Stephen Leather: Nightmare

‘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?’

Nightingale blew smoke. ‘It’s a mystery,’ he said.

‘But you say you never met him,’ pressed Evans. ‘Presumably he didn’t pluck your name out of the air.’

‘You weren’t there.’

‘No, but I was there last night when we were called in.’

‘What happened?’

‘Robinson started talking. No brain activity, but the words were coming out of his mouth. Your name. Jack Nightingale. The doctor told the woodentop sitting outside and he called his boss; his boss ran your name through the computer and Chalmers got a call.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Which is when I got dragged out of bed just as the missus was about to give me my weekly treat.’

‘Sorry about that,’ said Nightingale.

‘Yeah, not as sorry as I was,’ said Evans. ‘Anyway, Chalmers drags me down to Lambeth and we go into the ICU and, sure enough, there’s Robinson saying your name. Chalmers gets all excited and books an armed response team for first thing this morning.’

‘You know, with the way the Met’s budget has been cut you’d think he’d have better things to spend his money on.’

‘Yeah, well, with you it’s personal, I think. And you can understand why, can’t you? Just look at the body count racking up around you. That’s just a coincidence, is it?’

‘Chalmers doesn’t seem to think so.’

‘He’s got a point, though, hasn’t he? People close to you seem to have a nasty habit of either killing themselves or being killed. So what’s going on? Are you cursed, is that it? Some sort of Jonah.’ He laughed but stopped when he saw the frown on Nightingale’s face. ‘You do know what’s happening, don’t you? It’s not a coincidence, right?’

‘Dan, you don’t want to know. And even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.’

‘Try me.’

Nightingale sighed. The officers in fluorescent jackets started laughing and one of them looked over in his direction. Nightingale sensed that they were laughing about him and he turned his back on them. He looked at Evans and smiled. ‘Okay, you want to know, so I’ll tell you.’ He took a drag on his cigarette, blew smoke, and then shrugged. ‘You know that my biological father killed himself. But what you don’t know is that Ainsley Gosling was a Satanist. A devil-worshipper. And he sold my soul to a devil, a bitch by the name of Proserpine. I managed to get my soul back from her but then it turns out that Gosling also sold the soul of the sister I never knew I had, so then I had to negotiate with another demon from Hell and as part of that deal Proserpine sent three of her minions to kill me. And pretty much everyone who might be able to help me dies violently before I can talk to them. I think that pretty much sums up the state of play, Dan. Happy now?’

Evans shook his head sadly. ‘You’re a bastard, Nightingale. I was only trying to help.’ He took a last drag on his cigarette, dropped the butt onto the ground and stamped on it. ‘You should remember who your friends are.’ He gestured at the door. ‘Get your arse back inside.’

Nightingale sat down and toyed with his pack of cigarettes as Evans pressed ‘record’ and nodded at the superintendent. Chalmers looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘It is now nine twenty on Tuesday January the fourth and this is Superintendent Ronald Chalmers and Inspector Dan Evans recommencing our interview with Jack Nightingale. So, Mr Nightingale, we were talking about what happened at Lambeth Hospital this morning.’

‘If you say so,’ said Nightingale.

‘You heard Mr Robinson say your name several times, did you not?’

‘That wasn’t him,’ said Nightingale.

Chalmers snorted dismissively. ‘I can assure you that it was most definitely Dwayne Robinson that we saw in the ICU.’

‘His body, yes. But it wasn’t him speaking.’

Evans grunted and shifted in his chair. Chalmers looked across at the inspector and then shook his head slowly. ‘We both heard him speak. We both heard him say your name. He was identifying you as his killer.’

‘As I said before, at the time he wasn’t dead. Brain dead, maybe, but that’s not the same as dead dead.’

‘But he is dead now. Dead dead. And this morning, before he passed away, he identified you as his assailant.’

‘That’s not what happened.’

‘Mr Nightingale, I put it to you that on the evening of July the twentieth last year you shot Dwayne Robinson in the head and that this morning he identified you to that effect.’

‘It wasn’t Robinson talking,’ said Nightingale.

‘Who was it, then? Because I’ll be swearing in a court of law that it was Dwayne Robinson lying in that hospital bed.’

‘You know who it was,’ said Nightingale. ‘It was Sophie.’

Chalmers looked down at his notebook and clicked his pen. ‘You said the name Sophie while you were in the ICU. Who were you referring to?’

Nightingale folded his arms. ‘What are you trying to do here, Chalmers?’ he asked.

‘What I’m trying to do, Mr Nightingale, as you well know, is to find out who killed Dwayne Robinson. And so as far as I am concerned, you are the prime suspect. Now, who was the Sophie that you kept referring to at the hospital?’

‘You’ve forgotten already, have you?’ Nightingale sneered.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know full well who she is.’ Nightingale took a deep breath. ‘Sophie Underwood.’

Chalmers frowned. ‘Sophie Underwood? Why do I know that name?’

Evans jutted his chin at the superintendent. ‘That was the little girl who died at Chelsea Harbour two years ago,’ he said. He nodded at Nightingale. ‘The one that.?.?.’ He left the sentence unfinished.

Chalmers looked back at Nightingale. ‘The girl whose father you threw out of the window?’

‘Allegedly,’ said Nightingale.

‘And what made you start talking about her? Is she connected with Dwayne Robinson in some way?’

‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ said Nightingale. ‘It wasn’t Robinson talking. It was Sophie.’

Chalmers sneered. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

Nightingale clasped his hands together and leaned across the table towards the superintendent. ‘It was her. She was asking me to help her. You heard that, didn’t you? She wants my help.’

Chalmers looked across at Evans, then back to Nightingale. ‘Are you seriously telling me that a girl who died two years ago was talking to you through Dwayne Robinson?’ Chalmers sat back and tapped his pen on his notepad. ‘Are you planning some sort of insanity defence, Nightingale? Because I’ll tell you now that’s not going to wash.’