I said exactly the same thing thirty years ago,’ he said.

‘So whatever did this to poor old Mr Coopertown was probably not human,’ I said.

‘I wouldn’t like to say for certain,’ said Dr Walid. ‘But that’s the way to bet.’

Nightingale and I did what all good coppers do when faced with a spare moment in the middle of the day — we went looking for a pub. Just round the corner we found the relentlessly upmarket Marquis of Queensbury looking a little bedraggled in the afternoon drizzle. Nightingale stood me a beer and we sat down in a corner booth beneath a Victorian print of a bare-knuckle boxing match.

‘How do you become a wizard?’ I asked.

Nightingale shook his head. ‘It’s not like joining the CID,’ he said.

‘You surprise me,’ I said. ‘What is it like?’

‘It’s an apprenticeship,’ he said. ‘A commitment, to the craft, to me and to your country.’

‘Do I have to call you Sifu?’

That got a smile at least. ‘No,’ said Nightingale, ‘you have to call me Master.’

‘Master?’

‘That’s the tradition,’ said Nightingale.

I said the word in my head and it kept on coming out Massa .

‘Couldn’t I call you Inspector instead?’

‘What makes you think I’m offering you a position?’

I took a pull from my pint and waited. Nightingale smiled again and sipped his own drink. ‘Once you cross this particular Rubicon there will be no going back,’ he said. ‘And you can call me Inspector.’

‘I’ve just seen a man kill his wife and child,’ I said. ‘If there’s a rational reason for that, then I want to know what it is. If there’s even a chance that he wasn’t responsible for his actions, then I want to know about it. Because that would mean we might be able to stop it happening again.’

‘That is not a good reason to take on this job,’ said Nightingale.

‘Is there a good reason?’ I asked. ‘I want in, sir, because I’ve got to know.’

Nightingale lifted his glass in salute. ‘That’s a better reason.’

‘So what happens now?’ I asked.

‘Nothing happens now,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s Sunday. But first thing tomorrow morning we go and see the Commissioner.’

‘Good one, sir,’ I said.

‘No, really,’ said Nightingale, ‘he’s the only person authorised to make the final decision.’

New Scotland Yard was once an ordinary office block that was leased by the Met in the 1960s. Since then the interior of the senior offices had been refitted several times, most recently during the 1990s, easily the worst decade for institutional decor since the 1970s. Which was why, I suppose, the anteroom to the Commissioner’s Office was a bleak wilderness of laminated plywood and moulded polyurethane chairs. Just to put visitors at their ease, photographic portraits of the last six Commissioners stared down from the walls.

Sir Robert Mark (1972–1977) looked particularly disapproving. I doubt he thought I was making a significant contribution.

‘It’s not too late to withdraw your application,’ said Nightingale.

Yes it was, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t wishing it wasn’t. Typically, a constable only sits in the Commissioner’s anteroom when he’s been very brave or very stupid, and I really couldn’t tell which one applied to me.

The Commissioner only made us wait ten minutes before his secretary came and fetched us. His office was large and designed with the same lack of style as the rest of Scotland Yard, only with a layer of fake oak panelling on top. There was a portrait of the Queen on one wall and another of the first Commissioner, Sir Charles Rowan, on the other. I stood as close to parade-ground attention as any London copper can get and nearly flinched when the Commissioner offered me his hand to shake.

‘Constable Grant,’ he said. ‘Your father is Richard Grant, isn’t he? I have some of his records from when he was playing with Tubby Hayes. On vinyl, of course.’

He didn’t wait for me to answer but shook Nightingale’s hand and waved us into our seats. He was another Northerner who’d come up the hard way and done that stint in Northern Ireland which appears to be obligatory for would-be Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police, presumably because violent sectarianism is thought to be character-building. He wore the uniform well and was judged by the rank and file as possibly not being a total muppet — which put him well ahead of some his predecessors.

‘This is an unexpected development, Inspector,’ said the Commissioner. ‘There are some that would see this as an unnecessary step.’

‘Commissioner,’ said Nightingale carefully, ‘I believe circumstances warrant a change in the arrangement.’

‘When I was first briefed about the nature of your section I was led to believe that it merely served a vestigial function, and that the—’ The Commissioner had to force the word out. ‘—that “the magic” was in decline and only posed a marginal threat to the Queen’s peace. In fact, I definitely remember the word “dwindle” being bandied about by the Home Office. “Eclipsed by science and technology”, was another phrase I heard a lot.’