Nightfall

49

Nightingale walked slowly through the cemetery – there was a full moon and the sky was cloudless so there was plenty of light to see by. A soft wind blew through the conifers that bordered it. He was smoking a Marlboro and holding a Threshers carrier-bag. The earth had been shovelled back into Robbie Hoyle’s grave and pounded down but there was still a slight curve. Soil settled over time, Nightingale knew. He’d once been on a search team in the New Forest, looking for the body of a woman who’d been strangled by her husband seven years earlier. The guy had turned up at a local police station claiming that his wife had come back to haunt him and wouldn’t leave him alone until he confessed and arranged for a proper Christian burial. The detectives who had interviewed him didn’t believe in ghosts, and neither did Nightingale, but they did believe in grief and guilt, and because the man was vague about where he’d buried his wife, more than fifty officers in overalls and wellington boots had been dispatched to the forest.

Nightingale was with the group who had found the remains, and two clues had pinpointed its location. There was a deep depression where the soil had settled, and the grass above the body was greener and lusher than the surrounding vegetation. Two hours before they’d found the murdered wife, another group had found the body of a child that had been in the ground for more than a decade. There was little more than a skeleton left, wrapped in a bloodstained rug, and the child was never identified. Again, the depression in the ground and lush grass had given it away.

There was no headstone on Hoyle’s grave, but marble edging had already been put around the perimeter, white with dark brown veins. Nightingale flicked away his cigarette butt, spread his raincoat on the grass and sat down on it. ‘How’s it going, Robbie?’ he asked. It was a stupid question. Hoyle wasn’t going anywhere. He was in a wooden box six feet underground, his veins pumped full of formaldehyde, his best suit on and his tie neatly knotted, the way it had never been when he was alive.

He opened the carrier-bag and took out a bottle of red wine. ‘I know you’re a wine drinker, so I brought this,’ he said. He grinned as he held up the bottle. ‘I couldn’t be bothered with a corkscrew so I got one with a screw top. The girl who sold it to me said it was a respectable red from Chile. Mind you, she was Romanian so I don’t think she knew much about wine.’ He poured a splash of wine over the grave. ‘Cheers, Robbie,’ he said, then took a long drink. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. ‘Respectable wine, long on the palate with a blackcurrant and raspberry aftertaste.’ He chuckled. ‘Yeah, you got me – that’s what it says on the label. Perfect for red meat and pasta. What the hell do I know? I’m a beer drinker, right? Or whisky when there’s serious drinking to be done.’

Nightingale had another swig, then poured more on to the soil. ‘I know this is a bloody cliche, talking to your mate’s grave and sharing a drink with him, but I couldn’t think what else to do. Actually, I did think of doing the glass-and-letters trick but I’d feel a right twat if you told me to go and shag Jenny again.’ He shook his head. ‘And, no, I haven’t shagged her. Doubt I ever will. Don’t want to ruin what we have – or don’t want to ruin what we don’t have. Either way, we haven’t. And probably won’t.’ He raised his eyes skywards. ‘Yeah, I heard the “probably”, too. Freudian slip?’

Nightingale sniffed the neck of the bottle. ‘It’s not bad, this, is it? But it doesn’t give you the same warm feeling as a good whisky. Or a bad one.’ He took another drink. ‘My mum died, Robbie. My real mum. My genetic mum.’ He frowned. ‘I don’t know why I said that because she doesn’t feel like my real mum. She was just a sad woman who couldn’t even feed herself and got conned into having me by a guy old enough to be her father. She slashed her wrists with a knife. They’re arranging her funeral as we speak. I don’t think it’ll be as well attended as yours, mate. Did you hear Chalmers? Said some nice things, he did. For a moment I thought he’d turned over a new leaf, but then he had me in for a grilling because the moron who ran you over topped himself and Chalmers wants to put me in the frame for it.’

Nightingale cursed vehemently. ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you to look both ways before you cross the road, you stupid bastard? How could you walk in front of a bloody taxi? And on Friday the thirteenth. Another stupid cliche.’

Nightingale drank again, then poured another slug of wine over the grave. ‘Right, so here’s the thing, Robbie. Here’s why I’m sitting next to your bloody grave sharing a bottle of cheap plonk with you.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I need a sign, Robbie. I need you to let me know that there’s something after death, that you’re still out there somewhere, that it’s not…’ Nightingale closed his eyes and cursed again. ‘What the hell am I doing?’ he muttered. ‘This is mad. Crazy.’

He opened his eyes. ‘Am I crazy? Am I sitting here talking to myself? Or can you hear me? I need to know, Robbie. I really need to know. I need something. Some sign. Something to let me know that death isn’t the end. You know what’s important, Robbie. You know why I need to know. Just give me a sign. Please.’

A shooting star flashed overhead and vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Nightingale laughed harshly. ‘Is that the best you can do?’ he said. ‘A bloody meteor? One poxy bit of ice and rock? I need something real, Robbie. I need to hear your voice or see you or feel your hand on my shoulder. It’s not much to ask, not considering all the years we’ve been friends.’

