Stephen Leather - Nightshade

‘Seriously, I’m on it,’ said Robbie. ‘How’s it going?’

‘I met a DI today but he’s less than helpful.’

‘What do you expect? No one appreciates strangers on their patch. Especially ones less than forthcoming in the winning friends and influencing people department.’

‘I’ve been all sweetness and light,’ said Nightingale. ‘He took a computer from McBride’s and won’t let me have a look at it.’

‘He won’t hand over evidence in a criminal investigation?’ said Robbie, his voice loaded with sarcasm. ‘Well, shame on him.’

‘There is no investigation, that’s the point.’

‘I’m only winding you up, mate,’ said Robbie. ‘Soon as I get a name I’ll get back to you.’

Nightingale ended the call and went downstairs to the bar. It was an L-shaped room with a roaring fire, the walls dotted with polished horse-brasses and framed paintings of fox hunts. They didn’t stock Corona so he ordered a Budweiser. The landlord was the man who’d checked him in, a big bearded Geordie with a tattoo of a mermaid on his right forearm that suggested a previous career in the merchant navy. He gave Nightingale a menu and he ordered fish and chips. The landlord grimaced and he leant across the bar, lowering his voice to a gruff whisper. ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but the chef’s off tonight and the missus is cooking. If I were you I’d go for the shepherd’s pie or the chicken pasta bake because the chef did them and all she has to do is warm them up.’ He winked conspiratorially.

Nightingale toasted the landlord with his Budweiser and ordered the shepherd’s pie. ‘So is this England or Scotland?’ he asked as he waited to his food to appear from the kitchen.

‘You’re joking, right?’ said the landlord.

‘What can I say, I’m from London.’

‘You don’t sound like a southerner.’

‘I was brought up in Manchester.’

‘Red or Blue?’

Nightingale chuckled. ‘United, what else? So joking apart, did we cross the border?’

‘The England-Scotland border is a moveable feast,’ said the landlord. ‘It’s switched back and forth thirteen times over the years. But at the moment you’re in Northumberland. Here’s hoping it moves back at some point, because between you and me, I’d rather be in Scotland. My kids wouldn’t be paying their own university tuition, for a start — that wouldn’t be happening if we were counted as Scotland.’

‘And free prescriptions,’ said Nightingale. He raised his bottle of Budweiser. ‘To bonnie old Scotland.’ He drank and then motioned at the beer pumps. ‘Get yourself one. Keep me company.’

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said the landlord. ‘I’ll take a whisky, if that’s okay with you.’

‘All good,’ said Nightingale.

The landlord picked up a glass and held it under one of the optics. ‘You know, this is the Devil’s town, truth be told,’ he said as the whisky sloshed into his glass.

‘Say what?’

The landlord grinned. He used his fingers to drop a couple of ice cubes into his whisky. ‘It’s in the Bible. When the Devil was tempting Jesus, trying to get him over to the dark side, he held out a map of the world and told Jesus he could have dominion over everything he could see. But as he held out the map, the Devil had his thumb over Berwick because he wanted to keep it for himself.’

‘Nice story,’ said Nightingale.

‘There are those around here who say it’s more than a story,’ said the landlord. He raised his glass. ‘Cheers, anyway.’

‘Cheers,’ said Nightingale, and he clinked the neck of his bottle against the landlord’s glass.

As the landlord drank he caught sight of the television on the wall. It was tuned to Sky News and a police press conference was about to start. He grabbed the remote and turned up the sound. ‘Looks like she’s still missing,’ he said.

‘Who?’

‘Little girl was abducted in Southampton. Some paedo snatched her in a shopping centre.’

On the screen a man and a woman were sitting together at a long table. She was in her thirties, hollow-eyed and her blonde hair messy. The man was equally haggard and he was holding the woman’s hand tightly.

‘That’s her parents,’ said the landlord. ‘Can you imagine what they’re going through?’

‘How old’s the girl?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Nine. Mum took her eyes off her for a minute and she was gone.’

A uniformed police officer took the seat next to the mother. An assistant chief constable. At the other end of the table was a large man in a dark blue suit with the world-weary eyes of a senior detective.

On a board behind the table were posters featuring the missing girl. In the middle of the poster was a blow-up of her school photograph. She was a little angel with long, curly blonde hair, blue eyes and porcelain skin.

‘They should hang them,’ said the landlord. ‘Anyone who messes with a kid, hanging’s too good for them.’

‘No arguments here,’ said Nightingale.

‘You got kids?’ Nightingale shook his head. ‘Well, I’ve got three, two of them are girls. If anyone laid a finger on them I’d swing for them, no question.’

The uniformed officer gave a short prepared speech, basically laying out the facts. That nine-year-old Bella Harper had been abducted from a shopping centre in Southampton, possibly by a man and a woman. Witnesses had seen a man and a woman getting into a white van with a girl who might have been Bella. They didn’t have a description of the couple or the registration of the van. Then he asked the parents to say a few words. The woman spoke first, or at least tried to. She barely managed a dozen words before she broke down in a flood of tears. Her husband put his arm around her and in a trembling voice appealed for whoever had taken Bella to send her home safe and well. ‘She’s our angel, she’s never done a bad thing in her life, she doesn’t deserve this. Please, send her home. Please don’t hurt her.’

‘He should use her name,’ said Nightingale.

‘What?’

‘He needs to personalise her. He should use her name in every sentence, and he should give more personal information about her. Her pets, her school, what she likes to do. If the guy that has her starts to think of her as a human being and not an object then he’s more likely not to kill her.’ Nightingale realised that heads were starting to turn in his direction and he stopped talking and drank his beer.

‘How do you know so much about it?’ asked the landlord, putting down his glass.

‘I used to be a cop, in another life,’ said Nightingale. ‘Down in London.’

‘And you dealt with stuff like this?’

‘Abductions? Yeah, a few.’

‘How do they normally end?’

‘Depends who the abductor is. If it’s a family member then there’s a good chance they’ll find her, but if it’s a stranger and they don’t find her within twenty-four hours then it’s usually bad news.’ He shrugged and sipped his lager.

The father finished speaking. Tears were running down his face. A telephone number appeared at the bottom of the screen. Nightingale hoped that someone, somewhere, was reaching for a phone with information that would help them find the little girl. But the rational part of his brain knew that such television appeals rarely worked. The police were going through the motions, knowing that they would be criticised if they didn’t mount an appeal but knowing that virtually all the calls they received would be false alarms that would tie up valuable police resources.

‘I hope to God they find her,’ said the landlord.

‘Amen to that,’ agreed Nightingale.

‘You know it’s Friday the thirteenth today?’

‘I’d forgotten that,’ said Nightingale.