I checked in the next morning to see if we knew the whereabouts of Zachary Palmer, the demi-monde's very own… — Ben Aaronovitch
I checked in the next morning to see if we knew the whereabouts of Zachary Palmer, the demi-monde's very own go-to guy for ducking and diving, bar work, fixing and general dishonesty. Due to a lucrative consultation contract with Crossrail, currently worth three hundred large a year, he didn't actually have to do any ducking and diving. That he still fiddled his change and sold dodgy goods on the Portobello Road while the money piled up in a low interest building society account seemed to wind up Seawoll no end.
Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
More from this book
I asked whether the High Fae came into the pub.
Lulu gave me a crooked smile.
“High Fae?” She asked.
“You know,” I said. “The gentry, elves, those posh gits with extradimensional castles, stone spears and unicorns.”
“You mean them what step between worlds?”
“Could be.”
“Who walk on paths unseen and wax and wane with the moon?”
“Them sort of people,” I said. “Yeah.”
“Not in here, squire,” she said. “I run a respectable pub.”
p. 60
“Anything else to report?” he asked.
“A creeping sense of existential dread,” I said. “Apart from that I’m good.”
p. 266
Nightingale ignored that thread because when the suspect - I mean interviewee - wants to talk about something it's a good idea to frustrate them a little bit. That way you can get more later than they intended. Seawoll calls it the 'fuck all the cows' interview approach.

