Nightfall: The First Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller (17 page)

36

‘
W
hen 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 chopsticks 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?’

Jenny shook her head. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘It was an accident, Jack. You have to stop blaming yourself. And at least it was quick. He didn’t suffer.’

‘That’s bollocks,’ said Nightingale. ‘They always say that. “At least he didn’t suffer. At least it was quick.” One moment they’re there and then they’re gone. Bang. Thank you and good night.’

‘But isn’t that better than lying in a hospital bed wired up to a life-support machine?’

‘There’s too much unfinished business. There’s no time to prepare yourself, or to prepare the people you care for. Sudden death just rips people away. It leaves too many unanswered questions.’ Nightingale opened his wallet and dropped three twenty-pound notes onto the saucer. ‘I need a smoke,’ he said. ‘And don’t worry, I won’t be driving.’

Jenny picked up the money and gave it back to him. ‘My treat, remember?’

‘Thanks.’ He returned the notes to his wallet.

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Secondary smoke kills,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want you on my conscience.’

Jenny opened her mouth to argue but Nightingale held up his hand to silence her. ‘I just want to be on my own,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I need to think.’

‘And you can’t think when I’m around? Jack, you can’t always push people away like this.’

‘I’m not pushing anyone away,’ he said.

‘No, you’re running away, and that’s worse. You can’t solve your problems by running away from them.’

Nightingale headed for the door. ‘Watch me,’ he said.

37

F
irst thing on Tuesday morning the forensics lab phoned Jenny. When she’d hung up she hurried into Nightingale’s office. ‘The lab came back with the results,’ she said. ‘Rebecca Keeley’s your mother.’

‘There’s no doubt?’ said Nightingale.

‘Only that one in six billion nonsense,’ said Jenny. ‘She’s your birth-mother, no question of it. They’re sending me a fax to confirm it and their bill.’

‘Will petty cash cover it?’ asked Nightingale, hopefully.

‘It might if we had any,’ said Jenny. ‘We’ll need a cheque.’

Jenny’s computer beeped to tell her that she had received an email. She went over to her desk while Nightingale phoned Hillingdon Home and spoke to Mrs Fraser, who told him that Miss Keeley had slept through the night and now seemed much calmer. Nightingale explained that, following a DNA test, he was now sure that Rebecca Keeley was his mother, but thought better of mentioning that he’d stolen the hairbrush. Mrs Fraser said she had no objections to Nightingale visiting again. This time he didn’t take flowers, but he had with him an old photograph album.

The male nurse met him in Reception and explained that his mother was sitting in the garden. It wasn’t so much a garden as a patch of grass with a couple of wooden benches, a rockery filled with heathers of various hues, and a stone birdbath covered with sparrow droppings. Nightingale’s mother was on one of the benches, wearing a tweed coat and a purple headscarf. She was staring at the birdbath and stroking the crucifix around her neck.

‘I like her to get some fresh air now and again,’ said the nurse. ‘I’ll take her back inside in half an hour.’ He pointed at a large picture window overlooking the garden. Three old women were sitting in armchairs, staring blankly through the glass. ‘I’ll be in the residents’ lounge,’ he said. ‘If she starts getting agitated again, I’ll have to end the visit.’

‘I understand,’ said Nightingale.

He went over to the bench and sat down next to her, unbuttoning his raincoat. He had the photograph album on his lap and said hello, but she ignored him.

‘It’s me, Jack,’ he said. ‘I’ve come back to see you.’

There was no sign that she was aware he was there. He opened the album. The first picture was of himself at only a few days old, wrapped in a white cloth, his eyes wide open. ‘This is me, not long after I was born,’ he said. He pushed the album towards her. ‘Do you remember me as a baby? Did you see me when I was born or did he take me away from you straight away? I know you’re my mother, Rebecca. I checked. There’s no doubt. I’m your son.’

The woman looked down at the picture, still rubbing the crucifix between her thumb and first finger.

‘Do you recognise me, Rebecca? Do you recognise the baby in this picture?’

‘Edward?’ she whispered.

