Midnight jn-2

by Stephen Leather

  ‘What, exactly?’

  ‘Would you mind going back to Gosling Manor and getting stuck into the inventory? I really do need to know what books are there.’

  ‘Jack, it’s miles from anywhere.’

  ‘The way things are going, I’ll never get it done,’ he said.

  ‘You’re the one who decided to run off to Wales.’

  ‘Pretty please?’

  ‘Jack…’

  ‘Pretty please with sugar on top?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I want to be out in the depths of Surrey on my own,’ she said. ‘And you know how spooky that basement is.’

  ‘Gosling Manor is right out of Country Homes and Gardens,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘The house is lovely; it’s the basement that gives me the heebie-jeebies.’

  ‘What are you, twelve?’ laughed Nightingale.

  ‘And let’s not forget that your father blew his head off in the master bedroom,’ said Jenny.

  ‘So now you’re scared of ghosts?’

  ‘It’s not a question of being scared.’ She sighed. ‘Well, maybe it is. Maybe I could ask Barbara to come with me. Would that be okay?’

  ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?’

  ‘You might not want a stranger traipsing through your house, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s my house in name only,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’ve no personal attachment to it. And Barbara’s not a stranger. She’s your psychologist friend who I met last month, yes?’

  ‘Psychiatrist. That’s right.’

  ‘Sure, take her along. I’ll call you later.’

  After he ended the call he went downstairs. The redhead at reception was happy to supply him with a street map of the village and he took it through to the Front Door bar and ordered a Corona and a club sandwich. He took his beer over to a corner table and while he waited for his food he studied the map. Connie Miller’s house was a couple of hundred yards from the hotel and her parents lived on the edge of the village.

  A young barman with his blond hair tied back in a ponytail brought him his sandwich and Nightingale ate it slowly as he mulled over what he was going to do next. He knew he was taking a risk, a stupid risk at that, and there were a dozen reasons why he should just get into his MGB and drive back to London. But he also knew that he wouldn’t be able to rest until he was certain whether or not Connie Miller was his sister.

  14

  N ightingale took his hands out of his raincoat and lit a cigarette as he stared at Connie Miller’s house. From the outside there was no sign that someone had died there. It was like every other house in the road, though it was the only one in total darkness. It was just after eleven o’clock at night and the pavements were deserted. Abersoch wasn’t the sort of village where people stayed out late, especially in the middle of winter. A cold wind ruffled his hair and he turned up the collar of his raincoat. The forecast had been for temperatures just above freezing with the threat of snow to come.

  He smoked his cigarette as he walked past the house to the end of the street, and then dropped the butt down a drain. He took out a pair of black leather gloves and put them on. The only sound was from the occasional car in the distance. He walked back to the house, not too quickly, not too slowly, looking casually left and right to reassure himself that no one was watching, then opened the gate. He grimaced as the hinges squeaked, then closed it behind him and walked quietly down the paved path that led to the back of the semi-detached house.

  He reached the kitchen door and paused. The last time he’d been there the kitchen door was open but this time it was locked. He checked the kitchen window and that was also locked, and when he stood back and looked up he could see that the windows on the first floor were all securely closed. There were French windows leading into the sitting room. He pushed them with his gloved hands. There was some movement but they were locked. He put a hand up against the window and peered inside. There were no signs of any alarm sensors, and no alarm box on the outside of the house.

  Nightingale turned around and looked at the garden. At the far end, backing onto a neatly clipped head-high privet hedge, was a wooden garden shed with a pitched bitumen-coated felt roof. He walked down the garden, keeping close to the hedge on his left and watching the house next door. The shed door wasn’t locked but, like the front gate, it squeaked as he opened it. There was a petrol mower inside and a selection of old gardening tools, including a spade. He took the spade back to the house and used it to prise open the French windows. He slid back the door and stepped inside. The only sound was his breathing and he made a conscious effort to calm down. He put the spade on the floor and closed the French windows.

