want to start a rumour like that? How do you think the parents would feel?’
‘I think the parents deserve to know the truth,’ said Nightingale. ‘And really, isn’t that the purpose of an inquest? To get the truth out there?’
‘The purpose of an inquest is to determine the cause of death,’ said the policeman. ‘And that’s pretty much a foregone conclusion.’
‘But what about motive? Why did McBride kill those children?’
‘Because the balance of his mind was disturbed. Or as the tabloids will no doubt put it, he was as mad as a hatter. But again that’s a matter for the inquest.’
‘He didn’t behave like a madman,’ said Nightingale. ‘He seemed organised. Restrained even. He only killed eight when he could have killed a lot more.’
‘What are you saying, Mr Nightingale? Are you saying that you wish he’d killed more?’
‘Of course not. But I’m not convinced he was mad.’
‘And if you were to prove that the children were abused, that would make him less of a madman?’
‘It would help explain why he did what he did.’
‘And what has put this idea in your head, Mr Nightingale?’
‘It’s just a line of inquiry,’ said Nightingale. ‘You remember the Dunblane massacre back in 1996?’
‘Of course. But what does that have to do with us here in Berwick?’
‘The killer up in Dunblane was Thomas Hamilton. There were reports that he’d been involved in inappropriate behaviour with children. He was a Scout leader and worked in youth clubs and he lost his job after complaints that he had been taking semi-naked photographs of some of the boys. He made boys sleep with him in tents on camping trips, that sort of thing.’
‘I don’t see where this is heading, frankly.’
‘The shootings came shortly after he failed to set up a new youth club. I was wondering if there was something similar driving Mr McBride.’
The policeman frowned. ‘You have evidence that he was abusing children?’
‘That’s why I’ve come to see you. If any of the children had been abused, it would show up in the post mortem.’
The policeman put down his pen and linked his fingers. ‘Well, I can assure you that the children were not sexually abused in any way.’
‘Can I see the pathologist’s reports?’
The policeman stared at Nightingale for several seconds. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘I would be in breach of the Data Protection Act if I were to do that. The reports will be made public at the inquest and not before. But I can tell you, off the record and on a totally non-attributable basis, that none of the children had been abused.’
Nightingale nodded slowly. ‘Okay,’ he said. He wondered if the coroner’s officer was also a poker player and if the pulsing vein in his forehead was a sign that he was lying. Nightingale would have been prepared to bet that it was. But he didn’t say anything, he just thanked the man, shook his hand and left the office.
He waited until he was outside before he called Jenny on her mobile and filled her in on what happened. ‘Now what?’ she said.
‘I’m going to go to the farm to get a sample of McBride’s prints. I’ve arranged to meet the brother there.’
‘When you do see him, you might think about running some expenses by him,’ said Jenny. ‘Be nice if we could get some money for your travelling and the lab.’
‘Will do,’ said Nightingale.
‘You’ll still make the afternoon flight?’
‘That’s the plan,’ said Nightingale.
41
Nightingale went back to his rental car and phoned McBride, but he didn’t pick up and the call went through to his answer service. Nightingale left a brief message saying that he was heading out to the farm, but then he realised he hadn’t eaten all day so he popped into a local cafe for a coffee and a sandwich. He called again as he drove to the farm, but McBride still wasn’t picking up.
When he arrived at the farm the five-bar gate was padlocked, so he left the car in the road. He climbed over the gate and walked down the dirt track. He made a final unsuccessful attempt to call McBride and then shoved his phone into the pocket of his raincoat.
As the track bent to the right he was able to see the farmyard and realised that McBride’s car was parked there, its nose up against the side of the house. It began to rain as he got closer to the farmhouse, and he turned up the collar of his coat and jogged the last fifty yards. He rang the doorbell but there was no response. He rang again. The rain was getting heavier and he stood closer to the door to avoid the worst of it.
The front door remained resolutely closed. From where he was standing he could see that the barn door was ajar. He jogged over, his Hush Puppies splashing through puddles, and squeezed through the gap. Rain was beating a tattoo on the corrugated iron roof. ‘Mr McBride, are you in here?’ he called.
Water dripped down the back of his neck and he shivered. As he looked to the left his breath caught in his throat. Danny McBride was hanging from the upper level, a thick rope around his neck.
Nightingale took a step back, his eyes open in horror. It didn’t make any sense. McBride wasn’t the type to kill himself. He was a husband and a father and there had been nothing about his behaviour that suggested he was depressed. He was upset about what his brother had done, but that was no reason for him to take his own life.
He’d been hanging there for a while, Nightingale realised. Hours, probably. His trousers were wet and there was a small pool of urine on the floor. The bladder always emptied itself on death. And so did the colon. Nightingale had attended several suicides when he was a police officer and the smell of death was always the same. Urine and faeces. The intestinal gases as they expanded and escaped, and finally rotting flesh. Nightingale shuddered. ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ he muttered under his breath. He took out a cigarette and lit it as he considered his options. He could get back into his car and drive to the airport without telling anyone about the body. Or he could be the dutiful citizen and phone the police. But if he did that he’d have to face Stevenson again and have to explain what he was doing on the farm. And he guessed that Stevenson would relish any excuse to have Nightingale in a cell wearing a paper suit for a day or two.
Nightingale blew smoke up at the roof of the barn. If he drove away without reporting the death and the cops discovered that he’d been in the barn, he’d be in trouble. Not prison trouble, but helping the police with their enquiries trouble. And he’d probably need a lawyer.
But there’d be no evidence that he’d been in the barn and seen the body. There were the phone calls, of course. The call he’d made at Heathrow and the message on McBride’s phone. He could get around that, though, and phone again saying that he wouldn’t be able to meet McBride that afternoon. That might work. But he’d have to make the call well away from the farm.
Then there was his family. They deserved to be told. Somewhere there was a wife carrying on as normal, totally unaware that her husband was dead. And two boys who had to be told that their father was gone for ever.
He looked around the barn. Everything seemed exactly as it had been the last time he had been there. Except for the body, of course. He took a long drag on the cigarette and held the smoke for a good ten seconds before letting it out in a tight plume. He’d made up his mind.
42
John Fraser looked at his watch. It was six o’clock in the morning, which meant he had two hours to go before his shift ended and he could go home. The graveyard shift they called it, but that was actually a misnomer. It was quite rare for a patient to die in the ICU at night. Most died in the daytime, and the joke among the nursing staff was that the number of deaths rose in line with the number of doctors in attendance. Fraser knew that was a
