Midnight

by Stephen Leather

  The cat mewed softly and its tail twitched, then it settled its head on its paws and continued to stare at Nightingale. As he walked towards the fireplace he saw that the woman was wearing purple slippers and one of them had slid off. There was a cup of tea, untouched, on a table at the side of the chair. If she was dead, there didn’t appear to have been a struggle.

  Nightingale reached out and gently touched the woman’s shoulder. That was when she turned to stare up at him in terror and screamed as if she had just been stabbed in the chest.

  16

  Mrs Miller put the cup and saucer on the table at the side of the sofa. ‘Milk and no sugar,’ she said. She put a plate of chocolate biscuits next to the cup of tea. ‘From Marks and Spencer,’ she said. ‘They do wonderful biscuits.’ She sat down in the armchair and smiled at him. ‘You must have been so shocked when I screamed.’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘I thought you were . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what I thought.’

  Mrs Miller held up her iPod with its in-ear headphones. ‘I always listen to music on this,’ she said. ‘I’m a little bit deaf and I can turn the volume up without annoying the neighbours. They’re a marvellous invention.’

  ‘So I hear,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Do you know how many records I have on this?’

  Nightingale grinned. ‘A lot?’

  ‘I’ll say. More than fifty. Fifty albums, and look, it’s not much bigger than a box of matches, is it?’

  ‘It’s tiny,’ agreed Nightingale.

  ‘So I didn’t hear you knock and I didn’t hear the phone, and when you touched me . . .’

  ‘I am so sorry about that,’ said Nightingale. ‘But when you didn’t answer the door and I saw that the kitchen door wasn’t locked, I thought that maybe something had happened to you. I’m just glad that you’re okay.’

  ‘And you’re a journalist, you said?’

  ‘Freelance,’ said Nightingale. He didn’t like lying to Mrs Miller but he knew that people were happier talking to reporters than to private investigators. ‘I just wanted some background on Connie. For her obituary. What sort of person she was, what sort of life she had, just so that people can appreciate her more. Sometimes a cold news story gives the wrong impression, you know?’

  ‘I still can’t believe what happened,’ said Mrs Miller. ‘I just . . .’ She shook her head. ‘You never expect . . .’ She wiped a tear from her eye with the back of her hand, then reached for a box of tissues and used one to dab at her face.

  ‘I am so sorry about your loss,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘The doctor gave me some tablets and I keep listening to my music but nothing helps, not really.’ She showed him the iPod again. ‘Connie gave me this. And put all my records on it. She was always so good with computers.’ She dabbed at her eyes. ‘Still, I must be strong, right? That’s what my husband says.’

  ‘Where is he, Mrs Miller?’

  ‘He’s out walking, with the dog. Says it helps him, to keep moving.’ She sighed. ‘Connie was the perfect daughter, you know? We never had any problems with her. She was a happy baby, she was never any trouble at school, she worked hard and she . . .’ Her eyes misted over and she put a hand on her chest. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m still . . .’ She sighed. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe she’d do such a thing.’ She pulled another tissue from the box and blew her nose. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Was she upset about anything? Depressed?’

  Mrs Miller blew her nose. ‘I don’t think so. If she was, she never said anything to me or to my husband. But then I suppose they don’t, do they? People who are depressed bottle it up. I wish she had spoken to me. I don’t know why she didn’t.’

  ‘What did she do for a living, Mrs Miller?’

  ‘She worked for an estate agent. She was so good at it. She liked dealing with people and everyone liked her. She was always smiling, always happy.’ She dabbed at her eyes again.

  ‘What did she do in her free time? Did she have any hobbies?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Mrs Miller tearfully. ‘She liked the internet. She spent hours on her computer, I think. I used to tease her about it. She told me she had three hundred friends on Facebook and I said that in my whole life I don’t think I had more than ten real friends. They’re not real friends on Facebook, are they?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘That’s what I said. If she was ever going to find a husband she’d have to find him in the real world, not on the internet.’

  ‘So she didn’t have a boyfriend?’

  They both looked around at the sound of footsteps in the kitchen. ‘Are you expecting someone, Mrs Miller?’ whispered Nightingale.

  She frowned. ‘It’s not my husband; he always shouts when he opens the door.’

  There was the sound of a chair scraping across lino. Nightingale stood up, motioning for Mrs Miller to keep quiet. He looked around for something to use as a weapon. There was a brass poker and a matching brush in a stand by the fireplace. He picked up the poker and held it up as he walked on tiptoe towards the kitchen.

  He had taken just two steps when someone shouted, ‘Now, now, now!’ and four uniformed police officers rushed out of the kitchen, screaming and waving batons. Nightingale dropped the poker and raised his hands but the men steamrollered over him, knocking him to the ground.

  17

  Superintendent Thomas clicked his ballpoint pen as he stared impassively at Nightingale. The detective constable who had sat in on the last interrogation was also sitting across from Nightingale.

  ‘At least this time I get to keep my clothes on,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘You think this is funny?’ asked the superintendent. ‘You think that breaking into a woman’s house is funny, do you? I know that in London you punish burglars with a slap on the wrist but here in Wales we take breaking and entering very seriously.’

