"“But I want you to be cautious.” “Hey,” I said. “Cautious is my middle name.” “But your first name is Never Knowingly,” said Stephanopoulos. Which got all the laughs it deserved."

"Been there, I thought, done that, read The Silmarillion."

"If you run everywhere you miss stuff that you might have been better off noticing—just saying."

"“Are there aliens?” Simon asks Indigo. “Not that I know of,” she says. “Unless you count cats.”"

"After that I was up and ready for action. It might have been a Saturday, but below the rank of chief inspector weekends are an entirely notional concept."

"Policing is about moving from the unknown to the known and then further—to the provable."

"I found that if you voluntarily take on a chore somebody else doesn’t want to do, they don’t check the results too closely—in case they have to do it again themselves."

"Common sense said I should scarper. But is anyone will tell you, me and common sense have always had an open relationship."

"“Anything else to report?” he asked. “A creeping sense of existential dread,” I said. “Apart from that I’m good.”"

"“A romantic,” said Nightingale. “The most dangerous people on earth.”"

"Upstairs, MOLA’s offices had the same open-plan cubicle based workspace that has been the delight of code monkeys and low-level paper pushers since one time and motion consultant said to another, “Hey, you know, I don’t think we’ve really dehumanized these white collar drones enough.”"

"“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.”"

"I’m all for courageous action, in moderation, Peter. But you have an alarming tendency toward heroics."

"That at least we can leave to Abdul and the irrepressible Dr Vaughan," said Nightingale. "Who no doubt will be delighted to extend the boundaries of their empire of information." "Their knowledge base," I said. "I believe that's what I said."

"Lots of angled struts, planes of glass and random spikes. It was, as architectural theorists like to say, a bold statement and the statement was: “Fuck truth and beauty. We’ve got money and loads of it.”"

"Nothing attracts the powerful quite like more power."

"I could see the cartoon slot machine flicker behind his eyes. Nightingale was offering what the ridiculously rich always crave—a chance to be exclusive."

"Despite being the oldest part of London, the Square Mile has a faster architectural churn than anywhere else in the city. Occasionally it throws up something exciting, innovative and modern…but mostly it doesn’t. Architects like a bit of volume, and financiers like floor space. The easiest way to maximize both is to build a cube—which is why ninety-nine per cent of all office buildings are boxes with lobbies."

"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."

"None of this was real. But I’ve learned that just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it’s not important."

"Foxholes might breed belief, but trench systems are full of fatalistic cynics."

"“These people are not to be trusted,” I said. “These people?” “People with…” I looked over at the poshest person I’ve ever met and tried to think of the right word. “Entitlement,” I said. “They’re not good at keeping promises."

"“They’re all so ridiculously young,” said Nightingale. “They” were mostly Police Staff, what we’re not supposed to call civilian workers any more—analysts and data entry specialists—who’d got the boot when the government decided that in the light of an increased security threat what London needed was a smaller police force."

"This sort of thing is pretty common—people often draw more attention to themselves trying to hide their activities than whatever it was they were up to would. Plus sometimes the cover-up is more illegal than the thing they were covering up. Still, if people were brighter routine police work would be much harder."

"Most archaeology in London these days is rescue archaeology—projects designed to preserve as much as possible from the relentless cash-driven redevelopment. It’s not a new problem. Ask a medievalist about Victorian cellars or an Iron Age specialist about medieval ploughing—but take snacks, because you’re going to be there for a while."

"Anyone who’s taken statements from multiple witnesses to the same event will know how malleable memory is."

"Dedication: This book is dedicated to all the people whose job it is to rush into danger when everybody else is running in the other direction."

"We headed off to do some community outreach. This involves meeting people, listening to their stories and memorizing their names and faces in case you have to come back and arrest them at a later date."

"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."

"“Like when you kiss me,” she said. “Is it enjoyable because of the physical sensation or is it because you think it should be enjoyable?” Good question, and we quickly developed experimental protocol which unfortunately left us too knackered to record our results properly and thus invalidated any conclusions. We have faith in the methodology, though, and continue to repeat the experiment on a regular basis. And people say science is dull."

"Or my gut was wrong. Confirmation bias has put more innocent people in prison than malice."

"Guleed went home because she has, she says, a deep and mystical understanding of the work-life balance. A concept I once tried explaining to Nightingale with the aid of the big whiteboard in the visitors' lounge. I think he grasped it in the end, and said he was all in favour as long as I understood that this in no way applied to apprentices."

"This guy [Security Guard] was in a navy suit with an unfortunate orange tie, and was nearing us with the caution of a man on a minimum wage zero hours contract who planned to give his employers exactly what they paid for."

"I checked in the next morning to see if we knew the whereabouts of Zachary Palmer, the demi-monde's very own go-to guy for ducking and diving, bar work, fixing and general dishonesty. Due to a lucrative consultation contract with Crossrail, currently worth three hundred large a year, he didn't actually have to do any ducking and diving. That he still fiddled his change and sold dodgy goods on the Portobello Road while the money piled up in a low interest building society account seemed to wind up Seawoll no end."

"You see, the trouble with detectives is that they’re detectives and are literally trained not to believe anything they haven’t verified themselves."

"Few buildings evoke the sinister horror of 1950s municipal architecture more strikingly than the flat roofed pub. Thrown up in their thousands wherever the working class were being rehoused, it’s hard to imagine that the architects were not secret teetotallers looking to make the whole pub experience as grim as possible."

"Nightingale ignored that thread because when the suspect - I mean interviewee - wants to talk about something it's a good idea to frustrate them a little bit. That way you can get more later than they intended. Seawoll calls it the 'fuck all the cows' interview approach."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"“Nice,” said Abigail. “Very plausible.” “Yeah, but just because it’s plausible doesn’t mean it’s true.”"

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

"The house was neat and well cared for, but to my eye the Heywoods were losing the battle against the four-year-old agent of entropy who was living with them"

"A promise is a promise, or as Nightingale put it, “either your word is good or it’s worthless.”"

"“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."

"I didn’t dare ask because we have an unspoken agreement—I don’t question what she does on my computer when I’m out and, in return, she doesn’t murder me in my sleep."

"“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” I said. “I was gathering intelligence.”"

"Miss Karmargi who’d been my Religious Education teacher at school. An avowed atheist who’d once said that she respected all religions equally—“which is more than can be said for most religions,” she’d added."

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