Stephen Leather - Nightfall

‘There were lots of candles burning. And he was in some sort of magic circle, one of those star things.’

‘There’s no sign of it now,’ said Nightingale.

‘A team of cleaners went in. Crime-scene specialists. They do a good job, those guys. You wouldn’t get me doing it for love or money.’

‘How did you get in the house?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Security seems pretty tight.’

‘Gosling’s driver found the body. He let us in.’

‘But there was no note?’

The sergeant shook his head. ‘They don’t always leave notes.’

‘They usually do,’ said Nightingale. ‘They want to explain themselves, maybe ask for forgiveness.’

‘You know a lot about suicides, then?’ said the PC.

‘I was a negotiator, back in the day,’ said Nightingale.

The sergeant frowned. ‘Jack Nightingale? Aren’t you the guy who killed that paedophile?’

‘Allegedly,’ said Nightingale. He took out his packet of Marlboro. The PC shook his head as if Nightingale was trying to sell him a wrap of heroin, but the older man took one. Nightingale lit it, and one for himself.

‘Mr Nightingale here’s a bit of a legend,’ said the sergeant. ‘Threw a banker out of a window down Canary Wharf.’

‘Allegedly,’ said Nightingale. He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew smoke into sky.

‘The bastard was fiddling with his daughter,’ said the sergeant. ‘She topped herself, right?’

‘Right,’ said Nightingale. He shivered and took another drag on his cigarette.

‘The bastard got what was coming to him.’ The sergeant flicked ash onto the ground.

‘Allegedly,’ said Nightingale.

‘So, are you going to be moving in?’ asked the younger man.

Nightingale laughed and looked up at the imposing facade. ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ he said. ‘I’d rattle around in a place this big.’

‘Must be worth a fortune. What do you think, Sarge?’

‘Five million, six maybe.’

‘Before the property crash.’

‘What happened to all the furniture and stuff?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Who took it away?’

The sergeant shrugged. ‘It was gone when we got here. The only room that had furniture was the bedroom where he died.’ His radio crackled and he walked away, talking into the microphone.

‘You’re going to hell, Jack Nightingale,’ said the PC, his voice dull and lifeless, almost robotic.

Nightingale turned to him. ‘What?’ he said.

‘I said, are you going to sell up?’

Nightingale wondered if he’d simply misheard.

‘You could make even more money dividing it up into flats.’

‘I guess so,’ said Nightingale. He was sure he hadn’t misheard. But the policeman didn’t appear to be messing with him: he was smiling good-naturedly, just making conversation with a former cop while he waited for his colleague to finish on the radio. ‘I haven’t really had time to think about it.’

‘Was he a close relative, old man Gosling?’ He had an Essex accent, with long vowels and clipped consonants, slightly high-pitched as if his voice hadn’t fully broken. It sounded nothing like the one that had told Nightingale he was going to hell.

‘Not really,’ said Nightingale. ‘He was my father. Allegedly.’

The sergeant was on his way back to them. ‘Landlord of the Fox and Goose has got a problem with gypsies,’ he said. He grinned at Nightingale. ‘Not that we can call them gypsies these days. “Citizens of no fixed abode” is probably the politically correct term. Anyway, one’s just glassed a waitress so we’ve got to get over there. Good luck with the house.’ He reached into his pocket and gave Nightingale a Neighbourhood Watch card. ‘My number’s on there. Give me a call if you need anything.’

Nightingale read his name: Sergeant Harry Wilde. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Look, something I don’t understand. The house is old, right? More than a hundred years, I’d guess.’

‘A lot more,’ said the policeman. ‘The main part dates back to the sixteenth century but a lot of additions were made during the nineteen thirties. Then the family who sold it to Gosling were into horses so they built the stable and paddocks.’

‘So why’s it called Gosling Manor? Has it been in the family for generations?’

‘Mr Gosling bought it in the eighties, cash on the nail, they say. Used to be called Willborough Manor, after the family who built it. They were the local squires here for a couple of hundred years. Mr Gosling put a few noses out of joint by renaming it and there’s a lot of folk around here still call it by its old name. They’ve got a point. Houses are like boats – you only bring bad luck by renaming them.’

‘Yeah, well, it was certainly unlucky for Gosling,’ said Nightingale.

Wilde’s radio crackled again. ‘We’ve got to go,’ said the sergeant. He stuck out his hand and Nightingale shook it. ‘What you did back then, fair play to you. It was the right thing.’

Nightingale smiled thinly but he didn’t say anything. He had long since given up trying to justify to himself what he’d done that November morning and he’d never tried to justify it to anyone else.

He watched the two policemen walk to their patrol car before he climbed into the MGB. He took the envelope out of his pocket. Inside there was a key and the business card of a safe-deposit company. ‘The plot thickens,’ he muttered. He looked at the envelope again. Other than his name there was nothing on it, no indication of who had left it for him in the house. He doubted it had been Ainsley Gosling because if it had been there when the police had entered they’d have opened it in case it was a suicide note. That meant someone else had been in the house after the police had taken away the body.

The safe-deposit company was in Mayfair and Nightingale travelled there by tube because he figured parking the car would be a nightmare. He went straight from home after phoning Jenny to say that he would be late in. She was full of questions about his visit to the Hamdale solicitor but Nightingale said it would have to wait until he was back in the office.

The company’s office was discreet with just a small brass plate on a black door and a single brass bell-push. He pressed it and looked up at a CCTV camera. The door buzzed and Nightingale went in. The reception area was equally discreet, grey walls and carpet, glass and metal furniture, and no inkling of what services were on offer. Nightingale told a receptionist why he was there and two minutes later a female clerk in a grey suit was leading him down a steel staircase to a large room lined with metal doors of varying sizes. The clerk took Nightingale’s key, then used it with a key of her own to open the two locks on one of the larger doors. She pulled out a metal box and placed it on a table, had him sign a form attached to a clipboard, then went back upstairs. Nightingale wondered what it contained. The clerk hadn’t strained as she’d lifted it so if there was cash inside there wouldn’t be much. Diamonds would be nice, he decided. Or a few Krugerrands. Or maybe even an explanation of who Ainsley Gosling was and why he had given up his son for adoption and never made any attempt to contact him until after he’d blown off his head with a shotgun. He took a deep breath and opened the lid. It was empty. Nightingale groaned. What was the point of leaving him the key if there was nothing in the box? Was someone playing a sick trick on him? He started to close the lid but stopped. There was something at the bottom of the box. A brown envelope. He took it out and opened it. Inside he found a single DVD.

Jenny was on the phone when Nightingale opened the office door. ‘I’m sure the cheque was sent out on Tuesday and it’s only Thursday today so it could still be in the post,’ she said, wagging a warning finger at him as he went over to the DVD player. ‘He isn’t in at the moment, but as soon as he arrives I’ll tell him to call you.’