‘People lie, Jack. You were a policeman so you know that people rarely tell the truth.’
‘I asked Wainwright for the name of someone in the Order of Nine Angles because that was the group that Gosling belonged to. He gave me Fairchild’s name.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘Why should I? I didn’t know that he was a friend of your father’s. Or that he’d acted for my sister.’ He took out his cigarettes. ‘This is a mess.’ He put a cigarette between his lips.
‘Not in the house, Jack,’ said Jenny, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Mummy will freak out.’
‘How will she know?’ He pointed at the fireplace. ‘There’s a fire in the room.’
‘She can smell tobacco smoke a mile away, Jack. Please.’
‘What if I open a window?’
Jenny sighed. ‘Okay, but make sure all the smoke goes out.’
Nightingale went over to the window and opened it. In the distance were two tennis courts, one grass and the other with an orange synthetic surface. Both had a light dusting of frost.
Nightingale shivered and lit the cigarette. ‘What’s Mummy got against smokers anyway?’ he asked. He took a long drag and then leaned out of the window and blew smoke.
‘She used to be one,’ said Jenny. ‘She gave up about six years ago.’
‘The zeal of the convert,’ said Nightingale. ‘They’re the worst.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jenny.
‘About Mummy?’
Jenny forced a smile. ‘About talking to Fairchild. I can’t explain why I told him as much as I did.’
‘Maybe he hypnotised you,’ said Nightingale, only half joking.
‘Maybe,’ said Jenny. ‘He does have a way of looking right at you when he talks to you.’
‘Who mentioned my sister first?’ asked Nightingale.
‘He did.’
‘Are you sure?’
Jenny nodded. ‘I haven’t seen him for a couple of years and I was asking him about his cases. He mentioned he’d represented a serial killer. Then he said it was Robyn Reynolds. That’s when I said that you were her brother.’
Nightingale blew smoke through the window. ‘This is just plain weird,’ he said.
‘As opposed to everything else that’s happened over the past four weeks?’
‘Something’s going on, Jenny. This can’t be a coincidence. Wainwright gives me Fairchild’s name. Then I come to your parents’ house and here he is, large as life and twice as whatever. Then it turns out he represented my sister the serial killer.’ He rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘This is giving me a headache.’
‘It could just be that, a coincidence.’ Nightingale could hear the uncertainty in her voice.
‘Which bit? Fairchild being on my sister’s legal team? Or him being a Satanist like my dear-departed father?’ He took a long pull on his cigarette, then blew smoke out through the open window. ‘I don’t get what’s happening here. I really don’t.’
‘I’ve known him for years, Jack. He’s not a bad person.’
‘Not according to Joshua Wainwright. He says that Fairchild belongs to the Order of Nine Angles. Have you any idea what they do?’ Jenny shook her head. ‘They kill people,’ he said quietly. ‘Now do you see? How can that be a coincidence? Marcus Fairchild is in a cult that kills people and he helps my sister plead guilty to the murder of five children.’ Nightingale stubbed out his cigarette on the window ledge, then closed the window. ‘Why’s he here, Jenny?’
‘He’s one of Daddy’s oldest friends.’
Nightingale took the cigarette butt through to the en-suite bathroom and flushed it away. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to think,’ he said. He looked at his watch. It was just after midnight. ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow. Cold light of day and all that.’
‘You know we’re all going shooting after breakfast? Shooting on Christmas Day is a family tradition.’
‘So I gathered.’
‘It’ll be fun.’
‘I hope so,’ said Nightingale.
65
W hen Nightingale went down to breakfast on Christmas morning, Jenny and her father were already in the dining room, with Marc and Sally Allen and Wendy Bushell. Everyone was casually dressed. Jenny’s father was wearing a red sweater with green Christmas trees across the front. Food was laid out in silver serving dishes — scrambled and fried eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, tomatoes, grilled kippers and kedgeree — along with fresh fruit and a selection of cereals.
‘Help yourself, Jack,’ said Jenny. ‘They’ll get you toast from the kitchen if you want it.’
Jack was carrying three wrapped presents. He handed one to Jenny. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said.
‘Jack, you didn’t have to get me anything,’ she said. ‘You really shouldn’t have.’
‘Wait until you’ve opened it,’ he said. ‘I’m terrible at gifts.’ He handed a wrapped box to McLean. ‘I think I’m on safer ground with this one,’ he said. ‘And this one’s for Melissa.’ He put the present on the table.
‘Really, Jack, you didn’t have to.’ McLean pulled off the wrapping and beamed when he saw the Laphroaig box. ‘Good choice, Jack,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
A uniformed maid appeared and asked if Nightingale wanted tea or coffee. He asked for coffee and then filled his plate. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy adopting me,’ Nightingale said to McLean. ‘I am an orphan, you know.’
Jenny finished unwrapping her present and held up a Louis Vuitton shoulder bag. ‘Thank you, Jack. It’s lovely.’
‘I’ve kept the receipt if you want to change it.’
‘It’s perfect, thank you.’ The maid appeared with a pot of coffee and two toast racks, one full of white toast and the other wholemeal. She placed the toast on the table and poured coffee for Nightingale.
McLean looked over at Nightingale as he buttered a slice of toast. ‘Jenny tells me you’re a decent shot, Jack,’ he said.
Nightingale raised an eyebrow at Jenny. ‘She did, did she?’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘I’m afraid shotguns aren’t my thing. I’m happier with an MP5 and a Glock.’
‘I’m not sure how sporting it would be to shoot pheasants with an MP5,’ said Allen.
‘You know, the birds would have more of a chance against a carbine,’ said Nightingale. ‘A nine-millimetre bullet is relatively small, but the spread from a shotgun at fifty feet would be — what, six feet? Eight?’
‘It’s not as bad as that,’ said McLean. ‘The general rule of thumb is that shot spreads about an inch for every yard it travels. So if you were shooting at a bird fifty feet away the spread would be about one and a half feet. I have to say, that would be pushing it, Jack. I wouldn’t want to be shooting at a bird more than thirty feet away.’
‘I would guess Jack is more used to sawn-off shotguns than Purdeys,’ said Marcus Fairchild. Nightingale looked up in surprise. He hadn’t heard the lawyer come into room. Fairchild bent down over the server containing kippers and smelled them appreciatively. He was wearing a dark blue pullover, baggy blue jeans and Timberland boots and looked more like a building site labourer than a City lawyer. ‘The spread of a sawn-off is about one inch per foot travelled,’ he said.
‘Come on, Marcus,’ said Sally Allen. ‘How would you know something like that?’
Fairchild picked up a plate and used silver tongs to take two kippers. ‘It was a case at the Old Bailey a few years back,’ he said. ‘I was defending an armed robber who’d been charged with attempted murder. He was twenty-five feet away from the woman when he pulled the trigger.’
‘He shot a woman?’ said Allen. ‘He shot a woman at point-blank range and you defended him?’
Fairchild waved a languid hand in the air. ‘First, anyone is entitled to the best defence they can get.’ He smiled. ‘Or at least, the best defence they can afford. And this chap had a lot of money hidden away. And second, the point we made was that twenty-five feet isn’t point-blank range. Far from it. The shot would have spread out
