Midnight

by Stephen Leather

  Jenny followed him down, keeping a tight grip on the brass banister. ‘I still don’t understand why he kept all this stuff hidden,’ she said. ‘There’s a perfectly good study and library upstairs.’

  ‘I don’t think he wanted his staff knowing what he was up to,’ said Nightingale. He walked along to a seating area with two overstuffed red leather Chesterfield sofas and a claw-footed teak coffee table that was piled high with books. He sat down into one of the sofas.

  Jenny ran her finger along the back of the other. ‘Looks like no one’s dusted in years,’ she said.

  ‘Are you offering?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘No, I’m not.’ She sat down. ‘So what’s the plan?’

  Nightingale waved at the bookshelves behind him. ‘I guess we need to find books on devils, see if any of them refer to a Frimost. While we’re at it, we should start compiling a list of titles so that I can see which ones I can sell. We’ve got to sort the wheat from the chaff because some of them are really valuable. That’s where most of Gosling’s money went, remember?’

  ‘It’s going to take forever, Jack. There must be – what, two thousand books here?’

  Nightingale shrugged. ‘Yeah, give or take.’

  ‘And most of them don’t even have titles on their spines.’

  ‘The longest journey starts with a single step,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Did you get that piece of wisdom from a Christmas cracker?’

  ‘From Mrs Ellis at my primary school, as it happens. We don’t have to do them all at once.’ He put his feet up onto the coffee table. ‘What do you think’s the best way of doing it?’

  ‘Not sitting on your backside would be a good start,’ she replied. ‘How about we take a shelf each and work along it? We can write the details down and if either of us spots a book on devils we can flick through it and see if Frimost is mentioned.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Nightingale. He stood up and went over to a huge oak desk that was piled high with books. He pulled open a drawer and found a couple of unused notepads. There were a dozen or so ballpoint pens in an old pint pot and he took two. ‘There we go,’ he said, giving Jenny a pen and a pad. ‘Race you.’

  ‘You’re so competitive,’ she said.

  Nightingale pointed at the bookcase next to the stairs that led down from the hall. ‘Might as well be methodical and start there,’ he said. ‘I’ll take the top shelf, you take the one underneath.’

  ‘I’ve just had a thought,’ said Jenny. ‘Have you actually looked for a list yet?’

  ‘A list?’

  ‘With this many books, he must have had some sort of inventory. How else would he know if he already had a particular volume?’

  Nightingale nodded thoughtfully. ‘Okay, that makes sense. But where would he keep it?’

  ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ said Jenny. ‘He could have put it on a computer or his BlackBerry, if he had one. Or he could have written the list down in a book. Or filed it away.’

  ‘Or maybe he didn’t have a list in the first place.’

  ‘Oh ye of little faith,’ she said. ‘There isn’t a computer down here, is there?’

  Nightingale gestured at the far end of the basement. ‘There’s one down there linked to the CCTV feeds but I’m pretty sure it’s just for recording. And I haven’t seen a laptop.’

  ‘Have you checked the desk?’

  Nightingale shook his head.

  ‘Why don’t I go through the desk while you make a start on the books?’

  ‘Go for it,’ said Nightingale. He took went over to the bookcase, where he started taking books down. They were mostly leather-bound and dusty but they had all been read and had been annotated in the same cramped handwriting. Passages were underlined and there were exclamation marks and question marks in red ink in the margins.

  There didn’t appear to be any logic to the order that the books were in. There was a book on plant biology next to a book on Greek mythology, then a first edition of Lord of the Rings next to a book on fairies. There were historical books, works of fiction, books of photographs and books written by hand. In turn, Nightingale noted down the title and the author and a number corresponding to its position on the shelf.

  A bell rang somewhere upstairs. ‘Who’s that?’ asked Nightingale.

  Jenny smiled sarcastically. ‘I’m not psychic,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, that was just about the only thing missing from your CV,’ said Nightingale. He stood up and walked the length of the basement to where half a dozen LCD screens were fixed to the wall in two banks of three. Nightingale tapped a button on a stainless-steel console in front of the screens and they flickered into life. There was a man in a dark overcoat standing in front of the main door, his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Who is it?’ called Jenny.

  ‘The last person I want to see just now,’ said Nightingale.

  9

  Nightingale pulled open the front door. Superintendent Chalmers was standing in the driveway, his hands in the pockets of his cashmere overcoat. He looked more like a Conservative politician than a policeman in his dark pinstriped suit and perfectly knotted blue and cream striped tie. Behind him was a hard-faced woman in a beige belted raincoat, her hair cut short and dyed blonde. She was in her early thirties, probably a detective sergeant, with dark patches under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept well the previous night.

  ‘What are you doing working so late?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Superintendents don’t get paid overtime.’

  ‘Thought I’d check out the new Nightingale residence,’ said the superintendent. ‘Nice. Very nice. Bit off the beaten trail, though.’ He looked around, nodding slowly. ‘Missed you at the office, couldn’t find you at the flat in Bayswater, so thought I’d check out your inheritance.’

