Midnight

by Stephen Leather

  Chance’s right hand appeared, holding a cut-throat razor. He flicked it open and then smoothly slid it across Bernie’s throat. For a second there was just a thin red line across the skin and then blood spurted right and left as his mouth dropped open in surprise. The can of lager fell from his hands and rolled across the carpet. His hands went slowly up to his neck, bathed in glistening blood, but they barely reached his chest before he slumped back on the sofa.

  Maggie stared at her dying husband, her eyes wide open. Her whole body was juddering as if she was in the grip of an electric shock.

  Chance smiled at her. ‘Do you feel lucky, Maggie?’ he asked.

  She frowned in confusion. Her mouth moved but no words came out. A deep groan came from somewhere deep in Bernie’s chest and then he went still. Blood continued to pour from the gaping wound in his neck and it pooled in his lap.

  Chance winked and tossed the coin high in the air.

  Later, as he stood in the shower washing off the blood of Bernie Maplethorpe and his tiresome wife, Chance felt the water go suddenly scalding hot. He yelped and jumped out of the shower and then yelped again when he saw the girl and her dog standing in the doorway. He bowed his head and covered his private parts with his hands. ‘Mistress Proserpine,’ he said.

  ‘I can see your coin is still coming up heads,’ said Proserpine. ‘You made a right mess downstairs.’

  ‘The coin guides me, Mistress Proserpine,’ he said. ‘I am always grateful for your gift.’

  ‘I need you to do something for me, Chance.’

  ‘Anything, Mistress Proserpine,’ he said, going down on one knee. ‘My life is yours.’

  ‘And your soul,’ she said. ‘Let’s not forget your soul.’

  43

  Alistair Sutton was an old-school detective, a big man in a worn suit, with bleary eyes and the pained expression that came from having been lied to more times than he’d ever be able to recall. He smiled without warmth as he shook Nightingale’s hand and asked for a vodka and tonic before Nightingale had even offered him a drink. The chief inspector had agreed to meet Nightingale in the Cape of Good Hope pub, next to the Albany Street police station, close to Regent’s Park. It was a modern brick-built public house, surrounded by council flats and close to the Royal College of Physicians. It was, thought Nightingale, the perfect community for twenty-first-century Britain. The unemployed and workshy could get drunk, have a punch-up, get medical treatment and be taken to the cells without ever leaving the street.

  Sutton had kept him waiting for more than an hour. ‘Murder case,’ he said by way of apology. ‘Five Asians hacked a black teenager to death in an alley.’

  ‘Racial?’ asked Nightingale, waving a ten-pound note at a barmaid who was busy texting on her iPhone.

  ‘Drugs,’ said the detective. ‘Turf war. We’ll get them, we always do; but for every one we put away there’re half a dozen waiting to take their place.’ He scowled. ‘The way of the world. This country’s going to Hell in a hand-basket.’

  Nightingale managed to attract the barmaid’s eye and ordered the drinks. ‘Do you want to sit?’ he asked the detective.

  ‘With my feet, damned right I do,’ said Sutton. He ambled over to a bench seat in the corner by a fruit machine and stretched out his legs.

  Nightingale paid for the drinks and carried them over to the table. He sat down opposite Sutton. ‘We never met, did we?’ asked Nightingale. ‘In the Job?’

  ‘No, but I heard of you, obviously,’ said Sutton. ‘Truth be told, that’s the only reason I agreed to see you. I’m not one for sharing intel with private eyes. These days they take away your pension any chance they can. But what you did to that paedo – you did what a lot of us wish we could do.’

  Nightingale sipped his beer. ‘Yeah, well, it cost me my job,’ he said.

  ‘The Job’s not what it was,’ said Sutton. ‘Now it’s all about ticking the right boxes and meeting targets. It’s bugger all to do with putting away villains. Not that there are many real villains around any more. Most of the crime is done by drug-fuelled sociopaths.’ He shrugged. ‘You’ve caught me on a bad day,’ he said.

  Nightingale raised his glass in salute. ‘How many years have you put in?’