He swallowed some more wine. ‘Someone else I know died the other day. Killed himself. Client of mine. He wanted me to follow his wife and when he found out she was having an affair he topped himself. He bloody well topped himself and now the wife’s blaming me, calling me all the names under the sun and threatening to sue me… She won’t, of course. It’s just the grief and anger talking. When you lose someone you want to lash out. I wanted to kill the driver of the black cab that hit you when I heard. But he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Same as you. Just one of those things. One of those stupid bloody things. If you’d stepped off the pavement a second later or he’d taken another route or if he’d just been bloody well looking where he was going, then you’d still be here and…’ Nightingale tailed off. He groaned, lay back on his raincoat and stared up at the night sky, the bottom of the bottle balanced on his stomach. ‘He’s dead, the guy that was driving the cab. He topped himself. Slit his wrists to the bone. God knows why. Grief, maybe. Guilt.’ Nightingale sighed. ‘The thing about suicides is that they don’t really think about death, about what it means. You know that – you did the courses. They think that what they’re doing will prove something, or hurt someone, and because they’re not thinking straight they imagine they’ll be around to see what effect their death has. They imagine that they’ll be at their own funeral, seeing everyone crying and saying how sorry they are. If they really thought about what was going to happen, they’d hang on to every second of life because life is all there is, right? Tell me, Robbie, am I right?’ He grinned. ‘You can’t, can you? Because if death really is the end then I’m wasting my time. You can’t prove a negative, right? Or is the fact that you’re not replying the answer to my question but I’m just too stubborn to hear it?’

An owl hooted. ‘That doesn’t cut it either, Robbie. Give me something bigger. What about those nuns who see statues bleed or make the lame walk or hear voices? If they can hear voices, why the hell can’t you talk to me? Just whisper to me, Robbie – no one else need know. And if it’s against the rules, sod it, because you and I are the same, we can bend the rules when we have to if it’s for the greater good. Just whisper my name.’

The wind picked up and the conifers swished back and forth, murmuring like assassins.

‘The trees don’t count either, Robbie. Stop pissing around.’

The wind died down. Nightingale closed his eyes and listened to the sound of his own breathing. It became deathly still. There was no wind, no traffic noise, no hooting owls or barking foxes. Just silence. Maybe that was what death was like, he thought. Just nothing. Perfect silence, perfect blackness, nothing for all of eternity. He took a deep breath and held it. No sound, no light, no feelings, no thoughts. Nothing. He slowly exhaled.

‘I don’t understand what’s happening, Robbie. I don’t understand why you died. I don’t understand why my uncle Tommy smashed his wife’s head in with an axe and then hanged himself. I don’t understand why my mother slashed her wrists. I don’t understand any of it.’ He sighed. ‘So this is the way I see it, Robbie. If death is the end, if there’s nothing beyond this life, there really is no point, right? Death sucks, Robbie, you know that. Anna’s in bits and it’ll be a long, long time before she’s anywhere near okay. And what about your kids? The twins still think you’re coming back – they’ve no idea what “dead” means. Shit, Robbie, all you had to do was look both ways when you crossed the road. It’s the Green Cross Code, for God’s sake.’

Nightingale opened his eyes and stared up at the moon. ‘If you could, you’d talk to Anna, wouldn’t you? You’d tell her not to worry, to give the kids a kiss from you. And I’m sure my mum and dad would have done the same for me. But you didn’t and they didn’t, so that means you can’t, and the reason you can’t is because you’re dead and gone for ever.’

He closed his eyes again. ‘So, if dead is dead and there’s nothing after it, then all this nonsense about Gosling selling my soul is just that. Nonsense. There are no souls to be sold. There’s no God and no devil and no heaven and no hell so I should just stop worrying about what Gosling did or didn’t do because the only thing I really have to worry about is that one day, sooner or later, I’m going to be dead and buried the same as you.’ He smiled. ‘Well, not buried. I’ll either be scattered across Manchester United’s pitch or sitting in an egg-timer in Jenny’s kitchen. To be honest, Robbie, I don’t know which is worse – to know I’m going to hell, or to know there’s no such a place and that death is the end of everything.’

Nightingale heard music. The Rolling Stones, ‘Paint It Black’. It was his mobile phone ringing in his coat pocket. Nightingale smiled to himself. ‘If that’s you calling, Robbie, I’ll be well impressed.’ He groped around for the phone and pressed the green button to take the call.

‘Jack? Jack Nightingale?’

Nightingale didn’t recognise the voice but it definitely wasn’t Hoyle. ‘Yeah?’

‘This is Harry Wilde. I’m sorry to disturb you on a Saturday night and I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, but I had a hell of a time trying to find my notebook. I’d left it at home and the wife had tidied it up, bless her.’

Harry Wilde. The police sergeant he’d spoken to at Gosling Manor. ‘No problem, Harry,’ said Nightingale. ‘Any joy with the phone numbers?’

‘The husband and wife lived in. They were given the day off on the night Gosling killed himself, but they turned up for work the next day and were interviewed at the house. There wasn’t much they could say, obviously. They were paid off a couple of days later and moved out. I’m afraid we don’t know where they went.’

‘No need, because it was open and shut, right?’

‘Exactly,’ said Wilde. ‘Once it was clearly suicide everyone throttled back. I’ve got their names, though. Millie and Charlie Woodhouse. Millicent and Charles. I had more luck with the driver. He discovered the body so he was of more interest, but again it was obviously suicide so we were just going through the motions. Have you got a pen there?’

Nightingale fished his Parker out of his pocket, along with a receipt from his local Tesco. ‘Yup,’ he said.

‘His name’s Alfie Tyler.’ Wilde gave him an address and mobile-phone number and Nightingale scribbled them down.

‘I shouldn’t be talking out of school, but Alfie was a bit of a lad back in the day,’ said Wilde. ‘He used to work as a debt-collector for one of the north London mobs and did four years for GBH.’

Nightingale thanked him and put the phone away. ‘Bloody hell, Robbie, I need a real drink,’ he said. He stood up and poured the last of the wine over the grave. ‘Red wine always gives me a rotten hangover,’ he said, and tossed the empty bottle towards the conifers.