The barmaid returned with their drinks. She looked expectantly at Duggan and he pointed at Nightingale. ‘He’s paying.’
Nightingale took a handful of coins from his pocket and paid her, then reached for his lager.
‘So what’s wrong?’ asked Duggan, scratching his fleshy neck.
‘I’m under a lot of pressure. And I’m not sleeping well.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve had a few rough nights, that’s all. And today hasn’t been a bundle of laughs either.’
‘What happened?
‘You really don’t want to know,’ said Nightingale. He pushed the slice of lemon down the neck of the bottle, put his thumb on the top and then turned it upside down.
‘Why do you do that?’ asked Duggan.
‘Mixes the lemon through the lager.’ He turned the bottle the right way up and drank.
‘Has Sophie Underwood got anything to do with the way you’re behaving?’ Duggan leaned closer to Nightingale and lowered his voice. ‘It wasn’t your fault. What happened two years ago, it would have happened no matter who’d turned up. It could have been anyone on that balcony with her.’
‘Yeah, well, it wasn’t; it was me.’
‘Luck of the draw, Jack. And no one would have done anything any different.’ He didn’t add sugar but he stirred his coffee anyway.
‘You can’t say that, Colin.’ Nightingale drank his lager. ‘I went out with no back-up and totally unprepared. I started talking with no game plan, no idea what I was going to say.’
‘She was getting ready to go; even if you hadn’t gone out onto the balcony she would have jumped.’
‘Again, you don’t know that. If I’d said the right thing, maybe I’d have turned it around.’
‘What’s done is done,’ said Duggan, shrugging.
‘Don’t you dare say that there’s no use crying over spilt milk,’ said Nightingale.
Duggan’s face tightened. ‘A little girl died, I know that. I was there, remember? And what you seem to forget is that you left me to deal with the aftermath. You went off to see the father and I had to wait with the body.’
Nightingale nodded slowly. ‘I’m sorry, mate. You’re right. I’m behaving like a prick.’
Duggan grinned. ‘Nothing new there, then.’ He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a package wrapped in a Tesco carrier bag.
Nightingale took it and slipped it inside his coat. ‘I owe you, mate.’
‘Yes, you do,’ said Duggan. ‘Can’t you at least tell me what it’s for?’
Nightingale sighed. ‘Best you don’t know,’ he said.
‘When can I have it back? You can tell me that much.’ He sipped his coffee. It left him with a white milky moustache on his upper lip and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.
‘A day or two,’ said Nightingale. ‘Did you have any grief getting it out?’
‘I chose my moment, let’s just say that,’ said Duggan. ‘No one knows it’s missing and providing I get it back soonish then no one will.’
‘I won’t let you down. Cross my heart.’
‘Yeah, well, that and twenty pence will get me a piss at Paddington Station,’ said Duggan. ‘If anything goes wrong and you get caught with it, you’d better not drop me in it.’
‘Not a problem.’
‘I’m serious, Jack. If anyone finds out that I took it from the evidence room then I’ll be in so much shit you’ll need a submarine to find me.’
‘Colin, I won’t let you down.’ He watched Duggan drinking his coffee and grimacing. ‘You sure you don’t want a whisky in that?’ he asked.
‘You really are the devil, aren’t you?’
‘You’re off the booze because of diabetes; it’s not as if you’re an alcoholic.’
‘It’s all about calories. And alcohol’s full of calories.’
‘So have one less slice of toast tomorrow.’
Duggan chuckled. ‘Toast? I wish. Muesli, with skimmed milk and a banana.’
‘Actually, that sounds okay. But to be fair, my coffee and a fag has fewer calories.’
‘Yeah, it’s the cigarettes I miss the most but the doc said they had to go,’ Duggan said, smiling sadly.
‘I’ve told you before, mate, the cigs help keep the weight off. I tell you what, why not just forget about the diabetes for one night, have a single malt and we’ll go outside for a cigarette?’
Duggan looked at the coffee he was holding and pulled a face, then he grinned at Nightingale. ‘Sod it. Go on, get me a Laphroaig. And make it a double. In for a penny, in for a pound.’
49
Duggan blew smoke across the street, a look of contentment on his face. He looked at the cigarette. ‘My wife’ll kill me if she finds out I had a smoke.’ He moved aside to allow two men in paint-stained overalls to push through the door into the pub.
‘One cigarette’s not going to kill you, mate. And neither’s one whisky. Everything in moderation.’
They both looked to the left as a police siren started up and their heads swivelled as a car went by with two uniformed officers inside. The driver looked as if he was barely in his twenties and the officer in the passenger seat was borderline obese, with rolls of fat protruding from under his stab vest.
‘How many a day are you on now?’ asked Duggan. ‘You were two packs a day when you were in the job.’
‘It varies,’ said Nightingale. He shrugged. ‘Everybody dies, Colin. I’d rather die happy than die healthy.’
Duggan laughed ruefully. ‘I like that. Die healthy.’
‘It’s true. Lots of very healthy people die.’
‘Sophie’s father, for one,’ said Duggan. He grinned. ‘He was in the prime of life when you threw him through his office window.’
‘Allegedly,’ said Nightingale. He took a long drag on his cigarette.
The two men stood in silence for a few minutes, people-watching. Queensway was always busy and was one of the most multicultural areas of London, and while they smoked they heard conversations in Chinese, Arabic, French, Italian, Japanese and half a dozen that Nightingale didn’t recognise. There were students, tourists, workers heading home, couples heading out, mates on the way to the pub or a restaurant. He watched two African women walk by in brightly coloured long dresses with headdresses made from the same material, laughing loudly at something one of them said. The one closest to Nightingale saw that he was watching her and she flashed him a beaming smile. Nightingale grinned back and winked. As the two women walked away the one he’d winked at turned and gave him another smile.
‘You seeing anyone these days?’ asked Duggan.
‘Nah,’ said Nightingale.
‘Why not? You were a bit of a lad when you were in the job. There was that blonde sergeant over at Harrow Road. And the dog handler, the cute one. You put yourself about a bit, back in the day.’
Nightingale laughed. ‘Yeah, that’s true.’
‘You need to settle down, get yourself a wife. How old are you now?’
‘Thirty-three.’
‘You’re not getting any younger.’
‘Who is?’ said Nightingale. He smoked his cigarette. ‘You ever think about death?’ he asked quietly.
‘I’m a cop. What do you think? How many bodies did you come across when you were in the job? As a bobby you’ll see one a month. Accidents, suicides, murders. In my first year on the beat I saw half a dozen pensioners who’d swallowed all their sleeping tablets and as many junkies who’d overdosed. Death’s part of the job, you know that.’
‘I meant your own death. Dying.’
Duggan chuckled ruefully. ‘I didn’t until this diabetes thing hit me,’ he said. ‘But the doc read me the riot act and didn’t pull any punches.’
