Nightingale thought he had avoided a lot of paperwork by taking on an extra pair of hands, but there were still some forms that he couldn't throw at Peter Grant, and the young Constable's appraisal was one of them. Nightingale, being a DCI, had been sent on the line manager courses as the Met couldn't conceive of a DCI that wouldn't be a manager, but seeing as he'd been working alone for decades he'd never actually had to do one. He had been hoping that he could just do the usual Folly thing of only being a part of the Met as much as it suited him, but the form had come from Scotland Yard, preprinted with Peter's details and for his attention, and doubtless not returning it would cause questions to be asked. It would be easier to just fill it in and send it back. He asked Molly to bring coffee.
He gazed out of the window in thought, and nodded a thank you to Molly as she returned with coffee and biscuits. He then began to write a draft on a separate piece of paper in his perfectly legible but surpisingly inelegant handwriting. This was going to be difficult to write, and needed careful thought. He started with the first thing that came into his head.
"Grant is an asset to both the Force and the Folly, a likeable and open-minded young man showing particular aptitude for courteous interaction with members of the public regardless of their gender, ethnic origin or indeed..."He stopped to think, and wrote down "species", "humanity", "nature" and then "faeness", crossing them all out in turn. In the end he compromised on "humanoid type, especially those humanoids considered to be mythical by the general public.". Pleased with having got through that little problem, he took a sip of coffee and continued.
"He takes orders well, and uses an appropriate amount of caution. I am happy to let him deal with tasks appropriate to his rank without supervision, and he interacts well with his colleagues in other sections. He takes this unit's more unusual nature in his stride, and appears to be coping well.
Nightingale frowned. There had been one case where Peter Grant, while not actually disobeying orders, had stretched that point to the limit. It needed to be mentioned, and he put pen to paper again.
"However, he is having trouble getting to grips with the more complex ethical issues regarding the legal status of the undead. He seems more than happy to throw grenades at parents of young children in Purley but faced with three pretty girls in Soho has a sudden attack of human rights. The fact that all of these entities fed on the life of others, and that the Soho nest had been estimated to have killed many, many more, seemed to have slipped his mind."
Nightingale thought for a moment about adding a comment about the fact that Grant was in the throes of, from what he could see, a rather torrid sexual relationship with one of them at the time, and then thought that was probably a step too far for an appraisal form. Instead, he wrote, "This is, however, a knotty problem that I myself found difficult to resolve when I was his age, and I am sure that the more he sees of the demi-monde, the more he will understand his position. In short, he is little too susceptible to glamour, but this is improving with experience."
He continued to write. "He needs to get it straight in his head that human rights extend to humans, in other words people that act with humanity. Monsters are an entirely different kettle of fish, and The Folly deals with a great many grey areas for which the Crown Prosecution Service will not be able to press charges. Sometimes, to be the law, we must take it into our own hands."
He thought for a moment. Considering that Peter had been thrown in at the deep end to quite a spectacular degree, he was doing rather well. There was a lot to learn, and he was having to learn it all in the wrong order because the evil they faced was not following the training syllabus. He'd lived through a duel with the Faceless Man. And when he'd had the face-to-face part of this appraisal, one phrase of Peter's was still ringing in his ears. "What did all your friends die for, all those names on the wall, what did they die for if not for that? Even if you've forgotten. They died because they thought there was a better way of doing things, even if they were still arguing about what it was." As soon as Peter had said that, Nightingale realised that he had been slipping into monstrosity himself, and it scared him. He bent down to add another paragraph.
"That said, I think PC Grant understands this, although he doesn't like it, and I like to think that he is helping me to understand that we must at least try to do things within the framework of the criminal justice system, at least until such opportunities are exhausted. If we do not try to be better men, we are no better than the criminals we face."
He sat up and read it all back.
It had been good to think it all through, which is what he supposed this being a "line manager" was all about, but there was no way an appraisal form was going to be scanned onto a computer record in Scotland Yard with that on it. He screwed it up, threw it up in the air and a targeted miniature fireball incinerated it. He reached for the actual form, and wrote.
"Learns slowly but shows aptitude and works hard. Some issues with getting too involved in some cases but I believe these are now behind him."
"Least said soonest mended" he said to himself, as he signed it and put it in an envelope.