46
First thing on Tuesday morning Nightingale phoned the number that Wainwright had given him. The guy was called Adrian Miller and he lived in Milton Keynes. They arranged to meet later that afternoon. Miller asked Nightingale to bring with him any personal possessions that had belonged to the person they were trying to contact. As soon as the call was over, Nightingale phoned Colin Duggan and asked him if he’d had any luck getting Sophie’s doll from the evidence room.
‘Nag, nag, nag,’ said Duggan.
‘I’m sorry, mate, but it’s important.’
‘Yeah, well, softly softly catchee monkey as the Chinese say,’ said Duggan. ‘The guy who’s on nights this week is a real stickler and there’s no way I can get anything by him. I know where the box is but I can’t get near it while he’s around.’
‘That’s annoying. What about the day shift?’
‘I figured night would be easier because they’re quiet,’ said Duggan. ‘I can give it a go during the day but I’m not taking any risks. Any chance of me being caught and I’m out of there.’
‘I understand, mate.’
‘Do you?’ said Duggan. ‘I’m risking my job and my pension to steal a child’s doll and you won’t even tell me what’s going on.’
‘I can’t. I’m sorry. But it’s not stealing because you’ll have it back. I promise.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said the policeman, and he ended the call.
Nightingale rang Jenny and told her that he wouldn’t be in the office.
‘Car trouble?’ she said.
‘Oh ye of little faith,’ he said. ‘The car’s fine now, I’m heading up to Milton Keynes.’
‘Home of the concrete cows,’ she said.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘That’s what Milton Keynes is famous for, isn’t it? Concrete cows and roundabouts. Is it a job?’
‘I’m going to see the guy that Joshua recommended.’
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
‘I want to give it a try,’ said Nightingale.
‘If you want my opinion, I think you’d be better off talking to a therapist rather than talking to these charlatans,’ said Jenny.
‘Charlatans?’
‘You know what I mean,’ she said. ‘Just be careful.’
47
Nightingale didn’t see any concrete cows when he got to Milton Keynes but he did have to go around half a dozen roundabouts before he pulled up in front of Adrian Miller’s house. It was a small semi-detached with a tiny front garden behind a neatly clipped hedge. Two rose bushes were growing under a bay window. It definitely didn’t look like the home of a devil-worshipper and Nightingale checked the text message with the address. He lit a cigarette and smoked it down to the butt before getting out of the car and walking over to the front door. He pressed the doorbell. It was answered by a man with a shaved head and tattoos down his left forearm. He was wearing a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up and black trousers. He grinned and offered his hand.
‘Are you Jack?’ Nightingale nodded and shook his hand, and Miller ushered him inside the house. ‘Come far?’ asked Miller as he closed the front door.
‘London.’
‘I’m just making a coffee — do you want one?’
‘Terrific,’ said Nightingale, and he followed Miller through to a modern galley kitchen with gleaming white units and a fridge festooned with family photographs and school notices.
Miller saw Nightingale looking at the photographs. ‘Wife and kids are staying with her mother for the night,’ he said. ‘No one’s going to walk in on us. Milk and sugar?’
‘Just milk,’ said Nightingale.
Miller picked up a jar of Nescafe Gold Blend and made him a coffee. ‘How long have you known Joshua?’ asked Miller.
‘A while,’ said Nightingale. ‘He’s a good guy.’
‘One of the best,’ said Miller, pouring in a splash of milk.
‘He thinks very highly of you,’ said Nightingale.
Miller blushed and waved away the compliment like a schoolgirl who had just been told she was pretty. ‘And you haven’t done anything like this before?’ He handed the mug to Nightingale.
‘I’m not sure exactly what it is that we’ll be doing,’ said Nightingale.
‘It’s a ceremony,’ said Miller. ‘There’ll be five of us. You, me and three others. The other three will be masked. They’re wary of outsiders.’
‘No problem,’ said Nightingale. ‘You’ve done this before, right?’
‘Loads of times,’ said Miller. ‘There’re a lot of like-minded people here in Milton Keynes. Quite a little gathering.’ He smiled. ‘So tell me who it is you want to contact?’
‘A nine-year-old girl,’ said Nightingale. ‘Her name’s Sophie Underwood. I say nine, but she’d be eleven now.’
‘Time doesn’t pass once you move into the spirit world.’
‘How would you know that?’
‘We’ve called up spirits that passed over fifty, a hundred, years ago. If time passed they’d be skeletons, right?’
‘So Sophie will never get any older now that she’s a spirit?’
‘Appearance-wise, no. Ageing is something that happens in this world, not the next.’ Miller finished his coffee and nodded at the door. ‘So, let me show you the room.’
He took Nightingale along the corridor to the stairs and up to the first floor. There was a small bedroom at the back of the house with a hatch in the ceiling from which protruded an aluminium ladder. Miller motioned for Nightingale to go up. He climbed the rungs slowly. The attic ran the full length of the house, with beams overhead and bare floorboards. There were no windows and the only illumination came from a single bare bulb hanging in the middle of the roof space.
Nightingale walked away from the hatch and looked around as Miller climbed up. In the middle of the attic floor was a piece of purple cloth, about four paces square, on which a pentagram had been drawn with white chalk.
Nightingale nodded at the pentagram. ‘I thought that was just for summoning devils,’ he said. ‘To protect against them.’
‘The pentagram has a lot of uses,’ said Miller.
At the top of the pentagram was a small wooden altar on which there was another, smaller, pentagram with a silver chalice and a small brass bowl at its centre. There were several peeled cloves of garlic in the bowl and a small black candle at each of the points of the pentagram.
‘Are we going to be summoning a spirit? Is that how it works?’ asked Nightingale.
‘There won’t be any fire and brimstone, if that’s what you mean,’ said Miller. ‘What we’ll be doing is basically a ritual that allows a spirit to return to this world and to interact with the people here. There are spirits all around us, but usually they can’t see or hear us and we can’t see or hear them.’
‘Like ghosts?’
‘Ghosts are different,’ said Miller. ‘Ghosts are tied to a particular place because of something that has happened there. You only ever see them in that one place.’ He smiled and shrugged. ‘You really are a novice, just like Joshua said.’
