‘That’s why I’m calling, Robbie.’
‘Come on, Jack, you know there’s nothing I can do if you’re in the system. Not these days.’
‘I wasn’t asking you to pull strings,’ said Nightingale. ‘I need a brief, a good one. Who’s hot on drink-driving right now? There’s got to be something that could sway the court. Former officer of the law, under a lot of stress, father just committed suicide – I’m thinking mitigating circumstances.’
‘I’ll ask around,’ said Hoyle. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, just kicking myself.’
‘Do you want to come to the house tomorrow? Anna’s doing a roast.’
‘Maybe, mate. Let me see how my hangover shapes up.’
‘If you need anything, let me know,’ said Hoyle.
‘Just get me that lawyer, mate,’ said Nightingale. ‘If I lose my licence I’ll be well screwed.’
22
Nightingale spent most of Saturday asleep. He woke up at six o’clock that evening, cooked himself eggs and bacon and made himself a coffee, then watched Sky News as he ate. A large computer company had sacked two thousand workers, two high-street retailers had gone into receivership, and unemployment was heading towards three million. The pound was continuing to slump, the stock market was in the doldrums, and the tame economist that Sky had wheeled out said things would get worse before they improved.
When he’d finished eating he sat with his feet on the coffee-table, flicking through a hundred or so cable channels, unable to find anything that held his attention. He switched off the television and stared at the sideboard. A dozen photographs in various-sized frames stood on it. There was his graduation picture, in which he was wearing a robe and mortar board, his passing-out at Hendon Police College, a photograph of Robbie and Anna Hoyle on their wedding day and, to the right in a small group, three of his parents. He stared at the family portraits. The middle one was a wedding photograph, his mother in white holding a spray of flowers, his father in a grey suit, his arm around her waist. He was thirty-two when he married, and Nightingale’s mother had just turned twenty-five. She was pretty, with curly black hair and green eyes, which suggested Irish ancestry, and a sprinkling of freckles across her upturned nose. She was smiling at her husband in the same way that Nightingale had seen her look at him throughout his childhood. There had never been any doubt that she had loved him with all her heart. The photograph to the right of that one was smaller, in a silver frame. It was the first picture of Nightingale as a baby, wrapped in a soft white blanket, his cheeks red and his eyes closed, clasped by his mother who was held by his father, both gazing down at him with love and pride.
It was, Nightingale now realised, the start of the lie. He wasn’t their child: he had been given to them. On the day that photograph had been taken, they had been strangers with no connection to him, no family link, no DNA, just a man and a woman who had been given a baby. The child they were holding could have been anybody’s. Everything that had happened to Nightingale after that day, everything he had become, was based on a lie.
The third photograph had been taken outside Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium. Nightingale was just twelve, flanked by his father and uncle, all three sporting red-and-white scarves. They were on their way to take their places in the stands. It was a few years before the stadium had been made all-seating and Nightingale’s father had always preferred to watch his football on his feet. A fellow supporter had taken the photograph with a camera that Nightingale’s father had given him the previous Christmas.
Nightingale stared at it. His uncle must have known. Good old Uncle Tommy. Laughing, joking Uncle Tommy, who always turned up with a present, a card and a bear-hug every birthday and Christmas, and had slipped him an envelope containing a thousand pounds the day Nightingale had headed off to university. Good old Uncle Tommy, who must have known about the lie right from the start. And Auntie Linda. They must have known because they’d have seen that his mother hadn’t been pregnant and that Nightingale had appeared from nowhere – and they had never let on, not even at the funeral. They had both been there, of course, standing either side of Nightingale as the two coffins were lowered into the ground. And neither of them had ever said anything about him being adopted, not then and not since.
He stared at the photograph of the three football fans. A father, his son, and the uncle. Except that Jack Nightingale wasn’t Bill Nightingale’s son and Tommy wasn’t his uncle. Until Nightingale found out the truth, he would never be able to look at them in the same way again.
