Nightmare

10

Nightingale woke up with a thumping headache and a bad taste in his mouth as if something had crawled in there and died. He turned on his side and squinted at the clock on the bedside table. It was just after nine thirty. Next to the clock was an empty bottle of vodka that he only half-remembered finishing. He rolled out of bed, staggered to the bathroom and drank from the cold tap. He walked unsteadily back to his bed, sat down and lit a cigarette, then lay back and blew smoke up at the ceiling.

He heard his mobile phone ringing in the sitting room. Nightingale groaned before pushing himself off the bed, stubbing out the remains of his cigarette in a glass ashtray and retrieving the phone from the pocket of his raincoat. It was Jenny.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

Nightingale sat down and ran his hand through his hair. His stomach lurched and he had to fight the urge to vomit.

‘Jack?’

‘Yeah, I’m okay. What’s up?’

‘I was just checking to see if you were going to be in the office this morning,’ said Jenny. ‘There’re papers here that need signing.’

‘Can’t you do it?’

‘Your accountant sent them. Inland Revenue. I’m not putting my signature on anything that could get me put behind bars.’

‘I’m up to date with my taxes.’

‘Not with VAT you’re not,’ said Jenny. ‘And I found these forms in your desk. You got them well before Christmas and your accountant called me to say he really needed them before the year end.’

‘You know the last few weeks have been crazy, kid.’

‘Yes, well, I don’t think that the Revenue accept that as a valid excuse.’

‘I’m on my way in,’ said Nightingale. His stomach lurched again and he lay back and concentrated on not throwing up.

‘Don’t forget you’ve got that surveillance thing at lunchtime,’ said Jenny.

Nightingale screwed up his face. He had forgotten. He tried to remember where he’d left his camera.

‘You’ve got your camera and stuff, haven’t you? Mr Stevens wants photographs.’

‘Yeah. Sure. Somewhere.’ He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

‘Are you sure you’re okay? You sound a bit strange.’

‘I’m not feeling so good,’ said Nightingale. ‘Tell you what, I’ll go straight to the surveillance job. I’ll do the forms this afternoon.’ He ended the call, took another deep breath to steady himself, then went through to the kitchen to switch on the kettle. He grinned as he saw his black holdall containing his camera equipment on the table by the fridge.

He shaved and showered then put on a suit that he’d just had back from the dry cleaners, selecting a blue tie with boomerangs on it that his aunt and uncle had given him for his birthday three years ago. They’d been on holiday in Australia and had obviously been browsing in the duty-free shop in Sydney Airport on their way back; the tie had still had the price sticker on it when they gave it to him. ‘Many happy returns,’ his aunt had said when he opened the package, and then his uncle repeated it, just in case he missed the boomerang reference. He stared at his reflection as he fastened the tie, remembering the last time he’d seen his aunt. She had been lying on the kitchen floor of her house in Altrincham, to the south of Manchester, her head smashed open, blood and brains congealing on the lino. He shuddered as he remembered walking up the stairs and finding his uncle hanging from the trapdoor that led to the attic. Murder-suicide, according to the Manchester Coroner, but Nightingale knew there was more to it than that. He stared at the tie, shuddered again and took it off. He tossed it in a drawer and put on a tie with alternating dark and pale blue stripes, then went back to the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. He didn’t feel like eating but figured that a bowl of porridge would settle his stomach, so he microwaved a bowl of instant Quaker Oats and ate it while he watched a bleached blonde on Sky News explain why house prices were going to drop by ten per cent over the next year, her report complete with computer graphics and interviews with householders facing bankruptcy because they were being forced to sell their homes for less than they’d paid for them.

When he’d finished he put his bowl and coffee mug in the sink, picked up the holdall and his raincoat and headed out of his apartment. His MGB was in a lock-up a short walk from his flat, but there was no point in taking the car: the woman he was supposed to be photographing worked in Chelsea and usually took the Tube to the hotel in Battersea where she met her lover. Mr Stevens had known about his wife’s affair for more than a month and he wanted pictures of his wife and lover entering and leaving the hotel as ammunition in a very nasty custody battle that he knew was heading his way. There were no children involved — Mrs Stevens had never wanted kids — but the couple owned three pedigree Red Setters that between them had won more than a dozen Crufts titles and whose offspring sold for thousands of pounds. Nightingale wasn’t sure why his wife’s infidelity gave Mr Stevens more of a chance of keeping the dogs, but he was paying well so Nightingale simply applied the philosophy that the client was always right, even when he clearly wasn’t.

As he pulled the front door closed behind him, a black Range Rover went by and he caught a glimpse of sullen black faces staring at him from the half-opened windows. Keeping his eye on the vehicle Nightingale watched it drive along the road then go down a side street. He turned to the right so that he didn’t have to walk by the window of Mrs Chan’s restaurant, and lit a cigarette as he walked to Queensway Tube station. The sky overhead was gunmetal grey and the weather forecast had warned of snow showers.

He was about a hundred feet from the Tube station when he saw the Range Rover again, this time driving towards him. He looked down at the registration plate and made a conscious effort to remember it. As he stared at the plate the car stopped and the rear doors opened; two men got out, one from either side. They slammed the doors shut and the car drove off. As it went by him Nightingale saw his reflection in the darkened windows.

Two motorcycles turned into Queensway close to Whiteleys Shopping Centre. They were trail bikes with riders dressed in black leather and white helmets, their faces hidden behind tinted visors. They pulled up at the side of the road and gunned their engines. Nightingale stopped and felt a shiver run up his spine. Something was wrong; he could feel it on a subconscious level, his animal instincts sending his adrenal glands into overdrive. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he looked over his shoulder.

