Lastnight (10 page)

‘Are you sure?’

Nightingale closed his eyes again and tried to picture the crime scene photographs. Abbie Greene had been found in a bedsit in Shepherd’s Bush, and while the bed she was on was covered in blood her clothes had been cut off and tossed on a chair. Daryl Heaton’s naked and mutilated corpse was also found on the bed, his clothes strewn around the room. He opened his eyes. ‘I’m sure,’ he said. ‘There was no blood on the clothing so it was definitely cut off before cuts were made.’

‘That doesn’t make sense, does it? Why cut the clothes off and then cut the bodies?’

‘Getting rid of the clothes makes sense, because they’d harbour forensic evidence. But again, it does suggest that there was no rage, no hatred. It was cold and deliberate. And very carefully planned.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know. Maybe you’re right and I’m overthinking it. I’ll know better tomorrow.’

‘What about your other cases?’ she asked.

‘We don’t have much on at the moment.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Have you forgotten Mrs Hetherington’s husband? It’s Thursday and Thursday night is his so-called poker night.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Nightingale, looking at his watch. ‘What time does he finish work?’

‘Six, that’s what he tells his wife, anyway.’

Bruce Hetherington was a North London estate agent who may or may not have been having an affair with his personal assistant, a very pretty redhead about half his age. Mrs Hetherington had found a few incriminating text messages on her husband’s phone and rather than confronting him with the evidence had set about protecting herself. She had consulted a solicitor and set about identifying all their assets and savings, including Mr Hetherington’s substantial pension. Now that she had all her financial ducks in a row she needed hard evidence of the affair. Once she had the proof she needed the hapless Mr Hetherington was going to be turfed out of their five-bedroom detached house in Fulham and discover that he had lost all access to the joint bank accounts. According to Mr Hetherington, Thursday night was poker night, when he got together with other estate agents and didn’t get home until the early hours. But having seen the text messages between her husband and the personal assistant, Mrs Hetherington was convinced that it wasn’t card playing that was keeping him out late. ‘Poker? More like bloody poker-her,’ is what she’d said in his office, and to his credit Nightingale had just about managed to keep a straight face.

‘Bugger,’ said Nightingale. ‘The MGB’s playing up. And it’s not the best car to be tailing anyone in.’

‘Because it’s a pile of crap?’

Nightingale glared at her. ‘Because it’s a racing green classic car,’ he said. ‘It sticks out. How about we use your Audi?’

‘How about you sit pillion on Mark McKay’s Ducati?’

‘Have you called him?’

‘Called him and booked him and he’ll be here at five.’

Nightingale had used McKay several times on surveillance jobs. He worked part-time as a motorcycle courier and knew the streets of London as well as any taxi driver. Nightingale’s surveillance jobs paid better than delivering parcels so McKay was always happy to work for him, no matter the short notice. ‘You’re good,’ he said.

‘But unappreciated.’

‘I appreciate the hell out of you.’

‘Pity that’s not reflected in my pay packet.’

Nightingale frowned. ‘How much do I pay you?’

‘You see, the fact that you don’t know worries me.’

‘When did you last get a pay rise?’

‘Last Christmas.’

‘Do you think you should have another?’

‘Do you?’

‘Kid, I just want you to be happy. This business, such as it is, would fall apart without you. If that’s not appreciation, then I don’t know what is. Have a look at the books and let me know what you think you should be paid.’

She smiled. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘I mean thank you for what you just said. For the extra money as well, of course. But more so for what you said.’

‘I mean it.’

‘I could see that. That’s why I’m thanking you. And just to show you how lucky you are to have me, I came up with something very interesting while I was trawling through Facebook, though it’s not Goth-related.’

‘Not porn, I hope.’

Jenny ignored his attempt at humour. ‘Remember Nicholas Drummond? The guy who got hit in the rear at the traffic lights by a double-decker bus?’

‘Yeah, he gets his cheque next week, right?’

