‘Battery’s dead,’ said Nightingale. ‘Must be a short somewhere.’
‘And you want a lift?’
‘Your Audi is a lovely car,’ said Nightingale, stirring in a spoonful of sugar. ‘If I didn’t like classic cars so much I’d probably go for an A4 myself.’
‘There’s a world of difference between a classic car and an old banger,’ said Jenny, opening the brown paper bag. She smiled as she took out a muffin. ‘These are my favourites,’ she said.
‘I know that,’ said Nightingale, taking two coffees over to her desk. He gave her one of the mugs and sipped from the other.
‘Where do you need to go, Jack?’
‘Gosling Manor. I promised to meet a building guy. He’s going to give me an estimate for the repairs.’
‘How much damage did the fire do?’
‘The upstairs hall is gutted but the fire brigade were there before the structure was damaged.’
‘It was insured, wasn’t it? I mean, it was arson so it wasn’t as if it was your fault or anything.’
‘I haven’t checked. I hope so.’
‘Jack! Are you serious? How can you not have checked already?’
‘I’ve had a lot on my plate. Anyway, there’s a huge mortgage on the place and they usually come with insurance.’
‘You should check, and soon.’
‘To be honest, I’m more worried about water damage. The firemen used a hell of a lot of water and I haven’t looked down in the basement yet. Water and books aren’t a good mix.’
‘When do you want to go?’
Nightingale looked at his watch. ‘You’ve got time for your breakfast and I’ve got time for a fag and a quick read of the
14
Jenny brought her Audi to a stop in front of Gosling Manor. It was a sunny day but bitterly cold and Nightingale turned up the collar of his raincoat after he climbed out of the car to open the gates. Jenny drove through and he pulled them closed, then realised that the builder would be arriving shortly so he left them open and got back into the passenger seat.
‘You still haven’t done anything about a gardener, have you?’ said Jenny as she drove slowly along the driveway to the house.
‘It’s winter. You don’t cut grass in the winter,’ said Nightingale.
‘There’re always things need doing in a garden, and you’ve got acres here.’
‘I’ll get it sorted once the builders are out,’ said Nightingale.
Jenny parked next to a massive stone fountain where a tousle-haired stone mermaid was surrounded by leaping fish and dolphins. They got out of the car and looked up at the two-storey mansion. The lower floor was built of stone, the upper floor of weathered bricks, and the roof was tiled, with four massive chimney stacks that gave it the look of an ocean-going liner. ‘Every time I look at this house, it seems to cry out for a family. You know what I mean?’ said Jenny. ‘It just seems so wrong that your father lived here alone. And now it’s yours and.?.?.’ She shrugged.
‘And I’m a sad lonely bastard too — is that what you were going to say?’
Jenny laughed. ‘That’s not what I meant at all,’ she said. ‘But this is a family home, Jack. No offence, but it’s wasted on you.’
They walked together towards the ivy-covered entrance. Nightingale had been the owner of Gosling Manor for almost three months but it didn’t feel like it was his house. He’d inherited it from his father, Ainsley Gosling. Gosling was Nightingale’s biological father, who’d given him away at birth, and Nightingale felt as little attachment to the man as he did to the house. He pulled his keys from his pocket. The oak door was massive but it moved easily on well-oiled hinges and opened onto the wood-panelled hall.
Jenny wrinkled her nose at the smell of smoke and then groaned when she saw the state of the hall. The marble floor was half an inch deep in mud and the wooden staircase was scorched. The massive multi-layered chandelier that looked like an upside-down crystal wedding cake was now caked in a thick layer of ash. ‘Oh Jack,’ she said.
‘It’s worse upstairs,’ said Nightingale. ‘The arsonist spread petrol all along the upstairs hall so the fire did far more damage up there. I don’t want to go up until the builder’s here. I don’t know if there’s been any structural damage or not.’
‘And you were upstairs when it happened?’
Nightingale nodded. ‘Yeah, it was pretty hairy. But the fire brigade got here quickly.’ He walked carefully across the mud to the section of the wooden panelling that concealed the entrance to the basement library. The wood was still damp from where the firemen had been spraying water, and as he pulled the panel open it pushed back a layer of thick black mud. There was a light switch just inside the panel and he flicked it, half expecting the electricity to be off but the fluorescent lights below flickered into life. Jenny tiptoed through the mud towards him, her face screwed up in disgust.
‘It’s not that bad, kid,’ said Nightingale.
‘You’re a smoker,’ she said, putting her hand over her mouth. ‘Trust me, it’s bad.’
Nightingale went down the stairs and Jenny followed him, holding on to the brass banister with her left hand as she kept her right cupped over her mouth.
The basement ran the full length of the house and was lined with laden bookshelves. Down the centre of the basement were two parallel lines of tall display cases which were packed with items that Ainsley Gosling had collected during a lifetime of devil-worship. At the bottom of the stairway were two overstuffed red leather Chesterfield sofas, one on either side of a claw-footed teak coffee table that was piled high with books.
A smile spread across Nightingale’s face as he realised that there was no major water damage. The ceiling was stained in places and water had trickled down the wall by the stairs but other than that the basement was in exactly the same condition as when he’d last been there. ‘Finally, some good news,’ he said. ‘I half expected it to be flooded.’
Jenny took her hand away from her mouth and sniffed the air cautiously. ‘No smoke down here either. The panel must be a tight fit.’
Nightingale took off his raincoat and tossed it on the back of one of the sofas. He looked at his watch. ‘Shouldn’t be long. I’d offer you coffee but I haven’t got anything in the fridge.’
‘Well, it’s not like you live here, is it?’ said Jenny, sitting on one of the sofas. ‘Seriously, what are you going to do with this place?’
‘I haven’t decided,’ said Nightingale, sitting on the other sofa.
‘You can’t live here, can you? What would you do if you needed milk? Or bread?’
‘Or duck noodles?’
‘You know what I mean. Where’s the nearest shop? How do you get a newspaper? It’d take a paperboy half an hour just to get down the drive.’
‘Now you’re exaggerating.’
‘And could you put up with a commute like that every day?’
‘We could work from here. There’s plenty of room.’
‘So I’d be the one commuting? Every day from Chelsea?’
‘That’s the beauty of having an Audi A4.’
‘You’re not seriously considering it, are you? How would clients get here?’
Nightingale grinned. ‘I’m joking,’ he said. ‘Of course we can’t work from here. But there’s something about the place that pulls me here, you know. It’s like I belong.’
‘That’s a freaky thing to say, Jack, considering that it’s where your father killed himself. Doesn’t that worry you?’
‘Why should it?’
