Nightfall

26

Nightingale found Ainsley Gosling’s financial records in six beechwood filing cabinets between a display case of ivory carvings and a seaman’s chest with a lock that had rusted with age and defied his attempts to open it. Gosling had been methodical with his record-keeping and there were separate files for each quarter going back to 1956. Nightingale pulled out the three most recent ones and took them to a desk where Hoyle was poring over a huge leather-bound book filled with newspaper clippings. He looked up. ‘He was interested in serial killers – Fred West, the Yorkshire Ripper, Harold Shipman. He followed all the cases.’

‘Everyone should have a hobby,’ said Nightingale, dropping the files onto the desk. ‘These are his most recent financial records. Can you see what he was up to in the months before he died?’ He went back to the filing cabinets. The records for the year he was born were in the third. He pulled out the four files.

‘He was buying books, big-time,’ said Hoyle, holding up a receipt from a Hamburg bookstore. ‘He paid a million and a half euros for something called The Formicarius in January.’

‘A million and a half euros for a book? It’s no wonder all his money went.’

‘Published in 1435, according to this. But that’s just one. There’s a receipt here for six hundred thousand dollars, another for a quarter of a million pounds. A stack of receipts from China that I can’t read. And, from the look of it, they were all about witchcraft or demonology. Occult stuff.’ Hoyle gestured at the bookshelves. ‘That’s where all his money went. He spent millions putting this library together.’

Nightingale put the files on the desk. ‘He wasn’t building a library. He was buying information.’

‘I don’t follow,’ said Hoyle.

‘He didn’t care about the books, he wanted the information in them.’ Nightingale sat down in a leather winged chair. ‘Here’s what I think. He did a deal with the devil when I was born. Or, at least, he thought he did a deal.’

‘Jack…’

Nightingale held up a hand to silence his friend. ‘Whether he did or he didn’t do isn’t the issue. What matters is what was going through his mind. And so far as he was concerned he’d sold my soul. Then, as he said on the DVD, he had a change of heart. He wanted out of the deal, but for that he needed information.’ He pointed at the bookshelves. ‘He thought the answer lay somewhere in those.’

‘You’re not starting to believe this mumbo-jumbo, are you?’

‘I’m trying to empathise with Gosling,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m trying to think the way he was thinking. If I can get inside his head, maybe I can make sense of this. Maybe I can work out why he killed himself.’

‘Why does it matter?’

‘He was my father.’

‘In name only,’ said Hoyle. ‘You never knew him. So why does it matter? And why are you looking for your genetic mother?’

Nightingale didn’t reply.

‘You think this all might be true, don’t you?’ asked Hoyle, quietly.

‘Don’t be soppy,’ said Nightingale.

‘You want to ask her if Ainsley Gosling sold your soul to the devil.’

Nightingale shook his head and opened a file. It was full of bank statements, used cheque books and receipts. ‘I don’t think he sold my soul. But I think he believed he did. There’s a difference. Besides, I haven’t got a mark.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Nightingale sighed. ‘They say that if your soul belongs to the devil, you carry a mark. Like a tattoo.’

‘“They”?’

‘The people who believe in this crap,’ said Nightingale. ‘It was in that book I took with me last time. It was written by some top Satanist. In it he says that if the devil has your soul, you have a pentagram tattoo somewhere on your body. And I haven’t. You’ve seen me in the changing rooms enough times.’

‘That’s true. Not a pretty sight, it has to be said.’

‘But no pentagram. So, it’s all bollocks.’ He flicked through a cheque book. The dates in it were from the year that he had been born.

‘Damn right, it’s bollocks,’ said Hoyle. He held up another receipt. ‘He bought a dozen books from a shop in New Orleans for a total of half a million dollars – all about voodoo. You know, you should be able to sell them – you’d make a fortune.’

‘Assuming I can find someone crazy enough to buy them,’ said Nightingale. He handed the cheque book across the desk to Hoyle. ‘Thirty-three years ago, Ainsley Gosling paid twenty thousand pounds to a woman called Rebecca Keeley.’

Hoyle studied a cheque. ‘That was a lot of money back then.’

‘It’s a lot of money now,’ said Nightingale.

‘What do you think the going rate for a baby was?’

‘Twenty grand sounds about right to me. I’ll see if I can track her down.’

Hoyle tapped the file he’d been working through. ‘What I don’t see in these files are his household accounts. Utility bills and payments to staff. It’s all big payments. He must have left the small stuff to a manager.’

‘His driver, maybe,’ said Nightingale. ‘He only had three people working for him towards the end.’

Hoyle pulled out a piece of paper. ‘You know he had a Bentley?’

Nightingale shook his head.

‘An Arnage,’ said Hoyle. ‘Nice motor.’

‘But nothing here for the driver?’

‘No pay slips, no national insurance, no tax details.’

‘He probably didn’t want his staff down here so the household accounts must be somewhere else.’

Hoyle checked his watch. ‘I’m going to head off,’ he said. ‘Gotta be in the factory by six. You sure you’re okay?’

‘I keep flashing back to my uncle’s house. And I keep thinking that maybe if I’d gone straight around to see them… Yeah, I’m fine. I’m leaving now myself. I’m on a case this evening.’

Hoyle stood up. ‘Anything interesting?’

‘Divorce. Wife playing offside. Makes a change – usually I’m following the husband.’ Hoyle was still holding a file. ‘Are you going to take that with you?’

‘Thought I might, yeah. If I find anything interesting I can run the names through the PNC.’

‘Go ahead, knock yourself out,’ said Nightingale.

They went up the stairs together and Nightingale switched off the lights, then shut the panel behind them. He locked the front door and they stood looking up at the building.

‘It’s an awesome house, Jack,’ said Hoyle. ‘Be a great place to raise a family.’

‘Bloody hell, Robbie! Can you imagine the upkeep? I’ll have to sell it, pay off whatever taxes they hit me with and the mortgage, and if I’m lucky I’ll have enough left to buy a packet of fags.’

‘I’m just saying, it must be nice to be rich.’

‘No argument there.’

‘How did old man Gosling make his money?’

‘No idea,’ Nightingale said. ‘Maybe we’ll find out somewhere in his records.’

‘I never said I was sorry, about your dad dying.’

‘No great loss,’ said Nightingale. ‘I didn’t know him. Never met him. He was nothing to me so there’s no grieving to be done. I did that when my parents died – for a long time. With Gosling it’s confusion rather than grief. I just don’t understand what was going through his mind, why he gave me up for adoption – why he did what he did.’

Hoyle held up the file he was holding. ‘Maybe we’ll find the answer in one of these.’

Nightingale nodded. ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘I really hope so.’