Nightmare (44 page)

‘Coke, of course,’ she said scornfully.

And that was when Nightingale dropped from the sky.

79

Nightingale let go of the railing. For a moment he seemed to be frozen in time and then gravity got to work and pulled him down. He twisted around, his hair whipping in the wind, ignoring the fear and focusing every fibre of his being on Sophie and what he had to do.

The bricks of the terrace wall flashed by his face and then he was looking down at Sophie, her face turned to the left, the doll in her hands clutched to her chest.

He saw Hoyle, one foot on a plant pot, the other over the railing, his right hand outstretched as he jumped.

The doll slipped from Sophie’s fingers and it span through the air.

Nightingale’s stomach lurched and he grunted as his hands flailed towards the girl.

Hoyle opened his mouth to scream but all Nightingale could hear was the wind rushing past his ears.

80

The doll tumbled over the side of the balcony but Sophie didn’t seem to have noticed. She was staring at Hoyle with wide eyes but she wasn’t moving and she hadn’t seen Nightingale dropping from the balcony above her. Hoyle cleared the railing and scrambled across the terrace just as Nightingale reached Sophie.

Sophie screamed as Nightingale pushed her in the chest and she fell backwards.

Hoyle threw himself forward and caught Sophie under the arms. She slammed into his chest, knocking the breath out of him, and as he gasped he locked eyes with Nightingale.

81

Sophie fell backwards into Hoyle’s arms, her mouth open in surprise, as Nightingale’s chest thudded against the railing. His right arm was outstretched towards Sophie but he managed to catch hold of the railing with his left hand. He fell but jerked to a halt and the momentum almost wrenched his arm from its socket. He felt the skin scrape from his palm but there was barely any pain because of the adrenaline that was coursing through his body.

He heard screams from far below and one man’s shout sounded like he was telling people to keep back, but all Nightingale could think about was that Sophie was okay.

He smiled and then reached up with his right hand, gasping for breath. He managed to grab the railing and he tried to haul himself up but he didn’t have the strength so he just hung there, his face pressed against the balcony wall, breathing heavily.

82

‘Jack!’ screamed Hoyle. He had turned Sophie round so that her face was pressed against his chest; now, keeping a firm grip of her with his left hand, he reached out with his right. He didn’t want to let go of the girl but he couldn’t let his friend fall. His fingers touched the back of Nightingale’s left hand and he took another step forward, grabbing Nightingale’s wrist. ‘Hold on, Jack!’ he shouted.

Sophie was crying, her tears soaking into Hoyle’s shirt.

He felt Nightingale’s hand start to slip from the railing.

‘Jack, hold on!’ Hoyle yelled.

Sophie wrapped her arms around Hoyle’s waist. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, sobbing.

Hoyle reached out with his left hand, trying to grab Nightingale’s other wrist, but Sophie was in the way.

‘Jack, hold on, man!’ he screamed. He pushed Sophie down onto the terrace with his left hand. ‘Stay down, honey, just for a moment, please.’

83

‘Robbie, it’s okay,’ said Nightingale. He forced a smile. ‘It was always going to end this way.’

‘I’ve got you. I’ve got you,’ said Hoyle. As he grabbed at Nightingale’s right hand both Nightingale’s hands slipped from the railing. Hoyle grunted as he took all of his friend’s weight.

‘No, you haven’t, mate,’ said Nightingale. He could feel his wrists slipping through Hoyle’s fingers.

‘Jack!’ shouted Hoyle.

‘It’s okay, Robbie. Really. It’s okay.’ And Nightingale meant it because it really was okay.

‘No!’ Hoyle screamed.

Nightingale felt his left hand slip from Hoyle’s grip and then his right hand was free and he was falling backwards, away from the balcony.

He heard Hoyle scream and then all he could hear was the wind rushing past his ears. His arms and legs were pointing upwards and he suddenly realised how beautiful it was: pure blue sky and high overhead the white trails of jets flying to far-off places.

There’d be no pain, he knew that. When he hit the ground he’d be travelling at a hundred and twenty miles an hour and it would be over in a fraction of a second. He thought about counting or praying but he did neither; all he did was think about Sophie and Jenny and smile because by dying he was saving them and that was all that mattered.

He was right.

There was no pain.