The bus company had hired Nightingale to check that Mr Drummond’s injuries were genuine. He had a doctor’s report claiming that he had five bulging discs in his neck and spine and that walking caused him almost unbearable pain. Which meant that he was unable to work. Nightingale had staked the man out on three occasions over the past six months and had never seen anything untoward. Most of the time he stayed indoors and when he did appear he always had a neck brace on. He used a crutch to get to and from his car and seemed to have difficulty getting in and out. His wife drove and she was always on hand to help him. Nightingale had filed three reports, each saying that the man’s injuries appeared to be genuine.

‘The cheque was supposed to be sent out to him this afternoon,’ said Jenny. ‘But this morning I discovered that he’s set up a sponsorship page for running the half marathon in Brighton on Sunday. He’s raised three hundred pounds for Cancer Research.’

Nightingale’s jaw dropped. ‘How the hell did that happen? I was on his doorstep three times and I never saw him training. How does a guy in a neck brace and using a crutch suddenly go to running a half marathon?’

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Jenny. ‘So I called our guy in the claims department and had a quiet lunch with him. Seems they’ve had a few claimants using the same doctor as Mr Drummond. All with bulging discs and all backed up by convincing MRIs. Except on closer examination, they’re the same MRI.’

Nightingale grinned. ‘That’s interesting.’

‘It gets better,’ she said. ‘There are four claims in all, at various stages of being processed, all of them being handled by the same woman in the claims office. And she’s only been there a year.’

‘So she’s the mastermind behind this little scam, is she?’

‘Not so little, Jack. The four claims total almost three million quid.’

‘But Drummond hasn’t got his money?’

Jenny shook her head. ‘That’s the thing. The cheque was supposed to go out this afternoon, by courier. But now Mr Drummond has been told that the cheque has been delayed until Monday.’

‘You are an absolute star.’

‘It gets better,’ said Jenny. ‘They’re not just paying us a fee; we’re getting a percentage of the money that Mr Drummond would have got. Five per cent.’

Nightingale tried to do the sum in his head. Mr Drummond had been due to receive a little over one million pounds. Five per cent of a million pounds was a lot.

‘Fifty grand, Jack,’ she said.

‘Wow. Who’s a clever girl, then?’

‘That would be me.’ She grinned. ‘So the long and the short of it is that you need to get yourself down to Brighton on Sunday with a video camera. They need a video of Drummond starting and finishing, along with a record of his time.’

‘No problem,’ said Nightingale.

‘I did good, didn’t I?’

‘You did brilliant, kid.’

‘So I was thinking, maybe I should get a chunk of the finder’s fee.’

‘A chunk?’

‘Twenty per cent.’

‘God, you’re good.’

Jenny grinned. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

10

N
ightingale didn’t get home until two o’clock in the morning. McKay had dropped him off and helped him strip out of his motorcycle leathers. Nightingale was exhausted but it had been a productive nine hours. They had been outside Hetherington’s office when he had left with the pretty redhead in tow. McKay had fixed up a small video camera on the top of Nightingale’s full-face helmet that was connected to a portable hard drive in his inside pocket. There was an on-off switch connected to the camera but there was more than enough space on the hard drive to store ten hours of video. They had filmed the couple walking towards Mr Hetherington’s Bentley soft-top, and caught a very incriminating hug and kiss before she went over to her white VW Golf. For a moment Nightingale thought they had been wasting their time but then the VW drove off and Mr Hetherington had followed in his Bentley.

McKay had kept a decent distance between the bike and the car, closing the gap only when they got close to traffic lights. The girl kept the VW at just under the speed limit and Mr Hetherington stuck close to her. They drove to a Spanish restaurant in Muswell Hill and parked outside. Nightingale got more video of the two kissing and hugging before they went inside, arm in arm. McKay drove down a side street where Nightingale stripped off his leathers and helmet before heading into the restaurant. There was a bar to the right and a dozen tables with red tablecloths and candles in old Rioja bottles. Nightingale sat at the bar and ordered a Corona and some tapas – anchovies in vinegar and oil, chorizo in hard cider and patatas bravas.

Mr Hetherington was sitting at a corner table, splitting his time between sipping red wine and kissing his PA on the lips as they waited for their food to arrive. Nightingale was alone at the bar and he managed to record several minutes of video on his smartphone. The loving couple shared a large dish of paella and then took it in turns to feed each other crema catalana. Nightingale managed to video the dessert sharing and when their coffees arrived he paid his bill and went outside to join McKay.

