She finally stopped screaming as her windpipe filled with blood. He could see the panic in her eyes as bloody foam spewed between her lips. ‘Die, you stupid bitch!’ he hissed, and virtually on cue the life faded from her eyes and she went still.
Walton climbed off the bed and stood grinning down at his dead wife for almost a minute as her blood soaked into the duvet. Then he looked at his watch and smiled to himself. There was plenty of time to finish his steak and drink some wine before his kids came home.
80
Nightingale pushed open the door to his office. Before he could take off his coat Jenny rushed over to him holding a newspaper. ‘Did you see the
‘I’m more of a
‘Well, you need to take a look at the
Nightingale went through to his office and sat down behind his desk, still wearing his raincoat as he scanned the
‘It’s a world exclusive,’ said Jennie. ‘But it’ll be syndicated around the world tomorrow.’
‘This is bad,’ said Nightingale, gesturing at the newspaper.
‘Do you think?’
‘The Prime Minister? She wants to talk to the PM? And Prince William?’
‘Not so worried about the Archbishop then?’
‘I figure he can take care of himself,’ said Nightingale.
‘You think it’s a joke, Jack?’
Nightingale threw up his hands. ‘I don’t know what to think.’
‘We can’t let the PM talk to her. We can’t let anyone talk to her.’
‘I know that. You think I don’t know that?’
Jenny folded her arms. ‘So what are you going to do? What are WE going to do?’
‘I don’t know. I’m thinking.’
‘Oh, that’s all right then. The great Jack Nightingale has his thinking cap on so it’s all going to turn out for the best.’
‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Jenny.’
Nightingale pointed at the headline. ‘She wants to see three of the most important people in the country. She wants to talk to them. And we know what happens to people that she talks to. That nurse killed himself and his family.
‘I don’t see any of them turning up at her front door.’
‘You don’t? Then you underestimate the power of public relations. They got the Queen to jump out of a helicopter at the Olympics opening ceremony. You think they wouldn’t persuade the Prince to pop around for a photo opportunity with a girl who came back from the dead? And you think the PM’s PR won’t be telling him that this would be a great way of connecting with voters?’
Nightingale grinned. ‘You know that wasn’t actually the Queen that leapt out of the helicopter, right?’
Jenny didn’t smile. ‘This isn’t funny, Jack. We have to do something.’
‘Let me talk to Robbie.’
‘Robbie? You think the police can help?’
‘I’ll ask Robbie to see if anyone else connected with Bella has …’ He shrugged. ‘Let me talk to Robbie, then we’ll work out what we should do.’
Jenny nodded and walked out of the office. Nightingale reached for his phone. He’d call Robbie all right. But there was someone else he needed to talk to, and for that he’d need more than a mobile phone.
81
Nightingale dropped the two black plastic rubbish bags on the ground and bent down to unlock the padlock that was what passed for security for his lock-up. He pulled up the metal shutter and flicked on the light switch. A fluorescent light flickered into life. The lock-up was empty – he’d already moved his MGB to a multi-storey car park close to his office. He opened one of the bags and took out a red plastic bucket and a scrubbing brush. At the end of the line of garages was a tap set into the wall and Nightingale used it to fill the bucket. He spent the next fifteen minutes scrubbing the concrete floor clean. When he was satisfied he used paper towels to pat the floor dry, then stood up and admired his handwork.
He’d worked up a sweat, and he knew that he had to be spotlessly clean because any impurities would weaken the protective circle. He secured the lock-up and walked back to his flat. He showered twice, using a new bar of coal tar soap, taking care to use a plastic nail brush to clean under his fingernails and toenails. He shampooed his hair twice, then rinsed himself off and used a brand new towel to dry himself.
He had already laid out clean clothes on his bed and he put them on. The shoes were a new pair of brown suede Hush Puppies that he’d bought a month earlier but hadn’t broken in yet. He pulled on his raincoat and walked back to the lock-up, his hair still damp.
He took off his raincoat and hung it on a nail by the light switch, then pulled down the shutter. He stood for a while in the middle of the garage, steadying his breath, then got to work. He took a large cardboard box from one of the bags and opened it. Inside was a box of chalk. The lock-up was about fifteen feet long and ten feet wide. The protective circle had to be just that, a circle, so he carefully drew one six feet in diameter. In the second bag he had a birch branch that he’d ripped from a tree on Hampstead Heath, and he slowly ran it around the perimeter of the chalk circle. When he’d finished he put the branch back in the bag and with the chalk drew a pentagram inside the circle. He’d already worked out that the front of the garage faced north, so he drew two of the five points of the pentagram facing that direction.
He carefully drew a triangle around the circle, with the apex pointing north, and then wrote the letters MI, CH and AEL at the three points of the triangle. Michael. The archangel.
Nightingale placed the two rubbish bags close to the shutter and put the cardboard box in the centre of the circle. He put the chalk back in the cardboard box, took out a small bottle of consecrated salt water, removed the glass stopper and carefully sprinkled water around the circle. He took five large white church candles and placed them at the five points of the pentagram, then used his lighter to light them one at a time in a clockwise direction.
He stood in the centre of the circle and checked that everything was as it should be, then he bent down over the cardboard box and retrieved a plastic bag full of herbs. He opened the bag, took out a handful of herbs and sprinkled them over the candles one by one, moving clockwise around the circle. The herbs sizzled as they burned, filling the air with cloying fumes, and for the first time Nightingale wondered if it had been such a smart move to be playing with fire in a garage with the door down.
He bent down, fished a lead crucible from the cardboard box and poured the rest of the herbs into it. He used his fingers to form a neat pile and then set fire to it with his lighter. He straightened up, his eyes watering from the pungent fumes, and pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. On it were the words that he needed to say, written in Latin.
He took a deep breath but immediately began coughing. His eyes were watering and he wiped away the tears with the back of his hand. He managed to stop coughing and began to read the Latin words, slowly and precisely. When he reached the final three words he said them loudly, almost shouting. ‘Bagahi laca bacabe!’
The fumes from the burning herbs began to swirl in a slow, lazy circle and then behind him was a flash of lightning and the smell of a burning electrical circuit. The concrete floor began to vibrate and the cloying fog grew thicker. He forced himself to breathe shallowly through his nose, trying to minimise the damage to his lungs.
