Nightfall

27

The problem with divorce work, as Nightingale knew all too well, was that the deceived spouse always wanted proof. It wasn’t enough just to say that he’d seen a man and woman enter a hotel and that they’d stayed there for an hour. The client wanted photographs or a video, hard evidence that could be waved in the face of the guilty party. The problem with photographs was that good cameras were bulky, and you needed a telephoto lens for decent shots – hotels, even cheap ones, didn’t take kindly to men in raincoats skulking around their reception areas with them.

Nightingale’s green MGB was too conspicuous for surveillance work and the company credit card was close to its limit, so he had borrowed Jenny McLean’s Audi A4. He wasn’t sure how his assistant could afford such an expensive car, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask her directly in case she mistook his curiosity for jealousy. He’d parked outside the hotel and listened to a radio discussion programme while he waited for Mrs McBride to arrive for her assignation. She was as regular as clockwork, using the same hotel on the second and last Monday of each month. She always drove there with her lover and parked in a multi-storey a short distance away. She would check in and get the key to the room, then phone the man on his mobile. Nightingale had watched them two weeks earlier but Joel McBride wouldn’t take his word for it and was insisting on photographic evidence.

Nightingale saw Mrs McBride coming around the corner and switched off the radio. He climbed out of the Audi and locked it. He was holding a black-leather attache case and pointed it at her as he pressed a hidden button in the handle. A lens in the side was connected to a digital video recorder inside the case.

Mrs McBride was smiling as she talked into her mobile phone, her high heels clicking on the pavement. She was an attractive blonde in her thirties, about five feet six with good legs. She was so engrossed in her call that she didn’t give Nightingale a second glance as she walked past him. The briefcase recorded sound and vision and he was close enough to hear her say ‘darling’ and tell whoever it was that she would see them soon.

She pushed through the double doors into Reception and Nightingale followed her. As she walked up to the desk, he moved to a sofa and sat down, keeping the lens pointed at her. She handed over her credit card and filled in the registration form, then took her room key and headed for the lifts. Nightingale got up and walked slowly after her, pretending to have a conversation into his mobile. He waited until the lift doors were about to close after her before he stepped in. ‘I’m just getting into the lift,’ he said into his phone. ‘I’ll call you back.’ He put it into his pocket and looked at the button she’d pressed. ‘Same floor,’ he said. He smiled but he didn’t feel like smiling. He hated lifts with a vengeance but there were times when he had no other choice than to trust his fate to the wires and pulleys that kept him suspended above the ground.

She flashed him an uninterested smile and watched the numbers as they winked on and off. When they reached the floor she walked quickly down the corridor. Nightingale followed, keeping well back. She had a room in the middle of the corridor so he walked past her, tilting the case to keep her in the camera’s view. He heard her unlock the door and close it. He walked to the end of the corridor, turned and stepped around the corner, keeping the briefcase aimed at the room where Mrs McBride was. He didn’t have to wait long. He heard the lift doors open and took out his phone, held it to his ear with his left hand and aimed the attache case down the corridor with the right.

Mrs McBride’s lover walked briskly down the corridor, tapping a copy of the Evening Standard against his leg. He was wearing a dark blue pinstripe suit that had the look of Savile Row and carrying a cashmere coat over one arm.

Nightingale walked towards him slowly, muttering into his phone, keeping the case pointing towards the man as he knocked on Mrs McBride’s door. She opened it and kissed him, then dragged him inside just as Nightingale drew level with the door. His timing was perfect.

He went back outside and sat in the Audi. Two hours later he videoed the man leaving on his own and walking along the street towards the tube station. Five minutes after that he got a nice shot of Mrs McBride walking out of the hotel, looking like the cat that had got the cream.