Lastnight (28 page)

‘I just wanted to get all my ducks in a row. I would have called you today.’

Chalmers stared at Nightingale for several seconds, then turned away without saying anything. Nightingale put the whisky bottle away as he heard Chalmers say goodbye to Jenny and leave.

As he straightened up, Jenny came back into his office. ‘Everything okay?’ she asked brightly.

‘Swings and roundabouts,’ he said. ‘He’s giving me grief about the Goth case.’

‘Yeah, I thought it best not to mention that you stole Rusty Nail’s belongings.’

‘Borrowed,’ said Nightingale.

‘I heard him asking you about Robbie.’

‘Robbie gave me some PNC stuff – Chalmers isn’t happy.’

‘Is it a problem?’

Nightingale stood up. ‘Hopefully not,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go out for a bit.’

‘Anything I can do?’

Nightingale shook his head. ‘I’ve got to do this myself,’ he said. He went over to the window and peered down into the street below. Chalmers was climbing into the back of his black Jaguar. He watched it drive away. There was a small chance that Chalmers would get so distracted with the Nine Angles tattoo that he might forget about the registration numbers that Robbie had checked for him. But somehow Nightingale doubted it. He was going to have to get into damage limitation mode, and quickly.

41

N
ightingale found a working phone box a short walk from his office and slotted in a fifty pence coin before tapping out T-Bone’s number. The phone rang out but he didn’t answer and eventually it went through to voicemail. ‘Hey, it’s me,’ said Nightingale. He didn’t want to leave his name and hoped that T-Bone would recognise his voice. ‘I’ll call back in two minutes, pick up, yeah?’ He ended the call, waited for two minutes and slotted in another coin. The second call also went through to voicemail and Nightingale cursed under his breath. ‘Okay, I need to talk to you ASAP. But don’t call my mobile, call the office. I’m in the book. And don’t use your mobile. And don’t use your name, just say you’re a friend. It’s important. Obviously.’ Nightingale replaced the receiver, picked up two coffees and a chocolate muffin from Costa Coffee and took them back to the office.

‘That was quick,’ said Jenny as he walked in through the door.

‘Sorry about the cloak and dagger, I needed to call someone and didn’t want to use my phone.’ He put one of the coffees and the muffin in front of her.

‘It’s about the Goth case?’

Nightingale nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ve a contact I need to talk to and he’s a bit shady. With Chalmers on my case I’m going to have to be careful.’ He gestured at her phone. ‘So if someone claiming to be my friend calls, put him through.’

T-Bone called fifteen minutes later. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

‘We need to talk, face to face,’ said Nightingale. ‘Where are you?’

‘Out and about,’ said T-Bone. ‘North of the river.’

‘The sooner the better,’ said Nightingale. ‘This is important.’

‘You’re in South Kensington, right?’

‘Not stalking me, are you?’

‘I made a few basic enquiries, Bird-man. You wouldn’t expect me to do anything less. Take a walk up to Hyde Park in about half an hour. There’s a coffee place by the lake in the middle.’

‘The Serpentine? Yeah, I know it. I’ll be there.’ T-Bone had already ended the call.

42

T
-Bone was already sitting at a table overlooking the Serpentine when Nightingale arrived. He was sitting alone with two coffees in front of him, but at a neighbouring table were two large black men wearing matching Puffa jackets and Oakleys and two black teenagers in hoodies on BMXs watched from the path that wound around the water. T-Bone looked at Nightingale impassively as he sat down. ‘Thought you’d take your coffee same as you choose your friends – black and strong,’ said T-Bone. His face broke into a grin. ‘Then I thought you’d probably have milk in it, yeah?’

‘So long as it’s got caffeine in it, I’ll not be complaining,’ said Nightingale. He looked around. Most of the other tables were taken up by Asian and Arab tourists. ‘Sorry about this, but I needed to see you and quickly.’ He leaned closer to T-Bone and lowered his voice. ‘The cops know about Barnett and McDowell.’

‘How come? I only told you.’

Nightingale could see his reflection in the lenses of T-Bone’s sunglasses. And even he could see how fake his smile looked. ‘They know I got the names off the Police National Computer.’

‘But that’s all they know, right?’

‘They don’t know the numbers came from you, that’s for sure.’

‘Because the only person who knows that is you, right?’

Nightingale sat back and picked up his coffee.