‘Edward? Is that the name you gave me? Is that what you called me? My name’s Jack now, Jack Nightingale.’ He turned the page. There were six photographs across the spread, different views of his parents holding him. ‘These are the people who took care of me, Rebecca. Bill and Irene Nightingale, my parents.’

She reached out and gently touched the pictures one by one with her left hand, holding the crucifix tightly in the right.

‘Do you remember, Rebecca?’ asked Nightingale, in a soft whisper. ‘Do you remember holding me when I was born? Did you kiss me?’

He turned the page. The next set of photographs was of himself at two weeks old, tiny and defenceless. He flicked through the pages and showed her one of him smiling. He’d always been a happy baby, according to his mother. Happy and smiling and as good as gold.

A single tear trickled down Rebecca Keeley’s cheek.

Nightingale reached across and held her left hand. ‘Why did you give me away?’ he asked.

She shook her head slowly. Nightingale wasn’t sure if she hadn’t understood his question or was denying what he’d said.

‘What was the money for? The twenty thousand pounds?’

‘Are you a ghost?’ she whispered.

‘A ghost?’ repeated Nightingale. ‘Why would you think I’m a ghost?’

‘You died,’ she whispered. ‘You died when you were born.’

Nightingale froze. ‘Is that what he told you? Is that what Ainsley Gosling told you?’

‘You were stillborn, he said. The doctor wouldn’t even let me see you. They took you away and said they’d bury you but I never saw a grave.’ She stared at him with tear-filled eyes. ‘Why have you come back?’

‘I didn’t die,’ said Nightingale. ‘I didn’t know about you. I didn’t even know you existed. Gosling gave me to the Nightingales and they brought me up.’

The woman’s brow furrowed even more. ‘You’re not a ghost?’

Nightingale stroked her wrinkled hand. ‘No, I’m flesh and blood.’

‘And Ainsley?’

‘He died,’ said Nightingale.

‘What happened?’

‘He got sick and died,’ said Nightingale. He had no compunction about lying to the woman. He didn’t think she’d react well to the news that Gosling had blown his head off with a shotgun.

‘Is he a ghost now? Will he come to see me?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Nightingale.

‘I loved him,’ said the woman, her hands trembling.

‘What was the money for?’ asked Nightingale. ‘The twenty thousand pounds he paid you?’

‘He said I needed a holiday. He said he’d join me and he gave me the money and a train ticket to Blackpool and I never saw him again. I always wanted to see Blackpool. I wanted to climb the tower and walk on the pier.’ She blinked. ‘What’s your name again?’ she asked.

‘Jack.’

‘That’s nice. I was going to call you Edward.’

‘That’s a good name,’ said Nightingale. He smiled. ‘You know, I never really felt like a Jack. But Edward? Eddie? Ed?’

‘Never Eddie,’ she said primly. ‘Edward.’

‘You can call me Edward, if you like,’ said Nightingale. ‘Rebecca, do you know if he had any other children? A daughter, maybe?’

‘I stayed in the hospital for two days afterwards and then I went to Blackpool and the last time I saw him was at the station. He said he’d come to see me in Blackpool. But he never did.’ A tear rolled down her left cheek. ‘Why did he tell me that you’d died?’

‘I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

She sniffed. ‘I’m sorry too,’ she said. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.

‘Thirty-three next week,’ he said. ‘On Friday the twenty-seventh.’

She gasped and clutched at the crucifix. ‘My God,’ she said.

‘What?’

She avoided his gaze and stared at the birdbath. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered, rubbing the crucifix between her finger and thumb. ‘Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.’ She repeated the word like a mantra.

Nightingale narrowed his eyes, ‘You know, don’t you?’

She shook her head.

‘You do. You know what he did, why he took me away from you when I was born.’

‘I don’t, I don’t, I don’t,’ she murmured. She kissed the crucifix with her thin, bloodless lips and carried on rubbing it. ‘I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.’

‘You know what’s going to happen on my thirty-third birthday, don’t you? On Friday next week.’

The woman didn’t answer but she squeezed the crucifix harder.

