Stephen Leather - Nightshade

Jenny leaned forward and smiled encouragingly. ‘How long had they been married?’

‘Five years, I think.’ She frowned as she stroked the cat. ‘Their anniversary was in July. He took her out for a slap-up meal with champagne and everything and he bought her a gold bracelet.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘I don’t understand why he did what he did.’

‘Was he a drinker?’ asked Jenny. ‘Or drugs?’

Mrs Edwards laughed harshly. ‘Good grief, no. I mean, he’d have a beer sometimes and wine with meals but he didn’t have a drink problem.’ She nodded at the ceiling. ‘Now him upstairs, he went through a phase a few years ago when he was drinking way too much but his diabetes put paid to that. But John was as good as gold. He was a lovely man, Mr Nightingale. He was great with the kids and Sally loved him with all her heart.’

‘They didn’t argue?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Of course they argued. What sort of marriage would it be without arguments? And raising boys is never easy. But he never lifted his hand to the boys and barely even raised his voice to them.’

‘So no shouting matches, no outbursts?’

‘Nothing. He wasn’t the type. And Sally was a lovely girl. A slip of a thing. John was always so protective of her.’

‘So why do you think he did it, Mrs Edwards?’ said Nightingale. ‘What do you think made him snap?’

Mrs Edwards tried to rub her face against the cat’s back but the animal slipped from her grasp and jumped down to the floor. Mrs Edwards looked over at Nightingale. ‘You know what I think? I think he was possessed. I think something made him do it.’

Nightingale lit a cigarette as they walked towards Jenny’s Audi. ‘You’re not getting into my car smoking that,’ she said.

‘Come on, the new car smell went ages ago,’ said Nightingale.

‘It’s not about the smell, it’s about secondary smoking being a killer.’

‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ said Nightingale. He took a lungful of smoke, held it deep in his lungs, and let it out, careful to blow it away from the car. ‘There’s a lot of anti-smoking hysteria these days.’

Jenny shook her head, unwilling to get into a discussion about the rights and wrongs of smoking with Nightingale. ‘So what do you think?’ she said.

‘About what?’

‘About what she said? Possession? Do you believe that?’

Nightingale shrugged and took another drag on his cigarette. ‘If he was possessed then maybe whatever it was moved from the girl to the nurse.’

‘So where is it now?’

‘I’m no expert on this, kid,’ he said. ‘Maybe it just moved on. I don’t know.’ He dropped the remains of his cigarette onto the pavement and ground it out.

‘There is another possibility, of course,’ she said.

‘Yeah? What’s that?’

‘Mrs Steadman might just be stark raving mad.’

Nightingale smiled thinly. ‘To be honest, I hope you’re right,’ he said. ‘Because if she isn’t, I’ve no idea what the hell I’m going to do.’

Jenny’s phone rang. She smiled apologetically at Nightingale and took the call. ‘Uncle Marcus!’ she said, and Nightingale winced at the enthusiasm in her voice. ‘Sure. Dinner would be great. Excellent.’

She ended the call and put the phone away. ‘Uncle Marcus?’ said Nightingale.

‘He’s in London on Friday and wants to take me for dinner.’ She unlocked the Audi and climbed in.

Nightingale forced a smile. ‘You can’t turn down a free dinner.’ He got into the front passenger seat.

‘Not at the Ivy, anyway,’ said Jenny. ‘Do you want to come? It’d give you a chance to get to know him.’

‘I’d love to,’ lied Nightingale. ‘I’ve got something on.’

‘Jack, I promise not to mention work,’ she said.

‘The thought hadn’t even entered my mind,’ said Nightingale.

‘Come on, Bella, open wide.’ The dentist smiled down at her but Bella steadfastly refused to do as she was told.

‘I don’t want to.’

Malcolm Walton had been a dentist for almost twenty years and he’d never liked working with children, but they represented a big chunk of his six-figure income so he’d learned to just grin and bear it. ‘I’m not going to do anything that will hurt you,’ he said. ‘This is just a check-up. And afterwards you can choose a toy from my toy jar.’

His assistant Debbie picked up the big glass jar of cheap plastic toys and shook it as she smiled encouragingly.

‘I don’t want a toy.’

Debbie put down the jar. ‘Would you like to watch a DVD?’ she said. ‘We have some great cartoons. Ben 10 ? Do you like Ben 10 ? Or we have some great Barbie DVDs.’

There was a flat screen TV up near the ceiling that they used to distract patients. It worked well. Cartoons kept the kids occupied, men could be distracted by rock videos with scantily dressed dancers, and Walton had most of the soaps recorded to keep the housewives quiet.

‘I don’t want a cartoon,’ said Bella. ‘I want to go home.’

‘Well, you know that’s not going to happen until I’ve had a look at your teeth,’ said Walton. ‘I’m sure your mummy won’t be happy if you don’t let me at least do that. I’m not going to drill or anything, we just need to check that everything is okay.’ He flashed her his most sincere smile. ‘A few minutes is all it’ll take, Bella.’

The girl looked like she was going to argue but then she sighed, leant back, and opened her mouth.

‘That’s a good girl,’ he said. He adjusted the overhead light, picked up his mirror and a probe and leaned over her. He gasped when the smell from her mouth hit him. ‘My God!’ he said in disgust. He leaned back. ‘That’s. …’ He realised that Debbie was watching him and he forced a smile. ‘That’s quite some halitosis you’ve got there, Bella. Are you cleaning your teeth?’

‘Every morning and every night.’

‘And how long do you spend cleaning them?’

‘Mummy says two minutes so I do two minutes.’

‘And do you floss?’

Bella nodded solemnly.

Watson scratched his chin with the back of his hand. ‘What about food? Do you eat a lot of spicy food? Takeaway curries, things like that?’

She shook her head. ‘I had beef burgers and chips at school today.’

‘And for breakfast?’

‘Coco Pops.’

Watson frowned. Beefburgers and Coco Pops wouldn’t account for the foul smell coming from the little girl’s mouth. At first glance her teeth seemed clean enough, and she was far too young to smoke or drink, which were the two major causes of bad breath.

‘Do you use a mouthwash?’

Bella shook her head. ‘Mummy said that she would buy some for me.’

‘Well, I’ll give you some anti-bacterial mouth rinse to take away with you,’ he said. ‘But you have to make sure that you clean your teeth carefully. In a few years you’ll be having braces and then you’ll really have to be careful, so it’s best to get in the habit of doing it properly now.’ He looked over at Debbie. ‘Can you get my face mask?’ he asked her.

Debbie went over to the cupboard where he kept his protective masks and pulled out his full-face plastic visor. He used it when he was carrying out invasive dental surgery but he figured it would cut down on the smell from Bella’s mouth. She gave it to him and he clipped it onto his head and snapped down the clear visor. ‘Anyway, let me have a closer look and I’ll give them a quick clean and polish.’

Walton sat down and bent over the little girl. The mask cut down on some of the smell but it was still bad enough to make him gag. Wherever the stench was coming from, it wasn’t her teeth that were the problem. She was cavity-free, there was little to no plaque on her teeth or furring on her tongue. He checked the gaps between all her teeth and there was no trapped food, and no pockets in the gums. It was as healthy a mouth as he’d ever seen. He sat back, frowning. The smell was appalling, worse then he’d ever come across and he’d had some terrible mouths in his chair over the years. There were a number of diseases that could cause bad breath, including respiratory tract infections like bronchitis or pneumonia, diabetes, acid reflux and malfunctioning kidneys. But Bella seemed fit and healthy.