“Urban Outfitters, eh," said Beverley. "That explains the Dr Denim shirt.""My mum bought me that," I said."And you think that's less embarrassing?”

“I gave the prescribed Metropolitan Police "first greeting"."Oi!" I said "What do you think you're doing?”

“You put a spell on the dog," I said as we left the house."Just a small one," said Nightingale."So magic is real," I said. "Which makes you a...what?""A wizard.""Like Harry Potter?"Nightingale sighed. "No," he said. "Not like Harry Potter.""In what way?""I'm not a fictional character," said Nightingale.”

“Despite my mum being from a small village in the middle of a forest, I'm not a country person. I don't like my bacon sandwich to be curiously snuffling at my fingers. But sometimes being police means holding your breath and fondling a pig.”

“My dad was a fairy," said Zach. "And by that I don't mean he dressed well and enjoyed musical theatre.”

“My mum translated this in her head to "witchfinder," which was good because like most West Africans, she considered witchfinding a more respectable profession than policeman.”

“When I was a kid I used to drink from the tap all the time. I'd run back into the flat all hot and sweaty from playing and didn't even bother putting it in a glass, just turned the tap on and stuck my mouth underneath it. If my mom caught me doing it she used to scold me, but my dad just said that I had to be careful. 'What if a fish jumped out?' he used to say. 'You'd swallow it before you knew it was there.' Dad was always saying stuff like that and it wasn't until I was seventeen that I realised it was because he was stoned all the time.”