Nightmare (23 page)

A figure was sitting cross-legged in the doorway of an Oxfam shop, dressed in black and holding a cardboard sign. Scrawled in black felt-tip were the words ‘I am hungry. Please help. God bless.’ And below the words there was a pentagram. The figure looked up. Black hair, thick mascara and black lipstick. Nightingale stopped, his mouth open in surprise.

‘Proserpine?’

Something stirred next to her. The dog. A black and white collie. The dog sat up and stared at Nightingale with coal-black eyes, panting softly.

Proserpine smiled and ran a ring-encrusted hand through her spiky black hair. ‘How’s it going, Nightingale?’

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Nightingale.

She smiled up at him. ‘Why do you think anything’s wrong?’ She was wearing a silver choker from which hung an upside-down crucifix.

‘Why are you here? What do you want?’

‘You think I’m here for you?’ She chuckled and stroked her dog’s neck. The dog’s tongue lolled out of the side of its mouth as it stared at Nightingale with dead eyes. ‘You’re not the centre of my universe, Nightingale,’ said Proserpine. ‘You’re not even the centre of your own universe.’

‘So it’s a coincidence? Is that it?’

‘A happystance,’ said Proserpine. ‘A pleasing serendipity. Two ships that pass in the night.’ She grinned. ‘Give my love to Robbie.’

Nightingale’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do you know everything I’m doing?’

‘You’re an open book, Nightingale. And not a particularly well-written one.’

Nightingale blew smoke up at the night sky. The dog growled.

‘Be careful with your smoke, Nightingale,’ said Proserpine quietly.

‘I need to ask you something,’ said Nightingale.

‘I told you before that I’m not your phone-a-friend. Remember what happened the last time you asked me something?’

‘This is different,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s about Sophie.’

‘Ah. The little girl. That was sad, wasn’t it?’

Nightingale looked at her, wondering whether or not she was joking.

‘You wish you’d saved her, don’t you?’ said Proserpine.

‘Sure.’

‘Maybe you’ll get the chance.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

She shrugged. ‘You’ll find out. Eventually.’

Nightingale leaned towards her. ‘How can I save her? What do I have to do?’

The dog growled and she stroked the back of its head. ‘You’re on a journey, Nightingale. A voyage of discovery. Now how boring would that be if you had a map that showed you every step of the way?’

‘But you can see it? You know where I’m going and what’s going to happen?’

‘I see things differently to you,’ said Proserpine. ‘But trying to explain it to you would be like running quantum physics past a tapeworm.’

‘You don’t believe in building a man’s self-esteem, do you?’ He inhaled smoke and held it deep in his lungs.

‘You’re so far beneath me that even the tapeworm analogy is lacking.’

Nightingale blew out the smoke and smiled. ‘So why do you bother with me? And the rest of us?’

‘It’s your souls we want, Nightingale. It’s like when you want a steak. Do you care about the cow?’

‘I guess not,’ he said. ‘Where is Sophie?’

‘Beyond your reach,’ she said.

‘Heaven?’

‘She killed herself. That’s a mortal sin.’

‘She was a child being molested by her father. That has to count for something, right?’

‘Why are you so concerned about her?’

‘She died on my watch. I was there. If I’d done it differently, maybe . . .’ He shook his head. ‘What happened to her was so damn unfair.’

‘Life’s unfair, Nightingale. You’ll find the journey easier if you just accept that fact.’ She waved a languid hand in the direction that he’d been walking. ‘You should go.’

‘Can you just tell me, is there anything I can do?’

‘Go, Nightingale,’ she said, her voice harder and deeper. ‘If you stay, worlds are going to collide and you won’t like that.’ Nightingale sighed and started to walk away. ‘Oh, and one other thing, Nightingale.’

Nightingale stopped. ‘What?’

‘Don’t keep taking my name in vain.’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘Stop talking about me. You do it with the lovely Jenny McLean and you did it with Dan Evans. I don’t mind you doing it with Robbie because he’s dead, but if you carry on talking about me there’ll be consequences.’

‘Consequences?’

‘Let’s leave it at that, shall we? I’d hate to spoil a wonderful relationship.’

‘Is that what we have, a wonderful relationship?’

She pointed down the road. ‘It’s time for you to go, Nightingale. And don’t do a Lot’s wife on me.’

