Stephen Leather - Nightfall

Jack Nightingale didn’t intend to kill anyone when he woke up on that chilly November morning. He shaved, showered and dressed, made himself coffee and a bacon sandwich, and at no point did he even contemplate the taking of a human life, even though he had spent the last five years training to do just that. As a serving member of the Metropolitan Police’s elite CO19 armed-response unit he was more than capable of putting a bullet in a man’s head or chest if it was necessary and provided he had been given the necessary authorisation by a senior officer.

His mobile phone rang just as he was pouring the coffee from his cafetiere. It was the Co-ordinator of the Metropolitan Police’s negotiating team. ‘Jack, I’ve just had a call from the Duty Officer at Fulham. They have a person in crisis down at Chelsea Harbour. Can you get there?’

‘No problem,’ said Nightingale. After two courses at the Met’s Bramshill Officer Training College he was now one of several dozen officers qualified to talk to hostage-takers and potential suicides in addition to his regular duties.

‘I’m told it’s a jumper on a ledge but that’s all I have. I’m trying to get back up for you but we’ve got four guys tied up with a domestic in Brixton.’

‘Give me the address,’ said Nightingale, reaching for a pen.

He ate his bacon sandwich as he drove his MGB Roadster to Chelsea Harbour. During the three years he had worked as a negotiator he had been called to more than forty attempted suicides but on only three occasions had he seen someone take their own life. In his experience, people either wanted to kill themselves or they wanted to talk. They rarely wanted to do both. Suicide was a relatively easy matter. You climbed to the top of a high building or a bridge and you jumped. Or you swallowed a lot of tablets. Or you tied a rope around your neck and stepped off a chair. Or you took a razor blade and made deep cuts in your wrist or throat. If you were lucky enough to have a gun you put it in your mouth or against your temple and pulled the trigger. What you didn’t do if you really wanted to kill yourself was say you were going to do it, then wait for a trained police negotiator to arrive. People who did that usually just wanted someone to listen to their problems and reassure them that their lives were worth living. Once they’d got whatever was worrying them off their chests they came off the ledge, or put down the gun or lowered the knife, and everyone cheered, patted Nightingale on the back and told him ‘job well done’.

When he reached the address that the Duty Officer had given him, his way was blocked by a police car and two Community Support Officers in police-type uniforms and yellow fluorescent jackets. One pointed the way Nightingale had come and told him to turn around, in a tone that suggested his motivation for becoming a CSO had more to do with wielding power than helping his fellow citizens. Nightingale wound down the window and showed them his warrant card. ‘Inspector Nightingale,’ he said. ‘I’m the negotiator.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ said the CSO, suddenly all sweetness and light. He gestured at a parked ambulance. ‘You can leave your car there, I’ll keep an eye on it.’ He and his colleague moved aside to allow Nightingale to drive through. He pulled up behind the ambulance and climbed out, stretching and yawning.

If you’d asked Nightingale what he was expecting that chilly November morning, he’d probably have shrugged carelessly and said that jumpers tended to be either men the worse for drink, women the worse for anti-depressants or druggies the worse for their Class-A drug of choice, generally cocaine or amphetamines. Nightingale’s drug of choice while working was nicotine so he lit himself a Marlboro and blew smoke at the cloudless sky.

A uniformed inspector hurried over, holding a transceiver. ‘I’m glad it’s you, Jack,’ he said.

‘And I’m glad it’s you.’ He’d known Colin Duggan for almost a decade. He was old school – a good reliable thief-taker who, like Nightingale, was a smoker. He offered him a Marlboro and lit it for him, even though smoking in uniform was a disciplinary offence.

‘It’s a kid, Jack,’ said Duggan, scratching his fleshy neck.

‘Gang-banger? Drug deal gone wrong?’ Nightingale inhaled and held the smoke deep in his lungs.

‘A kid kid,’ said Duggan. ‘Nine-year-old girl.’

Nightingale frowned as he blew a tight plume of smoke. Nine-year-old girls didn’t kill themselves. They played with their PlayStations or Wiis, or they went rollerblading, and sometimes they were kidnapped and raped by paedophiles, but they never, ever killed themselves.

Duggan pointed up at a luxury tower block overlooking the Thames. ‘Her name’s Sophie, she’s locked herself on the thirteenth-floor balcony and she’s sitting there talking to her doll.’

‘Where are the parents?’ said Nightingale. There was a cold feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

‘Father’s at work, mother’s shopping. She was left in the care of the au pair.’ Duggan waved his cigarette at an anorexic blonde who was sitting on a bench, sobbing, as a uniformed WPC tried to comfort her. ‘Polish girl. She was ironing, then saw Sophie on the balcony. She banged on the window but Sophie had locked it from the outside.’

‘And what makes her think Sophie wants to jump?’

‘She’s talking to her doll, won’t look at anyone. We sent up two WPCs but she won’t talk to them.’

‘You’re supposed to wait for me, Colin,’ said Nightingale. He dropped his cigarette onto the ground and crushed it with his heel. ‘Amateurs only complicate matters, you know that.’

‘She’s a kid on a balcony,’ said Duggan. ‘We couldn’t just wait.’

‘You’re sure she’s a potential jumper?’

‘She’s sitting on the edge, Jack. A gust of wind and she could blow right off. We’re trying to get an airbag brought out but no one seems to know where to find one.’

‘How close can I get to her?’

‘You could talk to her through the balcony window.’

Nightingale shook his head. ‘I need to see her face, to watch how she reacts. And I don’t want to be shouting.’

‘Then there are two possibilities,’ said Duggan. ‘She’s too high to use a ladder, so we can either lower you from the roof or we can get you into the flat next door.’

‘Lower me?’

‘We can put you in a harness and the Fire Brigade boys will drop you down.’

‘And I talk to her hanging from a string like a bloody puppet? Come on, Colin, I’m a negotiator, not a bloody marionette.’

‘The other balcony it is, then,’ said Duggan. He flicked away his butt. ‘Let’s get to it.’ He waved over a uniformed constable and told him to escort Nightingale up to the thirteenth floor. ‘Except it isn’t the thirteenth, it’s the fourteenth,’ said Duggan.

‘What?’

‘It’s a superstitious thing. Don’t ask me why. It is the thirteenth floor, but the lift says fourteen. It goes from twelve to fourteen. No thirteen.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Nightingale.

‘Tell the developer, not me,’ said Duggan. ‘Besides, you’re talking to the wrong person. You won’t catch me walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror. I can understand people not wanting to live on the thirteenth floor.’ He grinned at Nightingale. ‘Break a leg, yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ said Nightingale. He nodded at the constable, a lanky specimen whose uniform seemed a couple of sizes too small for him. ‘Lead on, Macduff.’

The constable frowned. ‘My name’s not Macduff,’ he said.

Nightingale patted him on the back. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘But first I want a word with the au pair.’