Stephen Leather - Nightfall

He turned away and walked down to the bank of surveillance monitors. Something moved on one of the small screens. A car at the entrance to the estate. Nightingale leaned over the console and pressed the button to bring up the picture on one of the big screens. He doubted that the devil would turn up in a Ford Mondeo. He watched Robbie Hoyle climb out of his car and walk over to the speakerphone. A handset on the left of the console buzzed and Nightingale picked it up. ‘Hi, Robbie,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

‘How did you know it was me?’ said Hoyle.

‘Smile, you’re on Candid Camera.’

Hoyle looked around until he spotted the camera and waved. ‘Are you going to let me in or what?’

‘You’re not trying to sell me something?’

‘No.’

‘And you’re not a Mormon or a Jehovah’s Witness?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘You’re not the devil, are you?’

‘What?’

‘The devil. Can you prove that you really are Robbie Hoyle and you’re not the devil in disguise?’

‘Don’t be a prick, Jack. Jenny told me you were here and said we should talk.’

‘I’ll take that as a no.’

Nightingale couldn’t see a button that operated the gates. He took the handset away from his head. There was a single button below the mouthpiece and he pushed it. On the screen the gates began to open. ‘Thank you so much,’ said Hoyle, and walked back to the car.

Hoyle was still just halfway down the drive when Nightingale opened the front door. He parked in front of the house next to the MGB and climbed out. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘What did the lovely Miss McLean tell you?’

‘That your uncle killed his wife then topped himself.’

‘That’s pretty much it.’

‘Bloody hell, Jack. What happened?’

Nightingale shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. I spoke to them on the phone and they were okay. When I drove up on Sunday she was dead in the kitchen and he was hanging from the attic trapdoor.’

Hoyle walked into the hall. ‘Jack, you look like shit.’

‘Thanks.’ Nightingale shut the door behind them. ‘There was something weird, Robbie. Something I didn’t tell Jenny.’ Nightingale sighed. ‘My uncle wrote a message on the bathroom mirror. In blood.’

‘You’re serious?’

‘Do I look like I’m joking?’ He took a deep breath. ‘He wrote that I’d be going to hell.’

‘You specifically?’

‘“You are going to hell, Jack Nightingale.”’

‘In blood?’

‘In blood,’ repeated Nightingale. ‘In my aunt’s blood.’

‘He wrote that in blood and then hanged himself?’

Nightingale nodded.

‘That’s sick.’

‘The whole thing is sick.’

‘Why would he write that?’

‘I don’t know, Robbie. But…’

‘But what?’

Nightingale had been about to tell his friend about the dreams he’d been having and that the message written in blood had been Simon Underwood’s last words before he went through his office window, but he knew how crazy that would sound so he bit his tongue. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘And what did the police say about it?’

‘They didn’t see it. I cleaned the mirror before they got there.’

‘Bloody hell, Jack. Are you mad? Tampering with evidence in a murder case? They’ll throw away the key.’

‘Only if they find out. And you’re the only person I’ve told. No one else knows.’

‘Even so. You can’t do that. It’s evidence.’

‘He killed her, Robbie, there’s no doubt about it. The axe was on the stairs and there was blood spatter all over his chest. He was a big man so I don’t see that anyone else could have hanged him. The message on the mirror would have muddied the waters.’ He jerked a thumb at the entrance to the basement. ‘Come on.’ He headed for the basement and Hoyle followed.

They reached the bottom of the stairs where Hoyle stood with his hands on his hips. ‘It’s a lot less intimidating with the lights on, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, and the CCTV’s running, too, so you can check out every room without leaving your seat. You still haven’t said why you’re here, Robbie.’

‘Don’t get paranoid, mate. Jenny said you were coming out here so I said I’d swing by and see what you were up to. Check that you were all right. Oh, and the DNA results came back,’ said Hoyle. ‘Ainsley Gosling is definitely your father.’

‘Terrific,’ said Nightingale.

‘Is that good news or bad?’

‘I’d put it at about fifty-fifty,’ said Nightingale. ‘Why would my uncle kill himself, Robbie? And why would he batter his wife to death? He loved her. They were peas in a pod, joined at the hip. Same as my parents.’ He grimaced. ‘I suppose I should start saying “adoptive parents” now that I know Gosling was my real father.’

‘What did the Manchester cops say?’

‘Murder-suicide, which is obviously what it was. The doors were locked, her blood was on the axe, along with his fingerprints, and there was blood spatter all over him. Open and shut.’

‘Except no motive.’

‘They reckon he just snapped. It happens.’

‘And what about what he wrote?’

Nightingale ran his hands through his hair. ‘I don’t know, Robbie. I just don’t know.’

‘He must have written it for a reason,’ said Hoyle. ‘I understand why you didn’t want the cops to see it, but you can’t pretend it wasn’t there.’

‘I don’t know why he would have written it. He was fine when I last spoke to him.’

‘And why are you here? Jenny said you’ve a couple of cases that need work.’

‘Nothing that can’t wait a day or two,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m trying to find my mother. My real mother – my birth mother. I wanted to talk to my uncle about the adoption but that avenue’s been closed so I thought I’d try to track her down. If Ainsley Gosling was my genetic father, he must have known who my she was. Is.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t even know if she’s alive.’ He sat down on one of the chesterfields. ‘In a way, she might be the only family I’ve got left. And maybe she can tell me what’s going on.’

Hoyle looked around. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a coffee machine down here?’

‘Everything but,’ said Nightingale.

‘There must be adoption records, right? If your parents adopted you there’d have to be paperwork.’

‘My birth certificate has Bill and Irene Nightingale down as my parents. There’s nothing to say I was adopted. And, according to the DVD Gosling left me, I was given to them at birth. I don’t think any agency was involved.’

‘That’s illegal.’

‘It was thirty-three years ago. I don’t think everything was computerised as it is now. And I get the feeling that Gosling wasn’t too concerned about the legality of what he was doing. I think he just got the baby, his baby – me – gave him to the Nightingales and they passed him off as their own.’ He waved his arm around the basement. ‘I think the answer’s somewhere here. Gosling must have kept records and this is his hidey-hole so I want to see what I can find.’ He pointed to the middle of the basement. ‘I’m going to start with those filing cabinets but I’ll go through every book in the place if I have to.’

‘Looking for what, exactly?’

‘I don’t know, Robbie. But he was a rich man so he must have kept a track of what he was spending. Everyone does, right? You keep receipts and bank statements and bills.’

‘Anna looks after the finances,’ said Hoyle. ‘But, yeah, I know what you mean.’

‘So, I think Gosling must have paid someone to help him with the adoption. He couldn’t have done the whole thing himself. If I can find his records for the year I was born, I might turn up a clue as to who my real mother was.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I keep saying that. “Real mum”. As if Irene Nightingale was some sort of fake. She wasn’t. She was my mum and she’ll always be my mum, no matter how this pans out.’ He flicked ash onto the floor. ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’