Nightshade

96

Nightingale was in the shower when his mobile rang. He wrapped a towel around himself and padded into the bedroom. It was Robbie. ‘Bloody hell, mate, the bodies are piling up.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Colin Stevenson has topped himself and Marcus Fairchild was killed yesterday.’

Nightingale sat down on the bed. The roll of knives was on his dressing table. He looked at his watch. He was supposed to return them to Mrs Steadman before noon. ‘You’re sure Stevenson killed himself?’

‘Tablets and whisky and he left a note. He typed it, but as they found him dead on the keyboard they’re pretty sure it was him.’

‘Bastard,’ said Nightingale. ‘I won’t be shedding any tears over him.’

‘Yeah. According to what he wrote, he was just misunderstood. No one understands the love between a man and a child is the purest kind of love, all the crap that paedophiles spout to justify what they do. But there was some hard info in there. For a start, Stevenson says he was the one who got McBride to kill the kids.’

‘How did he manage that?’

‘McBride’s farmhouse is where a lot of the abuse took place, so McBride’s life would be pretty much over however it went. But Stevenson threatened him, too, said that he’d kill McBride’s nephews if he didn’t do it. Stevenson says that McBride was talking about killing himself anyway once he knew that the cops were onto them. It just took a bit of manipulation to get him to shoot the kids first.’

‘How did they know the cops were on to them?’

‘There’s a leak in the Paedophile Unit. Stevenson got a call from a phone box not far from the unit’s London base a few hours before he topped himself. They reckon the same mole tipped Stevenson off about the first investigation. All they had at the time was the name of one of the kids, but they were coming up to do interviews across the school. Stevenson and the rest figured if they could make it look like the kids had been killed by a lone disturbed gunman, the abuse investigation would die with it. And with the number of cops who seem to be involved, they might have been right. This goes right across the UK, Jack. It’s bloody huge. And by the look of it, it’s been going on for years.’

‘And what about Danny McBride? Did Stevenson say anything about that so-called suicide?’

‘Nope. Like I said, most of it was rambling self-justification. And it wasn’t helped by the fact that he’d washed the sleeping tablets down with a bottle of whisky.’

‘Yeah, well, like I said, good riddance to bad rubbish.’

‘And I’m assuming that sentiment goes for Marcus Fairchild too?’

‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ said Nightingale, running a hand through his wet hair.

‘It’s been put down as a gangland killing,’ said Robbie.

‘Yeah, well, there’s a lot of that about.’

‘You don’t mess about, do you, Jack?’

‘He had it coming, Robbie. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?’

‘Jack?’

‘Yeah?’

‘How did the Bella Harper thing go?’

Nightingale didn’t say anything for a while. ‘What have you heard?’ he asked eventually.

‘There’s a news clampdown until the press office gets its act together. SOCO are in the house as we speak. She’s dead, right?’

‘She died three weeks ago,’ said Nightingale flatly.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Not really,’ said Nightingale. ‘It wasn’t pleasant.’

‘And what happened? When you did it?’

‘It died. End of.’

‘And Bella died too?’

‘I keep telling you, she was dead already. She died in that bath and she was never coming back, no matter what I did. Robbie, you need to forget about it. Seriously.’

‘I’m not sure that I can do that.’

‘Well, you’re going to have to. I don’t want to talk about it again. Ever.’

‘You are sure, right?’

‘About what?’

‘About the whole business. That whole Ouija board thing. Bella asking you to kill her. That was real, wasn’t it?’

‘It was real, Robbie. Now please, just forget about it. Like it never happened.’

‘I’ll try, mate.’

Nightingale ended the call and reached for his cigarettes. Forgetting what had happened was going to be a lot easier said than done.