Fairchild joined McLean and the two men stood staring down.
‘Did you see what happened?’ McLean asked the lawyer.
Marcus shook his head. ‘I was too busy watching the birds,’ he said.
‘This is a nightmare,’ said McLean. He walked back to Nightingale, reaching inside his jacket. He pulled out a silver hip flask, unscrewed the top and drank. He offered it to Nightingale, but Nightingale shook his head. Jenny walked over and took the flask from her father without saying anything.
‘He was just talking to me, then he put the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger,’ said Nightingale.
‘What did he say?’ asked McLean.
Nightingale looked across at Jenny and saw the look of panic in her eyes, the flask still close to her lips. ‘He was asking me if I wanted to shoot and I said that I was happy just watching,’ he said. Jenny took another swig from the flask before her father reached over and took it from her. ‘That’s all he said before he…’ Nightingale left the sentence unfinished.
‘What do we do, Jack?’ asked McLean, putting the flask away. ‘You were a policeman. Do we call nine nine nine? Do we ask for an ambulance?’ He took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘You know, this is the first time I’ve seen a violent death.’ He grimaced. ‘Not that I saw it. I heard it. I mean…’
‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ said Nightingale. ‘You should move everyone away from the body. You can call the local police and tell them there’s been a suicide. They’ll inform the coroner.’
‘We just leave him there?’ said McLean. ‘Can’t we cover him up?’
‘Best not to,’ said Nightingale. ‘Once the police see the scene as it is they’ll confirm it was suicide. As will the coroner. Then you can get an undertaker to come. His wife’s at home, right? Angela?’
McLean nodded. ‘Their cottage is on the edge of the estate. I’ll go and tell her myself.’ He ran a hand over his face. ‘She’ll be devastated. My God, Jack, how do I tell her?’
Nightingale shrugged, not knowing what to say.
‘I’ll get Melissa to come with me,’ said McLean.
‘Where are the nearest police?’ asked Nightingale.
‘There’s a local bobby in the next village. I’m not sure if he’ll be working on Christmas Day.’ Jenny came over to her father and put her arms around him. He hugged her.
‘Call him anyway,’ said Nightingale. ‘If he’s not available then there’ll be a message saying who is. It’s not a matter for the emergency services.’
‘And no ambulance?’
Nightingale shook his head. ‘They won’t be able to touch the body until the coroner has pronounced death and the cops have examined the scene. And by then there’s no point in taking it to hospital.’
‘I’ll call an undertaker, let them know what’s happening,’ said McLean. ‘Thanks, Jack. Lucky you were around.’
McLean hugged Jenny again and then went over to the shooters who were still standing by Lachie’s body.
Jenny sighed. ‘What do you think, Jack? Do you think he was lucky you were around?’
‘Jenny…’
‘What did he say? What did he say before he killed himself?’
‘Not here,’ said Nightingale.
‘What do you mean, not here?’
Nightingale flashed a warning look towards the rest of the shooting party, who were gathered together in a group about twenty feet away from the body.
‘Don’t use them as an excuse,’ she hissed.
Nightingale walked away, drawing on his cigarette. She hurried after him. ‘He said what you think he said,’ he muttered.
‘I’ve known Lachie since I was born, Jack. He wouldn’t kill himself.’
‘He just did.’ He looked across at her. ‘What do you think, Jenny? Do you think I killed him?’
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t Lachie’s decision. Something made him do it.’
‘Something? Or someone?’
‘I don’t know. But whatever it was that forced Lachie to do what he did, it’s come to my family’s home, Jack. It’s come here.’
Nightingale took a lungful of smoke and then exhaled slowly. ‘What do you want me to do, Jenny?’
She shook her head. ‘Something. Anything. Jack. It could be my mother next. Or my father.’
‘Or you?’ said Nightingale quietly.
‘Yes, Jack. Or me.’ She glared at him. ‘Damn you, Jack, you have to do something about this.’
‘What? What can I do?’
‘Something. You have to make this stop. Lachie didn’t know you from Adam, but whoever or whatever is after you doesn’t care. They’ll kill anybody, just to…’
‘Just to what, Jenny? What does anyone gain by him giving me a message and blowing his head off?’
‘That’s what you have to find out.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know, Jack. But you have to get this sorted. We can’t go on like this.’
69
N ightingale left Edmund House first thing on Boxing Day. Jenny had insisted that he ate breakfast, though he had no appetite. She’d asked him to stay for at least one more day but Nightingale knew he had to go. She had been right when she said that people were dying because of his sister, and until he did something they would continue to die.
Two uniformed policemen had arrived in a car from Norwich about thirty minutes after McLean had made his phone call. They took a cursory look at the body and then phoned the coroner, who arrived within the hour, pronounced Lachie dead and said he was satisfied the death was a suicide and that there would be no need for a post-mortem. McLean phoned a local firm of undertakers and by early afternoon the body had been taken away.
The shoot was abandoned and most of the guests remained in their rooms during the afternoon. There was a forced frivolity at dinner but by ten o’clock most of the guests had called it a night. No one mentioned Lachie or what had happened to him.
Jenny’s mother and father had been in the dining room when they’d eaten breakfast so Nightingale didn’t get a chance to tell her what he planned to do, but he phoned her as soon as he got back to his flat in Bayswater.
‘I want to know whether my sister killed those children or not.’
‘What’s that got to do with what’s happening?’ she asked.
‘I think I have a way to save her soul and get her out of Rampton, but first I need to know.’
‘She confessed, remember?’
‘Something’s not right. Proserpine didn’t know what Robyn had done.’
‘So?’
‘So maybe my sister didn’t kill those kids. If she was a serial killer, wouldn’t Proserpine know?’
‘How the hell would I know, Jack? How would anyone know what they know?’
‘I’m just saying that maybe my sister didn’t kill those kids.’
‘She was found beside one of the bodies with a knife in her hand and she confessed.’
‘Yeah, well, I’ve been found beside a body with a knife in my hand and I’m not a serial killer.’
‘That was different, Jack.’
‘Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,’ said Nightingale. ‘And maybe she only thinks she killed them.’
‘She’s in a mental hospital being studied by expert psychiatrists. Don’t you think they’d have found out if she was delusional? What am I saying? She’s probably in there because she’s delusional.’
‘She pleaded guilty and was sentenced,’ said Nightingale. ‘They’re not interested in finding out whether or not she’s guilty; they just want to cure her if they can.’
‘And what are you saying? That she didn’t do it but somehow thinks she did?’
‘I want to try to get her to remember,’ said Nightingale.
‘And just how are you going to do that?’
‘I was hoping that your friend Barbara might help.’
‘Hypnotic regression? Is that what you’re thinking of trying?’
‘It might work. And, even if it doesn’t, Barbara would get one hell of a paper out of it.’
‘It won’t be any good as evidence,’ said Jenny.
‘It’s not about evidence. It’s about me knowing whether or not she did it. Can you be a sweetie and text me her number?’
‘You’re going to call her today? Boxing Day?’