Stephen Leather - Nightfall

Nightingale held it over the photograph and bent close to it. ‘There’s nothing,’ he said.

‘Of course there’s nothing,’ said Jenny. ‘The whole idea’s ridiculous.’

Nightingale turned the page and began to check the rest of the photographs.

‘Jack, give it a rest,’ said Jenny.

Nightingale opened his mouth to reply but before he could speak the office door was thrown open by an angry woman. It took him a couple of seconds to work out who it was and that he’d last seen her through the lens of his video camera leaving the hotel where she’d met her lover. It was Mrs McBride. Before Nightingale could react she rushed over and slapped him across the face. His mug fell from his hands and hot coffee splattered across the floor. ‘Hey!’

He was off balance and before he could get off the desk she slapped him again. ‘You bastard!’ she shrieked.

Jenny reached for the phone. ‘I’m calling the police,’ she said.

Mrs McBride ignored her. ‘He killed himself, you bastard. Are you happy now?’

‘Who?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Who do you think? My husband. He killed himself because of you.’ She raised her hand to slap him again but then she burst into tears and slumped to the ground, racked with sobs.

Jenny put down the phone and went around the desk to comfort her. At first Mrs McBride shook her off, but eventually she allowed herself to be led to the sofa. Jenny gave her a tissue and sat down next to her. ‘What happened?’ she asked.

Nightingale picked up the mug and dropped a few sheets of copy paper onto the spilled coffee. It wasn’t the first time he’d been attacked by an angry spouse, and he doubted it would be the last.

‘He drowned himself,’ said Mrs McBride. ‘In the canal. He left me a note.’ She dabbed her eyes. ‘He said he loved me and couldn’t live without me.’ She looked up at Nightingale. ‘Why did you do it?’ she asked tearfully.

‘He was a client,’ said Nightingale. ‘I was working for him.’

‘You bastard,’ she said, but this time there was no venom in her voice, only despair.

‘You were being unfaithful,’ said Nightingale, quietly. ‘Your husband had a right to know.’

‘My husband was dead below the waist,’ said Mrs McBride. ‘We hadn’t had sex for five years. Five bloody years. What should I have done? Become a nun?’

‘Mrs McBride, I’m sorry but that’s not my problem. Your husband wanted to know where he stood.’

‘Ha bloody ha,’ said Mrs McBride.

Nightingale flushed when he realised what he’d said. ‘You know what I meant,’ he said. ‘He suspected you were being unfaithful. He wanted to know the truth.’

‘I was his wife – that’s the truth. I stood by him all the time he was in the hospital. I stuck with him in sickness and in health. That’s the truth.’

‘You were being unfaithful,’ said Nightingale.

‘Jack…’ said Jenny.

‘I was having sex, that’s all!’ hissed Mrs McBride. ‘I’m a woman, not a block of bloody wood. I needed sex and I found a man who’d give me sex and you went and told Joel. You bloody well told him and now he’s dead!’ She began to cry and Jenny put an arm around her.

‘Mrs McBride, I’m sorry for your loss…’ said Nightingale.

‘It’s your fault he’s dead,’ she said.

‘Did he say that?’ asked Nightingale.

‘He didn’t have to. He said in the note that he couldn’t live without me, and that he knew I was going to leave him.’ She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. ‘Is that what you told him? Did you tell him I was going to leave him?’

‘I didn’t tell him anything of the sort,’ said Nightingale. ‘I just gave him my report.’

‘He said in his note that he couldn’t bear to live without me, but I was never going to leave him.’ She grabbed at Jenny’s hands. ‘You have to believe me.’

‘I do,’ said Jenny.

Mrs McBride looked at Nightingale. ‘When he told me he knew, I was glad in a way. I’d been feeling as guilty as sin for weeks and wanted to tell him myself. But when he showed me the video you’d given him, I couldn’t face him. I went to stay with my friend Lynn to give him time to cool down, but then I was going to explain everything and tell him I still loved him, but now I can’t because he’s dead and that’s your fault.’

‘Did he tell you about my investigation?’

‘He showed me the video you gave him. And the phone records. But it wasn’t until I found your name in his cheque book that I knew who’d done it.’ She dabbed her eyes. ‘How can you live with yourself, doing what you do?’

‘It’s my job, Mrs McBride.’

‘You could have talked to me and I could have explained. I’d have ended it with Ronnie – he’s married anyway. You knew that, didn’t you? His wife makes him sleep in the spare room and he just wanted to touch someone, to share a bed with them. Ronnie was never going to leave her and I was never going to leave Joel.’

‘There’s nothing more I can say, Mrs McBride, other than that I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘Sorry doesn’t cut it,’ said Mrs McBride. ‘You killed my husband, and you’re going to hell.’

‘Your husband killed himself, Mrs McBride. You know that and so do

‘I don’t know how you can live with yourself. You’re scum – you make money from the suffering of others. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

She burst into tears and Jenny gave her a box of tissues. Mrs McBride threw it at Nightingale. ‘I don’t want your bloody tissues! I want my husband!’ she shouted.

Nightingale looked helplessly at Jenny. ‘Go away and I’ll handle her,’ she mouthed. Nightingale did as he was told. He went outside and lit a cigarette. A lot of what the angry woman had said was just plain wrong, he knew, but one thing she had said was definitely true: he was ashamed of himself.

Six uniformed constables carried Robbie Hoyle’s coffin to the grave, followed by Anna and Sarah. They were both dressed in black and held single red roses. The twins had stayed at home with Anna’s sister. More than three hundred people had crowded into the church, most of them police officers. Superintendent Chalmers gave one of the eulogies. He talked about Hoyle’s career, his family and his life outside work, and told a couple of anecdotes about Hoyle’s early days on the beat that had the congregation smiling and nodding. Chalmers clearly spoke from the heart, and his voice cracked a couple of times. The cynic in Nightingale wanted to think that he was faking it but he came to realise that Hoyle’s death had hit the man hard.

Anna gave one of the readings, holding her head up, projecting her voice and smiling across at her daughter. Several tough CID detectives had tears in their eyes.

Nightingale was wearing a dark blue suit and a black tie and Jenny a black cashmere coat over a black dress, her hair held back with a black Alice band. They were standing on a gravel path, about fifty feet from the grave. The six officers lowered the coffin into the ground as the vicar read from the Bible.

‘When I die, I don’t want to be buried,’ whispered Nightingale.

‘You should say that in your will,’ said Jenny.

‘I haven’t got one.’

‘Well, draw one up,’ she said. ‘You’ve got your flat in Bayswater and you’ve got Gosling Manor. You have to leave it all to somebody.’

‘I don’t care who gets it,’ he said. ‘My parents are gone and I’ve no kids.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll leave it all to you.’

‘You will not,’ she said.

‘There’s nobody else close to me,’ he said.

‘Find a charity, then,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to profit from your death, Jack. It’s bad enough my parents always telling me that I’ll be set up for life when they go. I don’t want that from you as well.’