Lastnight (24 page)

Kipper turned into an alley that looked like a dead-end. There was a single light high up on a wall but it barely illuminated the ground. Something black and furry scurried by Nightingale’s feet but he couldn’t tell if it was a small cat or a large rat.

Kipper reached a wooden door and he banged on it with the flat of his hand, then waved for Nightingale to join him. The door opened outwards. It was a fire door and a West Indian in a black Puffa jacket kept his hand on the metal release mechanism as he stared deadpan at Nightingale. ‘In, but lose the cigarette,’ he said.

Nightingale dropped the cigarette on the ground and stood on it, then went inside as Kipper pedalled off back the way they had come.

The man in the Puffa jacket pulled the door closed. They were standing at the foot of a short flight of concrete stairs. The man squeezed by Nightingale and went up the stairs. Nightingale followed him. He pushed through another door into a corridor with walls made of concrete blocks. Overhead were fluorescent lights. At the end of the corridor was a set of double metal doors. The man pushed the doors open and held one so that Nightingale could enter the room. It was a commercial kitchen with stainless-steel ranges, a walk-in fridge and racks of pots, pans and plates.

In the middle of the kitchen there was a man in his thirties, naked and tied to a chair. Blood was trickling from between his lips.

On the metal counter next to him was a selection of stainless steel knives, cleavers and kitchen shears. And there was a Glock, similar to the one Nightingale had clipped to his belt.

T-Bone was standing by the fridge, drinking from a bottle of milk. He was wearing a dark blue tracksuit and white Nikes and was naked from the waist up. His chest and forearms were glistening with sweat as he wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. There were two other men in the room, both black, one tall and thin with his head shaved, the other shorter with a weightlifter’s physique – massive forearms, a barrel-like chest, a tiny waist and bowed legs. They were both wearing tracksuit bottoms and were bare-chested. The tall man was holding a pair of bloody pliers.

T-Bone gestured at the naked man. ‘This is Tony Barnett, the owner of the BMW SUV,’ said T-Bone.

‘Vorsprung durch Technik,’ said Nightingale.

‘He’s helping us with our enquiries,’ said T-Bone. The man tossed the pliers on to the metal table next to three teeth that had obviously been pulled from Barnett’s mouth.

‘Good to know,’ said Nightingale. ‘What’s he told you so far?’

‘Basically that I can go fuck myself and that he wants to fuck my mother.’

‘Nice,’ said Nightingale.

‘Pain doesn’t seem to worry him much.’

‘Fuck you!’ shouted the man in the chair.

‘But it’s early yet. By the time we’ve taken off a few toes, he’ll probably feel a bit different. Then we’ll start on his fingers.’

Nightingale walked around Barnett. There was a tattoo on his left shoulder. It wasn’t ink, it was as if the design had been burned into the flesh. There was a goat’s skull and where the mouth should have been was an insignia, like a seven-pointed star that had been squashed into an irregular shape. Nightingale recognised the insignia – it was the symbol of the Order of Nine Angles.

‘Where did you get that done?’ asked Nightingale.

‘What?’

‘The tattoo on your back.’

‘That’s no tattoo, fuckwit.’

‘Did you get it done in Camden?’ asked Nightingale, walking to stand in front of him.

Barnett frowned. ‘Camden?’

‘Did you get it done in Camden. The Ink Pit.’

Barnett laughed but then his laugh turned into a series of coughs that racked his entire body. ‘You think that was done by a human hand?’ he sneered. He spat on the floor. ‘You’ve no idea what’s going on, have you?’

‘So tell me,’ said Nightingale. ‘Who gave you the tattoo?’

‘A demon,’ said Barnett. ‘A demon from hell.’

‘Which one?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Which one?’ repeated T-Bone. He sneered at Nightingale. ‘You’re as crazy as he is.’

Barnett stared at Nightingale, his eyes wide and manic. ‘Proserpine,’ he said. ‘That’s her name. And she’s one mean bitch, I can tell you that much.’

‘Proserpine gave you the tattoo?’

‘Who the hell is Proserpine?’ asked T-Bone.

Nightingale held up his hand. ‘Give me a minute,’ he said. ‘This is important.’

He bent down and put his mouth close to the man’s ear. ‘Why did you write what you did on the mirror?’ he asked.

‘Fuck off.’

‘Did you write it?’

‘I didn’t write anything on the mirror. What mirror anyway?’ He cleared his throat and spat bloody phlegm on to the floor.

‘Upstairs. In Perry Smith’s bathroom.’

