Tennessee Night (The 8th Jack Nightingale Novel)

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Not much,’ said Parker. ‘I’ve seen it used as an initiation for some street gangs, but nothing so elaborate. And yes, the ME said it would have hurt like hell. But it wasn’t recent. It had been there a few years.’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Not really. We found her coat and purse in her car near the cemetery. Bag had the usual stuff and in the pocket of the raincoat was a list of names. Guess who?’

  ‘Not difficult. The dead children?’

  ‘Got it in one, plus Charmaine Wendover, and by rights she couldn’t have known she was dead until she’d left the car and gone to the Grotto. So how did she know she was dead, and how did she know the girl’s name? She wasn’t carrying any ID. And why did she call you forty minutes before she died? And who the Hell is Julia Smith?’

  Again, Nightingale kept his face as expressionless as he could. ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘Julia Smith,’ repeated Parker. ‘The list in her coat pocket. Martin Brown, Sue Johnson, Madison Moore, Olivia Taylor, Timmy Williams, David Robinson, Charmaine Wendover and Julia Smith. Seven of them are dead, all apparent suicides. So I’ll ask you again, what does that list mean, and who is Julia Smith?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Nightingale. ‘You’ll find it easier than I will to locate her.’

  ‘Oh we located her, all right. Or rather them. There are more than a dozen of them in the Memphis area and forty that we’ve found in Tennessee, and that won’t include all the kids, who may not be registered. People move around a lot. And even if we do find them all, so what? Do we drop by and see if they’re feeling like killing themselves?’

  ‘Might be difficult,’ agreed Nightingale.

  ‘Might be. You know, Nightingale, I get the feeling you know a whole lot more about this than you’re spilling. So I’ll ask you again, what brought you here, and what’s linking these suicides?’

  ‘I was sent here, as I said. The people I work for flagged up the deaths, it’s the sort of thing they look for. I’m here trying to find a link, and stop it.’

  ‘Bullshit. Maybe I should run you in again, make you tell me where you were at the time of each death.’

  Nightingale shook his head. ‘It’d be a waste of time, and you know it. I can prove an alibi for all of them, and even if I couldn’t, so what? There’s no suggestion of a crime about any of them, they’ve all been classed as suicide.’

  ‘But why are they killing themselves? asked Parker. She banged her fist on the table which rattled the cups and drew a few curious glances from other patrons. She shrugged her shoulders and looked a little guilty. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But children just don’t kill themselves like this. What is it, some kind of mass hysteria, or hypnosis?’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘You might be onto something there. Maybe ask an expert.’

  ‘If I knew one. That’s odd...’

  Something over Nightingale’s shoulder appeared to have caught the detective’s attention. Nightingale turned around, but just saw a few people on the far sidewalk.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The kid in the St Richard’s uniform. She’s a long way away from school at this time of day.’

  Nightingale saw the young black girl in the green school blazer, bright white shirt and green tie, the knee-length grey plaid skirt and the white socks. She had a school satchel on her back. He turned back to face Parker. ‘You don’t work as the Truant Officer as well, do you?’

  Parker laughed. ‘Guess not. And St Richard’s girls aren’t usually the truanting type. Their parents pay enough to make sure they show up all the time.’

  Nightingale felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, and he spun round in his seat in response to the warning sign.

  The little girl was standing still on the sidewalk facing Ryan O’Rourke’s, staring intently across the road at them, Her satchel now on the floor at her feet, and she bent down, undid the straps, darted her hand inside and straightened up again.

  ‘Get down!’ shouted Nightingale. ‘She’s got a gun!’

  Instantly the whole patio was in uproar, with tables being pushed over, cups and glasses hitting the floor, men shouting and a woman screaming as the patrons dived to the ground. The girl looked blankly at the scene and then started pulling the trigger. The screaming intensified, to be joined by cries of agony and yet more screaming, as it seemed some bullets found a target. Nightingale dropped and rolled behind one of the tables. The shots kept coming, and the screams grew even louder.

