Nightshade

52

Harry Simpson was younger than Nightingale had expected. The voice on the phone had sounded like a man in his forties but the DI was barely out of his twenties, fresh-faced and a heavy mop of hair that he was forever flicking out of his eyes. He agreed to meet in the Magna Tandoori restaurant in the centre of the town, a short walk from the railway station. He was already there when Nightingale arrived, tucked away in a corner table. He stood up to shake hands, then looked cautiously over Nightingale’s shoulder. ‘If anyone sees us, you’re an old mate from London, passing through.’

‘Understood,’ said Nightingale.

‘I hope you do,’ said Simpson, sitting down. ‘I could get in real trouble talking to you.’

‘Trust me, I’m not that happy about having to schlep all the way up here on the train but I needed to talk to you.’ He had caught the 9 a.m. train from King’s Cross station and had arrived in Berwick just over three and a half hours later. Nightingale took off his raincoat. A waiter reached to take it away but Nightingale shook his head and put it over the back of his chair.

‘They’d put my balls in a vice if they found out I was talking to a private eye.’

‘I just want to run a few things by you,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m not looking for confidential information or anything that’ll breach the Data Protection Act.’

‘I’d have preferred to do it over the phone.’

‘What I’ve got to say, I thought you’d prefer it face to face. That way you know that nothing’s being recorded.’

‘I still don’t know that.’

Nightingale held out his hands. ‘You’re welcome to frisk me.’

Simpson grinned. ‘Don’t be bloody stupid. What is it you want to tell me?’

‘I did a bit of work on the altar that you guys found in McBride’s farm. I checked the prints on a couple of items and they match McBride’s prints.’

‘That’s hardly surprising, is it?’

Another waiter came over. ‘Okay if I order?’ asked Simpson. ‘I’m a regular.’

‘Go ahead,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m a big fan of Indian.’

‘The chef’s from Bangladesh and he’s a diamond,’ said Simpson. He ordered several dishes and rice and two Kingfisher beers.

‘Here’s the thing,’ said Nightingale once the waiter was out of earshot. ‘I’m pretty sure that McBride had zero interest in Satanism. But the fact that his prints were on the altar means he must have set it up. Why would he do that?’

‘Because he was as mad as a hatter. The fact that he killed kids suggests that he wasn’t right in the head, don’t you think?’

‘He didn’t shoot like a madman,’ said Nightingale. ‘What he did was very cold and clinical.’

‘Sociopaths are cold and clinical.’ He frowned. ‘What do you mean, you checked the prints?’

‘I took a couple of things from the altar and ran them through a lab. McBride’s brother took me to the farm.’

‘You know he topped himself?’

‘You think he committed suicide? There was no note.’

‘Suicides don’t always leave notes,’ said Simpson. He stiffened. ‘How do you know there was no note?’

‘You don’t want to know,’ said Nightingale.

The detective leaned forward. ‘Actually I do,’ he said.

‘Let’s just leave it that I know,’ said Nightingale. ‘Are you on the case?’

‘There is no case. It’s a suicide.’

‘There’ll be a post mortem?’

‘I was there when they cut the body down,’ said Simpson. ‘There’s no confusion about cause of death.’

‘He wasn’t suicidal when I met him,’ said Nightingale. ‘Seemed happy enough, other than the fact that his brother had turned into a spree killer. Loved his family, and if he did have any money problems the death of his brother would have taken care of them. Plus he was driven to find out why his brother did what he did. None of that points to a man who would take his own life.’

‘Maybe insanity runs in the family.’

Nightingale smiled thinly. ‘Now that’s a glib statement if ever I heard one. I don’t think Danny McBride was mentally ill and I’ve seen nothing to suggest that his brother was either.’

‘Other than his killing spree.’ Their lagers arrived. The waiter poured the contents into two glasses.

‘You might want to take a closer look at McBride’s hanging,’ said Nightingale, after the waiter had gone. ‘But if Bernard Connolly’s on the case I’m guessing you won’t get much from the post mortem.’

Simpson frowned. ‘How do you know Connolly?’

‘He’s the coroner’s officer I spoke to. Not very helpful, I have to say.’

Simpson shook his head in amazement. ‘You haven’t been here long but you’ve certainly put yourself about,’ he said.

‘I wanted to ask about the post mortems of the kids who died at the school but he pretty much told me to mind my own beeswax.’

‘You can understand why,’ said Simpson. ‘It’s not like you’re in the job. But why were you asking questions about the post mortems?’

‘I wanted to know if there were signs of sexual abuse.’

Simpson’s eyebrows shot skyward. ‘What? Where the hell did that come from?’

‘The kids that he shot were all from single-parent families.’

‘So? Half of all marriages end in divorce these days.’

‘I know that, but all the kids that were shot were missing a parent. Not half. Not three-quarters. All.’

‘And you think McBride shot them because of that?’

‘I don’t think the killings were random. He moved from classroom to classroom. He only shot the one teacher. Simon Etchells, the deputy headmaster. He could have shot other teachers but he didn’t. He could have shot at the cops, but he didn’t. It looks to me that it was all planned and his targets were pre-selected.’

‘And having decided to shoot specific children, he set out to make it look as if he was doing it because he was some sort of devil-worshipper?’

‘He was using that as a distraction, yes. And he must have had help because he didn’t have internet access at his home, so someone else must have loaded the Satanic stuff onto his computer.’

‘This is making my head hurt, Nightingale. Just exactly what do you think is going on?’

‘At the moment I’m not sure. That’s why I’m here. I’m not sure what I’ve got into, but I was attacked last night.’

