Lastnight (2 page)

As Nightingale stood watching Jenny toss the flower into the grave he was aware of two men moving up behind him. He turned to find them looming over him. One was close to six and half feet tall, the other only a couple of inches shorter. They both had close-cropped hair and were wearing black raincoats.

‘Jack Nightingale?’ growled the taller of the two men in an Essex accent.

‘Who wants to know?’ asked Nightingale, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

‘Don’t fuck around,’ said the man. ‘Are you Nightingale or not?’

‘Of course it’s him,’ said his companion. His accent was Essex too, but smoother and more polished, as if he’d gone to a halfway decent university before joining the police.

‘What do you want?’ asked Nightingale.

The shorter of the two men reached inside his raincoat and Nightingale stepped back, half expecting a gun to appear in the man’s hand.

The man smiled. ‘Nervous type, huh?’ He took a Metropolitan Police warrant card holder from his coat and held it out. His companion did the same and they flicked them open at the same time to reveal two warrant cards. Detective Inspector Jon Cooper and Detective Constable Andy Peters. Peters was the taller of the two.

‘Superintendent Chalmers wants to see you,’ said Cooper.

‘I’m in the middle of something here,’ said Nightingale. He gestured over at the grave. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘Body’s in the ground, looks like it’s all over to me,’ said Cooper. ‘And it’s not as if you’re family, is it?’

‘What’s this about?’

‘Superintendent Chalmers will tell you himself,’ said Cooper. ‘Please don’t give me a hard time, I’ve had a really shitty week.’

Nightingale looked at his watch, then over at the grave where Jenny was standing looking tearfully down at the coffin. Her mother and father moved to stand either side of her, offering moral and physical support. The inspector was right: Nightingale wasn’t family. He was only at the funeral because Jenny had asked him to be there. And there was definitely something hypocritical about his attendance, considering that he was the reason Marcus Fairchild was dead. ‘Okay,’ said Nightingale. ‘Let’s go.’

2

T
he black Vauxhall Vectra came to a halt outside Bethnal Green police station, a nondescript brick building with the traditional blue light over the main entrance. ‘I’ll walk him in,’ said Cooper. ‘You can park the car and meet up in the incident room.’

Cooper climbed out and waited until Nightingale joined him on the pavement. ‘You used to be in the job, right?’ said Cooper as the car drove away.

‘Yeah. CO19, and I was a negotiator.’

‘Wish they’d give me a gun,’ said Cooper. ‘These days that’s just about the only way a copper is going to get any respect.’

‘Have I got time for a cigarette?’

Cooper looked at his watch. ‘Yeah, go on.’

Nightingale took out his pack of Marlboro, lit one and offered the pack to the inspector. ‘I’m a Rothmans man myself, but beggars can’t be choosers I suppose,’ said the detective, helping himself to a cigarette and then bending down so that Nightingale could light it for him. The two men blew smoke up at the leaden sky. ‘When did you leave?’

‘Three years ago.’

‘And you’re a private eye now?’

‘Yeah, for my sins.’

‘How’s that working out for you?’

Nightingale shrugged. ‘Pays the bills, pretty much.’

‘What sort of jobs do you get?’

‘Insurance work, checking that people are as injured as they say they are. Divorce, following unfaithful spouses. Tracing people. The usual stuff.’ He gestured at the main entrance. ‘What does Chalmers want?’

‘He didn’t say, just said he wanted you in his office ASAP.’

‘Anything happen to have caused his sudden desire to see me?’ Nightingale held smoke deep in his lungs.

‘We just do as we’re told,’ said Cooper.

‘What, are you like his Number Two?’

‘Nah, I only met him two days ago. He’s been brought on to our Murder Investigation Team. I’m based here, he’s just visiting.’

‘You got a murder?’

‘Five murders. Goths. You know the type. Dress in black and listen to gloomy music. We’ve got a serial killer who likes to butcher them.’

Nightingale nodded. ‘I read about it in the papers. How’s it going?’

Cooper scowled. ‘Not great,’ he said. He flicked away what was left of his cigarette. ‘We’d better get a move on.’

Nightingale took a last drag on his cigarette and followed the detective inside. They went through a door and along a corridor to the lifts. ‘Do you mind if we walk up?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Are you on a fitness kick?’

‘I just don’t like lifts,’ said Nightingale. ‘Never have done.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘I can walk up and you can take the lift. It’s no big deal.’

