‘Yeah, sticks and stones.’ Nightingale looked at his watch. ‘Right about now you’re going to get a taste of just how bad it can get,’ he said. ‘Another thirty seconds or so.’
‘You don’t scare me,’ said Smith.
‘It’s not about scaring you,’ said Nightingale. ‘The art of negotiation isn’t about making threats or promises, it’s about offering choices. That’s what I’m doing now. I’m giving you a choice. You can get your grandmother to lift the curse on the cop, or . . .’ He left the sentence unfinished.
‘Or what?’ growled Smith.
Nightingale held up a finger as he looked at his watch. ‘I already told you I’m not one for making threats,’ he said. ‘Any moment now.’ He put the phone away and looked at Smith expectantly.
Smith bunched his right hand into a fist and took a step towards Nightingale, but just as his foot touched the ground he screamed in pain and fell to his knees, his hands pressed against the sides of his head.
‘There we go,’ said Nightingale. ‘Right on cue.’
Smith screamed again and this time he pitched forward into a foetal ball, his arms hugging his stomach. He lay there gasping for breath.
‘It’s not over yet,’ said Nightingale.
‘You bastard,’ gasped Smith.
‘Yeah, well, like I said, sticks and stones.’
Smith began to cough and choke and then blood oozed out from between his teeth and pooled onto the muddy ground. He spat and a stream of bloody phlegm slopped into the dirt.
Nightingale took a step back. ‘Watch the shoes, mate,’ he said. ‘Suede is a bitch to clean.’
Smith rolled onto his back and lay there with his chest heaving as blood continued to trickle down his neck.
‘That’s it for a while,’ said Nightingale. ‘You can sit up now.’
Smith groaned and shook his head from side to side. Nightingale held out his right hand. Smith grabbed it with both of his and pulled himself up into a sitting position.
The door to the caravan opened and the old woman appeared, wearing a stained blue housecoat and holding a thick black walking stick. She came slowly down the metal steps, glaring at Nightingale and muttering darkly. She stopped a few feet from Nightingale and pointed a gnarled finger at him. She opened her mouth to speak but Nightingale held up his hand.
‘Don’t bother wasting your breath,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you can do to me. And if you even try cursing me I’ll make your grandson wish he’d never been born.’
‘Leave him, Gran, leave him be,’ said Smith. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The old woman hobbled over to him. She bent down and slowly rubbed the back of his neck, whispering into his ear. ‘It’s okay, Gran,’ he said.
The woman glared up at Nightingale. If looks could kill he’d be dead there and then, but so far as Nightingale knew looks were just looks. If she touched him then that would be a different matter, but he was fairly confident that with Mrs Steadman in his corner there really wasn’t much the old woman could do to him.
‘So now we negotiate,’ said Nightingale. ‘And here’s how it works. You tell your grandmother to take it back. I want the policeman back on his feet, fit and well, and that’ll be an end to it.’
‘The doll, you’ll give me the doll?’
‘The doll stays with me,’ said Nightingale. ‘And you can be sure I’ll take good care of it.’
Smith nodded slowly.
‘You and your grandmother stay away from me and you stay away from the policeman. And if I ever hear that she’s cursed anyone else the way she cursed the cop, you know I won’t have to come looking for you. I’ve got a direct line to your deepest, darkest pain.’ He smiled amiably. ‘And I know that sounds like a threat, but it’s not. I’m just letting you know what your choices are.’
The old woman pressed her cheek against Smith’s face and whispered to him.
‘You’ve got what you want,’ muttered Smith. ‘Just go away and leave us alone.’
Nightingale stared down at Smith for several seconds, then turned and walked away. He could feel Smith and the old woman glaring after him, but as angry as they were he knew that there was nothing they could do. He’d won.
Nightingale watched as Simon Roach walked out of the ICU room and into the arms of his wife. They hugged and kissed. Dr Patel emerged from the ICU and began talking to Mrs Roach. Nightingale figured that he was probably taking credit for her husband’s miraculous recovery.
Nightingale was standing at the reception desk and was just about to go when Joyce came out of a side room holding a clipboard. She chuckled when she saw him.
