Stephen Leather - Nightshade

Nightingale tossed what was left of his cigarette out of the car window. ‘What can you tell me about the devil-worship thing?’

‘There’s an altar in the barn full of Satanic stuff.’

‘I saw that.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday. The brother took me around the farm. Other than the altar in the barn, what else did you find?’

‘We’ve got his computer. We had the forensic computer boys go through his hard drive and they found all sorts of weird stuff on it.’

‘You saw it?’

‘Sure. He’d visited hundreds of sites and posted on forums, asking about child sacrifice.’

‘I’m sorry to be a pain, but you saw this with your own eyes?’

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘It’s not that. I just have my own reasons for not believing the devil-worship thing.’

‘I saw the printouts.’

‘But not the computer itself?’

‘The forensic boys have it. But we got printouts. I’m not making it up.’

‘Sorry mate, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just trying to get my facts straight. You saw what you saw, I accept that, of course I do. What are the chances of me getting a look at the computer?’

‘I doubt that’ll happen. If you can make a request through the Met, then maybe. But they’re not going to let a PI start messing around with evidence.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I figured. So you think, what? He got caught up in some devil-worship thing? Voices in his head made him do it, that sort of thing?’

‘Who knows? He didn’t leave a note and there was nothing on the computer to explain why he did it.’

‘What about chatrooms? Was he talking to anyone specific?’

‘Doesn’t appear to have done,’ said Simpson. ‘It was more general appeals for information. Mostly he was guided to other sites. Some pretty sick ones, I have to say.’

‘Phone records?’

‘Phone records?’ repeated Simpson.

‘Did he talk to anyone before the killings?’

‘He was clearly acting alone,’ he said. ‘No one thought it necessary to start seeing who his contacts were. He picked up his shotgun, went to the school and started shooting.’

‘A lone nutter?’

‘Obviously I’m not allowed to use phraseology like that. But he was clearly mentally unbalanced and he was acting alone.’

‘But you checked his computer? Whose idea was that?’

‘That’s pretty standard these days,’ said the detective. ‘No matter what the offence, we take a look at their computer. Same as we go through their house and car.’

‘Fishing expedition?’

‘Drugs, terrorism, paedophile stuff. You were in the job, you know that if someone breaks one law they tend to break others.’

‘And the Satanic stuff was the only off thing you found?’

‘That and the dead bodies, yeah.’ Simpson’s voice was loaded with sarcasm.

‘I mean, he didn’t have money problems or he wasn’t on anti-depressants. Nothing that might have set him off?’

‘Nothing like that. You said it yourself, he was a nice guy who snapped.’

‘That’s the thing, though. How does a nice guy get involved in black magic?’

‘You’d need to ask a psychiatrist that question,’ he said. ‘Look, I think I’ve given you all the intel we have. Like I said, it’s open and shut.’

‘Just one more question,’ said Nightingale. ‘I spoke with a DI called Stevenson.’

‘Colin? Yeah, it was him that gave me the printouts of the contents of the hard drive. He did the search of McBride’s house.’

‘And the barn?’

‘Yeah, he was straight out there. I was with the team at the school.’

‘He didn’t seem very helpful, to be honest.’

‘Yeah, well, you can understand that, you being an outsider and all. And a PI to boot. He’s not going to open up his files to you, is he? Be more than his job’s worth. Even I’ve told you too much as it is.’

‘I get that. But they didn’t pull any prints off the altar.’

‘Why would they need to do that? McBride lived there alone.’

‘To show that McBride was the one who set up the altar.’

‘Who else would have done it?’

‘That’s a very good question,’ said Nightingale. ‘If I come up with an answer, I’ll let you know.’

Immediately Nightingale ended the call his phone rang. It was McBride, apologising for not answering his phone earlier. ‘I was out with the kids and left the phone in the car,’ he said.

‘I just wanted to let you know that I’m heading back to London. I’ve spoken to a few people and I’ll get the stuff from the altar checked.’

‘Can we get the computer back?’

‘Not yet,’ said Nightingale. ‘But let me work on that.’

‘I’m grateful for your help on this, Mr Nightingale. I know my brother wasn’t crazy. And I know he didn’t hate children.’

Nightingale was about twenty minutes from Berwick, heading north to Edinburgh, when he saw the Land Rover behind him. It was a working vehicle, streaked with mud, and most of the number plate was obscured by dirt. It matched his speed, sticking about a hundred feet from his rear bumper, for the best part of a mile. A white Nissan came hurtling down the road, overtaking the Land Rover and staying in the wrong lane as it powered past Nightingale’s Vauxhall.

Nightingale checked in his rear view mirror and saw the Land Rover was gaining on him. The hairs began to prickle on the back of his neck. There were two men inside, but all he could see was vague shapes. He squinted at the registration plate but could barely make out two of the numbers.

As he looked back at the road ahead he realised that the Nissan had slowed and was now only fifty feet or so ahead of him. He slowed, and as he glanced in his rear-view mirror he saw the Land Rover rapidly gaining on him.

He considered stamping on the accelerator and overtaking the Nissan, but the road ahead bent to the left and he couldn’t get a clear view.

He heard the Land Rover’s engine roar and it pulled out alongside him. Nightingale glanced over but the side window of the Land Rover was so streaked with dirt that he couldn’t get a clear view of the man in the passenger seat.

Nightingale started to push down on the brake pedal but before he could make any difference to the Vauxhall’s speed the Land Rover swung to the left and slammed into the side of him. Nightingale cursed and his fingers tightened on the steering wheel as he fought to keep control of the car. The Land Rover veered to the right and then immediately slammed back into the Vauxhall, much harder this time. The wheel wrenched itself out of Nightingale’s hands and the car left the road, bucking over a grass verge and then crashing into a ditch. The airbag went off immediately and there was a scream of tortured metal.

The car came to a halt, nose down. Nightingale groaned, reached for the ignition key and switched off the engine. He didn’t feel like moving, but there was a chance that his attackers would come back to finish off the job so he groped for the door handle and opened the door. It would only open a foot or so because of the side of the ditch, so he wound the window down as far as it would go and crawled out. He scrambled unsteadily out of the ditch and stood with his hands on his hips, looking down the road. There was no sign of the Nissan or the Land Rover.

He took out his pack of Marlboro and lighter from his raincoat pocket and lit one as he considered his options. Jenny had taken out full insurance when she’d made the booking for the rental car, so it wasn’t going to cost him anything. He looked at his watch. If he waited for a tow truck to come out and pull the Vauxhall out of the ditch he’d miss his flight to London. He could phone a taxi from Berwick to come and pick him up, but he was starting to get a bad feeling about the citizens of the UK’s northernmost town. He was still smoking and thinking when a Good Samaritan in a pick-up truck pulled up. ‘Are you okay?’ asked the driver, a man in his fifties in a sheepskin jacket.