- DCI Fred Thursday: [hearing the name Flavian Creech] Creech? That's, er...
- Dorothea Frazil: The Beast of Belgravia - AKA The Devourer. Self-styled Apostle of Hell. Murderer, necrophile and alleged cannibal.
- DCI Fred Thursday: Good to his mother, no doubt?
- Dorothea Frazil: [matter-of-fact] He kept her head in a hatbox.
- DCI Fred Thursday: [warning Morse about his drink problem] My old man was a devil for the drink. It's what did for him in the end. I'd hate to see you go the same way. You're young, you're smart. Break the habit before it breaks you.
- [last lines]
- DCI Fred Thursday: The sun always comes up. Just got to wait for it a bit longer sometimes, is all.
- DCI Fred Thursday: [examining the mutilated corpse of Patrick Stanton] What's that with his eyes?
- Dr. Max DeBryn: Someone's carved a cross into each one.
- DS Jim Strange: Some sort of religious nutcase?
- Dr. Max DeBryn: Oh, do you think so, Sergeant? It struck me as perhaps more clown-like.
- DCI Fred Thursday: I don't think Billy Smart's will pack many in, looking like that. The kids would run out screaming.
- Dr. Max DeBryn: Signs and wonders, Chief Inspector, signs and wonders.
- Lawrence Yeager: What do you think's happened?
- Percy Walsh: To Hobbs? I haven't the faintest. But if you're asking me to put my shirt on it, which you rather are, I'd say someone's got it in for us. Wouldn't you?
- Lawrence Yeager: All of us, you mean?
- Percy Walsh: All of us who are left. I'll watch your back if you'll watch mine.
- Chief Superintendent Reginald Bright: We're officers, Thursday. The men come first - always. Whatever the personal cost.
- DCI Fred Thursday: [interviewing Creech about the multiple homicides in 1963] You were there, that night at Tafferton Park.
- Flavian Creech: [genially] What can I say? Many hands make light work.
- Les Grant: [leering lewdly as he gives Linda her ticket] How far you going, then, love? All the way, is it?
- Flavian Creech: I killed a policeman once. He came asking about a missing boy I'd been... enjoying. Door to door. Why do coppers call it that? Do you all secretly aspire to be commercial travelers, knock-knock-knocking on suburban housewives' doors with your little sample cases filled with shoes or brassieres or soap or whatever it may be? I had a sample-case. But I didn't keep bits of vacuum cleaners in it.
- DCI Fred Thursday: No. You kept bits of people in it.
- DCI Fred Thursday: [to Strange, after they have interviewed Grant and Peckett] What do you make to them?
- DS Jim Strange: The driver seems decent enough. I wouldn't give you two bob for Quasimodo.
- DCI Fred Thursday: No, me neither.
- DCI Fred Thursday: [warning Morse about his drinking] You've four weeks' leave owing. Mr. Bright thinks you should take it now and so do I. Deal with whatever it is you need to deal with. The force has people who can help, if you need it, places you can go.