Nightmare

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Drink’s not going to get the books back,’ said Jenny.

  ‘No, but it’ll make me feel better,’ said Nightingale. He walked over to the Audi. ‘Come on, let’s find the nearest pub. I’m buying.’

  ‘I’m the designated driver, remember?’

  ‘You can watch me drown my sorrows, then.’ He grinned. ‘I’m joking. Let’s go back to London.’

  46

  First thing on Tuesday morning Nightingale phoned the number that Wainwright had given him. The guy was called Adrian Miller and he lived in Milton Keynes. They arranged to meet later that afternoon. Miller asked Nightingale to bring with him any personal possessions that had belonged to the person they were trying to contact. As soon as the call was over, Nightingale phoned Colin Duggan and asked him if he’d had any luck getting Sophie’s doll from the evidence room.

  ‘Nag, nag, nag,’ said Duggan.

  ‘I’m sorry, mate, but it’s important.’

  ‘Yeah, well, softly softly catchee monkey as the Chinese say,’ said Duggan. ‘The guy who’s on nights this week is a real stickler and there’s no way I can get anything by him. I know where the box is but I can’t get near it while he’s around.’

  ‘That’s annoying. What about the day shift?’

  ‘I figured night would be easier because they’re quiet,’ said Duggan. ‘I can give it a go during the day but I’m not taking any risks. Any chance of me being caught and I’m out of there.’

  ‘I understand, mate.’

  ‘Do you?’ said Duggan. ‘I’m risking my job and my pension to steal a child’s doll and you won’t even tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m sorry. But it’s not stealing because you’ll have it back. I promise.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said the policeman, and he ended the call.

  Nightingale rang Jenny and told her that he wouldn’t be in the office.

  ‘Car trouble?’ she said.

  ‘Oh ye of little faith,’ he said. ‘The car’s fine now, I’m heading up to Milton Keynes.’

  ‘Home of the concrete cows,’ she said.

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘That’s what Milton Keynes is famous for, isn’t it? Concrete cows and roundabouts. Is it a job?’

  ‘I’m going to see the guy that Joshua recommended.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

  ‘I want to give it a try,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘If you want my opinion, I think you’d be better off talking to a therapist rather than talking to these charlatans,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Charlatans?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she said. ‘Just be careful.’

  47

  Nightingale didn’t see any concrete cows when he got to Milton Keynes but he did have to go around half a dozen roundabouts before he pulled up in front of Adrian Miller’s house. It was a small semi-detached with a tiny front garden behind a neatly clipped hedge. Two rose bushes were growing under a bay window. It definitely didn’t look like the home of a devil-worshipper and Nightingale checked the text message with the address. He lit a cigarette and smoked it down to the butt before getting out of the car and walking over to the front door. He pressed the doorbell. It was answered by a man with a shaved head and tattoos down his left forearm. He was wearing a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up and black trousers. He grinned and offered his hand.

  ‘Are you Jack?’ Nightingale nodded and shook his hand, and Miller ushered him inside the house. ‘Come far?’ asked Miller as he closed the front door.

  ‘London.’

  ‘I’m just making a coffee – do you want one?’

  ‘Terrific,’ said Nightingale, and he followed Miller through to a modern galley kitchen with gleaming white units and a fridge festooned with family photographs and school notices.

  Miller saw Nightingale looking at the photographs. ‘Wife and kids are staying with her mother for the night,’ he said. ‘No one’s going to walk in on us. Milk and sugar?’

  ‘Just milk,’ said Nightingale.

  Miller picked up a jar of Nescafé Gold Blend and made him a coffee. ‘How long have you known Joshua?’ asked Miller.

  ‘A while,’ said Nightingale. ‘He’s a good guy.’

  ‘One of the best,’ said Miller, pouring in a splash of milk.

  ‘He thinks very highly of you,’ said Nightingale.

  Miller blushed and waved away the compliment like a schoolgirl who had just been told she was pretty. ‘And you haven’t done anything like this before?’ He handed the mug to Nightingale.

