Still Bleeding (A Jack Nightingale Short Story) (4 page)

‘Don’t get too
close,’ said Nightingale, as the doctor drove out of the car park
and down the road.

‘Do you think?’
said Jenny, putting the Audi into gear.

‘I’m just
trying to be helpful,’ said Nightingale.

The doctor
drove east along the A222 to Bromley, the turned off the main road
into a side street of terraced houses. He slowed and was clearly
looking for somewhere to park. ‘Best I drop you near him so you can
follow him on foot,’ said Jenny.

‘I’ll find a
place to park.’ McKenzie had spotted a gap between two SUVs and
switched on his turn indictor before slowly reversing.

Nightingale
climbed out of the Audi and lit a cigarette as McKenzie parked the
car. Jenny drove slowly down the road.

McKenzie got
out of his BMW with his medical bag and headed down the street.
Nightingale followed him on the other side of his road. The doctor
walked quickly, his head down, deep in his own thoughts, until he
reached a house with a blue door. He stopped, pressed the doorbell,
and a couple of moments later slipped inside. Nightingale wasn’t
able to see who had let him in. He crossed over the road. The house
was Number 26. He took out his phone and called Jenny.

‘I’m parked up,
not far away from where I dropped you,’ she said.

‘He’s gone
inside Number 26.’

‘Can you see
anything?’

‘Nah. I’m going
to try to get around the back.’

‘Be careful,
Jack.’

‘Careful is my
middle name,’ he said, ending the call and walking quickly down the
road. He counted the houses as he went. By the time he got to the
corner, he had reached eight. There was a narrow alley running
behind the houses. Nightingale flicked away what was left of his
cigarette and headed down the alley. There were wooden gates set
into the eight-feet high brick walls that ran either side of the
alley. Few of the gates had numbers on them but Nightingale was
able to count off the gates until he reached Number 26. He pushed
the gate and it opened. He winced as the hinges squeaked. He opened
it just enough to peer through. There was a small backyard with a
rubbish bin and an oblong earthenware planter that seemed to be
full of herbs. Or weeds. The backyard was illuminated by light from
a frosted glass window upstairs, presumably a bathroom, and a
softer light from a downstairs window. He pushed the gate again,
wincing at the squeak from the hinges. He squeezed through the gap
and gently closed the gate behind him.

He stood with
his back to the wall, his heart pounding. The backyard was the
width of the terraced house and about twelve feet long. There were
two bikes leaning against one wall and a rotary clothes line from
which were hanging half a dozen men’s boxer shorts and several
dresses that looked as if they would be worn by a twelve-year-old
girl.

There were
blinds over the window but they weren’t fully closed, allowing
light to spill out into the backyard. Nightingale moved forward on
tiptoe.

Through the
gaps in the blind he could see into the kitchen. A young girl was
sitting at the kitchen table. She had rolled up the sleeves of her
shirt and was holding her arms out. Dr McKenzie was sitting
opposite her. His opened medical bag was on a chair next to him. A
man in his fifties, bald and overweight, was standing by the
cooker, his arms folded, a look of concern on his face.

The doctor was
removing a dressing from the young girl’s right hand. The dressing
was bloody and when he pulled it away Nightingale could see a small
wound in the girl’s palm, not much bigger than a five-pence piece.
The doctor put the dressing in a plastic bag and then removed a
similar dressing from her left hand.

Nightingale realised that he’d been holding his breath. The
girl was obviously Tracey Spradbery and the worried man by the
cooker must have been her father.

A woman
walked into the kitchen. It was obviously Tracey’s mother. She was
a few years younger than the man by the cooker, with dyed-blonde
hair and a washed out face as if she hadn’t been sleeping well. She
sat down at the kitchen table and began talking to Tracey. Tracey
nodded and said something to her mother and Mrs Spradbery laughed,
showing a mouthful of crooked teeth.

Nightingale’s
phone buzzed in his raincoat pocket and he pulled it out. It was an
SMS from Jenny. ‘EVERYTHING OK?’

Nightingale
sent her an SMS back. ‘SHE’S HERE. STAY PUT.’

He put the
phone back in his pocket. Dr McKenzie was dabbing a liquid on the
girl’s wounds. He said something to her and she laughed. She was a
pretty girl, with shoulder-length chestnut hair and big green
eyes.

