Nightmare

by Stephen Leather

  ‘This is ridiculous. Didn’t you hear what the doctor said?’

  ‘Just do it, Nightingale. Unless you’ve got something to hide.’

  Nightingale stared at the superintendent with contempt, then turned back to the bed. He bent down over Robinson, close enough to see a rash of small spots across his cheeks and the tufts of hair protruding from his nostrils. ‘I’m Jack Nightingale,’ he whispered.

  ‘Louder,’ said Chalmers.

  Nightingale sighed. ‘This is Jack Nightingale. I’m here.’

  Robinson took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Nightingale’s stomach lurched at the fetid stench and he backed away.

  ‘This is a waste of time,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’ve never seen him before and I certainly had nothing to do with shooting him.’

  ‘Jack?’ murmured Robinson. ‘Are you there?’

  Chalmers waved for Nightingale to get closer to the bed. ‘I’m here,’ said Nightingale. He frowned. He was sure he didn’t know Robinson, and equally sure that Robinson didn’t know him.

  ‘Why won’t you help me, Jack?’ His voice was a hoarse whisper, barely audible.

  Nightingale moved closer. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t like it here. I want to go home.’ Robinson took a long, deep breath and then slowly exhaled.

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Chalmers.

  Nightingale didn’t bother to reply. ‘Where are you?’ he asked the man in the bed.

  Robinson took another long breath. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. His voice was a faint rattle and his lips were barely moving. ‘I’m scared.’

  Nightingale shivered.

  ‘Please help me, Jack. Don’t leave me here.’

  Chalmers pushed Nightingale to the side. ‘Mr Robinson, can you confirm that it was Mr Nightingale who shot you?’

  Robinson’s chest rose and fell slowly.

  ‘That’s not him talking,’ said Nightingale quietly.

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Chalmers. ‘What do you think, that someone’s playing ventriloquist?’

  Nightingale held Robinson’s left hand. It was warm and dry. ‘Sophie, is that you?’ he said.

  ‘Who the hell’s Sophie?’ said Chalmers.

  Nightingale ignored Chalmers. He gently squeezed Robinson’s hand. ‘It’s me, Sophie. Jack.’

  ‘Jack?’ said Robinson, his voice a dry rasp.

  ‘I’m here, Sophie.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ said Robinson. ‘Please help me, Jack.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do, Sophie. I don’t know how to help you.’

  Robinson’s chest stopped moving. Nightingale looked over at the vital signs monitor. Nothing had changed.

  ‘Sophie?’

  Nightingale flinched as Chalmers grabbed his shoulder. ‘What are you playing at, Nightingale?’

  Nightingale shook the superintendent’s hand away. ‘Sophie?’

  Robinson was lying perfectly still.

  Chalmers gestured with his chin at the policeman at the end of the bed. ‘Get the doc back here now,’ he said. The cop hurried out of the room. ‘All right, Nightingale, that’s enough of that. Get away from him.’

  Nightingale let go of Robinson’s hand. Just as his fingers fell onto the mattress, Robinson sat bolt upright. He opened his uncovered eye wide and then screamed. Chalmers took a step backwards and tripped over a power cord, his arms flailing as he tried to regain his balance. He stumbled against a chair and fell to the floor, cursing.

  Nightingale didn’t flinch. He looked straight at Robinson, who continued to scream at the top of his voice as he stared ahead. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the scream stopped and Robinson fell back on the bed. The monitors started buzzing and an alarm sounded in the corridor. The doctor burst into the ICU followed by two nurses. ‘Get out of here now,’ he shouted at Chalmers. ‘Where the hell’s the crash trolley?’

  3

  Nightingale stretched out his legs and groaned. He was sitting in an interview room in Charing Cross Police Station. There were fluorescent lights set behind protective glass in the ceiling and high up in one wall there was a window made of glass blocks. Around the middle of the wall at waist height ran a metal alarm strip which, if pressed, would summon assistance within seconds. ‘Any chance of a coffee?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘About as much chance as there is of hell freezing over,’ said Superintendent Chalmers. He looked across at his colleague, who was unwrapping two brand-new cassette tapes. ‘Sometime today, Inspector Evans,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry, sir, the wrapping’s a pain to get off.’

