Stephen Leather - Nightfall

‘House? What house?’

Turtledove took the will out of the file and gave it to Nightingale. ‘There isn’t much in the way of money, I’m afraid, but there is a substantial property, a country house, by the name of Gosling Manor. It’s about six miles outside Hamdale.’ He opened a drawer and gave Nightingale a key-ring with two keys on it. ‘I’ve some paperwork for you to sign and then it’s all yours. I’ve a map here with the house marked on it.’

‘Burglar-alarm code?’

The solicitor shook his head. ‘I assume there isn’t one.’

Nightingale put the key and the map into his coat pocket. ‘You said there was cash?’

‘A few hundred pounds,’ said Turtledove. ‘We’ll have to get the house valued in case there are inheritance tax issues.’

‘You mean I’ll have to pay for it?’

‘It depends on its value. But once the tax liability has been assessed, yes, you will most certainly have to pay it. Death and taxes are the only two certainties in life, as Mark Twain once said. Or was it Benjamin Franklin?’ He put a hand to his forehead. ‘My memory just isn’t what it was.’

‘You don’t know what the house is worth?’

The solicitor looked over the rims of his glasses at Nightingale. ‘I’m just the middle man, I haven’t seen the house. I was just told that it’s substantial.’

‘Mr Turtledove, this is all very unusual, isn’t it?’

‘Mr Nightingale,’ said the solicitor, ‘I’ve never had a case like it.’

Nightingale drove slowly down the narrow country road. The sky had darkened while he had been in the solicitor’s office, and it was starting to rain. He switched on the wipers, which swished back and forth leaving greasy streaks on the glass. He glanced down at the map Turtledove had given him. When he looked up he saw a tractor pulling out in front of him and jammed on the brakes. The tyres couldn’t grip the wet road and the car slid to the right. Nightingale took his foot off the brake pedal, then pumped it and brought the skid under control, managing to stop just inches from the back of the tractor. The driver was wearing headphones, his head bobbing up and down in time to whatever music he was listening to, totally oblivious to how close he’d come to killing Nightingale. As Nightingale sat with his hands on the steering-wheel, heart pounding, the tractor roared off, leaving a plume of black smoke behind it. His mind hadn’t been on the road, he realised. He’d been too busy thinking about his meeting with the solicitor.

It didn’t make sense. Nightingale had never suspected that Bill and Irene Nightingale weren’t his real parents. Even the phrase ‘real parents’ sounded wrong. Of course they were his real parents. In every childhood memory he had, they were there – his mum teaching him the alphabet, his father helping him ride his bike for the first time, clapping as he blew out birthday candles, the pride on their faces when he’d told them he’d been accepted by King’s College, London. There had been tears in his father’s eyes when he’d told Nightingale that he was the first member of the family ever to go to university. Nightingale was sure that if he really had been adopted, his parents would have said something.

Nightingale took deep breaths to steady himself, then put the car into first gear and headed off. To the right there was a field that had been recently ploughed, to the left a six-foot-high stone wall. Ahead, he saw a break in it and a large circular metal mirror attached to a tree. He slowed the car. He saw metal gates and a sign: Gosling Manor. He pulled up alongside the gates and climbed out of the MGB. On the other side of them a narrow paved road curved to the right through thick woodland, mainly deciduous trees that had lost most of their leaves, their bare branches outlined like skeletons against the grey November sky. A thick chain linked the gates, with a brass padlock. Nightingale took out the keys Turtledove had given him. One fitted the padlock. He unravelled the chain, pushed open the gates and got back into his car.

He drove slowly as the road curved to the right, then to the left. When the trees thinned he saw the house and brought the car to a halt. It was a stunning mansion, the sort of grand house you’d see on the cover of Country Life magazine or on a box of chocolates you’d give to an elderly relative at Christmas. The main part of the house was built of sandstone with upper facades of weathered bricks. It was two-storeys high, topped with a steepled tiled roof that was almost the same colour as the bricks, and four towering chimney stacks, which gave it the impression of an ocean-going liner. Vibrant green ivy had been trained to climb the walls, reaching from the ground to the roof, the main vines as thick as a man’s wrist. The entrance, too, was shrouded in ivy, a massive oak door with ornate black hinges. The window-frames were painted white, and to the left of the main building there was a brick garage with four doors, also painted white, and a matching tiled roof. To the left of the house, a magnificent conservatory and, beyond it, another wing seemed to have been added as an afterthought. The house appeared somehow to have grown out of the ground rather than having being built, as if it had pushed itself out of the earth as a living, breathing entity.

Nightingale drove slowly towards it. The paved road merged into a parking area large enough for several dozen vehicles, now littered with dead leaves, and in the middle stood a massive stone fountain, whose centrepiece was a weathered stone mermaid surrounded by dolphins and fish. There was no water in it. He parked the MGB and climbed out. He looked back down the road that disappeared into the woodland. There was no sign of the main road, no sound other than birdsong and the occasional bark of a far-off dog. He turned back to the house. ‘And it’s mine, all mine,’ he muttered to himself. When Turtledove had given him the keys Nightingale had assumed there had been some mistake, but as he stood looking at the grand house he realised such mistakes didn’t happen – people weren’t accidentally handed multimillion-pound mansions. Checks would have been carried out, assurances given, and the only way that the house could be his was if Ainsley Gosling really had been his father.

The thought that his parents had lied to him so completely made his head spin. If he really had been adopted, they couldn’t have kept the secret to themselves, surely. Other members of the family must have known – babies didn’t just appear from nowhere. He took out his mobile phone, scrolled through his address book and called his uncle Tommy. He hadn’t spoken to him since the previous Christmas when he’d driven up to Altrincham to spend the day with him and his aunt.

His aunt answered the phone. ‘Auntie Linda? It’s Jack.’

There was a moment’s hesitation as if she wasn’t sure who Jack was, then she almost yelped: ‘Jack!’

‘Hi, how’s things?’

‘Jack, it’s so good to hear from you. Is everything okay?’

‘Everything’s fine. And Uncle Tommy, how is he?’ He looked around as he talked, and frowned when he saw a CCTV camera half hidden in the ivy over the front door.

‘He’s taken the dog out for a walk. He’ll be so sorry that he missed you. How’s work? Are you married yet?’

‘No, I’m not married yet.’ Jack laughed. ‘Look, I know this is a strange thing to ask out of the blue, but do you by any chance know if I was adopted?’ He spotted another CCTV camera on the side of one of the chimneys, and a third atop the conservatory. There was a long silence and Nightingale thought for a moment he’d lost the connection. ‘Aunty Linda, did you hear me?’

‘What a question, Jack. We don’t hear from you for almost a year and you ask a question like that.’