New York Night

by Stephen Leather

  ‘So you don’t want to fuck me any more?’

  He put a hand up to his forehead. ‘What the fuck are you playing at?’

  ‘Girls just wanna have fun, right?’ She sipped her wine and then placed her glass on the table.

  He clasped his hands together as if he was praying. ‘Please, just go.’

  She stood up slowly. ‘But I haven’t had my fun, yet.’

  ‘I just want you to go. Take the money, and go.’

  ‘I don’t want your money, Nate. Take off your clothes.’

  His jaw dropped. ‘What?’

  ‘Take off your clothes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ll find out why. You asked me around because I turned you on, right? That’s why I’m here. Now take off your clothes.’

  He stood looking at her, transfixed to the spot.

  ‘Or you can call the cops and we’ll do that whole underage girl drinking wine in your apartment thing.’

  ‘If I undress, you’ll go?’

  ‘Of course. After I’ve kissed you.’

  ‘Kissed me?’

  ‘Sure. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?’ She bent down and picked up her glass. She sipped her wine as Nate took off his clothes, carefully placing them on one of the grey armchairs. Eventually he was down to his socks and underwear. They matched, a pale green with darker green stripes. ‘You buy your socks to match your underwear?’ she said.

  ‘They came as a set.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Take the socks off, Nate. Let’s do this properly.’ He did as he was told, then stood facing her with his hands cupped over his groin. She put the glass down and walked slowly towards him. He swallowed nervously. She reached up to stroke his face and he flinched. ‘How do you feel, Nate?’

  He tried to speak but his voice caught in his throat. He coughed. ‘Scared.’

  ‘Scared? Or excited?’

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed again. ‘Both.’

  ‘But it feels good, doesn’t it?’ She put her right hand flat against his chest. She could feel his heart pounding and she bit down on her lower lip. She ran her fingers down towards his groin and he let his hands swing by his side. She could feel him getting hard despite his obvious discomfort and she licked her lips. ‘Are you ready?’ she asked.

  ‘Please don’t hurt me again,’ he whispered.

  She knelt down slowly, blowing along his flesh as she moved. Then she pulled his underwear down until it was around his ankles.

  She pursed her lips and blew his pubic hair and her eyes sparkled as she saw the way he hardened. He began to tremble. She looked up at him and opened her mouth. Her teeth were sharp, he realised. Yellowed and pointed. As he stared at her in horror her brown eyes turned a bright red. He moved his hands to push her away but he was too slow and she lunged forward, her mouth opening wider. As she bit he felt the flesh sever and the blood flow and he tilted back his head and screamed at the ceiling. She shook her head from side to side as she bit down, then pulled back and spat out the chunk of bloody flesh. He fell backwards and hit the floor hard, his groin a red mess. She stood up and wiped her lips with the back of her arm, then walked over to the sound system and turned up the volume.

  He tried to shuffle away from her, leaving a trail of glistening blood on the carpet, like a slug moving across a sidewalk. She grinned down at him, blood dripping from her yellow fangs, and began unbuttoning her shirt. ‘Let me get undressed first, because I don’t want to get blood on my clothes,’ she explained as he stared up at her in horror. ‘There’s going to be a lot of blood, Nate. A lot.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Perez phoned Nightingale first thing in the morning. He had showered and changed into some new clothes that he’d bought at a local Macys and was making himself a coffee. ‘Still want to see Kate Walker’s parents?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.’

  Nightingale finished making his coffee, grabbed his coat and was outside a couple of minutes before Perez turned up in a white Toyota Prius. He climbed in. She was wearing a dark blue suit over a grey shirt and had her hair clipped back.

  ‘Mrs Walker will see us, but her husband’s out,’ she said as she edged into the traffic, heading east.

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘Just that we wanted to ask her a few more questions. I skated over the fact I wasn’t a cop and she didn’t ask.’

  ‘What about my British accent?’

  ‘I was hoping you could sound American.’

  ‘Like this you mean?’ said Nightingale, putting on his best American accent.

  Perez grimaced. ‘That sounded like an Englishman pretending to be a Canadian.’

