Ben Aaronovitch

We were pretty certain we knew roughly where he’d been, but members of the public have an unnerving tendency to switch straight from lying to your face to telling you what they think you want to hear—with no intervening period of veracity at all.

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

“Any abductions?” I asked.

“Loads,” he said. “But none verified.”

“The old days,” said Smith. “Isn’t that what you’re asking about? Because I was a respectable businessman.”

“But Smithy,” said Stephanopoulis. “I don’t believe in respectable businessmen. I’ve been a copper for more than five minutes. And the constable here doesn’t think you’re respectable either, because it happens he is a card-carrying member of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party and so regards all forms of property as a crime against the proletariat.”

That one caught me by surprise and the best I could manage was “Power to the people.”

I rang her and left a message identifying myself and giving an impression of urgency without actually saying anything concrete. Never record anything you wouldn’t want turning up on YouTube is my motto.

First law of gossip—there’s no point knowing something if somebody else doesn’t know you know it.

“The chicken in that is embalmed, dried and pressed very flat, and then sprinkled with extra chemicals,” she said.

“Too hungry to care,” I said.

Ghosts, I was thinking, memories—I wasn’t sure there was a difference.

“I want assurances,” said Zach.

“You can have my word,” I said.

“No disrespect, Peter,” he said, “but I don’t want a promise from the monkey, I want it from the organ grinder.”

“It’s one of those paradox thingies,” I said. “What happens when the unstoppable cook meets the unfillable stomach?”

As property prices started rising, developers snatched up bomb sites and derelict buildings and erected the shapeless concrete lumps that have made the ’70s the shining beacon of architectural splendor that it is.

Was it better to die in the illusion of sunshine and warmth or face death in a cold darkness of reality? Was it better to die in happy ignorance or terrified knowledge? The answer, if you’re a Londoner, is that it’s better not to die at all.