23
Nightingale parked the MGB in the street in front of his uncle’s house, a neat three-bedroom semi-detached in a tidy, predominantly middle-class area of Altrincham to the south of Manchester. It had taken him the best part of three hours to drive from London. He climbed out, stretched, and lit a cigarette. His aunt and uncle were both ex-smokers, had been for twenty years, and wouldn’t let anyone light up anywhere near them. His uncle’s black Renault Megane was parked in the driveway. Nightingale locked his car and walked slowly down the path to the front door, knowing he had to extinguish the cigarette before he rang the bell. The garden was well tended, with two large rhododendron bushes at either side of a neatly mown lawn. There was also a small water feature with a twee stone wishing-well and a bearded gnome holding a fishing rod. The gnome had been there for as long as Nightingale could remember; as a child he’d always been a little scared of it, half convinced that it moved whenever he took his eyes off it. He flicked ash at it. ‘Are they biting?’ he asked. The gnome stared fixedly at the hook on the end of its line. ‘Maybe you should try somewhere else.’ He tossed his cigarette into a flowerbed, then went up to the front door and reached out to press the bell.
He heard a rustle behind him and his heart raced, his childhood fears flooding back. He spun around, half expecting to see the gnome behind him, but it was only Walter, his aunt’s Persian cat. The cat brushed itself against the back of Nightingale’s legs and miaowed. Nightingale bent down to rub it behind the ears. ‘Long time no see, Walter,’ he said. The cat arched its back and purred loudly.
Nightingale straightened and rang the bell. He heard it chime inside the house. The cat continued to purr and wind himself round Nightingale’s legs. ‘What’s wrong, Walter? You starved of affection?’ asked Nightingale. After thirty seconds he rang again, but no one came to the door. ‘Where are they, Walter?’ said Nightingale. ‘Are they in the back garden?’
Nightingale walked around the side of the house and opened a wooden gate that led to the rear, where his uncle had a vegetable patch and grew his prize-winning roses. As Nightingale closed the gate behind him, he noticed a red smudge on his hand. He held it up, frowning. It looked like blood, but there was no cut. He checked both hands, and then the latch on the gate, but there was only the one smear.
He walked down the path to the garden. ‘Uncle Tommy?’ he called.
There was no answer. He knocked on the kitchen door. ‘Auntie Linda, it’s me – Jack.’
Walter miaowed again. Nightingale knelt down and stroked the back of the cat’s neck. ‘What’s going on, Walter?’ he said. There was a glistening red smudge on the cat’s nose. Sudden panic gripped Nightingale and his heart began to pound. He looked at the kitchen door. Set into the bottom there was a cat flap, which Walter used to get into and out of the house. There were red smudges on it.
Nightingale stood up and banged on the door. ‘Auntie Linda! Uncle Tommy! Are you in there?’ He pressed his ear to the wood but heard nothing. He hit the door again, then moved to the kitchen window and stood on tiptoe to peer through it. Beyond the sink he could see a bare leg, a broken plate and a pool of blood. Nightingale hammered on the window. ‘Auntie Linda!’
He looked around, wondering to do, spotted his uncle’s shed and ran to it, throwing open the door and grabbing a spade. He dashed back to the house and used the spade to smash the window, then climbed inside. His aunt was on the kitchen floor, her hea
d shattered, brains and blood congealing on the tile-patterned lino. Her mouth was wide open and her eyes stared glassily at the ceiling. Nightingale knew immediately that there was no point in checking for signs of life.
He walked carefully around the pool of blood. There was no sign of a murder weapon and the back door had been locked, which meant that the attacker had either left by the front entrance or was still in the house. There was a knife block by the fridge and Nightingale pulled out a large wood-handled blade. ‘Uncle Tommy, are you in the house?’ he shouted.
He went through to the sitting room. There was an unopened copy of the News of the World on the coffee-table, and an untouched cup of tea. Nightingale went over to the table and touched the cup. It was cold and there was a thick scum on the surface.
