Midnight

  The study door opened and Nightingale turned around. ‘About time,’ he said, but it wasn’t Jenny standing in the doorway, it was Fairchild.

  ‘Don’t even think about lighting up in here, or Melissa will have your guts for garters,’ said the lawyer affably. He walked behind Nightingale and opened the French windows. On a stone terrace were four teak planter chairs facing the garden. Hidden spotlights illuminated a dozen or more trees and a large white octagonal gazebo. Fairchild sat down in one of the chairs and took out a leather cigar case. He offered it to Nightingale. ‘They’re Cuban. Rolled on the thigh of a dusky virgin,’ he said. He scratched at his right ear. There were tufts of grey hair sprouting from it, Nightingale noticed.

  ‘Female, I hope,’ said Nightingale, sitting down on one of the other chairs. He held up his packet of Marlboro. ‘I’ll stick with my fags.’

  ‘Ah, you’re a cowboy at heart,’ said Fairchild. He chuckled and used a silver cigar cutter to neatly clip off the end of his cigar. ‘I’m just glad there’s at least one other smoker,’ he said, lighting his cigar with a match. ‘Shame on James for banishing us from the house. Especially when he’s fond of the odd cigar himself.’ He grinned. ‘Mind you, gives a chance for the men to talk, of course.’

  Nightingale lit his cigarette and tried blowing a smoke ring, but the wind whipped it away. ‘I don’t mind being sent outside in the summer, but in the winter you could catch your death,’ he said.

  ‘You know, I prefer to smoke outside in the cold,’ said Fairchild. ‘I don’t know about cigarettes but cigars never taste as good in the warm.’

  The two men sat in silence for a couple of minutes, enjoying their respective smokes.

  ‘Your sister is going to Hell, Jack Nightingale,’ said Fairchild quietly.

  Nightingale turned to look at him. Fairchild was holding his cigar at chin level and was watching Nightingale with amused eyes.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said your sister is going to Hell. That’s what everyone has been telling you, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’ said Nightingale, stunned.

  ‘What’s wrong, Jack? You going deaf?’ Fairchild laughed and took a slight drag on his cigar. He didn’t inhale, just held the smoke in his mouth and then let it ease through his lips. ‘Jenny said you’d been getting messages about your sister. Robyn Reynolds.’

  Nightingale shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. ‘Why did she tell you that?’ he asked.

  ‘Was it a secret?’ Fairchild shrugged. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t, not considering my involvement in the case.’

  ‘You’ve got me totally confused,’ said Nightingale. ‘What do you know about Robyn?’

  ‘I represented her in court,’ said Fairchild. ‘Didn’t Jenny tell you?’

  ‘I think it must have slipped her mind,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘She was asking me about famous cases I’d worked on over the years and I mentioned Reynolds. Could have knocked me down with a feather when she said you were related.’

  ‘Half-related,’ said Nightingale. ‘She’s my half-sister. Same father, different mother. Up until a few weeks ago I didn’t even know I had a sister.’

  ‘I was her barrister,’ said Fairchild. ‘She was on Legal Aid but I did it pro bono. Didn’t feel that she was getting a decent show.’

  ‘I thought you specialised in human-rights cases?’

  ‘I’m a jack of all trades,’ said Fairchild. ‘Hired gun; have brief will travel. And there’s nothing like the thrill of a good criminal case, no matter which side you’re on.’

  ‘She pleaded guilty, right?’

  ‘Yes, but there’s guilty and there’s guilty. Just because you plead guilty doesn’t mean you don’t need decent representation.’ He sucked on his cigar. ‘The stuff about her going to Hell. What’s that about?’ he said quietly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nightingale. ‘She’s been on my mind a lot lately and when it’s happened I’ve only half heard it. How did that come up in conversation with Jenny?’

  ‘I think I mentioned that the tabloids at the time were saying that she should burn in Hell and Jenny said someone had said that to you.’

  Nightingale shrugged and tried to look unconcerned. ‘Like I said, I was probably imagining it.’

