Nightshade: The Fourth Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller jn-4

by Stephen Leather

  ‘A knife. A ceremonial knife. It’s an antique.’

  McKee wrinkled his nose as he stared at the knife. ‘It looks old, I agree. But it doesn’t look like an antique. And why were you taking it onto the plane?’

  ‘I’m taking it to London.’

  ‘You know that you can’t take knives onto planes?’

  Nightingale held up his hands. ‘It was a mistake. An honest mistake. I’d forgotten it was in my bag, that’s all.’

  ‘And why is it in an evidence bag?’

  ‘I’m taking it to be analysed.’

  ‘Analysed?’

  ‘I want to run it through a lab.’

  ‘A lab?’

  Nightingale was about to make a joke about the detective repeating everything he said, but he doubted that he’d appreciate the attempt at humour. ‘I wanted to get the blood checked.’

  ‘You know there’s blood on the knife, then?’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘I’d noticed it.’

  ‘And can you explain how the blood got there?’

  Nightingale took out his wallet. ‘I’m a detective, private,’ he said. He handed over a business card. ‘The knife and the crucible are a case. Evidence.’

  The detective studied the card and then passed it to the inspector. ‘Evidence or not, you can’t take a knife onto a plane.’

  ‘Absolutely, I’m sorry. It was a genuine mistake. Look, I used to be in the job. I was a detective with the Met.’

  ‘Were you now?’ He looked over at the inspector as if seeking his approval. The inspector nodded.

  ‘CO19. And I was a negotiator. If you need a reference, I can give you the name of an inspector who’ll vouch for me.’

  The detective held out his hand. ‘Do you have your passport?’

  ‘Sure.’ Nightingale took his passport from his pocket and gave it to the detective.

  The detective flicked through it, then studied the photo. He handed it to the inspector, who also flicked through the pages and checked the photograph. He checked the name in the passport with the name on the business card, then stood up. ‘I’ll be back shortly,’ he said. His voice sounded more Northern Irish than Scottish.

  Nightingale looked at his watch. ‘I’m going to miss my plane.’

  ‘We’ll get you on the next one, Mr Nightingale,’ said the inspector. ‘Assuming that you check out.’ He went out of the room.

  Nightingale smiled at the remaining detective. ‘Any chance of a coffee?’

  ‘About as much chance of Hell freezing over,’ growled the detective.

  ‘Good to know. Don’t suppose I can smoke in here?’

  The detective stared at Nightingale silently, his lips a thin bloodless line.

  Nightingale folded his arms and sat back in his chair. Five minutes later the inspector reappeared and gave him back the passport. He sat down and interlinked his fingers. ‘Well, a police officer you were, Mr Nightingale. You left the Met under a cloud but at least you didn’t kill anyone.’

  ‘That would be the silver lining,’ said Nightingale.

  The inspector pointed at the knife. ‘You said that the knife was evidence in a case. Would that be a criminal case?’

  Nightingale looked at the inspector and tried to smile as amiably as possible. Lying to police officers was never a good idea, especially detectives, but he didn’t want to start a conversation about the murders in Berwick. ‘Divorce,’ he said.

  The two detectives frowned in unison. ‘Divorce?’ said the inspector.

  Nightingale tried to keep the casual smile on his face as he nodded. ‘I’m acting for a woman who thinks that her husband is messing around with a coven of witches.’

  ‘Witches?’ repeated McKee.

  ‘Well, they claim they’re a coven but the lady suspects that her husband is using it for casual sex. She found the knife and the crucible hidden in their house so she wanted me to get it checked to see if that’s animal blood.’

  ‘Why does it matter what sort of blood it is?’ asked the inspector.

  That was a very good question, Nightingale realised. His mind raced, trying to come up with a believable answer. ‘It’s more so that when she sues him for divorce she can say that she found a knife with chicken blood or whatever in his wardrobe. If she doesn’t do the checks then he might just turn around and say it was a rusty knife he used in the garden. He’s got a lot of money and he’ll fight any divorce tooth and nail so she wants to get all her ducks in a row.’ He leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘He’s quite well connected, which is why she came to my firm. We’re in London, so no one’s going to tip him off.’

  The inspector nodded as if he was buying it.

  ‘So can I go?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘I don’t think we need to keep you any longer. But you can’t take the knife on the plane, not in your hand luggage anyway. I’d suggest you check it in with the airline. Put it in a box or a padded envelope and it can go in the baggage hold. Or use a courier service. It’s Saturday, so you won’t get next-day delivery, but it’ll be in London Monday or Tuesday.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Nightingale. He stood up and put the bagged knife into his kitbag.

  22

  ‘Are you okay, is she making you happy?’ asked Candy, watching Eric’s face carefully for any sign of disapproval. Eric kept his feelings to himself most of the time. He never said if he was happy or sad, excited or worried, but sometimes, if she watched his eyes, she could get a clue to what he was thinking.

  He smiled at her, but she knew from experience that a smile from Eric Lucas meant nothing. Smiling was his camouflage. He smiled to get his own way. He had several smiles, like an archer with a quiver of arrows, each one slightly different to the next.