He moved slowly back into the hallway, listening intently. He started up the stairs, taking them one at time, craning to look up at the landing above. Halfway up he found an axe, the blade covered with blood. He didn’t touch it but stepped carefully over it. As he reached the top he heard a soft creak and froze, the knife out in front of him. He took another step.
Something was moving on the landing. Something just out of sight. He crept up, his mouth bone dry, his heart thudding. He stopped again when he heard another gentle creak. Then he saw something move. It was a foot – a naked foot – suspended in the air. Nightingale took another step and saw two feet, then pyjama bottoms, and as he reached the top he saw his uncle hanging from the trapdoor that led to the attic. There was a rope around his throat and, from the unnatural angle of the head, it was obvious that the neck had snapped. Nightingale realised that his uncle must have sat in the trapdoor and dropped. He was naked from the waist up and there were drops of blood across his chest. Nightingale could see no wounds on him so the blood could only have been his wife’s. He must have battered her to death in the kitchen, then come upstairs and killed himself.
The rope creaked as the body moved slightly. He was dead but the fluids within him were shifting as the organs settled. The pyjamas were wet at the groin and there was a pool of urine on the floor. Nightingale took out his mobile phone and dialled 999. As he waited for the operator to answer, he turned. The bathroom door was wide open and through it he saw the mirror above the sink. Scrawled across it in bloody capital letters were seven words: YOU ARE GOING TO HELL, JACK
NIGHTINGALE.
24
Jenny was sitting at her desk, using a small mirror to read the handwritten diary, when Nightingale walked in. He opened the door to his office. ‘Coffee would be nice,’ he said. He flopped onto his chair and put his feet on the desk. A small spider had set up home in the corner by the window and there was a layer of dust on the blinds. ‘When’s the cleaner in next?’ he called.
‘She was here on Friday morning,’ Jenny replied, as she poured his coffee, ‘and she’ll be in again tomorrow.’
‘Then she’s doing a shit job,’ said Nightingale. ‘She’s Polish, right?’
‘Romanian,’ said Jenny. ‘I’ll talk to her.’
‘Tell her to give the blinds a wipe.’
‘I hear and obey,’ said Jenny, appearing at the door with a steaming mug. ‘Just like your women – hot and black.’
Nightingale frowned.
‘What?’
‘I was joking,’ she said, putting the mug on his desk and sitting down opposite him. ‘Trying to lighten the moment.’
‘But I’ve never had a black girlfriend,’ said Nightingale, reaching for the mug.
‘That’s what makes it funny. What’s wrong, Jack? You look like-’
‘Like I’ve seen a ghost?’
‘Well, yes, actually.’
Nightingale sipped his coffee. ‘My uncle killed himself yesterday – killed himself and murdered my aunt.’
Jenny’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’
‘My uncle Tommy. He hanged himself.’
‘Why?’
Nightingale shrugged. ‘He didn’t leave a note. I spoke to him during the week and said I’d drive up to Altrincham for Sunday lunch so they were expecting me. He sounded fine then. But when I got there, they were dead.’
‘Jack, that’s terrible. That’s…’ She sat down. ‘I don’t… it doesn’t…’ She shook her head. ‘This is unreal.’
‘It’s real, all right,’ said Nightingale. ‘I spent yesterday talking to the Manchester cops.’
‘The cops?’
‘It was a murder-suicide, Jenny. The cops have to investigate, but it’s open and shut. My aunt’s blood was all over him and she’d scratched his face. There was no one else involved.’
‘But why? Why would he kill his wife?’
‘I’ve no idea. I’d told them I wanted to talk about my parents, whether I was adopted or not.’
‘And they were okay on the phone?’
‘They sounded a bit nervous, but they invited me for lunch.’
‘I can’t believe this,’ said Jenny.
‘I’m having trouble coming to terms with it myself,’ said Nightingale.
‘They weren’t having problems or anything?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Jack, you don’t think this is connected to Gosling, do you?’