  ‘I thought perhaps members of the public were making their views known,’ said the lawyer. He blew a cloud of smoke over the garden. ‘There was a lot of ill-feeling at the time, if you recall. A lot of people would have hanged her, given the chance.’

  ‘You were convinced that she was guilty?’

  ‘No question of it,’ said Fairchild. ‘Open and shut. But there were suggestions that her father abused her.’

  ‘Did that come out in court?’

  The lawyer shook his head. ‘She wouldn’t let me. I have to say, I wish I’d known then that she had been adopted. It would have been useful.’

  ‘We were both adopted at birth,’ said Nightingale. ‘I don’t think that alone would have turned her into a killer.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Fairchild. He smiled at Nightingale. ‘Besides, you turned out all right.’

  They heard footsteps behind them and turned to see Jenny standing by the French windows. ‘Pudding is served,’ she said. ‘Mummy requires your presence in the dining room.’

  Fairchild groaned as he pushed himself up out of the planter chair. ‘Banoffee pie?’ he said. He stubbed out his cigar in an ashtray.

  Jenny laughed. ‘Absolutely.’

  Fairchild patted his stomach. ‘Your cook will be the death of me,’ he said. ‘I always leave here weighing a good ten pounds more than when I arrived.’

  Jenny linked arms with him. ‘Come on, Jack,’ she said.

  Banoffee pie was the last thing Nightingale wanted just then. What he wanted more than anything was to ask Jenny why she was so close to Marcus Fairchild and to ask Marcus Fairchild whether he really did belong to a sect that promoted human sacrifice. He couldn’t ask either question, of course, so he just smiled, extinguished his cigarette, and followed them back to the dining room.

  64

  Nightingale didn’t get a chance to talk to Jenny on her own until late at night, when everyone was heading for bed, except for Jenny’s father and Fairchild, who had gone out onto the terrace for a last cigar. She took him upstairs to show him his bedroom.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Fairchild?’ he asked her as they walked down a corridor that seemed to stretch to infinity.

  She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He represented my sister in court. How could you not tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t know until this evening,’ said Jenny. ‘You got whisked into dinner as soon as you arrived and I didn’t want to say anything in front of anybody.’

  ‘And you told him about the messages? About my sister going to Hell?’

  ‘I didn’t tell him about Alfie Tyler or Connie Miller, obviously.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Jack, what’s wrong?’

  Nightingale fought the urge to snap at her. He took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I don’t think you should have said anything.’

  ‘He was her lawyer. He knows her. He might be able to help. That’s what I thought. It came up in conversation, before you arrived. I wanted to tell you but we went straight into dinner and then after dinner you went outside with him for a smoke.’

  ‘I get that, but why would you tell him that people were telling me that she was going to Hell? Why’s that of any concern to him?’

  ‘He said that Robyn was disturbed a lot of the time. Unbalanced. He was asking about you, how you had reacted when you found out that she was your sister.’ She stopped in front of one of the doors. ‘This is yours,’ she said. ‘It’s the green room. Very restful.’

  ‘Yeah, I need restful,’ said Nightingale. ‘You told him that I’d been hearing voices, didn’t you?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ said Jenny.
She put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Jack, I’m on your side, you know that. Marcus was chatting away and he got me talking. That’s what he does, right? He’s a barrister. He gets people to open up, to reveal themselves.’ She took her hand away and folded her arms. ‘I’m not explaining this very well, am I?’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ he said. ‘That was personal, Jenny. And he’s a stranger.’

  ‘He’s an old friend of Daddy’s,’ she said. ‘I’ve known him for years. He’s not a stranger. Of course I wouldn’t have said anything to a stranger. But he’s Uncle Marcus. I’ve called him uncle for as long as I can remember.’

  ‘Did you tell him about the Ouija board?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You say “of course not”, but I don’t understand why you said anything about my sister in the first place.’

  ‘Why is that so important, Jack? What’s the problem?’