  ‘I’m not sure exactly what it is that we’ll be doing,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘It’s a ceremony,’ said Miller. ‘There’ll be five of us. You, me and three others. The other three will be masked. They’re wary of outsiders.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Nightingale. ‘You’ve done this before, right?’

  ‘Loads of times,’ said Miller. ‘There’re a lot of like-minded people here in Milton Keynes. Quite a little gathering.’ He smiled. ‘So tell me who it is you want to contact?’

  ‘A nine-year-old girl,’ said Nightingale. ‘Her name’s Sophie Underwood. I say nine, but she’d be eleven now.’

  ‘Time doesn’t pass once you move into the spirit world.’

  ‘How would you know that?’

  ‘We’ve called up spirits that passed over fifty, a hundred, years ago. If time passed they’d be skeletons, right?’

  ‘So Sophie will never get any older now that she’s a spirit?’

  ‘Appearance-wise, no. Ageing is something that happens in this world, not the next.’ Miller finished his coffee and nodded at the door. ‘So, let me show you the room.’

  He took Nightingale along the corridor to the stairs and up to the first floor. There was a small bedroom at the back of the house with a hatch in the ceiling from which protruded an aluminium ladder. Miller motioned for Nightingale to go up. He climbed the rungs slowly. The attic ran the full length of the house, with beams overhead and bare floorboards. There were no windows and the only illumination came from a single bare bulb hanging in the middle of the roof space.

  Nightingale walked away from the hatch and looked around as Miller climbed up. In the middle of the attic floor was a piece of purple cloth, about four paces square, on which a pentagram had been drawn with white chalk.

  Nightingale nodded at the pentagram. ‘I thought that was just for summoning devils,’ he said. ‘To protect against them.’

  ‘The pentagram has a lot of uses,’ said Miller.

  At the top of the pentagram was a small wooden altar on which there was another, smaller, pentagram with a silver chalice and a small brass bowl at its centre. There were several peeled cloves of garlic in the bowl and a small black candle at each of the points of the pentagram.

  ‘Are we going to be summoning a spirit? Is that how it works?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘There won’t be any fire and brimstone, if that’s what you mean,’ said Miller. ‘What we’ll be doing is basically a ritual that allows a spirit to return to this world and to interact with the people here. There are spirits all around us, but usually they can’t see or hear us and we can’t see or hear them.’

  ‘Like ghosts?’

  ‘Ghosts are different,’ said Miller. ‘Ghosts are tied to a particular place because of something that has happened there. You only ever see them in that one place.’ He smiled and shrugged. ‘You really are a novice, just like Joshua said.’

  ‘I’m new to this, yes,’ Nightingale said. He gestured at the pentagram. ‘But I’ve learned enough to know that you use the pentagram to protect yourself when you summon devils, and that they appear in physical form. So tell me, have you done that? Have you ever called up a devil?’

  ‘Me? God, no. That’s not why I’m into this. Summoning up devils is totally different to what we do.’

  ‘But you’re Satanists, right? The same as Joshua.’

  �
��Yes, but saying we’re the same is equivalent to saying that a guy who plays football with his local team is on a par with a guy who plays in the Premiership. Trust me, there’s no one in our group that would even contemplate summoning one of the Fallen. We worship them, sure, and we source power from them, but I’m nowhere near strong enough to start summoning one.’

  ‘I get it,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘And if you’re considering it you need to be very careful. A friend of mine tried it a couple of years ago and she ended up in a mental hospital. She’s a shell; her mind was totally destroyed.’

  ‘Were you there when it happened?’

  Miller shook his head. ‘When you do a deal with one of the Fallen it has to be one-on-one. That’s why it’s so dangerous. Any sign of weakness, or you drop your guard for a second, and they’ll rip out your soul. I can’t stress that enough: you don’t mess around with them. Someone like Joshua, okay, maybe, but the likes of me?’ He shuddered. ‘I wouldn’t even think about it.’

  ‘I hear you,’ said Nightingale.

  Down below, the doorbell rang. ‘That’ll be the rest of the group,’ said Miller. ‘By the way, did you bring something belonging to the deceased?’

