The Hanging Tree

For police officers, “close relative” frequently rhymes with “prime suspect.”

The media always calls this sort of thing senseless, but the motive made sense—it was just stupid, is what it was.

The main purpose of an administrative meeting is to establish collective guilt for whatever fuck-up arises out of its decisions.

The ABC of policing literally goes: Assume nothing, Believe no-one, Check everything.

“Flexible,” I said. “Meaning we’re making it up as we go along.”

And having made sure my attention was focused in one direction the universe, which likes a good laugh, smacked me in the face from the other side.

God, money is so wasted on the rich.

Ask not for whom the buck stops, I thought, it stops for thee.

“Peter,” said Tyburn. “I need you to stop just pretending to be clever and actually be clever.”

Police doctrine is, even if you’re waiting for someone to do something violent to your suspect, you should de-escalate the situation because at the very least a peaceful solution produces a ton less paperwork.

“Somebody’s lying,” I said, which got me a look of amused indulgence from Stephanopoulos and a snort from Seawoll. Of course somebody was lying—we were the police—somebody was always lying to us.

Now, personally, I’d have been happier driving an armored personnel carrier in through the front door. But since we’re the Met, and not the police department of a small town in Missouri, we didn’t have one.

Hyde Park Corner is what happens when a bunch of urban planners take one look at the grinding circle of gridlock that surrounds the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and think—that’s what we want for our town.

After a slow start the police have taken to mobile technology in a big way—mainly because it means you can pretend to work anywhere: at home, the canteen, the local boozer.

From a policing point of view, guns are a pain. Once someone is known to be tooled up, your operational priorities are suddenly fucked up. It all becomes about managing whoever was stupid enough to pull a gun in central London and your number one priority is public safety, followed closely by officer safety and then, not so closely, by the safety of the moron with the gun.

There’s nothing like having your girlfriend talk in geological time to make you feel insignificant.

Dedication: This book is dedicated to all librarians everywhere—for they are the true keepers of the secret flame and not to be trifled with.

Now, I have - as Beverley says - views about architecture. But there's modern stuff I like. The Gherkin, the Lloyd's Building, even the Shard - despite the nagging feeling I get that Nazgûl should be roosting at the top. But the truth is that in the case of One Hyde Park my boy Sir Roger was definitely just putting in the hours for the pay check. It's not ugly as such...it's just not anything in particular.

I considered lying for all of about two nano-seconds, but I don’t have a death wish—not even a figurative one. Of course, philosophically speaking, truth is a slippery concept and one should always be alive to nuance.

In home furnishing terms, past a certain point, more money doesn’t get you anything except an increase in insurance premiums.