  Nightingale opened the bedroom door and motioned for Jenny to follow him inside. She was right – it was restful, with pale green walls, a dark green carpet, and a large mahogany four-poster bed with fern-patterned linen. A fire was burning in a slate fireplace and there was a chocolate mint and a small posy of flowers on one of the pillows. Nightingale closed the door. ‘There’s something I didn’t tell you,’ he said. ‘Something that Wainwright told me when I went to see him at Biggin Hill. About Fairchild.’ Nightingale wiped his face with his hand and it came away wet with sweat. ‘He’s a Satanist. A devil-worshipper.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘I’m not making this up, Jenny. He’s a member of the Order of Nine Angles. And they believe in human sacrifice.’

  ‘Jack, why are you saying this? It can’t possibly be true.’

  ‘That’s what Wainwright told me.’

  ‘Then he’s lying.’

  ‘Why would he lie about something like that?’

  ‘People lie, Jack. You were a policeman so you know that people rarely tell the truth.’

  ‘I asked Wainwright for the name of someone in the Order of Nine Angles because that was the group that Gosling belonged to. He gave me Fairchild’s name.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

  ‘Why should I? I didn’t know that he was a friend of your father’s. Or that he’d acted for my sister.’ He took out his cigarettes. ‘This is a mess.’ He put a cigarette between his lips.

  ‘Not in the house, Jack,’ said Jenny, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Mummy will freak out.’

  ‘How will she know?’ He pointed at the fireplace. ‘There’s a fire in the room.’

  ‘She can smell tobacco smoke a mile away, Jack. Please.’

  ‘What if I open a window?’

  Jenny sighed. ‘Okay, but make sure all the smoke goes out.’

  Nightingale went over to the window and opened it. In the distance were two tennis courts, one grass and the other with an orange synthetic surface. Both had a light dusting of frost.

  Nightingale shivered and lit the cigarette. ‘What’s Mummy got against smokers anyway?’ he asked. He took a long drag and then leaned out of the window and blew smoke.

  ‘She used to be one,’ said Jenny. ‘She gave up about six years ago.’

  ‘The zeal of the convert,’ said Nightingale. ‘They’re the worst.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jenny.

  ‘About Mummy?’

  Jenny forced a smile. ‘About talking to Fairchild. I can’t explain why I told him as much as I did.’

  ‘Maybe he hypnotised you,’ said Nightingale, only half joking.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Jenny. ‘He does have a way of looking right at you when he talks to you.’

  ‘Who mentioned my sister first?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Jenny nodded. ‘I haven’t seen him for a couple of years and I was asking him about his cases. He mentioned he’d represented a serial killer. Then he said it was Robyn Reynolds. That’s when I said that you were her brother.’

  Nightingale blew smoke through the window. ‘This is just plain weird,’ he said.

  ‘As opposed to everything else that’s happened over the past four weeks?’

  ‘Something’s going on, Jenny. This can’t be a coincidence. Wainwright gives me Fairchild’s name. Then I come to your parents’ house and here he is, large as life and twice as whatever. Then it turns out he represented my sister the serial killer.’ He rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘This is giving me a headache.’

  ‘It could just be that, a coincidence.’ Nightingale could hear the uncertainty in her voice.

  ‘Which bit? Fairchild being on my sister’s legal team? Or him being a Satanist like my dear-departed father?’ He took a long pull on his cigarette, then blew smoke out through the open window. ‘I don’t get what’s happening here. I really don’t.’

  ‘I’ve known him for years, Jack. He’s not a bad person.’

  ‘Not according to Joshua Wainwright. He says that Fairchild belongs to the Order of Nine Angles. Have you any idea what they do?’ Jenny shook her head. ‘They kill people,’ he said quietly. ‘Now do you see? How can that be a coincidence? Marcus Fairchild is in a cult that kills people and he helps my sister plead guilty to the murder of five children.’ Nightingale stubbed out his cigarette on the window ledge, then closed the window. ‘Why’s he here, Jenny?’

  ‘He’s one of Daddy’s oldest friends.’

  Nightingale took the cigarette butt through to the en-suite bathroom and flushed it away. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to think,’ he said. He looked at his watch. It was just after midnight. ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow. Cold light of day and all that.’

  ‘You know we’re all going shooting after breakfast? Shooting on Christmas Day is a family tradition.’

