Nightfall: The First Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller (8 page)

13

R
obbie Hoyle lived in a neat semi-detached house in Raynes Park that he’d bought a couple of years before property prices crashed and was now worth less than the mortgage he’d taken out to pay for it. His wife’s black VW Golf was already in the driveway so he parked in the street.

‘Maybe we should sell this place and move into Chez Nightingale,’ said Hoyle, as they walked down the driveway to the house.

‘I don’t think you could afford the rent, mate.’

‘You could cut me a deal,’ said Hoyle. He unlocked the door. ‘We’re going to need a bigger place – we bought this before we knew we were having twins.’

‘Twin girls, they can share a room,’ said Nightingale.

‘Spoken like an only child,’ said Hoyle, pushing the front door open. ‘Trust me, kids need their own space.’

Anna Hoyle came out of the kitchen, holding a bottle of red wine. ‘Keep the noise down, boys. I’ve only just got the twins to sleep and Sarah’s got an exam tomorrow.’

‘I love you too,’ said Hoyle. He pecked her on the cheek.

‘I’m serious,’ said Anna. She smiled at Nightingale and held up the wine bottle. ‘Hi, Jack. Red okay?’ Nightingale and Hoyle had met Anna at the same time ten years earlier. She had been a probationer at the south London station they were working at and they had both asked her out. She’d said yes to Nightingale first but on the evening they were due to meet he’d been called away to an armed siege at a bank in Clapham. The following evening she’d gone for a drink with Hoyle and things had gone so well that they had married six months later. After three children she was still a stunner, with shoulder-length blonde hair, a trim figure and green eyes that always seemed amused.

‘Red’s fine. Sorry I kept your man out,’ said Nightingale, taking off his raincoat. He dropped it on the back of an armchair and gave her a brotherly peck on the cheek. He’d long ago come to terms with the fact that she’d never be more than a friend, though he still caught himself looking at her legs whenever she left a room.

‘I’ll get the glasses,’ said Hoyle. ‘You sit yourself down. I know you gumshoes spend all your day pounding the streets.’

‘Great,’ said Nightingale. He collapsed onto the sofa and stretched out his legs.

‘How’s business?’ asked Anna, sitting opposite him.

‘Getting by,’ he said, trying not to look at her cleavage. ‘The divorce rate always goes up during a recession. More arguments about money, I guess.’

‘And Jenny?’

‘She’s fine.’

‘Asked her out yet?’

Nightingale groaned. ‘Anna, she’s an employee. She’s staff. Start anything with your staff these days and you end up in an industrial tribunal.’

‘She fancies you something rotten, Jack. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. Why else do you think she works for you?’

Nightingale grinned. ‘We’re a dynamic company with growth prospects,’ he said.

Hoyle returned from the kitchen with three glasses. He put them on the coffee-table and flopped into an armchair while Anna poured the wine. ‘So, did Jack tell you he’s a man of property now?’

‘Really?’ said Anna. ‘Property?’

‘I’ve been left a house.’

‘A mansion,’ said Hoyle. ‘It’s fantastic, babe. You have to see it to believe it. Dozens of bedrooms, a library – the kitchen alone is the size of this place.’

‘Lucky you,’ said Anna. ‘How come?’

‘A relative died,’ said Nightingale.

‘Close?’ asked Anna.

‘My father.’

Anna’s eyebrows shot skywards. ‘Jack!’

‘Okay, somebody claiming to be my father.’

Hoyle sipped his wine. ‘Some sort of Satanist, apparently.’

‘A devil-worshipper?’ said Anna. ‘This is a joke, right?’

‘I don’t know about devil-worship, but he was definitely disturbed. He blew his head off with a shotgun.’

Anna drew her legs up underneath her and held her glass with both hands. ‘I thought your parents died years ago,’ she said.

‘They did, but apparently I was adopted and Gosling was my genetic father.’

‘But you’d know if you were adopted, surely.’

‘It happened at birth. I was given to the Nightingales and registered as if I was their natural child. Anyway, it might all be bollocks. Some sort of scam.’

‘You should be able to prove if he was your father or not. DNA, right?’

‘I’m on the case,’ said Hoyle.

