Cursed_A Jack Nightingale Short Story Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Also by

  Jack Nightingale figured. . .

  CURSED

  A Jack Nightingale short story

  Stephen Leather

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2011

  by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Stephen Leather 2011

  The right of Stephen Leather to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 444 75502 2

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Also by Stephen Leather

  Pay Off

  The Fireman

  Hungry Ghost

  The Chinaman

  The Vets

  The Long Shot

  The Birthday Girl

  The Double Tap

  The Solitary Man

  The Tunnel Rats

  The Bombmaker

  The Stretch

  Tango One

  The Eyewitness

  Spider Shepherd thrillers

  Hard Landing

  Soft Target

  Cold Kill

  Hot Blood

  Dead Men

  Live Fire

  Rough Justice

  Fair Game

  Jack Nightingale supernatural thrillers

  Nightfall

  Midnight

  Nightmare

  About the author

  Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series and two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were filmed for TV. You can find out more from his website, www.stephenleather.com.

  Jack Nightingale figured that he had earned a day off. He’d worked pretty much non-stop over the weekend following a husband who’d told his wife he was attending a sales conference in Somerset when he was in fact giving his secretary a good seeing-to in a five-star spa just outside London. He had plenty of video of the pair together, and a copy of the bill, courtesy of a fifty-pound note he’d slipped to a Slovakian receptionist. It was the perfect surveillance job and since he didn’t have much in the diary he decided to spend Monday getting his MGB serviced and collecting his dry-cleaning, with, hopefully, a few hours in the pub watching Sky Sports.

  He phoned his assistant first thing and told her not to expect him in, then shaved and showered before pulling on a suit and tie out of habit. It was only when he was tying his tie that he realised he didn’t need his office gear, but he couldn’t be bothered changing so grabbed his raincoat and headed out in search of breakfast.

  He was on his way to Costa Coffee for a cappuccino and an almond croissant when he heard the squeal of tyres behind him and he looked around to see two uniformed cops getting out of a patrol car. He carried on walking but then he heard rapid footsteps and felt a hand on his arm.

  ‘Jack Nightingale?’

  Nightingale stopped and turned to face them. They were both in their late thirties with tired eyes and bad skin, overweight and bored to death with the job. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe?’ said the taller of the two. He had a razor burn across his neck and a pimple on his nose that was about to burst. ‘What sort of answer is that? Show me some ID.’

  ‘What? You can’t go around asking innocent passers-by for ID,’ said Nightingale. ‘Not unless we entered an alternative reality overnight and we’re now part of Nazi Germany.’

  ‘Under the Terrorism Act 2000 I have the right to detain you and ascertain your identity,’ said the officer. He was a sergeant; Nightingale saw the stripes as he folded his arms and glared at him.

  ‘So now I’m a terrorist?’ said Nightingale. ‘What, you think I’m a suicide bomber and under my raincoat I’ve got TNT ready to blow?’

  ‘It’s him, Sarge,’ said the second policeman. No stripes. A constable. ‘I was on a job with him about five years ago – a jumper on Battersea Bridge. He talked her down.’

  ‘See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’ said the sergeant. He jerked a thumb at the car. ‘We need you to come with us.’

  ‘Need? What’s this about?’

  ‘Don’t shoot the messenger, Mr Nightingale,’ said the sergeant. ‘Superintendent Chalmers wants a word.’

  ‘And what, he’s forgotten how to use a phone? What does he want?’

  ‘I’m having a bad day, Mr Nightingale,’ said the sergeant. ‘In fact this month has been bad and the year as a whole has been pretty shitty. The last thing I need right now is a former cop giving me a hard time just because I’m doing what my superintendent told me to do.’

  ‘Understood, Sarge,’ said Nightingale. ‘Are you okay if I smoke in the car?’

  ‘Providing you don’t give me any grief you can burst into flames for all I care. Though strictly speaking, as the car is our place of work, you’re prohibited from smoking under the 2006 Health Act.’ He grinned. ‘But if you don’t tell anyone, we won’t.’

  They walked to the car and Nightingale climbed into the back and lit a Marlboro. He opened the window and blew smoke as the constable drove the car across the Thames and down through south London to Clapham. They pulled up on the west side of the common.

  The sergeant pointed to a cluster of police vehicles parked on the grass. ‘Chalmers is over there.’

  ‘You’re trusting me to walk over on my own, are you?’ said Nightingale. ‘What if I did a runner?’

  ‘Then I’d Taser you,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘He would too,’ said the constable. ‘I’ve seen him do it.’

  ‘I’ll take your word on that,’ said Nightingale. He got out of the car and walked over to the vehicles. There were two patrol cars, a grey saloon, a white van and an ambulance. Nightingale saw Chalmers standing with two uniforms as they watched a group of Scenes of Crime Officers working around what looked like two dead bodies lying face down.

  Chalmers was wearing a black overcoat that glistened like it might be cashmere and there were flecks of mud over his gleaming black shoes. He looked disdainfully over at Nightingale. ‘What took you so long?’ he said, running a hand through his greying hair. Flecks of dandruff peppered his shoulders.

  ‘I didn’t know we had an appointment,’ said Nightingale. He stood next to the superintendent and nodded over at the SOCO team as he took his cigarettes out of his pocket. ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘Four black men shot two other black men and a dozen black men and women swore blind they didn’t see a thing.’ The superintendent shivered as a cold wind blew over the common. ‘Welcome to multicultural
Britain.’

  ‘So why are you here and not Trident?’

  ‘Trident have got their hands full with two shootings in Brixton and a knifing in Lambeth so I’m holding the fort until they can get someone out here.’