Nightingale nodded and walked away. He had to fight the urge to look back but he reached the end of the street and turned left. In the distance he heard another siren and high overhead there was the sound of a helicopter heading in the same direction as the police van. He flicked what was left of his cigarette into the gutter and pushed open the door to the off-licence. A bell jangled and the shop assistant looked up from her copy of
Hello!
magazine. She had dyed-blonde hair with dark brown roots showing and slab-like teeth that appeared grey under the off-licence’s fluorescent lights. Nightingale whistled softly to himself as he studied the rows of bottles. He’d never been a great wine drinker and the names on the labels meant nothing to him.

‘Can I help you?’ said the assistant, who had appeared at his shoulder. Her accent was East European, Polish maybe.

‘I’m looking for something red and not too pricey,’ said Nightingale.

‘Spain, France, Italy . . . what country you like?’

Nightingale shrugged. ‘I’m easy. Just something that tastes good and doesn’t cost the earth.’

The woman took a bottle and held it up so that he could see the label. ‘This is a Bordeaux, from France,’ she said. ‘Seven ninety-nine.’

Nightingale looked pained. ‘Do you have something with a screw top?’ he said. ‘I don’t have a corkscrew.’

‘I can sell you a corkscrew,’ said the woman. ‘Cheap. One ninety-nine.’

‘A screw top would be better,’ said Nightingale.

The woman replaced the bottle and selected another. ‘This is Chianti, from Italy.’

Nightingale looked at the screw top and nodded.

‘Is it good?’

‘It’s okay.’ She squinted at the price label. ‘It’s four ninety-nine.’

‘Perfect,’ he said.

Nightingale paid for it and she put it in a plastic bag for him. He walked back to where he’d left his MGB. The shop doorway where Proserpine had been sitting was now empty but the cardboard sign was there, shifting in the wind that was blowing down the street. He climbed into the car and drove away with the bottle of wine on the passenger seat. It took him less than half an hour to drive to the cemetery where Robbie Hoyle was buried. The clouds overhead were threatening rain and he buttoned up his raincoat after he’d parked the car.

He swung the carrier bag as he walked through the cemetery, humming quietly to himself. There were security lights around the church and they cast long shadows from the statues and headstones. The line of conifers behind Robbie’s grave swished back and forth in the wind and Nightingale shivered. He heard a rustling sound to his left and he flinched but it was only a brown and white cat, crouched beside a statue of an angel. The cat stared back at Nightingale, its eyes seeming to glow as they reflected back the halogen light.

As he reached Robbie’s grave he took the bottle from the bag. The wind whipped the bag from his hands and it blew across the grass towards the church. Nightingale unscrewed the top and then poured a good measure over the soil. ‘Cheers, mate,’ he said. ‘How’re things?’

There was a simple wooden cross at the top of the grave giving Robbie’s name and the date that he had died. Nightingale nodded at the cross. ‘Wonder what they’ll say on the headstone when they finally put it up?’ he said. ‘Loving husband, doting father, or dumb detective who forgot the Green Cross Code and stepped in front of a black cab?’ He raised the bottle in salute, then took a long drink before wiping his mouth with his sleeve and nodding appreciatively. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Not bad at all. Last time it was French, right?’ He looked at the label. ‘You know, I think I might have had some of this at your house, the year before last. Anna’s birthday. Remember?’ He took another drink from the bottle and then shook his head. ‘I’m knackered, Robbie,’ he said. He sat down carefully and crossed his legs, then stuck the bottle in his lap and took out his cigarettes and lighter. Nightingale held up the pack of Marlboro. ‘You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?’ he said, then grinned. ‘A graveyard’s just about the only place left where you can have a fag these days,’ he said. ‘I bet it’s going to be a criminal offence before too long.’

Nightingale lit a cigarette, took a long drag on it, and then poured a stream of wine over the grave.

‘I’ll go and see Anna and the girls soon,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, mate; I haven’t been around as often as I should. I just . . .’ He shrugged, then took a drink from the bottle. ‘I never know what to say, Robbie. What the hell can I say? You’re dead and they’re alone and they miss you like hell.’ He shook his head and felt tears sting his eyes. ‘You bastard, Robbie. You stupid bastard.’ He drew on his cigarette, holding the smoke deep within his lungs for several seconds, before blowing a tight plume of smoke into the air. ‘People get sick and die; that’s the way of the world. People get old and die. Planes crash. Shit happens. But how the hell do you manage to walk under a black cab, Robbie? Look right, look left, and look right again. How bloody hard is that?’ He drank more wine and then poured a slug over the soil and watched as it bubbled away. ‘I wish there was some way I could go back, Robbie. Some way of telling you to watch what you’re doing. But that’s the bastard thing about time, isn’t it? It only goes the one way. There’s no going back. So you’re dead and you’re staying dead and I have to go back to Anna and the girls and make small talk.’