  ‘She’s good,’ said Eric. ‘You made a good choice.’

  ‘I did, didn’t I?’ said Candy, nodding enthusiastically. ‘I knew she’d make a perfect princess for you.’

  Eric reached out and slowly stroked Candy’s hair. ‘You did good, Candy. You did real good.’

  Candy smiled and felt her cheeks flush red. They were sitting at the kitchen table. She had made them cheese omelettes with toast and a pot of tea. The girl was asleep in the bedroom. Candy had given her a sleeping tablet to keep her quiet, but had tied her to the bed just in case the tablet wore off. Not that the girl could do anything even if she could move around the room. They had nailed boards over the bedroom window. The blinds were between the glass and the boards, so from outside no one could see that the window was boarded up, but there was no way that the girl could get out and no way that anyone would hear her screams. When they had first boarded up the window Candy had stood in the room and screamed her lungs out while Eric had paced around outside. He’d heard not a sound.

  It was Sunday and they’d had the girl for two days. She knew that Eric enjoyed the first day the most and that his enjoyment decreased day by day until the fourth day, by which time it was over. Candy hated the fourth day, but she loved Eric so she helped him do what had to be done and then she helped him bury the bodies because without the bodies they would never get caught. That was what Eric always said and Eric was always right. Eric would never say how many girls he’d done it to over the years but Candy was sure there had been some. He was her only helper, that was what he said, and she didn’t think that he was lying.

  ‘You do love me, don’t you, Eric?’

  ‘Of course. More than anything.’

  ‘And the girls. They’re just for fun.’

  ‘That’s all it is. Fun. And you want me to be happy, don’t you?’

  Candy nodded. ‘More than anything.’

  ‘And you know that after I’ve had fun with the little princesses, things between us are so good, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So it’s a good thing we’re doing. Anything that makes our relationship stronger is a good thing.’

  She reached over and held his hand. ‘No one loves you like I love you, you know that
?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘You’re one in a million. A billion maybe.’

  ‘And we’ll be together for ever?’

  Eric grinned. ‘For ever and ever.’

  23

  First thing Monday morning Nightingale stopped off at Costa Coffee and brought two lattes before heading up the stairs to his office. ‘A coffee run, how lovely,’ said Jenny when she saw him. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m hurt,’ said Nightingale, placing one coffee in front of her and carrying the other through to his office. ‘I just wanted to show you how much you’re appreciated.’ He had a carrier bag tucked under his arm.

  ‘You needn’t have got me a coffee, a pay rise would have been just as symbolic,’ she said.

  Nightingale returned holding his raincoat. He handed her the carrier bag and hung up his raincoat. ‘I wanted a coffee, too,’ he said. ‘So it was killing two birds, really.’ He dropped down onto the chair opposite her desk.

  ‘How did it go up in Berwick?’

  ‘I got hit over the head with a blunt object and was almost killed when my car got forced off the road.’ He grinned at her and swung his feet up onto her desk.

  ‘Ask a stupid question …’

  ‘I’m serious,’ said Nightingale. ‘First night there I was cold-cocked and told to get out of town, and when I didn’t a Land Rover side-swiped me into a ditch.’

  ‘Did you tell the police?’

  ‘I didn’t see the point. I couldn’t identify anyone. And other than a sore head I’m fine.’ He gestured at the carrier bag and Jenny emptied the contents on to her desk. There were half a dozen Sunday newspapers and the evidence bags containing the crucible and the knife that Nightingale had taken from the barn.

  ‘Can you send that off to the lab, get them to check the blood that’s on these things.’

  She held them up. ‘Where did you get them from?”

  ‘They were on a Satanic altar at McBride’s farm. It looks like that’s blood so I’m hoping the lab will confirm that and tell us what sort of blood it is.’

  ‘Lab work’s not cheap,’ she said. ‘But I suppose we just add it to Mr McBride’s bill.’

  Nightingale took out his mobile phone and handed it to her. ‘I took some pictures as well – can you print them so I can get a better look at them? There’s a Satanic altar in the barn, or at least what passes for one. I’m going to make a few enquiries on that front, and the blood should go some way to either confirming or denying it’s genuine. But there were upside-down crucifixes and goats with horns and pentangles …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m sensing a “but” is on the way.’

  Nightingale looked pained. ‘It was almost too Satanic, if that’s possible. It didn’t seem organic, it was as if it had been put together so that it would press all the buttons.’

  ‘Like a film set?’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘Exactly like a film set. And the brother was adamant he was in the barn two days before McBride kicked off. I don’t see he’d lie about that. I mean, what’d be the point? There’s no doubt McBride killed those kids. He said the Satanic stuff wasn’t there and I believe him. So if it wasn’t there two days before the killings, then either McBride put it all there or someone else did.’ He pulled out the sheaf of papers he’d taken from the altar. ‘And there’s these.’ He gave them to her.

  She frowned as she flicked through the photographs on his phone. ‘What are these?’

