Nightshade: The Fourth Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller (5 page)

‘Sorry,’ said Nightingale. He held up his cigarette. ‘You don’t mind if I do?’

McBride waved his hand dismissively. ‘They’re your lungs,’ he said.

Nightingale lit his cigarette and put the pack away. ‘What’s going to happen to this place?’

‘My brother left it to me in his will,’ said McBride. ‘But I’m not a farmer and my kids are too young. My son says he wants to be a farmer but I can’t see me hanging on to it for ten years or so.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess I’ll just have to sell it.’

‘Your brother made a decent living from the farm?’

McBride smiled ruefully. ‘You never hear a farmer who isn’t complaining,’ he said. ‘But he was never short of a bob or two. Once he realised that the EU would pay him not to grow things, he never looked back.’

‘So he didn’t have any money problems?’

McBride shook his head. ‘He had six figures in the bank,’ he said.

Nightingale blew smoke up at the leaden sky. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘Your brother seems to have had the life he wanted. Why would he suddenly go off the rails the way he did?’

‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t have hired you, would I?’ said McBride. He pulled a set of keys from his coat pocket. ‘I’ll show you around.’

‘Let’s start with the barn. I’d like to see the altar,’ said Nightingale.

McBride put the keys back in his pocket and walked over to the barn. Nightingale followed, the wind tugging at his raincoat. McBride pulled open a large metal door. It was on rollers but it was twice his height and he struggled to keep it moving. Nightingale grabbed the handle and helped. Together they pulled it open, revealing a cavernous space with a concrete floor and metal beams overhead from which hung half a dozen fluorescent lights. To the right of the barn were a tractor and a couple of ploughs, and against the wall was a rack of agricultural tools. To the side of the door was a long workbench and beyond it was a run of metal stairs that led up to a metal mezzanine level.

McBride pointed up the stairs. ‘Up there,’ he said.

Nightingale stubbed out his cigarette and then went up the stairs slowly, holding onto a metal rail. The stairs were fixed to the metal siding of the barn and they wobbled silently as he made his way up. The altar was at the far end of the mezzanine. Nightingale took out his mobile phone. Jenny had given him the iPhone as a birthday present and he still wasn’t quite sure how to work it. He bit down on his lower lip as he tapped at the screen trying to put it into camera mode. ‘You don’t know anything about iPhones do you?’ he asked McBride, who had climbed up the stairs to join him.

McBride held out his hand and Nightingale gave it to him. ‘What are you trying to do?’

‘I want to take pictures.’

‘You want camera mode,’ said McBride. He tapped the screen a couple of times and handed it back to Nightingale. ‘Press the camera button thing.’ Nightingale took several photographs as McBride stood by and watched.

‘Why did you come up here on Saturday?’ asked Nightingale.

McBride pointed at half a dozen cardboard boxes stacked up against the wall. ‘He kept his spare parts up here,’ he said.

Nightingale took more photographs of the altar. The base was a plank of wood across three stacks of six bricks. There were black candles and metal crucibles on the plank. Wax had melted and hardened in rivulets that reached from the plank to the metal floor. Hanging from the wall above the centre of the plank was a goat’s skull with twisted horns. To the left of the skull was a bunch of dried herbs hanging from a nail and on its right was a metal pentagram. ‘And this wasn’t here when you came up?’

‘I’d hardly have missed it,’ said McBride.

Nightingale walked up to the altar and took more photographs. There was a red paste in one of the crucibles that might have been dried blood. And a knife with what looked like dried blood on the blade. ‘Strange that the police didn’t take any of this away,’ said Nightingale. ‘And it doesn’t look as if they took fingerprints.’

‘They didn’t say anything to me about it,’ said McBride. ‘First I knew about it was when I saw the photographs in the papers. I drove around and sure enough it was here. But as I said, it wasn’t here on the Saturday. Jimmy sent me up to get some parts and the only thing up here was the boxes.’

There was a large box of Swan Vesta matches on the altar. Nightingale picked it up and slid it open. There were a dozen or so spent matches among the unlit ones. Nightingale put the box down. All the candles had been used and the altar was covered with melted wax that had hardened. To the left of the altar there was a stack of papers under what appeared to be a lump of coal. Nightingale pulled out the papers and flicked through them. They seemed to be printouts from various Satanic websites.

‘What do you think?’ asked McBride.

Nightingale rolled the papers up and put them into his raincoat pocket. ‘It looks like it’s been here for a while.’

‘Well, I can assure you that it wasn’t here last Saturday.’

