Stephen Leather - Nightmare

Nightingale stared at him in silence for several seconds. ‘You planned this, didn’t you? Right from the start.’

The dwarf tilted back his oversized head and laughed. The walls of the room vibrated and dust showered down from the ceiling.

‘This has been all your doing, hasn’t it? You’ve been letting Sophie contact me because you wanted my soul. You were using her to get to me.’

‘You’re flattering yourself, Nightingale. You think I care about you? You think you occupy my thoughts for even one millisecond?’

Nightingale nodded slowly. ‘I think you’re a vindictive, nasty little shit. I think you did whatever you had to do to get one over on me. You wanted my soul and you didn’t care who you had to destroy to get it.’

The dwarf grinned. ‘Maybe you’re not as stupid as you look,’ he said.

‘You used Fairchild, didn’t you? Maybe it was Proserpine who pulled his strings but she works for you. And everything that happened was to get me here, wasn’t it? So that you could get my soul?’

‘And now I have it,’ said the dwarf. He pointed at Nightingale with his right index finger. The nail was long and yellow and as sharp as a knife. ‘I have a special place for you in Hell, Nightingale. Ready and waiting.’

‘For God’s sake put your back into it!’ shouted Chalmers. ‘If you can’t put some weight behind it then give it to someone who can.’

The man with the enforcer turned to glare at the superintendent. ‘With the greatest of respect, sir, this isn’t some jerry-built council house. This door is a couple of inches thick and built to last.’

Chalmers pointed his finger at the officer. ‘Don’t bloody stop, man!’ he shouted.

An ambulance turned into the driveway, its siren blaring.

The officer began to pound the enforcer against the door again. Each time he hit it the wood around the lock splintered a little more, and after half a dozen more blows the lock gave way.

‘Finally,’ said Chalmers.

‘Sir, you need to stay outside until we’ve secured the house,’ said the sergeant.

‘Just get upstairs and get the bastard,’ said Chalmers.

The ambulance pulled up behind the armed response vehicle and Chalmers turned and flashed them a cut-throat gesture, telling them to kill the siren.

With one final blow from the enforcer the door crashed open and the three armed officers piled into the mud-splattered hallway, led by the sergeant. Chalmers followed them inside and watched as they moved carefully up the charred stairs, their MP5s against their shoulders.

The sergeant took them to the door of the room where they’d seen the candlelight. He pointed at the door, then gingerly tried the handle. ‘Locked,’ he mouthed. The door was fire-damaged but in one piece.

Chalmers came down the landing and the sergeant motioned for him to go back but the superintendent ignored him.

The officer with the enforcer pushed past Chalmers and joined the sergeant. The armed cops had their MP5s pointing at the door. The officer swung the enforcer and he grunted as it made contact. The door was nowhere near as strong as the one at the entrance to the house; it buckled with the first blow and sagged on its hinges with the second. The sergeant kicked the door out of the way and stormed into the bedroom. ‘Armed police! Drop your weapon!’ he shouted.

The two other armed officers followed him inside, one moving to the right, the other to the left, both shouting at the top of their voices. ‘Armed police! Armed police!’

Then there was just silence. Chalmers walked quickly into the room but stopped when he saw the three officers standing around a pentagram drawn in chalk on the floor. There were five black candles burning, one at each of the points of the pentagram.

‘Where is he?’ said Chalmers, looking around.

‘There’s no one here, sir,’ said the sergeant.

‘Nonsense. The room was locked from the inside. We all saw that.’

The sergeant shrugged.

‘You checked the bathroom?’

‘Sir, there’s no one here,’ said the sergeant testily.

‘If there’s no one here then who lit the candles?’ asked Chalmers.

The sergeant looked away and didn’t answer.

Chalmers snorted and stormed into the bathroom. There was a white towel hanging on a chrome rail and he grabbed it. It was wet. And so was the bath. He threw the towel into the tub and picked up the shirt left on the toilet. It was soaked in blood, as was the raincoat underneath it. Chalmers went back into the bedroom. The four policemen were looking around the room, trying to avoid eye contact with the superintendent.

‘Find him,’ shouted Chalmers. ‘Tear this bloody house apart. He has to be hiding somewhere.’

Nightingale kept his foot down hard on the accelerator and he pounded on his horn as he ran a red light, swerving around the back of a bus and narrowly missing a black cab. His mobile rang and he fished it out of his pocket. It was the coordinator of the Metropolitan Police’s negotiating team.

‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ said Nightingale. ‘What about Robbie? Have you reached him?’

‘He’s not answering his phone.’

‘Keep trying. I need him there.’

‘I’ve got other officers on the way, Jack. We’re covered.’

‘I need Robbie Hoyle. No one else will do.’ He braked to avoid a woman who had pushed a buggy into the road and was glaring at him as if daring him to run her and the child over. ‘Are you stupid?’ he screamed at her. She swore at him and gave him the finger, her face contorted with hatred.

‘What’s up with you, Jack?’ asked the coordinator.

‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t at you,’ said Nightingale. ‘Look, Robbie will make it, but you just have to tell him to get a move on, okay?’

‘Okay, Jack. And you drive carefully, do you hear?’

‘Driving’s the least of my worries,’ said Nightingale, and he ended the call. He put the phone back into his pocket and concentrated on the road ahead.

His heart was racing and he took slow, deep breaths as he tried to calm himself down. There was no point in rushing, he told himself. Nothing would happen until he reached Sophie. And he wouldn’t be doing anything until Robbie Hoyle had arrived.

A set of lights ahead turned red and he pulled up next to a bus. He took out his cigarettes and lit one. As he blew smoke he looked up to see a young schoolgirl staring at him from the bus. She was in a green uniform with a beret and couldn’t have been more than six years old; she had curly red hair and a sprinkling of freckles across her snub nose. Nightingale smiled at her and waggled his eyebrows but she looked at him with unseeing eyes. Nightingale took another long drag on his cigarette.

The girl’s mother was sitting next to her, talking on a BlackBerry. The mother, in her thirties, with similar hair and freckles, turned to look at her daughter, then glared through the window at Nightingale. Nightingale smiled, but neither of them reacted. Then their lips began to move. He couldn’t hear what they were saying but it was easy enough to read their lips: ‘You are going to Hell, Jack Nightingale.’

Nightingale flinched and the cigarette fell from his hand into his lap. He cursed and grabbed for it and when he looked up again the mother and daughter were talking to each other. A horn blared and Nightingale realised that the traffic light had turned green. He put the MGB in gear and drove off.

His mobile rang as he drove along the King’s Road. It was the coordinator. Nightingale fumbled for his phone and pressed the button to take the call.

‘Robbie’s on his way. He was in the area so he should get there about the same time as you.’