Lastnight (35 page)

Nightingale grinned. ‘That’s how I knew what books you wanted.’

‘You did a deal with Lucifuge Rofocale and you went back?’

‘It sounds crazy, right?’

‘Not crazy. But a deal like that …’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve never heard of that being attempted. I need a drink.’ He pressed a button in the arm of his chair and the blonde stewardess appeared with an eager-to-please-smile. ‘Get me a whisky on the rocks, honey,’ he said. Nightingale couldn’t tell if it was her name or a term of endearment. ‘What do you want, Jack?’

‘A whisky’s fine.’

‘Two whiskies, honey. Glenlivet. He looked at Nightingale. ‘Glenlivet’s okay?’

‘In my experience, any malt beginning with a G or an M can’t be faulted,’ said Nightingale. ‘No ice in mine though, thanks,’ he said to the stewardess. She smiled and walked away.

‘That conversation. We had that last time,’ said Nightingale.

‘Which one?’

‘About Glenlivet.’

Wainwright took off his baseball cap and ran a hand through his hair. ‘So this is what, an alternate universe?’

‘I think it’s the same universe, it’s just changed. But in a small way.’

Wainwright put his cap back on. ‘But the girl she saved is now alive. That’s no small thing.’

‘There’s a few people who died who are alive now. But that’s the problem, Joshua. Everything that happened the first time is starting to happen again. I thought I’d changed things, but it looks as if all I did was to postpone it. Robbie died and then he was alive and now he’s dead again. My uncle and aunt. They died and then they weren’t dead and now they are. I tried putting off going to Gosling Manor because I thought that was the key to all this and look what’s happened.’

‘There are more books in the basement?’

‘A whole library. I’m hoping that the answer lies somewhere in that basement, Joshua. There has to be a book there that can help me.’

‘You have a plan?’

‘The beginnings of one.’ He gestured at the four books he’d given the American. ‘I can get you more. Not too many because I need the library to be pretty much intact, but if you give me any other titles you want I’ll see if I can find them.’

‘And in return?’

‘I need your help.’

‘Anything I can do, I’ll do it.’ The stewardess returned with their drinks. Wainwright raised his glass and clinked it against Nightingale’s. ‘Now tell me about this plan.’

Nightingale sipped his whisky. ‘I’m going to have to kill myself, Joshua. That’s the only thing that will stop them.’

60

N
ightingale drove from the airport to Gosling Manor. On the way he stopped off at a service station to fill up his tank and he bought half a dozen sandwiches, two cans of Coke, two of Red Bull and a coffee. He reached the house at just after midday and while it was bright and sunny outside, the house was cold and damp. He took his purchases down into the basement, using his torch until he had relit the candles. He took another bundle of candles from the trunk and lined them up close to the bookshelves before lighting them.

He stood and looked at the books. The shelves ran the full length of the basement and Nightingale did a quick calculation in his head. He decided there were close to one and a half thousand books. Many of them leather-bound and dusty and the writing on the spines had faded on many of them. He would have to take out each book to examine it. Assuming it took ten seconds to remove a book, look at it and replace it, it was going to take about four hours to check them all. There didn’t seem to be any cataloguing and they weren’t in any order that he could fathom so he didn’t appear to have any choice other than to start at the top left-hand corner and work his way methodically through them.

It was an hour before he found the first book on Wainwright’s list. It was a book written by a German Satanist, printed on hand-made paper that had turned beige with age. Nightingale flicked through it but it was written in German and he could make no sense of it. There were several diagrams scattered throughout the text, mainly designs of magic circles. Nightingale put the book in a cardboard box. He found the second book some thirty minutes later, a book on black magic written by a follower of Aleister Crowley. In the following hour he found another six books that were on Wainwright’s wanted list.

Nightingale had been in the basement for almost three hours when he finally found the book that he needed. It was written by a former French priest, Joseph-Antoine Boullan, in the eighteen hundreds. According to Wainwright, Boullan was the most famous Satanist of the 19th century and at one point had claimed to be the reincarnation of St John the Baptist. He had written several books detailing Satanic rituals, but the very few that hadn’t been destroyed were in the hands of private collectors.

