Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London

Apparently, Lesley had kept her copper’s eye on the Italians right from the start while I — easily distracted, remember — had been wondering whether I could sneak Lesley back to my room at the Folly. That’s why it came as a bit of a surprise when the respectable middle-class woman in the good coat standing in front of us lunged across the counter and tried to strangle Mr Ranatunga to death.

Her name was Celia Munroe, resident of Finchley, who had brought her daughters Georgina and Antonia and their two friends Jennifer and Alex to the West End as a special treat. The dispute started when Ms Munroe proffered five Voyager Film Fun vouchers as part payment for the tickets. Mr Ranatunga regretfully indicated that the vouchers were not valid at this particular cinema. Ms Munroe asked why this might be so, but Mr Ranatunga was unable to say, since his management had never bothered to brief him on the promotion in the first place. Ms Munroe expressed her dissatisfaction with a degree of forcefulness which surprised Mr Ranatunga, Lesley and me, and, according to her later statement, Ms Munroe herself.

It was at that point that Lesley and I decided to intervene, but we hadn’t even had time to step forward and ask what the problem was, when Ms Munroe made her move. It happened very quickly, and as is often the case with unexpected events it took us a few moments to register what was going on. Fortunately we were both sufficiently street-seasoned not to freeze, and we each grabbed a shoulder and tried to drag the woman off poor Mr Ranatunga. Her grip on his neck was so strong that Mr Ranatunga was pulled back across the counter as well. By now one of the girls was hysterical and apparently the eldest, Antonia, started beating me across the back with her fists, but I didn’t feel it at the time. Ms Munroe’s lips were drawn back in a rictus of rage, the tendons standing out on her neck and forearms. Mr Ranatunga’s face was darkening, his lips turning blue.

Lesley got her thumb into the pressure point on Ms Munroe’s wrists and she let go in such a hurry that we both went sprawling backwards onto the floor. She landed on top of me, so I tried to pin her arms but not before she got a vicious elbow into my ribs. I used my weight and strength advantage to tip her off and roll her face down into the popcorn smelling carpet. Of course, I didn’t have my cuffs with me, so I had to hold her with both hands behind her back. Legally speaking, once you’ve laid hands on a suspect you pretty much have to arrest them. I gave her the caution and she went limp. I looked over at Lesley, who had not only tended to the injured man but had corralled the children and called in the incident to Charing Cross.

‘If I let you up,’ I asked, ‘are you going to behave?’

Ms Munroe nodded. I let roll over and sit up where she was.

‘I just wanted to go to the pictures,’ she said. ‘When I was young you just went to the local Odeon and said “a ticket please”, and you gave them money and they gave you a ticket. When did it become so complicated? When did these disgusting nachos arrive? I mean, what the fuck is a nacho, anyway?’ One of the girls giggled nervously at the profanity.

Lesley was writing in her official notebook. You know in the caution when it says ‘anything that you do say may be used in evidence against you’, well, this is what they’re talking about.

‘Is that boy hurt?’ She looked at me for reassurance. ‘I don’t know what happened. I just wanted to talk to someone who could speak English properly. I went on holiday to Bavaria last summer and everyone spoke English really well. I bring my kids down to the West End and everyone’s foreign. I don’t understand a word they’re saying.’

I suspected that some total bastard at the CPS could parlay that into a racially aggravated crime. I caught Lesley’s eye and she sighed but stopped taking notes.

‘I just wanted to go to the pictures,’ repeated Ms Munroe.

Salvation arrived in the form of Inspector Neblett who took one look at us and said, ‘I just can’t let you two out of my sight, can I?’ He didn’t fool me. I knew he’d been rehearsing that line the whole way over.

Nonetheless, we all trooped back to the nick to complete the arrest and do the paperwork. And that’s three hours of my life I won’t get back in a hurry. We ended up, like all coppers on overtime, in the canteen where we drank tea and filled in forms.

‘Where’s the Case Progression Unit when you need it?’ said Lesley.

‘Told you we should have seen Seven Samurai ,’ I said.

‘Did you think there was something odd about the whole thing?’ asked Lesley.

‘Odd, how?’

‘You know,’ said Lesley, ‘middle-aged woman suddenly goes bonkers and attacks someone in a cinema, in front of her children. Are you sure you didn’t feel any … ?’ She waved her fingers.

‘I wasn’t paying attention,’ I said. Looking back, I thought there might have been something, a flash of violence and laughter, but it felt suspiciously retrospective; a memory I’d conjured up after the fact.

Mr Munroe arrived with a brief, and the parents of the other children, around nine and his wife was released on police bail less than an hour later. Considerably earlier than Lesley and I finished the paperwork. I was too knackered by then to try anything clever, so I said goodbye and caught a lift in the fast-response car back to Russell Square.

I had a brand new set of keys, including one for the tradesmen’s entrance round the back. That way I didn’t have to sneak past the disapproving gaze of Sir Isaac. The main atrium was dimly lit, but as I climbed the first flight of stairs I thought I saw a pale figure gliding across the floor below.

You know you’re staying somewhere posh when the breakfast room is a completely different room and not the same place where you had dinner, only dressed up with different china. It faced south-east to catch the thin January light, and looked out over the coach house and mews. Despite the fact that only Nightingale and I were eating, all the tables had been laid and bore laundry-white tablecloths. You could have seated fifty people in there. Likewise the serving table sported a line of silver-plated salvers with kippers, eggs, bacon, black pudding and a bowl full of rice, peas and flaked haddock that Nightingale identified as kedgeree. He seemed as taken aback by the amount of food as I was.

‘I think Molly may have become a little overenthusiastic,’ he said and helped himself to the kedgeree. I had a bit of everything and Toby got some sausages, some black pudding and a bowl of water.

‘There’s no way we can eat all this,’ I said. ‘What’s she going to do with all the leftovers?’

‘I’ve learned not to ask these questions,’ said Nightingale.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because I’m not sure I want to know the answers,’ he said.

My first proper lesson in magic took place in one of the labs at the back of the first floor. The other labs had once been used for research projects but this one was for teaching, and indeed it looked just like a school chemistry lab. There were waist-high benches with gas taps for Bunsen burners placed at regular intervals and white porcelain basins sunk into the varnished wooden tops. There was even a poster of the periodic table on the wall missing, I noticed, all the elements discovered after World War Two.

‘First we need to fill up a sink,’ said Nightingale. He selected one and turned the tap at the base of its long, swan-necked spout. There was a distant knocking sound, the black swan neck shook, gurgled and then coughed up a gout of brown water.

We both took a step backwards.

‘How long since you used this place?’ I asked.

The knocking grew louder, faster and then water poured from the spout, dirty at first but then clear. The knocking faded away. Nightingale put the plug in and let the basin fill three-quarters before closing the tap.