Midnight

by Stephen Leather

  ‘You sure his alarm isn’t connected to the local cop shop? Or a monitoring centre?’

  ‘Like I said, he was paranoid. He wouldn’t want outsiders coming round.’ He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, then blew smoke. ‘Okay, Eddie, I need you to get in there and let me in. Then you can push off and leave me to it.’

  ‘Push off where?’ said Morris. ‘We’re out in the bloody sticks.’

  ‘Then you can wait here and I’ll drive you back to civilisation,’ he said.

  Morris looked at the gates, then along the wall. ‘How am I supposed to get over that?’

  Nightingale blew a smoke ring that was quickly whipped away by the wind. ‘Bloody hell, Eddie, you’re the housebreaker,’ he said. ‘Allegedly.’

  ‘I don’t fancy the gates,’ said Morris. ‘Give me a leg up over the wall. But away from the CCTV. I hate those things.’

  54

  Nightingale smoked two cigarettes after he had helped Morris over the wall. He was thinking about lighting a third when his mobile phone rang. It was Morris. ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve done a runner, Eddie,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Press the buzzer again,’ said Morris.

  Nightingale went over to the gate and pressed the button.

  ‘Who is it?’ said Morris over the intercom.

  ‘Don’t screw around, Eddie,’ said Nightingale.

  There was a buzzing sound from the gates and then a loud click and they opened. Nightingale got back into the MGB and drove along the curving driveway towards a three-storey modernist cube of glass and concrete. He parked in front of the flight of white marble steps that led up to a gleaming white double-height door.

  Morris opened the door and bowed to Nightingale. ‘Welcome, m’lord,’ he said. ‘Would m’lord care for tea in the conservatory?’

  ‘Any problems?’ asked Nightingale as he got out of the car.

  ‘Easy peasy, lemon squeezy,’ said Morris. ‘The alarm’s self-contained but they’d left the manufacturer’s override on it. Most people do.’

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Kitchen door,’ said Morris. ‘Did the lock so no one will know we’ve been here.’ He gestured up at a CCTV camera aimed at the front door. ‘The cameras are off.’

  ‘Thanks, Eddie. Do you want to push off or wait in the car?’

  ‘I’ll hang around the house,’ said Morris, stepping back into the hallway.

  Nightingale jogged up the steps, his raincoat flapping behind him. ‘You’re not thinking about taking anything, are you?’ he said.

  ‘I just fancy a look,’ said Morris. ‘It’s right out of one of those posh-homes magazines, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s one hell of a house,’ agreed Nightingale. ‘But we’re leaving it exactly the way we found it. No helping yourself to a little souvenir.’

  He looked around the white-marbled hallway.

  Morris pointed at one of two stainless-steel CCTV cameras covering the hall. ‘He really had a thing about cameras, didn’t he?’

  ‘Like I said, he was paranoid.’

  ‘Yeah, well, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get you. What was he scared of?’

  ‘Dunno,’ lied Nightingale.

  ‘Because there’re more of them cameras inside the house than outside. That’s just plain weird.’

  ‘The guy who lived here was weird,’ agreed Nightingale.

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Like I said, it doesn’t matter.’

  Morris looked up at a glass feature light hanging from the centre of the ceiling. It looked like a waterfall that had been frozen in mid-flow. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘Could get a fair few bob for that.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Eddie,’ said Nightingale. He walked across the hallway towards a jet-black door with a glossy white handle. ‘He was through this way.’ He opened the door and walked into a long room that overlooked the gardens at the back of the house. The walls and ceiling were white and the floor was the same white marble as in the hallway, though in the centre of the room a pentagram had been set into the floor with black stone. Within the pentagram there was a hospital bed and a green leather armchair with an oxygen tank next to it.

  ‘Now that’s just weird,’ said Morris. ‘He was Jewish, was he?’

  ‘Jewish?’

  Morris pointed at the pentagram. ‘Star of David. That’s a Jewish thing. Mate of mine wears one on a chain around his neck.’