  ‘How about this?’

  She shook her head. ‘Worse.’

  ‘So we’ll just say I’m a profiler on secondment from Scotland Yard. Like a modern-day Sherlock Holmes.’

  ‘Yeah, that’ll work,’ said Perez sarcastically.

  ‘I was joking about the Sherlock Holmes, but it’s not so far-fetched that the NYPD would bring in a British profiler.’ He took out his cigarettes but saw from the look that flashed across her face that the car was a no-smoking area and put them away. ‘So where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘Queens.’

  ‘So Kate didn’t live in New York?’

  ‘Queens is one of the five boroughs. The island is Manhattan but it’s all New York.’ She laughed. ‘But a lot of people would agree with you that New York is Manhattan and everywhere else isn’t.’

  ‘So what was she doing in Manhattan?’

  ‘Her home is in Forest Hills, it’s less than thirty minutes on the Subway from there to Central Park. Thirty bucks or so in a cab. It wouldn’t be unusual for a teenager to pop into Manhattan for shopping or to see friends.’

  They drove across the Queensboro Bridge, passing over Roosevelt Island. ‘We are now officially in Queens,’ said Perez.

  ‘No need to show my passport, then?’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I’m warming to your English humour,’ she said.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That was New York sarcasm.’

  Ten minutes later they pulled up in front of a mock Tudor house, the sort that looked as if it belonged in the English countryside, with decorative half-timbering, a steeply-pitched red-tiled roof, tall, narrow windows and decorative chimney pots.

  There was a black BMW parked outside a three-car garage.

  Perez and Nightingale climbed out. The house was in the middle of a quarter-acre site with a neatly manicured lawn and half a dozen mature trees. There was a child’s swing hanging from one of the branches. ‘Nice house,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Expensive?’

  ‘Hell, yeah. Way out of my price range. Mr Wainwright could afford it, if he wanted.’

  ‘So the Walkers were doing well.’

  ‘He’s good at his job but the wife comes from money. Banking.’

  ‘How many kids?’

  ‘Two. Kate and a son. He’s fifteen.’

  They walked up to the house. There was an old-fashioned bell-pull in the shape of a stirrup. Perez pulled it and a bell rang somewhere inside the house. The door opened a few seconds later. A young dark-skinned housekeeper in a black and white uniform opened the door. Perez immediately switched to Spanish. Nightingale didn’t speak the language but it was clear that Perez was telling her who they were and that Mrs Walker was expecting them. The housekeeper closed the door. Perez looked at Nightingale. ‘What?’ she said. ‘You don’t have maids in England?’

  ‘In stately homes, maybe. I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘I could see the look on your face. People out here, they have help.’

  ‘And where’s she from?’

  ‘South America or Central America maybe.’

  The door opened and the woman showed Perez and Nightingale into a large
marble-lined hallway, a minimalist interior that was at odds with the fake Tudor exterior.

  Mrs Walker was sitting in a minimalist living room on one of two white sofas either side of a large white fireplace containing a TV screen that showed a video of a flickering fire. She was in her late thirties, blonde and slim and with a face that would have been model-pretty if it hadn’t been for the hollow cheeks and deep set eyes that suggested she wasn’t eating or sleeping much. She stood up and shook hands with them both. Her hand was more like a bony claw with bright pink nails and Nightingale could see the veins through near-translucent skin. She was older than he’d first thought, Nightingale realised,

  Perez did the talking, introducing herself and Nightingale. She kept her reason for being there vague and skated over the fact that they weren’t there officially. ‘We just need a little more information about Kate,’ said Perez as she perched on the sofa opposite Mrs Walker. Nightingale had remained standing and was holding a pen and notepad to at least give the appearance of officialdom. ‘In the days leading up to what happened, was Kate upset about something?’ Perez asked.

  ‘Why do you ask that?’ said Mrs Walker, squinting as if she had a headache.

  ‘We’re trying to work out what reason she might have had to have gone to the apartment in Manhattan.’

  ‘I’ve been asked that so many times,’ said Mrs Walker. ‘We don’t know why. The keys were here in my husband’s study. He’d shown some clients around that morning and hadn’t gone back to the office.’

