Stephen Leather - Nightshade - The Fourth Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller

There was a Bible on one of the lower shelves and Nightingale pulled it out.

‘That was our father’s,’ said McBride.

‘He was religious?’

‘Sure. Church of Scotland. Mum, too. But Dad pretty much gave up on religion after Mum died. It wasn’t an easy death and it pretty much destroyed his faith.’ McBride shrugged. ‘He didn’t even want a Christian funeral service.’

‘But he kept the Bible?’

McBride nodded. ‘I guess so. Maybe he forgot it was there.’

Nightingale replaced it. ‘What I don’t see is anything that suggests your brother was interested in black magic.’

‘I never saw anything like that. I suppose he could have hidden them.’

‘Could we have a look?’

‘You mean search the house?’

‘If he really was a Satanist then there’d be books or other paraphernalia. It’s a complicated business.’

McBride looked at his watch. ‘Okay, let’s do it,’ he said. ‘But I’ll have to call the wife and let her know that I’ll be late.’

There was a wooden plaque on the wall next to the bookcase and Nightingale walked over to get a better look. There was a pentangle in the middle and below it, a pair of compasses. McBride joined him. ‘I’ve never noticed that before,’ he said. ‘Is it a witchcraft thing?’

Nightingale shook his head. ‘It’s a Masonic thing.’ He pointed at a small brass label at the bottom of the plaque. ‘That’s the name of his lodge.’

‘He never mentioned it.’

‘It’s no big deal – a lot of farmers are Masons. Mainly they’re a social and charitable group. A lot of cops used to be Masons but it’s fallen out of favour in the last few years.’ He went over to the desk and put his hand on a drawer, then straightened up and looked at McBride. ‘With your permission, I’d like to search the house, from top to bottom.’

‘Looking for what, actually?’

‘Anything that suggests your brother really was a Satanist. If he was then there’d be things he wouldn’t want anyone else to see.’

‘The police have been through the house, they searched all the rooms when they took away the computer and the guns.’

‘Yeah, well, the cops aren’t always as thorough as they should be,’ said Nightingale. ‘Let’s see how I get on.’

11

Nightingale spent the best part of four hours searching the farmhouse, from a dusty attic filled with old furniture and long-forgotten clothes and odds and ends, down through all the rooms and ending up in a cold damp basement which contained a fridge-freezer full of pork and lamb, presumably from the farm’s stock. But at no point did he find anything that gave a clue to Jimmy McBride’s state of mind or suggested that he was in any way interested in Satanism. There was something disconcerting about the bedrooms. The main bedroom with an en-suite bathroom had obviously belonged to the parents – their clothes were still in the wardrobes and there were bottles of make-up and perfume on an old oak dressing table. The bedroom where Danny McBride had slept had posters of rock groups and racing cars on the walls and fishing tackle in one corner, and Nightingale found a collection of dirty magazines at the bottom of a chest of drawers that was still full of underwear, socks and T-shirts.

McBride’s own bedroom was a throwback to the fifties, with heavy dark wood furniture and more watercolours on the walls. On a bedside cabinet there was a copy of Farmer’s Weekly , next to a framed photograph of a middle-aged man wearing thick-framed spectacles and a flat cap, a stocky woman with tightly permed hair and two young boys grinning at the camera. The McBride family.

Nightingale went through every cupboard, every wardrobe, lifted the carpets and checked behind every picture. He checked the toilet cisterns and looked for loose floorboards. He found nothing that suggested McBride was anything other than a hard-working farmer, albeit one with a limited social life.

After he’d finished searching the basement he went upstairs to the kitchen, where the brother was sitting at the table nursing a mug of coffee. He was staring out of the window at the yard and he turned to look at Nightingale. ‘I made a coffee, do you want one?’ he asked.

‘I’m okay,’ said Nightingale, sitting down at the table.

‘Find anything?’

Nightingale shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Not a blind thing. Who’s looking after the livestock?’

‘I’ve brought in a contractor from Sunderland,’ said McBride. ‘None of the neighbours wanted to help, not after what Jimmy did.’ He shrugged. ‘Can’t blame them, I suppose.’

‘You’re going to sell it?’

‘I’m going to have to,’ said McBride. ‘I can’t see how me or my family can stay in the area, not after this.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘It’s not as if I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘If it had been my kids who had been killed, I’d never forgive anyone connected to the killer. You just can’t, can you? Every time you saw them you’d remember what happened, it’d be like rubbing salt into the wound.’

‘It’s a nightmare, I know. In a way your brother has it easy. He’s dead, he’s out of it.’

McBride nodded. ‘It’s my kids I feel sorry for. They’re going to carry it with them for the rest of their lives, that their uncle was a mass murderer.’ He sipped his coffee.

‘The policeman who took away your brother’s computer. Have you got a number for him?’

‘I’ve got his card, I think.’ He fished in his wallet and took out a Northumbria Police business card. He gave it to Nightingale. ‘What’s next?’

‘I’ll try to see this guy and see if I can get the computer back. I’m hoping to get a contact in the police who’ll give me some background info. And tomorrow I’ll see if I can get a look at the school. I’m heading back to London tomorrow and I’ll get a lab to check the blood on the crucible and knife.’

‘What do you think, Mr Nightingale? You’ve seen the house, you’ve seen what’s in the barn. What do you think drove my brother to kill those children?’

‘I don’t know, Mr McBride. I’ll have a better idea by tomorrow.’

As it turned out, Inspector Colin Stevenson was considerably less forthcoming than Nightingale had hoped. He was a big man with a double chin and a gut that suggested a fondness for beer. He was clearly unhappy at having Nightingale in his office on a Friday afternoon. He sneered at Nightingale’s business card and then tossed it onto his desk. The detective’s office was a small cubby-hole with a window overlooking the police station’s car park. ‘So why does Mr McBride need a private detective?’ he asked.

‘There’s a few questions about the case that he would like answering,’ said Nightingale.

‘We’ve been more than happy to communicate with Mr McBride,’ said the detective. ‘But to be fair, I don’t see that there are any questions that need answering. His brother took his shotgun and killed a teacher and eight children in cold blood and then he turned his gun on himself.’ He shrugged. ‘Case closed.’

‘Mr McBride would like to have his brother’s computer returned.’

‘Why?’

Nightingale frowned. ‘Why? If the case is closed then it’s no longer evidence.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said the inspector.

‘Well now, that’s not strictly true, is it?’ said Nightingale. ‘You’re not a judge. You’re an investigating officer.’

‘But I’ll be the one who decides when something is no longer evidence.’ He folded his arms defensively. ‘That computer is staying where it is.’

‘Like you said, the case is closed. Why do you need it?’

‘The inquest has yet to be heard,’ said the inspector. ‘What’s on the computer shows the state of his mind.’