Nightshade

74

‘That’s it,’ said Nightingale, nodding at a detached house with a tiny garden in front of it. Jenny pulled up at the side of the road.

‘I think the police tape all over the front door is a clue,’ said Jenny. They were in a small road on the outskirts of Southampton. The front door of the house was criss-crossed with blue and white crime scene tape and there was a yellow seal over the lock. ‘You weren’t planning on breaking in, were you?’

‘I doubt that there’ll be much to see,’ said Nightingale. ‘The cops’ll have taken away anything interesting.’

‘And you haven’t got any cop friends who can tell you what happened?’

‘It’s Hampshire police and I don’t have any contacts there. I rang Robbie and he doesn’t either.’

‘So what’s the plan?’

‘We’ll talk to the neighbours. See what they have to say.’

‘They’re not going to be able to tell you if Bella Harper is possessed.’

‘Oh ye of little faith,’ he said. They climbed out of the car and Nightingale turned up the collar of his raincoat. The sky overhead was gunmetal grey and there was a cold wind blowing down the street. According to the newspaper, the bodies had been discovered by a neighbour, and while the reporter hadn’t identified the neighbour, Nightingale figured that it was a fair bet that it would be the occupant of the house next door.

Jenny followed him as he pushed open the wooden gate and walked down the path to the front door. He’d already checked the electoral register and there were two people living in the house – Ronald Edwards and Ruth Edwards. He rang the doorbell and practised his smile as he waited for the door to be opened. He heard footsteps and then the rattle of a bolt drawn back. The door opened on a security chain. It was a grey-haired woman in her sixties. ‘Mrs Edwards?’

‘Yes,’ said the woman, squinting up at him with narrowed eyes.

‘My name’s Jack, Jack Nightingale.’ He took out his wallet and gave her his business card. ‘I’m a detective. This is my assistant. Can we talk to you about what happened next door?’

‘I need my glasses,’ she said.

‘I’ll wait while …’ She closed the door on him before he could finish the sentence. Nightingale and Jenny waited and after a couple of minutes Mrs Edwards opened the door. This time she was wearing spectacles. She waved the card at him. ‘You’re not a real detective,’ she said accusingly.

‘I’m a private detective,’ he said. ‘I don’t work for the police. But I do have some questions for you.’

‘Why? I told the police everything.’

‘I’m trying to understand what happened. That’s all.’

‘I keep getting journalists knocking on my door but I won’t talk to them. They just want the gory details so they can sell their newspapers.’

‘I’m not a journalist, Mrs Edwards.’

‘I know that. But why does a private detective want to know what happened?’

‘I used to be a policeman. Part of my job was to deal with people in crisis, especially people who wanted to hurt themselves. I want to know why Mr Fraser did what he did, that’s all.’

‘Really, we won’t take up much of your time, Mrs Edwards,’ said Jenny. ‘We just need to know what happened, and you probably know more than anyone, don’t you?’

She looked Nightingale up and down, then nodded. ‘Come on in, but wipe your feet, I’ve just had the carpet cleaned.’ She unhooked the chain and opened the door.

Nightingale carefully wiped his Hush Puppies on a mat as the woman watched, then Jenny did the same. She closed the door, replaced the security chain and took them along to the kitchen at the far end of the house. ‘I’ve just made tea,’ she said. She waved them to chairs next to a Formica table. ‘I’ll just take my husband his tea and then we’ll talk.’ She picked up a mug of tea and went up the stairs.

Nightingale looked around the kitchen. It was neat and tidy, with an old gas cooker that had been polished until it shone and a fridge that was just as clean but must have been made in the fifties. Something moved under the table and Nightingale flinched, but then relaxed when he realised it was a tortoiseshell cat. The cat stared at him, its tail twitching, and then it walked stiff-legged out of the kitchen.

‘You’re jumping at shadows, Jack,’ laughed Jenny.

‘It wasn’t a shadow, it was a cat.’

Mrs Edwards returned. ‘My husband isn’t well,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Nightingale.

‘Cancer,’ she said, patting her chest with the flat of her hand. ‘He needs oxygen to breathe properly. You’re not a smoker, are you?’

‘No,’ lied Nightingale. ‘Disgusting habit.’ Jenny looked away, suppressing a smile.

‘Ronnie smoked forty a day. I told him, those things will kill you, but he wouldn’t listen.’

Nightingale shifted uncomfortably on his chair as Mrs Edwards poured tea into three cups.

‘So what did you want to ask me?’

‘It’s about what happened next door,’ he said.

‘I assumed that, young man,’ said Mrs Edwards.

‘Did you discover the bodies?’

She nodded and grimaced. ‘It was horrible. Horrible.’

‘Can I ask you why you went into the house?’

‘I hadn’t seen the children. But his car was parked outside. He always took the boys to the childminder when he was at home during the day. I don’t sleep much, so I’m awake when he takes them out and he didn’t. And I didn’t see Sally come back from work. She works at an estate agents in the city centre. She gets the bus in and I’m usually in the front room reading when she gets home. And I had a package for her.’

