Nightfall: The First Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller (3 page)

Nightingale said nothing. He brushed past Hoyle and headed for his MGB.

‘Now, Jack. He wants to see you now.’

‘I’m busy,’ said Nightingale.

‘He’ll want you to see the shrink, too,’ said Hoyle, hurrying after him. It was standard procedure after a death.

‘I don’t need to see the shrink,’ said Nightingale.

Hoyle put a hand on Nightingale’s shoulder. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Jack. It’s natural to feel guilty, to feel that you’ve failed.’

Nightingale glared at him. ‘Don’t try to empathise with me and don’t sympathise. I don’t need it, Robbie.’

‘And what do I tell Chalmers?’

‘Tell him whatever you want,’ said Nightingale, twisting out of Hoyle’s grip. He climbed into the MGB and drove off.

2

W
hat happened later that chilly November morning really depends on whom you talk to. Jack Nightingale never spoke about it and refused to answer any questions put to him by the two investigators assigned to the case. They were from the Metropolitan Police’s Professional Standards Department, and they questioned him for more than eighteen hours over three days. During that time he said not one word to them about what had happened. If you’d asked the two detectives they’d have said they were pretty sure that Nightingale had thrown Simon Underwood through the window. If they’d been speaking off the record they would probably have said they had every sympathy with Nightingale and that, given the chance, they would probably have done the same. Like policemen the world over, they knew that paedophiles never stopped offending. You could put them in prison so that they couldn’t get near children or you could kill them but you could never change their nature.

The post-mortem on the little girl had shown signs of sexual activity and there were bruises and bite marks on her legs and stomach. A forensic dentistry expert was able to match two of the clearer ones to the father’s dental records. A swab of the child’s vagina showed up the father’s sperm. The evidence was conclusive. According to the coroner, he had been raping her for years. The investigating officers presented the evidence to the mother, but she denied all knowledge of any abuse. They didn’t believe her.

Underwood had been in a meeting with six employees from the bank’s marketing department when Nightingale walked out of the stairwell on the twentieth floor of the bank in Canary Wharf. He had shown his warrant card to a young receptionist and demanded to be told where Underwood was. The receptionist later told investigators that Nightingale had a strange look in his eyes. ‘Manic,’ she told them. She had pointed down the corridor to Underwood’s office and he had walked away. She had called security but by the time they had arrived it was all over.

Nightingale had burst into Underwood’s office but he wasn’t there. His terrified secretary told him that her boss was down the corridor. She later told the investigators that Nightingale had been icy cold and there had been no emotion in his voice. ‘It was like he was a robot, or on autopilot or something,’ she said.

There were differing descriptions from the six witnesses who were in the meeting room with Underwood. One said Nightingale looked crazed, two repeated the secretary’s assertion that he was icy cold, two women said he seemed confused, and the senior marketing manager said he reminded her of the Terminator in the second movie, the one Arnold Schwarzenegger was trying to kill. The investigators knew that personal recollections were the most unreliable form of evidence but the one thing that all the witnesses agreed on was that Nightingale had told everyone to leave, that he had closed the door behind them and a few seconds later there was an almighty crash as Simon Underwood exited through the window.

Was he pushed? Did he trip? Did Nightingale hit him and he fell accidentally? Was Underwood so stricken by guilt that he threw himself out of the window? The investigators put every possible scenario to Nightingale, with a few impossible ones for good measure, but Nightingale refused to say anything. He didn’t even say, ‘No comment.’ He just sat staring at the investigators with a look of bored indifference on his face. They asked him several times if he wanted the services of his Police Federation representative, but Nightingale shook his head. He spoke only to ask to go to the toilet or outside to smoke a cigarette.

For the first couple of days the newspapers were after Nightingale’s blood, crying police brutality, but when a sympathetic clerk in the coroner’s office leaked the post-mortem details to a journalist on the
Sunday Times
and it became known that Underwood had been molesting his daughter, the tide turned and the tabloids called for Nightingale to be honoured rather than persecuted.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission sent two more investigators to talk to him but he was as uncommunicative with them as he had been with the PSD detectives. The IPCC officers offered Nightingale a deal: if he told them that Underwood had jumped there would be no charges. If he told them that Underwood had slipped and fallen through the window, there would be no charges. All they wanted was to close the file on the man’s death. Nightingale said nothing.