Nightingale sighed and lay back on the grass. He stared up at the clouds high above as he took another long pull on his cigarette.

‘Robbie, if I’m talking to myself here, let me know, will you? I’d hate to be making a fool of myself.’ He blew smoke up at the sky. Off in the distance an owl hooted twice and then fell silent.

‘I was wondering if that’s how it works,’ said Nightingale quietly. ‘Maybe you can hear me but I can’t hear you. Maybe it’s a one-way thing. Your soul is there, watching or doing whatever souls do, and I’m stuck here. I just wish I knew for sure, you know? It’s the not knowing that screws with your mind. Until all this started I was a happy enough atheist, or maybe an agnostic. Not that I’m sure what the difference is. Now I really don’t know what the hell’s going on.’ Nightingale sat up, took a drink from the bottle, and then poured some more over the grave.

He blew smoke across the grave and then smiled ruefully. ‘Here’s the thing, Robbie. I know you can’t communicate with me. If you could’ve you would’ve, I’m sure of that. According to Mrs Steadman it’s because we’re not all on the same frequency. But maybe you can hear me, right? And if you’re there listening to me, maybe you can do me a favour.’ He drank from the bottle and once again used his sleeve to wipe his mouth. ‘Remember the girl who died at Chelsea Harbour? Sophie Underwood. She’s been trying to talk to me and not doing a very good job of it. She’s a kid, Robbie. Nine years old when she died and I’m guessing that souls don’t age, right?’ Nightingale chuckled. ‘How would I know that? How would anyone know? Age, don’t age . . . it’s not as if there’s a handbook for death and what comes after, is there?’ He gestured at the church with the bottle. ‘And the vicars and priests are no bloody help, are they? Even the ones that aren’t paedophiles don’t exactly inspire confidence, do they? And the guys at the top seem to be more concerned with not offending the multicultural minority than spreading God’s word. Does anyone really believe that God talks to the Archbishop of Canterbury? Because I damn well don’t.’

He shook his head and took a long pull on his cigarette. ‘Okay, so here’s what I need you to do, Robbie. I need you to take care of Sophie. She doesn’t have anyone – her father was a bastard and her mother looked the other way – and I’m guessing that she’s lonely and scared, and you were always great with your girls.’ He poured the rest of the wine over the grave. ‘So if you’re there, Robbie, and if Sophie’s around, just take her under your wing, will you? Find out what she wants. And if there is anything I can do to help, I will. Tell her I will, I swear. If she wants me to apologise, then I will. If she blames me for what happened, then maybe she’s right. Maybe I could have stopped her from jumping. Hell, I’m not even sure if she jumped. One second she was sitting on the edge of the balcony, the next she was over the edge. Maybe she fell. Maybe she didn’t mean to do it.’ Nightingale put a hand over his eyes and sighed. ‘It’s the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning, Robbie. And the last thing I think about at night. So if she wants me to apologise, I’ll do that.’

The cigarette he was holding had almost burned down to the filter and he slotted it into the bottle where it spluttered in the dregs of the wine and went out. He got unsteadily to his feet and stood looking down at the wooden cross.

‘I can’t bear the thought of you down there, rotting,’ he said quietly. ‘Please, please, please, just let me know that there’s more to it than that.’ He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘If Sophie can try to get through to me, why can’t you, Robbie? Why did my parents never try to get in touch after they died?’ He took a deep breath and then opened his eyes and stared up at the sky. ‘Just listen to me, talking to myself again. What the hell is wrong with me?’ He winked at the cross. ‘Catch you later, mate.’

He walked back to his car, dropping the empty wine bottle into a rubbish bin on the way out of the churchyard.

32

Nightingale drove from the graveyard to Brixton. He was reluctant to leave the MGB on the street but it was late and he couldn’t find a multi-storey car park. He decided to leave it close to Brixton police station in the hope that the proximity of the boys in blue would be a deterrent to any would-be car thief. Just to make sure he took a printed sign out of the glove box and left it on the dashboard: ‘BATTERY DEAD – AA ON THE WAY.’