‘A package?’

‘Nothing important, just some clothes she’d ordered for the boys. From a catalogue. I always took in parcels for her. I don’t go out much.’ She sipped her tea.

‘So you went around with the parcel?’

‘Not that day. I thought perhaps the boys were poorly or something, so I waited. And the next day I didn’t see them, so that evening I went round and knocked on the door. Nobody answered. So I went round to the back just to be sure, and the back door wasn’t locked. I opened the door and called for Sally but there was no answer and that’s when I realised something must be wrong.’ She shuddered. ‘I wish I’d called the police then and there because what I saw …’ She shuddered again. The cat walked back into the kitchen and Mrs Edwards scooped it up and began to stroke it. The cat mewed and Mrs Edwards kissed it gently on the top of its head.

‘Can you tell me what you saw, Mrs Edwards?’ asked Nightingale.

‘It was horrible,’ she said. She shivered and kissed the cat again. ‘He’d used a knife, on his wrists and his throat. He was sitting in the lounge, in the seat that he always sat in. He watched TV there and Sally would be on the sofa. When I went round I’d sit next to her. The chair was his, even the kids couldn’t sit there.’ She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. ‘There are some things that you see that you wish you’d never seen. Does that make sense to you?’

‘Perfect sense,’ said Nightingale.

Mrs Edwards opened her eyes. They were misty with tears and she blinked them away. ‘The knife was still in his hand, even though he’d been dead for more than a day. The blood had soaked everywhere, over his clothes and the sofa and the carpet. It had congealed, like jelly, and it was swarming with flies. I couldn’t understand the flies. It’s September. There shouldn’t be flies but they were everywhere. On his face, on his neck, all over the blood. Every time I see a fly now I wonder if it was one of the flies from the house.’ The cat looked up at her and mewed. ‘Yes, darling, I know,’ she whispered.

‘And the family?’

‘He’d killed them,’ said Mrs Edwards quietly. ‘The children he’d suffocated with pillows as they slept, so at least they hadn’t suffered.’ Tears rolled down her cheek and she lowered her face so that she could use the cat’s fur to brush them away. ‘They were little angels, those boys. I should never have gone upstairs, should I, Mr Nightingale?’

Nightingale shrugged, not sure what to say. He needed her to continue talking and he didn’t want to say anything that would stem the flow. He looked across at Jenny and she grimaced.

‘Seeing something like that, it’s like having a photograph that you can’t erase. It’s been years since I could remember what my father looked like. These days he’s just a big man with a moustache, I can’t remember his face. But those children, their faces will stay with me until the day I die.’

‘And Mrs Fraser?’

‘Sally? He’d strangled her. And banged her head against the wall. It had smeared down the wall in the boys’ bedroom. The flies were in the bedroom, too. Buzzing and crawling over their faces.’

‘Then you called the police?’

Mrs Edwards nodded. ‘They were here almost immediately. You hear stories about how slow the police are, but I phoned nine nine nine and I was still talking to the operator when the first police car came.’

‘It must have been terrible for you.’

‘I was in shock, I think. A very nice policewoman took me into my house and made me tea and put far too much sugar in it. She said sugar helps you when you’re in shock.’

‘It does.’

She smiled. ‘It didn’t help me, I can tell you that. A doctor came over and he gave me an injection and that made me feel a bit better, so at least I got some sleep that night.’

‘The thing is, Mrs Edwards, do you have any idea why he would have done what he did?’

She shook her head. ‘He loved those boys. Loved them with all his heart. And Sally was the apple of his eye. Once a week I’d babysit so that they could have an evening out. And he was always bringing her flowers and chocolates.’

Jenny leaned forward and smiled encouragingly. ‘How long had they been married?’

‘Five years, I think.’ She frowned as she stroked the cat. ‘Their anniversary was in July. He took her out for a slap-up meal with champagne and everything and he bought her a gold bracelet.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘I don’t understand why he did what he did.’

‘Was he a drinker?’ asked Jenny. ‘Or drugs?’

Mrs Edwards laughed harshly. ‘Good grief, no. I mean, he’d have a beer sometimes and wine with meals but he didn’t have a drink problem.’ She nodded at the ceiling. ‘Now him upstairs, he went through a phase a few years ago when he was drinking way too much but his diabetes put paid to that. But John was as good as gold. He was a lovely man, Mr Nightingale. He was great with the kids and Sally loved him with all her heart.’

‘They didn’t argue?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Of course they argued. What sort of marriage would it be without arguments? And raising boys is never easy. But he never lifted his hand to the boys and barely even raised his voice to them.’

‘So no shouting matches, no outbursts?’

‘Nothing. He wasn’t the type. And Sally was a lovely girl. A slip of a thing. John was always so protective of her.’

‘So why do you think he did it, Mrs Edwards?’ said Nightingale. ‘What do you think made him snap?’

Mrs Edwards tried to rub her face against the cat’s back but the animal slipped from her grasp and jumped down to the floor. Mrs Edwards looked over at Nightingale. ‘You know what I think? I think he was possessed. I think something made him do it.’