There were some in the Met who said Nightingale had his head screwed on right, that the IPCC and the PSD were lying sons of bitches and that, no matter what he said, they’d hang him out to dry. There were others who said that Nightingale was an honourable man, that he’d killed Underwood and wasn’t prepared to lie about what he’d done. Whatever the reason, whatever had happened to Underwood, Nightingale simply refused to talk about it, and after a week the investigators gave up.

Nightingale went to Sophie’s funeral but kept his distance, not wanting to intrude on the family’s grief. A photographer from one of the Sunday tabloids tried to take his picture but Nightingale grabbed his camera and smashed it against a gravestone. He left before Sophie’s coffin was lowered into the cold, damp soil.

There were two reports into the death, by the PSD and the IPCC. Both were inconclusive and criticised Nightingale for refusing to co-operate. Without his statement, there was no way anyone could know what had happened in the meeting room that day. Two eyewitnesses had seen the body fall to the Tarmac, close enough to hear Sophie’s father shout, ‘No!’ all the way down, but not close enough to see if he had jumped or if he had been pushed. There was CCTV footage of the reception area, which clearly showed Nightingale arriving and leaving, but there was no coverage of the room and no CCTV cameras covering the area where Underwood had hit the ground. Both reports went to the Crown Prosecution Service at Ludgate, and they decided there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute Nightingale.

He had been on suspension until the reports were published, when he was called into the office of his superintendent who told him that his career was over and the best thing for everyone was for him to resign. Superintendent Chalmers had the letter already typed out and Nightingale signed it there and then, handed over his warrant card and walked out of New Scotland Yard, never to return.

Sophie’s mother killed herself two weeks after the funeral. She swallowed a bottle of sleeping tablets with a quantity of paracetamol, and left a note saying she was so, so sorry she hadn’t been a better mother.

3

Two years later

N
ightingale knew he was dreaming, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. He knew he wasn’t really climbing the stairs to the twentieth floor of the tower block in Canary Wharf where Simon Underwood worked. He was moving too slowly, for a start, and there was no exertion, no sweat, no shortness of breath. He walked out of the stairwell, showed his warrant card to a faceless receptionist, who shook her head but didn’t say anything, and moved silently down a corridor to Underwood’s office, even though he knew the banker wasn’t there. Then he was going down another corridor, the sound of his heartbeat echoing off the walls, towards a set of double doors. They burst open and Underwood was there, standing in front of a group of suits. His mouth moved but made no sound. Nightingale pointed at the doorway and the suits hurried out, leaving him alone with the banker. ‘You’re going to hell, Jack Nightingale,’ said Underwood, his eyes blazing with hatred. Then, in slow motion, he turned to the floor-to-ceiling window behind him.

Nightingale opened his mouth to shout at the man but his alarm went off and he woke, bathed in sweat. He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He had had the nightmare at least once a week since the day that Simon Underwood had fallen to his death. He groped for his packet of Marlboro and smoked one to the filter before getting up and showering.

His flat was a third-floor walk-up in Bayswater, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen he hardly ever used. On the ground floor a Chinese restaurant did a great bowl of duck noodles and it was a short walk to the tube station. Nightingale had bought the flat when he’d been promoted to inspector and in another twenty-one years he’d own it outright. He liked Bayswater. Day and night it was lively and buzzing – there were always people around and shops open – and on the days when he felt like jogging, Hyde Park was only a few minutes away. Not that he felt much like jogging, these days. He went downstairs, bought himself a cup of Costa coffee, then walked to the lock-up where he kept his MGB and drove to the office of Nightingale Investigations. It was in South Kensington, another walk-up but this time above a hairdresser’s that offered him a fifty per cent discount, provided he allowed a trainee to cut his hair.