  ‘How can I help you?’ asked Nightingale. He looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to get back to London.’

  The superintendent ignored the question. ‘What are you going to do when they take away your licence for drunk-driving? Not very well served by public transport, are you, and a minicab’s going to set you back about a hundred quid from London.’

  ‘That’s why you’re here, is it? To check up on my drink-driving case? Haven’t you got better things to do with your time?’

  ‘I’m just saying. You were over the limit so you’ll get a twelve-month ban at least, plus a fine. Of up to five grand and maybe even a few months behind bars.’ Chalmers looked up at the roof. ‘Must be a ton of lead up there. What’s security like out here in the sticks? Surrey Police keep an eye on the place, do they?’

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Nightingale. He took out his pack of Marlboro and lit one.

  ‘A bit of respect for a start,’ said Chalmers.

  Nightingale shook his head. ‘I’m not in the Job now, and even when I was I had precious little respect for you. You’re on private property and unless you’ve got some sort of warrant then I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’ He blew smoke up at the sky.

  ‘I’m told you inherited this place,’ said Chalmers. Nightingale shrugged but didn’t reply. ‘And the guy who left it to you blew his head off with a shotgun. Is that true?’

  ‘You know it’s true,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s my property now and I want you off it.’

  ‘This Ainsley Gosling was your long-lost father, right?’

  ‘My biological father,’ said Nightingale. ‘I was adopted at birth.’

  ‘I wish I had a rich father to leave me a big house,’ said Chalmers.

  Nightingale looked pointedly at his watch. ‘I’ve got things to do,’ he said.

  ‘I had a call from my opposite number in Abersoch. Seems you were at another murder scene.’

  ‘It was a suicide,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘There seem to be a lot of deaths around you these days,’ said Chalmers. ‘Your uncle and aunt. Robbie Hoyle. Barry O’Brien, who was driving the cab that ran over Hoyle. And of course good old Simon Underwood, who too
k a flyer through his office window while you were talking to him.’

  Nightingale took a long drag on his cigarette but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Your mother killed herself, too, didn’t she?’

  ‘My parents died in a car crash years ago.’

  ‘You know what I mean, Nightingale. Your birth mother. Genetic mother. Rebecca Keeley. Whatever you want to call her. She slashed her wrists after you paid her a visit, didn’t she? Did you think I wouldn’t find out about that?’

  ‘She was a troubled woman,’ said Nightingale. ‘You can talk to the people at the home.’

  ‘Troubled why?’

  ‘She was on medication, Chalmers. She was a sick woman. Yes, I went to see her, twice, but she wasn’t able to say much. I don’t think she even knew I was there.’

  ‘Why did she put you up for adoption?’

  Nightingale shrugged again. ‘I don’t know,’ he lied. There was no way that he was going to tell Chalmers that Keeley had been forced to give up her new-born baby to fulfil a deal that Ainsley Gosling had made with a demon from Hell.

  The superintendent nodded at the hallway. ‘Are you alone in there?’

  ‘What do you want, Chalmers?’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I want you to tell me who else is in the house with you,’ said the superintendent. ‘I was wondering if maybe the lovely Miss McLean was there so that we could kill two birds with one stone.’

  Nightingale frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Is Jenny McLean inside or not?’ said the superintendent. ‘I’m not pissing about here, Nightingale.’

  ‘Yes, she is. Why?’

  ‘Because we want to talk to her, and to you, about what happened in Battersea.’ He sneered at Nightingale with undisguised contempt. ‘How stupid do you think we are, Nightingale? Did you think we wouldn’t check the CCTV cameras and that we wouldn’t find out that you were in the flat when George Harrison took a flyer off his balcony?’

  10

  The uniformed officer, who looked as if he was barely out of his teens, showed Nightingale into an interview room and asked him if he wanted a tea or a coffee. He asked for a coffee and sat down at the table. Chalmers and the female detective had taken Jenny along to another interview room. After ten minutes the constable reappeared with a cup of canteen coffee.

  ‘You didn’t spit in it, did you?’ joked Nightingale.

  The constable stared at him blankly and sat down opposite him.

  ‘Is this going to take long because I’ll need a cigarette break soon,’ said Nightingale.

  The constable shrugged but didn’t say anything. Nightingale looked at his watch but as he did so the door opened and Chalmers walked in holding a clipboard and two blank cassette tapes. Behind him was another detective, who Nightingale recognised. Dan Evans. Evans was a detective inspector in his late thirties, with prematurely greying hair and an expanding waistline that hinted at a fondness for beer.

  ‘It’s almost midnight,’ said Nightingale. ‘Can’t this wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘No it can’t,’ said Chalmers.

  ‘You don’t need Jenny here,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said the superintendent. He nodded at the constable. ‘Off you go, lad, we’ll take it from here.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the constable, and he hurried out.

  Evans took the two tapes from Chalmers, sat down opposite Nightingale and slotted them into the recorder.

  ‘She’s just my assistant,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘She was at a crime scene,’ said Chalmers.

  ‘It wasn’t a crime; he jumped,’ said Nightingale, but the superintendent held up a hand to silence him.