‘I didn’t even go upstairs. I was in the kitchen.’ He coughed and spat again.

‘Who was upstairs?’

Barnett shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It was bedlam in the house.’

‘No, it was well planned. They had guns and you had knives so you must have known what you were doing.’

‘We had guns,’ said Barnett. ‘Of course we had guns.’

‘But you didn’t use them?’ said T-Bone.

‘We used them, we just didn’t fire them,’ said Barnett. ‘We had them outgunned, so we got them to drop theirs—’

‘Then you gutted them in cold blood?’ said T-Bone. ‘What sort of scum are you?’ He stepped forward and slapped Barnett across the face, the blow echoing off the walls like a pistol shot.

Barnett glared at him. ‘What sort of scum am I? The sort of scum that’s going to come for you. And the rest of your crew. And we’re going to keep coming for you until you’re all dead.’

‘Yeah, well, I assume that’s the royal “we” because you ain’t gonna be coming after anyone,’ said T-Bone.

‘You think I care?’ said Barnett. ‘Kill me and I take my place on Satan’s left side and I’ll be back, but when I come back I’ll be a thousand times stronger. So stop talking and do it, do it now!’

T-Bone looked at Nightingale. ‘What the hell’s he talking about?’

‘They’re devil worshippers,’ said Nightingale. ‘Satanists.’ He stared at Barnett. ‘Where did you get the tattoo from?’ he asked.

‘Go fuck yourself,’ said Barnett.

‘It’s the only tattoo on your body so it must be important.’

Barnett shook his head but said nothing. Nightingale took out his phone, walked behind the chair and took a photograph of the tattoo.

‘Bird-man, what are you doing?’ asked T-Bone.

‘It’s important.’

‘Not to me it ain’t,’ said T-Bone. ‘Why do you care what he’s got tattooed on him? This is not the time to be discussing body art. Seriously.’

‘It’s special, this tattoo. It’s something to do with the organisation they belong to. The Order of Nine Angles. That symbol is their logo, but I’ve never seen it with a horned goat before.’ He walked around to stand in front of Barnett. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? You’re in the Order of Nine Angles?’

‘Fuck off,’ snarled Barnett. He kept his head down, staring at the floor. Blood was dribbling down his chin and his nostrils flared with each breath he took.

‘Let me work on him a while longer,’ said T-Bone.

‘I’m not sure how much good that will do,’ said Nightingale. There was a bottle of water on the bar. Nightingale picked it up, unscrewed the top and held it to Barnett’s mouth. The man drank greedily and gulped down half the bottle. Nightingale took it away, leaving Barnett gasping for breath. ‘He’s going to continue hurting you, you realise that?’ said Nightingale.

‘Pain doesn’t frighten me. And neither does dying. So do your worst and fuck off.’

‘Dying doesn’t scare you because your place in Hell is guaranteed, right? You’ve done a deal and you walk in under your own steam.’

Barnett’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he asked.

‘Nightingale. Jack Nightingale.’

Barnett’s upper lip curled back in a sneer. ‘You’re Jack Nightingale?’ He laughed harshly. ‘You’re on our to-do list. You’re as good as dead.’

‘Why?’

‘You know why? Same reason that Smith got what was coming to him. You killed one of ours. So we kill you and yours.’ He lifted his chin contemptuously. ‘You’re a dead man walking, Nightingale.’

‘At least he’s walking,’ said T-Bone. He picked up the pliers. ‘Whereas you ain’t gonna be walking anywhere.’

Barnett sneered at him. ‘You’re a dead man walking, too,’ he said. He looked back at Nightingale. ‘We’ve got a list, Nightingale. A list of your family, your friends, and everyone you care about. Everyone on that list is as good as dead.’

‘Say’s who?’ said Nightingale. ‘Who’s giving you orders? Proserpine?’

‘Your pretty assistant, Jenny. Your friend Robbie, the cop. Your relatives. They’re all dead, Nightingale. And so are you.’

‘I’m gonna shut this bastard up here and now,’ said T-Bone, pushing Nightingale out of the way.

T-Bone raised the pliers and stepped forward, but Nightingale moved quickly and blocked his way. ‘That’s what he wants, T-Bone,’ said Nightingale, holding T-Bone’s wrist with both hands.

‘And that’s what he’s gonna get,’ said T-Bone. ‘Now let go of me, Bird-man, or I’ll forget that we’re friends.’

‘Give me a minute,’ said Nightingale. ‘Just one minute, okay?’

