‘And that works, does it?’
Nightingale shrugged. ‘Yeah, it does. Especially if you say you’re with the local paper.’
‘That’s misrepresentation and fraud.’
‘Not really,’ said Nightingale. ‘I wasn’t trying to con her out of money, I just wanted some information.’
‘So you lied?’
‘I bent the facts. I didn’t think she’d be able to handle the fact that I was the one who found her daughter. It’s not as if I was pretending to be a police officer.’
‘Nonetheless you broke into her house and lied about your identity.’
The back door was open.’
‘You seem to make a habit of walking into other people’s houses, don’t you?’
‘I’ve already explained about Connie Miller. And when I wanted to talk to her parents, I knocked on the door. Then I went around to the back of the house and knocked again. I tried the door and it was open.’
‘Any normal person wouldn’t have tried the door,’ said the superintendent. ‘Any normal person would have gone away and tried again later.’
‘I thought…’
‘Yes, what did you think? What exactly was going through your mind when you walked uninvited into Mr and Mrs Miller’s house?’
Nightingale ran a hand through his hair. ‘To be honest, I thought that maybe something had happened. Something bad.’
‘Such as?’
Nightingale wanted a cigarette, badly. ‘In view of what I found when I went to Connie Miller’s house, I was expecting the worst. I thought maybe she was dead. Then I saw her sitting in her armchair and she didn’t seem to be moving.’
‘She screamed,’ said the superintendent. ‘Loud enough to wake the dead. A neighbour out walking her dog called us.’
‘I surprised her,’ said Nightingale. ‘She was listening to her iPod. It was all a misunderstanding.’
‘Telling her that you were a journalist was a misunderstanding? I think not.’
‘I need a cigarette,’ said Nightingale. He gestured at the tape recorder. ‘Look, the fact that you haven’t bothered switching this on suggests you’re not going to take this anywhere. You just want to haul me over the coals and I understand that and I consider myself hauled. But we both know that I haven’t done anything that merits an ASBO, never mind a court appearance.’
‘Why did you come back, Nightingale? Why did you travel right the way across your country and then across mine to lie to a sweet lady who’s still grieving over the loss of her only daughter?’
Nightingale stared at the policeman but didn’t say anything.
‘I’m waiting,’ said Thomas.
‘What do you expect me to say?’
‘The truth would be a good start.’
Nightingale sighed. ‘I wanted to know why Connie Miller killed herself.’
‘And why would that be any concern of yours? I already told you that she wasn’t related to you.’
‘Maybe not, but I found her body. We had a connection.’
‘And so you went back to London and then decided to come all the way back here because you think that you have a “connection” as you call it.’
‘I know there’s something not right about her death,’ Nightingale said quietly. ‘I also know there are more suicides than there should be in this part of the world. Something’s going on. You know it and now I know it.’ He gestured at the tape recorder. ‘You’re not switching that on, so I can go, right?’
‘What do you know about Connie Miller’s death?’ asked the superintendent. ‘What do you know that you’re not telling me?’
‘I know that you think there’s a serial killer on the loose who’s making the murders look like suicides.’ It had been a shot in the dark but Nightingale had the satisfaction of seeing the policeman’s jaw tighten and his eyes harden. ‘Why haven’t you gone public?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Don’t people have the right to know what’s going on?’
The superintendent clicked his pen several times. The detective constable turned to look at him and Thomas put the pen down and interlinked his fingers. ‘The problem, Nightingale, is that we don’t know what’s going on. You’re right — the suicide rate in north Wales is way above what it should be. But we’ve no proof yet that there’s a serial killer on the loose.’
‘But when you found me in Connie Miller’s house, you thought it might be me that was behind the deaths?’
‘You were the stranger in town and we found you with her still-warm body.’
‘But now you know I’m in the clear, you’re still looking for the killer.’
‘We’re not sure that there is a killer.’ The superintendent sighed. ‘I need a cigarette.’
18
N ightingale offered his pack of Marlboro to Thomas and the superintendent took one. Nightingale slipped a cigarette between his lips, lit it, and then lit the policeman’s.
Thomas nodded his thanks, inhaled and blew smoke. He looked at the cigarette and nodded approvingly. ‘Marlboro are okay, aren’t they?’
‘They hit the spot,’ said Nightingale. ‘You smoke Silk Cut, right?’
‘Have done since I was a kid,’ said Thomas. ‘How long have you been a smoker?’
Nightingale pulled a face. ‘Had my first at school but my parents were vehemently anti-smoking so I didn’t really start until I was at university.’
‘University?’ said Thomas. ‘Fast-track graduate-entry copper?’
‘For my sins,’ said Nightingale.
‘Never had much stock in that,’ said Thomas. ‘The best cops are the ones who put in the years on the streets. That’s where you learn what matters, not on bloody courses.’
‘I walked a beat,’ said Nightingale.
‘Yeah, but I bet you made sergeant in three years and inspector two years after that.’
Nightingale shrugged. ‘That’s the way it works,’ he said. He blew smoke up into the air. ‘I figure you don’t get too many serial killers in this neck of the woods.’
‘We had one back in 1995,’ said Thomas. ‘I was a lowly DC then but I was on the case. Guy called Peter Moore killed four men for fun. But you’re right — they’re few and far between. Of course, we don’t know for sure that there’s one out there now.’
‘Could be a cluster, right?’
‘Could be. You get cancer clusters and disappearance clusters, so a suicide cluster is possible.’
‘Is there anything about any of the suicides that suggests there was someone else involved?’
Thomas shook his head. ‘No forensics, no eyewitnesses.’
‘Notes?’
‘Sometimes. Not always. It could be that the ones that have notes are genuine suicides.’
Nightingale inhaled, holding the smoke deep in his lungs for several seconds, and then exhaled slowly. ‘What about methods? How did the ones who didn’t leave notes kill themselves?’
‘Hanging, like Connie Miller. Tablets. Slashed wrists.’
‘But always in private? No witnesses?’
‘Nothing suspicious in that,’ said Thomas. ‘Women tend to do it quietly. It’s men who want to go out in a blaze of glory — throwing themselves in front of trains or smashing up their cars. Women are the gentler sex, God bless them.’
‘Mrs Miller said that her daughter didn’t go out much.’
‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ said Thomas. ‘She wasn’t one for the bright lights, but she had plenty of friends. And none of them thought that she was depressed.’
‘She was online quite a lot, that’s what Mrs Miller said.’
‘Who isn’t, these days?’
‘Did you check her computer?’
Thomas narrowed his eyes. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, would you?’
Nightingale chuckled. ‘Wouldn’t dare,’ he said. ‘But she might have been talking to someone on email or on social networking sites, Facebook, MySpace, those sorts of places.’
‘There was nothing on her computer that raised any red flags,’ said Thomas. ‘We checked her emails. And her Facebook page. And we gave the house a going-over. And we spoke to her family, friends and colleagues. They weren’t aware of anyone in her life who might have been a danger to her.’