Possession: A Jack Nightingale Short Story

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Not trapped in that body you won’t,’ said Nightingale. He dragged the priest out of the door and down the stairs. Mr and Mrs Wilson were tending to Billy and didn’t see him haul the priest out of the front door.

  A police cruiser pulled up, its light flashing but its siren off. Behind it was a dark sedan.

  Nightingale took O’Grady over to the sedan. The driver’s side door opened and a tall, thin detective in a dark blue trench coat climbed out. He was holding a flashlight and he shone it at Nightingale. ‘That you, Jack?’

  Nightingale grinned. ‘Who else is going to be delivering you a paedophile priest this time of night?’

  The detective shone his flashlight at the priest. The priest scowled and turned away. ‘Get that light out of my face!’ he shouted. ‘I demand to be released!’

  ‘You don’t make any demands, you child-raping bastard!’ hissed the detective. He nodded at Nightingale. ‘It’s him,’ he said. ‘Father Andrew Lawston. How the hell did you track him down? We’ve been looking for him for five years.’

  ‘Fuck you both, fuck you and your seed, I will bring you all to hell!’ shouted the priest.

  ‘He’s not happy,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Neither would you be if you were facing life behind bars,’ said the detective. ‘How did you track him down?’

  Down the road a black stretch Humvee pulled up at the side of the road and its lights went dark.

  ‘Just lucky, I guess,’ said Nightingale. He pushed the priest over to the detective who slammed him up against the sedan.

  ‘Bullshit,’ said the detective. ‘When you first called me to say you had a line on Lawston I assumed you were shitting me. But you delivered.’ He checked the cuffs on the priest’s wrists and smiled. ‘And you even used police-issue cuffs.’

  ‘All part of the service.’

  ‘Like I told you on the phone, there’s no reward out for this scumbag. But there’s a lot of folk back in New York who’ll owe you their thanks.’

  ‘I’m happy to be kept out of it,’ said Nightingale. ‘The credit’s all yours.’

  The priest snarled. ‘I’ll kill you both, I’ll rip your arms and legs from their sockets and flay the skin from your bodies. You’ll die in Hell, screaming for mercy but there’ll be no mercy for you. I am Bakka and I sit on Satan’s left hand and you will know my power.’

  The detective slapped him on the side of the head. ‘Sounds to me like he’s working on an insanity offence, but that’s not going to work. There are plenty of witnesses in New York more than happy to give evidence about what he did and who he did it to.’ The detective pulled open the door and shoved the priest onto the back seat. ‘Forty-four kids,’ said the detective. ‘And that’s just what we know of. I’m sure there’s loads more who are just too afraid or embarrassed to come forth. Scum like him should face a firing squad, in my opinion.’

  The detective stuck out his hand and Nightingale shook it, then the detective climbed into the front passenger seat. He waved and the car drove off. Nightingale lit a cigarette as the car headed down the road.

  Two uniformed officers were standing by the patrol car and Nightingale went over to them. ‘What happened in there?’ asked the older of the two, gesturing at the Wilson house.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘That Wilson boy has been having problems.’

  ‘He’s okay now.’

  ‘That priest, he didn’t..?’

  Nightingale shook his head and blew smoke. ‘Actually, he helped.’

  ‘Helped?’

  ‘Little Billy was possessed. But he’s okay now.’

  The officer frowned. ‘Possessed?’

  ‘It’s a long story. But like I said, the priest was able to help.’

  ‘Maybe they’ll take that into consideration, back in New York,’ said the officer.

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Nightingale. He turned up his collar against the cold night air and walked down the road to the Humvee. The windows were heavily tinted so he couldn’t see who was inside. He opened the rear passenger door and sweet-smelling cigar smoke billowed out.

  ‘So all’s well that ends well?’ asked a soft Texan drawl.

  Nightingale climbed in. Joshua Wainwright was stretched out with his hand-tooled lizard skin cowboy boots propped on the seat opposite him. He had a cigar in one hand and a crystal tumbler of brandy in the other. He had a NY Yankees baseball hat on back to front, tight jeans and a red-and-white checked shirt and looked more like a cowboy on his day off rather than the billionaire businessman he was.

  ‘Worked like a dream,’ said Nightingale. He sat down, leant forward and opened a small fridge. He took out a bottle of Corona and popped off the cap before raising it in salute to his employer and benefactor. ‘More of a nightmare, I suppose. For Lawston anyway.’

  ‘He had it coming,’ said Wainwright. ‘I don’t know how many lives he ruined over the years, the ones I know about are probably just the tip of a very dirty iceberg.’

  ‘Well, he’s being punished now,’ said Nightingale.

  Wainwright nodded. ‘Lawston is in his sixties so with any luck he’ll live another twenty or thirty years with Bakka inside him. The only way that Bakka can be released is if Lawston dies and the authorities will take good care of him so that’s not going to happen in the near future.’

  ‘He could kill himself.’

  Wainwright shook his head. ‘He’s clearly deranged so he’ll be on suicide watch, in a bare cell with a cardboard mattress. No, Bakka is stuck where he is for a very long time.’ He reached over and clinked his glass against Nightingale’s bottle. ‘Job well done, Jack.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Nightingale. He reached into his pocket and took out the copy of Devils, Demons, & Exorcisms that he had taken from Father Perkins’ house. ‘For your collection,’ he said.

  Wainwright took it, examined the spine, and nodded his approval. ‘A classic, and a first edition. Thank you.’

  Nightingale leaned back and sighed. ‘I’m knackered. Exorcising demons really takes it out of you.’

  ‘You need a vacation,’ said Wainwright. ‘I’ll arrange something for you.’

  ‘You’re all heart, Joshua.’ He sipped his Corona. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘What was your interest in Lawston?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean how does a paedophile priest get on to your radar? And why would you want me to handle it for you?’

  ‘It wasn’t about the priest, Jack. I couldn’t give a flying fuck about the priest.’

  Nightingale frowned. ‘So it was Bakka?’

  Wainwright grinned and raised his glass in salute.

  ‘So I’m assuming Bakka isn’t on your team?’

  ‘I don’t have a team, Jack. But yes, me and Bakka have had a few run-ins in the past. Now he’s not going to be bothering me, for a while at least. And I’m not the only one who has been having problems with the little shit, so this is going to win me brownie points with some very important people, so like I said, your vacation is on me.’