  ‘They’re printouts, as if McBride had been to Satanic websites and then made copies. But there’s at least one wrong ’un in there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s a site belonging to the Order of the Nine Angels. They’re a sect that’s said to be involved with human sacrifice, mainly kids. But the thing is, it’s actually called the Order of the Nine Angles. It’s a common mistake that, people think it’s about fallen angels but in fact it’s nine angles and it refers to their insignia. The website there is a fraud, it’s somebody messing about. And the real Nine Angles don’t have a website.’

  ‘How come you know so much about them?’

  Nightingale shrugged. ‘Something I worked on a while back. But if McBride was serious about Satanism and sacrifice he’d know that site was a fake. I think that stuff was planted in the barn along with the rest of the Satanic stuff.’

  ‘But who on earth would do that? And why?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nightingale. ‘Yet. One of the cops. Or both. Or maybe they’re covering for someone else.’

  ‘And what about the papers?’ she said, gesturing at the carrier bag. ‘I usually only see you with the Sun.’

  ‘I didn’t get much help from the cops I spoke to,’ said Nightingale. ‘But some of the journalists seem to have some half-decent sources. I need to work through exactly what happened. There’s something not right about it.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘It was something a cop said to me. A uniform who was standing outside the school. He said McBride was shooting kids but not teachers. And he didn’t shoot at the cops. That doesn’t make sense, does it?’

  ‘It does if McBride hated kids.’

  ‘But there’s no evidence of that. The opposite in fact. Shooters like McBride usually end up being shot by the police, but he didn’t make a move against them. I want to take a closer look at what happened at the school.’

  ‘And the Sunday papers will help with that?’

  ‘It’s a start,’ he said.

  24

  The incident room for the hunt for Bella Harper was on the fifth floor of Southampton Police’s Operational Command Unit, on the western approach to the city. The eight-storey limestone and glass building with its double-height canopy and public plaza was starkly modern, as were the thirty-six custody suites that were full to capacity most weekends. More than a hundred officers and another hundred civilian staff had been assigned to the case, and while the majority were out on the streets there were still more than fifty men and women answering phones and tapping away on computer terminals. It was just after eight o’clock in the morning and a lot of the people in the room had worked through the night.

  The blinds were drawn and there was a line of whiteboards in front of the windows. There were photographs of Bella and a hand-drawn timeline and on one board a list of all the men on the Violent and Sex Offender Register who lived within fifty miles of the city. All the names on the list were being visited and their homes inspected.

  On the opposite side of the corridor six offices had been taken over by the senior officers on the case. Word had come down from the Chief Constable that overtime wasn’t an issue and that no expense was to be spared in the hunt for the missing girl.

  One of the civilian staff, a man in his fifties with a greasy comb-over and sweat stains in the armpits of his shirt, was sipping coffee as he looked at the largest photograph of Bella. It was the one they were using on posters and on the TV appeals, a blow-up of her school photograph. Standing next to him was a young Asian police community service officer in a high-visibility fluorescent jacket that was a couple of sizes too big for her.

  ‘It’s true what they say, you know,’ said the man, gesturing at the photograph.

  ‘Yeah, what’s that?’ said the PCSO.

  ‘It’s the ugly ones that come back,’ said the man. ‘Paedos keep the pretty ones.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a fact.’

  A massive hand grabbed the man by the back of the neck. ‘My office, now!’ hissed Superintendent Rory Wilkinson. The superintendent frogmarched the man out of the room, across the corridor and into his office. He threw him inside and kicked the door shut.

  The man put up his hands as if he feared the superintendent was going to assault him. ‘You can’t do …’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ shouted the superintendent. ‘How fucking dare you make a cheap crack like that! A girl has been abducted and you think it’s fucking funny?’r />
  ‘I … I … I …’ stammered the man.

  The superintendent pointed a finger at the man. ‘You’re a fucking civilian so I can’t sack you but I want you out of this office now. Tell your fucking boss that you’re off this investigation and if you’ve got anything like a brain behind that pig-ugly face you’ll get transferred to another station because I am going to make your life a living fucking hell every time I see you. Now fuck off out of my sight.’

  The man turned, fumbled for the door handle and rushed out. The superintendent took a deep breath. His blood pressure had been borderline high at his last medical and dealing with civilian idiots wasn’t helping. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. He was fifty-four years old and hoped to retire in another year. His three children were all married with families of their own, and he and his wife had their retirement all mapped out – they had already bought a canal boat big enough to live aboard and they planned to spend six months of the year cruising the canal system and six months in their villa in southern Spain. Thinking of the canal boat always calmed him down – there was nothing more relaxing than pottering along at four miles an hour, the tiller in one hand and a mug of tea in the other.

  ‘Sir?’

  The superintendent opened his eyes. It was Aaron Fisher, a young detective who had only recently joined CID. ‘Yes, lad?’

  ‘I’ve just had a call that sounded like the real thing.’ He mimed putting a phone to his head as if the superintendent might not understand what he meant. ‘Old couple out in Lyndhurst.’

  Lyndhurst was a small town close to the New Forest, half an hour’s drive from Southampton. ‘Spit it out, lad.’

  ‘They say their neighbours turned up with a kid a couple of days ago. They didn’t get a good look but they’re pretty sure it was a young girl.’

  ‘A couple of days ago?’ It was Tuesday morning. Bella Harper had been snatched on Friday.