Nightfall jn-1

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Jenny.

  ‘And neither have I. And my parents died suddenly and violently, and so did my aunt and uncle, and if you believe what you read, those are the most likely circumstances to produce a ghost. I got nothing from them, Jenny. Not from my mother and father and not from my aunt and uncle. They died and that was the end of it.’ He sighed. ‘You know, when I buried my mum and dad, I expected to feel their presence at the funeral but there was nothing. Just the coffins.’ He reached for the whisky but didn’t make it.

  ‘Maybe they couldn’t come back. Maybe that’s not how it works,’ said Jenny, picking up the bottle. ‘I’ll make you a coffee.’

  ‘And what about my so-called genetic father? He died violently but I haven’t seen him floating around. He left me a DVD apologising for what he’d done, and you’d think he might have come back and apologised in person. Or in spirit. And if there is life after death, don’t you think he’d get in contact and tell me what to do? And what about Robbie? Remember the message he left on my phone? He had something to tell me, something important.’

  Maybe it’s a one-way journey with no coming back. Like caterpillars.’

  ‘Caterpillars?’

  ‘Caterpillars spend their lives crawling over leaves until one day they turn into a chrysalis and then the chrysalis bursts open and there’s a butterfly. Now, does the caterpillar know that one day it’ll be a butterfly? I doubt it. So far as the caterpillar is concerned, the chrysalis is death. The end of the caterpillar. And does the butterfly remember being a caterpillar?’

  ‘Who knows?’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Jenny. ‘Who knows. But do you ever see butterflies hanging out with caterpillars? No, you don’t. They’ve nothing in common. Maybe that’s what happens when we die. Part of us moves on and there’s no looking back.’

  ‘Our spirit, is that what you mean?’

  ‘They say that when you die, you lose twenty-one grams. It just goes. You weigh a person before they die and you weigh them afterwards and twenty-one grams have disappeared.’

  ‘Says who?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘I did a philosophy course in my final year,’ said Jenny. ‘It was an American doctor who did the experiment, back in the nineteen hundreds. Duncan MacDougall, his name was. He designed a special bed that was built on a set of scales and he had six dying patients who agreed to help him. By weighing the entire bed he was able to take into account sweat and urine loss, everything physical. With all six patients there was an immediate weight loss of twenty-one grams at the moment of death.’

  Nightingale narrowed his eyes. ‘And that’s the weight of a human soul, is it? Twenty-one grams?’

  ‘The weight of a humming-bird, give or take,’ said Jenny. ‘That was MacDougall’s theory. He repeated the experiment with fifteen dogs. Tied them to the bed and put them to sleep. With the dogs, there was no change in weight as they died. His theory was that people had souls and dogs didn’t.’

  ‘And why has no one done the experiment since?’

  ‘Weigh dying people? I’m not sure you’d get away with it these days.’ Jenny put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. ‘What’s wrong, Jack? What’s brought all this on?’

  ‘Give me the whisky and I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Jack…’

  Nightingale held out his hand. Jenny gave him the bottle.

  ‘You know there’s supposed to be a pentagram mark?’

  ‘If your soul is sold to the devil, yes. But you haven’t got a mark, remember?’

  ‘There was an optician next to the bank in Brighton. I went there to deposit the money and the optician was offering free eye tests.’

  ‘You don’t need glasses,’ she said. ‘Eyes like a hawk’s.’

  ‘I went to get my retinas scanned,’ he said quietly. ‘I figured it was one of the parts of the body you never get to see.’

  ‘And?’

  Nightingale slid a manila envelope across the desk. She opened it with trembling hands and slid out the photograph inside. There were two images on it, retinal scans of his right and left eyes. On the left eye, down at the four o’clock position, there was a small black pentagram.

  65

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said Jenny, staring at the scan in horror.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what the optician said.’

  ‘It’s a pentagram.’

  ‘Isn’t it just.’

  ‘On the back of your eye?’

  ‘Apparently. He did the scans twice, thought there might be a problem with the machine.’