  ‘It’s not a Star of David,’ said Nightingale. ‘If anything, it’s the opposite.’ He unlocked the French windows, which led out onto a stone-flagged patio. A cold wind blew in from the garden, ruffling his hair.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Nightingale. He walked out onto the patio and looked across the well-tended lawns. He frowned as he stared at the flagstones, then he took out his cigarettes and lit one. The last time he’d been at the house he’d drawn a pentagram on the flagstones but now there was no trace of it. It was as if he’d never been there.

  Morris joined him on the patio. Nightingale pointed at the CCTV camera mounted on the rear wall of the house. ‘I wonder if there’s a recorder at the other end of that?’

  ‘Bound to be,’ said Morris. ‘They’ll all feed to one central location. It’ll be linked to a recording system.’

  ‘Think you can find it?’

  Morris grinned. ‘Does the Pope shit in the woods?’ He went back into the house and Nightingale followed him.

  There were six identical black doors leading off the hallway. One led to a kitchen, another opened into a storage room, and a third led to a small library lined with books. There was a circular oak table in the middle of the room, with books stacked on it.

  ‘Eddie, go and see if you can find where the CCTV feeds go to.’

  ‘No sooner done than said,’ said Morris. He went back to the hallway as Nightingale rummaged through the books.

  The diary he was looking for was bound in red leather, the colour of congealed blood. It wasn’t on the table but after ten minutes of working his way along the bookshelves he found it wedged between a book on exorcism and another on mythological creatures. He pulled it out and flicked through the yellowing pages, which were covered in handwritten reverse-Latin script with scribbled illustrations.

  ‘Jack!’

  Nightingale tucked the book under his arm. ‘What?’

  ‘Found it!’ shouted Morris. ‘Upstairs!’

  55

  Morris had found the security room on the top floor, at the end of a corridor off which there were half a dozen bedrooms. It wasn’t difficult to find as it had the word SECURITY in large capital letters on the door. There was a bank of monitors on one wall and on a table in front of them were a keyboard, three telephones and a MacBook laptop computer. There was a black leather swivel chair pushed close to the table and behind it a stainless-steel bunk bed. To the right was another door leading to a bathroom.

  ‘You were right – the CCTV system has been switched off,’ said Morris. ‘State-of-the-art system, must have cost thousands.’

  ‘Yeah, Mitchell wasn’t short of a bob or two,’ said Nightingale. He sat down in the swivel chair and put the diary on the table. ‘Can you show me how it works?’

  ‘What is it you want?’ asked Morris, leaning over him and switching on the laptop.

  ‘I want to see what was recorded on November the twenty-seventh.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be difficult,’ said Morris. He flicked on a switch and the monitors flickered into life. Views of the interior and exterior of the house filled the monitors. ‘That’s the live feed.’

  The centre monitor was larger than the rest and it was the main computer screen. By moving the cursor across a panel Morris could change the camera input to any of the monitors, and show up to sixteen inputs on any one screen. He quickly filled all four of the surveillance monitors, which meant that he had the views from sixty-four cameras and almost all were inside the house. One
of the screens showed the back of the chair and the monitors.

  Nightingale twisted around in his seat. He couldn’t see a CCTV camera but there was a stainless-steel light fitting on the wall. ‘Sneaky,’ he said.

  Morris’s fingers played across the keyboard and a menu appeared on the main monitor. ‘Okay, there we go,’ he said. He pointed at the monitor. ‘There’re the dates; you scroll to the one you want and click on it.’ He moved the cursor to 27 November and a second menu filled the screen. ‘Those are all the feeds, by number, and the times. You choose a feed and then click on the time. It’s all digital so it should be quick. What part of the house are you interested in?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Nightingale. ‘You wait in the car.’

  Morris picked up the diary and flicked through it. ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It’s mirror writing,’ said Nightingale. ‘You have to hold it in front of a mirror to read it.’

  ‘Why would anyone bother to write like that?’

  ‘I told you, he was a nutter. No offence, Eddie, but will you piss off and leave me to it?’