‘Attacked?’

‘Two guys came at me in my flat. One of them was carrying a length of rope.’

‘Rope?’

‘I think they were planning on hanging me.’

‘What happened?’

‘I ran like the wind, that’s what happened.’

‘And you think there’s a connection with the waves you’ve been making up here?’

‘I think the rope is the clue.’ He fumbled in his raincoat pocket and pulled out a handful of printouts of pictures he’d taken of the men leaving his building. He gave them to Simpson and the policeman studied them. He scratched his nose. ‘They’re not very clear.’

‘Yeah, well I’m not a professional photographer and they were moving fast.’ The policeman held up two photographs, the first ones Nightingale had taken as the two men came out of the bedroom. ‘Ski masks?’

‘Yeah.’

‘They were coming at you with a knife and you took their picture?’

‘It was dark. I figured the flash would blind them, give me enough time to get out. It worked, as it happens.’

‘And you think they were from Berwick?’

He tried to hand the pictures back to Nightingale but Nightingale shook his head. ‘Keep them,’ he said. ‘You might recognise someone down the line. I don’t know if they’re from here or not. They might be from London but someone here could have paid them.’

‘To what? To kill you? That’s one hell of a stretch, isn’t it?’

‘They were in my flat. They waited for me to come back. So it wasn’t about robbery.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Not that I had much to steal.’

‘So why do you think they turned over your flat?’

‘Looking for the things I took from the altar, maybe. Or covering up for what they planned to do.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They brought some rope with them. I figure I was going to join the list of suicides.’ Nightingale shrugged. ‘I don’t know, maybe I’m getting paranoid in my old age. But just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.’

Two waiters arrived with their food and they spread it out across the table. Chicken tikka masala, prawn dansak, lamb jalfrezi, aloo gobi and saag bhaji. Simpson folded the printouts and slipped them into his jacket pocket. Nightingale helped himself to rice and waited until the waiters had gone before continuing.

‘I need your help, Harry. The two cops I’ve spoken to up here haven’t been helpful.’

‘Who else did you speak to?’

‘The guy who has McBride’s computer. Colin Stevenson.’

Simpson nodded. ‘Yeah, I know him.’

‘Someone leaked the Satanic website thing to the press and I think it might have been him.’

‘You want to be careful throwing around allegations like that.’

‘I’m not throwing allegations around, I’m just mentioning it to you. Like I said, McBride didn’t have an internet connection at his house, which means that he couldn’t have visited those websites. Stevenson says that he did and the press got hold of the fact in double quick time. I’m happy to be proved wrong, but it looks to me like Stevenson might have another agenda.’

‘Like what?’

Nightingale shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Seems to me there’s a lot you don’t know.’ Simpson tore off a chunk of naan bread and dipped it into the dansak.

‘That’s why I wanted to talk to you,’ said Nightingale. ‘Stevenson and Connolly might be more forthcoming with you.’

‘You want me to spy for you? That’s not going to happen.’

‘You’re on the case, right? Don’t you want to know what really happened?’

‘We know what happened. James McBride took his shotgun and killed eight children and a teacher, then he took his own life.’

‘But what if he was being used? What if there was someone behind him?’

‘Behind him? What do you mean?’

‘Someone put the Satanic stuff on his computer. I think they did that to hide the real reason for the killings. I’d have thought that you might want to know what that reason was.’

‘Why are you so interested? Your client is dead, right?’

‘He paid in advance,’ said Nightingale. ‘But this isn’t about money. It’s about getting at the truth.’

Simpson sipped his lager slowly as he thought about what Nightingale had said. ‘What specifically do you want from me?’ he said, putting down his glass.

‘I’d like to know if there was anything off about Etchells. The teacher that was killed.’

‘Off in what way?’

‘McBride shot him point blank in the playground. He didn’t have to. If he’d made any sort of threatening gesture with the shotgun, Etchells would have folded. All McBride had to do was point the gun at him. He didn’t need to pull the trigger. And when he went to the classrooms, he didn’t shoot the teachers. He chose to kill Etchells and I want to know why.’

Simpson pulled a face. ‘I haven’t heard anything.’

‘No, but you probably weren’t looking. He was a victim. Same as the pupils. You don’t look at victims in the same way as you look at the perpetrator.’

‘Okay, I can do that.’

‘And I’d really like to know why Colin Stevenson has been so uncooperative.’

Simpson’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you suggesting he’s bad? Because there’s no way I’m getting dragged into a Professional Standards investigation.’

‘Someone put that Satanic stuff on McBride’s hard drive and leaked it to the press. Whoever it was must have done it for a reason.’

‘And you think it was Stevenson?’

‘He’s the only name I’ve got.’

Simpson put down his fork. ‘If I get caught sniffing around a fellow cop I could blow my career.’

‘What sort of cop is he?’

‘Close to retirement. He’ll be gone in a couple of years. He’s like a lot of old school detectives, he’s seen the job change and it’s not changed for the better. You know what it’s like, right? We get shafted by the politicians, our pay and pensions are attacked, the CPS and the courts let us down every day of the week and the public hates us.’ He shrugged. ‘Welcome to the new millennium.’

‘I know it isn’t easy being a copper. It never has been. But eight kids died and I want to know why.’

Simpson nodded slowly. ‘Okay. I’ll put out a few feelers. But I’m not promising anything.’

‘That’s cool.’

‘And we’re splitting this bill, fifty-fifty.’

‘Which is also cool,’ said Nightingale. ‘Two more Kingfishers?’