Foxglove Summer

Ben Aaronovitch

Chapters (25)

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Sir Terry Pratchett OBE

who has stood like a wossname upon the

rocky shores of our imaginations – the better

to guide us safely into harbour.

Title Page

FOXGLOVE

SUMMER

BEN AARONOVITCH

GOLLANCZ

LONDON

Contents

Dedication

PART ONE

1. Due Diligence

2. Mutual Aid

3. Operational Flexibility

4. The Falcon Assessment

5. Customer Facing

6. Stakeholder Engagement

7. Enhanced Interrogation

8. Proactive Measures

PART TWO

9. Post Incident Management

10. Intelligence Led

11. Service Delivery Option

12. Passive Data Strategy

13. Operational Compartmentalisation

14. Media Compliant

15. Window of Opportunity

16. Going Forward

Acknowledgements

Architectural and Historical Notes

Also by Ben Aaronovitch

PART ONE

The Borderlands

In th’olde days of the Kyng Arthour.

Of which that Britons speken greet honour,

Al was this land fulfild of fayerye.

The elf-queene, with hir joly compaignye,

Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede.

‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’, Geoffrey Chaucer

Due Diligence

I was just passing the Hoover Centre when I heard Mr Punch scream his rage behind me. Or it might have been someone’s brakes or a distant siren or an Airbus on final approach to Heathrow.

I’d been hearing him off and on since stepping from the top of a tower block in Elephant and Castle. Not a real sound, you understand – an impression, an expression through the city itself – what we might call a super-vestigia if Nightingale wasn’t so dead set against me making up my own terminology.

Sometimes he’s in a threatening mood, sometimes I hear him as a thin wail of despair in amongst the wind moaning around a tube train. Or else he’s pleading and wheedling in the growl of late-night traffic beyond my bedroom window. He’s a mercurial figure, our Mr Punch. As changeable and as dangerous as an away crowd on a Saturday night.

This time it was rage and petulance and resentment. I couldn’t understand why, though – it wasn’t him who was driving out of London.

As an institution, the BBC is just over ninety years old. Which means that Nightingale feels comfortable enough around the wireless to have a digital radio in his bathroom. On this he listens to Radio Four while he’s shaving. Presumably he assumes that the presenters are still safely attired in evening dress while they tear strips off whatever politician has been offered up as early morning sacrifice on the Today programme. Which is why he heard about the kids going missing before I did – this surprised him.

‘I was under the impression you quite enjoyed the wireless first thing in the morning,’ he said over breakfast after I’d told him it was news to me.