* * *
Robbie Hoyle phoned just as Nightingale was driving away from the school. He pulled up at the side of the road and took the call. ‘How was the jumper?’ asked Nightingale.
‘Cry for help,’ said Hoyle. ‘Husband had left her, one of her kids is on drugs, her benefits have been cut. She just wanted to talk to somebody. You know how it is.’
‘Yeah,’ said Nightingale. Sometimes people just wanted a shoulder to cry on, and if someone had no friends or family to, then a police negotiator would do. People who really wanted to kill themselves usually just went ahead and did it. Anyone who waited for a police negotiator to turn up more often than not wanted someone to talk to. ‘Is she going to be okay?’
Hoyle sighed. ‘She’s back home but her husband is still off, her boy is still a junkie and I put a call in to the benefits office but you know what they’re like. She’s on anti-depressants so they might calm her down.’ He sighed again. ‘So, that case. You know it was a suicide, right?’
‘That’s what I was told.’
‘So why the interest in a forty-year-old suicide?’
‘I’ve a client who wants answers. I just need a chat with one of the investigating officers because it was all paper back then.’
‘The guy you need is Inspector David Mercer. Retired fifteen years ago. I’ve got an address. He lives not far from Winchester.’
‘You’re a star, Robbie.’
* * *
David Mercer’s house was a three-bedroom semi-detached on the outskirts of Winchester, with neatly-tended red roses growing around a small patch of grass, and a caravan parked in the driveway. Nightingale left his car in the road and walked past the caravan to ring the door bell. A grey-haired woman answered the door. She was a small woman, just over five feet tall. Her face was wrinkled but her eyes were a piercing blue and she stared up at him fearlessly. ‘If you’re trying to get me to change my electricity supplier, you’re wasting your time,’ she said.
‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘Are you Mrs Mercer?’
‘Yes?’
Nightingale flashed her his most reassuring smile. ‘Is your husband in? David Mercer?’
‘Why?’
‘I’d like to talk to him about an old case.’
‘Are you police?’
‘I used to be.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Private?’
Nightingale nodded. ‘Is he home?’
‘He’s sitting with the fishes.’
‘What? Is that like a Mafia thing?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Sleeping with the fishes?’
She shook her head in confusion. ‘Sleeping? Who said anything about sleeping? He’s sitting with the koi in the garden. It’s his hobby. He spends more time with the fish than he does with me.’
Now it was Nightingale’s turn to be confused. ‘Koi?’
‘Koi. Carp. Big fish.’ She sighed and pointed at the kitchen. ‘Outside.’
Nightingale thanked her and let himself out through the kitchen door. Ron Mercer was sitting on a wooden bench by the side of a large pool surrounded by rocks and pebbles. He was a small man, bent over a Tupperware container full of brown pellets and he was tossing them a few at a time into the water. More than a dozen brightly coloured fish were snapping at the food.
‘Inspector Mercer?’ asked Nightingale.
Mercer peered up at him with watery eyes. His skin was as wrinkled as old leather and he had a large mole on his nose that looked pre-cancerous. There was a flesh-coloured hearing aid tucked behind his right ear. ‘No one’s called me that in years,’ he said. His voice was surprisingly powerful, deep and authoritative. ‘You in the job?’
‘Used to be,’ said Nightingale. He nodded at the bench. ‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Go ahead,’ said Mercer. Nightingale sat down and Mercer held out the Tupperware container.
Nightingale took out a handful of pellets and began throwing them one by one into the water.
‘I was a firearms officer in the Met,’ said Nightingale, ‘And a negotiator. Jack Nightingale. He offered his hand and Mercer shook. He had a firm grip. Mercer let go of Nightingale’s hand and joined him in throwing food to the fish. ‘They’re expensive, right?’ said Nightingale. ‘Most expensive fish in the world, I heard.’
‘Can be,’ said Mercer. ‘They can go for thousands. Some of these are worth a couple of hundred.’
What makes them valuable? I’m guessing it’s not the taste.’