‘So are you a believer now?’ she asked, sitting down at a computer terminal.
‘In the Juju Man? Oh yes.’
Joyce laughed. ‘That’s not what we call him,’ she said. ‘A voodoo priest is a Houngan.’
‘Whatever you call him, he did the trick,’ said Nightingale. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’
‘No problem, Jack. I’m just glad that we were able to help Mr Roach.’
‘I can’t believe how quickly he recovered.’
Joyce laughed, giving Nightingale a glimpse of her gold tooth. ‘Neither can Dr Patel. He’s planning to write a paper on it.’
‘That I’d like to read.’ The lift door behind them opened and Superintendent Chalmers walked out, unfastening his overcoat. ‘My boss,’ whispered Nightingale.
‘Best behaviour, then,’ said Joyce, and she concentrated on her computer screen.
Chalmers walked over to Nightingale, his face hard. ‘So are you going to tell me how you did it?’
Nightingale shrugged. ‘I was always a good negotiator. Even you have to admit that.’
‘That’s what you did? You negotiated with the gypsies?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Come on, tell me what you did.’
Nightingale grinned. ‘That was never the deal. He’s fine and he’s going to stay fine. That’s all that matters.’
Chalmers snorted softly, turned his back on Nightingale and headed down the corridor towards the ICU.
Nightingale flashed Joyce a smile. ‘Honey, I’m going to have to love you and leave you. But I owe you one. If you ever need a private eye, I’m in the book.’ He blew her a kiss and walked away.
If you enjoyed CURSED, why not try the full length supernatural thrillers in the Jack Nightingale series?
The first is NIGHTFALL:
‘You’re going to hell, Jack Nightingale’:
They are words that ended his career as a police negotiator. Now Jack’s a struggling private detective – and the chilling words come back to haunt him.
Nightingale’s life is turned upside down the day that he inherits a mansion with a priceless library; it comes from a man who claims to be his father, and it comes with a warning. That Nightingale’s soul was sold at birth and a devil will come to claim it on his thirty-third birthday – just three weeks away.
Jack doesn’t believe in Hell, probably doesn’t believe in Heaven either. But when people close to him start to die horribly, he is led to the inescapable conclusion that real evil may be at work. And that if he doesn’t find a way out he’ll be damned in hell for eternity.
Out now in paperback and ebook – read on for an opening extract . . .
1
Jack Nightingale didn’t intend to kill anyone when he woke up on that chilly November morning. He shaved, showered and dressed, made himself coffee and a bacon sandwich, and at no point did he even contemplate the taking of a human life, even though he had spent the last five years training to do just that. As a serving member of the Metropolitan Police’s elite CO19 armed-response unit he was more than capable of putting a bullet in a man’s head or chest if it was necessary and provided he had been given the necessary authorisation by a senior officer.
His mobile phone rang just as he was pouring the coffee from his cafetiere. It was the Co-ordinator of the Metropolitan Police’s negotiating team. ‘Jack, I�
��ve just had a call from the Duty Officer at Fulham. They have a person in crisis down at Chelsea Harbour. Can you get there?’
‘No problem,’ said Nightingale. After two courses at the Met’s Bramshill Officer Training College he was now one of several dozen officers qualified to talk to hostage-takers and potential suicides in addition to his regular duties.
‘I’m told it’s a jumper on a ledge but that’s all I have. I’m trying to get back up for you but we’ve got four guys tied up with a domestic in Brixton.’
‘Give me the address,’ said Nightingale, reaching for a pen.
He ate his bacon sandwich as he drove his MGB Roadster to Chelsea Harbour. During the three years he had worked as a negotiator he had been called to more than forty attempted suicides but on only three occasions had he seen someone take their own life. In his experience, people either wanted to kill themselves or they wanted to talk. They rarely wanted to do both. Suicide was a relatively easy matter.You climbed to the top of a high building or a bridge and you jumped. Or you swallowed a lot of tablets. Or you tied a rope around your neck and stepped off a chair. Or you took a razor blade and made deep cuts in your wrist or throat. If you were lucky enough to have a gun you put it in your mouth or against your temple and pulled the trigger. What you didn’t do if you really wanted to kill yourself was say you were going to do it, then wait for a trained police negotiator to arrive. People who did that usually just wanted someone to listen to their problems and reassure them that their lives were worth living. Once they’d got whatever was worrying them off their chests they came off the ledge, or put down the gun or lowered the knife, and everyone cheered, patted Nightingale on the back and told him ‘job well done’.
