Nightmare

48

Nightingale drove back to Bayswater, parked his car in his lock-up and was heading back to his flat when he remembered that he didn’t have any beer left in his fridge. He walked along to the Prince Alfred pub and ordered a Corona. The barmaid was just putting the bottle down in front of him when his mobile rang. It was Duggan.

‘Colin, did you get it?’ he asked before Duggan had the chance to speak.

‘Yeah, I’m fine, thanks for asking,’ said the policeman. ‘Where are you?’

‘In the gym, lifting weights.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Nah, I’m in the pub. The Prince Alfred in Queensway. Opposite Whiteleys.’

‘Don’t go anywhere.’

‘You’ve got it?’

‘Trust me, it won’t be a social call.’

‘I’ll have a pint waiting for you,’ said Nightingale.

‘Yeah, make it a latte, skimmed milk if they’ve got it.’

Duggan arrived half an hour later, as Nightingale was finishing his lager. He waved over at a pretty Australian barmaid who was wearing one of her national rugby team’s shirts. ‘Another Corona and a milky coffee,’ he said.

‘Latte,’ growled Duggan. ‘Skimmed milk.’ He was wearing a heavy overcoat and a red wool scarf, and both were flecked with rain. ‘Bloody weather.’ He took off his scarf, shook it, and undid the buttons of his coat. He frowned as he looked at Nightingale. ‘You look like shit, Jack. Seriously.’

‘Thanks, mate.’

‘If I didn’t know you better I’d think you were using.’

‘Using? Drugs?’

‘You’ve got the eyes of a smack-head. Really.’

There was a mirror behind the gantry and Nightingale bent down and peered at his reflection. Duggan wasn’t exaggerating. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for a week.

‘Yeah, much better,’ sneered Duggan.

The barmaid returned with their drinks. She looked expectantly at Duggan and he pointed at Nightingale. ‘He’s paying.’

Nightingale took a handful of coins from his pocket and paid her, then reached for his lager.

‘So what’s wrong?’ asked Duggan, scratching his fleshy neck.

‘I’m under a lot of pressure. And I’m not sleeping well.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve had a few rough nights, that’s all. And today hasn’t been a bundle of laughs either.’

‘What happened?

‘You really don’t want to know,’ said Nightingale. He pushed the slice of lemon down the neck of the bottle, put his thumb on the top and then turned it upside down.

‘Why do you do that?’ asked Duggan.

‘Mixes the lemon through the lager.’ He turned the bottle the right way up and drank.

‘Has Sophie Underwood got anything to do with the way you’re behaving?’ Duggan leaned closer to Nightingale and lowered his voice. ‘It wasn’t your fault. What happened two years ago, it would have happened no matter who’d turned up. It could have been anyone on that balcony with her.’

‘Yeah, well, it wasn’t; it was me.’

‘Luck of the draw, Jack. And no one would have done anything any different.’ He didn’t add sugar but he stirred his coffee anyway.

‘You can’t say that, Colin.’ Nightingale drank his lager. ‘I went out with no back-up and totally unprepared. I started talking with no game plan, no idea what I was going to say.’

‘She was getting ready to go; even if you hadn’t gone out onto the balcony she would have jumped.’

‘Again, you don’t know that. If I’d said the right thing, maybe I’d have turned it around.’

‘What’s done is done,’ said Duggan, shrugging.

‘Don’t you dare say that there’s no use crying over spilt milk,’ said Nightingale.

Duggan’s face tightened. ‘A little girl died, I know that. I was there, remember? And what you seem to forget is that you left me to deal with the aftermath. You went off to see the father and I had to wait with the body.’

Nightingale nodded slowly. ‘I’m sorry, mate. You’re right. I’m behaving like a prick.’

Duggan grinned. ‘Nothing new there, then.’ He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a package wrapped in a Tesco carrier bag.

Nightingale took it and slipped it inside his coat. ‘I owe you, mate.’

‘Yes, you do,’ said Duggan. ‘Can’t you at least tell me what it’s for?’

Nightingale sighed. ‘Best you don’t know,’ he said.

‘When can I have it back? You can tell me that much.’ He sipped his coffee. It left him with a white milky moustache on his upper lip and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.

‘A day or two,’ said Nightingale. ‘Did you have any grief getting it out?’

‘I chose my moment, let’s just say that,’ said Duggan. ‘No one knows it’s missing and providing I get it back soonish then no one will.’

‘I won’t let you down. Cross my heart.’

‘Yeah, well, that and twenty pence will get me a piss at Paddington Station,’ said Duggan. ‘If anything goes wrong and you get caught with it, you’d better not drop me in it.’

‘Not a problem.’

‘I’m serious, Jack. If anyone finds out that I took it from the evidence room then I’ll be in so much shit you’ll need a submarine to find me.’

‘Colin, I won’t let you down.’ He watched Duggan drinking his coffee and grimacing. ‘You sure you don’t want a whisky in that?’ he asked.

‘You really are the devil, aren’t you?’

‘You’re off the booze because of diabetes; it’s not as if you’re an alcoholic.’

‘It’s all about calories. And alcohol’s full of calories.’

‘So have one less slice of toast tomorrow.’

Duggan chuckled. ‘Toast? I wish. Muesli, with skimmed milk and a banana.’

‘Actually, that sounds okay. But to be fair, my coffee and a fag has fewer calories.’

‘Yeah, it’s the cigarettes I miss the most but the doc said they had to go,’ Duggan said, smiling sadly.

‘I’ve told you before, mate, the cigs help keep the weight off. I tell you what, why not just forget about the diabetes for one night, have a single malt and we’ll go outside for a cigarette?’

Duggan looked at the coffee he was holding and pulled a face, then he grinned at Nightingale. ‘Sod it. Go on, get me a Laphroaig. And make it a double. In for a penny, in for a pound.’