Nightingale went to Gosling’s desk. He sat down, opened the top drawer and pulled out a leather file. Inside, plastic folders held business cards – lawyers, businessmen, politicians, showbiz personalities, even high-ranking policemen. Ainsley Gosling had had some very important friends.
‘Have you seen these crystal balls?’ asked Jenny. ‘Was he a fortune-teller as well?’
‘Get away from there!’ shouted Nightingale, leaping out of the chair.
Jenny jumped backwards. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said.
Nightingale hurried over to her. ‘Just don’t touch them,’ he said.
‘Why? Are they valuable?’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.’
‘It’s not that,’ he said. His shoe crunched on a piece of broken glass. ‘It’s just…’ He tailed off, not sure if he could explain what he was worried about without appearing to be a complete idiot.
‘Tell me, Jack.’
‘The last time Robbie was here he saw himself in one of the balls.’
‘His reflection, you mean?’
Nightingale took a deep breath. ‘This is going to sound crazy, but he saw himself being hit by a taxi.’
Jenny’s face hardened. ‘That’s not funny, Jack,’ she said.
‘I’m not joking,’ said Nightingale. He pointed at the shards of glass on the floor. ‘He was so shocked that he dropped it.’
‘Jack, listen to yourself. You’re saying Robbie saw his future. You know that’s impossible.’
‘I’m only telling you what he told me, Jenny. And if you’d seen the look on his face, you’d know how serious he was.’
‘He saw himself being hit by a cab?’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘It’s crazy.’
‘Everything about this is crazy,’ said Nightingale. ‘This basement is crazy, the DVD Gosling left me is crazy – killing yourself in a magic circle isn’t exactly a sign of sanity.’
Jenny flopped down onto a leather sofa. ‘Are you okay?’
‘In what sense?’
‘You’ve just found out your parents weren’t your real parents, that your real father killed himself with a shotgun and your birth-mother has spent most of her life in a psychiatric institution. Your uncle and aunt are dead and you’ve just buried your best friend.’
Nightingale lit a cigarette and sat down beside her. ‘Yeah. It’s been a stressful few days,’ he said sarcastically.
‘And how are you going to deal with it all?’
Nightingale held up the cigarette. ‘Nicotine and alcohol, same as usual,’ he said.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘With a therapist?’
Jenny laughed. ‘With me, you idiot.’
‘I’m okay,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m in bits about Robbie, but I’m an adult, I can deal with it. The parents thing is confusing me a bit, but I’m not the first person to discover they were adopted, and I can deal with it.’
‘And your mother?’
‘She’s not my mother, Jenny. She’s…’
‘She’s what?’
Nightingale shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Yes, she gave birth to me, I’m sure of that now, but she’s nothing to me and never will be. My mother was Irene Nightingale and she’s been dead almost fifteen years. And Bill was my father. Nothing will ever change that.’
‘And the DVD? Gosling’s message to you?’
‘The ramblings of a suicidal madman.’
She looked at him earnestly. ‘You’re sure that’s how you feel?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because what you’ve been through is traumatic. And you seem to be taking it all very calmly.’
‘I was a cop for almost ten years, Jenny. It takes a lot to faze me.’ He blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘Trust me, I’m fine.’
42
When Nightingale woke on Friday morning he lay in bed for almost half an hour staring up at the ceiling. He had acted on impulse when he’d asked the detective inspector for the name of the man who had killed Robbie Hoyle, but once he had it he knew that nothing would stop him going to talk to him. Nightingale wanted to know if Hoyle had died immediately or if he had lain in a pool of blood, begging to be saved. He wanted to know why O’Brien hadn’t stopped or swerved, why he had just mown Hoyle down. He wanted to know what had happened, even though that knowledge wouldn’t change anything. Hoyle’s death didn’t make any sense but, in Nightingale’s experience, few deaths did.
