Rivers of London

by Ben Aaronovitch

  ‘Well?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘A dog,’ I said. ‘A little yappy dog.’

  Growling, barking, yelling, flashes of cobbles, sticks, laughing – maniacal, high-pitched laughing.

  I stood up sharply.

  ‘Violence and laughter?’ asked Nightingale. I nodded.

  ‘What was that?’ I asked.

  ‘The uncanny,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s like a bright light when you close your eyes, it leaves an afterimage. We call it vestigium.’

  ‘How do I know I didn’t just imagine it?’ I asked.

  ‘Experience,’ said Nightingale. ‘You learn to distinguish the difference through experience.’

  Thankfully we turned our back on the body and left.

  ‘I barely felt anything,’ I said, while we were changing. ‘Is it always that weak?’

  ‘That body’s been on ice for two days,’ said Nightingale, ‘and dead bodies don’t retain vestigia very well.’

  ‘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 p
lace? 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.

  I looked at Nightingale, but he just raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Has Toby gone to sleep?’ asked Mrs Palmarron when she returned with a tea tray. Nightingale jumped to his feet and helped her settle it on the coffee table. He waited until our host had sat down before returning to his seat.

  Toby kicked his feet and growled in his sleep. Obviously nothing short of death was going to keep this dog quiet.

  ‘Such a noisy thing, isn’t he?’ said Mrs Palmarron as she poured the tea.

  Now that Toby was relatively quiet I had a chance to notice that there was a lack of dogness about Mrs Palmarron’s flat. There were photographs of, presumably, Mr Palmarron and their children on her mantelpiece, but no chintz or doilies. There was no dog basket by the fireplace, and no hair ground into the corners of the sofa. I got out my notebook and pen.

  ‘Is he yours?’ I asked.

  ‘Lord no,’ said Mrs Palmarron. ‘He belonged to poor Mr Skirmish, but I’ve been looking after him for a little while now. He’s not a bad chap when you get used to him.’

  ‘He’s been here from before Mr Skirmish’s death?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Palmarron with relish. ‘You see, Toby’s a fugitive from justice, he’s “on the lam”.’

  ‘What was his crime?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘He’s wanted for a serious assault,’ said Mrs Palmarron. ‘He bit a man. Right on his nose. The police were called and everything.’ She looked down to where Toby was chasing rats in his sleep. ‘If I hadn’t let you hole up here it would be the pokey for you, my lad,’ she said. ‘And then the needle.’

  I called Kentish Town nick who put me through to Hampstead nick who told me that yes, there had been a call-out to a dog attack on Hampstead Heath just before Christmas. The victim had failed to press charges, and that was all there was in the report. They gave me the name and address of the victim; Brandon Coopertown, Downshire Hill, Hampstead.

  ‘You put a spell on the dog,’ I said as we left the house.

  ‘Just a small one,’ said Nightingale.

  So magic is real,’ I said. ‘Which makes you a … what?’

  ‘A wizard.’

  ‘Like Harry Potter?’

  Nightingale sighed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not like Harry Potter.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I’m not a fictional character,’ said Nightingale.

  We hopped back in the Jag and headed west, skirting the south end of Hampstead Heath before swinging north to climb the hill into Hampstead proper. This far up the hill was a maze of narrow streets choked with BMWs and Chelsea Tractors. The houses had seven-figure prices, and if there was any quiet desperation here then it had to be over the things that money couldn’t buy.

  Nightingale parked the Jag in a residents-only bay and we walked up Downshire Hill looking for the address. It turned out to be one of a row of grand Victorian semidetached mansions set back from the north side of the road. It was a seriously buff house with gothic trim and bay windows; the front garden was professionally cared for and judging from the absence of an intercom, the Coopertowns owned the whole thing.

  As we approached the front door we heard an infant crying, the sort of thready, measured crying of a baby that was settling in for a good wail and was prepared to keep it up all day if need be. With a house this expensive I was expecting a nanny or, at the very least an au pair, but the woman who opened the door looked too haggard to be either.

  August Coopertown was in her late twenties, tall, blonde and Danish. We knew about the nationality because she managed to work it into the conversation almost immediately. Before the baby she’d had a slim, boyish figure, but childbirth had widened her hips and put slabs of fat on her thighs. She managed to work that into the conversation pretty quickly, as well. As far as August was concerned, all of this was the fault of the English, who had failed to live up to the high standards a well brought-up Scandinavian woman comes to expect. I don’t know why; perhaps Danish hospitals have gyms attached to their maternity units.