‘You don’t eat these lovelies,’ said Mercer. ‘Most of the value is in the colour and the pattern. The most valuable is the fish that most resembles the Japanese flag – a red spot on a white background. The closer the red spot is to the head, the more valuable.’
‘You like feeding them, huh?’
‘I’m checking them,’ said Mercer. ‘I check them all every day, This food is designed to float so they have to come to the surface to feed. That way I can see if they’ve got ulcers or parasites. They recognise me, you know. When I walk up to the pond, they come to the edge to be fed. But the wife, they ignore her.’ He chuckled. ‘That drives her crazy, it does.’
Nightingale threw a couple of pellets and a large orange fish snapped up both of them.
‘They eat according to the temperature,’ said Mercer. ‘The warmer it is, the more they eat. And in the middle of winter they don’t feed, other than to nibble a bit of algae from the bottom.’ He threw in some more food. ‘They can live for more than a hundred years, if you look after them.’ He chuckled. ‘They’ll outlive me for sure.’ He began to cough and dabbed at his lips with a handkerchief. ‘So what do you want, Jack? I’m assuming you want something?’
‘An old case of yours,’ said Nightingale. ‘Forty years ago. Emily Campbell. She died at the Rushmore Boarding School.’
Mercer frowned, his liver-spotted hand lying on top of the fish pellets. ‘Emily Campbell,’ he repeated.
‘She was sixteen. One of the pupils.’
Mercer shook his head. ‘I remember the name, but the case was closed. She killed herself, right. It was a suicide.’ He shuddered. ‘Are you a smoker?’
Nightingale grinned. ‘Sure am. You?’
‘Used to be. The wife made me stop ten years ago.’
Nightingale took out his cigarettes and offered the pack to Mercer. ‘I won’t tell her if you don’t,’ he said. He lit the cigarette and one for himself. Both men blew smoke contentedly up at the sky. Mercer looked nervously over at the house.
‘It was definitely suicide?’ asked Nightingale.
Mercer looked back to him, eyes narrowed. ‘You think I’m senile?’
‘No, but it was a long time ago. What can you tell me about the case?’
Mercer frowned. ‘Young girl, she cut herself. Bled to death. There was a black magic thing going around at the time and she was a vulnerable kid.’
‘Black magic?’
‘You know how kids like to mess with that sort of thing. There was some magic circle drawing on the floor.’
‘And no one else was involved?’
‘The door was locked from the inside. The staff had to break in to get to her.’
‘Were photographs taken at the time?’
‘Of course.’
‘Where would they be now?’
‘Long gone,’ said Mercer.
‘The files weren’t kept?’
‘No computers back then, everything was paper,’ said Mercer. ‘It wasn’t a case so it would have been thrown away. No point in keeping it.’
‘What about your notebooks?’
‘My notebooks.’
‘Every cop I know keeps his notebooks,’ said Nightingale. ‘I did for sure. You never know when an old case might come back to bite you in the arse.’
Mercer laughed. ‘That’s the truth,’ he said. He gestured at the house. ‘In the attic. But I’ve not looked at them for years.’
Nightingale grinned. ‘Would you mind?’
‘Are
you serious? For a forty-year-old suicide?’
‘It’d be a big help.’
Mercer bent down, stubbed out his cigarette on the soil and buried it. He nodded at Nightingale. ‘You’d better do the same. My wife would have made a great murder squad detective.’
Nightingale followed his example while Mercer put the top back on his Tupperware container and stood up. He placed the container on the bench, then led Nightingale down the path to the kitchen door. Mrs Mercer was watching a quiz show on television and she looked up as her husband walked by with Nightingale. ‘I’m just taking Mr Nightingale up into the attic,’ he said.
‘For heaven’s sake, why?’
‘An old case,’ he said.
‘Well don’t bring any dust and dirt down with you,’ she said, and looked back at the TV.