  ‘Jack…’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Oh, my God.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’ He raised the bottle in salute. ‘Now you understand why I’m drinking. It’s Wednesday morning. Tomorrow night at midnight… blah, blah, blah.’

  ‘That’s your plan?’ said Jenny in disgust. ‘You’re going to drink yourself to death?’

  ‘My plan is to talk to Proserpine. I just can’t work out how to do it. I’ve been trawling the Internet but there isn’t much about her.’

  ‘Please tell me you’re joking,’ said Jenny. ‘I’m making you a coffee whether you want it or not.’ She went over to the machine. ‘Is that what you’re doing, looking for an email address for Proserpine?’ She forced a smile. ‘Hotmail, probably.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ said Nightingale. ‘The guy I saw at the airport yesterday said it’s all true, that you can sell souls and there are devils out there who’ll buy them.’

  ‘Then he’s a loony,’ said Jenny, sitting on the edge of his desk.

  ‘A very rich loony, who gave me two million euros for one of the books in my father’s library. He wants me to give him an inventory of the rest.’

  ‘Get away,’ said Jenny.

  ‘I’m serious. I paid the money into the bank – here’s the credit slip if you don’t believe me.’ He held up a piece of paper.

  Jenny took it from him and stared at it with wide eyes. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said again. ‘Who is this guy?’

  ‘According to Google, he doesn’t exist,’ said Nightingale. ‘Young guy, looks like a rap star, flies around the world in a Gulfstream jet when he’s not on the astral plane, and he reckons that if I have the mark, the pentagram, then my goose is well and truly cooked.’

  ‘Jack, it’s nonsense and you know it.’

  ‘That’s what I thought until I saw the pentagram.’

  ‘There are no such things as devils and demons, Jack. Same as there’s no Father Christmas or Tooth Fairy. Waiting for a devil to come and claim your soul is as stupid as sitting by your fireplace waiting for Santa to bring your presents.’

  ‘I don’t have a fireplace.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Exactly? What does my not having a fireplace prove?’

  ‘This isn’t about Father Christmas,’ said Jenny. ‘Stop changing the subject.’

  ‘You brought him up.’

  Jenny groaned in frustration. ‘As an example – as a way of showing how ridiculous you’re being by even entertaining the idea that your father did a deal with the demon.’ She saw him opening his mouth to speak and held up a hand to silence him. ‘A devil,’ she corrected herself. ‘A female devil. It’s all in Mitchell’s diary, how he thinks he called up this Proserpine and did a deal with her.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a pity we don’t still have it because I need to talk to her.’

  ‘I made notes,’ she said.

  ‘They didn’t take them? Mitchell’s men didn’t take your notes?’

  Jenny went over to her desk and pulled open the bottom drawer. She took out an A4 ring-backed notebook. ‘They only wanted the diary. This was in my bedroom.’

  ‘You wrote down everything?’

  ‘The bits I’d read.’

  ‘Including how to call up Proserpine? You wrote that down?’

  Jenny nodded. ‘There’s a few words I need to look up, but I got most of it.’

 
Nightingale took the notebook from her. ‘You’re a star, Jenny. An absolute star.’

  ‘It’s nonsense, Jack. The ramblings of a deranged mind. Mitchell is as crazy as your father was.’

  ‘Does that mean you don’t want to help me?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘Help you?’ asked Jenny. ‘How?’

  ‘Help me talk to Proserpine. Help me find a way out of this.’

  ‘Jack…’

  ‘It’s my only chance, Jenny. ‘He tapped the scans. ‘This proves that my father was telling the truth. He did sell my soul. Tomorrow night at midnight a devil is going to come to claim it and I’m damned if I’m going to let that happen.’ He smiled without warmth. ‘Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Now, will you help me or not?’

  66

  Alice Steadman was dusting a display of crystals when Nightingale walked into her shop. She smiled brightly when she saw him. ‘Mr Nightingale, so nice to see you,’ she said. ‘Did everything go all right with Mr Wainwright?’