  Morris put down the diary and headed for the door.

  ‘And don’t think about pinching anything,’ warned Nightingale. ‘I’m going to pat you down before we leave.’

  ‘I hear you,’ said Morris.

  ‘Yeah, well, hear and obey,’ said Nightingale.

  As Morris left the room, Nightingale tapped on the keyboard and scrolled down to 26 November. He clicked on the feed for the camera covering the patio. A view of the flagstones filled the main screen. According to the digital timer running along the bottom of the screen it was the view at midday. He pecked at the keyboard and the timecode clicked to 23.59.50 on 26 November. Nightingale saw himself sitting in the centre of a pentagram, with candles burning at the five points of the star within the circle. The wind was ruffling his hair and he was holding a book in his lap. Nightingale smiled to himself. At least he hadn’t imagined the pentagram. He looked around for some way of boosting the volume but realised that the cameras probably didn’t have microphones attached, so there were pictures but no sound. Not that it mattered – he knew exactly what had been said.

  The recorded Nightingale stopped reading, closed the book and stared out over the lawn.

  Nightingale leaned back in his chair, waiting for Proserpine and her dog to appear on screen. The timecode clicked over to 00.00.00 and the date from 26 November to 27 November. Nightingale frowned. Proserpine had appeared at exactly midnight. So where was she?

  The recorded Nightingale got to his feet and opened the book. He began reading aloud from it. Nightingale leaned forward, peering at the screen. Where was Proserpine? Why wasn’t she there? She had appeared at midnight and Nightingale had started to read from the book, so why wasn’t she on the screen?

  Nightingale stared at the digits of the timecode: 00.00.45. Another second clicked by. And another.

  ‘This isn’t what happened,’ Nightingale muttered to himself. ‘She was there. I know she was there.’

  Nightingale continued to stare at the recording. Nothing was happening. The timer at the bottom was ticking off the seconds but the Nightingale on screen just stood there, alone. There was no Proserpine. No dog. And no Mitchell being sent to burn in Hell.

  56

  Jenny was sitting on a stool at the bar and talking into her mobile phone when Nightingale walked in. The wine bar was just off the King’s Road, close to her mews house. She put her phone away and waved at him as he went over to her. ‘What was so important it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘Can’t I see my favourite assistant for a social drink?’ he said, sliding onto the stool next to her and putting a Tesco carrier bag on the bar.

  ‘Your only assistant,’ she corrected. ‘So you’re not after anything?’

  ‘Well, maybe just a little something,’ he said. ‘But we can chit-chat as well.’ He smiled at the barmaid, a plump blonde girl in her early twenties wearing a Bristol University sweatshirt, and ordered a vodka and Coke. ‘What do you want?’ Nightingale asked Jenny.

  ‘I want you not to drink,’ she said. ‘You’re driving, remember?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I saw your car on the way here. It’s a green MGB, Jack. Pretty distinctive.’

  ‘Okay, it’s a fair cop. So what do you want to drink?’

  ‘My usual.’

  Nightingale winked at the barmaid.

  ‘Make the vodka a double,’ he said. ‘And a glass of your finest Pinot Grigio for my date. Shaken not stirred.’

  ‘I’m not his date,’ Jenny said to the barmaid. ‘I’m so not his date. And make his vodka a single. He’s driving.’

  ‘A single it is,’ said the barmaid. ‘And on the date front, you could do worse.’ She went to get their drinks.

  ‘Did you pay her to say that?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘Let’s just say she’s a member of my fan club, shall we?’

  ‘Let’s not,’ said Jenny. ‘Do you want to eat?’

  ‘I can eat,’ said Nightingale. ‘I could even buy you dinner.’

  ‘You’re definitely going to ask me a favour,’ she said. ‘You’re as transparent as a Harvey Nicks shop window. I’ll grab us a table.’

  Nightingale nodded at the carrier bag. ‘Take that for me, will you? I’ll bring the drinks.’