Nightingale arrived shortly after nine o’clock and his secretary was already at her desk. Jenny McLean was in her mid twenties, with short blonde hair and blue eyes that always reminded Nightingale of Cameron Diaz. Jenny was shorter than the actress and smarter, educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, then Cambridge, and fluent in German, French and Japanese. Her family owned a country pile with five hundred bedrooms and twelve acres, or vice versa, chased foxes and shot wild birds at the weekend. Nightingale had absolutely no idea why she worked for him. He’d placed an advert in the local paper and she’d walked off the street with her CV and told him she’d always wanted to work for a private investigator, that she could type and knew her way around Microsoft Office. He’d wondered at first if she was an undercover agent for the Inland Revenue, checking on his tax returns, but she’d worked for him for more than a year and now he didn’t know how he’d manage without her. She smiled brightly and nodded at the door to his office. ‘Mrs Brierley’s already here,’ she said.

‘Can’t wait to hear the bad news, huh?’ said Nightingale. He didn’t like divorce work. He didn’t like following unfaithful husbands or wayward wives, and he didn’t like breaking bad news to women who cried or men who threatened violence. He didn’t like it, but it paid the bills and he had a lot of bills to pay.

‘Can I get you a coffee or a tea, Mrs Brierley?’ he asked, as he walked into his office.

Joan Brierley was in her early fifties, a heavy-set woman with dyed blonde hair, too much makeup and lines around her mouth from years of smoking. She declined and held up a packet of Benson & Hedges. ‘Do you mind if I . . . ?’ she said.

Nightingale showed her his Marlboro. ‘I’m a smoker too,’ he said.

‘There aren’t many of us left,’ she said.

‘Strictly speaking, this is my workplace so I should fine myself a thousand pounds every time I light up,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m lucky that my secretary doesn’t mind or she’d sue me for all I’m worth.’ He reached over to light her cigarette, then his own.

‘On the phone you said you had bad news,’ said Mrs Brierley. ‘He’s been cheating, has he?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Nightingale.

‘I knew it,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘When money started disappearing from our joint account, I knew it.’

‘I filmed them,’ said Nightingale, ‘so you could see for yourself. I followed them to a hotel but he’s also visited her house when her husband was away.’

‘She’s married?’

Nightingale nodded.

‘Why would a married woman want to steal another woman’s husband?’ said Mrs Brierley.

It was a question Nightingale couldn’t answer. ‘I’ve got his mobile-phone records. He calls her three or four times a day and sends her text messages.’ He slid over a stack of photocopies. ‘The messages say it all, pretty much.’

Mrs Brierley picked them up. ‘How did you get these?’

‘Trade secret, I’m afraid,’ said Nightingale. He had contacts working for most of the mobile-phone companies; they would give him anything he wanted, at a price.

She scanned them. ‘He loves her?’ she hissed. ‘He’s been married to me for twenty-four years and he loves her?’

Nightingale went to his DVD player and slotted in a disk. He sat down again as Mrs Brierley eyed the screen. The camerawork wasn’t great but Nightingale had been hired to do surveillance, not produce a Hollywood movie. He’d taken the first shot from behind a tree. Brierley arrived in his dark blue Toyota, a nondescript man in a nondescript car. He had a spring in his step as he walked to the hotel’s reception desk, holding a carrier-bag from a local off-licence. Nightingale had managed to get closer to the hotel entrance and had filmed Brierley signing in and being given a key.

The next shot was of the woman arriving. He’d got a good shot of her parking her BMW and had followed her to the entrance. Like Brierley, she didn’t look around and clearly wasn’t worried that she might have been followed.

Mrs Brierley stared at the screen, her mouth a tight line.

The final shot was of Mr Brierley and the woman leaving the hotel together. He walked her to her car, kissed her, then went to his Toyota.

Nightingale pressed the remote control to switch off the DVD player. ‘Your husband paid in cash but I have a copy of the receipt.’ He slid it across the desk towards his client, but she was still staring at the blank television screen, the cigarette burning between her fingers. ‘The woman’s name is Brenda Lynch. She’s—’

‘I know who she is,’ said Mrs Brierley.

