Lastnight (31 page)

48

N
ightingale phoned Jenny from a service station an hour’s drive from Manchester. ‘I won’t be in today,’ he said.

‘Helping out with Anna?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Please give her my best and tell her if there’s anything she needs.’

‘Her family’s rallied round,’ said Nightingale.

‘Have they found the driver?’

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Look, kid, why don’t you call it a day and head off for the weekend?’

‘It’s ten o’clock in the morning, Jack.’

‘I know, but there’s nothing pressing. Why don’t you take the CDs down to your parents, you can watch them there just as easily as in the office. And you can have all calls diverted to your mobile.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure I’m sure. I won’t be back today and tomorrow’s Saturday.’

‘Okay. I’ll do that, thanks.’

‘And say hi to your mum and dad.’

There was a short pause. ‘Jack, are you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You sound a bit tense, that’s all.’

‘I’m still coming to terms with what happened to Robbie,’ he said.

‘I know how you feel,’ she said. ‘I still miss Uncle Marcus so much.’

Nightingale’s jaw tensed. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you lock up and I’ll see you on Monday.’

He ended the call, then phoned his uncle’s number. It was the tenth time he’d called and as before it rang out, unanswered. He went into the service station and bought himself a coffee before continuing the drive north.

49

N
ightingale found a parking space for his MGB across the road from his uncle and aunt’s tidy three-bedroom semi-detached house in Altrincham, South Manchester. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. Their car, a black Renault Megane, was parked in the driveway. Nightingale wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. He locked up the car, walked across the road making sure he looked both ways and opened the garden gate. His aunt and uncle spent hours working on the garden, tending its large rhododendron bushes, mowing the lawn and, for all he knew, polishing the twee stone wishing well and the bearded gnome with its fishing rod and line. He looked around for their cat, a black and white monster by the name of Walter, but there was no sign of it.

Nightingale rang the doorbell and said a silent prayer. The one thing he wanted in the world just then was to hear his aunt’s slippers rubbing against the carpet and for the door to open and for him to see her smiling face. He pressed the bell again, longer this time. His heart was racing and his mouth had gone dry. His aunt and uncle were early risers, always had been. Part of him wanted to walk back to his car and drive away, but he knew he had no choice. He had to follow this through to the end, no matter what.

He walked around the side of the house and pushed open the wooden gate that led to his uncle Tommy’s vegetable patch and prize-winning rose garden. He walked slowly towards the kitchen door and gingerly knocked on it. There was no answer. He didn’t bother knocking again. He was sure now that neither his aunt nor his uncle would be opening the door. He walked across the lawn to his uncle’s shed, opened the door and pulled a spade from the pile of garden tools next to the lawn mower. He walked slowly over to the kitchen window and used it to smash the window and knock the glass out of the frame before tossing the spade aside and climbing through on to the counter by the sink.

He clambered down and stood for a few seconds, listening intently, but all he could hear was the dull metallic clicking of the grandfather clock in the hallway. Uncle Tommy wound it once a week, every Sunday evening before he went to bed. Nightingale moved on tiptoe across the kitchen, then realised how ridiculous it was to be creeping around.

He found his aunt in the sitting room, her unseeing eyes staring up at the ceiling, the dark bruises on her neck proof that she had been strangled, the blood on her fingernails evidence that she had tried to defend herself. She was wearing her nightdress, which meant that she had been killed early in the morning or late at night. A forensic expert would know for sure by checking the temperature of the liver, but it didn’t make any difference to Nightingale because all that mattered was that Aunty Linda was dead.

He backed away from the body and went slowly upstairs, fighting to keep breathing slowly and evenly. He already knew all that he needed to know and part of him, the sane part, the logical part, was screaming at him to turn around and leave the house and get as far away from it as possible. But the other part, the part that was always getting him into trouble, was telling him that he had to see for himself what was upstairs. He had to see Uncle Tommy with his own eyes, even though he knew with every fibre of his being that he was dead.

