Nightfall jn-1

by Stephen Leather

‘I don’t think you should, kid,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Please. I want to.’

  Nightingale gave her the phone and she listened to the message. ‘Who’s the girl?’ she asked. ‘Did you recognise her voice?’

  Nightingale shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘She knew Robbie, she called him by name.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘But if she knew him, why did she ask him for a light? She must have known he didn’t smoke.’

  Nightingale took the phone from her. ‘Maybe she was calling someone else and Robbie thought she was talking to him.’ He sipped his brandy. ‘I’ll go and see Anna.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  Nightingale opened his mouth to say that she should stay and mind the office, but she had known Robbie well. She’d been to his home and met Anna and the kids. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Just leave a note on our door saying we’ll be shut for a couple of hours.’ He put the bottle back into his bottom drawer. ‘On second thoughts, let’s just close up for the day. If it’s important they can call me on my mobile.’

  35

  A dozen large nondescript saloon cars were parked outside the Hoyle house and a single police patrol car. Nightingale found a space about a hundred yards from the house. It was starting to rain but Jenny had brought an umbrella with her so they sheltered under it as they walked along the pavement. ‘What do you say to someone whose husband has died?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s nothing you can say,’ said Nightingale. ‘You’ve just got to show that you’re there for them.’

  ‘Will she be all right? You know, financially.’

  ‘Sure. He’d have insured the mortgage so the house will be paid for and there’ll be a pension. The job will have people helping her.’

  ‘Poor Anna. Poor, poor Anna.’

  ‘Has anyone close to you died, Jenny?’

  ‘Touch wood, I’ve been lucky so far,’ she said. ‘My granddad passed away a few years ago but he was ninety-seven. My family live for ever, pretty much.’

  ‘You’re lucky,’ said Nightingale.

  Jenny put her arm through his. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘You don’t have to walk on eggshells with me,’ said Nightingale. ‘I was a cop for almost ten years and I’ve seen more than my share of dead bodies. I’m well over my parents and Gosling – well, he was just a name. My aunt and uncle… I don’t know. That still hasn’t really hit me. I think it’s because I was in London and they were up in Altrincham. I didn’t get to see them much so in a way nothing’s changed. I mean, I know they’re dead…’ He shrugged. ‘It’s difficult to explain. I was just about coming to terms with it but now this. Now Robbie’s dead too.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘You don’t have to keep asking if I’m okay,’ said Nightingale. ‘You’re as bad as Robbie.’ He groaned. ‘God, listen to me. Talking as if he was still…’ He swore savagely.

  Jenny squeezed his arm. ‘Do you want to go for a walk? We can come back later.’

  ‘No, we have to go in – we have to see her now.’

  They walked up the path to the front door and Nightingale rang the bell. Anna’s older sister, Marie, opened the door. Her cheeks were wet from crying but she forced a smile when she saw Nightingale. ‘Jack, hello.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Marie,’ said Nightingale. He hugged her and gave her a light peck on each cheek. ‘This is Jenny – she works with me.’

  Marie smiled. ‘Come on in – let me take your coats. Anna’s in the sitting room.’

  She was on the sofa, her arm around her eight-year-old daughter, Sarah. There were a dozen people in the room, drinking tea and making small-talk. An elderly woman Nightingale didn’t recognise was walking around with a plate of chocolate biscuits. Superintendent Chalmers was standing by the window in conversation with Hoyle’s immediate superior, a chief inspector whom Nightingale had met a couple of times. Both men nodded at him and carried on talking to each other.

  Anna wiped her eyes with a handkerchief but started sobbing again when she saw Nightingale. She whispered to her daughter, got up and hurried over to him.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Anna,’ he said. ‘If there’s anything… you know… just ask.’

  Anna hugged him and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘I still haven’t told the twins. I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘They’re too young to understand,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘They’re asking for him. Last time I said he was at work. They’re asleep now.’ She put her hands on his chest and looked into his eyes. ‘What do I say, Jack? How do I tell them that they’ll never see their father again?’