  ‘I couldn’t get anything,’ said Nightingale. ‘I did try.’

  ‘It’s not essential,’ said Miller. He went back down the ladder.

  Nightingale walked around the purple cloth towards the far end of the attic. There were two old steamer trunks there, wooden with leather straps around them. They weren’t locked but the straps were held in place with brass buckles. Nightingale’s curiosity got the better of him and he knelt down and undid the straps of the trunk closest to him. The lid groaned as he pulled it open. It was full of chalices, bottles, and objects wrapped in cloths of various colours. There was a strong smell of incense and something bitter and acrid that made his eyes start to water. He picked up one of the cloth-wrapped bundles. It was a brass knife covered with runes, the handle in the shape of a goat’s foot, the blade serrated and with a sharp point. Nightingale re-wrapped the knife and put it back in the chest. On the left-hand side of the trunk were bundles of candles, mostly black.

  He heard voices downstairs so he hurriedly closed the lid and fastened the buckles. He was standing by the small altar when Miller’s head popped through the hatch. He had changed into a long black hooded robe. He was holding a Marks & Spencer carrier bag and he took out a robe and handed it to Nightingale. ‘We all wear these,’ he said. Nightingale took off his raincoat and draped it over one of the trunks. As he was putting on the robe a second man appeared; he was in his sixties with a goatee beard and a black mask over his eyes and nose.

  ‘This is Martin,’ said Miller. Martin shook hands with Nightingale. ‘Martin is my second in command.’

  ‘His wing man,’ said Martin. He was wearing a large sovereign ring on his left hand and a bulky gold chain on his right wrist. Even the baggy hooded robe couldn’t conceal his expanding waistline; he was clearly a man who enjoyed his food and drink.

  ‘Hood up or down?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘Up when we begin,’ said Miller. ‘Colour is a distraction so things have to be as dark as possible.’

  A blonde head appeared in the hatch. A woman’s. Miller and Martin helped her up. She was in her forties and had dark eyebrows and a slash of red lipstick over lips that looked as if they’d been pumped full of fat from elsewhere in her body. She was plump and as she stepped into the attic her robe fell open, giving them all a glimpse of cleavage and of a small rose tattoo on her left breast.

  ‘Jack, this is Joanne,’ said Miller.

  She offered her right hand as she adjusted her mask with her left. Her hand was pasty and white and there was a silver ring on each finger. Her nails were the same scarlet as her lipstick, long and filed to points. Her handshake was twice as firm as Martin’s and she maintained eye contact while she shook.

  ‘Are you going to be joining our little group?’ she asked.

  ‘Jack’s just here for a one-off,’ said Miller. He looked down the hatch. ‘Ronnie, are you okay?’

  ‘Coming!’ called a Scottish voice from downstairs. ‘Just using the bathroom.’

  ‘That’s Ronnie,’ said Miller. He lowered his voice. ‘Bladder like a marble.’

  Nightingale adjusted the robe, which reached down to his ankles. It was made of a thick coarse material that scratched against his wrists, and around his neck there were small knotted cords that tied together to close it at the front.

  Downstairs the toilet flushed and the final member of the group slowly climbed the ladder, grunting with each step. He was a big man with a mane of ginger hair. His mask barely covered his eyes and nose and there was a sprinkling of large freckles over all his exposed skin. He grinned at Nightingale and stuck out his hand. There were nicotine stains on his fingers and the nails were bitten to the quick. ‘You’re the new boy,’ he growled. His hand enveloped Nightingale’s but there was hardly any strength in the grip.

  ‘Just visiting,’ said Nightingale, resisting the urge to wipe his hand on the robe. He’d heard the toilet flush but hadn’t heard Ronnie wash his hands.

  Miller went over to the trunk that Nightingale had opened. He bent down, unfastened the leather straps and took out a large black candle. He carried it over to the purple cloth and placed it in front of the altar. He said something in what sounded like Latin, and then pulled a lighter from inside his robe and lit the five candles at the points of the pentagram. He said something else in Latin, moved his left hand over the burning candles, then went over to the light switch and turned off the light. Light was still flooding up through the open hatch and he pulled up the ladder and closed it. With the only light coming from the five small candles and everyone dressed in black, all Nightingale could see was the smudge of faces and the white pentagram on the cloth.

