Stephen Leather - Nightfall

The nurse sat down beside her and put an arm protectively around her. ‘I think you should go.’

‘You’re probably right,’ agreed Nightingale. He bent down and picked up the album, then stood up and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. ‘Take care,’ he said. She didn’t react, just stared at the stone birdbath, her cheeks still wet with tears. She reached up with her right hand and began caressing the crucifix again.

Finding someone to buy the books from Ainsley Gosling’s library was surprisingly easy. On Wednesday morning, before he showered or shaved, Nightingale made himself a mug of coffee and powered up his laptop. He entered ‘shops selling second-hand books on witchcraft’ into Google, which threw up more than six thousand sites. He added ‘London’, which brought it down to around five thousand. He scrolled through them and realised that most were regular bookshops so he put a plus sign in front of ‘witchcraft’ and tried again. He sipped his coffee as he studied the list of sites. One on the second page looked promising – a store called Wicca Woman in Camden Town, close to Camden Lock market. He clicked onto the website. Wicca Woman apparently sold everything that a wannabe witch could need, from clothing to potions to magic wands, and it had a comprehensive list of books, including a second-hand section. The address was on the main page with a telephone number.

Nightingale shaved, showered and put on his second-best suit, then called the number and asked to speak to the owner. Her name was Alice Steadman and she said she’d be delighted to see any books he might want to sell, and that she would be in the shop all day.

Nightingale managed to find a space in a multi-storey car park a short walk from Wicca Woman. It was in a side-street, sandwiched between a shop that sold hand-knitted sweaters and a boutique that seemed to stock only T-shirts promoting drug use. A bell chimed as he pushed open the door. A stick of incense was burning next to the cash register, filling the premises with a cloying, flowery fragrance. There were two pretty teenagers in the shop, giggling as they looked at a display of love potions. The sales assistant was a punk girl with fluorescent pink hair, a stud in her chin, two in each eyebrow and a nose-ring. ‘Don’t they set off metal detectors in airports?’ asked Nightingale.

The girl grinned, showing perfect white teeth. ‘All the time,’ she said. She patted her groin. ‘But this is the one I have problems with.’

‘I bet,’ laughed Nightingale. ‘Is the boss in? Mrs Steadman? I spoke to her on the phone about some books.’ He held up a carrier-bag that contained five he had taken from the basement at Gosling Manor.

‘I’ll get her for you.’ She disappeared through a beaded curtain and returned with a tiny woman in her sixties. In a long black shirt that reached her knees, black knitted tights and black shoes that curled up at the toes, she looked like a pixie’s shadow and had a bird-like, inquisitive face. Like a bird, she cocked her head to one side as she looked at him. ‘Mr Nightingale?’

‘Yes,’ said Nightingale.

‘I thought you’d be older,’ she said. ‘You sounded older on the phone.’

One of the girls held up a small cloth bag. ‘Here – do these fings really work?’

Mrs Steadman tilted her chin and fixed her with a steely glare. ‘My dear, everything in this shop works, providing you believe in it.’

‘But it’ll make my boyfriend fall in love with me, yeah? And not look at any other girls?’

‘That’s what it says on the label, my dear, and that’s what it’ll do. But use it sparingly. No one wants a lapdog for a husband, do they?’ She smiled at Nightingale. ‘Come with me, young man, and show me what you have.’

She led him through the curtain into a small room. There was a circular table, with three wooden chairs, and above them a colourful Tiffany lampshade. A gas fire was burning so Nightingale took off his raincoat and draped it over the back of one of the chairs. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve just made a pot,’ asked Mrs Steadman.

He sat down and placed the bag on the table. ‘Tea would be lovely, thank you,’ he said.

Mrs Steadman brought over a tray with a brown ceramic teapot, two blue-and-white striped mugs and a matching milk jug and sugar bowl. ‘How do you like it?’

‘Milk and no sugar,’ said Nightingale, as she poured.

‘Sweet enough?’ she said, and giggled like a teenager. ‘So, these books, they were left to you, you said?’

‘Yes, by my father. His name was Ainsley Gosling. Have you heard of him?’

‘Should I have done?’ She passed him a mug and sat down.

‘He was a collector of books on the occult. I wondered if he’d bought any from you.’

‘I don’t recall the name,’ she said, stirring her tea. ‘And, really, I don’t carry a huge selection of books. I deal mainly in spells and talismans.’

‘And you make a living from that?’

Mrs Steadman chuckled. ‘Young man, I don’t do this to make money. This is my life. This is who I am.’

‘Forgive me for asking, but are you a witch?’

Mrs Steadman’s eyes sparkled with amusement. ‘Just show me what you have in the bag, young man,’ she said.

Nightingale took the five books from the bag and put them on the table in front of her. She took a pair of reading glasses from the top pocket of her shirt and put them on. She picked up the first book, opened it carefully and studied the first page, which listed the date of publication and the publisher. ‘My goodness,’ she said.

‘It’s about witchcraft in the eighteen hundreds,’ said Nightingale.

‘I can see that,’ she said. ‘This book I’ve seen before, but only reproductions. This is a first edition with the original illustrations. They were changed in later editions because some people found them… offensive.’

‘Is it valuable?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Would you buy it from me?’

She looked at him over the top of her glasses. ‘Young man, if I wanted to buy this I’d have to remortgage my house. A second edition sold for fifteen thousand pounds last year. This is a first edition and it’s in perfect condition.’

‘But you can’t buy it?’

Mrs Steadman sat back in her chair. ‘It’s out of my league, young man,’ she said. ‘If you like, you could leave it with me and I’ll see if I can sell it for you. For a commission, of course. Say, ten per cent.’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Nightingale. He took out his cigarettes. ‘Do you mind if I…?’

The woman patted her chest. ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said. ‘Asthma. And you know those things will give you cancer.’

‘Please don’t tell me I’m going to hell,’ he said. ‘That’s the last thing I need to hear right now.’

‘There’s a big difference between dying of lung cancer and going to hell.’

‘Do you believe in hell?’ asked Nightingale.

The woman fixed him with her eyes. They were so dark brown that they were almost black, glistening like pools of oil. ‘No, young man, I do not.’

‘There’s no such place?’ The tea was very strong, the way his mother used to make it. ‘Strong enough that the spoon stands up in it,’ was what she’d always said.

‘How could there be? Fire and brimstone and suchlike.’

‘But I thought…’ He was going to say ‘witches’ but caught himself just in time. ‘… people in your line were big believers in heaven and hell and devils.’

‘Young man, you have a very strange idea of what my “line” entails,’ she said. ‘I channel energy, I use the power of the natural world to make changes for good. It has nothing to do with God or the devil, with heaven or hell, and everything to do with the natural order of things.’