The body was in the bathroom. In the bath, to be specific. Under water. His eyes too were open wide, staring lifelessly up at the single shaded light hanging from the ceiling. The tiled floor was still wet from where his struggles had sent water cascading over the side of the bath. He was wearing his pyjamas and the trapped air in the wet fabric made him look twice his true size. One foot, the left one, was jammed over the cold tap, and his right leg was trapped under his left. Water was dripping slowly from the hot tap making soft, regular plopping sounds.

Nightingale closed his eyes and put his hands over his face. ‘I’m sorry, Uncle Tommy,’ he whispered. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’ It was his fault that his aunt and uncle were dead, of that Nightingale was sure. If proof were needed it was written across the mirror above the sink in what appeared to be lipstick. Seven words.
WE ARE COMING FOR YOU, JACK NIGHTINGALE
.

50

N
ightingale spent ten minutes in the bathroom, cleaning the message off the mirror with bleach and then washing it down with water. He wore a pair of yellow Marigold gloves that he’d found in the cupboard under the kitchen sink as he worked. When he’d finished he went downstairs and unlocked the back door before wiping his fingerprints off the handle of the spade and returning it to the garden shed. He wiped all the surfaces of the shed that he’d touched, and the kitchen door and the garden gate. When he left he took the gloves with him.

He drove back to London on autopilot, barely aware of his speed or the traffic around him. He had hoped that Tony Barnett had been lying, that the threats he’d made were those of a man who knew he was going to die and who wanted to lash out at his tormentors. But now he knew the truth: the Order of Nine Angles were after him and they would keep coming after him until he and everyone he cared about was dead. The Order had members all over the world, rich and powerful men with the resources to get away with murder.

When he reached London he drove to Camden. He left his MGB in a multi-storey car park a short walk from Camden Lock market. The Wicca Woman shop was tucked away in a side street between a store selling hand-knitted sweaters and socks and another specialising in exotic bongs and T-shirts promoting cannabis use. Nightingale pushed open the door and a small bell tinkled somewhere above his head. Alice Steadman was unpacking a cardboard box, taking out small packages of incense sticks and arranging them in a glass display case. She smiled when she saw him. ‘Mr Nightingale, this is a nice surprise,’ she said. She was in her late sixties, a tiny pixie of a woman. Her grey hair was tied back in a ponytail and her skin was wrinkled but she had the greenest eyes that Nightingale had ever seen, eyes that burned with a fierce intensity. She was dressed all in black, a long tunic with silver buttons over skin-tight leggings and black ankle boots with tassels on the side. Around her waist was a black braided belt from which hung dozens of silver moons and stars. ‘What brings you to my little shop?’

‘I need your help, Mrs Steadman.’

‘Do you now?’ she said. She smiled brightly. ‘How about we start with a nice cup of tea?’ There was a beaded curtain behind the counter and Mrs Steadman pulled it back. ‘Alana, be a sweetie and mind the shop for a while, will you?’

There was a clatter of footsteps on wooden stairs and a pretty blonde girl with her hair in pigtails appeared. She was wearing a black T-shirt that seemed to have been hacked with a razor blade and a black leather miniskirt. She was a good six inches taller than Mrs Steadman and had long nails that she’d painted blood red. Mrs Steadman took Nightingale through into the back room where a gas fire was burning. She waved Nightingale over to a circular wooden table above which was a brightly coloured Tiffany lampshade. She switched on a kettle on top of a pale green refrigerator. ‘You still take milk and sugar?’

‘I do indeed,’ said Nightingale, pulling out a chair and sitting down. Mrs Steadman spooned PG Tips into a brown ceramic teapot. ‘I need your help, Mrs Steadman.’

‘Yes, my dear, you said. What appears to be the problem?’

Nightingale pointed at the chair next to him. ‘Please, sit down, will you?’ Mrs Steadman did as he asked. ‘I’m in trouble, Mrs Steadman. The Order of Nine Angles are after me. They want me dead. They’ve killed my aunt and uncle and my friend Robbie and they’re not going to stop until they’ve killed me.’

‘They are a nasty bunch of people, that’s true,’ she said.

‘I have to stop them before they go any further. Can you help me?’

‘They are angry at you because you helped kill one of their own, Marcus Fairchild.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘How did you know that?’