  Now Parker was shouting. ‘Put it down. Put it down kid, or I’ll shoot.’

  Two more shots came, this time from very close to Nightingale’s head, and then no more. Just a groan, and a stream of curses from Parker. ‘Police Officer,’ she shouted, and got to her feet. ‘Everybody stay down. Do not move.’ She was holding her gun that she had pulled from a holster on her hip.

  Nightingale watched her as she walked across the street to where the small crumpled figure lay on the sidewalk, blood now covering the white shirt, and spreading rapidly onto the concrete, He saw Parker bend down, touch the girl’s neck, then straighten up, and throw up against a lamp-post. Nightingale took out his mobile phone and punched in 911 for an ambulance, but stopped when he saw that Parker was already calling it in on her radio. The screaming had stopped now, though the groaning and cries of pain from behind him continued, along with a rising buzz of confused voices.

  Nightingale got to his feet and looked around. There were groups of people gathered round what he assumed to be the casualties, and it didn’t look as if he could help much. He walked across to where Parker was still talking on her mobile phone, then bent down to look at the girl. She was clearly dead, Parker’s two shots had taken her in the chest and punched big holes through vital organs. Her face was untouched, and showed no fear or pain, just a look of incredible calm. Her satchel had fallen over on the sidewalk, and Nightingale bent down to look at it, staring at the little plastic window that held the piece of card with the name written on it, though he already knew what he’d see.

  ‘Julia Amanda Smith,’ he whispered. ‘Class 4B. Suicide by cop.’

  CHAPTER 31

  The next two hours were an exercise in chaos, as the Memphis PD tried to deal with the situation, interview dozens of witnesses, arrange medical attention and ambulances for the wounded, while keeping one of the city’s most popular tourist destinations shut and dealing with the complaints of dozens of inconvenienced citizens, bar owners and people who seemed to be trying to organise a spontaneous protest, based on the wild rumours which were no doubt circulating that the killing had been racially motivated.

  Nightingale hadn’t seen Bonnie Parker since the shooting, and assumed she’d been taken away from the scene in a police car as quickly as possible, to start the process of inquiry at Police headquarters. Nightingale gave a witness statement to a uniformed police sergeant, telling him everything he’d seen from the arrival of the young girl on the sidewalk opposite, up to the point where Parker had shouted her warning, fired twice, then run across to try to help the victim. He hoped that other witnesses had seen the same and would back up the story, otherwise Parker was likely to be hung out to dry. Shooting dead a ten-year-old black child on the street, in a city with an over sixty percent African-American population was not going to play well on the news, unless the full story was given quickly.

  A lot of people were going to be looking for some kind of explanation, and Nightingale doubted they’d be getting one that made any sense. Random spree shooters tended to be white, male and middle-aged, except for the school and college students who suddenly snapped, who were generally white, male and younger. Black female children spraying bullets just didn’t happen. Until today.

  Having given his statement and contact details, Nightingale was permitted through the police cordon and started the short walk back to the Peabody. His mobile phone rang before he’d got two hundred yards. It was Wainwright. ‘Jack. Julia Smith just got black-lined here. I’m hearing
there’s a kid shot dead on Beale Street.’

  ‘I know, I was there. She showed up and started firing, maybe at me, maybe randomly, and a cop took her down. She shouted warnings, but the kid just kept shooting. Like she wanted someone to kill her. The name on her school bag was Julia Smith.’

  ‘What the hell is going on? You’ve noticed these things are getting more and more public?’

  ‘I had. It started off with domestic incidents, but the last three will have made the national news. Almost as if whoever is doing this is upping the ante with each one.’

  ‘That makes sense. Nothing these people, or whatever they’re using here, like more than a little fear, panic and chaos.’

  ‘Lord of Misrule,’ muttered Nightingale.