  ‘I didn’t break in,’ said Nightingale. ‘And you know I didn’t. When your men burst in and beat me up I was having tea with Mrs Miller.’

  ‘My men took what steps were necessary to take you into custody.’

  ‘I wasn’t arrested and I wasn’t informed of my rights, which means custody wasn’t an issue. We were having tea together. If your men had bothered to ask her, she’d have told them that I was her guest.’

  ‘You were holding a weapon.’

  ‘A poker. I’d picked up a poker.’

  ‘Which counts as a weapon.’

  ‘We heard a noise in the kitchen. We didn’t know who it was.’

  ‘They were uniformed police officers.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we didn’t know that when we heard them in the kitchen, did we? We heard a noise, I picked up the poker, then your men charged in and assaulted me.’ He sat back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘Do your men make a habit of assaulting people for the hell of it?’ he asked.

  The superintendent clicked his pen again. ‘You told her that you were a journalist,’ he said quietly.

  Nightingale winced. ‘A little white lie,’ he said. ‘I thought she’d be more likely to talk to a journalist than a private detective.’

  ‘And that works, does it?’

  Nightingale shrugged. ‘Yeah, it does. Especially if you say you’re with the local paper.’

  ‘That’s misrepresentation and fraud.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Nightingale. ‘I wasn’t trying to con her out of money, I just wanted some information.’

  ‘So you lied?’

  ‘I bent the facts. I didn’t think she’d be able to handle the fact that I was the one who found her daughter. It’s not as if I was pretending to be a police officer.’

  ‘Nonetheless you broke into her house and lied about your identity.’

  The back door was open.’

  ‘You seem to make a habit of walking into other people’s houses, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve already explained about Connie Miller.
And when I wanted to talk to her parents, I knocked on the door. Then I went around to the back of the house and knocked again. I tried the door and it was open.’

  ‘Any normal person wouldn’t have tried the door,’ said the superintendent. ‘Any normal person would have gone away and tried again later.’

  ‘I thought . . .’

  ‘Yes, what did you think? What exactly was going through your mind when you walked uninvited into Mr and Mrs Miller’s house?’

  Nightingale ran a hand through his hair. ‘To be honest, I thought that maybe something had happened. Something bad.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Nightingale wanted a cigarette, badly. ‘In view of what I found when I went to Connie Miller’s house, I was expecting the worst. I thought maybe she was dead. Then I saw her sitting in her armchair and she didn’t seem to be moving.’

  ‘She screamed,’ said the superintendent. ‘Loud enough to wake the dead. A neighbour out walking her dog called us.’

  ‘I surprised her,’ said Nightingale. ‘She was listening to her iPod. It was all a misunderstanding.’

  ‘Telling her that you were a journalist was a misunderstanding? I think not.’

  ‘I need a cigarette,’ said Nightingale. He gestured at the tape recorder. ‘Look, the fact that you haven’t bothered switching this on suggests you’re not going to take this anywhere. You just want to haul me over the coals and I understand that and I consider myself hauled. But we both know that I haven’t done anything that merits an ASBO, never mind a court appearance.’

  ‘Why did you come back, Nightingale? Why did you travel right the way across your country and then across mine to lie to a sweet lady who’s still grieving over the loss of her only daughter?’

  Nightingale stared at the policeman but didn’t say anything.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ said Thomas.

  ‘What do you expect me to say?’

  ‘The truth would be a good start.’

  Nightingale sighed. ‘I wanted to know why Connie Miller killed herself.’

  ‘And why would that be any concern of yours? I already told you that she wasn’t related to you.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I found her body. We had a connection.’

  ‘And so you went back to London and then decided to come all the way back here because you think that you have a “connection” as you call it.’

  ‘I know there’s something not right about her death,’ Nightingale said quietly. ‘I also know there are more suicides than there should be in this part of the world. Something’s going on. You know it and now I know it.’ He gestured at the tape recorder. ‘You’re not switching that on, so I can go, right?’

  ‘What do you know about Connie Miller’s death?’ asked the superintendent. ‘What do you know that you’re not telling me?’

  ‘I know that you think there’s a serial killer on the loose who’s making the murders look like suicides.’ It had been a shot in the dark but Nightingale had the satisfaction of seeing the policeman’s jaw tighten and his eyes harden. ‘Why haven’t you gone public?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Don’t people have the right to know what’s going on?’

  The superintendent clicked his pen several times. The detective constable turned to look at him and Thomas put the pen down and interlinked his fingers. ‘The problem, Nightingale, is that we don’t know what’s going on. You’re right – the suicide rate in north Wales is way above what it should be. But we’ve no proof yet that there’s a serial killer on the loose.’

  ‘But when you found me in Connie Miller’s house, you thought it might be me that was behind the deaths?’

  ‘You were the stranger in town and we found you with her still-warm body.’

  ‘But now you know I’m in the clear, you’re still looking for the killer.’

  ‘We’re not sure that there is a killer.’ The superintendent sighed. ‘I need a cigarette.’

