Stephen Leather - Nightshade

‘The girl’s with her parents, Jack. If there was something wrong, they’d have seen it.’

‘Maybe, maybe not.’

‘I don’t believe in ghosts and that nonsense but surely, if there was a demon or something there’d be signs.’

‘I know as much about possession as you do. I was just asking around to see if it was possible.’

‘Several people who came into contact with her have killed themselves, that’s true enough. But how does a nine-year-old girl come to be responsible for that?’

Nightingale shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. The nurse was definitely murder-suicide.’

‘You spoke to the Sussex cops?’

‘I did a bit of detecting on my own.’

‘Bloody hell, Jack, be careful. They throw away the key for impersonating a cop these days.’

‘I played it by the book, more or less,’ said Nightingale. ‘I went to see the neighbour. She told me that the nurse suffocated his family and then slashed his wrists. But before that he was a loving father and husband.’

‘People snap. Happens all the time. And most murders are domestic, that’s a fact of life.’

Nightingale nodded. ‘I know. But something must have kicked him off. Same with this guy Barker. You don’t just one evening decide to drink drain fluid.’

‘And you’re suggesting that Bella Harper was involved.’ He shook his head. ‘Both times she was tucked up in her hospital bed when it happened.’

‘I get that,’ said Nightingale.

‘So what’s your friend claiming, that a little girl somehow forced them to kill themselves?’

‘Maybe that’s what the whispering was about. You can’t hear what she says at the end.’

Robbie’s eyes widened and he put down his lager. ‘What, you’re saying she hypnotised him? A nine-year-old girl hypnotised Barker to go away and drink drain cleaner?’

‘She whispered something to him. About Jesus. So what the hell was that about?’

Robbie threw up his hands. ‘Mate, what could she possibly have said that would have led him to kill himself two hours later? She’s a kid.’

‘I said you’d think I was crazy.’

‘If you’re actually considering this then yeah, you are out of your mind.’ He leaned forward again. ‘Look, people snap and kill themselves. Sometimes they take out their anger on someone else before they do it. Shit happens. You were in the job, you know that.’

‘So what’s the connection with the girl?’

‘Maybe there is no connection,’ said Robbie. ‘Maybe it’s a coincidence. A nasty little coincidence.’

‘I hope so.’

They both drank in silence for a while.

‘It’s not a coincidence, is it?’ said Robbie eventually.

‘I don’t think so, no.’

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah. And some.’

‘We can’t tell anyone, can we?’ said Robbie. ‘No one’s going to believe us. And it would pretty much kill my career dead.’

‘Even if they did believe it, and that would be one hell of an if, what could they do? Arrest a nine-year-old-girl? And charge her with what?’

‘You know about this spooky stuff? Can’t a priest do an exorcism or something?’

‘I’m told not. Whatever is inside her isn’t a spirit as such. It’ll take more than a few Hail Marys and some Holy Water.’

‘Like what?’

Nightingale picked up his Corona and drank as his mind raced. He didn’t want to lie to his friend, but there were some things better not said. Killing a child was definitely high up on that list, even if the child was already dead. He put down his bottle. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘But before we get to the stage of doing something we need to be one hundred per cent sure.’

‘What are you thinking?’

‘If there are two, there could be more. If there are more …’

‘Then we’ll know for sure. But that doesn’t take us any further forward, does it? Even if we have absolute proof that a nine-year-old girl can make grown men kill themselves, what do we do?’

Nightingale nodded but didn’t say anything. Robbie wouldn’t have to do anything. It would be down to Nightingale. Mrs Steadman had made it painfully clear what he was supposed to do — thrust knives into the eyes and heart of Bella Harper.

‘Is this connected to what’s going on up in Berwick?’ asked Robbie.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘What about Marcus Fairchild?’

Nightingale shook his head.

‘Your life is bloody complicated, Jack.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Nightingale. ‘I need a cigarette.’

They went outside to the terrace overlooking Kensington Gardens and sat near a propane heater. ‘You know the history of this place?’ Nightingale asked Robbie.

Robbie shook his head.

‘It’s been around for ever,’ said Nightingale, lighting a cigarette. ‘The sixteen hundreds anyway. They used to bring prisoners here for a drink before taking them over to Marble Arch to the hanging tree.’

‘Nice,’ said Robbie.

‘That was back in the day when they hanged you for stealing a loaf of bread or looking at the squire wrong.’ He shrugged. ‘The good old days.’ He took another long pull at his cigarette. ‘Did you turn up anything about Fairchild?’

‘I looked, mate. But there’s nothing known, certainly nothing along the lines of what you were talking about.’

‘Okay.’

‘I did see if he’d worked on any paedophile cases, like you said, but couldn’t find any cases at all, not for the prosecution or the defence. He specialises in company law — I doubt that he would have been involved in anything involving paedophiles.’

‘Yeah, I think he was lying about that.’

‘Jack, are you sure he’s what you say he is?’

‘No question.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

Nightingale smiled ruefully. ‘Best you don’t know,’ he said.

Nightingale sat staring down at the gun on his coffee table. It was a matt black Taurus.45, small enough to conceal in a pocket. It would make a loud noise, but Fairchild’s Sussex house was a good half mile from his nearest neighbour. It was Wednesday, and on Friday Fairchild was due to take Jenny for dinner. Nightingale was sure that Fairchild had more than dinner in mind, so if he was going to stop the man it had to be done that night or the next.

He took a deep breath, put the loaded gun into his raincoat pocket and went downstairs to the street. His car was back in the lock-up and he headed towards it. He looked left and right and then jogged across the road. A bus heading his way seemed to accelerate towards him but it still missed him by yards. The driver glared at him as the bus went by and Nightingale realised that the acceleration had been deliberate. He turned up his collar against the wind as he walked by a Halal butchers. Two women swathed from head to foot in black niqab went by and they also seemed to be glaring at him through the slits in their headcoverings.

A traffic warden in a fluorescent jacket looked up from the car he was checking and his upper lip curled back into a snarl. Nightingale hurried on his way. A group of three young men in hoodies and low-slung jeans turned to stare at him with undisguised hostility.

He stopped at an intersection and looked both ways before crossing over. Two middle-aged housewives in cheap cloth coats stopped talking and frowned at him as he passed. He scratched his head, wondering if he was imagining all the hostile looks.

‘Got any spare change, mister?’

He turned to see Proserpine, sitting on the pavement with her legs drawn up to her chest. Her dog was sitting next to her, its tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth, Proserpine was holding a cardboard sign with ‘ANY SPARE CHANGE MUCH APPRECIATED’ scrawled in capital letters.