  ‘There is that. Something else that’s pretty obvious too.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Nightingale. ‘They’re pulling me into it. I found the Wendover girl’s body. Kim Jarvis’s suicide was all for my benefit, and today this kid knew exactly where to find me. I assume she’d never fired a gun before, otherwise I might not be here now.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Wainwright. ‘Unless they want you around for the big finish, want you watching it all and knowing you can’t stop it.’

  ‘Sounds like the kind of torture that somebody with a huge grudge might enjoy,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘And remember, the grudge works on both of us.’

  ‘Have you been able to find out anything about what’s left of The Apostles?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ said Wainwright. ‘They’re all deep undercover. The singers aren’t singing, the sportsmen all retired, the bankers quit, they’re holed up in mansions behind bigger security than Trump. Not a word on Abaddon, or Margaret Romanos. No morgue or funeral home knows anything, and no medical facility received her, alive or dead.’

  ‘But she’d fit the bill.’

  ‘Not by herself, this kind of control would be out of her league.’

  ‘What are you telling me, she might have set some kind of demon on these kids?’

  ‘That could be, but I’ve never heard of one working this way.’

  ‘So what do I do next?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘What about the people you said you could ask for help?’

  Nightingale didn’t care to mention Proserpine, since that was something he had never fully shared with Wainwright. Also she had a serious dislike for her name being ‘taken in vain’ as she’d once put it. Wainwright didn’t know much about Mrs. Steadman either.

  ‘They came up with nothing,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Then you need to find the next ones on the list and stop them killing themselves.’

  ‘Will that break the spell, if they miss a victim?’

  ‘Who knows, they’re probably making up their own rules,’ said Wainwright. ‘You find them, I can put security on them. I’ve already got my niece under guard, without telling her parents.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t going to do that?’

  ‘I didn’t think I’d have to. The game is changing, Jack, we’re running out of options.’

  ‘To be honest. I’m not sure what good security’s going to do, there are any amount of ways a kid could kill itself at home, in school, in the street, long before anyone could stop it.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Jack, makes me feel a lot better,’ said Wainwright, his voice loaded with sarcasm. ‘But it’s all I’ve got at the moment. I’m gonna try a few things with some books, maybe see if I can find out if there’s something evil hanging over my niece. Maybe get rid of it.’

  ‘That’s possible?’

  ‘Who knows. Better than nothing. I’ll be in touch.’

  Nightingale put his phone away. He walked into the Peabody and asked for his key. The receptionist handed it over, together with an envelope containing a phone message. Nightingale tore it open. Neither the number, nor the name rang any bells, but the word Urgent got his attention, so he took out his mobile phone and called Professor Wilhelm Schiller.

  The voice that answered sounded rather too young and female to be the Professor, but he was put through after listening to a little classical music for a minute or so. The Professor’s voice was old and cracked with a fairly strong accent, which Nightingale supposed was German, in keeping with his guess about the name. ‘Ach, Mr. Nightingale. It seems it is most urgent that I speak to you. Can you come to my home this evening? Shall we say after dinner, at eight?’

  ‘Could you tell me what it’s about, Professor?’

  ‘It is not a subject for discussion on the telephone. Shall we say that a certain lady contacted me, and suggested you were in very great need of assistance, and that I might be best placed to provide it, in the matter of the children’

  ‘True enough, if she recommended you, then I’ll certainly be there. Let me have the address.’

  The Professor dictated it, and gave him directions. His home was a short drive away. ‘Very well, Mr. Nightingale. I will see you at eight, I hope. And please be very careful, you may be in danger.’

  ‘When am I not?’ thought Nightingale to himself as the Professor ended the call. As he headed up the endless stairs to his room for yet another change of clothes, to replace the ones he’d torn and dirtied rolling around Beale Street, he offered up his thanks to Mrs. Steadman. Then realised that there was more than one ‘lady’ in the case, to whom the old man could have been referring. He hoped it was indeed Mrs. Steadman that the Professor was referring to.