  ‘Twenty-seven,’ said Sutton. ‘I can go with a full pension in three and I probably will. I’ve already put out a few feelers and I can probably go into the British Transport Police at the same rank, get my pension and a bloody good salary on top.’

  ‘I thought you were fed up with the Job?’

  ‘I am, but I do that for five years, maybe ten, and I’ll be set for life. Two pensions, a big lump sum and me and the missus will be off to New Zealand.’

  ‘Have you got family there?’

  Sutton shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but it’s the furthest place from this shit hole that we can find.’ He drained his glass, put it down on the table and looked at Nightingale expectantly.

  ‘Another?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘You read my mind. Make it a double this time. I don’t plan on going back to the factory.’

  Nightingale went to the bar and fetched the detective a double vodka and tonic. When he got back to the table he sat down next to Sutton. ‘So, Robyn Reynolds. I went to see her yesterday.’

  ‘Yeah, you said when you phoned. What’s your interest?’

  ‘She’s my sister.’

  Sutton’s jaw dropped. ‘Bullshit,’ he said. ‘She was an only child.’

  ‘She was adopted. At birth.’

  Sutton scratched his chin. ‘No. We went right through the family history. John and Rachael Reynolds were her parents, but they pretty much disowned her when they discovered what she’d done.’ He frowned. ‘You went to see her?’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘In Rampton.’

  ‘They let you in? Why would they do that?’

  ‘I had the right DNA,’ said Nightingale. ‘I am her brother. Half-brother, anyway.’

  Sutton squinted at Nightingale as he sipped his drink. ‘How’s that possible?’ he said as he put down his glass.

  ‘We have the same father. Different mothers but the same father. And we were both adopted at birth. I went to Bill and Irene Nightingale; two years later she went to her family.’

  ‘If you were adopted at birth the records would have been sealed,’ said the detective. ‘How did you track her down?’

  ‘Her DNA was taken when she was arrested, and it came up when I had them run my father’s DNA through the national database looking for a parental match.’

  ‘Clever,’ said Sutton. ‘But Reynolds is thirty-one and you’re . . .?’

  ‘Thirty-three,’ said Nightingale. ‘Turned thirty-three two weeks ago.’

  ‘So why wait until now to track down your long-lost sister?’

  Nightingale shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I guess I just wanted to know if I had any family. My adoptive parents died a few years back, and my aunt and uncle passed away recently.’

  ‘You must have been a bit put out to discover she was a serial killer,’ said Sutton. He swirled the ice cubes around his drink with his finger. ‘Right bloody shock that must have been.’

  ‘The month I’ve been having, it was par for the course. I have to say, though, that she didn’t seem that disturbed.’

  ‘Hopefully they keep her doped up,’ said the detective. ‘She was an evil bitch.’ He put up his hand. ‘I know she’s your sister and all but she killed five kids. Butchered them.’ He shuddered. ‘I try not to think about what she did, you know?’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘I saw what was in the newspapers but there wasn’t much detail released in court.’

  ‘Yeah, the CPS took the view that because she was pleading guilty there was no point in being too graphic. They reckoned the parents had been through enough. Very few people actually know what that bitch did.’

  ‘She used a knife, right?’

  ‘And her hands. She ripped them apart.’

  ‘Did she ever say why she did
it?’

  Sutton shook his head. ‘She said not one word about the killings,’ he said. ‘She’d chat about the TV, the weather, the news, politics, about anything under the sun. But as soon as we went anywhere near the kids and what she did to them, she clammed up.’

  ‘But there was no doubt, right? No doubt that she did it?’

  Sutton narrowed his eyes. ‘Is that what this is about? You’re planning some sort of appeal? Trying to get her out of there? Because I’ll tell you now, that’s not going to happen. She’s as guilty as sin.’

  Nightingale put up his hands. ‘That’s the last thing on my mind,’ he said. ‘Up until three weeks ago, I didn’t even know that I had a sister. But I spent some time with her and she seemed . . .’ He struggled to find the right words.

  ‘Coherent?’ suggested the detective. ‘Plausible? Well-balanced?’

