why Barry O’Brien had wanted to kill himself but one thing was for sure: it hadn’t been a cry for help.
Scrawled across the tiles at the side of the bath in bloody letters was the sentence with which Nightingale had become all too familiar: ‘YOU ARE GOING TO HELL, JACK NIGHTINGALE.’ Dozens of flies were feeding off it.
Nightingale stared at the words in horror. ‘What is going on?’ he whispered. He pulled a couple of feet of toilet tissue from the roll, swatted the flies away with his hands and used it to wipe the tiles, then dropped it into the toilet. He pulled off another length, wet it under the tap and wiped the tiles a second time. They looked too clean now so he splashed bloody water from the bath over them and washed his hands in the basin. A fly came so close to his right ear that he flinched.
He dried his hands and went back into the hallway where he took out his mobile phone and started to dial 999. He stopped at the second digit. He cancelled the call and instead dialled New Scotland Yard. He asked the switchboard operator to put him through to Inspector Dan Evans, and after a couple of minutes the inspector was on the line. ‘Dan, I thought I’d better tell you this before you hear it from anyone else,’ he said.
‘That sounds ominous,’ said the inspector, jovially.
‘I’m at Barry O’Brien’s house and he’s killed himself.’
There was a long silence. ‘I hope this is some sort of sick joke,’ said Evans, eventually.
‘He’s cut his wrists. He’s been dead for a while by the look of it.’
‘What the hell are you doing in his house?’
‘I came to talk to him,’ said Nightingale. ‘The front door was open.’
‘So you just walked in?’
‘Like I said, the front door was open.’
‘You can’t just go wandering around people’s houses, Nightingale. You’re not in the job any more.’
‘I know that, but what’s done is done. I was going to call 999 but I thought I’d better let you know what had happened.’
‘Do you need an ambulance?’
‘He’s definitely dead. Are you going to handle it or should I call
999?’
‘Have you any idea of the trouble this is going to cause, Nightingale? You got O’Brien’s name from me, right?’
‘I’ve forgotten where I heard it,’ said Nightingale, ‘and I doubt I’m going to remember.’
‘Let’s keep it that way,’ said Evans. ‘Where’s the body?’
‘Upstairs bathroom,’ said Nightingale.
‘Wait for me downstairs, outside the house,’ said Evans. ‘And don’t touch anything.’
43
They left him in the interview room for the best part of an hour, with just a cup of canteen coffee. Nightingale had asked if it was okay to smoke and a sullen uniformed constable had said no. He hadn’t been arrested so he was free to leave whenever he wanted, but there were questions that had to be answered and Nightingale decided it would be best to get it over with. They hadn’t searched him or taken his mobile phone so he rang Jenny and said he’d be later than expected. She wanted to know where he was. ‘It’s complicated,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain when I get back.’ Jenny pressed him for more details but Nightingale heard footsteps in the corridor. The door opened and Superintendent Chalmers, in full uniform and holding a clipboard, walked in. Nightingale hung up.
‘Calling your brief?’ asked Chalmers. Dan Evans and Neil Derbyshire, both holding notebooks and ballpoint pens, were behind him.
‘I didn’t think I needed a lawyer,’ said Nightingale. ‘They told me they just wanted a chat.’
‘A chat it is, then,’ said Chalmers. He sat down opposite Nightingale. Evans took the chair next to him while Derbyshire moved the one that was beside Nightingale and placed it by the door so that all three policemen were facing him around a metal table that had been bolted to the floor. On a shelf on the wall above the table there was a digital voice recorder and in the far upper corner of the room a small CCTV camera.
Chalmers nodded at Evans, who switched on the recorder. ‘Superintendent Ronald Chalmers, interviewing Jack Nightingale.’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘It is now a quarter past two in the afternoon on Friday the twentieth of November and with me are…’ He nodded at Evans.
‘Detective Inspector Dan Evans.’
‘Detective Constable Neil Derbyshire.’
‘If this is just a chat, why the recording?’ asked Nightingale.
‘It’s procedure,’ said Chalmers.
‘Can I smoke?’
‘No, you can’t,’ said the superintendent.
‘But I’m not under arrest?’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘I’m free to go whenever I want?’
‘You’re helping us with our enquiries into the death of Barry O’Brien.’
‘Just so we’re all clear on that,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m here to help.’
‘Date of birth,’ said Chalmers.
‘What?’
‘Your date of birth, for the record.’
‘I’m thirty-two, thirty three on Friday the twenty-seventh. That’s a week from today.’
Evans and Derbyshire scribbled in their notebooks.
‘Don’t feel you have to get me a present,’ said Nightingale.
‘What were you doing in Barry O’Brien’s house this morning?’
‘I wanted to talk to him.’
‘So you broke in?’
‘The front door was open.’
‘You invited yourself in? Is that it?’
‘The door was open. I pushed it and it opened. I went upstairs and found the body.’
‘Why did you go upstairs?’
‘To see if he was there.’
‘But you’d already called his phone so you knew he wasn’t in the house.’
‘I thought he might be asleep.’
Chalmers sat back. ‘So why didn’t you just go away and come back another time?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Nightingale. ‘I just thought…’
‘Yes? You thought what?’
‘I thought that maybe something was wrong.’
‘So why didn’t you call the police? Why did you break into his house?’
‘I didn’t break in,’ said Nightingale. ‘I already told you, the front door was open. Then I heard the flies.’
‘The flies?’
‘He’d been dead for a while. He was covered with flies. I heard the buzzing from the hallway.’
‘And what did you want to talk to Mr O’Brien about?’
Nightingale sighed. It was a difficult question to answer.
‘You do understand the question, Mr Nightingale?’
‘Yes. I just wanted to talk to him.’
‘About what?’