‘You know, don’t you? You have to tell me. You owe me that much.’

Tears rolled down both her cheeks. ‘He told me you died,’ she muttered. ‘That’s what he told me.’

‘But you knew what he was, didn’t you? You knew he was a Satanist.’

‘Not at first. I just thought he was a man who liked me, who cared about me.’

Nightingale took a deep breath. He wasn’t getting anywhere by asking her directly. She was confused, clearly damaged by the years of medication. He forced himself to smile and gently stroked her hand. He knew from his years of negotiating that sometimes you had to come in from the side, to slip through the defensive barriers that people put up to protect themselves. ‘I bet he was a handsome man,’ he said quietly.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘The first time I met him, he took my breath away.’

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘Church,’ she said.

‘Church?’ repeated Nightingale. That didn’t make sense because the last place a Satanist would go was a place of worship. ‘Which one?’

‘A spiritualist church in Islington,’ she said. ‘I wanted to contact my parents. They died when I was young and I was in a children’s home. I used to go to the church trying to get a message from them.’

‘And did you?’

‘No.’ She trembled. ‘Not at the church, but later, with Ainsley, they spoke to me.’

‘Ainsley helped you contact your parents?’

‘He helped them contact me,’ she corrected him. ‘He brought their spirits to talk to me, to tell me that everything was all right, that they loved me and were watching over me.’

‘And he did that at the church?’

‘No, it was later, at his home. At the church I never got a message. But Ainsley did. Every time. The spirits were always talking to him.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Some of the regulars were jealous because the messages were always for Ainsley. It was as if the spirits were queuing up to speak to him.’

‘Then he took you to his home?’

‘He had a lovely house. So big, with a huge garden. Bigger than this, with trees and flowers and a summerhouse. That was where he made love to me for the first time.’

‘And you got pregnant?’

‘Not then. That was later. After my parents spoke to me.’

‘How did they do that, Rebecca? Did you hear their voices?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Ainsley knew how to use a ouija board and they spoke to me through that. Every night they would talk to me about why they had died, why I had to be strong, and why I should trust Ainsley and let him take care of me.’

‘Rebecca, was it your parents who said you should have a baby with Ainsley?’

She nodded fiercely. ‘They said they wanted grandchildren. They said I was their only child so it was up to me to give them a grandchild and that if I did they would be happy in heaven.’

‘But when the baby was born, you thought it was dead?’

She put a hand up to her forehead. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure.’ Her lower lip began to tremble. ‘I remember telling the nurse that I wanted to hold the baby and Ainsley taking it and saying it was dead, but I think it was breathing.’

Nightingale closed the album. ‘You never saw him again, after you had the baby?’

‘I came back from Blackpool and went to his house but it was empty, and everyone I spoke to said it had been empty for years.’ Tears were running down her face but she ignored them. ‘Why did he leave me?’ she whimpered. ‘Why did he take my baby?’

‘I think you know,’ said Nightingale, harshly. ‘I think you know what he planned to do right from the start. That’s why he paid you. He paid you to have me, didn’t he?’

‘No!’ she wailed. She grabbed the lapels of his jacket, her fingers curled like talons, and pushed her face up to his. He could smell the sourness of her breath and a sickly sweet perfume around her wrinkled neck. He tried to release her grip but her hands were locked rigid. ‘No!’ she shouted, and her spittle peppered his cheek. The photograph album fell on to the grass.

‘Please, Rebecca,’ he said. ‘Calm down, it’s okay.’

He heard running footsteps and twisted around to see the male nurse running towards them. ‘What happened?’ asked the nurse, as he gently prised the woman’s fingers off Nightingale’s jacket.

‘I don’t know,’ lied Nightingale. ‘I was just talking to her about the pictures and she went off again.’

The nurse sat down beside her and put an arm protectively around her. ‘I think you should go.’

‘You’re probably right,’ agreed Nightingale. He bent down and picked up the album, then stood up and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. ‘Take care,’ he said. She didn’t react, just stared at the stone birdbath, her cheeks still wet with tears. She reached up with her right hand and began caressing the crucifix again.