‘We could ask him now, if you like,’ said Anna.

Nightingale and Hoyle looked at her in amazement. ‘What?’ said Nightingale. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘What was his name – your father?’

‘My genetic father? Ainsley Gosling.’

‘Well, let’s ask Mr Gosling. Let’s go right to the source.’

‘Anna, what’s going on?’ asked her husband.

‘Let’s have a séance,’ she said. ‘Fingers on a glass and you talk to the dead – the spirits. Robbie and I used to do it years ago.’

‘It was a joke, a party game,’ said Hoyle.

‘We had some pretty weird messages.’

‘There’s always someone pushing the glass,’ said Hoyle.

‘Anna, you don’t really believe that you can talk to the dead?’ said Nightingale.

‘It works! I can’t explain why it works but you can get messages from people who’ve passed over.’

Nightingale frowned. ‘You’re serious?’

‘I’m just saying it’s worth a try. And they say that spirits who passed over violently, like when they’ve been murdered or committed suicide, tend to hang around – I suppose because there’s unfinished business.’

‘Well, Jack is certainly that,’ said Hoyle.

Anna smiled brightly at Nightingale. ‘Want to give it a go?’

14

N
ightingale, Hoyle and Anna sat at the dining-table. Anna had written the letters of the alphabet on squares of paper, with the words ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. She arranged the letters in a circle with A at the top, and put ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ inside. Hoyle fetched another wine glass from the kitchen and placed it upside down, also inside the circle. ‘Now what?’ asked Nightingale. ‘We stare at it and make spooky sounds?’

‘We have to place our right index fingers on the bottom of the glass,’ said Anna, ‘but first we have to cleanse our auras.’

‘We have to what?’ said Nightingale.

‘I think she’s saying you need a shower,’ said Hoyle.

‘It’s about making the area safe and comfortable for spirits,’ said Anna, ignoring her husband’s sarcasm. She went over to the fireplace, lit three candles and carried one over to the sideboard, close to the dining-table. Then she switched off the lights. ‘The spirits feel more comfortable in the shadows,’ she said.

‘Don’t we all?’ said Nightingale. ‘Why can’t I have my wine?’

‘There must be no alcohol at the table, no cigarettes, no impurities,’ said Anna.

‘Because?’

‘Because impurities attract bad spirits,’ she said.

‘Where do you pick up this stuff?’ asked Nightingale.

‘She reads,’ said Hoyle.

Anna took her seat and held out her hands. ‘Now we form a circle and say the Lord’s Prayer,’ she said.

‘Strictly speaking, it’s a triangle,’ said Nightingale.

‘Don’t quibble,’ said Anna. ‘Now, hold my hands and close your eyes.’

The two men did as they were told and Anna led them in the Lord’s Prayer. It had been a long time since Nightingale had said it and he stumbled twice, mumbling over the words he’d forgotten. When they’d finished they opened their eyes. Anna kept hold of their hands. ‘Let all spirits here within know that we mean you no harm and that we are here solely to do God’s will,’ she said.

‘Amen,’ said Hoyle.

‘Good grief,’ said Nightingale.

Anna looked at him disapprovingly. ‘You have to take it seriously,’ she said. ‘Now, place the index finger of your right hand on the bottom of the glass.’ She did so gently and the two men followed. ‘Right, here we go,’ she said. ‘Is anybody there?’ They sat in silence for ten seconds. ‘Is anybody there?’ Anna repeated.

‘You’re mad, you know that,’ said Nightingale.

‘I’d be careful if I were you,’ said Hoyle. ‘The last person who said she was mad is buried in our back garden.’

Anna glared at him. ‘Is anybody there?’ she said, her voice lower this time.

Hoyle grinned at Nightingale and waggled his eyebrows. Nightingale tried not to laugh. They stiffened as the glass jerked under their fingers.

‘Is anyone there?’ repeated Anna.

Slowly but surely the glass scraped across the table top, heading for the piece of paper with ‘Yes’ written on it.

‘No way,’ said Nightingale, under his breath.

‘Sssh!’ hissed Anna.