When he reached the address that the Duty Officer had given him, his way was blocked by a police car and two Community Support Officers in police-type uniforms and yellow fluorescent jackets. One pointed the way Nightingale had come and told him to turn around, in a tone that suggested his motivation for becoming a CSO had more to do with wielding power than helping his fellow citizens. Nightingale wound down the window and showed them his warrant card. ‘Inspector Nightingale,’ he said. ‘I’m the negotiator.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said the CSO, suddenly all sweetness and light. He gestured at a parked ambulance. ‘You can leave your car there, I’ll keep an eye on it.’ He and his colleague moved aside to allow Nightingale to drive through. He pulled up behind the ambulance and climbed out, stretching and yawning.
If you’d asked Nightingale what he was expecting that chilly November morning, he’d probably have shrugged carelessly and said that jumpers tended to be either men the worse for drink, women the worse for anti-depressants or druggies the worse for their Class-A drug of choice, generally cocaine or amphetamines. Nightingale’s drug of choice while working was nicotine so he lit himself a Marlboro and blew smoke at the cloudless sky.
A uniformed inspector hurried over, holding a transceiver. ‘I’m glad it’s you, Jack,’ he said.
‘And I’m glad it’s you.’ He’d known Colin Duggan for almost a decade. He was old school – a good reliable thief-taker who, like Nightingale, was a smoker. He offered him a Marlboro and lit it for him, even though smoking in uniform was a disciplin ary offence.
‘It’s a kid, Jack,’ said Duggan, scratching his fleshy neck.
‘Gang-banger? Drug deal gone wrong?’ Nightingale inhaled and held the smoke deep in his lungs.
‘A kid kid,’ said Duggan. ‘Nine-year-old girl.’
Nightingale frowned as he blew a tight plume of smoke. Nine-year-old girls didn’t kill themselves. They played with their PlayStations or Wiis, or they went rollerblading, and sometimes they were kidnapped and raped by paedophiles, but they never, ever killed themselves.
Duggan pointed up at a luxury tower block overlooking the Thames. ‘Her name’s Sophie, she’s locked herself on the thirteenth-floor balcony and she’s sitting there talking to her doll.’
‘Where are the parents?’ said Nightingale. There was a cold feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.
‘Father’s at work, mother’s shopping. She was left in the care of the au pair.’ Duggan waved his cigarette at an anorexic blonde who was sitting on a bench, sobbing, as a uniformed WPC tried to comfort her. ‘Polish girl. She was ironing, then saw Sophie on the balcony. She banged on the window but Sophie had locked it from the outside.’
‘And what makes her think Sophie wants to jump?’
‘She’s talking to her doll, won’t look at anyone. We sent up two WPCs but she won’t talk to them.’
‘You’re supposed to wait for me, Colin,’ said Nightingale. He dropped his cigarette onto the ground and crushed it with his heel. ‘Amateurs only complicate matters, you know that.’
‘She’s a kid on a balcony,’ said Duggan. ‘We couldn’t just wait.’
‘You’re sure she’s a potential jumper?’
‘She’s sitting on the edge, Jack. A gust of wind and she could blow right off. We’re trying to get an airbag brought out but no one seems to know where to find one.’
‘How close can I get to her?’
‘You could talk to her through the balcony window.’
Nightingale shook his head. ‘I need to see her face, to watch how she reacts. And I don’t want to be shouting.’
‘Then there are two possibilities,’ said Duggan. ‘She’s too high to use a ladder, so we can either lower you from the roof or we can get you into the flat next door.’
‘Lower me?’