‘I believe you,’ said Nightingale. He took more photographs with his phone. ‘Which means that whoever did it went to a lot of trouble to make it look as if your brother set it up some time ago.’

‘Does it look like a Satanic altar to you?’

Nightingale leaned over to get a closer look at a pentangle that had been drawn on a sheet of paper in what appeared to be dried blood. ‘It does, yes. But I’m going to get a professional’s opinion.’

‘A professional?’

‘Someone who’s a bit more familiar with this.’

‘I thought you were,’ said McBride.

‘The basics, yes. But I’m going to run it by someone who really knows her stuff.’

McBride pointed at the lead crucible in front of Nightingale. ‘That’s blood, isn’t it?’

‘It might be,’ said Nightingale. He pulled two plastic evidence bags from his pocket. He put the crucible in one and the knife in the other. ‘I’ll get it checked out.’ He turned to look at McBride. ‘Your brother, was he religious?’

‘He went to church, but not regularly. Why?’

‘Does he have a Bible in the house?’

‘I’m not sure? Why?’

‘Because if he was a dyed-in-the-wool Satanist he wouldn’t have one. Can we have a look around?’

‘Not a problem,’ said McBride. ‘Are you done here?’

‘Just a few more pictures,’ said Nightingale. He took half a dozen more shots of the altar, then pocketed his phone. ‘I have to say, it’s weird that the police didn’t take this away. Or at least rope it off as a crime scene.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe they do things differently up here.’

‘They’ve done almost nothing in the way of an investigation so far as I can see,’ said McBride. ‘They haven’t even spoken to me.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Well, I went to see them after they took away his computer because they’d smashed in the front door. But they weren’t interested in anything I had to say.’

‘They didn’t ask about the altar or what sort of person he was?’ McBride shook his head. ‘Or ask if anything was troubling him?’

‘Not a dicky-bird,’ said McBride. ‘They couldn’t wait to get me out of the station.’

Nightingale rubbed the back of his neck. There was clearly something very wrong with the way the Northumbria police were handling the investigation.

They went back down the stairs and out of the barn, then walked around the back of the farmhouse. There was a large, well-tended vegetable garden and beyond it a chicken house the size of a railway carriage. Nightingale winced as the acrid smell of the chickens hit his nostrils. The chickens inside began to cluck and squawk, as if they realised there were strangers around. McBride unlocked the back door of the farmhouse and took Nightingale into the kitchen. There was a large green Aga stove, a weathered pine table and chairs, and an overstuffed armchair next to which was a pile of farming magazines. There was a metal gun cabinet on one wall. The cabinet was open and empty. ‘How many guns did your brother have?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Three, I think,’ said McBride. ‘He took one to the school and the police took away the other two.’

‘He never had a problem with his licences?’

‘Not that I know of. But they’re pretty easy for farmers to get. There are foxes and crows and all sorts of vermin. I wouldn’t have a gun in the house, but for Jimmy it was just a tool.’

‘So they took the guns and the computer. Anything else?’

‘The ammunition. But that was about it. I’ve got a receipt somewhere.’

There were two dog bowls by the back door, one half full of water. ‘He had dogs?’

‘Two,’ said McBride. ‘I’m taking care of them at the moment.’

Nightingale walked out of the kitchen and along a stone-flagged hallway. On the walls were framed watercolours, mainly flowers, that appeared to have been done by an amateur artist.

‘Jimmy’s study is on the right,’ said McBride.

The curtains were drawn in the study and Nightingale pulled them open. There was a desk on which there was a printer and two wire baskets full of invoices and paperwork. There was a space where a computer had obviously stood. There were more watercolours on the walls.

‘Did your brother paint?’ asked Nightingale.

McBride shook his head. ‘Our mother,’ he said. ‘Jimmy hardly changed a thing when our parents passed away. Their bedroom is just the way it was when they lived here, and he sleeps in the same bedroom he slept in as a kid. He’s left mine the way it is, too.’

‘What sort of computer did your brother have?’ asked Nightingale.

‘I don’t know. A Dell, maybe.’

‘Was it a desktop or a laptop?’

‘A desktop. With a monitor and a separate keyboard and a printer. They only left the printer.’

Nightingale looked over at the printer. Next to it were half a dozen photographs in frames. Two young boys were in most of the pictures. McBride noticed Nightingale’s interest. ‘My boys,’ he said. ‘They worshipped Jimmy. They were like his surrogate kids. That’s why what he did made no sense.’

Nightingale nodded sympathetically. ‘Have you asked for it back? The computer?’

