‘I’m afraid so.’
‘She killed five children, didn’t she?’
‘Butchered them, Colin said. She’s in Rampton now. The loony bin.’
‘Oh Jack…’ groaned Jenny. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘You and me both, kid.’ He pulled on his cigarette and held the smoke deep in his lungs before letting it out slowly.
‘There’s no doubt, is there?’
Nightingale shook his head. ‘It’s a perfect parental match,’ he said.
‘Is it worth comparing her DNA to yours, to make sure?’
‘There’s no point, not with us having different mothers.’ He sighed. ‘There’s no doubt, Jenny. My sister’s a convicted serial killer.’ He forced a smile. ‘At least we know where she is. And that she won’t be going anywhere for a while.’ He flicked ash into the ashtray. ‘It’s not what I expected, that’s for sure.’
‘I’ll see what there is on the internet,’ she said, heading back to her desk.
Nightingale leaned back in his chair and blew smoke rings up at the ceiling. He remembered the Robyn Reynolds case, and the killings she was responsible for. The murders had been front-page news during Nightingale’s final three months as a police officer, and Reynolds had been caught shortly after he’d left the Met.
He finished his cigarette and stubbed out the butt in his ashtray. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out the bottle of brandy he kept there for his clients, the ones that needed a stiff drink to deal with bad news. He looked around for a glass but couldn’t see one close by. There was a mug by his feet but it had stale coffee in it. He groaned and leaned back in his chair.
Jenny returned with a handful of printed sheets. ‘It’s a bit early for brandy, isn’t it?’
‘I feel like a drink.’
‘I’ll make you a coffee.’
‘An alcoholic drink,’ he said.
She gave him the sheets and took the bottle from him. ‘I’ll make you an Irish coffee.’
‘It’s whiskey in an Irish coffee,’ he said. ‘Irish whiskey, to be precise. If you use brandy, it’s a Parisienne coffee.’
‘And if I spit in it, that’ll make it an assistant’s revenge,’ she said, heading over to the coffee-maker. ‘Just be grateful for what you get.’
‘You wouldn’t spit in my coffee,’ he said.
‘Wouldn’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t,’ she said, pouring coffee into a mug.
Nightingale flicked through the sheets he was holding. ‘She has her own Wikipedia page?’
‘Yeah, but there’s not much on it,’ she said. She looked over her shoulder. ‘Notice the date of birth?’
Nightingale looked at the first sheet. ‘November the twenty-seventh. We’ve got the same birthday.’
‘That can’t be a coincidence,’ said Jenny.
‘How does Gosling manage to have two kids born on the same day, two years apart?’
‘It’s not difficult,’ said Jenny. ‘He can time the conception and then do a Caesarean if necessary.’
‘That’s incredibly controlling,’ said Nightingale.
‘Come on, Jack. He produces kids for no other reason than to sell their souls. Gosling is in total control of everything he does so why would you be surprised that he’d time the births?’ She brought over his mug of coffee. ‘Maybe there’s something significant about November the twenty-seventh.’
‘Jimi Hendrix was born on November the twenty-seventh. And Ernie Wise. And Emperor Xiaozong of China.’ He grinned. ‘In 1127, if you were going to ask.’
‘I wasn’t,’ said Jenny.
‘It could just be a coincidence,’ said Nightingale. ‘Plus we were both adopted but our adoptive parents are shown as our biological parents, so the date of birth could be suspect anyway.’ He shrugged. ‘Actually, it might be an idea to get a copy of her birth certificate just to check.’
‘I’ll get one from the General Register Office,’ said Jenny.
‘There’re no pictures of her,’ said Nightingale, flicking through the sheets.
‘She was never photographed,’ said Jenny.
‘How can that be? The press always get pictures.’
‘I Googled her and there’re no pictures anywhere. There’s not much detail about what she did, either.’
‘She killed five kids. How can there be no details?’
‘She pleaded guilty so not much was read out in court. The tabloids went to town, obviously, making her out to be a cross between Myra Hindley and Jack the Ripper, but they’re low on details. There were no interviews with her parents, she didn’t seem to have any friends, and the police didn’t comment.’ She nodded at the sheets. ‘The newspapers spoke to the detective in charge but he wouldn’t say anything other than that he was happy the case had a satisfactory conclusion.’
Nightingale sipped his coffee and frowned. ‘There’s not much brandy in this.’
‘It’s half past ten in the morning, Jack.’
‘Coffee and brandy and cigarettes — the breakfast of champions.’
‘You said that about muffins and croissants.’
Nightingale raised his mug in salute. ‘I’m flexible,’ he said.
‘You’re upset, aren’t you?’
‘That my sister’s a serial killer? What do you think?’
‘I think you should go and see her.’
Nightingale nodded. ‘You’re probably right.’
37
G etting to see Robyn Reynolds wasn’t as difficult as Nightingale had imagined it would be. Rampton Secure Hospital was just that, a hospital, and so there weren’t the same restrictions on visits as there were at high-security prisons. He started phoning the hospital first thing on Monday morning and by Tuesday afternoon had managed to get through to one of the doctors who were treating Robyn Reynolds. The doctor had been sceptical at first but Nightingale emailed him his DNA profile, and after the doctor had compared it to that of Robyn Reynolds he’d phoned back and said that Nightingale could visit on Wednesday afternoon.
It took Nightingale almost three hours to drive up to Nottinghamshire. His MGB didn’t have satnav and he’d forgotten to ask Jenny to program the location into his phone, but he’d always had a good sense of direction and he had a road atlas open on the passenger seat, just in case.
Rampton Secure Hospital was actually closer to a village called Woodbeck than it was to Rampton but Nightingale doubted the building would be any less sinister if they changed the name. It was a huge Victorian red-brick edifice that looked as if it had once been a hotel, but the high security wall, CCTV cameras, and bars and mesh over the windows were evidence of its true purpose.
A uniformed security guard checked Nightingale’s passport and a printout of the email he’d received from the doctor who was treating Robyn Reynolds. The guard peered at Nightingale through thick-lensed spectacles, handed the documents back and pointed at a car park in the distance. Nightingale parked the MGB and walked to a door with a sign above it that read ‘VISITORS’ ENTRANCE’.
Rampton might have been a hospital rather than a prison, but the security arrangements were as strict as at any Category A prison. He had to show his passport and email to another uniformed guard, this one sitting behind a window of bulletproof glass. His details were written down on a clipboard and the passport and email were passed back to him through a hatch, along with a visitor’s badge on a clip. Nightingale clipped it to his raincoat. A glass door rattled back, allowing Nightingale to walk through into a holding area, where two guards, one male and one female, were waiting for him.
The female guard was in her forties and looked bigger and stronger than her male colleague. Her hair was close-cropped and she had a square jaw with a dimple in the centre of her chin and small piggy eyes and a cruel sneer that suggested she’d like nothing more than to give him a full body-cavity search.
‘Hi, I’m a visitor,’ said Nightingale, tapping the badge.
‘We assumed that,’ she said. ‘Very few people try to break in.’ She smiled and her eyes sparkled. She had a soft voice with a West Country burr, and as her smile broadened she took on the look of a kindly aunt. Nightingale felt suddenly guilty about his first impression of her. The door rattled shut behind him. ‘Do you have a mobile phone?’ she asked.