He booted up his laptop and logged on to Tracesmart, an online service that provided access to electoral rolls around the country. There was only one Barry O’Brien living in Hammersmith. He made a note of the address and called Jenny to tell her he’d be late in. ‘I’ve things to do at Gosling Manor,’ he lied. ‘I’ll be with you during the afternoon. If there’s anything important, I’ll be on the mobile.’ He ended the call, feeling suddenly guilty. He didn’t like lying to Jenny, but telling her what he was really doing would only worry her. Nightingale had always been much more comfortable asking questions than answering them.
He shaved, showered and put on a clean shirt and a dark blue suit that had just come back from the drycleaner’s. He made himself a cup of black coffee, smoked a Marlboro, then drove to Hammersmith.
O’Brien’s house was in a terraced street and a black cab was parked in front of it. Nightingale found a space for the MGB about fifty yards away. He climbed out and walked over to the cab. There was no damage to the front, no blood, not even a scratch – nothing to show that the vehicle had ended the life of Robbie Hoyle. Nightingale wasn’t surprised. A London cab weighed more than 1600 kilograms and flesh was no match for that amount of steel moving at speed.
A middle-aged housewife walked by with a white poodle on a lead. She was holding a screwed-up plastic bag and cajoling the animal to do its business. Nightingale flashed her a smile and she glared at him as if he was a child-molester.
A flight of half a dozen stone steps led up to the front door of O’Brien’s house. Nightingale pressed the bell and heard it buzz in the hallway. He went back to the pavement and looked up at the bedroom windows. The curtains were drawn. Nightingale wondered if O’Brien had worked through the night and was now sleeping. He rang the bell again. When there was no answer, he took out his mobile phone and dialled the number he’d been given by Directory Enquiries. He heard the phone ring inside the house. He let it continue for a full thirty seconds, then ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket.
He stood on the pavement, considering his options. If O’Brien was asleep, he’d answer the door eventually. He obviously wasn’t working because his cab was in the street. Maybe he’d taken the day off and gone somewhere without it. If that was the case, then Nightingale was wasting his time.
He went back up the steps. There was a letterbox in the middle of the door. He pushed it open and bent down to shout through it. ‘Mr O’Brien?’ The door moved forward. Nightingale frowned. He straightened and pushed it open.
There were half a dozen envelopes on the carpet, mainly bills, and several garish leaflets. Nightingale stepped inside. ‘Mr O’Brien? Are you there?’ There was no answer, but Nightingale could hear a soft buzzing, like an electronic hum, coming from upstairs. He closed the door. He knew he shouldn’t be in the house, but he also knew that something was wrong. People didn’t leave their front doors open in London. He walked down the hallway and checked the living room, then the kitchen. There were dirty dishes in the sink and a half-drunk cup of coffee on the draining-board. He touched the kettle. It was cold.
He went back into the hallway. ‘Mr O’Brien? Are you upstairs?’ A large bluebottle flew around his head and he swatted it away. He headed up the stairs, peering up at the landing above. ‘Mr O’Brien, is everything okay?’
The buzzing got louder. Two more large flies circled Nightingale’s head. As he reached the landing he saw that the bathroom door was ajar. There were half a dozen flies on the wall by the light sw
itch and as he moved closer more flew out through the open door. The buzzing was much stronger now, like a faulty electric circuit.
There was a bad smell in the air, an odour Nightingale had encountered many times during his years as a police officer, a smell that was difficult to describe but could never be forgotten. Before he even pushed open the bathroom door, Nightingale knew what he would find.
The man had been in the water for at least a day, probably longer, and had already started to swell. There were deep cuts in both arms and the savage wounds were filled with flies. They were everywhere, feeding and laying their eggs, buzzing around Nightingale as if they resented his appearance at their banquet.
O’Brien had filled the bath with water and cut his wrists with a Stanley knife, which was lying on the floor, the blade covered with blood. There were smears across the wall and the floor where arterial blood had sprayed but most had gone into the bathwater. O’Brien’s eyes were still open, staring up at the ceiling. Nightingale didn’t know why Barry O’Brien had wanted to kill himself but one thing was for sure: it hadn’t been a cry for help.
