Nightfall jn-1

by Stephen Leather

  He had been on suspension until the reports were published, when he was called into the office of his superintendent who told him that his career was over and the best thing for everyone was for him to resign. Superintendent Chalmers had the letter already typed out and Nightingale signed it there and then, handed over his warrant card and walked out of New Scotland Yard, never to return.

  Sophie’s mother killed herself two weeks after the funeral. She swallowed a bottle of sleeping tablets with a quantity of paracetamol, and left a note saying she was so, so sorry she hadn’t been a better mother.

  3

  Two years later

  Nightingale knew he was dreaming, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. He knew he wasn’t really climbing the stairs to the twentieth floor of the tower block in Canary Wharf where Simon Underwood worked. He was moving too slowly, for a start, and there was no exertion, no sweat, no shortness of breath. He walked out of the stairwell, showed his warrant card to a faceless receptionist, who shook her head but didn’t say anything, and moved silently down a corridor to Underwood’s office, even though he knew the banker wasn’t there. Then he was going down another corridor, the sound of his heartbeat echoing off the walls, towards a set of double doors. They burst open and Underwood was there, standing in front of a group of suits. His mouth moved but made no sound. Nightingale pointed at the doorway and the suits hurried out, leaving him alone with the banker. ‘You’re going to hell, Jack Nightingale,’ said Underwood, his eyes blazing with hatred. Then, in slow motion, he turned to the floor-to-ceiling window behind him.

  Nightingale opened his mouth to shout at the man but his alarm went off and he woke, bathed in sweat. He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He had had the nightmare at least once a week since the day that Simon Underwood had fallen to his death. He groped for his packet of Marlboro and smoked one to the filter before getting up and showering.

  His flat was a third-floor walk-up in Bayswater, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen he hardly ever used. On the ground floor a Chinese restaurant did a great bowl of duck noodles and it was a short walk to the tube station. Nightingale had bought the flat when he’d been promoted to inspector and in another twenty-one years he’d own it outright. He liked Bayswater. Day and night it was lively and buzzing – there were always people around and shops open – and on the days when he felt like jogging, Hyde Park was only a few minutes away. Not that he felt much like jogging, these days. He went downstairs, bought himself a cup of Costa coffee, then walked to the lock-up where he kept his MGB and drove to the office of Nightingale Investigations. It was in South Kensington, another walk-up but this time above a hairdresser’s that offered him a fifty per cent discount, provided he allowed a trainee to cut his hair.

  Nightingale arrived shortly after nine o’clock and his secretary was already at her desk. Jenny McLean was in her mid twenties, with short blonde hair and blue eyes that always reminded Nightingale of Cameron Diaz. Jenny was shorter than the actress and smarter, educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, then Cambridge, and fluent in German, French and Japanese. Her family owned a country pile with five hundred bedrooms and twelve acres, or vice versa, chased foxes and shot wild birds at the weekend. Nightingale had absolutely no idea why she worked for him. He’d placed an advert in the local paper and she’d walked off the street with her CV and told him she’d always wanted to work for a private investigator, that she could type and knew her way around Microsoft Office. He’d wondered at first if she was an undercover agent for the Inland Revenue, checking on his tax returns, but she’d worked for him for more than a year and now he didn’t know how he’d manage without her. She smiled brightly and nodded at the door to his office. ‘Mrs Brierley’s already here,’ she said.

  ‘Can’t wait to hear the bad news, huh?’ said Nightingale. He didn’t like divorce work. He didn’t like following unfaithful husbands or wayward wives, and he didn’t like breaking bad news to women who cried or men who threatened violence. He didn’t like it, but it paid the bills and he had a lot of bills to pay.

  ‘Can I get you a coffee or a tea, Mrs Brierley?’ he asked, as he walked into his office.

  Joan Brierley was in her early fifties, a heavy-set woman with dyed blonde hair, too much makeup and lines around her mouth from years of smoking. She declined and held up a packet of Benson amp; Hedges. ‘Do you mind if I…?’ she said.

