Chance smiled amiably. ‘It’s more of a nickname.’ He put his can of lager onto the coffee table, took out his fifty-pence coin, kissed it softly, then tossed it into the air. He caught it with his right hand and slapped it down onto the back of his left, then took his right hand away and smiled again.
‘What’s he doing?’ Maggie asked her husband.
‘He uses the coin to make decisions,’ explained Bernie.
‘He what?’ Maggie frowned. ‘What sort of decisions?’
Chance was already getting to his feet. He had the coin in his left hand and he reached into his jacket with his right.
‘Are you going, mate?’ asked Bernie. He grinned at his wife. ‘The coin probably told him it was bedtime.’
Chance’s right hand appeared, holding a cut-throat razor. He flicked it open and then smoothly slid it across Bernie’s throat. For a second there was just a thin red line across the skin and then blood spurted right and left as his mouth dropped open in surprise. The can of lager fell from his hands and rolled across the carpet. His hands went slowly up to his neck, bathed in glistening blood, but they barely reached his chest before he slumped back on the sofa.
Maggie stared at her dying husband, her eyes wide open. Her whole body was juddering as if she was in the grip of an electric shock.
Chance smiled at her. ‘Do you feel lucky, Maggie?’ he asked.
She frowned in confusion. Her mouth moved but no words came out. A deep groan came from somewhere deep in Bernie’s chest and then he went still. Blood continued to pour from the gaping wound in his neck and it pooled in his lap.
Chance winked and tossed the coin high in the air.
Later, as he stood in the shower washing off the blood of Bernie Maplethorpe and his tiresome wife, Chance felt the water go suddenly scalding hot. He yelped and jumped out of the shower and then yelped again when he saw the girl and her dog standing in the doorway. He bowed his head and covered his private parts with his hands. ‘Mistress Proserpine,’ he said.
‘I can see your coin is still coming up heads,’ said Proserpine. ‘You made a right mess downstairs.’
‘The coin guides me, Mistress Proserpine,’ he said. ‘I am always grateful for your gift.’
‘I need you to do something for me, Chance.’
‘Anything, Mistress Proserpine,’ he said, going down on one knee. ‘My life is yours.’
‘And your soul,’ she said. ‘Let’s not forget your soul.’
43
A listair Sutton was an old-school detective, a big man in a worn suit, with bleary eyes and the pained expression that came from having been lied to more times than he’d ever be able to recall. He smiled without warmth as he shook Nightingale’s hand and asked for a vodka and tonic before Nightingale had even offered him a drink. The chief inspector had agreed to meet Nightingale in the Cape of Good Hope pub, next to the Albany Street police station, close to Regent’s Park. It was a modern brick-built public house, surrounded by council flats and close to the Royal College of Physicians. It was, thought Nightingale, the perfect community for twenty-first-century Britain. The unemployed and workshy could get drunk, have a punch-up, get medical treatment and be taken to the cells without ever leaving the street.
Sutton had kept him waiting for more than an hour. ‘Murder case,’ he said by way of apology. ‘Five Asians hacked a black teenager to death in an alley.’
‘Racial?’ asked Nightingale, waving a ten-pound note at a barmaid who was busy texting on her iPhone.
‘Drugs,’ said the detective. ‘Turf war. We’ll get them, we always do; but for every one we put away there’re half a dozen waiting to take their place.’ He scowled. ‘The way of the world. This country’s going to Hell in a hand- basket.’
Nightingale managed to attract the barmaid’s eye and ordered the drinks. ‘Do you want to sit?’ he asked the detective.
‘With my feet, damned right I do,’ said Sutton. He ambled over to a bench seat in the corner by a fruit machine and stretched out his legs.
Nightingale paid for the drinks and carried them over to the table. He sat down opposite Sutton. ‘We never met, did we?’ asked Nightingale. ‘In the Job?’
‘No, but I heard of you, obviously,’ said Sutton. ‘Truth be told, that’s the only reason I agreed to see you. I’m not one for sharing intel with private eyes. These days they take away your pension any chance they can. But what you did to that paedo — you did what a lot of us wish we could do.’
Nightingale sipped his beer. ‘Yeah, well, it cost me my job,’ he said.
‘The Job’s not what it was,’ said Sutton. ‘Now it’s all about ticking the right boxes and meeting targets. It’s bugger all to do with putting away villains. Not that there are many real villains around any more. Most of the crime is done by drug-fuelled sociopaths.’ He shrugged. ‘You’ve caught me on a bad day,’ he said.
Nightingale raised his glass in salute. ‘How many years have you put in?’
‘Twenty-seven,’ said Sutton. ‘I can go with a full pension in three and I probably will. I’ve already put out a few feelers and I can probably go into the British Transport Police at the same rank, get my pension and a bloody good salary on top.’
‘I thought you were fed up with the Job?’
‘I am, but I do that for five years, maybe ten, and I’ll be set for life. Two pensions, a big lump sum and me and the missus will be off to New Zealand.’
‘Have you got family there?’
Sutton shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but it’s the furthest place from this shit hole that we can find.’ He drained his glass, put it down on the table and looked at Nightingale expectantly.
‘Another?’ asked Nightingale.
‘You read my mind. Make it a double this time. I don’t plan on going back to the factory.’
Nightingale went to the bar and fetched the detective a double vodka and tonic. When he got back to the table he sat down next to Sutton. ‘So, Robyn Reynolds. I went to see her yesterday.’
‘Yeah, you said when you phoned. What’s your interest?’
‘She’s my sister.’
Sutton’s jaw dropped. ‘Bullshit,’ he said. ‘She was an only child.’
‘She was adopted. At birth.’
Sutton scratched his chin. ‘No. We went right through the family history. John and Rachael Reynolds were her parents, but they pretty much disowned her when they discovered what she’d done.’ He frowned. ‘You went to see her?’
Nightingale nodded. ‘In Rampton.’
‘They let you in? Why would they do that?’
‘I had the right DNA,’ said Nightingale. ‘I am her brother. Half-brother, anyway.’
Sutton squinted at Nightingale as he sipped his drink. ‘How’s that possible?’ he said as he put down his glass.
‘We have the same father. Different mothers but the same father. And we were both adopted at birth. I went to Bill and Irene Nightingale; two years later she went to her family.’
‘If you were adopted at birth the records would have been sealed,’ said the detective. ‘How did you track her down?’
‘Her DNA was taken when she was arrested, and it came up when I had them run my father’s DNA through the national database looking for a parental match.’
‘Clever,’ said Sutton. ‘But Reynolds is thirty-one and you’re…?’
‘Thirty-three,’ said Nightingale. ‘Turned thirty-three two weeks ago.’
‘So why wait until now to track down your long-lost sister?’
Nightingale shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I guess I just wanted to know if I had any family. My adoptive parents died a few years back, and my aunt and uncle passed away recently.’