‘There isn’t much that escapes me,’ she said. ‘You must have known that when you caused harm to Marcus Fairchild there would be repercussions?’

‘I guess I didn’t think that far ahead,’ he said.

‘You assumed that they wouldn’t find out? You thought you had covered your tracks?’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘And you were wrong.’

‘Clearly.’

‘And now you are paying the price.’

‘Yes.’

The kettle finished boiling and switched itself off. Mrs Steadman smiled and got up to make the tea. She carried the teapot to the table on a tray with two blue and white striped mugs and a matching milk jug and sugar bowl. She sat down and poured tea for him, then added milk and sugar.

‘Mrs Steadman, can you help me?’

She looked at him over the top of her spectacles, which were perched on the end of her nose. ‘Who exactly do you think I am, Mr Nightingale?’

‘You’re Mrs Steadman.’

She smiled. ‘Perhaps I should rephrase the question,’ she said. ‘What do you think I am?’

Nightingale could feel his nicotine craving kicking in but he knew Mrs Steadman didn’t approve of smoking. ‘You’re an angel,’ he said.

‘And what do you think an angel is?’

Nightingale screwed up his face as he considered the question. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted eventually. ‘I guess angels do good. They help people.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that,’ she said.

‘I know you don’t have haloes or even wings and you don’t sit on clouds playing harps but …’ He shrugged. ‘You’re with the forces of good.’

‘There’s that word again,’ she said. ‘Good.’

‘But you are, right? There’s good and there’s evil. And you’re on the side of good. Or have I got this wrong?’

Mrs Steadman sipped her tea. ‘It’s about order, not about good or evil,’ she said. ‘Angels are there to maintain order. To make sure things happen as they should.’ She put down her mug. ‘If angels made good things happen, don’t you think there would be less evil in the world? Children get sick and die. Innocents are murdered. Nuns are raped. Don’t you think angels would prevent that if they could?’

Nightingale was lost for words. He just sat back in his chair and waited to see what she would say next.

‘Angels aren’t policemen, Mr Nightingale. Angels don’t go around stopping bad people doing bad things. We’re more like judges. But we only interfere if the order of things is threatened from outside.’

‘Outside?’

‘Change can only come from outside and when it does come, we may act. But we don’t act because something evil is happening. We act because the order of things is threatened.’

‘Are you saying there’s nothing you can do?’

She smiled thinly. ‘No, I’m saying there’s nothing I
will
do. It’s not my place to interfere. What happens, happens. If it’s meant to happen, it will.’

‘Because it’s God’s will?’

‘Because it’s the order of things, Mr Nightingale.’

‘So if I’m meant to die, I’ll die?’

‘You all die, Mr Nightingale. That’s how it is for you. You are born, you live, you die, and your souls move on. We angels are here to make sure order is maintained during that process.’

‘So I have no free will, is that what you’re saying?’

‘What I’m saying is that angels cannot interfere. Not unless the order is threatened.’

Nightingale sat back in his chair. ‘Mrs Steadman, I really need your help.’

‘I know you do. I’m sorry.’

‘Even though the Order of Nine Angles are killing everyone I care about, and they’ve already tried to kill me, there’s nothing you can do?’

‘It’s not my place to interfere, Mr Nightingale.’ She clasped her hands together on the table. ‘But I shall watch what happens with interest.’

51

N
ightingale left his MGB in the rooftop car park at the Whiteleys shopping centre in Queensway. On the way back to his flat he found himself constantly looking over his shoulder. He let himself in, locked the door and then made himself a coffee before phoning Jenny. ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

‘Driving to my parents as we speak,’ she said. ‘Is everything okay?’

Everything wasn’t okay, thought Nightingale. Everything was as far from okay as it could possibly be. ‘Sure,’ he lied. ‘Just be careful.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean drive carefully,’ he said. ‘There are a lot of idiots on the road.’

‘You shouldn’t be on your own, Jack,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you come down to my parents, too? There’s always a spare room for you, you know that.’

‘I’ve got a lot on,’ he said.

‘You need to be with someone,’ she said. ‘I know how much Robbie meant to you.’