  18

  Nightingale offered his pack of Marlboro to Thomas and the superintendent took one. Nightingale slipped a cigarette between his lips, lit it, and then lit the policeman’s.

  Thomas nodded his thanks, inhaled and blew smoke. He looked at the cigarette and nodded approvingly. ‘Marlboro are okay, aren’t they?’

  ‘They hit the spot,’ said Nightingale. ‘You smoke Silk Cut, right?’

  ‘Have done since I was a kid,’ said Thomas. ‘How long have you been a smoker?’

  Nightingale pulled a face. ‘Had my first at school but my parents were vehemently anti-smoking so I didn’t really start until I was at university.’

  ‘University?’ said Thomas. ‘Fast-track graduate-entry copper?’

  ‘For my sins,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Never had much stock in that,’ said Thomas. ‘The best cops are the ones who put in the years on the streets. That’s where you learn what matters, not on bloody courses.’

  ‘I walked a beat,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Yeah, but I bet you made sergeant in three years and inspector two years after that.’

  Nightingale shrugged. ‘That’s the way it works,’ he said. He blew smoke up into the air. ‘I figure you don’t get too many serial killers in this neck of the woods.’

  ‘We had one back in 1995,’ said Thomas. ‘I was a lowly DC then but I was on the case. Guy called Peter Moore killed four men for fun. But you’re right – they’re few and far between. Of course, we don’t know for sure that there’s one out there now.’

  ‘Could be a cluster, right?’

  ‘Could be. You get cancer clusters and disappearance clusters, so a suicide cluster is possible.’

  ‘Is there anything about any of the suicides that suggests there was someone else involved?’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘No forensics, no eyewitnesses.’

  ‘Notes?’

  ‘Sometimes. Not always. It could be that the ones that have notes are genuine suicides.’

  Nightingale inhaled, holding the smoke deep in his lungs for several seconds, and then exhaled slowly. ‘What about methods? How did the ones who didn’t leave notes kill themselves?’

  ‘Hanging, like Connie Miller. Tablets. Slashed wrists.’

  ‘But always in private? No witnesses?’

  ‘Nothing suspicious in that,’ said Thomas. ‘Women tend to do it quietly. It’s men who want to go out in a blaze of glory – throwing themselves in front of trains or smashing up their cars. Women are the gentler sex, God bless them.’

  ‘Mrs Miller said that her daughter didn’t go out much.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ said Thomas. ‘She wasn’t one for the bright lights, but she had plenty of friends. And none of them thought that she was depressed.’

  ‘She was online quite a lot, that’s what Mrs Miller said.’

  ‘Who isn’t, these days?’

  ‘Did you check her computer?’

  Thomas narrowed his eyes. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, would you?’

  Nightingale chuckled. ‘Wouldn’t dare,’ he said. ‘But she might have been talking to someone on email or on social networking sites, Facebook, MySpace, those sorts of places.’

  ‘There was nothing on her computer that raised any red flags,’ said Thomas. ‘We checked her emails. And her Facebook page. And we gave the house a going-over. And we spoke to her family, friends and colleagues. They weren’t aware of anyone in her life who might have been a danger to her.’

  ‘So the killer, if there is one, is a stranger.’

  ‘Which, statistically, means a white middle-aged male in a low-paid job who wet his bed and set fires and tortured small animals when he was a kid.’

  ‘That’s probably half the male population of Wales, right?’ Nightingale grinned. ‘Joke.’

  The superintendent blew smoke. ‘What about you? Were you a bed-wetter?’

  ‘I didn’t kill Connie Miller,’ said Nightingale. ‘I live in London; why would I come all the way to Wales to kill? It’d be a hell of a lot
easier to do it on my home turf. And a lot easier to hide what I was doing.’

  ‘You might have a reason.’

  ‘Like what? I hate the Welsh, is that it?’

  ‘Who knows?’ said Thomas. ‘The Yorkshire Ripper went after prostitutes. Harold Shipman murdered pensioners. Maybe you’ve got a thing about Welsh women. Maybe you were once snubbed by Charlotte Church or Catherine Zeta-Jones. I’m not a profiler, I’m a cop. And at the moment you’re the only suspect I’ve got.’

  ‘Assuming you have a serial killer and not just a statistical variation,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Killer or not, it doesn’t explain why you keep breaking into houses in Abersoch.’

  ‘I didn’t break in anywhere,’ said Nightingale, though he instantly realised that he’d lied. The previous night he’d done exactly that, forcing the French windows of Connie Miller’s house. He took a long drag on his cigarette. ‘Look, here’s what I’d be thinking if it was my case—’

  ‘Which it isn’t,’ interrupted the superintendent.

  ‘Which it isn’t,’ agreed Nightingale. ‘But if it was, I’d be looking for someone local. Not Abersoch local maybe, but north Wales local. And not someone in her close circle but someone she knew. Possibly through the internet. Someone she trusted enough to let him get close to her.’

  ‘Are you on the internet much?’

  Nightingale grinned. ‘Me? I’m a Luddite. I’ve barely mastered my TV remote. Anything I need off the internet, my assistant does it for me.’