The detective chuckled. ‘No sweat, I could probably do with the exercise.’ He pushed open a fire door and took Nightingale up the stairs to the third floor. They headed down a corridor and Cooper stopped at an office on the left and knocked on the door before opening it. Chalmers was sitting behind a desk looking at a computer terminal. As Nightingale walked into the office, Chalmers gestured with his chin at Cooper and the detective left, closing the door behind him.

‘I was at a funeral, Chalmers.’

‘Anyone close?’ said Chalmers, his eyes fixed on the screen in front of him.

‘Not really. Marcus Fairchild, as it happens.’ He dropped down on to a chair facing the superintendent.

‘He was your lawyer, wasn’t he?’

Nightingale shook his head. ‘I only knew him through Jenny. He was her godfather.’

Chalmers took his eyes off the screen and sat back in his chair. ‘Funny the way he died, wasn’t it?’

Nightingale frowned. ‘Funny? He was shot in the back of his car by a hit man on a motorbike. Where’s the humour in that?’

‘I meant funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha,’ said the superintendent. ‘Lawyers usually settle their differences in court. I can’t remember the last time a lawyer was murdered like that. And with a MAC-10 and all. Anyway, what was the turnout like?’

‘Pretty good,’ said Nightingale. ‘He had a lot of friends.’

‘But you weren’t one, right?’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Just a feeling, Nightingale.’ The superintendent smiled. ‘I have to say you wouldn’t find me shedding a tear over a dead lawyer.’

‘Can we get the small talk out of the way, Chalmers? Why did you bring me here?’

Chalmers pushed his chair away from his desk. ‘As crazy as it might sound, I need your help.’

‘The Goths?’

Chalmers wagged a finger at Nightingale. ‘You’re a sharp one, Nightingale, and that’s the truth. Just be careful you don’t cut yourself. I’m not happy about having to ask you for help, but I don’t seem to have a choice.’

Nightingale’s eyebrows headed skyward. ‘I’m not a cop any more, remember?’

‘I’m not over the moon about this either, but conventional investigating is getting us nowhere,’ said the superintendent.

‘I’m not a cop,’ Nightingale repeated.

‘At least hear me out,’ said Chalmers, pushing himself up out of his seat and walking around the desk. ‘You’re not a cop but last time I checked you were still a citizen and that comes with responsibilities.’

‘I pay my council tax,’ said Nightingale. ‘And my television licence.’

‘Well done you,’ said the superintendent. ‘Come and have a look at what I’m dealing with.’

He opened the door and headed out. Nightingale sighed and followed him. They walked down a corridor to a set of double doors. There were meshed windows on each door and over one of the windows someone had stuck a sheet of paper on which the letters MIT were printed. Murder Investigation Team.

The room was about fifty feet long and twelve feet wide. A dozen tables had been set up in the middle of the room, each with its own computer terminal. There were half a dozen civilian workers sitting at terminals. Nightingale assumed they were inputting information into the HOLMES system, a vital part of any murder investigation. Strictly speaking it was HOLMES 2 as the first Home Office Large Major Enquiry System had been substantially improved. By inputting every single piece of information into HOLMES, the detectives could spot patterns and links that they would otherwise miss.

Another four tables had been pushed against the wall furthest from the door and four detectives in suits were on the phone. There were files and stacks of paper everywhere and a row of metal filing cabinets on top of which were tea- and coffee-making equipment. It was, like most incident rooms, organised chaos.

Five whiteboards had been fixed to one wall and even before they walked up to them Nightingale knew there was one per victim. ‘Five Goths all killed in the past two weeks,’ said Chalmers. ‘Three male, two female. Ages between eighteen and thirty-nine. Two from North London, one from West London, two from South London. Two were gay and three were straight, so far as we know. Two students, one long-term unemployed, one website designer, one shop assistant. The one thing that they have in common is that they were Goths. Strike that – it’s the
only
thing they have in common.’

‘So they’re hate crimes?’ said Nightingale.

‘That’s the theory we’re working on,’ said Chalmers. ‘But that’s our problem. If the victims are being singled out because they’re Goths, that doesn’t give us a profile of the killers.’

‘Killers, plural?’

Nightingale walked over to the first of the boards. Written across the top, in felt tip capital letters, was the name of the victim –
STELLA WALSH
. To the left of the name was a head-and-shoulders shot of a pretty teenage girl with spiky black hair and heavy mascara. Below the head-and-shoulders photograph were five crime-scene pictures. Stella had been stripped naked and her flesh cut to ribbons. Nightingale grimaced as he looked from photograph to photograph.