  Nightingale had worked with Dan Evans a few times when he’d been with CO19, the Met’s firearms unit. In the two years that Nightingale had been out of the job, Evans had put on several pounds and his hair was now streaked with grey. He was in his late thirties but he looked a good ten years older.

  Evans managed to get the plastic wrapping off the cassettes and slotted them into the recorder, which was on a metal shelf fixed to the wall above the table. Chalmers nodded at him and Evans pressed ‘record’. Chalmers looked up at the clock on the wall by the door and checked his wristwatch. ‘It is now seven forty-five on Tuesday January the fourth. I am Superintendent Ronald Chalmers, interviewing Jack Nightingale.’ He looked at Nightingale, expectantly. Nightingale smiled but didn’t say anything. Chalmers glared at him. ‘Come on, you know the procedure by now,’ he said. ‘Say your name for the tape.’

  ‘I think I’ll exercise my right to silence,’ said Nightingale. ‘Other than to point out that as yet I haven’t been read my rights.’

  ‘You haven’t been read your rights because you haven’t been charged yet,’ said Chalmers. ‘Now give your name for the tape.’

  ‘Say please.’

  ‘You’re trying my patience,’ said Chalmers, leaning across the table towards Nightingale.

  ‘I’ve not been charged, I’m not under arrest, so I can walk out of here whenever I want,’ said Nightingale. ‘So if you want me to stay, you’re going to have to get me a coffee and if you want me to say my name for the recording then you’re going to have to ask me nicely.’

  Chalmers nodded at Evans and the inspector switched off the recorder. ‘Do you mind?’ Chalmers asked Evans.

  The inspector stood up.

  ‘Milk, no sugar,’ said Nightingale. ‘And I need a cigarette.’

  ‘You can’t smoke in here,’ said Chalmers.

  Nightingale smiled sarcastically. ‘You dragged me out of my flat before I had time to pick up my smokes,’ he said. ‘I need a pack of Marlboro and a lighter.’

  ‘We’re not buying you cigarettes, Nightingale.’

  Nightingale shrugged. ‘Then I’m out of here.’ He started to stand up but Chalmers waved him back down.

  ‘Okay, we’ll get you cigarettes.’

  ‘And a bacon sandwich,’ said Nightingale. ‘PACE says you have to keep me well fed.’

  ‘The Police and Criminal Evidence Act says nothing about bacon sandwiches. We’ll see what’s going in the canteen.’ He looked over at Evans. ‘Three coffees, and a pack of cigarettes for Mr Nightingale. And a sandwich – bacon, if it’s available.’

  ‘Marlboro,’ said Nightingale brightly. ‘The red pack.’

  ‘I’ll have to go out for them,’ Evans said to the superintendent.

  Chalmers waved his hand dismissively. ‘Just get them,’ he said. Evans flashed the superintendent a tight smile as he let himself out.

  Nightingale folded his arms and settled back in his chair. ‘Fancy a game of charades while we wait?’ he asked.

  ‘You think this is a game, do you?’

  ‘I think you’re wasting your time and mine,’ said Nightingale.

  The superintendent stood up and pointed a finger at Nightingale. ‘We’ll see who has the last laugh,’ he said.

  Nightingale yawned and stretched.

  ‘I’ll tell you something you don’t know, Nightingale. Just after we left the hospital Dwayne Robinson died. This is now
a murder enquiry.’ He grinned when he saw Nightingale’s reaction. ‘I thought that would wipe the smile off your face.’

  4

  Nightingale finished his bacon roll, took a sip of coffee and smiled at Chalmers. ‘Right, ready when you are,’ he said.

  Chalmers scowled at him. ‘If you piss me around one more time I’ll have you charged and processed and make sure that all your clothes are taken away for forensic analysis,’ he said. ‘You can sit in a cell for twenty-four hours in a paper suit and you can whistle for your cigarettes.’

  Nightingale stared stonily at the superintendent but said nothing.

  Chalmers nodded at Evans and the inspector pressed ‘record’. ‘It is now eight fifty-two on Tuesday January the fourth and I am Superintendent Ronald Chalmers. The tape has been switched off while we fetched Mr Nightingale food and a beverage. Say your name for the recording, please.’