  ‘He does that a lot?’ asked Perez.

  ‘Leave keys here? Of course. There are probably half a dozen in there right now.’

  ‘All in Manhattan?’

  ‘Some in Manhattan. Mostly here in Queens.’

  ‘We were wondering if she had gone to Manhattan to meet someone,’ said Nightingale. ‘Someone she wanted to talk to.’

  Mrs Walker shook her head. ‘If she wanted to talk to someone, she’d have talked to me.’

  ‘But teenagers…’ He grimaced. ‘Sometimes there are things they don’t want to share with their parents, right?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Do you have children, Mr Nightingale? You don’t strike me as a father.’

  ‘I’m not. But I know how they are.’

  ‘Based on what? That you were one yourself once? You’re a man without children so I don’t see that you could have any idea of the relationship between a mother and daughter.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Walker, I didn’t mean to minimise the bond you have with Kate.’ He was going to correct himself and say ‘had’ but he self-censored himself immediately. ‘So she was perfectly happy? No problems that you knew of?’

  ‘I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that when something was worrying her, she’d talk to me.’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘Anything in particular?’

  Mrs Walker forced a smile but her forehead remained perfectly smooth. ‘There was Ryan’s accident, of course. She still hasn’t gotten over that.’ She closed her eyes and Nightingale knew that she was also struggling with tenses. Mrs Walker opened her eyes. ‘Ryan died twelve weeks ago. She broke down at his funeral and she’s been on edge ever since.’

  ‘It was a boating accident?’

  ‘They call it an accident but to be honest it was down to his own stupidity. He was a lovely boy but he had a crazy streak. Cycling without a helmet, never wearing his seatbelt in the car. He was with a group of friends kayaking and he wasn’t wearing a life vest. And he’d been drinking, it turned out later. They all had. I’m just glad that Kate wasn’t with him at the time.’ Tears were welling up in her eyes and she grabbed a tissue from a box on the table by her side and dabbed her eyes.

  ‘So it hit Kate hard?’

  Mrs Walker nodded. ‘She was off school for two weeks. We couldn’t get her out of her room. Then she went a bit…’

  Nightingale waited for her to finish, but when she didn’t he prompted her. ‘A bit..?’

  ‘She said she was trying to talk to him. Have you heard of this game, Charlie Charlie?’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘She was using Charlie Charlie?’

  ‘It was going around the school apparently. All the kids were doing it, usually for fun. But she seemed to think Ryan was talking to her.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not following,’ said Perez. ‘Charlie Charlie?’

  ‘It’s a kid’s game,’ said Nightingale. ‘Well, it’s more than that but it tends to be kids who do it. You put two pencils in the shape of a cross on a piece of paper. In the four sections you write yes and no. Then you ask Charlie Charlie to answer questions. The top pencil is supposed to point to the answer.’

  ‘But who is Charlie Charlie?’

  ‘He’s supposed to be a Mexican demon or something.’

  ‘That makes no sense,’ said Perez. ‘Charlie isn’t a Mexican name. It’d be Carlitos Carlitos if it was anything.’

  ‘None of it makes sense,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s just kids scaring each other. Once you get a yes or no answer you can ask other questions and write different answers on the paper. Supposedly Charlie Charlie will answer anything. It’s only recently taken hold in the US and UK, but it’s been around for years in Latin America. Before that it was in Spain where they called it the Juego de la Lapicera. Pen Game. The thing is, the slightest vibration or draught makes the pen move, and often a form of mass hysteria kicks in, children start screaming and fainting. Schools then ban it and the media picks it up and then of course every kid wants to do it.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ said Mrs Walker.

  ‘I’ve come across it a few times, but as I said it’s usually a result of mass hysteria. Where did Kate learn about it?’

  ‘School. They banned it a few months ago. Before Ryan passed away. Then after the funeral I found her playing Charlie Charlie with her brother. I took it as a sign of how much she missed Ryan. I told her it was nonsense but she insisted that sometimes Ryan communicated with her. I took her to see a therapist and after a few sessions she seemed to come to her senses.’ She dabbed at her eyes again.