The glass stopped next to ‘Yes’, then moved back slowly to the middle of the circle. Nightingale looked at Hoyle, who shook his head as if to say he wasn’t pushing the glass.

‘What was your father’s name again?’ whispered Anna.

‘Ainsley Gosling,’ said Nightingale, his eyes on the glass.

‘We want to speak with Ainsley Gosling,’ said Anna. She tilted her head back. ‘Is Ainsley Gosling there?’

The glass jerked again, and moved inexorably towards ‘Yes’. It stopped halfway, but a few seconds later it began to move again until it nudged the piece of paper.

‘I don’t believe this,’ whispered Nightingale. ‘Someone’s pushing it.’

‘Jack!’ hissed Anna. ‘The spirits sense negativity.’ The glass moved back to the centre of the table. Nightingale knew he wasn’t applying any pressure to it and it didn’t feel as if either Anna or Hoyle were either. ‘Do you have a message for us?’ asked Anna, and even before she had finished the question the glass shot across to ‘Yes’, then slid back to the centre.

‘This is amazing,’ whispered Hoyle. ‘You’re not pissing around, are you, Jack?’

Nightingale shook his head. His finger was aching but he didn’t want to take it off the glass, afraid that he would put a stop to whatever was happening. ‘Now what, Anna?’ he said.

She was still staring at the ceiling. ‘What do you want to say to us?’ she said.

The glass didn’t move. Nightingale willed it to do something, but it stayed defiantly where it was. ‘You’re among friends,’ said Anna, softly. ‘We only want to hear what you have to say.’

The glass moved quickly and, in rapid succession, touched the letters J A C and K.

‘Jack!’ said Hoyle, excitedly. ‘It spelled out your name.’

‘We can all read, honey,’ said Anna. She took a deep breath. ‘Yes, Jack is here with us. Do you have a message for him?’

The glass moved slowly towards ‘Yes’, touched the piece of paper and drifted back to the middle of the table. Then it began to move in small circles, slowly at first and then faster – so fast that Nightingale’s finger almost slipped off it. It raced to the letter I and stayed there for several seconds, slid back to the centre and, almost immediately went to the opposite side of the circle and nudged W. Slowly it spelled out I – W – A – N – T, and stopped.

‘“I want,”’ said Hoyle. ‘Did you see that?’

‘What do you want?’ asked Anna. ‘Please tell us what you want.’

The glass began to move again. It slid over to Y, then O, and slowly spelled out ‘YOU TO’.

It stopped. ‘What?’ said Hoyle, staring at it. ‘What is it you want Jack to do?’

The glass began to move again in a series of jerks, and in rapid succession it picked out S-H-A-G-J-E-N-N.

‘Shag Jenn?’ said Nightingale, then realisation dawned. He cursed and pulled away his finger. Anna and her husband burst out laughing.

‘You two are a couple of kids,’ said Nightingale, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair.

‘Your face,’ said Hoyle.

‘Come on, admit it, we had you going,’ said Anna.

‘It’s not funny,’ said Nightingale.

‘It is from where we’re sitting,’ said Hoyle. ‘I want you to shag Jenny . . .’ he said, in a spooky voice, waggling his fingers. ‘That’s what we want in the spirit world. We want Jack Nightingale to get laid.’ He stood, retrieved his wine and returned to the sofa. ‘You bought it, hook, line and sinker.’

‘Only because I trusted you,’ said Nightingale. ‘Which isn’t a mistake I’ll make again.’

Anna gathered up the pieces of paper, screwed them into a ball and threw it at Nightingale. It bounced off his head and fell onto the floor. ‘I’m going home,’ he said.

‘Don’t sulk,’ said Anna.

Nightingale laughed as he stood up. He held out his arms and hugged Anna. ‘Bitch,’ he said.

‘Sticks and stones,’ said Anna.

Nightingale kissed her cheek and waved to Hoyle. ‘I’ll get you back, you know that.’

‘I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ said Hoyle, raising his glass in salute.