  Nightingale showed her his Marlboro. ‘I’m a smoker too,’ he said.

  ‘There aren’t many of us left,’ she said.

  ‘Strictly speaking, this is my workplace so I should fine myself a thousand pounds every time I light up,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m lucky that my secretary doesn’t mind or she’d sue me for all I’m worth.’ He reached over to light her cigarette, then his own.

  ‘On the phone you said you had bad news,’ said Mrs Brierley. ‘He’s been cheating, has he?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I knew it,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘When money started disappearing from our joint account, I knew it.’

  ‘I filmed them,’ said Nightingale, ‘so you could see for yourself. I followed them to a hotel but he’s also visited her house when her husband was away.’

  ‘She’s married?’

  Nightingale nodded.

  ‘Why would a married woman want to steal another woman’s husband?’ said Mrs Brierley.

  It was a question Nightingale couldn’t answer. ‘I’ve got his mobile-phone records. He calls her three or four times a day and sends her text messages.’ He slid over a stack of photocopies. ‘The messages say it all, pretty much.’

  Mrs Brierley picked them up. ‘How did you get these?’

  ‘Trade secret, I’m afraid,’ said Nightingale. He had contacts working for most of the mobile-phone companies; they would give him anything he wanted, at a price.

  She scanned them. ‘He loves her?’ she hissed. ‘He’s been married to me for twenty-four years and he loves her?’

  Nightingale went to his DVD player and slotted in a disk. He sat down again as Mrs Brierley eyed the screen. The camerawork wasn’t great but Nightingale had been hired to do surveillance, not produce a Hollywood movie. He’d taken the first shot from behind a tree. Brierley arrived in his dark blue Toyota, a nondescript man in a nondescript car. He had a spring in his step as he walked to the hotel’s reception desk, holding a carrier-bag from a local off-licence. Nightingale had managed to get closer to the hotel entrance and had filmed Brierley signing in and being given a key.

  The next shot was of the woman arriving. He’d got a good shot of her parking her BMW and had followed her to the entrance. Like Brierley, she didn’t look around and clearly wasn’t worried that she might have been followed.

  Mrs Brierley stared at the screen, her mouth a tight line.

  The final shot was of Mr Brierley and the woman leaving the hotel together. He walked her to her car, kissed her, then went to his Toyota.

  Nightingale pressed the remote control to switch off the DVD player. ‘Your husband paid in cash but I have a copy of the receipt.’ He slid it across the desk towards his client, but she was still staring at the blank television screen, the cigarette burning between her fingers. ‘The woman’s name is Brenda Lynch. She’s-’

  ‘I know who she is,’ said Mrs Brierley.

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘She’s my sister.’

  Nightingale’s jaw dropped. ‘Your sister?’

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ said Mrs Brierley. She forced a smile. ‘Some detective you are. Lynch was my maiden name.’ She took a long drag on her cigarette, held the smoke in her lungs, then exhaled slowly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Nightingale.

  She waved away his apology, as if it was an annoying insect. ‘How much do I owe you, Mr Nightingale?’

  ‘Miss McLean outside has your bill,’ said Nightingale.

  Mrs Brierley stubbed out what remained of her cigarette in the ashtray on his desk.


  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Nightingale, again.

  ‘There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,’ she said, and stood up. ‘You did a very professional job, Mr Nightingale.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘Thank you.’

  Nightingale opened his door for her. ‘Mrs Brierley would like her bill, Jenny,’ he said.

  ‘I have it here,’ she said, and handed it to her. Mrs Brierley took out her cheque book as Nightingale went back into his office.

