Nightmare

of therapy.’

‘Look, Nightingale, this isn’t about the girl. This is about you assaulting a member of the public.’

‘What?’

‘I’m told that on the way into the building you thumped a plumber in the face. Broke his nose and chipped a tooth, as it happens. His lawyer’s already been on to us and he’s looking for six figures. Which, considering the number of people who saw you attack him for no reason, he’ll probably get. And apparently there was a photographer from the Daily Mail there, so expect to see yourself on the front page tomorrow morning.’

‘He was a rubber-necker; he only wanted to see her die,’ said Nightingale.

‘You walked up to him and belted him without provocation.’

‘Yeah, well, you had to be there, and of course you never are, are you?’

‘Just watch your lip, Nightingale,’ said Chalmers, pointing a finger at him. ‘You hit a civilian, which means you’re out. You can resign or you can wait to be sacked, but either way you’ll be out by the end of the month.’ He tapped the desk. ‘Warrant card. Now. Then you can get yourself over to Professional Standards to make a statement. If you want to take your federation rep with you, fine, but it won’t do you any good.’

Nightingale took his warrant card out and threw it down, then he took out his cigarettes and lit one.

Chalmers glared at him. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t smoke in here!’

‘What are you going to do, Chalmers?’ asked Nightingale. ‘You’ve already sacked me, right? What else can you do? Arrest me for smoking?’ He blew smoke up at the ceiling. ‘You are full of shit.’

‘Yeah? Well, you’re a crap copper. But I’ll be keeping my job and my pension and you’ll be out on your arse.’

‘You’ve no idea what happened. You’ve no idea why I did what I did.’

‘Get out, Nightingale.’

Nightingale took a long pull on his cigarette and blew smoke as he stared at Chalmers through narrowed eyes. ‘Okay, I’m going,’ he said. ‘Screw you and screw the job. But you need to look at Underwood. He’s a banker, over at Canary Wharf. You need to get a doctor to examine Sophie, run a rape kit too. With the right sort of handling Sophie will talk and I’m pretty sure the mother will give evidence against him once he’s taken away from the family. Okay?’

Chalmers nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Now get the hell out of my office.’

91

SIX MONTHS LATER

Nightingale sipped his coffee and looked out of the window at the wealthy housewives walking by with their designer bags and coats that cost more than he earned in a month. He filled in another crossword answer but realised that left him with a word ending in ‘J’ so he figured that he’d made yet another mistake. He’d never been good at crosswords but he was even worse at Sudoku.

He saw Jenny walking down New Bond Street. She was carrying a leather attache case and looking at her watch. Nightingale knew that she was expecting a call from an advertising agency that had interviewed her. She wasn’t going to get the job. The director of human resources would be calling to tell her just that.

Underneath the Evening Standard crossword were classified adverts including the one that he’d paid for: ‘Private Investigator seeks bright assistant with a good telephone manner and Microsoft Office skills for a job that will never be boring.’ Nightingale wasn’t sure whether in modern Britain he was allowed to advertise for someone bright, as that presumably discriminated against all the stupid people in the nation’s capital, but the wording had been accepted without comment by the woman who’d taken his advert over the phone.

Jenny walked into the Costa Coffee and ordered a latte. She was wearing a blue suit under a long raincoat with the collar turned up, and she had clipped up her hair at the back. He’d never seen her with her hair done that way before and it suited her. He smiled to himself. Strictly speaking, of course, he’d never laid eyes on her before. They’d never met or spoken. That was all in the future.

Nightingale took out his pen and circled the advert, then dropped the paper down on the table. He stood up just as Jenny was collecting her coffee. She smiled when she saw that there was an empty seat but Nightingale turned away so that she couldn’t see his face. As he walked by her he caught the scent of her perfume.

As he left the coffee shop she was sitting down and putting her attache case on the table, next to the newspaper. He stopped, lit a cigarette and watched through the window as she sipped her coffee. ‘Catch you later, kid,’ he whispered, and walked away.

Also by Stephen Leather