Nightfall

42

When Nightingale woke on Friday morning he lay in bed for almost half an hour staring up at the ceiling. He had acted on impulse when he’d asked the detective inspector for the name of the man who had killed Robbie Hoyle, but once he had it he knew that nothing would stop him going to talk to him. Nightingale wanted to know if Hoyle had died immediately or if he had lain in a pool of blood, begging to be saved. He wanted to know why O’Brien hadn’t stopped or swerved, why he had just mown Hoyle down. He wanted to know what had happened, even though that knowledge wouldn’t change anything. Hoyle’s death didn’t make any sense but, in Nightingale’s experience, few deaths did.

He booted up his laptop and logged on to Tracesmart, an online service that provided access to electoral rolls around the country. There was only one Barry O’Brien living in Hammersmith. He made a note of the address and called Jenny to tell her he’d be late in. ‘I’ve things to do at Gosling Manor,’ he lied. ‘I’ll be with you during the afternoon. If there’s anything important, I’ll be on the mobile.’ He ended the call, feeling suddenly guilty. He didn’t like lying to Jenny, but telling her what he was really doing would only worry her. Nightingale had always been much more comfortable asking questions than answering them.

He shaved, showered and put on a clean shirt and a dark blue suit that had just come back from the drycleaner’s. He made himself a cup of black coffee, smoked a Marlboro, then drove to Hammersmith.

O’Brien’s house was in a terraced street and a black cab was parked in front of it. Nightingale found a space for the MGB about fifty yards away. He climbed out and walked over to the cab. There was no damage to the front, no blood, not even a scratch – nothing to show that the vehicle had ended the life of Robbie Hoyle. Nightingale wasn’t surprised. A London cab weighed more than 1600 kilograms and flesh was no match for that amount of steel moving at speed.

A middle-aged housewife walked by with a white poodle on a lead. She was holding a screwed-up plastic bag and cajoling the animal to do its business. Nightingale flashed her a smile and she glared at him as if he was a child-molester.

A flight of half a dozen stone steps led up to the front door of O’Brien’s house. Nightingale pressed the bell and heard it buzz in the hallway. He went back to the pavement and looked up at the bedroom windows. The curtains were drawn. Nightingale wondered if O’Brien had worked through the night and was now sleeping. He rang the bell again. When there was no answer, he took out his mobile phone and dialled the number he’d been given by Directory Enquiries. He heard the phone ring inside the house. He let it continue for a full thirty seconds, then ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket.

He stood on the pavement, considering his options. If O’Brien was asleep, he’d answer the door eventually. He obviously wasn’t working because his cab was in the street. Maybe he’d taken the day off and gone somewhere without it. If that was the case, then Nightingale was wasting his time.

He went back up the steps. There was a letterbox in the middle of the door. He pushed it open and bent down to shout through it. ‘Mr O’Brien?’ The door moved forward. Nightingale frowned. He straightened and pushed it open.

There were half a dozen envelopes on the carpet, mainly bills, and several garish leaflets. Nightingale stepped inside. ‘Mr O’Brien? Are you there?’ There was no answer, but Nightingale could hear a soft buzzing, like an electronic hum, coming from upstairs. He closed the door. He knew he shouldn’t be in the house, but he also knew that something was wrong. People didn’t leave their front doors open in London. He walked down the hallway and checked the living room, then the kitchen. There were dirty dishes in the sink and a half-drunk cup of coffee on the draining-board. He touched the kettle. It was cold.

He went back into the hallway. ‘Mr O’Brien? Are you upstairs?’ A large bluebottle flew around his head and he swatted it away. He headed up the stairs, peering up at the landing above. ‘Mr O’Brien, is everything okay?’

The buzzing got louder. Two more large flies circled Nightingale’s head. As he reached the landing he saw that the bathroom door was ajar. There were half a dozen flies on the wall by the light switch and as he moved closer more flew out through the open door. The buzzing was much stronger now, like a faulty electric circuit.

There was a bad smell in the air, an odour Nightingale had encountered many times during his years as a police officer, a smell that was difficult to describe but could never be forgotten. Before he even pushed open the bathroom door, Nightingale knew what he would find.

The man had been in the water for at least a day, probably longer, and had already started to swell. There were deep cuts in both arms and the savage wounds were filled with flies. They were everywhere, feeding and laying their eggs, buzzing around Nightingale as if they resented his appearance at their banquet.

O’Brien had filled the bath with water and cut his wrists with a Stanley knife, which was lying on the floor, the blade covered with blood. There were smears across the wall and the floor where arterial blood had sprayed but most had gone into the bathwater. O’Brien’s eyes were still open, staring up at the ceiling. Nightingale didn’t know why Barry O’Brien had wanted to kill himself but one thing was for sure: it hadn’t been a cry for help.

Scrawled across the tiles at the side of the bath in bloody letters was the sentence with which Nightingale had become all too familiar: ‘YOU ARE GOING TO HELL, JACK NIGHTINGALE.’ Dozens of flies were feeding off it.

Nightingale stared at the words in horror. ‘What is going on?’ he whispered. He pulled a couple of feet of toilet tissue from the roll, swatted the flies away with his hands and used it to wipe the tiles, then dropped it into the toilet. He pulled off another length, wet it under the tap and wiped the tiles a second time. They looked too clean now so he splashed bloody water from the bath over them and washed his hands in the basin. A fly came so close to his right ear that he flinched.

He dried his hands and went back into the hallway where he took out his mobile phone and started to dial 999. He stopped at the second digit. He cancelled the call and instead dialled New Scotland Yard. He asked the switchboard operator to put him through to Inspector Dan Evans, and after a couple of minutes the inspector was on the line. ‘Dan, I thought I’d better tell you this before you hear it from anyone else,’ he said.

‘That sounds ominous,’ said the inspector, jovially.

‘I’m at Barry O’Brien’s house and he’s killed himself.’

There was a long silence. ‘I hope this is some sort of sick joke,’ said Evans, eventually.

‘He’s cut his wrists. He’s been dead for a while by the look of it.’

‘What the hell are you doing in his house?’

‘I came to talk to him,’ said Nightingale. ‘The front door was open.’

‘So you just walked in?’

‘Like I said, the front door was open.’

‘You can’t just go wandering around people’s houses, Nightingale. You’re not in the job any more.’

‘I know that, but what’s done is done. I was going to call 999 but I thought I’d better let you know what had happened.’

‘Do you need an ambulance?’

‘He’s definitely dead. Are you going to handle it or should I call