  Nightingale bit his lower lip. He was finding it difficult enough to come to terms with Hoyle’s death, and couldn’t imagine how two three-year-olds would react. ‘I don’t know, Anna. All you can say is that Robbie loved them more than anything and that he’s in heaven looking down on them.’

  ‘Do you believe that, Jack? Do you believe he’s up there somewhere, watching us?’

  ‘I’d really like to think so, Anna,’ said Nightingale. He had heard the uncertainty in his voice. ‘But kids believe, and that’s what’s important.’

  ‘I can’t live without him, Jack.’

  ‘Yes, you can, Anna. We’re all here for you. We’ll get you through this.’

  Tears rolled down Anna’s cheeks and she wiped her face with the handkerchief. Then she realised that Jenny was beside Nightingale. ‘Oh, Jenny, thanks for coming.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do, Anna, if you need help taking care of the kids or shopping or if you need driving anywhere,’ she said, and gave her a hug.

  ‘Thanks so much,’ said Anna. She gestured at the woman with the biscuits. ‘Robbie’s mum was straight around and she’s staying with me until…’ She wiped her eyes again. ‘Until, I don’t know…’

  ‘Are you okay for money, love?’ asked Nightingale.

  Anna nodded. ‘A really nice man from the Police Federation gave me his card and said he’d handle everything – Robbie’s pension, any money we need to tide us over.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Robbie didn’t even have a will, did you know that?’

  ‘Who does?’ said Nightingale. ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Me neither,’ agreed Jenny. ‘You just don’t think about it, do you?’

  ‘I did ask him, loads of times,’ said Anna, ‘but he said writing your will was tempting Fate, that he had no intention of…’ She faltered, then blew her nose. ‘Stupid, stupid bastard,’ she said. She touched Nightingale’s arm. ‘I’ve got to get back to Sarah. She’s been so calm, so collected, so together, but I don’t think it’s really hit her yet.’

  ‘She’s in shock,’ said Jenny. ‘We all are.’

  Anna went back to the sofa and sat down with her daughter. Sarah held her mother’s hand, her lower lip trembling.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ said Jenny. ‘I keep thinking I’m going to wake up – it just doesn’t feel real.’

  ‘Can you see any whisky? I need a drink.’

  ‘Jack…’

  ‘Come on, Robbie would understand,’ he said. ‘If it was me, I’d expect him to have a drink.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘But then again, if it was me, there wouldn’t be so many people grieving.’ He nodded at the superintendent. ‘Bloody Chalmers wouldn’t be there, for a start.’

  ‘It’s good that he came, Jack,’ said Jenny.

  ‘He hated Robbie. And vice versa.’

  ‘Which makes it all the more decent of him to have come,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ he admitted.

  Marie appeared at Jenny’s shoulder. ‘Would you like some coffee or tea?’ she asked them.

  ‘Coffee, please,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Me too,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I’ll put a drop of something in yours, Jack, shall I? Brandy, maybe? Or whisky?’

  ‘You read my mind,
Marie, thanks. Whisky would be great.’

  ‘It’s not mind-reading,’ she said. ‘Every cop in the room has got brandy or whisky in their coffee. Even the superintendent over there.’

  Jenny smiled at Nightingale as Marie went off to the kitchen. ‘See, Jack? He’s human after all.’

  36

  ‘When did you eat last?’ asked Jenny, as they walked towards Nightingale’s MGB. It had stopped raining but there were still pools of water on the road. They had stayed at Anna’s house for almost two hours, during which time more than a hundred police officers had called to pay their respects. Robbie Hoyle had been well liked, but even if he had been the most unpopular man on the Met, they would still have come. Police officers were a tight family and always closed ranks when one of their own died.

  ‘Does whisky count as one of the major food groups?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Yesterday then.’

  ‘You didn’t have breakfast?’

  ‘Who has breakfast these days?’ said Nightingale. ‘No one has the time.’

  Jenny put her arm through his. ‘Come on, we’re going to eat,’ she said. ‘My treat.’