  He flopped into his chair and stubbed out the remains of his cigarette. He might not enjoy breaking bad news to people, but it was part of the job. If a husband or a wife suspected that their spouse was up to no good, ninety-nine times out of a hundred they were right. In Mrs Brierley’s case it had been unexpected withdrawals from their current account, late nights supposedly at the office and a new brand of aftershave in the bathroom. He noticed that she had left the phone records and the hotel receipt and thought about going after her but decided against it – perhaps she didn’t want them. He wondered what she would do now that she knew the truth. She would almost certainly divorce her husband, and probably split up her sister’s family as well. She had three children and two still lived at home so she’d probably keep the house and Mr Brierley would end up in a rented flat somewhere, either with or without his sister-in-law for company.

  Nightingale went back to his desk and started reading Metro, the free newspaper that Jenny had brought with her. Shortly afterwards he heard Mrs Brierley leave. There was a soft knock on his door and Jenny pushed it open. She was holding a pot of coffee. ‘You read my mind,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not difficult,’ she said. ‘You don’t ask much from life. Curries, cigarettes, coffee.’

  ‘The breakfast of champions,’ he said.

  She poured coffee into his mug. ‘She took it quite well, didn’t she?’

  ‘She cried, which is a good sign. It’s when they go quiet that I start thinking about knives and hammers and things that go bump in the night.’

  ‘I gave her the card of a good divorce lawyer.’

  ‘Very thoughtful of you.’ Nightingale sipped his coffee. Jenny made great coffee. She bought the beans from a shop in Mayfair and ground them herself.

  ‘I felt sorry for her,’ said Jenny, sitting on the edge of his desk.

  ‘There are two sides to every case,’ said Nightingale. ‘We only get to hear the one that pays us.’

  ‘Even so,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Maybe she made his life a misery. Maybe the sister was kind to him. Maybe she let him wear her stockings and suspenders and the wife wouldn’t.’

  ‘Jack…’ Jenny shook her head.

  ‘I’m just saying, you can’t go feeling sorry for the clients. They’re just jobs.’

  ‘Speaking of which, a solicitor in Surrey wants to see you.’ She handed him a scribbled note.

  Nightingale studied it. ‘Can’t he just email us the info?’

  ‘He said he wants to see you in his office. He’s got gout so he has trouble getting about. I figured you wouldn’t mind as you don’t have much on at the moment.’

  Nightingale flashed her a tight smile. He didn’t need reminding of how light his caseload was. ‘This place, Hamdale. Never heard of it.’

  ‘I’ve got the postcode – you can use the GPS on your phone.’

  ‘You know I can never get it to work.’

  Jenny grinned and held out her hand. ‘I’ll do it for you, you Luddite.’ Nightingale gave her his Nokia and she programmed in the location. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she said.

  ‘And how do I get back?’

  ‘Leave a trail of breadcrumbs,’ she said, sliding off the desk. ‘If you go now you should be there by two o’clock.’

  4

  Nightingale cursed as he squinted at his phone’s GPS display. The autumn sun was glinting off the screen and he couldn’t make out which way he was supposed to go. He peered through the windscreen and saw a signpost ahead. He braked. It said, ‘Hamdale 5’, and pointed to the left.

  He slid the phone into his pocket and followed the sign. Hamdale was a tiny village, a cluster of houses around a thatched pub and a row of half a dozen shops. The solicitor’s office was wedged between a cake shop and a post office. There were double yellow lines along both sides of the road so Nightingale did a U-turn and left the MGB in the pub’s car park.

  When he pushed open the door, a bell dinged and a grey-haired secretary looked up from an electric typewriter. She peered at him over gold-framed spectacles. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  ‘Jack Nightingale.’ He looked at the piece of paper Jenny had given him. ‘I’m here to see a Mr Turtledove.’

  ‘Ah, he’s expecting you,’ said the woman. ‘I’ll tell him you’re here. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  She placed both hands on her desk and grunted as she pushed herself up, but a door to the inner office opened and she sank down again into her chair. ‘I was just going to show Mr Nightingale in,’ she said.