  ‘Mrs Walker, could Ms Perez and I take a look at Kate’s bedroom?’ asked Nightingale.

  Mrs Walker flinched as if she’d been stung. ‘Why?’

  ‘It would give us a better idea of who she was, which might point us in the direction of her killer.’

  Mrs Walker tilted her head to one side. ‘I don’t understand. The police were here the day she was found and they spent hours asking me and my husband about her.’

  ‘I understand. But there might be something that wasn’t noticed before.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘It might be anything. Say she has a poster of a band on her wall. Maybe that band was doing a personal appearance on the day she went into Manhattan. That would give us somewhere to look.’

  ‘She doesn’t have posters on her wall,’ said Mrs Walker.

  ‘That’s just an example.’

  Mrs Walker was clearly uncomfortable at the thought of them going into her dead daughter’s bedroom so Nightingale looked over at Perez for support.

  ‘We’d only need a few minutes,’ she said. ‘We wouldn’t need to touch anything. We just need a look.’

  Mrs Walker nodded. ‘Okay. Fine.’ She dabbed her eyes. ‘I haven’t tidied it up, it’s just the way she left it when…’ She moaned and closed her eyes. ‘Maria can take you up.’ She opened her eyes again. ‘Maria!’

  The housekeeper appeared from the hallway. ‘Yes, Mrs Walker.’

  ‘Please show them upstairs to Kate’s room.’ She blew her nose as the housekeeper led Nightingale and Perez through the hallway and up a marble staircase at the top of which was a hallway running left and right. She took them to the left, walked by three white-painted doors and opened the fourth. She stood to the side to let them go in.

  It was a large room with two windows overlooking the rear garden. There was a white four-poster bed with a crumpled duvet and the pillows care
lessly tossed against the headboard. There was a mirrored built-in closet to the left and to the right was a door that led to a bathroom. Nightingale looked over his shoulder. The housekeeper was standing in the hallway. She had taken out a smartphone and was looking at it. He went over to the bathroom. It was large and airy with a window with frosted glass, a walk-in shower with glass sides that matched the window, and a roll-top bath. There was a line of yellow ducks on the window sill. There was a mirrored cabinet above the sink and Nightingale opened it. Inside was a pack of sanitary towels on the top shelf and some Pepto-Bismol on the shelf below it.

  ‘What are you looking for, Jack?’ asked Perez.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said, closing the cabinet. He walked past her, back into the bedroom. Mrs Walker was right, there were no pop posters on the wall. There was a map of the world and photographs stuck to it. He looked at the pictures. They were all of Kate, smiling and happy, in places she’d visited, presumably with her parents. There was a picture of her in front of the pyramids in Egypt, on safari in Africa, in front of a Thai temple, skiing in Austria, on a yacht in the Mediterranean.’

  ‘She had a good life,’ said Perez, coming up behind him. ‘I don’t even have a passport.’

  ‘I’m not a fan of planes,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘What is it with you? You don’t like planes, you don’t like elevators. But you’re okay with cars?’

  ‘It’s not about transport. It’s about being in confined spaces where I have no control over what’s happening.’

  ‘You’re a passenger in my car.’

  ‘Yeah, but I can always grab the wheel.’

  ‘Good to know.’

  Nightingale turned around. ‘I don’t see any pictures of the boyfriend, do you?’

  There was a framed photograph of Kate and her brother with their parents on a bedside table. It was a formal picture, taken in a studio by a professional. On the wall above it was a framed photograph of her class at school, another formal pose with a teacher standing at the side. Stripped across the bottom was FOREST HILLS HIGH SCHOOL, CLASS 11K.

  ‘Maybe she didn’t want a reminder?’

  ‘She was trying to contact him. That doesn’t sound like she was trying to forget him.’ He went over to the closet and slid back the right hand mirrored door. It was full of dresses and shirts hanging from a rail and at the bottom were six drawers. He pulled the top one open. It was full of underwear. ‘Ah,’ he said, stepping back. ‘Maybe you should check here.’