Barnett turned his head and stared at T-Bone with dead eyes. ‘You’re a dead man walking, too,’ he said. ‘And your sister, Jaynee. And your mother, and her little dog. Might even have a bit of fun with your sister before we kill her. What is she, eleven?’

T-Bone bellowed like an angry bull. He grabbed at the gun on the counter, pointed it at Barnett’s chest and pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into Barnett’s chest and his whole body stiffened. There was a grin of triumph on the man’s face; T-Bone saw it and pulled the trigger again and again until he had emptied the clip and Nightingale’s ears were ringing from the explosions in the confined space. Only when the last shot had been fired did Barnett’s head slump down on his chest.

34

‘H
e wanted you to shoot him,’ said Nightingale. T-Bone’s men were wrapping Barnett’s bullet-riddled body in a sheet of polythene.

‘Fool got what he wanted then,’ said T-Bone. He tossed the Glock back on to the counter.

‘We needed to talk to him,’ said Nightingale. ‘There were questions that needed answering.’

‘I was done talking,’ said T-Bone. ‘And he wasn’t telling us anything. You heard what he said about my sister. And my mother.’

‘Yeah, and your mother’s little dog. He was just saying that to rile you up, and it worked.’

‘Yeah, I was riled,’ said T-Bone. ‘And the fool’s dead. Talking about it ain’t gonna make it unhappen.’ He tucked the gun into the back of his belt. ‘Who the hell is this Proserpine, and why are you so interested in that damn tattoo?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m no simpleton. You need to start talking, Bird-man, before I tie you to that chair and start working on your teeth. And you can start with that tattoo. That ain’t no run-of-the-mill ink. That’s a brand. That’s been done with fire.’

Nightingale took out his cigarettes and lit one, playing for time while he got his thoughts in order. T-Bone deserved to know the truth, the problem was that the truth was pretty much unbelievable.

‘The tattoo or whatever you want to call it uses the logo of the Order of Nine Angles,’ he said eventually. ‘That’s the seven-pointed star thing that’s superimposed on the horned goat.’

‘And that’s some black magic voodoo shit, is it?’

‘Satanism,’ said Nightingale. ‘Devil worship. They believe in human sacrifice and serving the Devil.’

‘So he’s got something wrong in the head, is that what you’re saying? He believes in ghosts and vampires and things that go bump in the night?’

Nightingale shook his head. ‘Barnett wasn’t mad. Psychopathic, maybe. But he knows what he’s doing. So do the rest of them. They sacrifice children in the belief that it will get them power.’

T-Bone gestured at the corpse, which was now completely wrapped in polythene. The men were winding silver duct tape around it, turning it into a metallic mummy. ‘He killed kids?’

‘They all do. That’s part of being in the Order.’

‘And that lawyer, Marcus Fairchild, he was part of it?’

Nightingale nodded. ‘Very much so.’

‘I don’t seem to remember you telling Perry that. All you said was that Fairchild was a paedophile.’

‘He was. No question. He was a child-molester and a rapist.’

‘You just neglected to mention the fact that he was also a member of a group of nutters who believe killing kids makes them powerful.’ T-Bone pointed a finger at Nightingale. ‘You were playing fast and loose with the truth, Bird-man, and because of you Perry and a lot of good men died.’

‘I didn’t know this would happen. How could I have known?’

‘That’s not the point. The point is that Perry should have been given the opportunity to make his own call.’

‘What’s done is done, T-Bone.’

‘No use crying over spilt blood, is that what you’re saying?’

‘T-Bone, I’m sorry it happened. I had no idea that they’d kill Perry and his crew. But what’s done is done and what we need to do now is to stop it going any further. And to be honest that would have been a lot easier if you hadn’t blown our only source to Kingdom Come.’

‘He wasn’t telling us anything. And I feel a lot better for shooting the fool.’

‘He was starting to open up. Handled right, he might have given us more.’

T-Bone shook his head. ‘He knew he was going to die. And the pain didn’t seem to worry him.’

‘What about the other name I gave you? The plumber?’

‘Still looking for him. He wasn’t at home. This Satanism stuff is bullshit, right? Like voodoo and haunted houses.’

‘They believe in it, T-Bone, and that’s what matters.’

‘And they believe in the Devil?’

‘In the Devil and devils. And demons. Guys like Barnett, they believe when they die they go to serve Satan in Hell.’

‘That’s like the al-Qaeda bombers thinking that they’re gonna get seventy-two virgins taking care of them in the afterlife?’

‘Pretty much,’ said Nightingale.

‘And that tattoo, it’s a sign of their commitment?’

‘That’s what it looks like.’