He hit the ground and it was over in an instant.

84

There was nothing.

Time seemed to have stopped and yet not stopped.

Nightingale was there but not there.

He wasn’t even sure if he was Nightingale.

There was nothing to see, nothing to hear; he was just there and yet not there.

All his thoughts were there, and all his memories. But there was no emotion. No feeling.

Time passed.

Or maybe it didn’t.

He had no way of telling.

85

‘Nightingale?’ A voice, but not a voice. He didn’t hear it but someone had spoken. Not spoken, exactly. There weren’t words. More like feelings. Vibrations.

‘Who is that?’ said Nightingale, except that he didn’t say it. There were no words.

‘How quickly they forget.’ It was Proserpine.

‘Where are you?’

‘There is no where,’ she said.

‘Why can’t I see you?’

‘Because there is nothing to see.’

‘Where am I?’

‘No where. And no when.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘There is nothing to understand.’

‘Am I dead?’

‘Yes. And no.’

‘That doesn’t make sense.’

‘Because you don’t understand. Alive and dead supposes that there is change. And that supposes time, and there is no time. You are alive and dead, born and not born.’

‘So I’m imagining this?’

Proserpine laughed. ‘Would it help if you could see?’

‘I don’t know. Yes. Maybe.’

There was a flicker and then everything was white, but not the white of a snow-covered mountain or a cloud in the sky; it was the white of a television screen that was only showing static. There was no up and no down, no feeling of depth or height or any perspective. Nightingale couldn’t see anything, just white. Then she was there in front of him. Except there was no him. Just her. And her dog, on a leash.

She smiled. She was wearing a long black leather coat that hung straight down past knee-length black boots with stiletto heels. She was wearing black lipstick and black nail varnish and silver upside-down crucifixes dangled from her ears. The dog looked up at Nightingale, its tongue lolling from the side of its mouth. But they weren’t standing on anything. They were just there.

‘Where am I?’

She waved a languid hand. ‘I told you. Nowhere. Nowhen. Outside time. Outside space.’

‘Once before you talked about the Elsewhere. You said that’s where you went.’

‘This isn’t the Elsewhere,’ she said. ‘This isn’t any place.’

‘Limbo? Is that it?’

‘It has been called that.’

‘And how long do I stay here?’

‘There is no long, there is no short; there’s nothing. There’s no you. There’s just . . .’ She shrugged.

‘Why are you here?’

‘I’m not. But you said it would be easier if you could see me. So you can.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Nothing is happening. Everything just is. Or isn’t.’

‘So why are you here?’

She laughed. ‘I told you. I’m not.’

‘What do you want?’

‘To see how you are.’

‘I don’t know how I am. I don’t know anything. I remember falling. I remember hitting the ground.’

‘No you don’t,’ she said. ‘You don’t remember anything. Remembering suggests that there is a past and a present, but there is neither in the Nowhen. There is nothing to remember because there is no passing of time.’

‘But I fell.’

‘You are still falling. You are still getting ready to jump. And you are dead on the ground. You are all those things, Nightingale. Before, you saw them in an order. You got ready to jump. You fell. You hit the ground. But in the Nowhen there is no sequence. There just is . . .’ She smiled sadly. ‘You will never understand.’

‘Do I stay here for ever?’

‘You are already here for ever, Nightingale. Time does not exist here. I could go away and come back in ten thousand years but there would be no sense of time passing. How long do you think you have been . . .’ She shrugged. ‘. . . here?’ she finished. ‘For want of a better word.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘An hour? A day? A year? A hundred years?’

Nightingale tried to remember. But she was right. There had been no sense of time passing.

‘Do you understand?’

‘No,’ said Nightingale. ‘So what happens now?’

‘In the Nowhen nothing happens. The question is, do you stay here or do you go back or do you move on?’

‘Move on to where?’

She laughed again. ‘Nightingale, if you can’t fathom the Nowhen, there’s no way you will ever understand what lies ahead of it.’ Her dog growled and she bent down and rubbed it behind the ear. ‘I know you don’t like it here, but we’ll go soon,’ she said.

‘You said there was no soon,’ said Nightingale.

‘For you there isn’t,’ she said. ‘But I follow my own rules.’

‘Why can’t I see myself ?’