Dr McKenzie
reached into his bag and took out two fresh dressings. Nightingale
jumped as the kitchen door burst open and a man appeared, holding a
cricket bat. He was in his forties, tall with receding hair and a
hooked nose and deep-set eyes that gave him the look of a hawk
sizing up its prey. ‘Who are you?’ he said angrily.

‘Nightingale.
Jack Nightingale.’

‘What are you
doing here?’ The man’s eyes were blazing. He used both hands to
hold the cricket bat.

‘Who are you?’
asked Nightingale.

‘This is my
house,’ said the man. He held the cricket bat up in the air, ready
to bring it crashing down on Nightingale’s head.

‘I want to
write a story about Tracey and what happened to her.’

‘You’re a
journalist?’

‘That’s right,’
said Nightingale. He flashed the man a confident smile.

Mrs
Spradbery appeared behind the man. ‘Ricky, what’s happening?’ she
asked. Nightingale couldn’t make out her face as it was in
shadow.

‘Get back
inside, Carla,’ said the man. ‘I’ll handle this.’ He kept his eyes
on Nightingale and he took a step to the side, putting himself
between Nightingale and the gate.

‘
Do you
want me to call the police?’ asked Mrs Spradbery.

‘I can handle
it,’ said Ricky. ‘Just close the door.’

The woman did
as she was told. ‘Who do you work for?’ asked the man, still waving
the cricket bat menacingly.

‘Who do I work
for?’ repeated Nightingale.

‘What
paper?’

‘I’m
freelance,’ said Nightingale.

‘Yeah?
Freelancing for who?’

Nightingale
shrugged. ‘One of the Sundays.’

‘You’ve got a
commission, have you?’

‘Sure.’

‘From who? Who
commissioned it?’

Nightingale
shrugged again. ‘I’d rather not say.’

‘Show me your
NUJ card.’

‘My NUJ
card?’

The man smiled
sarcastically. ‘Have you got a hearing problem? If you’re a journo
you’d be in the NUJ, freelance or otherwise. It’s the only card
that the cops recognise.’

Nightingale
took out his wallet, opened it, then made a show of looking through
it. ‘I must have left it at home.’

‘Show me your
notebook then.’

Nightingale
grimaced and patted his coat pockets.

‘
You’re
as much a journalist as I’m Wayne Rooney,’ said Ricky.

‘
That’s
not fair, I’m not calling your footballing qualifications into
question.’

‘
I don’t
have anyfootballing
qualifications,’ said the man. ‘Two left feet.’

‘
Then you
really shouldn’t be passing yourself off as a professional
footballer,’ said Nightingale. He made a show of looking at his
watch. ‘Look, I’ve got work to do.’ He moved to get by the man he
stepped in his way.

‘What do you
want with my niece?’ he snarled.

‘Your
niece?’

‘Yeah, my
niece. I’m her mother’s brother and this is my house. Now if you
don’t tell me why you’re sniffing around my niece I’m going to
detain you using a citizen’s arrest and then I’m going to call the
cops. And the cops don’t pussyfoot around with paedophiles.’

‘
Alleged
paedophiles,’ said Nightingale. ‘And you know that I’m as much a
paedophile as you’re Wayne Rooney.’

‘So who are
you?’

‘I told you.
Jack Nightingale.’ He pulled out his wallet and gave the man a
business card.

Ricky took it
with his left hand and squinted at it. ‘You’re a private eye?’

‘I can put two
words together so it wouldn’t be impossible for me to write an
article for someone,’ said Nightingale.

‘That doesn’t
make you a journalist.’

‘No. But last I
heard saying you’re a journo isn’t a criminal offence.’

The man studied
the card. ‘And you’re not local.’

‘I’m from
London.’

‘Who’s your
client, Mr Nightingale?’

‘I can’t tell
you that.’

Ricky lowered
the cricket bat. ‘Do you drink?’

‘Do I
drink?’

‘Alcohol.’

Nightingale
nodded. ‘I’ve been known to.’

Ricky nodded
and leaned the cricket bat against the back wall of the house.
‘There’s a pub down the road.’

‘It’ll take
more than a drink to loosen my tongue,’ said Nightingale. ‘Two,
possibly three.’

‘You’re a very
funny man, Mr Nightingale.’