Standing in a shop doorway was a young girl dressed from head to foot in black. Tight black jeans, a long black coat over a black leather waistcoat and around her neck was a heavy silver chain with an upside-down silver cross hanging from it. She smiled, showing perfect teeth. Her eyes were as black as coal, her lashes were coated with thick mascara and her lips glistened with black lipstick. Standing next to her was a black and white dog, a collie, its tail swishing from side to side. The dog’s eyes were as black as those of its mistress. Her jet-black hair was cut jaggedly, with a fringe hanging over her forehead. The hairstyle had changed since the last time Nightingale had seen her. Proserpine. Her smile widened.

‘They’re coming for you, Nightingale,’ she said.

Nightingale looked over at the two men who’d climbed out of the Range Rover and realised that they were both wearing ski masks and had their right hands concealed beneath dark Puffa jackets. He stepped back from the road. He heard raised voices behind him and turned to see an Indian shopkeeper shouting at two teenagers, accusing them of stealing. He heard a horn pound and flinched as a black cab drove by. The two men were walking purposefully towards him, their right hands still under their jackets, their hoods up over their masks. They moved apart, one stepping onto the pavement.

Behind him the two teenagers were shouting racist abuse at the shopkeeper. Two pensioners in long coats and pulling shopping trolleys stopped to listen to the argument but Nightingale’s attention was focused on the two men in ski masks. They were both on the pavement now, moving towards him, carving through the pedestrians like sharks cutting through a shoal of fish. No one seemed to notice that under their hoods they were wearing ski masks.

Nightingale took a quick look, left and right. One of the men pulled out a gun. A MAC-10. Nightingale’s heart pounded. He moved until his back was against a shop window. The second man pulled out his weapon. Another MAC-10. He pulled the trigger and the gun kicked in his hands. The window behind Nightingale shattered. Pedestrians screamed and ran for cover as glass crashed down onto the pavement.

One of the black teenagers fell to the ground, yelling in pain. The shopkeeper stood with his mouth wide open, too shocked to move.

The first gunman seemed to be having trouble getting his gun to work. He was cursing and banging the magazine. The gunman who’d fired looked over at him. ‘What’s your fucking problem?’ he shouted.

‘It’s jammed. It’s fucking jammed.’

Nightingale started to run. The second gunman turned and fired but Nightingale was a moving target now and the shots went high, slamming into the brickwork above his head. Nightingale crouched low and ran down the road, zig-zagging. The first gunman finally let rip with his gun and bullets whizzed around, smashing the windows of a Chinese restaurant. Pedestrians were screaming and running away from the gunmen, towards Hyde Park. A car veered to the right and collided with a taxi and a white van slammed into the back of them both.

The first gunman fired again and bullets screeched off the road, this time missing Nightingale’s feet by inches. A Muslim woman completely covered in a black hijab threw herself to the ground, wailing. A young father clutched his baby son to his chest and ran into a coffee shop, barging past a middle-aged couple laden down with carrier bags who were staring wide-eyed at the mayhem.

Nightingale ducked behind the taxi as bullets thudded against the side of the vehicle. He was breathing hard and fast, trying to work out how many rounds they still had in their weapons. Nightingale knew that the MAC-10 came with two types of box magazine: a regular version holding twenty rounds and an extended version that held thirty-two. The fact that the guns were hidden under the shooters’ jackets suggested that they’d used the smaller magazine, which meant that they could be emptied in two seconds. And the fact that they’d both fired three short bursts meant that they’d be running low. So either it would all be over soon or they’d stop to slot in fresh magazines.

He risked a look over the wing of the taxi. The two men were walking towards him, their guns held out at arm’s length. They were both firing one-handed, which accounted for the terrible marksmanship. They must have fired more than twenty rounds between them and so far they’d not managed to hit him. But the closer they got the more likely they were to hit home so he had to move and he had to move fast. One of the men fired a quick burst but it went high and shattered the windows of the shop behind him. Nightingale bent low and scuttled behind the white van. The driver’s door burst open and the driver, a West Indian in his twenties, fell out onto the pavement. He scrambled to his feet but Nightingale pushed him back down. ‘Stay low,’ he hissed. A siren started to blare at the far end of Queensway. It was a paramedic’s vehicle, trying to clear the traffic ahead of it.

More bullets thudded into the side of the taxi. Nightingale looked around for something to use as a weapon but there was nothing at hand. All he had in his holdall was camera equipment, and he doubted that his attackers would be deterred by his telephoto lens.

One of the gunmen stepped from behind the rear of the taxi and onto the pavement. He raised the gun and pointed it at Nightingale’s chest. Nightingale crouched down, making himself as small a target as he could, and he held the holdall up in front of his face, bracing himself against the hail of bullets that he was certain was about to be heading in his direction. He heard a metallic click followed by a curse. He moved the bag and saw the shooter staring at the side of his gun. The shooter cursed again and Nightingale realised that he was out of ammunition. Nightingale roared and got to his feet. He started towards the shooter, but as he did so the other gunman appeared and fired. The shots went low and smacked into the wing of the white van. Nightingale spun around and began running down the pavement, towards the Tube station.

The two trail bikes had started to move down Queensway, the riders clearly panicked by the siren. The bikes braked hard and squealed to a halt close to the white van. The two shooters jumped on the pillions and the bikes roared off.

Onlookers were still screaming and crying and running for cover. Nightingale looked across the road. The black teenager that had been shot was sitting in the doorway of the gift shop, holding his hand to his shoulder. His friend had run off but the Indian shopkeeper was kneeling down next to the injured boy and talking into a mobile phone.

Nightingale slowed as he reached the entrance to the station. The people walking away from the escalators towards the exit had no idea of the mayhem that had just taken place outside and they had the blank bored faces of seasoned commuters. Nightingale forced himself to relax and tried to blend in, but his hand was shaking as he pressed his Oyster card against the reader to open the barrier.