‘You hear what I’m saying, Bird-man?’

‘T-Bone, this isn’t down to me. The cop who gave me the information was killed. He was a friend of mine, doing me a favour. He sent me the info on the cars from a pay-as-you-go mobile and the cops have it. So they know about the vehicles.’

‘And what did you tell this cop friend?’

‘Nothing. Just that I wanted the numbers run through the PNC.’

‘So there’s no big deal, then?’

‘The problem is that I lied and if they dig they’ll find out that I lied.’

‘Just say you forgot. People forget all the time.’

Nightingale nodded. ‘Yeah, I can do that. But it’d be a lot easier if the white van was out of the picture.’

‘I’m working on that,’ said T-Bone.

‘If there’s anything you can do to speed it up, it’d be a help,’ said Nightingale. ‘The cop who was helping me, Robbie, he died in a hit and run. And they think it was a white van.’

T-Bone’s jaw tensed. ‘What are you saying, Bird-man? This McDowell guy killed a cop?’

‘Maybe. But it means the cops are looking and looking hard. And if they pull him in and find a link to the killings at Perry’s house, then it all gets very murky.’

‘Damn right it does.’ T-Bone’s right hand had bunched into a tight fist but he flexed it in and out and placed it palm down on the table. ‘How the hell did this happen, Bird-man? I gave you those numbers in confidence.’

‘I didn’t broadcast the fact, T-Bone, give me some credit. But the only way to get the names and addresses of the owners was to go through the PNC and for that I needed a cop. It was just bad luck.’

‘A hit and run?’

‘At the moment they’re treating it as a hit and run. But if they find the van and it turns out that it was the van that he ran through the PNC, they’ll haul me in for sure. The problem I have is that I said I got the numbers off a nosey little old lady who lived opposite a murder victim. That story won’t hold up for long.’

‘Like I said, just say you forgot.’

‘Then they’ll think about charging me with obstruction or worse.’

‘But that’ll be your problem, not mine.’

‘It might become your problem if they pull McDowell in and he talks about what happened to Perry.’

T-Bone shrugged. ‘Don’t see how. But you’re preaching to the converted, Bird-man, I don’t want the cops getting to McDowell before me.’

‘So you’ll pull out all the stops?’

‘We already know where he is. He’s at home with his family, we were waiting for him to be on his own before we took him.’

‘Yeah, well, you might want to rethink that. The cops won’t wait long. What about the van?’

T-Bone shook his head. ‘No sign of it. But if it’s been involved in a hit and run, that’s no surprise.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘Here’s what I don’t get, Bird-man. I gave those numbers to you. You gave them to your pal Robbie. But within hours, the owner of one of those numbers kills him. How can that be?’

‘That’s a good question.’

T-Bone took off his sunglasses and fixed Nightingale with brown eyes that were so dark that they were almost black. ‘Have a stab at answering it, Bird-man.’

‘I didn’t tell anyone else, T-Bone. I swear.’

‘I believe you. And I’m guessing that your friend didn’t broadcast it, either. So what are we saying? It’s a coincidence? Your friend was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? He steps out into the street and just happens to get run over by one of the guys he’s checking out?’

‘That’s unlikely.’

‘You’re telling me. But what’s the alternative?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Nightingale. ‘But I could take a guess and say that the Satanists have their own people inside the Met.’

‘Well, give the man a cigar. Seems to me that’s exactly what’s happened, Bird-man. Somehow they found out that your friend was asking about them. Maybe they had access to the PNC. When they found out what he was up to, they killed him. We grabbed the Barnett guy and while we were dealing with him, McDowell ran down your mate.’

Nightingale nodded. ‘That sounds about right.’

‘You’re the connection here, Bird-man. You do see that, right? You get Perry to take out Marcus Fairchild but you skip over the fact that he’s a child-killing Satanist. The Satanists kill Perry and most of his crew. You get a mate to check up on two of the Satanists and he ends up dead.’ He stared at Nightingale and his hands tensed into fists again.

‘I had no idea this would happen, T-Bone.’

‘That might well be true, but that’s not the point. The point is you used Perry, and he’s dead. And you used your pal, and now he’s dead.’ He gestured at the two men sitting at the neighbouring table. ‘Now wherever I go, I have to watch my back.’ He took a deep breath and unclenched his fists. ‘Is there anything else you need to tell me, Bird-man? Anything at all?’