The attic was reached through a small trapdoor above the landing. Mercer used a pole with a hook on the end to open the trapdoor and pull out an extendable ladder. It rattled down and Mercer leaned the pole against the wall before slowly climbing up. Nightingale waited until Mercer had disappeared through the trapdoor before following him up.
Mercer flicked a switch and a fluorescent light flickered on. The attic was windowless and lined with plasterboard. There were cobwebs around the ceiling and dust everywhere. There were several metal chests to the left of the trapdoor and against the wall that marked the boundary with next door there were a dozen cardboard boxes. ‘My police stuff is in there,’ said Mercer, nodding at the boxes. They went over to them. They were all labelled with dates written in felt-tipped pen. Mercer took a pair of spectacles from his shirt pocket and he put them on and peered at the boxes. ‘There we are,’ he said, pointing at a box on the floor. Nightingale moved the two boxes on top of it and Mercer opened it. It was full of manila files and black notebooks. There was a sticker on each of the notebooks, also with felt-tip writing, and Mercer went through them until he found the one he was looking for. ‘Got it,’ he said, waving it in triumph. He went over to stand underneath the fluorescent light and slowly flicked through the pages. ‘The father kept calling me. Every week, regular as clockwork. J Ramsay Campbell, his name was but he never told me what the J stood for. Kept asking how the investigation was going. I suppose he’s been dead for years.’
Nightingale shook his head. ‘He died last week. Eighty-five.’
Mercer looked up and grimaced. ‘I felt for him. My youngest had just been born. No parent wants to bury his child. What about you? Kids?’
Nightingale shook his head again. ‘No wife.’
‘Playing the field?’
Nightingale grinned. ‘I guess so.’
Mercer continued to flick through the pages of his notebook. Then he stopped and frowned. ‘I’d forgotten I did that.’
‘Did what?’
‘I made a drawing of the thing on the floor. The magic circle thing.’ He held out the notepad. The diagram filled one page. It was a circle with a five-pointed star inside, similar to a regular pentagram. But in the spaces between the points of the star were filled with strange symbols, the like of which Nightingale had never seen.
‘Did you ever work out what it is?’ asked Nightingale.
‘Some black magic thing, obviously. We figured she’d made it up. Just squiggles.’ He frowned. ‘You think it’s significant?’
Nightingale shrugged. ‘I’ve seen similar circles. But not as complex as this one.’
‘Well we got nowhere. I did speak to someone at the British Museum but they weren’t much help.’
Nightingale held up the notebook. ‘Can I borrow this?’
Mercer looked pained. ‘I’d rather not. I feel happier knowing that I have them, you know.’
‘Can I copy it, then?’
‘I don’t see why not but let’s do it outside, the dust isn’t good for my lungs.’
Nightingale went down the ladder first. Mercer switched off the light and followed him down before closing the trapdoor. This time Mrs Mercer didn’t look up as they walked down the hallway to the kitchen but she shouted ‘I hope you didn’t bring down any mess’.
‘We didn’t,’ said Mercer as he led Nightingale through the kitchen. He grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen from a drawer and took Nightingale into the garden. They sat on the bench while Nightingale copied the drawing from Mercer’s notebook.
When he’d finished he handed the notebook back to Mercer. ‘So who discovered the body?’
‘A member of the cleaning staff found the door was locked from the inside and she called the headmaster. Now what was his name?’ He flicked through the notepad. ‘Charles Nelson. He was called and he broke down the door.’
‘So it was locked?’
Mercer nodded. ‘From the inside. The key was in the lock.’
‘And the girl?’
Mercer grimaced. ‘She was lying on the floor. There was a cut in her left wrist. Deep. And a knife on the floor.’ He shuddered. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got another cigarette, have you? I smoked like a chimney back then and all this talking about it is bringing back the craving.’
Nightingale took out his cigarettes and lit two. ‘There must have been a lot of blood.’
‘Now that’s a cop question.’
‘I was just wondering if she died in the room or if the body was moved.’
‘The door was locked from the inside. I told you that. But there wasn’t as much blood as you’d have expected.’