15

N
ightingale woke up early on Friday morning with Simon Underwood’s words ringing in his ears. It was the second night in a row that he’d had the dream. He sat up and ran his hands through his hair, then caught sight of his reflection in the mirrored door of the wardrobe on the far wall. His face was bathed in sweat and there were dark patches under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept for a week. He groaned and lit a cigarette, smoked it all the way down, then showered and padded to the kitchen naked to make himself a black coffee. As he sipped it, he phoned his uncle Tommy. It was just after six thirty but his aunt and uncle had always been early risers.

His aunt answered again but she didn’t say anything to him, just called for her husband.

Uncle Tommy sounded hesitant. ‘Yes, Jack, how’s things?’

‘Everything’s fine, Uncle. I called you a couple of days ago.’

‘Aye, I’m sorry, lad, I’ve been busy.’

‘I need to talk to you about Mum and Dad.’

‘Aye, Linda said. But it’s complicated, and I’m not sure your dad would want me talking about it.’

‘He’s dead, so I can’t ask him or Mum, but I have to know the truth. You can understand that, can’t you?’

His uncle sighed but didn’t answer.

‘We have to talk about this, Uncle Tommy,’ said Nightingale.

‘Aye, lad. I guess so.’

‘How about I drive up to Altrincham on Sunday? About ten in the morning?’

His uncle put his hand over the receiver and said something to his wife. ‘Linda says come for lunch, Jack. She’ll do one of her roasts.’

‘Lunch it is.’

‘Jack, look . . . I’m sorry about all this.’

‘Let’s talk on Sunday, Uncle Tommy. It’ll be easier face to face.’

Nightingale was already at his desk when Jenny walked in. She waved through the doorway as she dropped her bag onto her desk, slipped off her trainers and changed into a pair of Chanel high heels with pretty bows on the back. ‘The early worm,’ she said.

He was studying the book he’d taken from the basement in Gosling Manor and looked disapprovingly over the top. ‘A bit of respect would be nice,’ he said, ‘me being management and all. I couldn’t sleep. Came back to watch the DVD again.’

‘Are you worrying about it?’

‘My father tells me he’s sold my soul to a devil and blows his head? Don’t you think I should be a bit concerned?’

‘He was probably deranged.’

‘And I’m his offspring. What if it’s hereditary?’

‘What if what’s hereditary?’

‘He went mad. Maybe he was schizophrenic. Manic-depressive. I don’t know. But if he was my father then maybe I’ll go crazy too.’

Jenny gestured at the dirty mugs on his desk. ‘I think you might be suffering from an excess of caffeine, Jack.’

‘It’s not the coffee,’ said Nightingale. ‘The more I look at the man in the DVD the more I see myself in him.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Jenny.

‘It’s the eyes. I look into his eyes and it’s like staring into a mirror.’

‘He doesn’t look anything like you.’

‘You don’t know what I’ll look like when I’m his age.’

‘He was fat, he looked like he’d spent a lifetime boozing and taking God knows what drugs, and he looked sick.’

‘And bald,’ said Nightingale.

‘And bald. Though I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.’

‘Gosling was bald. That means I’ll go bald, too.’

Jenny grinned. ‘No, it doesn’t,’ she said. ‘The baldness gene crosses the sexes. Didn’t you do biology at school?’

‘I must have been off on the day we did baldness. How does it go again?’

Jenny sighed and picked up the dirty mugs. ‘You’ll inherit the hair of your mother’s father,’ she said.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Do you have any idea who your real mum was? If what Gosling said is true, she might be out there.’

‘I know,’ said Nightingale, ‘but I wouldn’t have the first idea how to find her. I doubt he went through an agency.’

‘We could try hospital records for the day you were born. That would be a start.’

‘If Gosling was doing this secretly, he wouldn’t have used a hospital,’ said Nightingale. ‘For all we know I could have been born in Gosling Manor. Oh, yeah, while I remember, how much is in the company account?’

‘Not a lot.’

‘I’m going to use the credit card to pay the electricity bill at Gosling Manor. Just under a grand. Can we cover it?’

‘Barely,’ said Jenny. ‘We dipped into the red again last month.’

‘We’ve got an overdraft facility of five hundred quid, right?’

‘We used that, then went into the red,’ said Jenny.

‘Mrs Brierley’s cheque should clear tomorrow.’

‘Assuming it doesn’t bounce like last time,’ said Jenny.

