I keep imagining what it might be like to be sitting in a booth somewhere, my Kindle propped up against the napkin holder, wondering whether to have the peach cobbler or the apple pie. Then hearing that pop pop pop sound in the distance, or a scream, or seeing the waitress fall down and realise that you haven’t even heard the gunshot. Hauling out my pistol, looking for a target, trying not to get shot.
I’ve only ever discharged my firearm in anger the one time and that was in a sewer under London, England and I missed the target.
When I was training at Quantico, I always imagined the silhouettes as bank robbers or terrorists or kidnappers but the men and women I visit in the prisons are so ordinary. Disgruntled high schoolers, angry ex-employees, ex-husbands. These are the ones that survive, mind you. The ones that surrender to their teacher or the first LEO on the scene or get overpowered by some brave folks using pepper spray or other improvised weapons. The other half of them get themselves shot or eat their own gun. No telling what they were like in person but from their files they seem as ordinary as anybody else.
There’s all sorts of theories about why people become active shooters, but truth is nobody really knows the why. Only that they’re getting more frequent and more deadly. My Mama says that it is a sign of the end times, but she said that the day Obama got elected for his second term and also that time during the Super Bowl when Janet Jackson had her wardrobe malfunction.
So now I’ve been sent out to see if there’s anything supernatural about these killings. I do not believe they are going to be happy with my report because as far as I can tell a more natural bunch of murderers you will never find.
My Mama always said that if something magical weren’t a miracle from God than it must be the work of the Devil but if he’s behind these shootings he’s too subtle for me.
So first thing tomorrow I’m going to visit one of those seven prisons and interview a thirty six year old white male who shot his wife and his mother in law and was all set to shoot up his home town if he hadn’t been tackled by, of all people, the mail man. He barely made the local news.
The motel room is blue and I think I’m going to have quick talk with Jesus.
It’s that or the emergency box of Pizza Rolls I have in my case.
Moment Three
Tobias Winter—Meckenheim 2012
I’d only been back at Meckenheim for a couple of days when the reports arrived from London. I’d been out in the East, in Radeburg, recovering a Case White artefact that the local police had uncovered from a suspected Werewolf cache. Don’t let the name excite you, these jobs are always the same. I drive across the country, sign for a sealed package and drive back. I rarely get to spend even a night out on the town because the local boys can’t hustle me out of their jurisdiction fast enough. You’d think the bloody things were radioactive, they’re not you know, early on I ‘borrowed’ a Geiger counter from the forensics lot and started checking them before I put them in the car.
Judging from the weight and size of the package I’m relatively certain that it was a diary or ledger. If so, I was in no doubt that my next task would be to scour through it for names to add to our database. My chief has often complained that our obsession with the Nazi past is holding us back. It’s certainly generated enough paperwork.
‘Sooner or later this national obsession has to pass,’ she said once. ‘We’ve all become far too comfortable playing this role.’
Although she’s never once said what exactly it was holding us back from and I for one was not in a hurry to find out. Like my father I favour a comfortable Germany, it’s about the only thing we’ve ever agreed on.
I didn’t ask to join the Department for Complex and Unspecific Matters, in fact I made a spirited attempt to blow the interview. When the Chief asked me why I’d joined the Bundeskriminalamt I told her it was because they wouldn’t have me in Cobra 11. That should have been it but instead the Chief smiled her terrifying smile.
‘You’ll do nicely,’ she said.
When we’re not transporting dangerous artefacts or chasing rumours of possessed BMWs, never Mercedes for some reason, we work office hours at the KDA. I like to get in at eight so I get an hour to myself before the Chief and the administration team arrive. So I wasn’t best pleased to find an email from the secure communications section informing that they had a message for me. Protocol dictates that I collect such documents myself, so down I went to the basement. I read the first page summary while I was still in the secure communications room. Then I asked the officer in charge to send a message back to London.
‘Can’t you send an email?’ he asked.
‘Not for this,’ I said.
They don’t have chairs in the waiting area of the communications section, so I propped up the wall and speed read the bulk of the message while I was waiting for a reply. When it came I put both in my secure briefcase and took them upstairs.
