Nightingale looked across at the balcony where the girl was. She was still whispering to her doll. She had long blonde hair that she’d tucked behind her ears and skin as white and smooth as porcelain. He could see dark patches under her eyes as if she had trouble sleeping. He took another long drag on his cigarette. He had to find some way of initiating a conversation because so long as she was talking she wasn’t falling. He couldn’t talk about her family because it was her father who was abusing her and her mother knew but wasn’t doing anything to stop him. School, maybe. Maybe she was happier at school so if they talked about that then she’d realise that there were people who loved her and wanted to protect her. He didn’t know if she had a pet. Pets were good because pets loved unconditionally. She lived in an apartment so that probably meant she didn’t have a dog but there could be a cat or a gerbil, something that depended on her. That was always a good way of reaching a person in crisis: appeal to their caring side, show that the world was a better place because they were in it. That’s why he needed a Number Two and Number Three because then he’d know for sure and he wouldn’t say anything that would provoke a negative response. All the responses had to be positive because she was sitting on the edge of a wall with nothing other than a rail between her and the ground thirteen storeys below. He looked over his shoulder again but there was no one there. No back-up. No support. Just Jack Nightingale and a nine-year-old girl. And for the life of him he had no idea what to say.
He took a quick look to his right. She had stopped whispering to the doll and was staring out over the Thames. Seagulls were gliding over the river, searching out the updrafts so that they didn’t have to flap their wings. Nightingale smiled. The birds. He could talk about the birds. All kids liked birds and she must have seen them every day from her apartment. Perfect. He took a final pull on his cigarette and flicked it away, watching it spin through the air, sparks scattering from the lit end as it fell. He flinched, realising that had been a mistake.
He turned to look at her, smiling to show that he was on her side, but just as he opened his mouth to speak she slid off the balcony, her eyes tightly closed, the doll clutched to her chest.
Nightingale screamed and that was when he woke up, bathed in sweat. His heart was pounding. He padded to the kitchen and took a bottle of Russian vodka from the icebox of his fridge, where it had been since the Christmas before last. He unscrewed the top and drank from the bottle. The warmth spread across his chest but it didn’t make him feel any better. He paced up and down as he drank, trying to blot out the image of Sophie falling to her death, her blonde hair whipping around in the wind, the doll in her arms. He shivered as he remembered the dull wet sound she’d made as she hit the ground. He took another drink and wiped his mouth with his arm, then went through to his sitting room and sat down on the sofa.
He looked at his watch. It was three o’clock. He knew that it wasn’t a good idea to be drinking vodka at that time of the morning but he didn’t care. He just wanted to stop thinking about Sophie and the way that she’d died. And the fact that he hadn’t stopped her. He lay back on the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. Tears welled in his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, Sophie,’ he said. ‘I’m so, so, sorry.’
10
Nightingale woke up with a thumping headache and a bad taste in his mouth as if something had crawled in there and died. He turned on his side and squinted at the clock on the bedside table. It was just after nine thirty. Next to the clock was an empty bottle of vodka that he only half-remembered finishing. He rolled out of bed, staggered to the bathroom and drank from the cold tap. He walked unsteadily back to his bed, sat down and lit a cigarette, then lay back and blew smoke up at the ceiling.
He heard his mobile phone ringing in the sitting room. Nightingale groaned before pushing himself off the bed, stubbing out the remains of his cigarette in a glass ashtray and retrieving the phone from the pocket of his raincoat. It was Jenny.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
Nightingale sat down and ran his hand through his hair. His stomach lurched and he had to fight the urge to vomit.
‘Jack?’
‘Yeah, I’m okay. What’s up?’
‘I was just checking to see if you were going to be in the office this morning,’ said Jenny. ‘There’re papers here that need signing.’
‘Can’t you do it?’
‘Your accountant sent them. Inland Revenue. I’m not putting my signature on anything that could get me put behind bars.’
‘I’m up to date with my taxes.’
‘Not with VAT you’re not,’ said Jenny. ‘And I found these forms in your desk. You got them well before Christmas and your accountant called me to say he really needed them before the year end.’
‘You know the last few weeks have been crazy, kid.’
‘Yes, well, I don’t think that the Revenue accept that as a valid excuse.’
‘I’m on my way in,’ said Nightingale. His stomach lurched again and he lay back and concentrated on not throwing up.
‘Don’t forget you’ve got that surveillance thing at lunchtime,’ said Jenny.
Nightingale screwed up his face. He had forgotten. He tried to remember where he’d left his camera.
‘You’ve got your camera and stuff, haven’t you? Mr Stevens wants photographs.’
‘Yeah. Sure. Somewhere.’ He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
‘Are you sure you’re okay? You sound a bit strange.’
‘I’m not feeling so good,’ said Nightingale. ‘Tell you what, I’ll go straight to the surveillance job. I’ll do the forms this afternoon.’ He ended the call, took another deep breath to steady himself, then went through to the kitchen to switch on the kettle. He grinned as he saw his black holdall containing his camera equipment on the table by the fridge.
He shaved and showered then put on a suit that he’d just had back from the dry cleaners, selecting a blue tie with boomerangs on it that his aunt and uncle had given him for his birthday three years ago. They’d been on holiday in Australia and had obviously been browsing in the duty-free shop in Sydney Airport on their way back; the tie had still had the price sticker on it when they gave it to him. ‘Many happy returns,’ his aunt had said when he opened the package, and then his uncle repeated it, just in case he missed the boomerang reference. He stared at his reflection as he fastened the tie, remembering the last time he’d seen his aunt. She had been lying on the kitchen floor of her house in Altrincham, to the south of Manchester, her head smashed open, blood and brains congealing on the lino. He shuddered as he remembered walking up the stairs and finding his uncle hanging from the trapdoor that led to the attic. Murder-suicide, according to the Manchester Coroner, but Nightingale knew there was more to it than that. He stared at the tie, shuddered again and took it off. He tossed it in a drawer and put on a tie with alternating dark and pale blue stripes, then went back to the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. He didn’t feel like eating but figured that a bowl of porridge would settle his stomach, so he microwaved a bowl of instant Quaker Oats and ate it while he watched a bleached blonde on Sky News explain why house prices were going to drop by ten per cent over the next year, her report complete with computer graphics and interviews with householders facing bankruptcy because they were being forced to sell their homes for less than they’d paid for them.
When he’d finished he put his bowl and coffee mug in the sink, picked up the holdall and his raincoat and headed out of his apartment. His MGB was in a lock-up a short walk from his flat, but there was no point in taking the car: the woman he was supposed to be photographing worked in Chelsea and usually took the Tube to the hotel in Battersea where she met her lover. Mr Stevens had known about his wife’s affair for more than a month and he wanted pictures of his wife and lover entering and leaving the hotel as ammunition in a very nasty custody battle that he knew was heading his way. There were no children involved — Mrs Stevens had never wanted kids — but the couple owned three pedigree Red Setters that between them had won more than a dozen Crufts titles and whose offspring sold for thousands of pounds. Nightingale wasn’t sure why his wife’s infidelity gave Mr Stevens more of a chance of keeping the dogs, but he was paying well so Nightingale simply applied the philosophy that the client was always right, even when he clearly wasn’t.