  She entertained us in her knocked-through living room stroke dining room with blond-wood floors and more stripped pine than I really like to see outside of a sauna. Despite her best efforts, the baby had already begun to make inroads into the ruthless cleanliness of the house. A feeding bottle had rolled between the solid oak legs of the sideboard, and there was a discarded romper suit balled up on top of the Bang & Olufsen stereo. I smelled stale milk and vomit.

  The baby lay in his four-hundred-quid cot and continued to cry.

  Family portraits were hung in a tasteful grouping over the minimalist granite fireplace. Brandon Coopertown was a good-looking older man in his mid-forties with black hair and narrow features. While Mrs Coopertown bustled, I surreptitiously took a photograph with my phone camera. ‘I keep forgetting you can do that,’ murmured Nightingale.

  ‘Welcome to the twenty-first century,’ I said, ‘sir.’

  Nightingale rose politely as Mrs Coopertown bustled back in. This time I was ready and followed him up.

  ‘May I ask what your husband does for a living?’ asked Nightingale.

  He was a television producer, a successful one, with BAFTAs and format sales to the US – which explained the seven-figure house. He could do even better, but his ascension to the higher planes of international production were entirely hampered by the parochial nature of British television. If only the British could stop making programmes that catered only to a domestic audience, or even cast actors who were the least bit attractive.

  As fascinating as Mrs Coopertown’s observations on the provinciality of British television were, we felt compelled to ask about the incident with the dog.

  ‘That too is typical,’ said Mrs Coopertown. ‘Of course Brandon didn’t want to press charges. He’s English. He didn’t want to make a fuss. The policeman should have prosecuted the dog owner regardless. The animal was clearly a danger to the public – it bit poor Brandon right on his nose.’

  The baby paused and we all held our breath, but he merely burped once and started crying again. I looked at Nightingale and rolled my eyes over at the baby. Perhaps he could use the same spell as he used on Toby. He frowned at me. Maybe there were ethical issues about using it on babies.

  According to Mrs Coopertown, the baby had been perfectly well behaved until the thing with the dog. Now, well, now Mrs Coopertown thought he must be teething or have colic or reflux. Their GP didn’t seem to have a clue and was unforgivably short with her. She thought they might be better off going private.

  ‘How did the dog manage to bite your husband on the nose?’ I asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Mrs Coopertown.

  ‘You said your husband was bitten on the nose,’ I said. ‘The dog’s very small. How did it reach his nose?’

  ‘My stupid husband bent down,’ said Mrs Coopertown. ‘We were out for a walk on the Heath, all three of us, when this dog came running up. My husband bent down to pat the dog and snap, with no warning, it had bitten him on the nose. At first I thought it was quite comical, but Brandon started screaming and then that nasty little man ran over and started yelling, “Oh, what are you doing to my poor dog, leave him alone.”’

  ‘
The “nasty little man” being the owner of the dog?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘Nasty little dog, nasty little man,’ said Mrs Coopertown.

  ‘Was your husband upset?’

  ‘How can you tell with an Englishman?’ asked Mrs Coopertown. ‘I went to get something for the blood and when I got back Brandon was laughing – everything is a joke to you people. I had to call the police myself. They came, Brandon showed them his nose and they started laughing. Everyone was happy, even the nasty little dog was happy.’

  ‘But you weren’t happy?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s not a question of happy,’ said Mrs Coopertown. ‘If a dog bites a man, what’s to stop it from biting a child or a baby?’

  ‘May I ask where you were last Tuesday night?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘Where I am every night,’ she said. ‘Here, taking care of my son.’

  ‘And where was your husband?’

  August Coopertown, annoying yes, blonde yes, stupid no, replied, ‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s not important,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I thought you were here about the dog,’ she said.

  ‘We are,’ said Nightingale. ‘But we’d like to confirm some of the details with your husband.’

  ‘Do you think I’m making this up?’ asked Mrs Coopertown. She had the startled-rabbit look that civilians get after five minutes of helping the police with their inquiries. If they stay calm for too long it’s a sign that they’re professional villains or foreign or just plain stupid. All of which can get you locked up if you’re not careful. If you find yourself talking to the police, my advice is to stay calm but look guilty; it’s your safest bet.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Nightingale. ‘But since he’s the principal victim we’ll need to take his statement.’

  ‘He’s in Los Angeles,’ she said. ‘He’s coming home late tonight.’

  Nightingale left his card and promised Mrs Coopertown that he, and by extension all right-thinking policemen, took attacks by small yappy dogs very seriously and that they would be in touch.