‘The nature of the crime scenes suggests that there are more than one,’ said Chalmers. ‘But the only thing we know is that they hate Goths. That’s not enough to go on. The Senior Investigating Officer is Detective Chief Inspector Rawlings but he’s getting nowhere. Not from want of trying, it has to be said, he’s done everything by the book but with zero results. Now we’ve got a tweeting campaign saying that if two of the victims hadn’t been gay, we’d be doing more to solve the case.’

‘Are you serious?’ asked Nightingale, turning to look at him.

Chalmers nodded. ‘The Met is now being described as institutionally homophobic and the commissioner is looking for heads to roll.’

‘The powers that be care that much about Twitter?’

‘About public perception, sure. We’ve now got celebs tweeting about the investigation, everyone from Stephen Fry to One Direction. I had my own daughter asking me yesterday why we hadn’t solved the case. That’s all down to her favourite One Direction singer tweeting about it.’

‘Seems to me that it’s the tail wagging the dog these days.’

‘Doesn’t matter what’s wagging what, what matters is that the commissioner wants this case breaking and he’s dumped it on my desk like a huge steaming turd.’

‘And you think you can dump it on me?’ Nightingale laughed. ‘I know in the job shit rolls downhill, but I’m not even on the hill any more.’

‘Rawlings hasn’t put a foot wrong,’ said Chalmers. ‘It’s not his first murder enquiry and he hasn’t done anything differently to the way I’d’ve handled it. There’s no link between the victims other than they’re Goths. We’re looking at it as a hate crime but there are no obvious suspects. They’ve been trawling through social media and anti-Goth and anti-gay websites but there’s no one who stands out.’

Nightingale looked back at the crime scene photographs. ‘And you’re sure it’s not a lone psychopath?’

Chalmers shrugged. ‘These aren’t simple killings,’ he said. ‘What’s being done to them takes time. It seems a lot of work for one person.’

‘And what’s the cause of death? Please don’t tell me she was alive when they cut her up?’

‘The coroner says that she was alive but almost certainly unconscious; she’d been hit on the back of her head. But the cause of death was blood loss.’

Nightingale shuddered. ‘Were they all killed the same way?’

‘Rendered unconscious and then mutilated,’ said Chalmers.

‘When was the last killing?’

‘Four days ago, at least that was when the body was found.’ Chalmers walked over to the whiteboard furthest to the right. He pointed at a head-and-shoulders photograph of a man with a double chin and thinning hair that had been dyed black and gelled. He had mascara and eyeliner and what looked like black lipstick. ‘Daryl Heaton, thirty-nine and unemployed. He was found in his flat in Kilburn after the neighbours had complained about the smell. His was the last body found but the coroner puts the TOD at about a week earlier.’

Chalmers moved to the next whiteboard along. ‘Assuming she’s right about the time of death, that would make Abbie Greene the last victim. She was found six days ago.’

Nightingale looked at the head-and-shoulders photograph at the top of the whiteboard. Abbie Greene was barely out of her teens. She was blonde and blue-eyed and had a cute smile that suggested either good genes or expensive orthodontics.

‘That was taken from her university application,’ said Chalmers. ‘She went Goth about six months ago. Dyed her hair black.’

Below the photograph were half a dozen gory crime scene pictures. Abbie was lying across a blood-soaked bed with barely an intact scrap of flesh on her, except for her face. ‘He doesn’t slash the face,’ said Nightingale. ‘Just the bodies.’

‘Maybe it’s sexual,’ said Chalmers. ‘The face turns him on, he can look at them as he butchers them.’

‘It’s not butchering though, is it?’ said Nightingale. ‘He doesn’t sever the hands or the feet, or rip out organs or cut off their ears. It’s not Jack The Ripper stuff, is it? More like he’s skinning them. Skinning them bit by bit.’

Below the crime scene photographs was a handwritten timeline that showed everything Abbie had done and everyone she’d met in the twenty-four hours before she died. According to the timeline, the last person who had seen Abbie alive, apart from her killers, was her girlfriend, Zoe. According to Zoe, Abbie had gone to see a film with a friend and had never returned. Her body was found the next day in a bedsit in North London, more than five miles away from where she lived. ‘The friend?’ asked Nightingale.