He was back on his bike in his leathers and with his helmet on when Mr Hetherington and his PA emerged arm-in-arm from the restaurant. Nightingale snatched more video of the two kissing on the pavement before getting into their respective vehicles. Again the VW led the way, this time to a terraced house a short distance from Alexandra Palace. Mr Hetherington parked his Bentley first but it took his companion several attempts before she managed to squeeze in between a black cab and a people carrier. Nightingale and McKay watched from a side street as Mr Hetherington made fun of the woman’s attempts to parallel park, and Nightingale managed to get footage of them kissing in the road and walking together to the front door of the woman’s house where they kissed again before she took her keys out of her bag and let them in.

The lights had gone on downstairs, and then the light had gone on in the upstairs bedroom. McKay had driven slowly by the house and as luck would have it the woman was drawing the curtains just as the bike was level with the house. Nightingale was fairly sure he’d managed a shot of the woman in the window with Mr Hetherington standing behind her, cupping her breasts.

They had parked up in a side street and Nightingale had videoed Mr Hetherington leaving the house at one o’clock in the morning. They hadn’t bothered following him home as Nightingale had all the footage he needed.

Nightingale let himself into his flat, had a quick shower and fell into bed. He was woken up eight hours later by his mobile ringing on the bedside table. He groped for it. ‘Yeah?’

‘Are you coming in today?’ It was Jenny.

Nightingale groaned. ‘What time is it?’

‘Ten. I wasn’t sure if you were coming in or going straight to the Goth interviews.’

‘The latter,’ he said, sitting up and running his hand through his hair.

‘You’re in bed, aren’t you?’

‘Please don’t tell me that you’ve got CCTV rigged up in my bedroom.’

‘You sound like you’ve just woken up.’

‘Guilty as charged. But on a more positive note we have Mr Hetherington bang to rights. Loads of video of them canoodling and him going into her house with her and leaving in the small hours.’

‘Brilliant, Mrs Hetherington will be thrilled. When can I have it?’

Nightingale swung his feet off the bed. ‘I’ll do the three interviews first, I should be back this afternoon.’

He ended the call then shaved and showered and put on a dark blue suit, a white shirt that he’d only worn once and a green tie with yellow MGB logos on it. He had scheduled three visits on the Goth case, all north of the river. He needed to talk to the neighbours of Daryl Heaton, who lived alone in Kilburn. He had to talk to the parents of Stella Walsh, the first victim, in Islington, and the parents of Luke Aitken, who lived in Hampstead. Geographically they were only a few miles from each other but the quirks of the London transport system meant that the easiest and quickest way of getting to all three was to drive. His stomach was growling but he figured he didn’t have time to make his regular bacon sandwich breakfast so he picked up a coffee and muffin from Starbucks on his way to his car.

His first stop was Kilburn. Daryl Heaton lived in a three-storey terraced house that in Edwardian times had probably been home to a family and servants but which had long ago been converted into studio flats. It was a short walk from Kilburn High Street and Nightingale managed to find a parking space between a skip piled high with wood and plaster and a British Gas van. To the left of the front door was an intercom with six buttons, six at the top and one on the bottom. According to the police file, Heaton lived in Flat 3. Nightingale pressed the button for Flat 4 and waited. After a minute he pressed it again but when there was still no answer he pressed Flat 1. Again there was no answer. Nightingale sighed and stabbed the button for Flat 5. This time a man answered and it sounded as if he had just woken up. ‘What?’

‘I’m with the police,’ said Nightingale, which he figured was an approximation of the truth. ‘I need to talk to you about Mr Heaton.’

‘Again? This is the third time.’

‘I won’t take long, a few minutes at most,’ said Nightingale. The door lock buzzed and Nightingale pushed it open. There was a pile of junk mail and fast food leaflets on the floor and a pushchair at the bottom of the stairs. The stair carpet was threadbare and had worn completely through in places. The walls were streaked with dirt and the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling was covered in dust and there was a cobweb running from the flex to the wall. Nightingale picked up the mail and flicked through it. There were several bills among the junk including a mobile phone bill addressed to Joe Lumley. He tossed the envelopes to the side and went upstairs.