Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London

‘So whatever caused it must have been very strong,’ I said.

‘Quite,’ said Nightingale. ‘Therefore we have to assume that the dog is very important and we have to find out why.’

‘Maybe Mr Skirmish had a dog,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘Let’s start there.’

We’d changed and were on our way out of the mortuary when fate caught up with us.

‘I heard rumours there was a nasty smell in the building,’ said a voice behind us. ‘And bugger me if it isn’t true.’

We stopped and turned.

Detective Chief Inspector Alexander Seawoll was a big man, coming in a shade under two metres, barrel-chested, beer-bellied and with a voice that could make the windows shake. He was from Yorkshire, or somewhere like that, and like many Northerners with issues, he’d moved to London as a cheap alternative to psychotherapy. I knew him by reputation, and the reputation was, don’t fuck with him under any circumstances. He bore down the corridor towards us like a bull on steroids, and as he did I had to fight the urge to hide behind Nightingale.

‘This is my fucking investigation, Nightingale,’ said Seawoll. ‘I don’t care who you’re currently fucking — I don’t want any of your X-Files shit getting in the way of proper police work.’

‘I can assure you, Inspector,’ said Nightingale, ‘I have no intention of getting in your way.’

Seawoll turned to look at me. ‘Who the hell is this?’

‘This is PC Peter Grant,’ said Nightingale. ‘He’s working with me.’

I could see this shocked Seawoll. He looked at me carefully before turning back to Nightingale. ‘You’re taking on an apprentice?’ he asked.

‘That’s yet to be decided,’ said Nightingale.

‘We’ll see about that,’ said Seawoll. ‘There was an agreement.’

‘There was an arrangement,’ said Nightingale. ‘Circumstances change.’

‘Not that fucking much they don’t,’ said Seawoll, but it seemed to me he’d lost some of his conviction. He looked down at me again. ‘Take my advice, son,’ he said quietly. ‘Get the fuck away from this man while you still have a chance.’

‘Is that all?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Just stay the hell away from my investigation,’ said Seawoll.

‘I go where I’m needed,’ said Nightingale. ‘That’s the agreement.’

‘Circumstances can fucking change,’ said Seawoll. ‘Now if you gentlemen don’t mind, I’m late for my colonic irrigation.’

He went back up the corridor, crashed through the double doors and was gone.

‘What’s the agreement?’ I asked.

‘It’s not important,’ said Nightingale. ‘Let’s go and see if we can’t find this dog.’

The north end of the London Borough of Camden is dominated by two hills, Hampstead on the west, High-gate on the east, with the Heath, one of the largest parks in London, slung between them like a green saddle. From these heights the land slopes down towards the River Thames and the floodplains that lurk below the built-up centre of London.

Dartmouth Park, where William Skirmish had lived, was on the lower slopes of Highgate Hill and within easy walking distance of the Heath. He’d had the ground-floor flat of a converted Victorian terrace, the corner house of a tree-lined street that had been traffic-calmed to within an inch of its life.

Further downhill was Kentish Town, Leighton Road and the estate where I grew up. Some of my school mates had lived around the corner from Skirmish’s flat, so I knew the area well.

I spotted a face in a first-floor window as we showed our cards to the uniform guarding the door. As in many converted terraces, a once elegant hallway had been walled off with plasterboard, making it cramped and lightless. Two additional front doors had been jammed side by side into the space at the end. The door on the right was half-open but symbolically blocked with police tape. The other presumably belonged to the flat with the twitching curtains upstairs.

Skirmish’s flat was neat, and furnished in the patchwork of styles that ordinary people, the ones not driven by aspirational demons, choose for their homes. Fewer bookcases than I would have expected from a media type; many photographs, but the ones of children were all black and white or the faded colour of old instamatic film.

‘A life of quiet desperation,’ said Nightingale. I knew it was a quote, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking who’d said it.

Chief Inspector Seawoll, whatever else he was, was no fool. We could tell that his Murder Team had done a thorough job — there were smudges of fingerprint powder on the phone, the door handles and frames, and books had been pulled off bookcases and then put back upside down. The last seemed to annoy Nightingale more than was strictly appropriate. ‘It’s just carelessness,’ he said. Drawers had been pulled out, searched and then left slightly open to mark their status. Anything worthy of note would have been noted and logged into HOLMES, probably by poor suckers like Lesley, but the Murder Team didn’t know about my psychic powers and the vestigium of the barking dog.

And there was a dog. That, or Skirmish had a taste for Pal Meaty Chunks in Gravy, and I didn’t think his quiet life had been quite that desperate.

I called Lesley on her mobile.

‘Are you near a HOLMES terminal?’ I asked.

‘I haven’t left the bloody thing since I got here,’ said Lesley. ‘They’ve had me on data entry and bloody statement verification.’

‘Really,’ I said, trying not to gloat. ‘Guess where I am?’

‘You’re at Skirmish’s flat in Dartmouth bloody Park,’ she said.

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because I can hear DCI Seawoll yelling about it right through his office wall,’ she said. ‘Who’s Inspector Nightingale?’

I glanced at Nightingale, who was looking at me impatiently. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ I said. ‘Can you check something for us?’

‘Sure,’ said Lesley. ‘What is it?’

‘When the Murder Team tossed the flat, did they find a dog?’

I heard her tapping away as she did a text search on the relevant files. ‘No mention of a dog in the report.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You’ve made a valuable contribution.’

‘You’re so buying the drinks tonight,’ she said and hung up.

I told Nightingale about the absence of dog.

‘Let’s go and find a nosy neighbour,’ said Nightingale. He’d obviously seen the face in the window too.

Beside the front door an intercom system had been retrofitted above the doorbells. Nightingale barely had time to press the button before the lock buzzed open and a voice said, ‘Come on up, dear.’ There was another buzz and the inner door opened, behind a dusty but otherwise clean staircase that led upwards, and as we started up we heard a small yappy dog start barking. The lady who met us at the top did not have blue-rinsed hair. Actually I’m not sure what blue-rinsed hair would look like, and why did anyone think blue hair was a good idea in the first place? Nor did she have fingerless mittens or too many cats, but there was something about her that suggested that both could be serious lifestyle choices in the future. She was also quite tall for a little old lady, spry and not even slightly senile. She gave her name as Mrs Shirley Palmarron.

We were quickly ushered into a living room that had last been seriously refurnished in the 1970s, and offered tea and biscuits. While she bustled in the kitchen the dog, a short-haired white and brown mongrel terrier, wagged its tail and barked non-stop. Clearly the dog didn’t know which of us it regarded as a greater threat, so it swung its head from one side to the other barking continuously until Nightingale pointed his finger at it and muttered something under his breath. The dog immediately rolled over, closed its eyes and went to sleep.