‘Did you think it was significant?’
‘I thought it was but my boss didn’t. It was an old building and the floors were bare wood. He said the blood had probably just drained through the floorboards. Possible, I suppose.’
‘Was there a note?’
Mercer shook his head. ‘And no social media back then. We spoke to her friends and they said she was worried about her exams.’
‘Do you think she killed herself?’
‘You’re asking me that after forty years?’ He sighed. ‘She didn’t seem the type to kill herself.’ And the blood thing worried me. But the headmaster was a Mason and so was my Chief Superintendent so I think a secret handshake was done and I was told to put it down as suicide and move on.’
‘What made you think it might not be suicide?’
‘The whole magic circle thing seemed out of character. She hadn’t expressed any interest in the occult, the girls weren’t using Ouija boards or any nonsense like that. And who goes to all that trouble, drawing something like that, before killing themselves?’
‘But the locked door?’
Mercer smiled. ‘Yeah, the locked door. The key was on the inside, but that doesn’t mean that the door was locked from the inside.’
‘I don’t follow.’
Mercer took a long drag on his cigarette. The kitchen door opened and he put the cigarette down guiltily. His wife appeared in the doorway. ‘Do you want tea?’ she called over.
‘That would be great, love, thanks!’ shouted Mercer. He looked at Nightingale. ‘How do you take your tea?’
‘White, one sugar.’
‘White with one sugar for Jack!’ shouted Mercer. The kitchen door closed and Mercer resumed smoking.
‘What did you mean, the door didn’t have to be locked from the inside?’ asked Nightingale.
Mercer screwed up his face. ‘I always thought Nelson was off.’
Nightingale took out his phone and showed Mercer the photograph he’d taken at the school. Mercer nodded. ‘That’s him. He just wasn’t right, you know. They call it a copper’s sixth sense, but it’s more than that. I’d been a copper for ten years, three as a DC, and I could tell when someone wasn’t right. He was upset, but it was like he was pretending to be upset. It didn’t feel right. I knew at the time he was off but I was just a DC and my DS was ten years older than me and our Chief Super wore a funny apron and rolled up his trouser leg, so I just did as I was told.’ He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew smoke before continuing. ‘We signed it off as a suicide and I didn’t give it
much thought until a few years later. I was watching some TV show, one of those detective things, can’t remember which one. It was a locked room thing. Guy dead in a study, locked from the inside. He’d stabbed himself is what it looked like. Turned out it was the guy’s brother who’d done it. Stabbed him, put the knife in his hand and then left, locking the door as he went.’
‘From the outside?’
‘Sure. From the outside. But he comes back later with the guy’s wife and knocks on the door. The door’s locked, right? So he kicks down the door and they go into the room. As the wife rushes over to the body, the brother slips the key into the lock. So when the cops come, it looks as if the door had been locked from the inside. That’s when I remembered the Emily Campbell case. Nelson was first through the door, he could have put the key in the lock after he’d broken it down. But as I said, that was years later. The horse had bolted, right?’ He took a long drag on his cigarette, then leaned over, stubbed it out and buried it in the soil.
‘Any idea what happened to Nelson?’
Mercer shook his head. ‘It wasn’t a case to be followed up. What about you? Why are you so interested?’
‘I’ve a client who wants to know what happened.’
‘Family member?’
Nightingale nodded. ‘The dead girl’s sister. She just wants answers. Closure.’
‘Forty years is a long time.’
‘You’re telling me.’
The kitchen door opened. Nightingale followed Mercer’s example and buried what was left of his cigarette in the soil before Mrs Mercer came over with their tea.
* * *
Nightingale got back to the office with a couple of Starbuck coffees and two chocolate muffins. ‘Any joy?’ asked Jenny as he put a coffee and muffin down in front of her.
‘Thirty grand a year for a boarding school, does that sound right?’
‘Education isn’t cheap,’ said Jenny.
I Know Who Did It_A Jack Nightingale Short Story Page 2