  ‘Jack Nightingale. And can I just say for the record that the bacon was a tad fatty.’

  Evans smirked and looked down at his notebook and Chalmers glared at Nightingale. ‘And with me is . . .’ Chalmers looked over at Evans.

  ‘Detective Inspector Dan Evans.’

  ‘Mr Nightingale has been informed that Dwayne Robinson has succumbed to his injuries and that this is now a murder enquiry,’ continued Chalmers, taking a slim gold Cross pen from his pocket.

  ‘And can I point out that I am here helping you with your enquiries,’ said Nightingale. ‘I haven’t been charged and I haven’t requested legal representation.’

  ‘Duly noted,’ said Chalmers. ‘Earlier this morning we took you to see Mr Robinson in the intensive care unit at Lambeth Hospital.’

  ‘After dragging me out of bed at gunpoint,’ said Nightingale.

  Chalmers ignored the interruption but his fingers tightened on his pen. ‘Mr Robinson was shot on July the twentieth last year. Can you tell me where you were on that date?’

  ‘No,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘No?’

  ‘That was almost six months ago. How am I supposed to know what I was doing? Can you tell me what you did on the twentieth of that month? What did you have for breakfast? What time did you get home? What position did you use to satisfy your wife sexually—’

  ‘Nightingale—’

  ‘Mr Nightingale to you. Let’s not forget that I haven’t been charged.’

  Chalmers took a deep breath that reminded Nightingale of the way that Robinson had inhaled just before he started talking. ‘So you are unwilling to account for your whereabouts on July the twentieth last year?’

  ‘Not unwilling. Unable. What day of the week was the twentieth?’

  ‘It was a Tuesday. Same as today.’

  ‘Then I’d have been at work during the day. Probably in the office. But I could have been out on a job. I’d have to check with my assistant. She keeps my diary.’

  ‘So it is possible that you were in Brixton on July the twentieth?’

  ‘I don’t remember being in Brixton during the summer; but, like I said, the diary will tell you. Or you can check my phone records.’

  ‘Phone records?’

  ‘My phone has got GPS. If I was in Brixton on July the twentieth the phone company would be able to tell you.’

  ‘Unless you left your phone at home that night. Or gave it to someone else.’

  ‘Now you’re being ridiculous,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I’m simply asking you to account for your whereabouts on the night of July the twentieth. And you seem unwilling to do that.’

  ‘Talk to my assistant, Jenny McLean. She’ll confirm where I was. But sitting here, no, I don’t know where I was that night. But I’m damn sure that I didn’t have a gun and just as sure that I didn’t shoot Robinson.’

  Chalmers put down his pen and linked his fingers on the table as he looked at Nightingale without saying anything. Nightingale looked back at him. It was a standard interrogation technique, he knew. The idea was to leave a long silence in the hope that the suspect would start talking. It often worked. People didn’t like sitting in silence and nerves kicked in; they’d start to talk and hopefully they’d trip themselves up. Nightingale settled back in his chair and folded his arms.

  Chalmers’s eyes hardened as he realised that Nightingale was playing him at his own game. Nightingale saw the man’s knuckles whiten and he smiled.

  ‘Do you think this is funny?’ asked Chalmers.

  ‘Ridiculous rather than funny,’ said Nightingale. ‘Exactly what evidence have you got to tie me in with Robinson’s shooting?’

  Chalmers tilted his head back and glared at Nightingale. ‘You were there in the hospital, you heard him yourself. Several times Mr Robinson identified you as his killer.’

  ‘That’s not what happened and you know it,’ said Nightingale. ‘For a start, when we were there he wasn’t dead, so being a killer doesn’t come into it.’

  ‘Attacker, then,’ said Chalmers, picking up the gold pen. ‘If you want to split hairs, he identified you as his attacker before he died.’ He tapped the pen on an open notepad as he stared at Nightingale.

  Nightingale stared back. The intimidating stare and the long silences were both techniques taught on the Basic Interrogation Course at the Hendon Police College in north-west London. The simplest way to counter either method was simply to say nothing.

  ‘Cat got your tongue, Nightingale?’ said Chalmers.

  ‘I need a cigarette,’ said Nightingale. Evans had brought a pack of Marlboro and a yellow disposable lighter into the interview room along with the bacon roll and coffee.