Scrawled across the tiles at the side of the bath in bloody letters was the sentence with which Nightingale had become all too familiar: ‘YOU ARE GOING TO HELL, JACK NIGHTINGALE.’ Dozens of flies were feeding off it.
Nightingale stared at the words in horror. ‘What is going on?’ he whispered. He pulled a couple of feet of toilet tissue from the roll, swatted the flies away with his hands and used it to wipe the tiles, then dropped it into the toilet. He pulled off another length, wet it under the tap and wiped the tiles a second time. They looked too clean now so he splashed bloody water from the bath over them and washed his hands in the basin. A fly came so close to his right ear that he flinched.
He dried his hands and went back into the hallway where he took out his mobile phone and started to dial 999. He stopped at the second digit. He cancelled the call and instead dialled New Scotland Yard. He asked the switchboard operator to put him through to Inspector Dan Evans, and after a couple of minutes the inspector was on the line. ‘Dan, I thought I’d better tell you this before you hear it from anyone else,’ he said.
‘That sounds ominous,’ said the inspector, jovially.
‘I’m at Barry O’Brien’s house and he’s killed himself.’
There was a long silence. ‘I hope this is some sort of sick joke,’ said Evans, eventually.
‘He’s cut his wrists. He’s been dead for a while by the look of it.’
‘What the hell are you doing in his house?’
‘I came to talk to him,’ said Nightingale. ‘The front door was open.’
‘So you just walked in?’
‘Like I said, the front door was open.’
‘You can’t just go wandering around people’s houses, Nightingale. You’re not in the job any more.’
‘I know that, but what’s done is done. I was going to call 999 but I thought I’d better let you know what had happened.’
‘Do you need an ambulance?’
‘He’s definitely dead. Are you going to handle it or should I call
999?’
‘Have you any idea of the trouble this is going to cause, Nightingale? You got O’Brien’s name from me, right?’
‘I’ve forgotten where I heard it,’ said Nightingale, ‘and I doubt I’m going to remember.’
‘Let’s keep it that way,’ said Evans. ‘Where’s the body?’
‘Upstairs bathroom,’ said Nightingale.
‘Wait for me downstairs, outside the house,’ said Evans. ‘And don’t touch anything.’
43
They left him in the interview room for the best part of an hour, with just a cup of canteen coffee. Nightingale had asked if it was okay to smoke and a sullen uniformed constable had said no. He hadn’t been arrested so he was free to leave whenever he wanted, but there were questions that had to be answered and Nightingale decided it would be best to get it over with. They hadn’t searched him or taken his mobile phone so he rang Jenny and said he’d be later than expected. She wanted to know where he was. ‘It’s complicated,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain when I get back.’ Jenny pressed him for more details but Nightingale heard footsteps in the corridor. The door opened and Superintendent Chalmers, in full uniform and holding a clipboard, walked in. Nightingale hung up.
‘Calling your brief?’ asked Chalmers. Dan Evans and Neil Derbyshire, both holding notebooks and ballpoint pens, were behind him.
‘I didn’t think I needed a lawyer,’ said Nightingale. ‘They told me they just wanted a chat.’
‘A chat it is, then,’ said Chalmers. He sat down opposite Nightingale. Evans took the chair next to him while Derbyshire moved the one that was beside Nightingale and placed it by the door so that all three policemen were facing him around a metal table that had been bolted to the floor. On a shelf on the wall above the table there was a digital voice recorder and in the far upper corner of the room a small CCTV camera.
Chalmers nodded at Evans, who switched on the recorder. ‘Superintendent Ronald Chalmers, interviewing Jack Nightingale.’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘It is now a quarter past two in the afternoon on Friday the twentieth of November and with me are…’ He nodded at Evans.