* * *

Ricky’s
full name was Ricky Hamilton. He was Carla Spradbery’s elder
brother and for the last five years he’d been working as a
researcher for a TV documentary company. Prior to that he’d been a
journalist for almost twenty years, with long spells as an
investigative reporter on The Guardian and The Sunday Times. He’d
written half a dozen books, mainly political biographies. As a joke
Nightingale had asked to see Ricky’s NUJ card and he’d happily
produced it. The pub was a short walk from Ricky’s house, a
traditional boozer with oak beams and a real fireplace. Ricky
turned out to be a fan of Corona and he paid for two bottles before
they found a quiet corner of the pub and sat at a small circular
table. Ricky pushed his slice of lime into the neck of the bottle,
pressed his thumb over the top and then inverted it. The lime rose
slowly to the top and Ricky waited for it to touch the bottom of
the bottle before turning it the right way up.

‘Why do you do
that?’ asked Nightingale.

Ricky shrugged.
‘I saw someone else do it once. It runs the lime taste through the
lager.’

‘I was told
that the reason they give you a slice of lime in Mexico is because
it keeps the flies away.’

‘Nah, that’s an
urban myth.’

‘How do you
know?’

‘Because I’ve
been to Mexico and they don’t serve it with lime there. It was a
marketing gimmick, that’s all.’

‘Well it
worked,’ said Nightingale. He clinked his bottle against Ricky’s
and drank.

‘You followed
the doctor to my house, didn’t you?’

Nightingale
nodded.

Ricky looked
pained. ‘I knew I should have got Tracey another doctor, but she
loves Dr McKenzie.’

‘He seems to
know his stuff,’ said Nightingale. ‘And the stigmata is real?’

‘Of course,’
said Ricky.

‘And she talks
to the Virgin Mary?’

‘That’s what
she says,’ said Ricky. ‘That’s harder to prove. But the wounds,
they’re there, no question of that.’

‘And she cured
Ben of his cancer.’

‘It was the
Virgin Mary that told Tracey to get him over. She told Tracey to
touch him, on the forehead, and to say a prayer. And that cured
him.’

Nightingale
nodded. ‘I spoke to Ben’s parents. They think it was a
miracle.’

‘It was a
miracle, no doubt about it,’ said Ricky.

‘So why not
tell the world?’

Ricky snorted.
‘Do you have any idea what happens to people who perform
miracles?’

‘They become
saints?’

Ricky nodded
slowly. ‘If they’re Catholics, yes. If they’re not Catholics…’ He
left the sentence hanging.

‘What are you
saying?’ asked Nightingale.

‘I’m saying
that if you’re Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul then the Vatican
will be turning over every stone to prove it and get them a
sainthood. But when you’re not in the fold, when you’re an
outsider, well that’s a game-changer.’

‘In what
way?’

‘What do you
know about the structure of the Catholic Church?’ asked Ricky.

‘Not much. I
know the Pope’s the big guy, obviously.’

Ricky flashed
him a tight smile. ‘You’ve got the laity at the bottom. The people.
Then you’ve got the deacons who help out at mass. Then you’ve got
the priests and above them the bishops and above them the
archbishops and above them, the cardinals. And right at the top,
the Pope. It’s like an army. Hell, it is an army. And if any member
of the army can perform miracles then they are fast-tracked to
sainthood. But if anyone outside the army starts showing miracle
tendencies – then it’s treated differently. The church regards it
as terrorism. And they stamp it out.’

‘Stamp it
out?’

‘They kill
them, Nightingale. Sometimes they make it look like an accident,
sometimes they just disappear. But they die. They have to die
otherwise their existence makes a complete mockery of the Catholic
Church.’

‘How do you
know that?’

‘Because I’ve
done my research. I’ve spoken to people. I’ve looked into the last
fifty cases of reported stigmata and I can tell you this much – the
ones that aren’t shown to be hoaxes either die or disappear. And
that’s a fact.’

Nightingale
said nothing. His mouth had gone suddenly dry and he sipped his
Corona, but that didn’t seem to help.

‘That’s why I
need to know who your client is,’ said Ricky. ‘If you’re working
for a newspaper or a magazine, or some reality TV show or other,
then that’s fine. If your client is sick and wants Tracey to lay
her hands on him, okay, we can talk about that. But if you’re
acting for the Vatican, then we’ve got a big problem, Nightingale.
One hell of a big problem.’