Lastnight (37 page)

‘How many do you get through in a day?’

‘A couple of packs. It depends.’

‘You see, your smoking is a choice, too,’ said Proserpine.

‘My nicotine addiction begs to differ,’ said Nightingale.

‘So what are you asking? If there is anything you can do to change things? Can you make a difference?’

‘I thought I had changed things,’ said Nightingale. ‘But then Robbie died. And my aunt and uncle died. So maybe nothing I do makes any difference.’ He looked up at the clouds above and sighed. ‘You told me once that you saw time differently to me.’

‘I see everything differently,’ she said.

‘You come and you go,’ he said. ‘Time moves on for me but for you …’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I didn’t really understand what you were saying.’

‘I didn’t expect you to,’ she said. She smiled sweetly up at him. ‘Trying to explain the universe to you would be like discussing nuclear physics with an earthworm.’

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘What I do remember is that you said you were sometimes here and sometimes you weren’t. You moved in and out of this reality.’

‘What passes for your reality,’ she said. ‘Yes, that’s pretty much true.’

‘And you said that for you, time doesn’t really pass. You don’t see time in terms of seconds and minutes and hours.’

She grinned. ‘See, you were listening.’

‘So if that’s true, is everything fixed? If the past, present and future are all there for you to see, is there nothing I can do to change it?’

‘Now, Nightingale, if you knew the answer to that, wouldn’t it take the fun out of life?’

‘I don’t understand why you won’t answer the question.’

‘Because it’s not a question that can be answered. It’s like me asking you what the colour blue sounds like.’

‘You’re being evasive, and I don’t understand why.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Let’s say I told you that what you were planning is doomed to failure. What would you do?’

‘Are you saying it won’t work?’

‘I’m speaking hypothetically.’

Nightingale nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’d still have to try.’

‘Because you don’t believe me?’

‘Because I have to do something.’

‘Which demonstrates free will. Even if you knew you were wasting your time, you’d still do it.’

Nightingale shook his head. ‘Maybe I’ll do it because that’s what I’m meant to do.’

Proserpine smiled slyly. ‘Then don’t do it.’

Nightingale pointed his finger at her. ‘Is that why you’re here? To stop me doing it?’

‘It’s your call, Nightingale. Your decision.’

‘Do you know what I’m going to do? Do you really? Or are you just messing with my mind?’

‘Now that would be telling.’

‘And you know whether it’ll work or not?’

She smiled but didn’t say anything.

Nightingale exhaled through pursed lips. ‘My head hurts.’

Proserpine lowered her voice to a soft whisper. ‘I know how you could prove that you have free will.’

‘How?’

She pointed behind him at a six-storey building. ‘There’s a metal fire escape running up the back of that building,’ she said. ‘It’ll take you up to the roof.’

Nightingale frowned. ‘And?’

‘And you could go up there and jump off. Free will. That would prove once and for all that you had it.’

Nightingale chuckled. ‘That’s like the old witch ducking. Duck a suspected witch and if she drowns she isn’t a witch, if she doesn’t drown then she is.’

Proserpine grinned. ‘They were fun days, that’s for sure,’ she said.

‘There is no way I can prove it one way or another, is there?’

‘I’m not sure why it matters so much. Does a battery chicken have free will? Its future is pretty much pre-ordained from the moment it hatches.’

‘That’s how you see us? Battery chickens?’

Proserpine laughed and the pavement vibrated beneath Nightingale’s feet. He moved his left foot back to steady himself but the shaking stopped as abruptly as it had started. ‘Don’t overthink it, Nightingale,’ she said. ‘But I’ll tell you something, for old time’s sake.’ She paused to make sure she had his full attention. ‘If you do go ahead, don’t forget the meat.’

‘The meat?’

‘The meat,’ she repeated.

Nightingale jumped at the sound of smashing glass and a car alarm bursting into life. He turned just in time to see a man in a hoodie running away from a BMW, clutching something to his chest. The BMW’s lights were flashing as the alarm continued to blare. The sound of the man’s trainers slapping against the Tarmac faded into the distance. When Nightingale turned back, Proserpine and the dog had gone but the cardboard sign was rustling in the wind. Nightingale bent down to pick it up. As his fingers touched the cardboard it burst into flames and Nightingale pulled his hand back. He smiled as he straightened up. ‘I’ve seen David Blaine do that trick, it’s no biggie,’ he muttered, before heading towards his car with his carrier bags.