Nightingale took the book over to the sitting area at the bottom of the stairs and dropped down on to one of the sofas. He sipped a can of Red Bull and ate a ham and cheese sandwich as he studied the book. It was handwritten, in French. Nightingale’s French was very basic – he’d studied it at school but rarely used it – but Wainwright had written down the name of the ritual he was looking for and he found it in the index.

He flicked through the book to the chapter. It was fairly long, almost a dozen pages. There was a list of what he would need, then a diagram of the circle that had to be drawn, then two pages of what was obviously the Latin incantation that had to be spoken. His schoolboy French kept failing him and he realised he was going to need help with the translation. He stood up, switched on his torch and blew out all the candles one by one.

61

W
hile he was driving back to London, Nightingale’s mobile buzzed to let him know he’d received a text message. He pulled over at the side of the road and took out the phone. It was T-Bone. ‘
WE NEED TO MEET. TONIGHT. OK?
’

Nightingale sent an SMS back. ‘
SURE. WHERE AND WHEN
?’

A second text arrived. An address in Lewisham. And the words ‘
NOW. OK
?’

Nightingale replied. ‘
ON MY WAY. BE THERE IN TWO HOURS
’. He restarted the car and continued to drive to London. His first thought was to drive to Lewisham but the more he thought about it the more the texts worried him. T-Bone had used his regular mobile and not a throwaway. And in the past he’d always phoned and not sent texts. Nightingale drove to Beckenham and parked close to the station before flagging down a black cab and giving the driver the name of the road in Lewisham.

The sky was darkening and the streetlamps were coming on as they turned into the road. ‘What number do you want, guv?’ asked the driver.

‘Just drive down the road slowly, then hang a left,’ said Nightingale. He settled back in his seat and put his hand up to shield his face. The street was deserted. The pavements were empty. That worried Nightingale because in the early evening there was usually someone around.

‘Left, yeah?’ said the driver.

‘Yeah, left and left again,’ said Nightingale.

The taxi prowled back down the road parallel to the one they had been on. They went past a grey police van with half a dozen officers in the back. The lights were off but all the officers had riot gear on. Nightingale cursed under his breath.

‘Do me a favour, hang a left at the end and then second left. Okay?’

‘Sure, mate. It’s your money. You lost?’

Nightingale forced a laugh. ‘All these roads look the bloody same.’

The taxi made the two turns and they drove slowly parallel to the road where he was supposed to be meeting T-Bone. There was a black Jaguar parked on the left hand side. The interior light was on and the driver was reading a copy of the
Evening Standard
. Nightingale recognised the man. It was the man who usually drove Chalmers around.

When they reached the end of the street, Nightingale leaned forward. ‘Tell you what, take me back to Beckenham,’ he said.

‘No problem, mate,’ said the driver. ‘Don’t feel bad about it, sometimes I get lost around here.’

Nightingale took out his phone and sent a text message to T-Bone’s phone. ‘
STUCK IN TRAFFIC BUT ON MY WAY
’.

62

N
ightingale had the taxi drop him close to Beckenham station and walked to his car. He lit a cigarette and then called Chalmers. It was clear from the superintendent’s angry tone that he realised Nightingale was on to him. ‘Where are you, Nightingale?’ he said.

‘Well, I’m not coming to see you, Chalmers, that’s for sure,’ said Nightingale. ‘Did you think I’d fall for your silly little trap?’

Chalmers cursed under his breath and Nightingale smiled to himself.

‘You need to come in and talk to us, Nightingale,’ said the superintendent. ‘We can sort this out.’

‘Sort what out?’

‘Let’s talk about it face to face.’

‘No, Chalmers, let’s talk about it on the phone. Or I’m hanging up.’

‘You’re in trouble, Nightingale. Up to your neck in it. So if you’ve got an explanation you need to give it up now before it gets any worse.’

‘What’s happened, Chalmers? Why are you sending me texts on T-Bone’s phone?’

‘He’s dead,’ said Chalmers, flatly.

The news hit Nightingale like a blow to the solar plexus, even though he’d been expecting it. ‘How?’ he asked.

‘His throat was cut. And there was a note, on the bathroom mirror. Written in his blood. No prizes for guessing what it said.’

