Nightmare

35

Dan Evans was as good as his word and first thing on Friday morning he called Nightingale’s office and gave him the number of the mobile phone that had been found on Dwayne Robinson’s body. Nightingale had contacts at most of the large mobile phone companies. The first guy he called was able to tell him which firm handled Robinson’s number and the second guy agreed to get a list of calls made to and from the phone for his normal fee of?250. Nightingale made coffee for himself and Jenny, read the Sun and Private Eye, smoked three cigarettes and then decided that he would go and see Anna Hoyle.

‘If anything needs doing, give me a call,’ he told Jenny.

‘Will you be back today or are you away for the weekend?’

‘I probably won’t be back today,’ said Nightingale. ‘You might as well knock off early yourself.’

‘Is everything okay, Jack?’

‘Sure, why?’

‘I don’t know. You just seem.?.?.’ She shrugged. ‘Unenthusiastic. Like you’re bored with the business.’

‘I’m fine. I’m not sleeping well, that’s all.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. Really.’

‘It’s Sophie, isn’t it? Are you still having dreams about her?’

‘Nightmares, more like. It’s okay. It’ll pass.’

‘Can I help?’

He shook his head.

‘I still think you should talk this through with someone.’

‘Like Barbara, you mean?’

‘Barbara’s a psychologist, though I’m sure she could help. But I was thinking of a therapist, maybe.’

Nightingale laughed. ‘You are joking, right?’

‘You’re not sleeping. You keep talking about this Sophie. And you’ve had a very stressful few weeks.’

‘I’m a big boy, Jenny.’

‘That’s the problem, right there. You’ve got this macho man thing going on. Like nothing affects you. But look what you’ve been through. You find out that your mum and dad weren’t your real parents. Your biological father blows his head off with a shotgun. Then your uncle kills your aunt and then kills himself. Then your biological mother kills herself. And-’

Nightingale held up his hand to silence her. ‘I get it, I get it,’ he said.

‘There you go again,’ she said. ‘You just don’t want to talk about it. But that simply means you’re burying it. If you don’t talk about stuff like that it’ll fester in your subconscious and come out in some other way.’

‘Where are you getting this from? The Discovery Channel?’

‘And then you make a joke about it. But it’s not funny.’

‘I know it’s not funny.’

‘At some point you’re going to have to deal with what happened.’

‘You think I’ve got PTSD, is that it? Post-traumatic stress disorder?’

‘I’m not saying that, Jack. I’m just saying that maybe you should think about talking it through with someone. Someone who knows about stress.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.

‘No you won’t,’ she said. ‘You’ll just go on your own sweet way.’