65

N
ightingale needed petrol. A lot of petrol. He went to four different filling stations, each of them at least twenty miles away from Gosling Manor. At each filling station he parked his MGB away from the CCTV cameras and kept his head down as he filled a red plastic can with fuel. Each can held five litres and each time he paid in cash.

When he got back to Gosling Manor he carried the cans inside, two at a time, then took in the carrier bags. He had already decided that the best place to do it would be the massive sitting room where Eddie Morris had found the letter on the mantelpiece. He left the cans in the hallway and took the carrier bags into the living room, then went downstairs and fetched his notepad and the original book.

He had already found a large green plastic water barrel in a greenhouse at the back of the mansion and had hosed it clean before setting it up in the middle of the sitting room. The book called for a barrel but didn’t specify what it should be made of. Nightingale stood and looked around as he held his notepad, checking that he had everything he needed.

He realised the bolt-cutters he’d used to cut the chain at the main gate were back in the MGB and he went out to get them. Without the bolt-cutters there’d be no meat. And he needed the meat.

He brought up two dozen candles from the basement. Six orange, six red, six yellow and six blue. The book was very specific about where the candles had to be placed. He positioned then carefully, lit them and drew the curtains. It was time.

66

T
he first thing Nightingale had to do was to draw a magic circle around the plastic barrel. It was very different from the one he used when he summoned Proserpine. This was composed of three equilateral triangles one on top of each other so they formed a nine-pointed star. It had to be drawn with yellow chalk and then Nightingale had to use a silver needle to pierce his thumb and drip blood on to all nine of the points.

In between the nine points there were nine individual marks, like runes, and he carefully copied each one from the diagram in the book. They were complex and it took him the best part of an hour to complete.

Nine brass bowls had to be placed around the barrel, each containing a specific amount of a specific mineral. There was common salt, potassium chloride, calcium carbonate, sodium hydroxide, ammonium nitrate, and other compounds, all of which had been down in the basement. Nightingale had used an electric scale to weigh out the chemicals and carried them carefully up to the sitting room.

Once the bowls were in place he went through to the kitchen where he already had two three-litre water jugs ready. He filled them from the tap, took them back into the sitting room and poured them into the barrel. He had to make twenty-five trips before the barrel was full.

Nightingale slipped off his Hush Puppies and socks, then took off his jeans and shirt and put them in a neat pile by the door. He stripped off his boxer shorts and walked back naked into the middle of the room with the book.

They say you can’t put a value on a human life, but the human body is a different matter. The elements that make up the average eighty-kilogram body cost about a hundred pounds, give or take. Most of that value comes from two elements – potassium and sodium – but together they make up less than half of one per cent of the total mass of a body. Some three-quarters of the human body is made up of oxygen and hydrogen, combined together to make water. And another eighteen kilograms of the average body comes from nitrogen. Take away the water and nitrogen and you’re left with a small pile of chemicals that wouldn’t fill a bucket, mainly carbon, calcium and phosphorus.

The smartest scientist on the planet couldn’t combine the elements to make life – but according to the book, a magician could. The elements themselves were easy enough to come by, and the book contained the incantation that would make the magic happen.

Nightingale began to repeat the words in the book, and one by one he tipped the contents of the bowls into the water. As he continued to read, the horror of what he had to do gradually hit home. Proserpine had been right, of course. Chemicals and magic alone wouldn’t produce the desired result. To do what had to be done, he would need meat.

67

N
ightingale poured the contents of the last of the nine bowls into the barrel. He walked slowly over to the mantelpiece and put down the book, then picked up the bolt-cutters. He clicked them open and shut. He had already decided what part of his body to use. The middle toe on his left foot. He had decided that it was the part of his body that he could most do without.