  Nightingale joined her with their drinks a couple of minutes later and dropped his raincoat over the back of his chair. ‘She’s got a degree in chemical engineering,’ he said as he sat down.

  ‘And very large breasts,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Didn’t notice,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Has she joined your fan club?’

  ‘Is there one?’

  ‘Probably not.’ She raised her glass of wine to him. ‘Cheers,’ she said.

  Nightingale clinked his glass against hers. ‘Down the hatch.’

  ‘When did you start drinking vodka and Coke? You always drink Corona.’

  ‘Not always.’ He patted his stomach. ‘It’s better for the waistline.’

  ‘I think you’ll find there’re more calories in a vodka and Coke, especially a double vodka and Coke, than a bottle of beer.’ She flashed him a tight smile. ‘It’s not about the calories, is it?’

  He grinned and took a long pull on his drink, then smacked his lips. ‘Okay, it tastes good, and it’s a quicker way of getting alcohol into the system.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Jack?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Or everything. I’m not sure.’ He opened the carrier bag and took out Mitchell’s diary.

  ‘Where did you get that from?’ she asked.

  ‘Best you don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘You went back to the house? Jack, please don’t tell me that you’ve been breaking and entering?’

  ‘Strictly speaking, it wasn’t me that did the breaking but I did help with the entering.’

  Jenny shook her head reproachfully. ‘You’re going to end up in prison if you carry on like this.’

  ‘I hardly think Sebastian Mitchell is going to press charges,’ he said. He grinned. ‘Mind you, Hell is probably full of lawyers. What do you think?’

  ‘I think you need to get a grip,’ she said. ‘You can’t keep going into people’s houses like this.’

  ‘We need that diary,’ said Nightingale. ‘And I couldn’t see any other way of getting it.’

  ‘The end justifies the means? That’s no excuse, Jack.’ She held up the diary. ‘And now you’ve passed it on to me, which makes me in receipt of stolen goods. That’s a criminal offence, Jack.’

  ‘Jenny, sweetheart . . .’

  ‘Don’t “sweetheart” me, Jack Nightingale. It’s one thing for you to go around breaking the law, but it’s something else when you drag me into it.’

  Nightingale put up his hands in surrender. ‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But let’s not forget that Mitchell sent his goons to get i
t from you. At gunpoint. We found it in Gosling’s basement, remember? And possession is nine-tenths of the law.’

  ‘That’s a fallacy,’ she said. ‘Possession has nothing to do with ownership. Your father stole it from Mitchell.’

  ‘That’s what Mitchell said. We don’t know that it’s true.’ He reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘I’m just saying it’s a grey area. Sebastian Mitchell and Ainsley Gosling were as bad as each other. All I want is a look-see at that diary to know if there’s anything in it that can help my sister. You can’t blame me for that. Besides, they’re both dead anyway.’

  She held his look for several seconds, then nodded slowly. ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘Are you sure? I don’t want you angry at me.’

  She took her hand away. ‘I’m not angry, Jack,’ she said. ‘I’m just a bit . . . apprehensive. About what’s happening to you.’

  ‘You and me both, kid,’ said Nightingale. He sat back and ran a hand over his face. ‘It’s been a funny few weeks.’ He sipped his drink. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘What happened at Mitchell’s house. On my birthday.’

  ‘Of course I believe you. Why would you lie about something like that?’

  ‘I wasn’t lying,’ he said. ‘But there’s something strange going on.’

  ‘Spit it out, Jack. What’s wrong?’

  Nightingale sighed. ‘I told you what happened. How Proserpine appeared at midnight and Mitchell left his pentagram and she killed him?’

  ‘Dragged him kicking and screaming into the bowels of Hell is how you described it.’

  ‘And that’s exactly how I remember it,’ said Nightingale. ‘Except . . .’

  ‘Except what?’

  Nightingale picked up his vodka and Coke and finished it. ‘Let me get another drink and I’ll tell you,’ he said.

  57

  When Nightingale had finished telling her what he’d seen on the CCTV footage in Mitchell’s house, he picked up his glass and toasted her. ‘So what do you think?’