  He walked across the dining room and opened the door to the hallway. Although he had a small torch in his pocket he didn’t use it; he didn’t want to risk anyone outside seeing the beam and there was enough moonlight to see by. He stepped into the hallway.

  Apart from the stains on the carpet, there was no trace of Connie Miller or her suicide. The shoe that had been at the bottom of the stairs had gone, as had the washing line that she’d used to hang herself. He stood for a while staring up at where he’d first seen her, the body gently swaying in the air. He felt his heart start to race and took a deep breath to steady himself.

  He went into the sitting room. It was neat and tidy, with an Ikea futon and an Ikea coffee table and a small television on an Ikea cupboard. Tucked away in one corner was a computer on an Ikea desk. He sat down in front of the computer and switched it on. He took out his mobile. He smiled when he saw that he had a signal and he phoned Jenny. ‘I need your help,’ he said.

  ‘I’m in bed, Jack.’

  ‘Okay, but I still need your help,’ he said. ‘I’m sitting at Connie Miller’s computer. I want to copy her files and stuff — can you talk me through it?’

  Jenny groaned. ‘You really are computer illiterate, aren’t you?’

  ‘I have other skills,’ he said. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘What are you going to copy the files onto?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’

  ‘Do you have a thumb drive on you?’

  Nightingale laughed. ‘Yeah, it’s in my pocket next to my personal jet pack. Of course I don’t have a thumb drive.’

  ‘Okay, look around and see if you can find one. Or recordable DVDs.’

  ‘There’re some DVDs next to the keyboard.’

  ‘There you go, then.’

  Jenny spent the next fifteen minutes talking him through the process of transferring files from the computer to a DVD. When he had finished he went back into the hallway and slowly climbed the stairs, his gloved hand on the banister. At the top of the stairs were three doors. Nightingale guessed correctly that the room at the front of the house was the main bedroom. He opened it to find a double bed with a black teddy bear propped up against the pillows. On one wall was a framed picture of white horses racing through foaming surf. There were small tables either side of the bed. On one there was a lamp and a Garfield alarm clock, on the other a photograph of a couple in their fifties in a brass frame. Nightingale picked up the photograph. It was probably her parents, he figured. They looked like a nice couple, and the man had his arms protectively around his wife and a proud tilt to his chin as he looked into the camera. ‘Do you know why she did it?’ Nightingale whispered to the image. ‘Do you have any idea why she killed herself?’

  He put the photograph back on the bedside table and walked over to the dressing table. He caught sight of his reflection and grinned at himself. ‘Jack Nightingale, cat burglar,’ he said. ‘Where did it all go wrong?’

  There were two hairbrushes next to a line of perfume bottles. The larger of the two brushes had several hairs among the bristles. Nightingale took a Ziploc bag from the pocket of his raincoat, slipped the hairbrush into it and sealed it.

  He went into the bathroom. It was spotless, the towels neatly folded on a heated rack, hair treatment products in a neat line on a shelf, a tube of toothp
aste neatly squeezed at the end. There was an Oral B electric toothbrush slotted into a charger. Nightingale picked it up, pulled off the brush head and put it in a second Ziploc bag. He looked around for a replacement head and found one in a drawer. He slotted it into the handle and put the brush back into the charger. As he looked into the mirror above the washbasin he caught a glimpse of red letters written across the wall behind him. Nightingale froze, his mouth open in surprise. He stared at the letters, which glistened wetly. They were uneven and irregular as if they had been smeared carelessly across the tiles. His eyes widened as he stared at the single sentence. His mind scrambled to read the back-to-front words in the mirror:

  YOUR SISTER IS GOING TO HELL,JACK NIGHTINGALE.

