Stephen Leather - Nightfall

He stood on the pavement, considering his options. If O’Brien was asleep, he’d answer the door eventually. He obviously wasn’t working because his cab was in the street. Maybe he’d taken the day off and gone somewhere without it. If that was the case, then Nightingale was wasting his time.

He went back up the steps. There was a letterbox in the middle of the door. He pushed it open and bent down to shout through it. ‘Mr O’Brien?’ The door moved forward. Nightingale frowned. He straightened and pushed it open.

There were half a dozen envelopes on the carpet, mainly bills, and several garish leaflets. Nightingale stepped inside. ‘Mr O’Brien? Are you there?’ There was no answer, but Nightingale could hear a soft buzzing, like an electronic hum, coming from upstairs. He closed the door. He knew he shouldn’t be in the house, but he also knew that something was wrong. People didn’t leave their front doors open in London. He walked down the hallway and checked the living room, then the kitchen. There were dirty dishes in the sink and a half-drunk cup of coffee on the draining-board. He touched the kettle. It was cold.

He went back into the hallway. ‘Mr O’Brien? Are you upstairs?’ A large bluebottle flew around his head and he swatted it away. He headed up the stairs, peering up at the landing above. ‘Mr O’Brien, is everything okay?’

The buzzing got louder. Two more large flies circled Nightingale’s head. As he reached the landing he saw that the bathroom door was ajar. There were half a dozen flies on the wall by the light switch and as he moved closer more flew out through the open door. The buzzing was much stronger now, like a faulty electric circuit.

There was a bad smell in the air, an odour Nightingale had encountered many times during his years as a police officer, a smell that was difficult to describe but could never be forgotten. Before he even pushed open the bathroom door, Nightingale knew what he would find.

The man had been in the water for at least a day, probably longer, and had already started to swell. There were deep cuts in both arms and the savage wounds were filled with flies. They were everywhere, feeding and laying their eggs, buzzing around Nightingale as if they resented his appearance at their banquet.

O’Brien had filled the bath with water and cut his wrists with a Stanley knife, which was lying on the floor, the blade covered with blood. There were smears across the wall and the floor where arterial blood had sprayed but most had gone into the bathwater. O’Brien’s eyes were still open, staring up at the ceiling. Nightingale didn’t know why Barry O’Brien had wanted to kill himself but one thing was for sure: it hadn’t been a cry for help.

Scrawled across the tiles at the side of the bath in bloody letters was the sentence with which Nightingale had become all too familiar: ‘YOU ARE GOING TO HELL, JACK NIGHTINGALE.’ Dozens of flies were feeding off it.

Nightingale stared at the words in horror. ‘What is going on?’ he whispered. He pulled a couple of feet of toilet tissue from the roll, swatted the flies away with his hands and used it to wipe the tiles, then dropped it into the toilet. He pulled off another length, wet it under the tap and wiped the tiles a second time. They looked too clean now so he splashed bloody water from the bath over them and washed his hands in the basin. A fly came so close to his right ear that he flinched.

He dried his hands and went back into the hallway where he took out his mobile phone and started to dial 999. He stopped at the second digit. He cancelled the call and instead dialled New Scotland Yard. He asked the switchboard operator to put him through to Inspector Dan Evans, and after a couple of minutes the inspector was on the line. ‘Dan, I thought I’d better tell you this before you hear it from anyone else,’ he said.

‘That sounds ominous,’ said the inspector, jovially.

‘I’m at Barry O’Brien’s house and he’s killed himself.’

There was a long silence. ‘I hope this is some sort of sick joke,’ said Evans, eventually.

‘He’s cut his wrists. He’s been dead for a while by the look of it.’

‘What the hell are you doing in his house?’

‘I came to talk to him,’ said Nightingale. ‘The front door was open.’

‘So you just walked in?’

‘Like I said, the front door was open.’

‘You can’t just go wandering around people’s houses, Nightingale. You’re not in the job any more.’

‘I know that, but what’s done is done. I was going to call 999 but I thought I’d better let you know what had happened.’

‘Do you need an ambulance?’

‘He’s definitely dead. Are you going to handle it or should I call

‘Have you any idea of the trouble this is going to cause, Nightingale? You got O’Brien’s name from me, right?’

‘I’ve forgotten where I heard it,’ said Nightingale, ‘and I doubt I’m going to remember.’

‘Let’s keep it that way,’ said Evans. ‘Where’s the body?’

‘Upstairs bathroom,’ said Nightingale.

‘Wait for me downstairs, outside the house,’ said Evans. ‘And don’t touch anything.’

They left him in the interview room for the best part of an hour, with just a cup of canteen coffee. Nightingale had asked if it was okay to smoke and a sullen uniformed constable had said no. He hadn’t been arrested so he was free to leave whenever he wanted, but there were questions that had to be answered and Nightingale decided it would be best to get it over with. They hadn’t searched him or taken his mobile phone so he rang Jenny and said he’d be later than expected. She wanted to know where he was. ‘It’s complicated,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain when I get back.’ Jenny pressed him for more details but Nightingale heard footsteps in the corridor. The door opened and Superintendent Chalmers, in full uniform and holding a clipboard, walked in. Nightingale hung up.

‘Calling your brief?’ asked Chalmers. Dan Evans and Neil Derbyshire, both holding notebooks and ballpoint pens, were behind him.

‘I didn’t think I needed a lawyer,’ said Nightingale. ‘They told me they just wanted a chat.’

‘A chat it is, then,’ said Chalmers. He sat down opposite Nightingale. Evans took the chair next to him while Derbyshire moved the one that was beside Nightingale and placed it by the door so that all three policemen were facing him around a metal table that had been bolted to the floor. On a shelf on the wall above the table there was a digital voice recorder and in the far upper corner of the room a small CCTV camera.

Chalmers nodded at Evans, who switched on the recorder. ‘Superintendent Ronald Chalmers, interviewing Jack Nightingale.’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘It is now a quarter past two in the afternoon on Friday the twentieth of November and with me are…’ He nodded at Evans.

‘Detective Inspector Dan Evans.’

‘Detective Constable Neil Derbyshire.’

‘If this is just a chat, why the recording?’ asked Nightingale.

‘It’s procedure,’ said Chalmers.

‘Can I smoke?’

‘No, you can’t,’ said the superintendent.

‘But I’m not under arrest?’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘I’m free to go whenever I want?’

‘You’re helping us with our enquiries into the death of Barry O’Brien.’

‘Just so we’re all clear on that,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m here to help.’

‘Date of birth,’ said Chalmers.

‘What?’

‘Your date of birth, for the record.’

‘I’m thirty-two, thirty three on Friday the twenty-seventh. That’s a week from today.’

Evans and Derbyshire scribbled in their notebooks.