‘You don’t think I did it, surely?’

‘You’re stupid, but you’re not stupid enough leave your own name at a murder scene,’ said the superintendent. ‘But you do appear to have been stupid enough to have left voicemail messages on a gangster’s phone.’

Nightingale swallowed but didn’t say anything.

‘I don’t have the exact words to hand, but it went something along the lines of you telling him that you needed something from him, same as the last time. So what were you buying from a gangster, Nightingale?’

‘Alleged gangster.’

‘Nothing alleged about T-Bone Williams, I can assure you of that. His record might not be as long as my arm but it’s certainly longer than your dick.’

‘Nice,’ said Nightingale. ‘Do you kiss your wife with that mouth?’

‘I’m reaching the end of my patience, Nightingale. You’re either buying drugs or weapons off him, now which is it? And just what is your connection to Perry Smith and T-Bone? How come their killers are throwing your name around?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Like hell you don’t,’ said Chalmers. ‘And there’s something else you should be aware of.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘We had three deaths in Soho on Thursday night. Two men and a Goth girl. And the men had tattoos that matched the design you gave me. More like brands than tattoos. But the same design, as near as damn it.’

‘So?’

‘So what the hell is going on, Nightingale? You obviously know more than you’re letting on.’

‘I’ve already told you what I know. You need to find out if anyone else who went to the Ink Pit ended up with that goat’s head tattoo. If they did, they need protecting.’

‘And the killers are in this Satanic group, the Order of Nine Angles?’

‘I know it sound crazy, but yes.’

‘And why is this Order of Nine Angles after you?’

‘I don’t know,’ lied Nightingale.

‘And that’s where I don’t believe you.’

‘What do you want me to say, Chalmers?’

‘I want the truth. Those registration numbers that you had Robbie Hoyle check out for you. You said some pensioner in Neighbourhood Watch gave them to you. You did say that, right? That’s what you told me.’

‘I guess so.’

‘And now you’re going all vague on me. You said some old woman saw the vehicles outside Stella Walsh’s house. You said she was in the Neighbourhood Watch.’

Nightingale said nothing.

‘And there you go being all coy again.’

‘Get to the point, Chalmers.’

‘I think you know what the point is. We’ve canvassed the area and there is no little old lady in the Neighbourhood Watch. So where did you get the numbers from? The numbers that you gave Robbie Hoyle.’

Nightingale stayed silent.

‘It’s the way you don’t answer that tells me you’re involved in this, Nightingale. You get the registration numbers of two cars that you claim were in front of Stella Walsh’s house. And within hours of Robbie Hoyle checking on those numbers for you, he gets mown down by a white van. Coincidentally one of the vehicles you asked him to check on was a white van. You and I both know that’s not a coincidence. You worked with Robbie Hoyle and now he’s dead. You owe him the truth, if nothing else.’

‘You’re right,’ he said.

‘Then come in and we’ll do this properly.’

‘I can’t. Not just now.’

‘You don’t have any choice, Nightingale. We’ll bring you in whether you like it or not.’

‘I need time, Chalmers. Just a day or two.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve got things to do,’ said Nightingale.

‘Then at least tell me what’s going on. You owe that to Robbie Hoyle. If nothing else.’

Nightingale took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘How about this? I’ll tell you what I know, but you have to do something for me.’

‘What?’

‘My assistant. Jenny McLean. She’s staying with her parents, James and Melissa McLean. They’ve got a big pile in Norfolk. Edmund House. I need you to protect her.’

‘You know how stretched the Met is these days,’ said Chalmers.

‘That’s the deal, Chalmers. I’ll tell you what I know and you protect Jenny.’

‘She’s in danger?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me what you know.’

‘I need your word,’ said Nightingale.

‘You have it.’

Nightingale sighed. ‘The guys who killed the Goths are the same people who killed Perry Smith and T-Bone. They’re in the Order of Nine Angles. I think that most of the members have a brand, that goat’s head thing.’

‘You’ve told me that already.’

‘I think that Ricky Nail saw the tattoo and started putting it on a few of his clients. The Order found out, tracked them down and killed them. They killed Nail, too.’