Nightfall

32

Robbie Hoyle sipped his coffee and flicked through the file he had taken from the basement at Gosling Manor. Ainsley Gosling seemed never to have thrown away a single receipt or invoice. There were travel inventories that showed he had travelled the world, invoices from antiques shops and auction houses that showed he had been an avid collector, and one with a Harley Street address, written in an almost illegible scrawl. Hoyle screwed up his eyes and made out some of the words but not all. It related to treatment at a private clinic, and one word was quite clear – ‘ultrasound’.

He looked at the heading again. ‘Dr Geoffrey Griffith, paediatrician’. It was dated twenty months after Nightingale had been born. ‘Got you,’ he whispered. He couldn’t see the name of the patient but he was fairly sure it involved Nightingale’s missing sister. He took out his mobile phone and scrolled through the address book until he found his friend’s number. The call connected but after half a dozen rings it went to voicemail. Hoyle looked at his watch. His shift was due to start in fifteen minutes so he drained his cup, paid his bill and headed out of the coffee shop. The Starbucks was across the road from the police station. He looked left and right. A double-decker bus drove past, then an Evening Standard delivery van. Cars rushed by on both sides of the road. He pressed redial but the call went to Nightingale’s voicemail again. A Tesco truck drove past, a motorcycle courier, then a line of cars, bumper to bumper. ‘Jack, it’s Robbie. I’m just heading into work but I’ve found something in Gosling’s file about your sister.’ There was a gap in the traffic and Hoyle stepped off the pavement. ‘I’ll give you a call when my shift’s over…’

A girl in Goth clothes was standing in the doorway of a florist’s. Her Border collie was sitting next to her, its ears pricked. She ran a hand through her spiky jet black hair as she watched Hoyle step off the pavement.

‘Hey, Robbie!’ she shouted. Her voice cut through the hum of the traffic and Hoyle stopped in his tracks. ‘Hey, Robbie, have you got a light?’ she called.

Hoyle turned, frowning, the phone still at his ear. The girl waved and blew him a kiss. He took a step towards her and the black cab hit him full on at thirty-five miles an hour, breaking his legs, hip and spine, bursting his spleen and splintering his ribs, which punctured his lungs. The driver said later that he’d been distracted by something in the back of his cab, which was empty at the time. Something had been fluttering around like a trapped bird, he told police, but when he’d turned there was nothing. He hadn’t had time to brake before the impact.

Hoyle bled out quickly as he lay on the Tarmac and he was dead before the paramedics arrived. The contents of the file were scattered across the road. The wind picked them up and blew them in all directions. The invoice from the paediatrician was caught in an updraught, spun into the air, then slapped against a lamppost. The wind snatched it again and it swirled back into the road. It blew under a parked car and settled in a puddle of oily water.

The girl and the dog watched as Hoyle’s life ebbed away, then disappeared into the crowds pouring out of nearby shops, some staring in horror, others reaching for their mobile phones to photograph and video Hoyle as he lay dying in the road.