‘You know her?’

‘She’s my sister.’

Nightingale’s jaw dropped. ‘Your sister?’

‘Didn’t you know?’ said Mrs Brierley. She forced a smile. ‘Some detective you are. Lynch was my maiden name.’ She took a long drag on her cigarette, held the smoke in her lungs, then exhaled slowly.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Nightingale.

She waved away his apology, as if it was an annoying insect. ‘How much do I owe you, Mr Nightingale?’

‘Miss McLean outside has your bill,’ said Nightingale.

Mrs Brierley stubbed out what remained of her cigarette in the ashtray on his desk.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Nightingale, again.

‘There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,’ she said, and stood up. ‘You did a very professional job, Mr Nightingale.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘Thank you.’

Nightingale opened his door for her. ‘Mrs Brierley would like her bill, Jenny,’ he said.

‘I have it here,’ she said, and handed it to her. Mrs Brierley took out her cheque book as Nightingale went back into his office.

He flopped into his chair and stubbed out the remains of his cigarette. He might not enjoy breaking bad news to people, but it was part of the job. If a husband or a wife suspected that their spouse was up to no good, ninety-nine times out of a hundred they were right. In Mrs Brierley’s case it had been unexpected withdrawals from their current account, late nights supposedly at the office and a new brand of aftershave in the bathroom. He noticed that she had left the phone records and the hotel receipt and thought about going after her but decided against it – perhaps she didn’t want them. He wondered what she would do now that she knew the truth. She would almost certainly divorce her husband, and probably split up her sister’s family as well. She had three children and two still lived at home so she’d probably keep the house and Mr Brierley would end up in a rented flat somewhere, either with or without his sister-in-law for company.

Nightingale went back to his desk and started reading
Metro
, the free newspaper that Jenny had brought with her. Shortly afterwards he heard Mrs Brierley leave. There was a soft knock on his door and Jenny pushed it open. She was holding a pot of coffee. ‘You read my mind,’ he said.

‘It’s not difficult,’ she said. ‘You don’t ask much from life. Curries, cigarettes, coffee.’

‘The breakfast of champions,’ he said.

She poured coffee into his mug. ‘She took it quite well, didn’t she?’

‘She cried, which is a good sign. It’s when they go quiet that I start thinking about knives and hammers and things that go bump in the night.’

‘I gave her the card of a good divorce lawyer.’

‘Very thoughtful of you.’ Nightingale sipped his coffee. Jenny made great coffee. She bought the beans from a shop in Mayfair and ground them herself.

‘I felt sorry for her,’ said Jenny, sitting on the edge of his desk.

‘There are two sides to every case,’ said Nightingale. ‘We only get to hear the one that pays us.’

‘Even so,’ said Jenny.

‘Maybe she made his life a misery. Maybe the sister was kind to him. Maybe she let him wear her stockings and suspenders and the wife wouldn’t.’

‘Jack . . .’ Jenny shook her head.

‘I’m just saying, you can’t go feeling sorry for the clients. They’re just jobs.’

‘Speaking of which, a solicitor in Surrey wants to see you.’ She handed him a scribbled note.

Nightingale studied it. ‘Can’t he just email us the info?’

‘He said he wants to see you in his office. He’s got gout so he has trouble getting about. I figured you wouldn’t mind as you don’t have much on at the moment.’

Nightingale flashed her a tight smile. He didn’t need reminding of how light his caseload was. ‘This place, Hamdale. Never heard of it.’

‘I’ve got the postcode – you can use the GPS on your phone.’

‘You know I can never get it to work.’

Jenny grinned and held out her hand. ‘I’ll do it for you, you Luddite.’ Nightingale gave her his Nokia and she programmed in the location. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she said.

‘And how do I get back?’

‘Leave a trail of breadcrumbs,’ she said, sliding off the desk. ‘If you go now you should be there by two o’clock.’