The October Man

Gaston did betray an abstracted quality that might have been the result of magic. But was more likely down to consuming, I suspected, a tremendous amount of recreational chemicals.

The more power something has, the less the actual facts matter.

“There’s paperwork for magic? asked Vanessa.

“Not so glamorous now, eh?” I said.

As police you can live with the violence, the squalor and the stupidity—it’s the waste of people’s futures that really grinds you down.

“He believed in a mystical connection between the farmer and the soil.”

“And you don’t?” I asked.

“I believe there’s a connection,” she said. “I just happen to believe it’s biochemical.”

Not everything that’s unexplained is caused by magic.

It’s like with germ warfare. They weaponise germs for aggression and we say we study weaponised germs purely for defensive purposes. Nobody likes to admit they’re doing it but everybody knows everybody else is doing it.

“Police work,” said Stefan, “is ninety per cent paperwork, nine per cent bullshit and one per cent horror.”