‘We can put you in a harness and the Fire Brigade boys will drop you down.’
‘And I talk to her hanging from a string like a bloody puppet? Come on, Colin, I’m a negotiator, not a bloody marionette.’
‘The other balcony it is, then,’ said Duggan. He flicked away his butt. ‘Let’s get to it.’ He waved over a uniformed constable and told him to escort Nightingale up to the thirteenth floor. ‘Except it isn’t the thirteenth, it’s the fourteenth,’ said Duggan.
‘What?’
‘It’s a superstitious thing. Don’t ask me why. It is the thirteenth floor, but the lift says fourteen. It goes from twelve to fourteen. No thirteen.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Nightingale.
‘Tell the developer, not me,’ said Duggan. ‘Besides, you’re talking to the wrong person. You won’t catch me walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror. I can understand people not wanting to live on the thirteenth floor.’ He grinned at Nightingale. ‘Break a leg, yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ said Nightingale. He nodded at the constable, a lanky specimen whose uniform seemed a couple of sizes too small for him. ‘Lead on, Macduff.’
The constable frowned. ‘My name’s not Macduff,’ he said.
Nightingale patted him on the back. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘But first I want a word with the au pair.’
The two men went to the sobbing woman, who was still being comforted by the WPC. At least fifty people had gathered to stare up at the little girl. There were pensioners, huddled together like penguins on an ice floe, mothers with toddlers in pushchairs, teenagers chewing gum and sniggering, a girl in Goth clothing with a collie that grinned at Nightingale as he walked by, workmen in overalls, and a group of waitresses from a nearby pizza restaurant.
‘Why aren’t you up there, getting her down?’ shouted a bald man, holding a metal tool box. He pointed at Nightingale and the young constable. ‘You should do something instead of pissing about down here.’
‘Can’t you Taser him?’ asked Nightingale.
‘We’re not issued with Tasers, sir,’ said the constable.
‘Use your truncheon, then.’
‘We’re not...’ He grimaced as he realised that Nightingale was joking.
They reached the au pair, who was blowing her nose into a large white handkerchief. Nightingale acknowledged the WPC. ‘I’m the negotiator,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
Nightingale smiled at the au pair. ‘H
i, what’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Inga.’ The girl sniffed, dabbing her eyes with the handkerchief. ‘Are you a policeman?’
‘I’m Jack Nightingale,’ he said, showing her his warrant card. ‘I’m the one who’s going to talk to Sophie.’
‘Am I in trouble?’
‘No, of course you’re not,’ said Nightingale. ‘You did the right thing, calling the police.’
‘Her parents will kill me,’ said the au pair.
‘They won’t,’ said Nightingale.
‘They’ll send me back to Poland.’
‘They can’t do that – Poland’s in the EU. You have every right to be here.’
‘They’ll send me to prison, I know they will.’
Nightingale’s heart hardened. The au pair seemed more concerned about her own future than about what was happening thirteen storeys up. ‘They won’t,’ he said. ‘Tell me, Inga, why isn’t Sophie at school today?’
‘She said she had a stomach-ache. She didn’t feel well. Her mother said she could stay at home.’
‘Her mother’s shopping?’
The au pair nodded. ‘I phoned her and she’s coming back now. Her father’s mobile phone is switched off so I left a message on his voicemail.’
‘Where does he work?’
‘In Canary Wharf.’ Still sniffing, she took a wallet out of the back pocket of her jeans and fished out a business card. She gave it to Nightingale. ‘This is him.’
Nightingale looked at it. Simon Underwood was a vice president at a large American bank. ‘Inga, has Sophie done anything like this before?’
The au pair shook her head fiercely. ‘Never. She’s a quiet child. As good as gold.’
‘Tell me what happened. How did she come to be on the balcony?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the au pair. ‘I was ironing. She was watching a Hannah Montana DVD but when I looked up she was on the balcony and she’d locked the door.’
‘You can lock it from the outside?’
‘There’s only one key and she had it. I shouted at her to open the door but it was like she couldn’t hear me. I banged on the window but she didn’t look at me. That was when I called the police.’
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