  With his pulse pounding in his ears, he put a gloved hand out to the mirror, touching it gently as he stared at the reflection. He felt the blood drain from his head and for a moment he almost fainted, then he took a deep breath and turned around. The tiles were spotless. Nightingale blinked and shook his head but there was nothing on the wall. He rubbed his face and swallowed. His mouth had gone dry so he bent down and drank from the cold tap and then he went back downstairs, left the house through the French windows and slid them shut. He put the spade back in the shed and closed the door, then walked along the side of the house to the pavement. There was no one around as he walked through the gate and along the street, and he lit a cigarette as he headed back to the hotel.

  15

  N ightingale had breakfast in the hotel — egg, bacon, sausage, tomato, mushroom, white toast and coffee in the restaurant followed by three cigarettes sitting at a trestle table in the garden — before walking to the house where Connie Miller’s parents lived. It was a small brick cottage on the edge of the village, surrounded by tall conifers that swayed in the wind. The sky was grey and overcast and there were half a dozen seagulls hunched together on the roof.

  Nightingale walked up to the front door. There was no bell but in the middle of the door there was a weathered iron knocker in the shape of an owl’s head with a ring held in its mouth. He knocked and then stood back, looking up at the cottage. The curtains were drawn in the upstairs windows. He knocked again. He heard a dog bark and turned around to see an elderly woman wrapped up in a duffle coat walking a cocker spaniel on a lead. He smiled and nodded as she walked by. He looked at his watch. It was nine o’clock in the morning. There was no car parked in front of the house so it was possible the Millers had already left the house. He knocked again, then took his mobile phone from his raincoat. The phone signal was patchy around the hotel but now he had a full signal. He phoned 118–118. The operator soon had a number for the Millers and Nightingale asked her to put him through. He heard a ringing tone and a second later a faint ringing from inside the house. The call went unanswered and Nightingale cut the connection. He walked over to the garage at the side of the house. The door opened upwards and it wasn’t locked. Inside was a dark blue VW Passat.

  ‘Terrific,’ muttered Nightingale. He knew he should walk away. He should go back to the hotel, get into his MGB, and drive back to London. He could phone from London and ask any questions he had then, and if no one answered the phone — well, so be it. He had the toothbrush head and the brush with its hairs and that was all he needed to confirm whether or not Connie Miller was his sister. He closed the garage door.

  There was a wooden gate at the side of the garage. It opened silently on well-oiled hinges. Nightingale had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he walked down the path, his mind racing. The car in the garage suggested that there was someone at home but, if there was, why wasn’t the phone being answered and why did no one react to the knocking? ‘Because they’re dead’ was the thought echoing through his mind. ‘They’re dead and you’re going to find their bodies and the shit is going to hit the fan again.’

  Nightingale wanted a cigarette but he knew that it wasn’t the time for a smoke. The garden was a neat square of grass with a line of conifers marking a border with another cottage. There was a wooden bird table in one corner with a metal mesh container filled with peanuts. Two blue tits flew away as Nightingale walked over to the kitchen door. ‘If it’s locked I’m calling it quits,’ he whispered to himself. ‘I walk away and get the hell out of Dodge.’ He put a gloved hand on the knob and turned. The door opened and Nightingale’s heart began to pound.

  He stepped into the kitchen and carefully closed the door behind him. ‘Mr Miller? Mrs Miller? Hello? Is anybody there?’

  There was an electric kettle next to the sink and Nightingale touched it with the back of his gloved hand. Even through the leather he could feel that the kettle was hot. His mouth had gone so dry that it hurt when he swallowed. His heart was racing and he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He knew that he shouldn’t be in the house but he couldn’t walk away, not without knowing what, if anything, had happened to the Millers. He moved towards the hall, his Hush Puppies squeaking on the gleaming linoleum.

  The hallway was carpeted, a red hexagonal pattern on a blue background, more suited to a pub than a home, and over a small teak table there was a framed painting of the Virgin Mary, whose eyes seemed to follow him as he crept towards the front door. He looked up the stairs, half expecting to see a body hanging there, but there was nothing. There was a door to the left that was ajar. Nightingale pushed it open. ‘Mr Miller? Mrs Miller?’

