it. So far as the caterpillar is concerned, the chrysalis is death. The end of the caterpillar. And does the butterfly remember being a caterpillar?’
‘Who knows?’ said Nightingale.
‘Exactly,’ said Jenny. ‘Who knows. But do you ever see butterflies hanging out with caterpillars? No, you don’t. They’ve nothing in common. Maybe that’s what happens when we die. Part of us moves on and there’s no looking back.’
‘Our spirit, is that what you mean?’
‘They say that when you die, you lose twenty-one grams. It just goes. You weigh a person before they die and you weigh them afterwards and twenty-one grams have disappeared.’
‘Says who?’ asked Nightingale.
‘I did a philosophy course in my final year,’ said Jenny. ‘It was an American doctor who did the experiment, back in the nineteen hundreds. Duncan MacDougall, his name was. He designed a special bed that was built on a set of scales and he had six dying patients who agreed to help him. By weighing the entire bed he was able to take into account sweat and urine loss, everything physical. With all six patients there was an immediate weight loss of twenty-one grams at the moment of death.’
Nightingale narrowed his eyes. ‘And that’s the weight of a human soul, is it? Twenty-one grams?’
‘The weight of a humming-bird, give or take,’ said Jenny. ‘That was MacDougall’s theory. He repeated the experiment with fifteen dogs. Tied them to the bed and put them to sleep. With the dogs, there was no change in weight as they died. His theory was that people had souls and dogs didn’t.’
‘And why has no one done the experiment since?’
‘Weigh dying people? I’m not sure you’d get away with it these days.’ Jenny put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. ‘What’s wrong, Jack? What’s brought all this on?’
‘Give me the whisky and I’ll tell you.’
‘Jack…’
Nightingale held out his hand. Jenny gave him the bottle.
‘You know there’s supposed to be a pentagram mark?’
‘If your soul is sold to the devil, yes. But you haven’t got a mark, remember?’
‘There was an optician next to the bank in Brighton. I went there to deposit the money and the optician was offering free eye tests.’
‘You don’t need glasses,’ she said. ‘Eyes like a hawk’s.’
‘I went to get my retinas scanned,’ he said quietly. ‘I figured it was one of the parts of the body you never get to see.’
‘And?’
Nightingale slid a manila envelope across the desk. She opened it with trembling hands and slid out the photograph inside. There were two images on it, retinal scans of his right and left eyes. On the left eye, down at the four o’clock position, there was a small black pentagram.
65
‘That’s impossible,’ said Jenny, staring at the scan in horror.
‘Yeah, that’s what the optician said.’
‘It’s a pentagram.’
‘Isn’t it just.’
‘On the back of your eye?’
‘Apparently. He did the scans twice, thought there might be a problem with the machine.’
‘Jack…’
‘I know.’
‘Oh, my God.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’ He raised the bottle in salute. ‘Now you understand why I’m drinking. It’s Wednesday morning. Tomorrow night at midnight… blah, blah, blah.’
‘That’s your plan?’ said Jenny in disgust. ‘You’re going to drink yourself to death?’
‘My plan is to talk to Proserpine. I just can’t work out how to do it. I’ve been trawling the Internet but there isn’t much about her.’
‘Please tell me you’re joking,’ said Jenny. ‘I’m making you a coffee whether you want it or not.’ She went over to the machine. ‘Is that what you’re doing, looking for an email address for Proserpine?’ She forced a smile. ‘Hotmail, probably.’
‘Ha ha,’ said Nightingale. ‘The guy I saw at the airport yesterday said it’s all true, that you can sell souls and there are devils out there who’ll buy them.’
‘Then he’s a loony,’ said Jenny, sitting on the edge of his desk.
‘A very rich loony, who gave me two million euros for one of the books in my father’s library. He wants me to give him an inventory of the rest.’
‘Get away,’ said Jenny.
‘I’m serious. I paid the money into the bank – here’s the credit slip if you don’t believe me.’ He held up a piece of paper.
Jenny took it from him and stared at it with wide eyes. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said again. ‘Who is this guy?’
‘According to Google, he doesn’t exist,’ said Nightingale. ‘Young guy, looks like a rap star, flies around the world in a Gulfstream jet when he’s not on the astral plane, and he reckons that if I have the mark, the pentagram, then my goose is well and truly cooked.’
‘Jack, it’s nonsense and you know it.’
‘That’s what I thought until I saw the pentagram.’
‘There are no such things as devils and demons, Jack. Same as there’s no Father Christmas or Tooth Fairy. Waiting for a devil to come and claim your soul is as stupid as sitting by your fireplace waiting for Santa to bring your presents.’
‘I don’t have a fireplace.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Exactly? What does my not having a fireplace prove?’
‘This isn’t about Father Christmas,’ said Jenny. ‘Stop changing the subject.’
‘You brought him up.’
Jenny groaned in frustration. ‘As an example – as a way of showing how ridiculous you’re being by even entertaining the idea that your father did a deal with the demon.’ She saw him opening his mouth to speak and held up a hand to silence him. ‘A devil,’ she corrected herself. ‘A female devil. It’s all in Mitchell’s diary, how he thinks he called up this Proserpine and did a deal with her.’
‘Yeah, it’s a pity we don’t still have it because I need to talk to her.’
‘I made notes,’ she said.
‘They didn’t take them? Mitchell’s men didn’t take your notes?’
Jenny went over to her desk and pulled open the bottom drawer. She took out an A4 ring-backed notebook. ‘They only wanted the diary. This was in my bedroom.’
‘You wrote down everything?’
‘The bits I’d read.’
‘Including how to call up Proserpine? You wrote that down?’
Jenny nodded. ‘There’s a few words I need to look up, but I got most of it.’
Nightingale took the notebook from her. ‘You’re a star, Jenny. An absolute star.’
‘It’s nonsense, Jack. The ramblings of a deranged mind. Mitchell is as crazy as your father was.’
‘Does that mean you don’t want to help me?’ asked Nightingale.
‘Help you?’ asked Jenny. ‘How?’
‘Help me talk to Proserpine. Help me find a way out of this.’
‘Jack…’