  ‘She’s acting?’

  ‘She’s a sociopath,’ said Sutton. ‘A stone-cold killer.’ He leaned forward. ‘You want to know what she did? She gutted them. She cut their throats and then she gutted them from neck to groin. And then she pulled out the organs and rearranged them around the body. Real Jack the Ripper stuff. Guts around the feet, folded out the lungs like wings, smeared blood everywhere. That’s how they found her, over Timmy’s body. She abducted him from school, took him to St Mary’s church in Clapham, and butchered him.’

  ‘Inside the church?’

  Sutton frowned. ‘Why the hell does that matter?’

  ‘It doesn’t. I’m just trying to get a feel for what happened.’

  ‘She butchered a nine-year-old boy. End of story. Case closed.’

  ‘I’m not trying to undo the work that you did,’ said Nightingale. ‘And I’m not trying to screw up your case.’

  ‘It’s unscrewupable,’ said Sutton.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Nightingale. ‘I just wanted a chat, just to put it into perspective. She’s all the family I’ve got left.’

  ‘What was she like with you?’

  ‘Like you said, plausible and coherent. Look, the details of what she did, the details that weren’t in the papers . . .’

  ‘The chief super wanted to hold them back because he was worried about copycats.’

  ‘So the MO was the same in all five cases?’

  Sutton nodded. ‘The bodies were mutilated in the same way. According to the pathologist, the same knife was probably used in all five killings and the wounds matched the knife they caught her with. All the kids were killed in churches, but we held that back.’

  ‘All the experts who spoke to her reckoned she was insane?’

  Sutton laughed sarcastically. ‘Her sanity was never an issue. There are some crimes that are so horrific . . .’ He shook his head. ‘She butchered kids, Jack. There’s no crime worse than that. And anyone who does it is crazy. There was nothing she could say that would ever excuse or explain what she did.’

  ‘But she didn’t even try?’

  Sutton shrugged. ‘What possible reason could she give for murdering five children?’

  ‘None,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Sutton. He drained his glass and slammed it down on the table. ‘Make it another double,’ he said.

  44

  Jenny walked into Nightingale’s office carrying a mug of coffee. He had taken the top drawer from his desk and emptied the contents over the floor. He was down on his knees rooting through the papers, notebooks and cigarette lighters and muttering to himself.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ she asked, putting the mug down next to his computer terminal.

  Nightingale sat back on his heels. ‘Remember the money that I got from Joshua Wainwright last time?’

  ‘Two million euros? I’m not likely to forget that.’

  ‘Yeah, well, Wainwright gave me a copy of the receipt with his phone number on it. Now I can’t find the bloody thing.’

  ‘I filed it,’ she said. ‘With the rest of the company receipts.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ he said. He could see from the look on her face that she was. ‘Your efficiency never ceases to amaze me,’ he said. He began to refill the desk drawer.

  Jenny went back to her office and retrieved the receipt from the filing cabinet by her desk. She photocopied it, returned the original to its file and gave the copy to Nightingale. ‘Are you going to see him again?’

  ‘Yeah, thought I’d show him the list of what we’ve found so far and have a chat. Kill two birds.’ He nodded at a printout on his desk. ‘There’re a couple of hundred books there and with any luck he’ll want to buy a few.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘We could do with some cash, right? What with me still having to pay the mortgage on Gosling Manor and all.’

  ‘We’re owed more than two thousand pounds from clients but that’s about it,’ she said. ‘We’ve lost a lot of work with you concentrating on your sister.’

  ‘It’s got to be done, Jenny,’ said Nightingale, leaning back in his chair. ‘If I don’t help her, who will?’

  ‘Was the cop any use last night?’

  ‘Yeah, he was okay. He said he’d try to get an address for her parents.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I’ll pay them a visit.’

  Jenny perched on the edge of Nightingale’s desk. ‘Jack, are you sure that’s a good idea?’

  ‘They might know something,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘What do you think they might know?’

  ‘Maybe they met Gosling. Maybe he told them what he’d done.’

  Jenny looked pained.