  ‘Everything went perfectly,’ said Nightingale. He took an envelope from his jacket pocket and gave it to her. ‘I wanted to drop by and give you your commission. I hope a banker’s draft’s okay.’

  She took the envelope from him and opened it. She slid out the cheque and her eyes widened. She gasped and leaned against a display case. ‘Mr Nightingale, this is a fortune. I can’t accept it. I really can’t.’

  Nightingale waved away her objections. ‘It’s the commission we agreed.’

  ‘But this is… this is… I never expected…’

  ‘It’s fine. If you hadn’t put me in touch with Mr Wainwright I wouldn’t have sold the book, so you’ve earned that.’

  She blinked at him. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Mr Nightingale,’ she said. She looked up from the cheque. ‘If there’s anything I can ever do for you, please, just ask,’ she said.

  ‘Actually, there is,’ he said. ‘I want to draw a magic circle on a wooden floor. Is there a special chalk or something I should use?’

  ‘Of course, and I have it in stock,’ she said. ‘I use it myself for making sacred circles.’

  She went over to a display of Tarot cards. Next to it were a dozen or so boxes about the size of cigarette packets, but instead of government health warnings they were adorned with stars and moons. ‘On the house,’ she said, and handed him one.

  ‘And consecrated salt water,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘This is a protective circle, is it?’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘I’m told that a chalk circle reinforced with consecrated salt water is the strongest defence.’

  ‘Defence against what, exactly?’ she asked. ‘What are you planning to do?’

  Nightingale ignored her questions. He took a list from his pocket and gave it to her. ‘There are a few other things here that I’m told I need to open and close the circle.’

  She took the list from him and ran her eyes down it. Her lips tightened. ‘Oh dear, Mr Nightingale. Are you sure about this?’

  ‘I’m sure. Can you sell me those items?’

  ‘Oh, yes, they’re all very straightforward. But I do hope you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘So do I, Mrs Steadman. So do I.’

  67

  Nightingale was mopping the wooden floor of the main drawing room when Jenny walked in with her briefcase. She smiled. ‘That’s a first.’

  ‘It’s got to be clean,’ he said. ‘Any dirt will compromise the circle. That’s what Mitchell wrote.’

  ‘You’re really not going to go through with this, are you?’

  ‘Tonight’s the night,’ he said. ‘I spent all yesterday getting everything. I’ve got the special chalk and the consecrated salt water, and the herbs you said I needed. Mrs Steadman sells all that sort of stuff.’

  ‘Did she ask what you were planning to do?’

  ‘I think she sort of guessed. Can you do me a favour? Can you go down into the basement and bring up five of the church candles, the really big ones?’

  Jenny handed him a small padded envelope. ‘It came in the post this morning,’ she said. ‘From the Hillingdon Home.’

  As Jenny headed down to the basement, he opened the envelope. Inside was his mother’s crucifix and a handwritten note from Mrs Fraser, repeating what she had said in her office, that she was sure his mother would have wanted him to have it. He put the chain around his neck. The crucifix nestled at the base of his throat.

  Nightingale continued washing the floor until Jenny returned with the candles. She put them by the door and watched as he got down on his hands and knees and dried it with paper towels. Jenny opened her briefcase and took out her A4 notebook. ‘Mitchell says you can outline the circle with chalk, but for it to be really effective you need to inscribe it with a sword,’ she said.

  ‘There are swords in the basement,’ said Nightingale, ‘lots of them.’

  ‘It has to be a magic sword,’ said Jenny. ‘That’s what it says here. Veneficus mucro. Magic sword.’

  ‘How the hell am I supposed to know which of them are magic?’ asked Nightingale. He gathered up the used paper towels and put them into a rubbish bag.

  Jenny ran her finger down the page of her notebook. ‘He says you can use the branch of a birch tree.’

  ‘Now that’s more like it,’ said Nightingale. ‘We’ve got our own forest out there. Now, please tell me you know what a birch tree looks like.’

