I Know Who Did It (A Jack Nightingale Short Story) (7 page)

‘Jack, what’s
happening? Tell me?’ She was stood with her back against the door, her arms
outstretched.

The creature was
fully formed now and it moved towards Jenny, its claws reaching for her.

‘Jack!’ she
screamed.

‘He can’t help
you,’ said Paimonia. ‘He can’t and he won’t.’

‘I wouldn’t bank
on that,’ she said. She reached inside her jacket and took out a small canister
of mace. She pointed it at the demon’s head and pressed the trigger. A tight
stream of mace sprayed over its eyes and mouth and it roared in anger. Jenny
took a step forward, continuing to spray the burning liquid at the eyes.

Nightingale bent
down and pulled the Smith and Wesson revolver from the box. He brought the gun
up, supporting his right hand with his left and fired twice at the back of
Paimonia’s head. Both bullets hit their target, the first shot blowing off a
chink of green skin and bone, the second burying itself in the skull. The
creature roared in defiance and turned. Nightingale waited until it was facing him
before firing again. Two quick shots to the throat then as the creature
staggered to the side he fired into its eye at point-blank range. Green blood
spurted from the wound and it began to stagger. Then there was a loud bang and
space seemed to fold in on itself and the creature disappeared.

Nightingale stood
with the gun in both hands, breathing heavily. Jenny was leaning against the
door, still holding the can of mace.

‘That worked out
well,’ said Nightingale.

‘Do you think?’
asked Jenny, her voice loaded with sarcasm

‘It could have
gone worse. I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure that bullets would kill it.’ He
put the gun back in the cardboard box.

Jenny’s jaw
dropped. ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’

Nightingale
grinned. ‘I was joking.’

She tilted her
head on one side. ‘Really?’

‘Mrs Steadman
said he took on physical form at the moment of sacrifice, so assuming that was
the case, bullets should have worked.’

‘And if they
hadn’t?’

Nightingale
looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t have a fallback position.’

‘Good to know,
Jack. Good to know.’ She glared at him, put the can of mace in her pocket and
then turned on her heel and walked away.

‘You’re going to
run me back to London, aren’t you?’ he shouted after her.

He heard the
click of her heels as she headed downstairs, the front door open and slam shut,
followed a few seconds later by her Audi starting up. ‘I guess not,’ said
Nightingale. He took out his cigarettes and lit one as he walked over to the
window, just in time to see Jenny drive off in her Audi.

* * *

Nightingale was
walking back to his flat when his phone rang. It was Robbie Hoyle. ‘What have
you been up to?’ asked the detective.

‘This and that,’
said Nightingale. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Seen anything of that guy you wanted information on? Charles Nelson? Or
that guy who looks like him? Richard Hall?’

‘Nah, I let it
drop,’ said Nightingale. ‘It couldn’t have been him, obviously. No one stays
the same for forty years, right?’ Nightingale didn’t like lying to his friend,
but on this occasion he didn’t have a choice. There was no way he could explain
that Charles Nelson had sold his soul to a demon from Hell in exchange for
immortality, and no way that Hoyle would ever believe him.

‘So you just let
it drop?’

‘It was a dead
end.’

‘Because Richard
Hall is dead.’

‘Dead?’

‘You know what
dead means, Jack. Deceased. No longer with us. You sure you didn’t go to see
him?’

‘What’s happened,
Robbie? Why not just cut to the chase?’

‘Okay. Richard
Hall was found dead in his house today. His cleaner turned up and found him in
his bed.’

‘People die in
their beds all the time.’

‘Not like this,
Jack. The doctor who came in to examine the body says Mr Hall shows all the
signs of having been dead for forty years.’

‘What?’

‘How is that not
clear, Jack? The body was mummified, pretty much. Dental records proved who it
was but even so… forty years. How does that happen, Jack? His driving licence
was issued four years ago. And his cleaner said he was alive and well two days
ago when she was last in the house.’

‘It’s a mystery,
no question.’

‘So why do I get
the feeling that you’re not telling me everything?’

‘I’m off the
case,’ said Nightingale. ‘I couldn’t find Charles Nelson so I just assumed he’d
died or left the country. I’m trying to find other people who worked at the school
but I’m not having any joy. Forty years is a long time, like you said. So is it
a murder enquiry?’

‘According to the
doctor, Hall died of natural causes. Forty years ago. I can’t see my bosses
being happy if I start a murder investigation on the basis of that. So no, it
goes down as death by natural causes. There don’t seem to be any relatives to
cause a fuss so I guess Mr Hall’s secret will be buried with him.’

Hoyle ended the
call, clearly less than satisfied with the answers that Nightingale had given
him. Nightingale waited until he’d got back home and drunk two bottles of
Corona and smoked three cigarettes before phoning Mary Campbell. He took a deep
breath and began talking. ‘I know who did it,’ he said. ‘And I’m happy enough
to tell you who did it. But I warn you now, you’re not going to believe it.’

‘I just want to
know what happened, Mr Nightingale.’

‘Then I think
you’d better sit down,’ he said, reaching for his cigarettes.

###

Jack Nightingale
appears in the full-length novels Nightfall, Midnight, Nightmare, Nightshade,
Lastnight and San Francisco Night and in the short stories Still Bleeding,
Tracks, My Name Is Lydia and Cursed.