  ‘So I gathered.’

  ‘It’ll be fun.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Nightingale.

  65

  When Nightingale went down to breakfast on Christmas morning, Jenny and her father were already in the dining room, with Marc and Sally Allen and Wendy Bushell. Everyone was casually dressed. Jenny’s father was wearing a red sweater with green Christmas trees across the front. Food was laid out in silver serving dishes – scrambled and fried eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, tomatoes, grilled kippers and kedgeree – along with fresh fruit and a selection of cereals.

  ‘Help yourself, Jack,’ said Jenny. ‘They’ll get you toast from the kitchen if you want it.’

  Jack was carrying three wrapped presents. He handed one to Jenny. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said.

  ‘Jack, you didn’t have to get me anything,’ she said. ‘You really shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Wait until you’ve opened it,’ he said. ‘I’m terrible at gifts.’ He handed a wrapped box to McLean. ‘I think I’m on safer ground with this one,’ he said. ‘And this one’s for Melissa.’ He put the present on the table.

  ‘Really, Jack, you didn’t have to.’ McLean pulled off the wrapping and beamed when he saw the Laphroaig box. ‘Good choice, Jack,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

  A uniformed maid appeared and asked if Nightingale wanted tea or coffee. He asked for coffee and then filled his plate. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy adopting me,’ Nightingale said to McLean. ‘I am an orphan, you know.’

  Jenny finished unwrapping her present and held up a Louis Vuitton shoulder bag. ‘Thank you, Jack. It’s lovely.’

  ‘I’ve kept the receipt if you want to change it.’

  ‘It’s perfect, thank you.’ The maid appeared with a pot of coffee and two toast racks, one full of white toast and the other wholemeal. She placed the toast on the table and poured coffee for Nightingale.

  McLean looked over at Nightingale as he buttered a slice of toast. ‘Jenny tells me you’re a decent shot, Jack,’ he said.

  Nightingale raised an eyebrow at Jenny. ‘She did, did she?’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘I’m afraid shotguns aren’t my thing. I’m happier with an MP5 and a Glock
.’

  ‘I’m not sure how sporting it would be to shoot pheasants with an MP5,’ said Allen.

  ‘You know, the birds would have more of a chance against a carbine,’ said Nightingale. ‘A nine-millimetre bullet is relatively small, but the spread from a shotgun at fifty feet would be – what, six feet? Eight?’

  ‘It’s not as bad as that,’ said McLean. ‘The general rule of thumb is that shot spreads about an inch for every yard it travels. So if you were shooting at a bird fifty feet away the spread would be about one and a half feet. I have to say, that would be pushing it, Jack. I wouldn’t want to be shooting at a bird more than thirty feet away.’

  ‘I would guess Jack is more used to sawn-off shotguns than Purdeys,’ said Marcus Fairchild. Nightingale looked up in surprise. He hadn’t heard the lawyer come into room. Fairchild bent down over the server containing kippers and smelled them appreciatively. He was wearing a dark blue pullover, baggy blue jeans and Timberland boots and looked more like a building site labourer than a City lawyer. ‘The spread of a sawn-off is about one inch per foot travelled,’ he said.

  ‘Come on, Marcus,’ said Sally Allen. ‘How would you know something like that?’

  Fairchild picked up a plate and used silver tongs to take two kippers. ‘It was a case at the Old Bailey a few years back,’ he said. ‘I was defending an armed robber who’d been charged with attempted murder. He was twenty-five feet away from the woman when he pulled the trigger.’

  ‘He shot a woman?’ said Allen. ‘He shot a woman at point-blank range and you defended him?’

  Fairchild waved a languid hand in the air. ‘First, anyone is entitled to the best defence they can get.’ He smiled. ‘Or at least, the best defence they can afford. And this chap had a lot of money hidden away. And second, the point we made was that twenty-five feet isn’t point-blank range. Far from it. The shot would have spread out over more than two feet and almost certainly wouldn’t have been fatal. My client was something of an expert with a sawn-off so we argued that there was no intention to kill.’