  ‘I’m a country girl, remember?’ She laughed.

  Nightingale put the rubbish bag by the door. ‘One of these days I’m going to have to read your CV,’ he said.

  68

  Nightingale used the chalk he’d bought from Alice Steadman’s shop to draw a circle in the middle of the room, about twelve feet in diameter. ‘Are you sure it doesn’t have to be a particular size?’ he asked.

  Jenny looked up from her notebook. ‘Mitchell says it can be as big or as small as you want,’ she said.

  Nightingale grinned at her. ‘Funny, that,’ he said, ‘because before you said size was important.’ He straightened and used the birch branch they’d taken from a tree in the garden to outline the circle.

  ‘Once you’ve gone around it with the branch, you draw the pentagram. A five-pointed star. Make sure there are two points at the top of the circle and one at the bottom.’

  ‘Which is the top and which is the bottom?’ said Nightingale.

  ‘That’s up to you,’ said Jenny. She frowned as she read her notes. ‘Okay, here it is. You have to draw a triangle around the circle. Once the devil has been summoned, it will be confined to the area between the circle and the triangle. And the apex of the triangle has to point north.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Nightingale, hesitantly.

  ‘So you make the apex of the triangle point north, and two points of the pentagram should point north, with one pointing south.’

  Nightingale looked through the windows and across the lawn, trying to visualise the way he’d driven to the house. He gestured across the grass. ‘London is that way, so that’s north,’ he said.

  ‘I think we should be more accurate than that,’ said Jenny. ‘I saw some compasses downstairs. I’ll get one.’

  As she headed back down to the basement, Nightingale sprinkled consecrated salt water around the perimeter of the circle.

  Jenny returned with a brass compass. She stood at the edge of the circle and showed Nightingale which way was north.

  ‘I wasn’t too far off,’ he said.

  ‘Well done, you,’ she said. She watched as he drew the pentagram inside the circle, and a large triangle outside.

  When he had finished the triangle, he looked at her. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now you have to write in the three points of the triangle. You write “MI” and then “CH” and then “AEL”.’

  ‘Michael?’

  ‘The archangel,’ said Jenny. ‘Don’t blame me if it sounds ridiculous. I’m just telling you what Mitchell noted in his diary.’

  Nightingale wrote the thre
e sets of letters, then put the chalk down and dusted his hands. ‘Is that it?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s the circle done. When you’re ready you put the candles at the points of the pentagram, light them and burn the herbs.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Then you have to recite this.’ She showed him a passage in Latin that she had written down. ‘I’m pretty sure you’ll have to say these words as they are and not the translation. Then when you’ve finished you say, “Bagahi laca bacabe.” And before you ask, I’ve no idea what that means. It’s not Latin.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘According to Mitchell, once you’ve said those three words, Proserpine will appear. But I’ve had enough Delia Smith recipes go wrong to know that sometimes it’s not enough just to have the right ingredients.’

  He took the notebook from her. ‘You know what I don’t understand, Jenny?’

  Jenny sighed. ‘I could draw up a list, but it would take months.’

  ‘Why do you stay with me?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re way overqualified, the work isn’t demanding, I’m an idiot most of the time.’

  ‘All true,’ she said.

  ‘So why do you work for me?’

  ‘I haven’t really thought about it,’ she said.

  ‘You must have. You must think about changing jobs sometimes. Everyone does.’

  ‘I like working with you, Jack.’

  ‘I could never figure out why you came for the job in the first place.’

  ‘It was pure luck,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if I was looking for a job with a private eye.’ She paused. ‘I never told you what happened the day I came for the interview.’

  ‘I thought you were a spy for the Inland Revenue at first,’ he said. ‘You seemed too good to be true.’

  ‘I was shopping in New Bond Street,’ she said, ‘and popped into Costa for a coffee. I was waiting to hear if I’d got a job I’d been interviewed for, assistant to the marketing director of a big advertising agency.’