The Abteilung KDA was once a much bigger section and as a result we have a large number of empty offices at our end of the second floor. The fact that none of the departments have tried to appropriate them for their own officers should tell you something about how we are regarded by the rest of the Bundeskriminalamt.
I found the Chief in her office standing in front of the window looking out on her unrivalled view of the car park.
‘The Nightingale has taken an apprentice,’ I said.
The Chief is a tall, slender woman with a long pale face and red lips. She favours black skirt suits cut in a very elegant, old-fashioned style and I’ve heard her described as looking like the CEO of a corporation run by vampires.
I’ve faced a vampire and the only reason I’m able to talk about it now is because I was carrying a flame thrower at the time. So no, I think she looks like a woman who needs to get out in the sun more.
‘Ah,’ said the Chief. ‘That’s unfortunate. How certain is this?’
‘The Embassy has confirmed it.’
She turned to check that I’d closed the door behind me and that nobody else could see or hear.
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ she said. ‘Why is it always bloody London? I told them we needed someone at the Embassy full time.’ She tapped a long blood red fingernail on her desk for a moment and then glanced back out of the window to see if the rain had stopped.
‘Get my things,’ she said. ‘We’re going for a walk.’
The Chief has a favourite smoking place amongst the trees at the far end of the athletics track. She smokes dreadful f6 cigarettes but I’m certain these are an affectation like her Saxon accent - part of her disguise.
‘Details,’ she said as she jammed a cigarette into her long black holder.
I summarised the summary. She interrupted me only once and that was so I could light her cigarette.
‘What do we know about this Peter Grant?’ she asked.
‘African mother, English father, joined the London police two and a half years ago,’ I said. ‘The London Embassy have promised more in the next few days.’
The Chief stubbed her cigarette out on the nearest tree and jammed a fresh one into the holder.
‘We should have had someone in London full time,’ she said.
It had always been the consensus in the Federal Government that the supernatural had been ‘contained’ and the KDA’s job was that of a glorified cleaning service. The Foreign Ministry wasn’t about to allocate a valuable diplomatic position to someone whose job description could at best be described as ‘hanging about in case something magical happens’.
Only now it had.
‘Do they have more information on the murder?’ she asked.
‘Four murders now,’ I said. ‘One of the victims was an infant. They’re sure the case is linked to Nightingale breaking the agreement, but they don’t know why.’
‘So much for “contained”,’ said the Chief. ‘Do you know what this means?’
I’ve learnt not to interrupt the Chief when she’s in full rhetorical flow.
�
�This means,’ she said blowing smoke, ‘that we’ll have to expand our own capabilities to match.’
She looked at me in a way that did not entirely make me feel comfortable.
‘Tobias,’ she said.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Have you ever considered learning magic?’
Just One More Thing…
Even as this volume is being beaten into shape by a copyeditor more short stories are being written and planned. There are many characters in the green room clamouring for their moment in the sun. Professor Postmartin and Hatbox Winstanley from ‘A Rare Book Of Cunning Device’ will be teaming up to track down witch’s curses in Enfield and hunting unicorns in Havering. Winter and Sommer face a curious cold case in Schwerte while a shopkeeper in Redbridge has to negotiate a tricky deal with some talkative urban foxes.
So if you enjoyed these stories I can promise you more are on their way.
Until then, good luck, stay safe and keep the faith.
—Ben Aaronovitch June 2020
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised in London, Ben Aaronovitch worked as a scriptwriter for Doctor Who and Casualty before the inspiration for his own series of books struck him whilst working as a bookseller in Waterstones Covent Garden. Ben Aaronovitch’s unique novels are the culmination of his experience of writing about the emergency services and the supernatural.
ALSO BY BEN AARONOVITCH
RIVERS OF LONDON
Rivers of London (Midnight Riot in the US)
Moon Over Soho
Whispers Under Ground
Broken Homes
Foxglove Summer
The Furthest Station (Novella)
The Hanging Tree
Lies Sleeping
The October Man (Novella)
False Value
GRAPHIC NOVELS
Bodywork
Night Witch
Black Mould
Detective Stories
Cry Fox
Waterweed
Action at a Distance
The Fey and the Furious*
*(currently only available in comic form)
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Tales from the Folly Page 14
