Ben Aaronovitch Quotes
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By this point I was eager to emulate Guleed and merge unobtrusively with the imitation French farmhouse fittet cupboard and counter unit behind me.
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The laws of thermodynamics were very clear on the subject – all debts must be paid in full.
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People don't like to speak ill of the dead even when they're monsters, let alone when they're loved ones. People like to forget any bad things that someone did and why should they remember?
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NOBODY LIKES a riot except looters and journalists. The Metropolitan Police, being the go-ahead and dynamic modern police service that it is, has any number of contingency plans for dealing with civil disturbance. From farmers with truckloads of manure to suburban anarchists on a weekend break and Saturday jihadists. What I suspect they didn’t have plans for was just over two thousand enraged opera lovers pouring out of the Royal Opera House and going on a mad rampage through Covent Garden.
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People are conditioned by the media to think that black women are all shouting, and head shaking and girlfriending and “oh no you didn’t” and if they’re not sassy, then they’re dignified and downtrodden and soldiering on and “I don’t understand why folks just can’t get along.” But if you see a black woman go quiet the way Tyburn did, the eyes bright, the lips straight and the face still as a death mask, you have made an enemy for life, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred. Do
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She was slender and dressed like an Edwardian maid, complete with a starched white bib apron over a full black skirt and white cotton blouse. Her face didn’t fit her outfit, being too long and sharp-boned, with black almond-shaped eyes. Despite her mob cap she wore her hair loose, a black curtain that fell to her waist. She instantly gave me the creeps and not just because I’ve seen too many Japanese horror films.
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But the first rule about a black woman’s hair is you don’t talk about a black woman’s hair. And the second rule is you don’t ever touch a black woman’s hair without getting written permission first. And that includes after sex, marriage, or death for that matter. This courtesy is not reciprocated.
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One of the first rules of police work is that trouble will always come looking for you, so there’s no point looking for it.
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I gave the prescribed Metropolitan Police "first greeting". "Oi!" I said "What do you think you're doing?
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Not being invited in is one of the boxes on the “suspicious behavior” bingo form that every copper carries around in their head along with “stupidly overpowerful dog” and being too quick to supply an alibi. Fill all the boxes and you too could win an all-expenses-paid visit to your local police station.
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Whatever was in the sandwiches, you didn’t want them getting too warm and going off, or starting to smell, or spontaneously mutating into a new life form.
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When you're a boy your life can be measured out as a series of uncomfortable conversations reluctantly initiated by adults in an effort to tell you things that you either already know or really don't want to know.
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Somebody doesn't know they're not in Kansas anymore,' said Stephanopoulos.
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He was a Parisian. You can never be sure what Parisians believe in – beyond Paris of course.
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Boss. ‘It’s getting needlessly metaphysical out here.
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The narrow hallway was lined with framed photographs while the far end was dominated by a faux movie poster for Gone with the Wind starring Ronald Reagan sweeping Margaret Thatcher off her feet while a mushroom cloud bloomed behind them. She promised to follow him to the end of the world. He promised to organise it.
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THE METROPOLITAN Police has a very straightforward approach to murder investigations. Not for them the detective’s gut instinct or the intricate logical deductions of the sleuth savant. No, what the Met likes to do is throw a shitload of manpower at the problem and run down every single possible lead until it is exhausted, the murderer is caught, or the senior investigating officer dies of old age. As a result, murder investigations are conducted not by quirky Detective Inspectors with drink/relationship/mental problems but a bunch of frighteningly ambitious Detective Constables in the first mad flush of their careers.
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Guleed passed me the completed IIP on Caroline Linden-Limmer and pointed out a note which registered that she’d been granted a Gender Recognition Certificate when she was eighteen – changing her legal gender from male to female. ‘So . . .’ I started, but was cut off by the vast silence emanating from Stephanopoulos behind us. I looked over at Nightingale, who looked quizzically back, and decided to explain the implications later. Surprisingly, when I did, his reaction was outrage that somebody had to apply to a panel to determine what gender they were – he didn’t say it, but I got the strong impression that he felt such panels were intrinsically un-British. Like eugenics legislation, banning the burka and air conditioning.
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Pictures of Cheam adorn the walls of planning offices of every Home County to serve as an awful warning.
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It's a sad fact of modern life that sooner or later you will end up on YouTube doing something stupid. The trick, according to my dad, is to make a fool of yourself to the best of your ability.
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I heard a woman scream with rage and frustration and then grunt like a tennis player.
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Rule of policing number one – when something good falls into your lap, pass it up the chain of command as quickly as possible before something else bad can happen.
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Because were were both probationary constables, an experienced PC had been left to supervise us - a responsibility he diligently pursued from an all-night cafe on St. Martin's Close.
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It started at one thirty on a cold Tuesday morning in January when Martin Turner, Street performer and, in his own words, apprentice gigolo, tripped over a body in front of the West Portico of St. Paul's at Covent Garden. Martin, who was none too sober himself.