Stephen Leather - Nightfall

He stared at the photograph of the three football fans. A father, his son, and the uncle. Except that Jack Nightingale wasn’t Bill Nightingale’s son and Tommy wasn’t his uncle. Until Nightingale found out the truth, he would never be able to look at them in the same way again.

Nightingale parked the MGB in the street in front of his uncle’s house, a neat three-bedroom semi-detached in a tidy, predominantly middle-class area of Altrincham to the south of Manchester. It had taken him the best part of three hours to drive from London. He climbed out, stretched, and lit a cigarette. His aunt and uncle were both ex-smokers, had been for twenty years, and wouldn’t let anyone light up anywhere near them. His uncle’s black Renault Megane was parked in the driveway. Nightingale locked his car and walked slowly down the path to the front door, knowing he had to extinguish the cigarette before he rang the bell. The garden was well tended, with two large rhododendron bushes at either side of a neatly mown lawn. There was also a small water feature with a twee stone wishing-well and a bearded gnome holding a fishing rod. The gnome had been there for as long as Nightingale could remember; as a child he’d always been a little scared of it, half convinced that it moved whenever he took his eyes off it. He flicked ash at it. ‘Are they biting?’ he asked. The gnome stared fixedly at the hook on the end of its line. ‘Maybe you should try somewhere else.’ He tossed his cigarette into a flowerbed, then went up to the front door and reached out to press the bell.

He heard a rustle behind him and his heart raced, his childhood fears flooding back. He spun around, half expecting to see the gnome behind him, but it was only Walter, his aunt’s Persian cat. The cat brushed itself against the back of Nightingale’s legs and miaowed. Nightingale bent down to rub it behind the ears. ‘Long time no see, Walter,’ he said. The cat arched its back and purred loudly.

Nightingale straightened and rang the bell. He heard it chime inside the house. The cat continued to purr and wind himself round Nightingale’s legs. ‘What’s wrong, Walter? You starved of affection?’ asked Nightingale. After thirty seconds he rang again, but no one came to the door. ‘Where are they, Walter?’ said Nightingale. ‘Are they in the back garden?’

Nightingale walked around the side of the house and opened a wooden gate that led to the rear, where his uncle had a vegetable patch and grew his prize-winning roses. As Nightingale closed the gate behind him, he noticed a red smudge on his hand. He held it up, frowning. It looked like blood, but there was no cut. He checked both hands, and then the latch on the gate, but there was only the one smear.

He walked down the path to the garden. ‘Uncle Tommy?’ he called.

There was no answer. He knocked on the kitchen door. ‘Auntie Linda, it’s me – Jack.’

Walter miaowed again. Nightingale knelt down and stroked the back of the cat’s neck. ‘What’s going on, Walter?’ he said. There was a glistening red smudge on the cat’s nose. Sudden panic gripped Nightingale and his heart began to pound. He looked at the kitchen door. Set into the bottom there was a cat flap, which Walter used to get into and out of the house. There were red smudges on it.

Nightingale stood up and banged on the door. ‘Auntie Linda! Uncle Tommy! Are you in there?’ He pressed his ear to the wood but heard nothing. He hit the door again, then moved to the kitchen window and stood on tiptoe to peer through it. Beyond the sink he could see a bare leg, a broken plate and a pool of blood. Nightingale hammered on the window. ‘Auntie Linda!’

He looked around, wondering to do, spotted his uncle’s shed and ran to it, throwing open the door and grabbing a spade. He dashed back to the house and used the spade to smash the window, then climbed inside. His aunt was on the kitchen floor, her head shattered, brains and blood congealing on the tile-patterned lino. Her mouth was wide open and her eyes stared glassily at the ceiling. Nightingale knew immediately that there was no point in checking for signs of life.

He walked carefully around the pool of blood. There was no sign of a murder weapon and the back door had been locked, which meant that the attacker had either left by the front entrance or was still in the house. There was a knife block by the fridge and Nightingale pulled out a large wood-handled blade. ‘Uncle Tommy, are you in the house?’ he shouted.

He went through to the sitting room. There was an unopened copy of the News of the World on the coffee-table, and an untouched cup of tea. Nightingale went over to the table and touched the cup. It was cold and there was a thick scum on the surface.

He moved slowly back into the hallway, listening intently. He started up the stairs, taking them one at time, craning to look up at the landing above. Halfway up he found an axe, the blade covered with blood. He didn’t touch it but stepped carefully over it. As he reached the top he heard a soft creak and froze, the knife out in front of him. He took another step.

Something was moving on the landing. Something just out of sight. He crept up, his mouth bone dry, his heart thudding. He stopped again when he heard another gentle creak. Then he saw something move. It was a foot – a naked foot – suspended in the air. Nightingale took another step and saw two feet, then pyjama bottoms, and as he reached the top he saw his uncle hanging from the trapdoor that led to the attic. There was a rope around his throat and, from the unnatural angle of the head, it was obvious that the neck had snapped. Nightingale realised that his uncle must have sat in the trapdoor and dropped. He was naked from the waist up and there were drops of blood across his chest. Nightingale could see no wounds on him so the blood could only have been his wife’s. He must have battered her to death in the kitchen, then come upstairs and killed himself.

The rope creaked as the body moved slightly. He was dead but the fluids within him were shifting as the organs settled. The pyjamas were wet at the groin and there was a pool of urine on the floor. Nightingale took out his mobile phone and dialled 999. As he waited for the operator to answer, he turned. The bathroom door was wide open and through it he saw the mirror above the sink. Scrawled across it in bloody capital letters were seven words: YOU ARE GOING TO HELL, JACK

Jenny was sitting at her desk, using a small mirror to read the handwritten diary, when Nightingale walked in. He opened the door to his office. ‘Coffee would be nice,’ he said. He flopped onto his chair and put his feet on the desk. A small spider had set up home in the corner by the window and there was a layer of dust on the blinds. ‘When’s the cleaner in next?’ he called.

‘She was here on Friday morning,’ Jenny replied, as she poured his coffee, ‘and she’ll be in again tomorrow.’

‘Then she’s doing a shit job,’ said Nightingale. ‘She’s Polish, right?’

‘Romanian,’ said Jenny. ‘I’ll talk to her.’

‘Tell her to give the blinds a wipe.’

‘I hear and obey,’ said Jenny, appearing at the door with a steaming mug. ‘Just like your women – hot and black.’

Nightingale frowned.

‘What?’

‘I was joking,’ she said, putting the mug on his desk and sitting down opposite him. ‘Trying to lighten the moment.’

‘But I’ve never had a black girlfriend,’ said Nightingale, reaching for the mug.

‘That’s what makes it funny. What’s wrong, Jack? You look like-’

‘Like I’ve seen a ghost?’

‘Well, yes, actually.’

Nightingale sipped his coffee. ‘My uncle killed himself yesterday – killed himself and murdered my aunt.’