  ‘Your treat? Am I paying you too much?’

  ‘You haven’t paid me at all this month.’ She laughed. ‘How does Chinese sound?’

  ‘If you’re paying, we’ll eat whatever you want,’ he said.

  They reached the MGB and climbed in. Nightingale headed north to London. Jenny knew a Chinese restaurant around the corner from her home in Chelsea where she was greeted like a long-lost cousin. Nightingale asked her to order and she did so in what sounded like fairly fluent Cantonese, much to his surprise. ‘I didn’t know you spoke Chinese,’ he said.

  ‘I sometimes wonder if you even looked at my CV,’ she said. ‘It did say that I spent four years in Hong Kong when I was a kid.’

  ‘Yeah, I probably didn’t get that far down it,’ said Nightingale. ‘You had shorthand and typing and a good phone voice.’

  Two Tsingtao beers arrived. ‘I’m serious, Jack. Sometimes you’re a bit on the self-centred side.’

  ‘I’m all I’ve got,’ said Nightingale. ‘I guess that comes from having my parents die when I was a teenager.’

  ‘Maybe, but you should try opening up more.’

  He raised his glass to her. ‘Okay, I will.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ she said. She clinked her glass against his.

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said.

  Their food arrived. Half a Peking duck, scallops fried with celery, chicken with cashew nuts, pak choi in oyster sauce, and rice. An old Chinese lady, her hair held up in a bun with two scarlet chopsticks, came over, spoke to Jenny in Chinese and walked away cackling.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ asked Nightingale, struggling with his chopsticks.

  ‘She wanted to know if you were my husband.’

  Rice fell onto his lap. ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I told her you were my father.’

  ‘What? I’m only… How much older than you am I?’

  ‘You didn’t read my CV, did you? I’m twenty-five. And you’ll be thirty-three next week. So…?’

  ‘I’m eight years older. Which hardly makes me father material, does it?’

  ‘Jack, I was joking. And would you like a knife and fork?’

  ‘I can manage, thanks,’ said Nightingale. He picked up a piece of chicken and got it halfway to his mouth before it slipped from his chopsticks and fell onto the tablecloth.

  ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of in not being able to handle chopsticks,’ she said, deftly picking up a cashew nut with hers and popping it into her mouth.

  ‘Yeah, well, you’re half Chinese, apparently,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I said I lived in Hong Kong for a few years. I wasn’t born there,’ she said. ‘Daddy was working for one of the trading hongs.’

  A scallop fell into the pak choi. ‘So, my question to the Chinese expert is, now that they know how great knives and forks are, why don’t they stop using these bloody things?’

  ‘Tradition,’ she said.

  ‘Well, they’ve changed other traditions, haven’t they? They stopped using rickshaws and wearing those Mao outfits, and they replaced donkeys with cars easily enough, so why not do the sensible thing and replace chopsticks with more user-friendly tools?’ He waved for the waitress to bring them two more beers. They laughed and argued and ate and discussed everything but the one thing they were both thinking about: Robbie Hoyle.

  When they had finished their meal a waitress placed a saucer on the table. On it was the bill and two fortune cookies. Nightingale picked one up and held it between his finger and thumb. ‘This had better be good luck,’ he said.

  ‘Lottery numbers would be nice,’ said Jenny.

  Nightingale grinned. He crushed the cookie and let the pieces fall to the tablecloth. He unrolled the slip of paper and looked at the typewritten sentence. The smile froze on his face. It was as if time had stopped dead and his whole world was focused on the seven words in front of him. ‘YOU ARE GOING TO HELL, JACK NIGHTINGALE.’

  ‘Jack, what’s wrong?’ asked Jenny, leaning across the table towards him.

  Nightingale couldn’t take his eyes from the printed fortune. He was holding it so tightly that his finger and thumb had gone white.

  ‘Jack?’ said Jenny. She reached over and pulled the slip away from him. Nightingale sagged in his seat, his arms folded across his chest. She read it, and smiled. ‘It’s not so bad,’ she said. ‘“Never take a stranger at his word, but remember that friends can also lie.” Good advice, if you ask me.’

