‘I want the truth,’ said Chalmers, leaning forward and interlinking the fingers of both hands as if he was about to pray. ‘I want you to tell me what happened. I want you to tell me why George Harrison died. Did you kill him?’
Nightingale’s jaw dropped. ‘Did I what?’
‘Did you push George Harrison off the balcony?’
‘Of course not.’
‘He just decided to commit suicide while you were there?’
Nightingale nodded. ‘That’s what happened.’
‘And Miss McLean will back you up on that, will she?’
‘She was inside the flat. She wasn’t on the balcony.’
‘So you’re saying that she won’t be able to back you up?’
‘She didn’t see me push Harrison off the balcony because that’s not what happened.’ Nightingale stared scornfully at the superintendent. ‘You’ve got nothing,’ he said. ‘If you did you would have charged me by now. You know I was there and I’m not denying it, but there’ll be no forensic that suggests I did anything but talk to him. Jenny McLean was there and she’ll back me up.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ said Chalmers.
‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘We will.’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Are we done?’
‘We’re done when I say that we’re done,’ said the superintendent. ‘We have CCTV footage of you arriving at the tower block where Mr Harrison lived. And we have video of you leaving thirty-eight minutes later. So you and Mr Harrison must have had quite a chat before he decided to throw himself off the balcony.’
‘He let us in, we went out onto the balcony, we talked for two minutes at most, and then he jumped.’
‘Why were you on the balcony?’
Nightingale sighed. ‘He wanted some air. And I wanted a smoke. I was just about to light a cigarette when he jumped.’
‘Then explain to me why you were in the building for thirty-eight minutes.’
Nightingale rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I don’t like lifts. We walked up nine flights and we walked down.’
‘Why don’t you like lifts?’
Nightingale folded his arms. ‘I just don’t.’
‘Fear of heights?’
‘It’s nothing to do with heights. It’s being suspended in a box held up by wires that makes me nervous.’
The superintendent tapped his pen against his clipboard. ‘So let’s say it takes — what, a minute per floor? Nine floors, nine minutes. Probably a bit faster going down. Let’s say a total of sixteen minutes up and down. That leaves twenty-two minutes. You said that you spoke for just two minutes before he went over the balcony. So that leaves twenty minutes to be accounted for. What were you and Miss McLean doing for those twenty minutes?’
Nightingale stared at the superintendent but didn’t say anything.
‘Are you refusing to answer the question?’
‘I’m thinking how best to phrase my answer,’ said Nightingale.
‘Just tell the truth,’ said Chalmers. ‘That’s all we want. What were you doing for twenty minutes?’
‘I was cleaning,’ said Nightingale quietly. ‘I was cleaning the surfaces that we touched.’
‘You were removing forensic evidence,’ said the superintendent.
‘You could say that, yes.’
‘You wiped away your fingerprints. You cleaned everything you had touched, and then you left. Is that correct?’
Nightingale nodded.
‘For the tape, please.’
‘Yes,’ said Nightingale.
‘You tampered with a crime scene?’
‘It wasn’t a crime scene,’ said Nightingale.
‘So why destroy forensic evidence unless you wanted to hide your guilt?’
‘I wanted to avoid this,’ said Nightingale. ‘I wanted to avoid being given the third degree for something I didn’t do. I thought it would be easier just to walk away and not be involved.’
‘But you can see how what you did suggests that you had something to hide?’
‘I can see that, yes,’ admitted Nightingale.
‘So why didn’t you call nine-nine-nine instead of running away?’
‘He fell nine floors,’ said Nightingale. ‘He was beyond needing the emergency services.’
‘The police,’ said Chalmers. ‘Why didn’t you report it to the police?’
Nightingale glared at the superintendent. ‘Because I wanted to avoid this.’
‘This?’
‘Being interrogated as if it was somehow my fault. It wasn’t. He jumped of his own accord. I don’t know why he did it, but he did, and nothing I did or said afterwards was going to change what had happened.’
‘You left a crime scene,’ said Chalmers.
‘It was a suicide and suicide isn’t a crime.’
‘But pushing someone to their death most definitely is,’ said Chalmers.
‘That’s not what happened.’
‘In which case you should have given the police the opportunity of deciding whether or not a crime had taken place.’
‘Are you going to charge me?’ asked Nightingale.
‘Not right now,’ said Chalmers, writing a note on his pad.
Nightingale stood up. ‘Then I’m out of here.’
‘That’s up to you. But this isn’t over.’
‘It never is with you, Chalmers,’ said Nightingale.
11
N ightingale walked out of the police station and lit a cigarette, then phoned a minicab firm. He had smoked half his cigarette when Jenny appeared.
‘Well, that was a waste of everybody’s time,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Nightingale.
‘It’s not your fault,’ said Jenny, buttoning up her coat. ‘Just bloody-minded policemen.’
‘Who questioned you? The female cop?’
‘She was in the room but a uniformed inspector asked the questions. Some guy called Johnson. Do you know him?’
Nightingale shook his head.
‘He was an idiot. They were trying this “good cop, bad cop” routine with the woman pretending that she was my new best friend and Johnson threatening me with life behind bars for helping you cover up a murder. Please tell me that all cops aren’t as stupid as that?’
Nightingale blew a tight plume of smoke up at the sky. ‘It varies,’ he said. ‘Chalmers isn’t stupid but he’s got his sights set on me. What did you tell them?’
‘I said you pushed Harrison off the balcony and threatened to kill me if I told anyone.’ Nightingale’s jaw dropped and Jenny grinned and shook her head.
‘Don’t do that to me,’ he said.
‘Well, for goodness sake, Jack, what do you think I said?’
‘I just hope you told them what happened,’ he said. ‘Because that’s what I did.’
Jenny sighed. ‘Please give me some credit,’ she said. ‘Anyway, if they weren’t happy with what we said they wouldn’t have let us go, would they?’
‘They can’t hold us without charging us,’ said Nightingale. ‘And they don’t have enough evidence for