‘Because there is nothing to see. We’re going round in circles.’

‘This is all your fault,’ said Nightingale.

‘Fault? You want to blame someone for this?’

‘You sent Marcus Fairchild after me, didn’t you?’

‘I told you there would be three. He was one of the three.’

‘So why did he kill Jenny? What had she ever done to you?’

‘That wasn’t my doing, Nightingale. That was Lucifuge Rofocale.’

‘So Fairchild went behind your back?’

‘Lucifuge Rofocale sits on the left hand of Satan. He does what he wants to do.’ She chuckled. ‘Though you have given him a problem.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You sold your soul. You promised it to the Darkness. And then you gave your life to save another. An innocent. Which made it even worse.’

‘Sophie?’

‘Yes, Sophie.’

‘Is she okay?’

Proserpine nodded. ‘She’s fine. Your partner caught her. All’s well with the world.’

‘That’s something.’

‘Yes, that’s something. A very big thing, as it happens. You saved her by sacrificing your life, so how can they allow you to spend eternity in Hell?’

‘They?’

‘The Light.’

‘God?’

‘Don’t go there, Nightingale. Think of it as the opposite of the Darkness. Good rather than Evil, if you like, but those labels never work, not in the grand scheme of things. But you were promised to us and now there’s doubt.’

‘Doubt?’

‘No one is sure what to do with you, Nightingale. And until a decision is reached, you stay here.’ She smiled. ‘Except there is no here. And no when.’ The dog growled. ‘Catch you later,’ she said, and disappeared. Then the whiteness vanished and there was nothing.

86

‘Mr Nightingale?’ A woman’s voice. A voice that Nightingale recognised but couldn’t place. ‘Mr Nightingale? It’s me.’

There was no remembering because Nightingale had no memory. There was nothing to remember because everything was. Or is. He was in the Nowhen, which meant there was no past and no present so there was nothing to remember. But he knew who it was. Alice Steadman.

‘Are you there, Mr Nightingale?’

‘I’m here. But I don’t know where here is.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘I don’t know. How long have I been here?’

‘No time at all, really,’ said Mrs Steadman.

‘It feels like for ever.’

‘It is. In the Nowhen everything is for ever.’

‘What’s happening to me?’

‘Nothing. Nothing can happen in the Nowhen.’

‘I don’t understand any of this. Am I dead?’

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘What?’

Reality, or what passed for reality in the Nowhen, flickered. Nightingale was sitting at a table and Mrs Steadman sat across from him, holding a teapot.

‘Would you like some tea?’ She was dressed in black: a glossy silk shirt over black knitted tights and a string of black pearls around her neck. She smiled at him and nodded like a pecking bird. ‘It’s still hot. The tea.’

‘Thank you,’ said Nightingale. He looked around. They were in the room behind her shop in Camden. Except he knew that was impossible.

‘This isn’t real, is it?’ he said.

Mrs Steadman smiled benignly. ‘Is anything real?’ she said.

‘Where am I? Where is this place?’

‘You’re asking me to describe something that can’t be described,’ she said. ‘You don’t have the terms of reference.’

‘But I’m dead?’

‘There is no dead, Mr Nightingale. When you hit the ground, you died. Then. But you are still alive before you fell.’

‘I didn’t fall. I jumped.’

She smiled. ‘That’s right. You jumped.’

‘And now I’m – what? A ghost?’

‘No. You’re not a ghost.’

‘I’m not really here, am I?’

Mrs Steadman looked around the room. ‘Here? No, you’re not here. But I am. I just thought this might be easier for you.’

‘What’s happening, Mrs Steadman?’

‘What’s happening? Well, your future is being discussed. Of course in the Nowhen there is no future as there is no past and no present, so the choice is either to leave you where you are or to come to a mutually acceptable decision. You see, you’re an anomaly, Mr Nightingale, and the universe really doesn’t like anomalies.’

‘How am I an anomaly?’

‘Because you sold your soul, Mr Nightingale. Even though I warned you about getting involved with the Darkness, you went and sold your soul.’ She wagged an admonishing finger at him. ‘You should have listened to me.’

‘Why are you talking to me? Who sent you?’

‘Someone has to explain to you what’s happening, and it was felt that any explanation was better coming from someone you know. And hopefully someone you can trust.’