‘It didn’t occur to me, Jenny.’ Actually, that was a lie because as soon as Nightingale had seen the bloody letters on Uncle Tommy’s bathroom mirror he had known that he was in some way connected to the death of his aunt and uncle. But he couldn’t figure out what that connection was. When he’d first seen the words scrawled in blood he’d thought he was dreaming. He’d stared at the message in horror, imagining that at any minute he’d be in Underwood’s office and the man would crash through the window and fall to his death. But it was no dream, he didn’t wake up, the words were real and his uncle and aunt were dead. Nightingale had no idea why he was hearing people telling him he was going to hell, and even less why his uncle would write it on the bathroom mirror before killing himself. But until he had worked out what was going on, he didn’t intend to worry Jenny.
‘Did you tell the police about Gosling?’ she asked.
‘I thought it would just make a complicated situation even more so.’ Nightingale swung his legs off his desk. ‘It was one hell of a weekend,’ he said. ‘I spent Friday night in the cells.’
‘You what?’
‘I was done for drink-driving on Friday night.’
‘Oh, Jack… You said you weren’t going to drive.’
‘And I wasn’t. Swear to God, when I left the wine bar I had no intention of getting behind the wheel. I don’t know what came over me.’
‘So now what happens?’
Nightingale took another sip of his coffee. ‘I didn’t hit anyone but I’m going to lose my licence so I’ll need to find somewhere to keep the MGB.’
‘I’ll look after it for you,’ said Jenny.
‘Have you got a garage?’
‘I can leave it with my parents. My dad can take it out every week, keep the battery charged. Those old cars seize up if you don’t drive them.’
Nightingale smiled. ‘We call them classics rather than old cars,’ he said. ‘Does he know what he’s doing?’
‘He’s got two old Jags and a frog-eyed Sprite. Sorry, classic Jags. And a Jensen-Healey.’
‘You never told me that.’
‘You never asked, Jack. My dad used to work for Jaguar. He was an accountant and until he retired he was on the board.’
Nightingale put down his mug. ‘You constantly amaze me,’ he said.
‘Mutual,’ said Jenny.
‘How goes the translation?’
Jenny shuddered. ‘It’s full of some very weird stuff.’
‘How weird?’
Jenny leaned forward. ‘Have you got a tattoo?’
‘A tattoo? What – “I love Mum”, that sort of thing?’
‘A pentagram. Either a tattoo or a mark that looks like a pentagram.’ She sat back in her chair. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous but, according to Mitchell�
��s diary, anyone whose soul belongs to the devil has a mark, a pentagram, hidden somewhere on their body.’
‘You’re right, it sounds ridiculous,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m thirty-two years old, and if I had a tattoo I’d know about it.’
‘So you’ve nothing to worry about, then,’ said Jenny. She started to get up but Nightingale waved her back into her chair.
‘Whoa, horsey,’ he said. ‘Are you saying that if I do have a mark I should worry?’
‘You said you haven’t.’
‘But if I had, do you think I’d have something to worry about?’
‘I think I’m reading the ramblings of a deeply disturbed mind. That of a sad bastard with too much time on his hands.’
Nightingale raised his mug in salute. ‘That’s my girl,’ he said. ‘You had me worried for a moment.’
‘Worried about what?’
‘That you were starting to take this nonsense seriously.’ He took another sip of coffee. ‘Do you still have that pal at the Department for Work and Pensions?’
‘Sure. Why?’
‘Can you get her to run a check and see if Sebastian Mitchell’s still alive and kicking?’
‘If he is, he’ll be in his eighties. Maybe older.’
‘Be nice to know if he’s still around. Or if he met a sticky end, too.’
25
Nightingale unlocked the front door of Gosling Manor and flicked the light switch. The massive chandelier glowed with more than two dozen bulbs. He had paid the bill on Friday and the electricity company had promised to have the power reconnected over the weekend. ‘Excellent,’ he said. He switched off the light. It wasn’t yet noon and the hallway was flooded with natural light from a skylight in the double-height ceiling. He walked through to the main drawing room and flicked the light switches there to check that they were working, then went back into the hall and looked up at the CCTV camera that covered the main entrance. A small red light on the side glowed weakly.
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