  The man who had appeared was in his sixties, almost bald with heavy jowls and watery eyes. He was wearing a heavy tweed suit and leaning on a wooden walking-stick. He was a good head shorter than Nightingale and he smiled, showing yellowing teeth, as he held out his hand. Nightingale shook it gently, afraid he might break the bones, but Turtledove’s grip was deceptively strong. ‘Come in, please,’ he said.

  The office was little more than a box with a small window overlooking a back yard. The room was lined from floor to ceiling with legal books and there was a damp, dusty smell that reminded Nightingale of the shed he’d used for a den when he was a kid. There were two chairs in front of the desk, both buried under piles of dusty files, all tied up with red ribbon. ‘Please put them on the floor,’ said the solicitor, as he limped around his desk and sat down in a high-backed leather chair. He placed his stick against the window-sill behind him, then turned sombrely to Nightingale. ‘First let me say how sorry I am for your loss,’ he said.

  Nightingale moved the files as instructed and sat down. ‘My loss?’ he said.

  ‘Your father.’

  ‘My father?’ Nightingale had no idea what he was talking about. He took out his wallet and gave Turtledove one of his business cards. ‘I’m Jack Nightingale. I’m here about a job.’

  Turtledove frowned, looked around for his spectacles, then realised they were perched on top of his head. He pushed them down and read the card, then smiled amiably at Nightingale. ‘There’s no job, Mr Nightingale. I’m sorry about the confusion. I’m the executor of your late father’s will.’

  Nightingale raised his eyebrows. Now he was even more confused. ‘My parents’ estate was finalised more than a decade ago.’

  Turtledove tutted. He rifled through a stack of files on his desk and pulled one out. ‘Your father passed away three weeks ago,’ he said.

  ‘My parents died in a car crash a couple of days after my nineteenth birthday,’ said Nightingale. It had been a senseless accident. They had stopped at a red traffic-light and a truck had ploughed into the back of them. The car was crushed and burst into flames and, according to the young constable who had broken the news to Nightingale, they had died instantly. Over the years, he’d grasped that the officer had said that to make the news more bearable. In all probability they had died in the flames, screaming in agony. Policemen had to lie – or at least bend the truth – to make bad news less painful. He knew from experience that people rarely died instantly in accidents. There was, more often than not, a lot of pain and blood and screaming involved.

  ‘Your adoptive parents,’ said Turtledove, nodding sagely. ‘Bill and Irene Nightingale.’

  ‘I wasn’t adopted,’ said Nightingale. ‘They were my parents – their names are on my birth certificate. And they never said I was adopted.’

  ‘That may well be, but they were not your biological parents.’ He opened the file and slid out a sheet of paper, which he passed across the desk. ‘The
se are your details, aren’t they? Correct date of birth, national insurance number, schools attended, your university?’

  Nightingale scanned the sheet. ‘That’s me,’ he said.

  ‘Then your father was Ainsley Gosling, and it has fallen to me to administer his last will and testament.’ He smiled. ‘It’s just occurred to me that I’m a Turtledove, you’re a Nightingale and your father was a Gosling. What a coincidence.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ said Nightingale. ‘But I’ve never heard of this Ainsley Gosling. And I’m damn sure I wasn’t adopted.’

  ‘You were adopted at birth, which is why I assume your adoptive parents’ names went down on the certificate. It would never happen these days, of course.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Nightingale.

  Turtledove’s lips tightened. ‘There’s no need for profanity, Mr Nightingale. I understand that this has come as a shock to you, but I am only the messenger. I was never given to understand you were unaware that Mr Gosling was your biological father.’

  ‘I apologise,’ said Nightingale. ‘If he’s my father, then who is my mother?’

  ‘I’m not privy to that information, I’m afraid.’

  Nightingale fished out his packet of Marlboro. ‘Can I smoke?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Turtledove. ‘It’s against the law, you know, to smoke in a place of employment.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Nightingale. He put away the cigarettes. ‘How did he die, this Gosling?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Turtledove. ‘The case came to me from another lawyer, a firm in the City. I was told that Mr Gosling had passed away and that I was to act as executor to the will.’