  ‘Wait for the tape, please.’

  Evans pressed ‘record’ and nodded at the superintendent. Chalmers looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘It is now twenty-five minutes past eleven on the evening of December the first. I am Superintendent Ronald Chalmers, interviewing Jack Nightingale.’ He looked at Nightingale. ‘Please say your name for the tape.’

  ‘Jack Nightingale.’

  ‘And with me is . . .’ Chalmers nodded at Evans.

  ‘Detective Inspector Dan Evans,’ he said.

  ‘For the tape, can you confirm that I have not been charged or cautioned,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘You are here to help us with our enquiries,’ said the superintendent. ‘But I will now ask Detective Inspector Evans to read the caution to you.’

  The inspector went through the caution, even though they all knew that Nightingale knew it by heart.

  ‘But I am free to leave whenever I want?’ said Nightingale when the inspector had finished.

  The superintendent stared at Nightingale with cold eyes. ‘At the moment you’re helping us with our enquiries. If that changes then charges might be forthcoming and in that case we will of course follow PACE to the letter.’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘And Jenny?’

  ‘The same,’ he said.

  ‘So how exactly can I help you?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘On November the twenty-third of this year did you and your assistant, Jenny McLean, go to the residence of George Arthur Harrison in Battersea?’

  Nightingale folded his arms and sighed. ‘You know I did.’

  ‘Yes or no?’

  Nightingale sighed again. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to him.’

  ‘About what?’

  Nightingale glared at the policeman. ‘I just wanted to talk to him.’

  ‘About the death of your parents?’

  Nightingale nodded.

  ‘For the tape, please.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘I wanted to talk to him about my parents.’

  ‘Because he was driving the truck that crashed into them?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Why did you leave it so long to go and talk to him? Your parents died fourteen years ago.’

  Nightingale didn’t answer.

  ‘Did you hear the question, Mr Nightingale?’

  ‘I don’t have an answer to that.’

  Chalmers leaned forward. ‘You don’t know why you suddenly felt the urge to go and see the man who killed your parents?’

  ‘I’d only just found out where he lived,’ said Nightingale, even though he knew that wasn’t the reason.

  ‘Your parents died fourteen years ago. You went to see the man who killed them less than two weeks ago. I don’t see that for someone who was a policeman for as long as you were it would have taken fourteen years to track him down. What made you suddenly want to see him again? Revenge?’

  ‘Harrison didn’t mean to kill my parents. It was an accident. An RTA, pure and simple.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  ‘Of course I do. There was an inquest, he wasn’t charged with anything. It was a rainy night, my father overtook a car on a blind corner and hit Harrison’s truck. It was a stupid accident.’

  ‘So you didn’t bear him any ill will?’

  Nightingale leaned forward and placed his hands on the table. ‘Are you stupid?’ he said. ‘If I did want him dead I’d hardly have waited fourteen years before throwing him off a balcony. Give me some credit, Chalmers. If I wanted to kill someone I’d be a bit more creative than that.’

  ‘Maybe you lost your temper. Maybe he said something that set you off.’

  ‘We were talking on the balcony and he jumped.’

  ‘Why did he do that?’

  Nightingale shrugged. ‘I really don’t know. We were having a conversation and he jumped.’

  ‘Like Simon Underwood did?’

  ‘Am I helping you with your enquiries into the death of George Harrison or Simon Underwood?’ said Nightingale.

  ‘There seems to be a pattern here. You go to talk to people and they die. It happened in Canary Wharf with Simon Underwood, in Abersoch with Constance Miller and in Battersea with George Harrison.’ />
  ‘What do you want me to say?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘I want the truth,’ said Chalmers, leaning forward and interlinking the fingers of both hands as if he was about to pray. ‘I want you to tell me what happened. I want you to tell me why George Harrison died. Did you kill him?’

  Nightingale’s jaw dropped. ‘Did I what?’

  ‘Did you push George Harrison off the balcony?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘He just decided to commit suicide while you were there?’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘That’s what happened.’

  ‘And Miss McLean will back you up on that, will she?’

  ‘She was inside the flat. She wasn’t on the balcony.’

  ‘So you’re saying that she won’t be able to back you up?’

  ‘She didn’t see me push Harrison off the balcony because that’s not what happened.’ Nightingale stared scornfully at the superintendent. ‘You’ve got nothing,’ he said. ‘If you did you would have charged me by now. You know I was there and I’m not denying it, but there’ll be no forensic that suggests I did anything but talk to him. Jenny McLean was there and she’ll back me up.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ said Chalmers.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘We will.’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Are we done?’

  ‘We’re done when I say that we’re done,’ said the superintendent. ‘We have CCTV footage of you arriving at the tower block where Mr Harrison lived. And we have video of you leaving thirty-eight minutes later. So you and Mr Harrison must have had quite a chat before he decided to throw himself off the balcony.’

  ‘He let us in, we went out onto the balcony, we talked for two minutes at most, and then he jumped.’

  ‘Why were you on the balcony?’