‘Tell me about it.’ He stood up. ‘Leave it with me, Jenny. I haven’t finished with Mitchell yet.’
‘I was so scared,’ said Jenny. Tea slopped over the side of her cup into the saucer.
‘Are you okay to go to work or do you want to stay home? We don’t have much on, work-wise.’
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.
‘I’ve got to pick up a book from Gosling Manor and take it out to the airport later today. There’s a buyer flying in from the States.’
‘You’re really okay if I don’t go into the office?’
‘Not a problem,’ said Nightingale.
‘I want to get a security company in,’ she said, ‘and have the locks changed.’
‘They won’t be back. They got what they wanted.’
‘I’d just feel safer – you know?’
‘I’m sorry, Jenny. It was my fault. I should never have given you the diary.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ said Jenny.
Nightingale leaned over and kissed the top of her head. ‘I’ll make it up to you.’
‘A pay rise?’
‘I was thinking a bunch of flowers.’ He ruffled her hair and headed for the door. ‘Seriously, though, put all the bills through the office. The least I can do is to pay for your locks. And an alarm if you want it.’
‘Thanks, Jack. But we’re in the red as it is.’
‘Not for long, hopefully,’ he said, and winked. ‘Wish me luck.’
62
If you’d asked Jack Nightingale what he thought Joshua Wainwright would look like as he climbed the stairs to the hatch in the Gulfstream jet, he’d probably have frowned and said that he never prejudged people but, if pressed, he’d have hazarded a guess that the man would be old, wearing cowboy boots and a Stetson and smoking a cigar, probably with a bodyguard or two in attendance.
He was wrong on all counts, except for the cigar. Joshua Wainwright was smoking a foot-long Cuban that would have had to be rolled on an especially large thigh, and was wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. He was sitting in a white leather armchair with his bare feet on a matching leather footstool and looked as if he was barely out of his twenties.
Wainwright grinned when he saw the surprise on Nightingale’s face. ‘I’m guessing you were expecting someone older,’ he said, his voice a lazy Texan drawl. ‘And maybe whiter. That happens a lot. Take a seat.’
‘Just don’t tell me you’re really two hundred years old,’ said Nightingale, placing his briefcase on the table next to him. ‘Or that you’ve a picture slowly going bad in your attic.’
Wainwright laughed. Two pretty blondes in matching charcoal grey Armani suits were standing behind him. ‘Can I get you a drink, Jack?’ he drawled.
‘A whisky would be good.’
‘A man after my own heart.’ Wainwright twisted his head around. ‘Two whiskies, darling,’ he said. ‘Glenlivet.’ He looked at Jack. ‘Okay with you?’
‘In my experience, any malt beginning with a G or an M can’t be faulted,’ said Nightingale. ‘Ice in mine, please,’ he said to the stewardess, who flashed him a perfect gleaming white smile.
The plane was sitting on the Tarmac close to the private aviation terminal at Stansted airport. A black stretch Mercedes limousine had been waiting for Nightingale airside, and a uniformed chauffeur had driven him out to the Gulfstream. The plane was expensively outfitted with four white leather seats the size of armchairs, a three-seater white leather sofa, a large LCD television screen on the bulkhead, and oblong picture windows.
‘Can I offer you a cigar, Jack?’ asked Wainwright.
‘I’m a cigarette smoker,’ said Nightingale. ‘Is it okay to smoke in here?’
‘It’s my plane, we can do what we want.’
Nightingale took out his packet of Marlboro and lit one. The second stewardess placed a large crystal ashtray next to his briefcase.
‘So you’re Ainsley Gosling’s son?’ asked Wainwright. ‘How’s that working out for you?’
‘We weren’t close,’ replied Nightingale. The stewardess gave him his whisky and another beaming smile.
‘But he left you his library?’
‘He left me everything,’ said Nightingale.
Wainwright jabbed his cigar at Nightingale’s briefcase. ‘Is that it?’
Nightingale nodded. ‘It took some finding, I haven’t worked out his indexing system yet. It’s certainly not alphabetical.’ He put down his drink and cigarette and picked up the briefcase. Wainwright licked his lips as Nightingale took out the book. It was almost two feet long, eighteen inches wide and a good two inches thick, the pages yellowing, the white leather binding cracked and faded. It had taken Nightingale almost three hours to find it in the basement. As so many of the books’ spines didn’t show the title he’d had to take them down and open them one at a time.
Wainwright put down his cigar and took the book from him reverently, as if he was holding a baby. His eyes were wide and he had a faint smile on his lips. It was a smile of triumph, Nightingale realised.
‘Awesome,’ said Wainwright. ‘Do you know what it is, Jack?
‘The Formicarius,’ said Nightingale, ‘but that doesn’t mean much to me.’
‘This is a first edition, printed in 1475,’ said Wainwright, stroking the cover. ‘Written by Johannes Nider. It took him two years to complete and it was published eight years later. It was the second book ever to be printed that discussed witchcraft. Before The Formicarius, everyone thought only men served the devil.’
‘And that’s why it’s so valuable?’
Wainwright shook his head. ‘No, it’s not what’s written inside the book that’s so important. I have a second edition, and a third, so I already have the words. It’s the book itself I wanted. This book.’ He ran his fingertips down the spine. ‘Your father knew, too. That was why he was so determined to get it.’ He grinned. ‘It was supposed to be mine, you know? The bookseller in Hamburg had agreed to sell it to me but somehow your father got to him before I could wire the money. He was a very persuasive man, your father.’
‘So I’m told,’ said Nightingale.
‘He paid a million and half euros, you know that?’
‘I saw the receipt. So what is it about the book that makes it so special?’
‘Are you sure you want to know, Jack?’
Nightingale nodded. ‘Why not?’
Wainwright smiled, relishing the moment, then he kissed the book’s front cover. ‘This isn’t leather,’ he said. ‘It’s human skin.’
Nightingale tried not to look surprised but he could see from the satisfaction on the American’s face that he hadn’t succeeded. ‘You don’t say.’
‘Your father paid a million and a half euros, so what say I give you two?’
‘Two sounds good,’ said Nightingale.
Wainwright smiled at a stewardess and she took a small aluminium suitcase from a cupboard and placed it on the table next to Nightingale’s chair. She opened it for him, then went to the rear of the plane. Normally Nightingale would have turned to glimpse her legs but he couldn’t take his eyes off the bundles of banknotes. ‘Wow,’ he said.
‘You’ve got to appreciate the euro,’ said Wainwright. ‘That five-hundred note makes moving cash around so much simpler. If I’d had to use hundred-dollar bills, we’d have needed another suitcase.’
‘It’s not a problem I’m normally faced with,’ said Nightingale.
‘Well, it could be,’ said Wainwright. ‘There’s a few other books in your late father’s library that I might be interested in buying. When you get the chance, can you give me an inventory? There’s not many I haven’t got, but your father was buying books before I was born. I’d be interested to see what he has in his collection.’
‘No problem,’ said Nightingale. He was still staring at the money. Two million euros. He tried to work out how