  CHAPTER 32

  There were times when Nightingale asked himself whether his dislike of elevators didn’t provide him with too many problems, and the trip up and down to the twelfth floor of the Peabody was definitely one of them. On the other hand, it did provide him with a little extra thinking time. The result of that was deciding that he would get nowhere trying to track down the remaining children who had been marked down for death. The names were too common, and, even if he did find the right one, he couldn’t hope to get near enough to protect any of them without the parents calling the cops on him. He’d have to try another angle.

  The late Kim Jarvis.

  He headed for the offices of the Memphis Herald again, but this time he had no name to give the girl on reception.

  ‘I’d like to speak to someone about Kim Jarvis,’ he told her. ‘Is there anyone here who knew her well, had worked with her a lot, maybe a friend?’

  The receptionist looked extremely suspicious. ‘I’ll try, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find anyone to discuss her with you,’ she said. ‘It all came as a shock. What’s your name?’

  ‘Jack Nightingale. I’d been helping her with a story. I was with her when she died.’

  The girl opened her eyes wide, then picked up a phone and pressed a number. ‘Peter Mulholland? There’s a guy down here says he was working with Kim and was with her when she...when she died. Name’s Nightingale. Uh-huh. Okay. Fine.’ She hung up, and gave Nightingale a smile. ‘Peter Mulholland will be right down. Please take a seat.’

  Nightingale returned the smile. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said.

  Nightingale walked away from the desk and took a cursory look at one of the framed, historical Herald front pages, which hung around the walls, above the black leather sofas which he could have chosen to sit on. At the moment he was the only visitor. He hadn’t read more than a couple of headlines from 1972 when the elevator doors to his left opened, and a short, fat man who looked about forty stepped out. He was wearing a dark blue suit, with the coat unbuttoned to show a large expanse of blue shirt that strained to cover his stomach. The knot of his blue and yellow striped tie was hanging around the second button of the shirt, with the collar undone. The sandy hairline seemed to start nearer the back than the front of his head now, and he seemed to be compensating by growing it as long as possible, so it fluffed upwards and outwards in loose curls. He’d grown a matching walrus moustache, which could have used a trim. He smiled at Nightingale, exhibiting some no doubt costly shining white crowns, and held out a ch
ubby hand to Nightingale as he approached. ‘Peter Mulholland,’ he said. ‘You knew Kim?’

  ‘I was with her when she died, at the cemetery,’ said Nightingale. ‘The name’s Nightingale. Jack Nightingale.’

  He held out his hand and Mulholland shook it. There was very little firmness to Mulholland’s grip, and Nightingale guessed he spent far more time in bars and restaurants than in gyms.

  ‘Australian, huh?’

  ‘English,’ said Nightingale. ‘Manchester, originally.’

  ‘Sure. You know, we been trying to find you, maybe see if we could set up an interview, but the cops wouldn’t even give us a name so far. And now you walk in...’ He grinned, flashing his too white teeth again. ‘Must be my lucky day.’

  ‘I’m not really here to give you a story, I was just wondering if I could get some background information about Kim Jarvis.’

  Mullholland pulled his lips in and frowned. ‘What? Why? Are you a reporter?’

  ‘No, I’m an investigator. There’s been some strange things happening here the last few days, and Kim had been helping me to look into them, until...’

  ‘Until she became part of the strangeness, I guess,’ said Mulholland.

  Nightingale nodded. ‘That about sums it up.’

  Mulholland rubbed the back of his neck as if trying to ease the tension there. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘How about we head across the street to the Three Kings, have us a drink then you can ask your questions and I’ll ask mine, and we’ll see who’s best at getting answers.’

  ‘Works for me,’ said Nightingale, holding the door open.

  The Three Kings hadn’t changed since Nightingale had been in there with Kim Jarvis three days before, and the two men took a booth near the rear. Peter Mulholland ordered a Wiseacre beer and some nachos, Nightingale settled for coffee and a muffin. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but the events of the morning had left him without much appetite. He hadn’t lost his taste for nicotine, so lit a Marlboro, but Mulholland shook his head at the proffered packet.