Stephen Leather - Nightfall

‘Then he’s a loony,’ said Jenny, sitting on the edge of his desk.

‘A very rich loony, who gave me two million euros for one of the books in my father’s library. He wants me to give him an inventory of the rest.’

‘Get away,’ said Jenny.

‘I’m serious. I paid the money into the bank – here’s the credit slip if you don’t believe me.’ He held up a piece of paper.

Jenny took it from him and stared at it with wide eyes. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said again. ‘Who is this guy?’

‘According to Google, he doesn’t exist,’ said Nightingale. ‘Young guy, looks like a rap star, flies around the world in a Gulfstream jet when he’s not on the astral plane, and he reckons that if I have the mark, the pentagram, then my goose is well and truly cooked.’

‘Jack, it’s nonsense and you know it.’

‘That’s what I thought until I saw the pentagram.’

‘There are no such things as devils and demons, Jack. Same as there’s no Father Christmas or Tooth Fairy. Waiting for a devil to come and claim your soul is as stupid as sitting by your fireplace waiting for Santa to bring your presents.’

‘I don’t have a fireplace.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Exactly? What does my not having a fireplace prove?’

‘This isn’t about Father Christmas,’ said Jenny. ‘Stop changing the subject.’

‘You brought him up.’

Jenny groaned in frustration. ‘As an example – as a way of showing how ridiculous you’re being by even entertaining the idea that your father did a deal with the demon.’ She saw him opening his mouth to speak and held up a hand to silence him. ‘A devil,’ she corrected herself. ‘A female devil. It’s all in Mitchell’s diary, how he thinks he called up this Proserpine and did a deal with her.’

‘Yeah, it’s a pity we don’t still have it because I need to talk to her.’

‘I made notes,’ she said.

‘They didn’t take them? Mitchell’s men didn’t take your notes?’

Jenny went over to her desk and pulled open the bottom drawer. She took out an A4 ring-backed notebook. ‘They only wanted the diary. This was in my bedroom.’

‘You wrote down everything?’

‘The bits I’d read.’

‘Including how to call up Proserpine? You wrote that down?’

Jenny nodded. ‘There’s a few words I need to look up, but I got most of it.’

Nightingale took the notebook from her. ‘You’re a star, Jenny. An absolute star.’

‘It’s nonsense, Jack. The ramblings of a deranged mind. Mitchell is as crazy as your father was.’

‘Does that mean you don’t want to help me?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Help you?’ asked Jenny. ‘How?’

‘Help me talk to Proserpine. Help me find a way out of this.’

‘Jack…’

‘It’s my only chance, Jenny. ‘He tapped the scans. ‘This proves that my father was telling the truth. He did sell my soul. Tomorrow night at midnight a devil is going to come to claim it and I’m damned if I’m going to let that happen.’ He smiled without warmth. ‘Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Now, will you help me or not?’

Alice Steadman was dusting a display of crystals when Nightingale walked into her shop. She smiled brightly when she saw him. ‘Mr Nightingale, so nice to see you,’ she said. ‘Did everything go all right with Mr Wainwright?’

‘Everything went perfectly,’ said Nightingale. He took an envelope from his jacket pocket and gave it to her. ‘I wanted to drop by and give you your commission. I hope a banker’s draft’s okay.’

She took the envelope from him and opened it. She slid out the cheque and her eyes widened. She gasped and leaned against a display case. ‘Mr Nightingale, this is a fortune. I can’t accept it. I really can’t.’

Nightingale waved away her objections. ‘It’s the commission we agreed.’

‘But this is… this is… I never expected…’

‘It’s fine. If you hadn’t put me in touch with Mr Wainwright I wouldn’t have sold the book, so you’ve earned that.’

She blinked at him. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Mr Nightingale,’ she said. She looked up from the cheque. ‘If there’s anything I can ever do for you, please, just ask,’ she said.

‘Actually, there is,’ he said. ‘I want to draw a magic circle on a wooden floor. Is there a special chalk or something I should use?’

‘Of course, and I have it in stock,’ she said. ‘I use it myself for making sacred circles.’

She went over to a display of Tarot cards. Next to it were a dozen or so boxes about the size of cigarette packets, but instead of government health warnings they were adorned with stars and moons. ‘On the house,’ she said, and handed him one.

‘And consecrated salt water,’ said Nightingale.

‘This is a protective circle, is it?’

Nightingale nodded. ‘I’m told that a chalk circle reinforced with consecrated salt water is the strongest defence.’

‘Defence against what, exactly?’ she asked. ‘What are you planning to do?’

Nightingale ignored her questions. He took a list from his pocket and gave it to her. ‘There are a few other things here that I’m told I need to open and close the circle.’

She took the list from him and ran her eyes down it. Her lips tightened. ‘Oh dear, Mr Nightingale. Are you sure about this?’

‘I’m sure. Can you sell me those items?’

‘Oh, yes, they’re all very straightforward. But I do hope you know what you’re doing.’

‘So do I, Mrs Steadman. So do I.’

Nightingale was mopping the wooden floor of the main drawing room when Jenny walked in with her briefcase. She smiled. ‘That’s a first.’

‘It’s got to be clean,’ he said. ‘Any dirt will compromise the circle. That’s what Mitchell wrote.’

‘You’re really not going to go through with this, are you?’

‘Tonight’s the night,’ he said. ‘I spent all yesterday getting everything. I’ve got the special chalk and the consecrated salt water, and the herbs you said I needed. Mrs Steadman sells all that sort of stuff.’

‘Did she ask what you were planning to do?’

‘I think she sort of guessed. Can you do me a favour? Can you go down into the basement and bring up five of the church candles, the really big ones?’

Jenny handed him a small padded envelope. ‘It came in the post this morning,’ she said. ‘From the Hillingdon Home.’

As Jenny headed down to the basement, he opened the envelope. Inside was his mother’s crucifix and a handwritten note from Mrs Fraser, repeating what she had said in her office, that she was sure his mother would have wanted him to have it. He put the chain around his neck. The crucifix nestled at the base of his throat.

Nightingale continued washing the floor until Jenny returned with the candles. She put them by the door and watched as he got down on his hands and knees and dried it with paper towels. Jenny opened her briefcase and took out her A4 notebook. ‘Mitchell says you can outline the circle with chalk, but for it to be really effective you need to inscribe it with a sword,’ she said.

‘There are swords in the basement,’ said Nightingale, ‘lots of them.’

‘It has to be a magic sword,’ said Jenny. ‘That’s what it says here. Veneficus mucro. Magic sword.’

‘How the hell am I supposed to know which of them are magic?’ asked Nightingale. He gathered up the used paper towels and put them into a rubbish bag.

Jenny ran her finger down the page of her notebook. ‘He says you can use the branch of a birch tree.’

‘Now that’s more like it,’ said Nightingale. ‘We’ve got our own forest out there. Now, please tell me you know what a birch tree looks like.’