  ‘Your smokes can wait,’ said Chalmers.

  Nightingale looked pointedly at his watch. ‘It’s been almost twelve hours since I last had a cigarette and I usually smoke forty a day,’ he said. ‘So I am now suffering from the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal, which means that anything I say during this interview can be treated with suspicion.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about, Nightingale?’

  ‘The lack of nicotine in my system will produce medical side effects that will invalidate anything I say. Plus, deliberately depriving me of nicotine could be deemed to be a form of torture and is almost certainly a violation of my human rights.’ He smiled amiably. ‘Easiest option would be just to let me go outside for a smoke.’ He jerked his thumb at Evans. ‘Dan here’s a smoker; he can keep me company.’

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ protested the inspector. He looked over at Chalmers. ‘I’m not a smoker, sir.’

  5

  Nightingale caught Evans looking wistfully at his cigarette and he offered him the pack.

  ‘The wife’ll kill me,’ Evans said.

  ‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ said Nightingale. They were standing in the car park at the rear of the building, hidden from the street by a high brick wall topped by razor wire. A blue metal gate rattled open to allow two detectives to leave in an unmarked Vauxhall Vectra.

  Evans grinned and took a cigarette. Nightingale lit it for him and Evans inhaled with relish and then slowly blew smoke up at the sky. ‘You know, if it wasn’t for bronchitis, cancer and heart disease, cigarettes would be great.’

  ‘All that stuff is down to your genes more than the ciggies,’ said Nightingale. The metal gate rattled shut.

  ‘You believe that?’

  Nightingale took a long drag on his cigarette and blew smoke before replying. ‘If cigarettes caused cancer, everyone who smoked would get cancer. And they don’t. Less than fifteen per cent of smokers get lung cancer. Eighty-five per cent don’t. So how can they say that cigarettes cause cancer?’

  ‘Because the incidence of lung cancer is greater among smokers.’

  ‘Everybody dies, mate,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘That’s certainly true.’ Evans grinned at Nightingale. ‘And it feels good, doesn’t it? Smoking?’

  ‘We wouldn’t do it if it didn’t,’ agreed Nightingale. He took another long pull on the cigarette and held the smoke deep in his lungs.
He could almost feel the nicotine leaching into his blood, coursing through his veins, revitalising him. Evans was right. Smoking did feel good. He exhaled slowly and watched the smoke gradually dissipate. He looked over at Evans, who was doing the same, and they giggled like naughty schoolboys. ‘When was your first ciggie?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘At school, where else? The proverbial bike sheds. I was thirteen. Benson & Hedges. Coughed like nobody’s business and I was nearly sick but I was hooked. You?’

  ‘I was a late starter,’ said Nightingale. ‘Sixteen. Down at the pub. Back in the days when they didn’t throw you in prison for smoking in a bar.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, it’s only a fine,’ said Evans. He flicked ash onto the ground. ‘First brand?’

  Nightingale held up his cigarette. ‘Marlboro,’ he said. ‘Red pack. It’s the only brand I smoke.’

  ‘I’ll take whatever I’m given,’ said Evans. ‘I figure if I don’t actually buy any then I can say that I’ve given up.’ He chuckled. ‘Wife hates the smell. I’ll have to chew a pack of gum before I go home.’ He sighed and put the cigarette between his lips again.

  They smoked in silence for a while. A TSG van drove into the car park and a group of officers piled out and headed for the canteen, laughing and joking. Two uniformed constables in fluorescent jackets came out of the station, nodded at Evans and walked over to the wall, where they began smoking.

  ‘Is Chalmers serious about this Robinson thing?’ asked Nightingale.

  Evans shrugged. ‘He wants you for something,’ he said. ‘Robinson will do.’

  ‘He’s clutching at straws. Why would I want to shoot a Brixton gangbanger?’

  ‘I guess he figures that if he keeps on throwing shit at you, something’s going to stick eventually. He hated you when you were a cop and he hates you even more now that you’re a private eye.’

  ‘But he’s got nothing. Just Robinson saying my name.’

  ‘But that’s the thing, isn’t it?’ said Evans. ‘If you’ve never met Robinson, why would he do that? He’s brain dead, right, so why’s he going to say your name?’