  ‘Right, everyone, let’s prepare ourselves,’ Miller said, clasping his hands together as if about to say a prayer. He looked across at Nightingale. ‘Just follow my lead, Jack. Do as we do.’

  Nightingale nodded and clasped his hands together.

  Miller closed his eyes and lowered his head. He began to hum, the sound appearing to come from deep down in his chest. The rest of the group followed his example, all making the same sound. Nightingale closed his eyes and joined in, though he had to change the pitch of his hum several times until it matched the group’s. When he did get the pitch right he felt his stomach begin to vibrate with the sound and before long his whole body seemed to be tingling. The humming continued for several minutes and then as one they stopped. Nightingale opened his eyes but when he saw that everyone else still had theirs shut he closed them again.

  Miller began to recite a Latin incantation. That went on for several minutes and then he began to hum again. This time the note seemed to be lower and Nightingale had trouble matching it.

  ‘Right,’ said Miller eventually. Nightingale opened his eyes and Miller smiled at him. ‘We don’t have anything belonging to the deceased, so I’m going to ask Jack to say a few words about her.’ He gestured at Nightingale and nodded encouragingly.

  ‘Her name is Sophie,’ said Nightingale. ‘Sophie Underwood. She was nine years old when she died. Her father had been abusing her, and her mother knew what was going on but did nothing to stop what was happening. I was with her when she died. She was on a balcony outside her apartment and she fell.’ Nightingale took a deep breath to steady himself. ‘I think Sophie has been trying to contact me. I’m hoping that you can help her tell me what it is she wants from me.’

  ‘We’ll do our best,’ said Miller. He slowly pulled the hood of his robe over his head and his face disappeared into the gloom. One by one the others did the same. With the hoods over their heads it was almost impossible to tell who was who.

  Miller picked up the big black candle, lit it, and placed it carefully in the middle of the purple cloth. ‘Gather round, please,’ he said, and the group spaced themselves around the
pentagram. Miller went over to the Marks & Spencer carrier bag and took out a piece of parchment and a pen. He carried them to the altar, where he wrote on the parchment, murmuring in Latin as he did so. When he held it in the air, Nightingale saw that he’d drawn an upside-down pentagram. Miller used his lighter to set fire to it over the brass bowl, holding it for as long as he could before dropping the ashes.

  He walked slowly back to the carrier bag and took out a bottle of red wine. It had a screw top and as he reached the pentagram he unscrewed it and carefully poured wine into the chalice. He put the top back on the bottle and put the bottle on the floor by the wall, then he picked up the chalice and held it above his head. ‘Servo nos,’ he said. ‘Protect us.’ He sipped the wine and then passed the chalice to his left, to Joanne.

  She held it high and said, ‘Servo nos. Protect us,’ then drank. She passed it to her left and everyone took it in turns to drink from the chalice. Finally Ronnie handed it to Nightingale. He held the chalice above his forehead, said the words in Latin and English, took a sip and then gave it to Miller.

  Miller spoke in Latin again and then put the chalice next to the brass bowl on the altar. He used both hands to pick up the black candle and he placed it on the altar between the bowl and the chalice.

  He turned back to the group and held out his hand. Joanne took it. He led her onto the purple cloth and into the centre of the pentagram and then helped her lie down, her head towards the altar. He nodded at Martin and Ronnie and they moved into the pentagram and knelt down on either side of the woman.

  ‘Jack, please join Martin. Make sure that you remain inside the pentagram at all times.’

  Nightingale knelt down next to Martin.

  Miller moved to stand by Joanne’s head and he crouched down carefully. Joanne had closed her eyes and was breathing softly. Miller began to gently massage her temples. ‘Joanne, your eyes are getting heavy and you are going into a deep, deep sleep,’ he said quietly. Joanne breathed deeply and then went still. ‘You see in your mind Sophie Underwood and her mind is like an open book to you and we ask that you read it to us.’