He unscrewed the top off a bottle of whisky and took a mouthful. He swallowed and felt the warmth spread across his chest before he took a second mouthful. He put the bottle on the floor and slid the shears of the bolt-cutter either side of the toe. He took a deep breath. He knew he had to do it once and do it with conviction. It would hurt but the pain wouldn’t last forever. He took a deep breath. He looked down at his foot, then turned his head away and closed his eyes. Better not to look. He took another deep breath. He wanted another slug of whisky but he knew it was his subconscious playing for time. He had to do it, and do it now. His hands were trembling on the handles of the bolt-cutters and he steeled himself. He roared and at the same time he slammed the handles of the bolt-cutters together. The shears sliced through skin and flesh and bone and then clicked together and pain lanced up from his foot to his hip. His roar of defiance merged into a scream of pain as he dropped the shears. He fell back and sat down heavily, blood pouring from the stump of his middle toe. He grabbed for the whisky bottle and gulped some down, then groped into the Boots carrier bag and pulled out a bottle of TCP. He poured a good measure of the antiseptic over his injured foot and screamed again, then took another mouthful of whisky.

He fell back and lay on the bare floorboards, gasping for breath, his foot throbbing as if it was about to explode. He groped for the Boots bag and pulled out a bandage and a dressing. He sat up, unwrapped the dressing and pressed it gingerly over the end of his foot before wrapping the bandage around it. He tied off the bandage and forced himself to his feet, taking all his weight on his right leg. He picked up the notebook but almost passed out and had to take several deep breaths to clear his head. His foot was throbbing now, but the pain was bearable.

He bent down and picked up the severed toe and then hopped awkwardly back to his position near the barrel. He had two more paragraphs to read in Latin. He cleared his throat and said the words, enunciating them slowly and clearly. As he got to the end of the final passage, he tossed the toe into the barrel. The contents began to steam and bubble and a foul ammonia-like stench filled the air. Plumes of greenish smoke curled up out of the barrel and wound their way up to the ceiling. Lightning flashed inside the room and Nightingale tasted something metallic at the back of his throat.

He felt a wind tugging at his hair, as if the barrel had become a vacuum and was sucking the air in the room towards it. The bubbling intensified and then something emerged from the steaming liquid. Something brown. Hair. As Nightingale’s eyes widened a neck emerged, and then shoulders.

Nightingale reached into the Robert Dyas carrier bag, took out the hammer it contained, and hefted it in his hand.

The creature continued to emerge. Its back was to Nightingale, the spine clearly defined and glistening in the candlelight.

Nightingale took a step forward. It was nothing, he kept telling himself. It was his creation. He’d made it. From chemicals. It was alive but it wasn’t really alive.

The creature was upright now, holding its arms above its head as it stretched as if it had just woken up. There was a small mole on the left shoulder, a perfect match for one that Nightingale had. It was an irregular shape – like a miniature Cyprus – and five years earlier Nightingale had gone to see his GP for reassurance that it wasn’t skin cancer. The GP had told him not to worry about it and was far more concerned about Nightingale’s smoking habit.

Nightingale stepped forward again, raising the hammer. The creature made a moaning sound as if unsure how to speak. It made it easier to think of it as ‘the creature’, Nightingale realised. And it was easier not to have to look it in the eyes.

He took another step forward. The creature began to turn as if it had heard Nightingale’s feet on the floorboards. Nightingale brought the hammer crashing down on the creature’s head with a sickening crunch. It fell forward and the barrel went with it, water cascading over the floor. Nightingale hopped forward, bent down and lashed out with the hammer again. The skull splintered and blood splashed across the wet floor. The creature shuddered, then went still.

Nightingale pulled the barrel away from the body and rolled it into the corner of the room. There was a large towel in a Debenhams carrier bag and he used it to pat the body dry. Then he dressed it in the clothes he’d been wearing. He had to keep rolling the body over to pull the boxer shorts up, and had to do the same again with the jeans. The socks were easier but the polo shirt was even harder. He tried not to look at the face but he kept finding himself staring into the dead eyes of his doppelganger. The last thing he put on were the Hush Puppies he’d recently bought, taking care to make sure the laces were tied correctly. Nightingale’s wallet and keys were in the jeans. He took off his watch and put it on the corpse’s left wrist before taking the brand new clothes he’d bought at the shopping centre. He put on new Levi’s, a black pullover and Nike trainers.