Stephen Leather - Nightfall

‘Are you a ghost?’ she whispered.

‘A ghost?’ repeated Nightingale. ‘Why would you think I’m a ghost?’

‘You died,’ she whispered. ‘You died when you were born.’

Nightingale froze. ‘Is that what he told you? Is that what Ainsley Gosling told you?’

‘You were stillborn, he said. The doctor wouldn’t even let me see you. They took you away and said they’d bury you but I never saw a grave.’ She stared at him with tear-filled eyes. ‘Why have you come back?’

‘I didn’t die,’ said Nightingale. ‘I didn’t know about you. I didn’t even know you existed. Gosling gave me to the Nightingales and they brought me up.’

The woman’s brow furrowed even more. ‘You’re not a ghost?’

Nightingale stroked her wrinkled hand. ‘No, I’m flesh and blood.’

‘And Ainsley?’

‘He died,’ said Nightingale.

‘What happened?’

‘He got sick and died,’ said Nightingale. He had no compunction about lying to the woman. He didn’t think she’d react well to the news that Gosling had blown his head off with a shotgun.

‘Is he a ghost now? Will he come to see me?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Nightingale.

‘I loved him,’ said the woman, her hands trembling.

‘What was the money for?’ asked Nightingale. ‘The twenty thousand pounds he paid you?’

‘He said I needed a holiday. He said he’d join me and he gave me the money and a train ticket to Blackpool and I never saw him again. I always wanted to see Blackpool. I wanted to climb the tower and walk on the pier.’ She blinked. ‘What’s your name again?’ she asked.

‘Jack.’

‘That’s nice. I was going to call you Edward.’

‘That’s a good name,’ said Nightingale. He smiled. ‘You know, I never really felt like a Jack. But Edward? Eddie? Ed?’

‘Never Eddie,’ she said primly. ‘Edward.’

‘You can call me Edward, if you like,’ said Nightingale. ‘Rebecca, do you know if he had any other children? A daughter, maybe?’

‘I stayed in the hospital for two days afterwards and then I went to Blackpool and the last time I saw him was at the station. He said he’d come to see me in Blackpool. But he never did.’ A tear rolled down her left cheek. ‘Why did he tell me that you’d died?’

‘I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

She sniffed. ‘I’m sorry too,’ she said. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.

‘Thirty-three next week,’ he said. ‘On Friday the twenty-seventh.’

She gasped and clutched at the crucifix. ‘My God,’ she said.

‘What?’

She avoided his gaze and stared at the birdbath. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered, rubbing the crucifix between her finger and thumb. ‘Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.’ She repeated the word like a mantra.

Nightingale narrowed his eyes, ‘You know, don’t you?’

She shook her head.

‘You do. You know what he did, why he took me away from you when I was born.’

‘I don’t, I don’t, I don’t,’ she murmured. She kissed the crucifix with her thin, bloodless lips and carried on rubbing it. ‘I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.’

‘You know what’s going to happen on my thirty-third birthday, don’t you? On Friday next week.’

The woman didn’t answer but she squeezed the crucifix harder.

‘You know, don’t you? You have to tell me. You owe me that much.’

Tears rolled down both her cheeks. ‘He told me you died,’ she muttered. ‘That’s what he told me.’

‘But you knew what he was, didn’t you? You knew he was a Satanist.’

‘Not at first. I just thought he was a man who liked me, who cared about me.’

Nightingale took a deep breath. He wasn’t getting anywhere by asking her directly. She was confused, clearly damaged by the years of medication. He forced himself to smile and gently stroked her hand. He knew from his years of negotiating that sometimes you had to come in from the side, to slip through the defensive barriers that people put up to protect themselves. ‘I bet he was a handsome man,’ he said quietly.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘The first time I met him, he took my breath away.’

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘Church,’ she said.

‘Church?’ repeated Nightingale. That didn’t make sense because the last place a Satanist would go was a place of worship. ‘Which one?’

‘A spiritualist church in Islington,’ she said. ‘I wanted to contact my parents. They died when I was young and I was in a children’s home. I used to go to the church trying to get a message from them.’

‘And did you?’

‘No.’ She trembled. ‘Not at the church, but later, with Ainsley, they spoke to me.’

‘Ainsley helped you contact your parents?’

‘He helped them contact me,’ she corrected him. ‘He brought their spirits to talk to me, to tell me that everything was all right, that they loved me and were watching over me.’

‘And he did that at the church?’

‘No, it was later, at his home. At the church I never got a message. But Ainsley did. Every time. The spirits were always talking to him.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Some of the regulars were jealous because the messages were always for Ainsley. It was as if the spirits were queuing up to speak to him.’

‘Then he took you to his home?’

‘He had a lovely house. So big, with a huge garden. Bigger than this, with trees and flowers and a summerhouse. That was where he made love to me for the first time.’

‘And you got pregnant?’

‘Not then. That was later. After my parents spoke to me.’

‘How did they do that, Rebecca? Did you hear their voices?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Ainsley knew how to use a ouija board and they spoke to me through that. Every night they would talk to me about why they had died, why I had to be strong, and why I should trust Ainsley and let him take care of me.’

‘Rebecca, was it your parents who said you should have a baby with Ainsley?’

She nodded fiercely. ‘They said they wanted grandchildren. They said I was their only child so it was up to me to give them a grandchild and that if I did they would be happy in heaven.’

‘But when the baby was born, you thought it was dead?’

She put a hand up to her forehead. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure.’ Her lower lip began to tremble. ‘I remember telling the nurse that I wanted to hold the baby and Ainsley taking it and saying it was dead, but I think it was breathing.’

Nightingale closed the album. ‘You never saw him again, after you had the baby?’

‘I came back from Blackpool and went to his house but it was empty, and everyone I spoke to said it had been empty for years.’ Tears were running down her face but she ignored them. ‘Why did he leave me?’ she whimpered. ‘Why did he take my baby?’

‘I think you know,’ said Nightingale, harshly. ‘I think you know what he planned to do right from the start. That’s why he paid you. He paid you to have me, didn’t he?’

‘No!’ she wailed. She grabbed the lapels of his jacket, her fingers curled like talons, and pushed her face up to his. He could smell the sourness of her breath and a sickly sweet perfume around her wrinkled neck. He tried to release her grip but her hands were locked rigid. ‘No!’ she shouted, and her spittle peppered his cheek. The photograph album fell on to the grass.

‘Please, Rebecca,’ he said. ‘Calm down, it’s okay.’

He heard running footsteps and twisted around to see the male nurse running towards them. ‘What happened?’ asked the nurse, as he gently prised the woman’s fingers off Nightingale’s jacket.

‘I don’t know,’ lied Nightingale. ‘I was just talking to her about the pictures and she went off again.’