‘The Ouija board is a conduit to the other side,’ said Nightingale. ‘Just because I’m asking to talk with Bella doesn’t mean that she’ll come through. And there are evil and mischievous spirits out there. But don’t worry, they can’t do any harm through the board.’
‘That’s good to know.’
Nightingale nodded. ‘Okay, so start to visualize the light and put your hand on the planchette.’
The two men concentrated and reached out to touch the plastic planchette.
Nightingale took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. ‘We’re here to talk to Bella Harper,’ he said. ‘Bella Harper, please come forward. We are here in the light, safe from the dark.’
The candle flames flickered, casting shadows on the walls.
‘Bella, my name is Jack Nightingale. I need to talk to you. Please come forward.’
A car alarm went off outside and both men jumped. Robbie grinned and shook his head.
‘Bella, this is a safe place, a place protected by the purest of lights,’ said Nightingale. ‘Please come forward.’
The alarm stopped as abruptly as it had begun.
‘Bella, Bella Harper, please come into the light.’
The planchette began to vibrate and Nightingale looked over at Robbie. It was clear from the look of surprise on his friend’s face that he wasn’t responsible for it.
‘Bella, is that you?’
The vibrations intensified and then the planchette began to move. It slid slowly across the board, the pointed end towards the word YES.
‘Bloody hell,’ muttered Robbie.
Nightingale flashed him a warning look.
The planchette stopped, a couple of inches from YES.
‘Bella, this is a safe place. My name is Jack Nightingale, I just want to talk to you. Please let me know that you can hear me.’
The planchette began to vibrate again, then resumed its slide across the board. It came to a halt with the tip just over the letter E.
‘That’s a good girl, Bella. I won’t keep you long. Hello.’
The planchette backed away from YES and then moved slowly towards HELLO. It stopped over the H.
Robbie’s mouth was wide open as he stared at the planchette.
‘Bella, where are you?’
The planchette twitched back and forth as if it wasn’t sure which way to go, then it scraped slowly across the board and stopped at the letter D. Then it moved down to O. Then left to N.
‘D-O-N,’ whispered Robbie. He spelled out the letters as the planchette moved to them. ‘T-K-N-O-W. Don’t know.’
‘But you’re not at home, are you? You’re not with your mum and dad?’
The planchette scraped across the board and pointed at NO.
‘Are you okay, Bella?’
The planchette moved away from YES and headed to NO. It stopped with the tip nudging the O.
Nightingale opened his mouth to ask another question but Robbie spoke first. ‘Is it really her?’ he asked Nightingale. ‘It is really Bella Harper?’
The planchette moved over to ‘YES’.
Robbie stared at the planchette with wide eyes.
‘I’m sorry you’re not okay, Bella,’ said Nightingale. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
The planchette backed away from ‘YES’, trembled, and then returned to ‘YES’.
Nightingale leaned over the board. ‘What, Bella? What do you want me to do?’
The planchette scraped slowly across the board. ‘K-I-L-L-M-E.’ The planchette stopped and Robbie looked up at Nightingale in horror. ‘Kill me? What the hell’s going on, Jack?’
88
Colin Stevenson popped two of the tablets in his mouth and washed them down with malt whisky. He was halfway through the bottle, a twenty-year-old single malt that was as smooth a whisky as he’d ever drunk. He sat back in his chair and stared at the computer screen. He’d thought about deleting everything on his hard drive, but from what the Met sergeant had told him there’d be no point. The Met investigators had everything already.
Running was pointless, Stevenson knew that. Even if he could get out of the country there would be nowhere to hide. Wherever he went they’d find him and they’d drag him back and he’d get life. Except that life as a convicted sex offender wouldn’t be any sort of life. And then there were the dead kids, too. McBride was dead, but they’d find some way of linking him to the deaths and then they’d throw away the key.
He picked up another two tablets off the desk, swallowed them and drank more whisky before refilling the glass. There had been just over fifty tablets in the vial and he was sure that they would be more than enough to do the job. They’d been prescribed a year earlier when he’d been having trouble sleeping. His GP had given him all the usual warnings about not taking too many and about the dangers of becoming addicted, but Stevenson was a decorated police inspector in a stressful job, so the doctor had signed several repeat prescriptions without a second thought.
Stevenson couldn’t do prison. Not as a sex offender. It would be hell on earth. He swallowed two more tablets and took another mouthful of whisky. He opened the file of videos and watched a short clip that he’d taken a couple of years earlier. It was a ten-year-old boy. Jason. Stevenson smiled and drank more whisky as he watched the video of himself stroking the boy’s soft skin. There was nothing that came close to the feeling of young flesh. Stevenson shuddered and felt himself growing hard. He switched off the video and opened a Word file. They said that confession was good for the soul, but Stevenson didn’t believe in souls, any more than he believed in God or Heaven. But he did want people to know why he was doing what he was doing. He wasn’t taking the coward’s way out, it was important to Stevenson that people knew that. It took courage to end your life on your own terms. The coward’s way would have been to let justice take its course and to die behind bars a sad, old man. Stevenson wouldn’t die behind bars, nor would he run and hide. He’d do what had to be done and he’d do it without any fuss. He’d had a good run. And hand on heart he had no regrets. In a perfect world he’d have gone to his grave with no one any the wiser, but the world wasn’t perfect. He swallowed two more tablets and gulped down more whisky. He could feel them starting to work but he knew he had enough time to get a few things off his chest. He began to type.
89
‘What did she mean, Jack? She wants you to kill her?’ They were in the Swan pub in Bayswater Road, around the corner from Nightingale’s flat.
‘You heard her,’ said Nightingale. They were sitting at a table outside so that Nightingale could smoke. He had his regular bottle of Corona and Robbie a double brandy. A propane heater hissed behind them.
‘I didn’t hear anything,’ said Robbie. ‘That plastic thing spelled out the message.’
‘The planchette.’
‘Whatever. Jack, I need you to swear that you weren’t pushing it.’
‘What?’
‘Swear to me on anything you believe that you weren’t pushing it.’
‘Are you insane? Why would I do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Robbie. He took a gulp of brandy. ‘I don’t know what to think at the moment.’
‘I didn’t push it. I swear to God, cross my heart and hope to die, but I’m amazed that you would even think that.’
‘What’s the alternative? That we were talking to a young girl who isn’t dead? And she’s asking you to kill her?’ He shook his head. ‘That’s fucked up, Jack. That’s fucked up big time.’