  ‘I’ll wear my kid gloves. Softly softly.’ He put down his coffee mug. ‘I’ve got to follow up any lead I can. No one else gives a toss about her, Jenny. They’ve put her in an asylum and thrown away the key.’

  ‘Because she killed kids, Jack.’ She shuddered. ‘I can’t think of anything worse, can you? Killing kids?’

  Nightingale sighed. ‘I can’t argue with you,’ he said.

  ‘Because you know I’m right.’

  Nightingale threw up his hands. ‘What do you think I should do? Walk away?’

  ‘Would that be so bad?’

  ‘She’s my sister.’

  ‘She’s your half-sister, a woman that you’ve met once in your life, who decided of her own volition to murder innocents. And you want to do what? Save her soul? Jack, if there’s any justice in the world she’ll burn in Hell for what she’s done.’ She stood up, her eyes blazing. ‘Her soul is damned anyway; you’re just whistling in the wind.’

  Nightingale reached for his cigarettes.

  ‘You know they’re a crutch,’ she said. ‘Whenever you’re faced with something that makes you feel uncomfortable, you smoke.’

  Nightingale tapped out a cigarette, slid it between his lips and lit it. ‘I smoke because I like to smoke,’ he said. ‘Anyway, this isn’t about me smoking. It’s about me wanting to help my sister.’ He threw up his hands. ‘I know that you’re talking a lot of sense, I know that there’s probably nothing I can do to help her, but I have to try.’

  ‘Why, Jack?’

  Nightingale groaned. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say. She’s my sister. That’s the only answer I can give you.’

  ‘She’s killed children,’ said Jenny flatly.

  ‘And she’s behind bars for that. Okay, it’s a hospital and not a prison, but she’s still locked up. But what’s going to happen to her soul, that’s different. Gosling put her in that position, he did a deal for her soul, and now she’s all on her own. She has no idea what she’s up against. if I don’t help her then who will? She’s my sister, Jenny. The only family I’ve got. And I’m all she’s got.’

  ‘You keep saying that, but she’s not really your sister, in the same way that Gosling wasn’t really your father.’

  ‘We share the same DNA. That means we’re related.’

  ‘But up until three weeks ago you hadn’t heard of either of them,’ said Jenny. ‘Family isn’t about DNA, Jack. It’s about growing up tog
ether; it’s about connections, a shared history. You keep telling me that Bill and Irene Nightingale were your real parents, even though you know your DNA came from Gosling and your birth mother. Rebecca Keeley.’

  ‘Gosling paid Keeley twenty thousand pounds to have me and she gave me up the day that I was born, so I don’t think that qualifies her for maternal privileges. And the fact that Gosling sold my soul to a devil negates any dead daddy feelings I might ever have had.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Jenny. ‘They’re not family.’

  ‘But my sister’s different. None of this is her fault. Gosling did to her exactly what he did to me. She can’t help herself but maybe I can.’

  ‘How? How do you expect to help a killer locked up in a secure mental hospital?’

  Nightingale flicked ash into the ashtray at his side. ‘I didn’t say I know what to do, just that I have to do something.’ He groaned. ‘Jenny, you wouldn’t understand, you’re an only child.’

  Jenny’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t have any siblings, so you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Jack, I’ve got a brother. Five years older than me.’

  Nightingale grimaced. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘The reason you don’t know is because you’ve never asked,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry. Really.’

  Jenny folded her arms. ‘Here’s a question for you. How many Jack Nightingales does it take to screw in a light bulb?’

  Nightingale looked out of the window and didn’t reply.

  ‘Just the one,’ continued Jenny. ‘He holds up the bloody bulb and waits for the world to revolve around him.’

  Nightingale held up his hands. ‘You’re right. I can be a bit self-centred at times.’

  ‘Self-obsessed,’ she said. ‘Which is another way of saying that you don’t care about anyone other than yourself. That’s why I don’t understand this sudden urge to save a woman that you barely know.’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t understand it myself, Jenny. I just know that I have to try. She’s all I have.’ He grinned at her. ‘Present company excepted.’