‘I went to the station but they said that they were working on it.’

‘Who did you talk to?’

‘Some detective. An inspector. Stevenson his name was. To be honest he was a bit short with me, gave me the impression that I was bothering him.’

‘I’ll have a go. He might be more forthcoming with me.’ He pointed at a Cisco internet router on a table next to a fax machine. ‘I thought you said he didn’t have an internet connection.’

‘He didn’t,’ said McBride. ‘It’s not plugged in. He couldn’t get it to work. The kids got me to buy it for him last birthday so that they could be Facebook friends with him but he couldn’t get the hang of it. He kept saying he’d get someone in to connect it, but he never did.’

Nightingale went over and peered behind the table. The router wasn’t plugged in.

‘He still used faxes for business,’ said McBride. ‘He didn’t even have an email address. I mean, who doesn’t have an email address in this day and age?’

Nightingale nodded but didn’t reply. Truth be told, Nightingale didn’t have an email address either. If he needed to talk to someone he preferred to do it face to face or on the phone. There was a bookcase against one wall and Nightingale went over to it. There were two shelves filled with Reader’s Digest condensed books and several hundred romantic novels by writers such as Catherine Cookson and Barbara Cartland.

McBride saw the look of confusion on Nightingale’s face at the choice of reading matter. ‘They were our mum’s,’ he said. ‘She died ten years ago. Cancer. Our dad died a couple of years later. Jimmy never left home. He ran the farm with Dad and then took it over when he died. The house is pretty much as it was when we were kids here.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘Like I said, my bedroom is just as it was. Same wallpaper, same blankets on the bed. Bit of a time warp really.’

There was a Bible on one of the lower shelves and Nightingale pulled it out.

‘That was our father’s,’ said McBride.

‘He was religious?’

‘Sure. Church of Scotland. Mum, too. But Dad pretty much gave up on religion after Mum died. It wasn’t an easy death and it pretty much destroyed his faith.’ McBride shrugged. ‘He didn’t even want a Christian funeral service.’

‘But he kept the Bible?’

McBride nodded. ‘I guess so. Maybe he forgot it was there.’

Nightingale replaced it. ‘What I don’t see is anything that suggests your brother was interested in black magic.’

‘I never saw anything like that. I suppose he could have hidden them.’

‘Could we have a look?’

‘You mean search the house?’

‘If he really was a Satanist then there’d be books or other paraphernalia. It’s a complicated business.’

McBride looked at his watch. ‘Okay, let’s do it,’ he said. ‘But I’ll have to call the wife and let her know that I’ll be late.’

There was a wooden plaque on the wall next to the bookcase and Nightingale walked over to get a better look. There was a pentangle in the middle and below it, a pair of compasses. McBride joined him. ‘I’ve never noticed that before,’ he said. ‘Is it a witchcraft thing?’

Nightingale shook his head. ‘It’s a Masonic thing.’ He pointed at a small brass label at the bottom of the plaque. ‘That’s the name of his lodge.’

‘He never mentioned it.’

‘It’s no big deal – a lot of farmers are Masons. Mainly they’re a social and charitable group. A lot of cops used to be Masons but it’s fallen out of favour in the last few years.’ He went over to the desk and put his hand on a drawer, then straightened up and looked at McBride. ‘With your permission, I’d like to search the house, from top to bottom.’

‘Looking for what, actually?’

‘Anything that suggests your brother really was a Satanist. If he was then there’d be things he wouldn’t want anyone else to see.’

‘The police have been through the house, they searched all the rooms when they took away the computer and the guns.’

‘Yeah, well, the cops aren’t always as thorough as they should be,’ said Nightingale. ‘Let’s see how I get on.’

N
ightingale spent the best part of four hours searching the farmhouse, from a dusty attic filled with old furniture and long-forgotten clothes and odds and ends, down through all the rooms and ending up in a cold damp basement which contained a fridge-freezer full of pork and lamb, presumably from the farm’s stock. But at no point did he find anything that gave a clue to Jimmy McBride’s state of mind or suggested that he was in any way interested in Satanism. There was something disconcerting about the bedrooms. The main bedroom with an en-suite bathroom had obviously belonged to the parents – their clothes were still in the wardrobes and there were bottles of make-up and perfume on an old oak dressing table. The bedroom where Danny McBride had slept had posters of rock groups and racing cars on the walls and fishing tackle in one corner, and Nightingale found a collection of dirty magazines at the bottom of a chest of drawers that was still full of underwear, socks and T-shirts.