‘You know as much as I do,’ said Nightingale.

‘Nothing else is going to come out of the woodwork?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Nothing about Perry’s bathroom that I should know about?’ said T-Bone, his voice a low growl.

Nightingale felt his breath catch in his throat. There could be only one reason T-Bone would ask – he already knew what had been written on the bathroom mirror. He took a sip of coffee as his mind raced. ‘There was a message, written on Perry’s mirror,’ said Nightingale. ‘It was about me. That’s why the cops took me there.’

‘What did this message say?’ asked T-Bone.

Nightingale knew without a shadow of a doubt that T-Bone knew exactly what had been written on the mirror. ‘It said I would be next, that they would be coming for me.’

T-Bone nodded slowly. ‘So this is all about you, isn’t it?’

‘I guess so.’

‘You need to think about that, Bird-man,’ said T-Bone. ‘I’ve got the resources to take care of myself and my family. Have you?’

Nightingale couldn’t answer. It was a simple enough question, but if the Order of Nine Angles were after him, was there anything he could do to stop them? T-Bone got to his feet. His huge bulk blocked out the sun and Nightingale felt a sudden chill run down his spine.

‘I’m assuming you want to talk to this McDowell after we take him?’ said T-Bone.

Nightingale nodded. ‘Please.’

‘But once we’ve done that, we have to part company, you and I. Do you understand?’

‘I understand, T-Bone.’

‘You’re bad news, Bird-man. Seriously bad news.’

T-Bone walked away, followed by his two bodyguards. Ahead of him rode the two hooded teenagers on their BMX bikes.

43

N
ightingale was late getting to Garlic and Shots. He’d taken the Tube and the trains were delayed by a suicide at Oxford Circus. The announcements didn’t say suicide, of course, they referred to it as an incident. It would only be a couple of days later that the details would make their way into the paper – a banker who had been defrauding his company and whose wife had revealed all to the police as part of a very nasty divorce. The man was about to lose everything – his wife, his children, his job, his money, his freedom. Nightingale didn’t know any of that as he sat in the train between stations with the rest of the frustrated passengers; all he knew was that time was ticking by.

He was ten minutes late when he eventually got to Frith Street and it took him another five minutes to find the bar. It was small and nondescript, as if it was trying to avoid customers. He eventually found it and opened the door into an equally bland bar and restaurant area. A strong smell of garlic made him almost gag. It was more than a smell; it felt as if he was in a garlic fog that was seeping into his skin and clothing. He smiled at a waitress in a black T-shirt and jeans with half of her head shaved, the hair on the other half hanging down in thick braids. ‘Downstairs bar?’ he said.

She pointed towards the rear of the bar. There was a hallway that opened on to an outside seating area and a rickety staircase that led down to the basement. Nightingale carefully made his way down. There was a horned skull of a steer fixed to the ceiling and he ducked as he passed under it. Loud, thumping music assaulted his ears and the smell of garlic seemed even stronger as he descended. The basement was painted black and most of what light there was came from candles shoved into empty Jack Daniels bottles on a handful of small tables. The only customers were two Japanese girls sitting in a corner taking pictures of themselves on their mobile phones. In the opposite corner, in a glass case, was a life-size replica of Frankenstein’s monster. At a small bar counter to his left a big man with a face that appeared to have been thumped a few times looked at him with bored disinterest. Hanging behind him were a shrunken head and a rubber bat and a photograph of a manic Jack Nicholson from
The Shining
. Nightingale flashed the man a smile but he was studiously ignored. Nightingale looked at his watch. It was twenty past seven.

On the far side of the bar was an archway and he walked through it into a tiny brick-lined vault where a small girl in a short black dress, black boots with a dozen steel piercings in her eyebrows and ears was sitting at the one long wooden table. ‘Caitlin?’ he said.

‘Mr Nightingale?’ She had a multi-coloured Mohawk that made it look as if she had a parrot perched on her head.

‘Call me Jack,’ he said. He shook her hand and hers was dwarfed by his. He sat down opposite her. ‘I’m sorry about cancelling last time,’ he said.

‘No problem,’ she said. ‘Better late than never.’ The music was so loud that she had to lean towards him and raise her voice. She was wearing a sweet perfume that smelled vaguely familiar. ‘What do you want to drink?’ she asked.