I Know Who Did It_A Jack Nightingale Short Story

by Stephen Leather

  There were flashes of light above his head, like lightning strikes. He ignored them and kept his eyes on the book. It was getting harder to see, his eyes were tearing and the smoke was getting thicker by the minute.

  He reached the end of the incantation and closed the book. He peered through the smoke. There was no sign of any demon. He frowned, wondering if he had missed something out. Then there was a loud boom that hit him in the chest like a punch and he staggered back. There was a second boom, even louder than the first and then something appeared in front of him. It had no real form, it was greyish-green and constantly shifting. Nightingale saw a glimpse of what might have been a claw and then a wing but they were there only for a few seconds.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked a surprisingly soft, almost feminine, voice.

  ‘My name is Jack Nightingale and I have summoned you to offer my respects and to respectfully request you bestow on me the gift of everlasting life. Are you Paimonia?’

  ‘You summoned me, so you should know.’

  ‘Then can you grant me my wish?’

  ‘That can be done,’ said Paimonia. ‘But there is a price that has to be paid.’

  ‘My soul?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But the gift of immortality does not come so cheaply. You were baptised?’

  ‘Why do you need to know that?’

  ‘Because a baptised soul has more value.’

  Nightingale shook his head. ‘No. Not baptised.’

  ‘Are you Jewish? Or a Muslim?’

  Nightingale shook his head. ‘I’m a Christian.’

  ‘I shall require a sacrifice.’

  ‘I will do whatever you ask,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘A girl.’

  ‘You want me to kill a girl?’

  ‘No, merely to provide the sacrifice. I will do the rest. All you need to do is to bring her to me.’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘And then I get to live for ever?’

  ‘For ever and ever. For as long as you want, anyway.’

  ‘And you take my soul?’

  ‘Only if you die.’

  ‘Let’s do it, then,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘It’s not as straightforward as that,’ said Paimonia. ‘I will require more sacrifices, in the future.’

  Nightingale frowned. ‘What? So we don’t have a deal?’

  ‘We have a deal, my friend, you give me your soul and I grant you eternal life. But I require a sacrifice first and then sacrifices at regular intervals. Every five years.’

  ‘So I have to provide you with a sacrifice every five years? And if I do, I live forever?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I don’t get any older?’

  ‘Not a day.’

  Nightingale nodded thoughtfully. ‘What about every ten years?’

  ‘Ten years?’

  ‘How about I get a sacrifice for you every ten years?’

  ‘You want to negotiate with me?’

  ‘It’s a deal, right? So let’s deal. I’ll get you a sacrifice every ten years.’

  ‘Ten is not acceptable.’

  ‘What is acceptable?’

  ‘I told you. Every five years.’

  ‘Nine.’

  Paimonia sighed. ‘Seven. And that is my final offer.’

  ‘When? When do you want the sacrifice?’

  The door opened and Jenny McNeil stood there, a look of surprise on her face. She was wearing a leather flight jacket with a sheepskin collar and blue jeans. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. ‘What the hell are you doing, Jack?’ she said.

  ‘Jenny, what are you doing here?’

  ‘You’ve summoned Paimonia? You did it?’

  Paimonia roared and the floorboards shuddered. ‘She is perfect,’ he said. The grey-green shape began to harden. It became darker, and smaller.

  ‘No!’ shouted Nightingale. ‘Not her.’

  Paimonia laughed again. There were wings now, grey and leathery, and a reptilian jaw, lined with teeth. Eyes opened, a fiery red, that glared at Jenny. ‘She is the price,’ said Paimonia. ‘She is the sacrifice.’ There were legs now, covered in scales with large hooked talons. And a tail, with a vicious barb at the end.

  Jenny turned to run from the room but the door slammed shut. She whirled around, her eyes wide in terror. ‘Jack, what’s going on?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Your phone’s not working. I thought you might be in trouble.’

  Paimonia laughed and the walls and floor vibrated. ‘You’re the one in trouble, my dear,’ he said. ‘But if it’s any consolation, you’ll be helping Mr Nightingale to get his heart’s desire. Eternal life.’

  ‘Jack, what’s happening? Tell me?’ She was stood with her back against the door, her arms outstretched.

  The creature was fully formed now and it moved towards Jenny, its claws reaching for her.

  ‘Jack!’ she screamed.

  ‘He can’t help you,’ said Paimonia. ‘He can’t and he won’t.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on that,’ she said. She reached inside her jacket and took out a small canister of mace. She pointed it at the demon’s head and pressed the trigger. A tight stream of mace sprayed over its eyes and mouth and it roared in anger. Jenny took a step forward, continuing to spray the burning liquid at the eyes.