  A fire was burning in the grate, which was flanked by two winged armchairs. There was a woman slumped in the armchair on the left. All he could see was the top of her head, light brown hair streaked with grey, and an arm resting on the side of the chair.

  ‘Mrs Miller?’ he said. There was no response.

  A ginger and white cat was curled up on the sofa by the window and it lifted its head and stared at Nightingale with impassive green eyes. Nightingale wasn’t a cat person. He preferred dogs. A dog couldn’t hide its true feelings. If it was happy its tail wagged and its eyes sparkled. If it was scared its ears went back and its tail went between its legs. Cats didn’t show emotion, though; they just stared and kept their own counsel. Dogs were loyal, too, but cats cared only about their own comfort. When he was still a constable walking a beat Nightingale had been called to a house where an old lady hadn’t been seen for more than two weeks. He’d had to break in and he’d found the old woman sprawled across the rug in front of her television. What was left of her. The woman had four cats and they had done what was necessary to survive. They’d started with the soft tissue — her face and thighs — and there wasn’t much that was recognisably human by the time Nightingale got there. He’d never forgotten the way the cats had rubbed themselves up against his legs as he’d stared down at the body, mewing and arching their backs. Dogs never ate their owners, no matter how hungry they were. They sat and waited for help or barked to get attention, but that was all.

  The cat mewed softly and its tail twitched, then it settled its head on its paws and continued to stare at Nightingale. As he walked towards the fireplace he saw that the woman was wearing purple slippers and one of them had slid off. There was a cup of tea, untouched, on a table at the side of the chair. If she was dead, there didn’t appear to have been a struggle.

  Nightingale reached out and gently touched the woman’s shoulder. That was when she turned to stare up at him in terror and screamed as if she had just been stabbed in the chest.

  16

  M rs Miller put the cup and saucer on the table at the side of the sofa. ‘Milk and no sugar,’ she said. She put a plate of chocolate biscuits next to the cup of tea. ‘From Marks and Spencer,’ she said. ‘They do wonderful biscuits.’ She sat down in the armchair and smiled at him. ‘You must have been so shocked when I screamed.’

  Nightingale nodded. ‘I thought you were…’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what I thought.’

  Mrs Miller held up her iPod with its in-ear headphones. ‘I always listen to music on this,’ she said. ‘I’m a little bit deaf and I can turn the volume up without annoying
the neighbours. They’re a marvellous invention.’

  ‘So I hear,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Do you know how many records I have on this?’

  Nightingale grinned. ‘A lot?’

  ‘I’ll say. More than fifty. Fifty albums, and look, it’s not much bigger than a box of matches, is it?’

  ‘It’s tiny,’ agreed Nightingale.

  ‘So I didn’t hear you knock and I didn’t hear the phone, and when you touched me…’

  ‘I am so sorry about that,’ said Nightingale. ‘But when you didn’t answer the door and I saw that the kitchen door wasn’t locked, I thought that maybe something had happened to you. I’m just glad that you’re okay.’

  ‘And you’re a journalist, you said?’

  ‘Freelance,’ said Nightingale. He didn’t like lying to Mrs Miller but he knew that people were happier talking to reporters than to private investigators. ‘I just wanted some background on Connie. For her obituary. What sort of person she was, what sort of life she had, just so that people can appreciate her more. Sometimes a cold news story gives the wrong impression, you know?’

  ‘I still can’t believe what happened,’ said Mrs Miller. ‘I just…’ She shook her head. ‘You never expect…’ She wiped a tear from her eye with the back of her hand, then reached for a box of tissues and used one to dab at her face.

  ‘I am so sorry about your loss,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘The doctor gave me some tablets and I keep listening to my music but nothing helps, not really.’ She showed him the iPod again. ‘Connie gave me this. And put all my records on it. She was always so good with computers.’ She dabbed at her eyes. ‘Still, I must be strong, right? That’s what my husband says.’