‘Detective Inspector Dan Evans.’
‘Detective Constable Neil Derbyshire.’
‘If this is just a chat, why the recording?’ asked Nightingale.
‘It’s procedure,’ said Chalmers.
‘Can I smoke?’
‘No, you can’t,’ said the superintendent.
‘But I’m not under arrest?’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘I’m free to go whenever I want?’
‘You’re helping us with our enquiries into the death of Barry O’Brien.’
‘Just so we’re all clear on that,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m here to help.’
‘Date of birth,’ said Chalmers.
‘What?’
‘Your date of birth, for the record.’
‘I’m thirty-two, thirty three on Friday the twenty-seventh. That’s a week from today.’
Evans and Derbyshire scribbled in their notebooks.
‘Don’t feel you have to get me a present,’ said Nightingale.
‘What were you doing in Barry O’Brien’s house this morning?’
‘I wanted to talk to him.’
‘So you broke in?’
‘The front door was open.’
‘You invited yourself in? Is that it?’
‘The door was open. I pushed it and it opened. I went upstairs and found the body.’
‘Why did you go upstairs?’
‘To see if he was there.’
‘But you’d already called his phone so you knew he wasn’t in the house.’
‘I thought he might be asleep.’
Chalmers sat back. ‘So why didn’t you just go away and come back another time?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Nightingale. ‘I just thought…’
‘Yes? You thought what?’
‘I thought that maybe something was wrong.’
‘So why didn’t you call the police? Why did you break into his house?’
‘I didn’t break in,’ said Nightingale. ‘I already told you, the front door was open. Then I heard the flies.’
‘The flies?’
‘He’d been dead for a while. He was covered with flies. I heard the buzzing from the hallway.’
‘And what did you want to talk to Mr O’Brien about?’
Nightingale sighed. It was a difficult question to answer.
‘You do understand the question, Mr Nightingale?’
‘Yes. I just wanted to talk to him.’
‘About what?’
‘About what happened to Robbie.’
‘You’re referring to Inspector Robert Hoyle?’
‘Robbie Hoyle,’ corrected Nightingale. ‘Nobody called him Robert.’
‘You wanted to talk to
Mr O’Brien because he was responsible for the death of your friend, Inspector Hoyle?’
‘I guess so.’
‘You guess so?’
Nightingale threw up his hands. ‘You make it sound like there was something sinister going on. I just wanted to talk to him.’
‘About what, specifically?’
‘About what happened. How Robbie died.’
‘But there’s no mystery as to what happened. It was a road-traffic accident. What did you expect Mr O’Brien to say? Did you want him to apologise? Did you want him to express remorse?’
‘No,’ said Nightingale, flatly.
‘And when he wasn’t remorseful, did that make you angry?’
‘He was dead when I got there,’ said Nightingale.
‘You’re making a habit of walking in on dead people, aren’t you?’ said Chalmers.
Nightingale didn’t reply.
‘Come on, Jack, don’t get all coy with me. You found your aunt and uncle dead, didn’t you? Just a few days ago. Up in Manchester.’
‘My uncle killed my aunt and then he hanged himself. I was supposed to be having Sunday lunch with them.’
‘According to the Manchester cops, you smashed a window to get in. With a spade.’
‘There was blood on the cat,’ said Nightingale.
Chalmers looked confused. ‘What?’
‘There was blood on the cat and on the cat flap. So I knew there was something wrong. Then I saw my aunt through the window, lying on the kitchen floor.’
‘And again you didn’t wait for the police.’
‘What do you expect?’ snapped Nightingale. ‘I call 999 and when and if I get through some civilian arsehole asks me a series of questions on his check list before telling me that someone will be with me at some unspecified time and then I sit on my arse and wait until they bother to show up? You know how piss poor the police response times are these days. I saw blood on the door and my aunt on the floor so I did what I had to do and I’m damn well not going to apologise to you or anyone else for that.’
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