  Nightingale bent down and pulled the Smith and Wesson revolver from the box. He brought the gun up, supporting his right hand with his left and fired twice at the back of Paimonia’s head. Both bullets hit their target, the first shot blowing off a chink of green skin and bone, the second burying itself in the skull. The creature roared in defiance and turned. Nightingale waited until it was facing him before firing again. Two quick shots to the throat then as the creature staggered to the side he fired into its eye at point-blank range. Green blood spurted from the wound and it began to stagger. Then there was a loud bang and space seemed to fold in on itself and the creature disappeared.

  Nightingale stood with the gun in both hands, breathing heavily. Jenny was leaning against the door, still holding the can of mace.

  ‘That worked out well,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Do you think?’ asked Jenny, her voice loaded with sarcasm

  ‘It could have gone worse. I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure that bullets would kill it.’ He put the gun back in the cardboard box.

  Jenny’s jaw dropped. ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’

  Nightingale grinned. ‘I was joking.’

  She tilted her head on one side. ‘Really?’

  ‘Mrs Steadman said he took on physical form at the moment of sacrifice, so assuming that was the case, bullets should have worked.’

  ‘And if they hadn’t?’

  Nightingale looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t have a fallback position.’

  ‘Good to know, Jack. Good to know.’ She glared at him, put the can of mace in her pocket and then turned on her heel and walked away.

  ‘You’re going to run me back to London, aren’t you?’ he shouted after her.

  He heard the click of her heels as she headed downstairs, the front door open and slam shut, followed a few seconds later by her Audi starting up. ‘I guess not,’ said Nightingale. He took out his cigarettes and lit one as he walked over to the window, just in time to see Jenny drive off in her Audi.

  * * *

  Nightingale was walking back to his flat when his phone rang. It was Robbie Hoyle. ‘What have you been up to?’ asked the detective.

  ‘This and that,’ said Nightingale. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Seen anything of that guy you wanted information on? Charles Nelson? Or that guy who looks like him? Richard Hall?’

  ‘Nah, I let it drop,’ said Nightingale. ‘It couldn’t have been him, obviously. No one stays the same for forty years, right?’ Nightingale didn’t like lying to his friend, but on this occasion he didn’t have a choice. There was no way he could explain that Charles Nelson had sold his soul to a demon from Hell in exchange for immorta
lity, and no way that Hoyle would ever believe him.

  ‘So you just let it drop?’

  ‘It was a dead end.’

  ‘Because Richard Hall is dead.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘You know what dead means, Jack. Deceased. No longer with us. You sure you didn’t go to see him?’

  ‘What’s happened, Robbie? Why not just cut to the chase?’

  ‘Okay. Richard Hall was found dead in his house today. His cleaner turned up and found him in his bed.’

  ‘People die in their beds all the time.’

  ‘Not like this, Jack. The doctor who came in to examine the body says Mr Hall shows all the signs of having been dead for forty years.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How is that not clear, Jack? The body was mummified, pretty much. Dental records proved who it was but even so… forty years. How does that happen, Jack? His driving licence was issued four years ago. And his cleaner said he was alive and well two days ago when she was last in the house.’

  ‘It’s a mystery, no question.’

  ‘So why do I get the feeling that you’re not telling me everything?’

  ‘I’m off the case,’ said Nightingale. ‘I couldn’t find Charles Nelson so I just assumed he’d died or left the country. I’m trying to find other people who worked at the school but I’m not having any joy. Forty years is a long time, like you said. So is it a murder enquiry?’

  ‘According to the doctor, Hall died of natural causes. Forty years ago. I can’t see my bosses being happy if I start a murder investigation on the basis of that. So no, it goes down as death by natural causes. There don’t seem to be any relatives to cause a fuss so I guess Mr Hall’s secret will be buried with him.’

  Hoyle ended the call, clearly less than satisfied with the answers that Nightingale had given him. Nightingale waited until he’d got back home and drunk two bottles of Corona and smoked three cigarettes before phoning Mary Campbell. He took a deep breath and began talking. ‘I know who did it,’ he said. ‘And I’m happy enough to tell you who did it. But I warn you now, you’re not going to believe it.’

  ‘I just want to know what happened, Mr Nightingale.’

  ‘Then I think you’d better sit down,’ he said, reaching for his cigarettes.

  ###

  Jack Nightingale appears in the full-length novels Nightfall, Midnight, Nightmare, Nightshade, Lastnight and San Francisco Night and in the short stories Still Bleeding, Tracks, My Name Is Lydia and Cursed.