‘That was because her shit of a husband emptied their account,’ said Nightingale. ‘The new cheque was on hers. It’ll be fine.’

‘You’re not planning to live there, are you?’

Nightingale laughed. ‘If you’d seen the size of the place, you wouldn’t even ask,’ he said. ‘It’s huge. It’s a couple of hundred yards from the kitchen to the main bedroom.’

‘Gosling lived there alone, didn’t he?’

‘I’m not sure. I think he must have had staff living in, for cleaning if nothing else. And it needs a team of gardeners. That’s another reason I couldn’t live there – I couldn’t afford the upkeep.’

‘So why have the power connected?’

‘Robbie and I found the basement and I want to go through it properly. It was hard by torchlight. And the estate agents will need the electricity on when they start showing people around.’

‘That’s the plan? Sell it?’

‘I’m going to have to because there’ll be inheritance tax to pay. Turtledove doesn’t know how much but it’ll be a lot.’

Jenny looked at the clock on the wall. ‘You haven’t forgotten Mr McBride, have you?’

‘McBride?’

‘The gentleman whose wife’s having an affair with her boss, remember?’

‘What time’s he due?’

‘Ten.’

‘Time for another coffee, then,’ he said.

‘What are you reading?’ asked Jenny, as she went over to the machine. She put down the dirty mugs and picked up a clean one.

‘A book,’ said Nightingale. ‘And I’m not reading it, I’m staring at it, trying to make sense of the letters, which isn’t the same thing.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Jenny. She poured him some coffee and brought it through to his office.

Nightingale handed it to her. ‘See for yourself,’ he said.

Jenny opened it. It was full of handwritten scrawl, some in dark blue ink, some in black, and some in what looked disconcertingly like dried blood. Dotted among the text there were sketches of circles and pentagrams. Jenny tried reading a sentence at random but she couldn’t make any sense of it. It certainly wasn’t English, or any other language she recognised.

‘At first I thought I might have caught dyslexia,’ said Nightingale. He sipped his coffee, then reached for the whisky bottle.

Jenny moved it out of his reach without taking her eyes off the book. ‘You don’t catch dyslexia,’ she said, frowning over the spidery writing. ‘Where did you get this from?’

‘I picked it up in the house last night,’ said Nightingale. ‘Old man Gosling’s basement is packed with books and stuff . . . weird stuff. I thought that might have been his diary but I can’t make head or tail of it. I thought it must have been written backwards, but even if you read it from right to left it still doesn’t make sense.’

Jenny looked up. ‘I’ve got it,’ she said.

‘The suspense is killing me,’ said Nightingale. ‘What have you got?’

‘It’s not written backwards, it’s mirror writing. There’s a difference.’

‘So you have to read it in a mirror? How on earth did he manage that?’

‘You can teach yourself to write that way. Leonardo da Vinci used to do it, so that no one could read his papers.’ Jenny fetched a small mirror from her bag, sat down opposite Nightingale and held the book so that a page was reflected.

Nightingale shook his head. ‘It still doesn’t make sense.’

‘It’s not English, that’s why.’

He took the mirror from her and tried to read a sentence. ‘What is it? Italian?’

‘Latin.’

‘My comprehensive was a bit light on dead languages,’ said Nightingale. ‘Can you translate it?’

Jenny rolled her eyes. ‘Didn’t you read my CV when you hired me?’

‘I was too busy looking at your legs,’ said Nightingale. ‘Can you tell me what it says?’

‘Eventually,’ said Jenny.

A sudden knock at the door startled them. Jenny hurried to open it. Joel McBride, a middle-aged man in a wheelchair, looked up at her. He was in his late forties with lank brown hair, flecked with grey, that kept falling into his eyes. He was wearing a scarlet windbreaker and black leather gloves with the fingers cut off. Nightingale decided that his bulging arm muscles were the result of pushing himself around. ‘I’m sorry I’m early but the taxi got the pick-up time wrong,’ said McBride.

‘No problem,’ said Nightingale, getting up from his chair. ‘As my lovely assistant just reminded me, the early worm catches the bird. There’s something we need to discuss.’

‘About my wife?’ said McBride.

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Nightingale.