‘I think he’d mellowed,’ said Nightingale. ‘He was fine with me.’
‘And you wanted to talk to him about what, exactly?’
Nightingale tapped the pack of Marlboro against his right temple. He wanted a cigarette, badly. ‘He drove my father around. He was a chauffeur slash bodyguard slash dogsbody.’
Chalmers frowned. ‘Your father? Which father? William Nightingale or the man who killed himself and left you the big house?’
‘Look, it doesn’t matter what Alfie Tyler did for my father. It was suicide. It was clearly suicide. I was on the other side of locked gates when it happened. He tied a rope around his neck himself, he started the car himself, and he drove the car at the gates himself. Once he’d killed himself I called three nines and I stayed outside until the cops showed up. This has nothing to do with me.’
Chalmers nodded slowly. ‘So you’re saying that his death was nothing to do with you?’
‘Absolutely nothing to do with me.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘That’s what I keep telling you.’
Chalmers smiled thinly and picked up the manila envelope. He opened it and took out a crime-scene photograph, the date and time printed across the top. ‘Perhaps you can explain this, then,’ he said. ‘This was how we found his bedroom.’
Nightingale took the photograph. It was a bedroom, presumably Tyler’s. A king-sized bed with leopard-print sheets and pillowcases and a large gilt-framed mirror above it. And written across the mirror in brown smears was a sentence that made Nightingale catch his breath:
YOUR SISTER IS GOING TO HELL,JACK NIGHTINGALE.
21
C halmers tapped the photograph with his index finger. ‘The thing is, Nightingale, you don’t have a sister, do you?’
‘It’s complicated,’ said Nightingale.
‘According to your personnel file, you were an only child.’
‘You’ve been looking at my file?’
‘You’re a suspect in several possible murders,’ said Chalmers. ‘I’m entitled to look at whatever files I want to.’
‘I haven’t killed anybody,’ said Nightingale. ‘I want a cigarette.’
‘You can smoke when we’ve finished.’
Nightingale stood up. ‘I’m finished now.’
Chalmers got to his feet and glared at Nightingale. ‘Sit the hell down, Nightingale. Sit the hell down and answer the questions I put to you.’
Nightingale shook his head. ‘I’m out of here.’
‘If you don’t sit down I will arrest you for destroying evidence at George Harrison’s apartment. Then I get to hold you in a cell for twenty-four hours. And if I can find a superintendent to sign off on you then I can add another twelve hours to that.’ He smiled cruelly. ‘Wait a minute… I’m a superintendent, aren’t I? So it’s an automatic thirty-six hours in a police cell. Is that what you want, Nightingale? All PACE requires is that I give you one main meal and two snacks a day; it doesn’t say anything about cigarettes. So are you going to stop being an arsehole and sit down or do I arrest you?’
Nightingale looked at Chalmers for several seconds, then he shrugged carelessly and sat down.
‘Thank you,’ said the superintendent. He dropped down onto his chair and linked his fingers. ‘Now, this is what I want from you, Nightingale. I want you to agree to give us a DNA sample and your fingerprints. We will cross-check them against the crime scenes we have.’
‘You already know I was at George Harrison’s apartment. And Connie Miller’s house. And I’ve been inside Alfie Tyler’s house.’
Chalmers sighed. ‘Please don’t start telling me how to do my job,’ he said. ‘We’ll check your samples against Tyler’s car and the rope he used to kill himself. And I’ll be talking to my opposite number in north Wales. And we’ll be going over the Harrison crime scene with a fine toothcomb.’
‘You’ll be wasting your time.’
‘It’s my time to waste.’ Chalmers slid a sheet of paper across the table to Nightingale. ‘Sign this and we’ll do what has to be done.’
‘Then can I have a cigarette?’
Chalmers gave him a pen. ‘Yes, then you can have a bloody cigarette.’
22
N ightingale blew smoke up at the sky. Inspector Evans stared at the ground glumly. ‘What’s your problem?’ asked Nightingale. They were standing outside the police station. A uniformed constable and a community service officer were also on the pavement, smoking with serious faces.
‘I had tickets for the Arsenal match today,’ he said. ‘A bloody box.’
‘No way,’ said Nightingale.
‘I’ve got a mate who works for Emirates, the airline. He gets seats as a perk, and gave me two for the game today. I was going to take my boy.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Nightingale. ‘Really.’
Evans pulled a face. ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said. ‘Chalmers is a prick. There are others he could have brought in today. But I’m an inspector so he brings me in because inspectors don’t get overtime. Plus, he knew I had the tickets.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s no big deal; my brother-in-law’s taking my boy.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m sorry.’
‘No problem.’ He jutted his chin out. ‘What you did to that paedo, that took guts.’
‘Allegedly,’ said Nightingale. He dropped his cigarette butt onto the ground and stamped on it.
‘That’s why you left, right?’
‘I wasn’t given much of a choice.’
‘But they couldn’t prove anything, right? You were in the office when he went out through the window?’
‘Allegedly,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s not something I talk about.’
‘I can understand that,’ said the detective. ‘But guys I’ve spoken to all say the same thing. You did what they’d have wanted to do. He was screwing his daughter, right? Nine years old.’
Nightingale nodded. ‘Yeah.’
Two years had passed since little Sophie Underwood had died but he could remember every second as clearly as if it had just happened. He remembered how her voice had changed to a dull monotone and the way she hadn’t looked at him as she’d spoken. ‘You can’t help me,’ she’d said. ‘No one can help me.’ Then she’d kissed her doll on the top of its head and, without making a sound, she’d slid off the balcony and fallen thirteen floors to her death. He shuddered at the memory of the sickening thud her little body had made as it slapped into the tarmac.
‘My daughter’s eleven,’ said Evans. ‘If anyone touched her, I’d do them, without even thinking about it.’
‘You’d think about it,’ said Nightingale, ‘but you’re right — anyone who touches kids, they deserve anything they get.’
‘And the mother knew, right? She knew what the bastard was doing?’
Nightingale nodded. ‘She said not but there was no way she couldn’t have not known, not with the marks he’d left on her. Anyway, she killed herself, not long after they buried the girl.’
Evans stamped on the ground, trying to keep the circulation moving in his feet. ‘Damn it’s cold,’ he said. ‘They reckon snow’s on the way.’
‘White Christmas,’ said Nightingale. ‘God rest ye merry gentlemen.’ He took out a second cigarette.