  Nightingale snatched the piece of paper from her. ‘NEVER TAKE A

  STRANGER AT HIS WORD, BUT REMEMBER THAT FRIENDS CAN ALSO LIE.’

  Nightingale wiped his face with his left hand, blinked several times and read it again.

  ‘Jack, what is it?’

  Nightingale turned the slip of paper over. The back was blank.

  ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  He tossed the fortune onto the table. ‘I’m just tired,’ he said. ‘My eyes are playing tricks on me.’

  ‘What did you think it said?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Jack.’

  Nightingale massaged the bridge of his nose. ‘I’m just tired, kid.’

  ‘Don’t “kid” me,’ she said. She picked up the scrap of paper. ‘This is the normal sort of fortune rubbish you find in every cookie, but when you looked at it, it was as if you were reading your death warrant.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I’m serious, Jack. Don’t you dare lie to me.’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  Nightingale sighed. ‘Okay. I thought it said I was going to hell. That’s what it said the first time I read it.’

  ‘That you were going to hell?’

  ‘That’s right. That I, Jack Nightingale, was going to hell.’

  ‘So you misread it. No big deal.’ She frowned. ‘Those words mean something, don’t they?’

  ‘My uncle wrote them before he died. In blood. In his bathroom.’

  Jenny gasped. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’

  ‘Because… I don’t know, Jenny. I thought maybe I’d imagined it. Like I imagined it just now, when I read the fortune.’

  ‘Why would your uncle tell you that you were going to hell?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. But those words keep cropping up.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Like I said, it’s a long story.’

  ‘Jack…’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Nightingale. He sighed and put his head in his hands. He had never told Jenny about Sophie Underwood, or what had happened to her father. It wasn’t something he wanted to talk about, but as he sat in the Chinese restaurant and stared at the tablecloth stained with the food that had slipped from his cho
psticks he told her everything that had happened on that chilly November morning. Or, at least, as much as he could remember.

  ‘Hand on heart, Jenny, I don’t remember what happened to the father. I don’t remember if he jumped or if I pushed him. There’s a gap in my memory, just a few seconds, but no matter how many times I replay it in my mind, I can’t remember what happened. It feels like I pushed him – I know I wanted to and I know he deserved to die the way Sophie died, but I can’t remember doing it. But the one thing I can remember is what he said to me. Or screamed at me, more like.’ He forced a smile. ‘He yelled at me that I was going to hell. Not a curse, not an insult, but like he knew it was a fact.’

  ‘It’s an expression, Jack.’

  Nightingale shook his head. ‘He meant it. And I remember him saying it as clear as if he was standing here right now. But I don’t remember what happened after that. The next thing I do remember I was downstairs, heading towards my car. He said it, and I saw it just then, on the fortune that came out of my cookie.’

  ‘But it doesn’t say that, Jack.’

  ‘Not now it doesn’t. But it did when I looked at it. It did, Jenny. I swear.’

  ‘Maybe your subconscious is playing tricks. You heard about Robbie, it made you think about sudden death, and your subconscious replayed what happened two years ago and muddled things up.’

  ‘Since when were you a psychiatrist?’

  ‘It’s common sense. We’ve both been under stress since we found out what happened to Robbie. And stress does funny things to people.’

  Nightingale drank the rest of his beer. ‘I still can’t believe Robbie’s dead. You know, I’ve known him almost ten years. We were at Hendon together.’

  ‘He was a nice guy,’ said Jenny.

  ‘He was a better cop than me,’ said Nightingale. ‘A better human being, too. A husband, a father. He didn’t deserve to die like that.’

  ‘Nobody deserves to die,’ said Jenny. ‘It was just a stupid accident.’

  ‘He was leaving a message for me when he was hit by the cab,’ said Nightingale. ‘Maybe if I’d answered the phone it wouldn’t have happened. Do you want another beer? One for the road?’