  Nightingale lit a cigarette and blew smoke. ‘I hope you’re not planning to pin this one on me, because I was in Bayswater all morning.’

  ‘You’re here because you were a cop once and another cop is in trouble.’

  ‘So you want me to lend you a few quid, is that it?’

  Chalmers glared at Nightingale. ‘Will you just shut up and listen for once in your life?’ he said. ‘And keep that bloody smoke away from me. I don’t want to go home stinking of cigarettes.’ He shoved his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. ‘You ever come across a sergeant, name of Simon Roach? Based at Catford?’

  Nightingale shook his head. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’

  ‘He’s with the TSG,’ said Chalmers. ‘At least he was. He’s been off duty for months and there’s no sign of him going back.’

  ‘Stress-related?’ said Nightingale. ‘Holding out for a decent compo, is he?’

  ‘This isn’t about compensation, you insensitive bastard,’ hissed Chalmers. ‘Simon Roach is at death’s door. Literally.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ asked Nightingale.

  Chalmers took a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders. ‘The doctors don’t know,’ he said. ‘He’s in the ICU at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases just off Tottenham Court Road. Before that he was on a ward in Lewisham. Before that he was in and out of A&E and before that he was seeing his GP pretty much every other day. And not one of all the doctors he’s seen has any idea what’s wrong with him.’

  ‘Tropical diseases? They think he caught something?’

  ‘They put him there because they don’t know what else to do with him,’ said Chalmers. ‘They’ve tried every antibiotic, every treatment, but nothing works. The doctors in Lewisham just wanted to be rid of him, and most of the mystery cases end up in UCL.’

  ‘UCL?’ He blew smoke, turning his head so that it didn’t go near the superintendent.

  ‘University College London. They run the Hospital for Tropical Diseases. The smartest doctors in the UK work there and they’re stumped.’

  ‘So why are you telling me this? Last time I checked my CV, doctor wasn’t on it.’

  ‘No, but arsehole was,’ said Chalmers. ‘You think I’m happy talking to you? You think I’d even piss on you if you were on fire?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘And you’d guess right. But Roach is a good cop and his wife’s an old school friend of the Deputy Commissioner’s wife, so we’ve got to do something.’

  ‘So again, I’m asking why me?’

  Chalmers screwed up his face as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. ‘Mrs Roach thinks that her husband was cursed.’

  Nightingale’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’

  ‘Cursed. By a gypsy.’

  Nightingale laughed harshly. ‘You’re winding me up, right?’

  ‘I don’t have time for practical jokes, Nightingale. I’ve got about a dozen things on my plate at the moment and they’re all urgent. It happened during the Dale Farm clearance. The Met supplied some of the teams for the operation. Roach was one of the first in and there was an incident with an old woman.’

  ‘An incident?’

  Chalmers grimaced. ‘Look, I need you to talk to Roach’s inspector. He was there at Dale Farm. He can talk you through it.’

  ‘He was cursed by a gypsy, is that what you’re saying? He was cursed and now he’s in the ICU?’

  ‘I’m just telling you what I’ve been told. You’ve got previous in the supernatural heebie-jeebie world so I need you to see what’s going on.’

  ‘And who’ll be paying for this?’

  ‘You’ll be doing it out of the goodness of your heart,’ said Chalmers.

  ‘Yeah, well, I’d be happier with five hundred quid a day plus expenses,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Like I said, you’ll do it out of the goodness of your heart, and if you don’t I’ll make your life a misery. And that’s in the short term. Long term, private investigators are going to be licensed, and getting the all-clear from the Met is going to be a necessity for any gumshoe planning to ply his trade in London.’

  ‘Are you threatening me, Chalmers?’

  Chalmers smiled cruelly. ‘Damn right I’m threatening you. I’ll do whatever I need to do to get Simon Roach out of that hospital bed. But I shouldn’t have to threaten you, Nightingale. It wasn’t so long ago that you were a cop. Simon Roach is a good cop who needs help and so far as I can see you’re the only person who can save him. You can’t walk away from that responsibility.’ Two of the SOCOs walked towards Chalmers. The superintendent handed Nightingale a piece of paper. ‘That’s the number of Roach’s inspector, Ian McAdam. He’ll fill you in. Do what you can and keep me in the loop.’

  Nightingale slipped the piece of paper into his pocket. ‘How do I get home?’

  ‘Tube? Bus? Taxi? How would I know?’

  ‘You’re a prince, Chalmers,’ said Nightingale. He flicked the remains of his cigarette away and headed back to the road.

  A West Indian nurse with a gleaming gold tooth in the front of her mouth and bright red lipstick showed Nightingale to the Intensive Care Unit. Mrs Roach was already there, ashen-faced and watery-eyed. She was wearing a pale blue polo-neck sweater and a tartan skirt and while he figured she was probably in her forties she looked a good ten years older. She was sitting on an orange plastic chair, a newspaper unread on her lap, a paper cup of tea on the floor by her side. There was dark brown scum on the top of the tea, as if she hadn’t touched it.

  Nightingale introduced himself and she offered him her hand. There was no strength in it and he shook it carefully, almost afraid that it would break. He sat down beside her. ‘Superintendent Chalmers said I should talk to you,’ he said.

  Mrs Roach sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘He said you might be able to help.’ She looked at him, her eyes red and fearful. ‘What can you do, Mr Nightingale? If the doctors can’t do anything, how can you help Simon?’

  ‘Where is he?’ asked Nightingale, avoiding the question because he had absolutely no idea what he could do to help Roach.

  Mrs Roach pointed at a glass window. Her fingernail was bitten to the quick. ‘He’s in there,’ she said.

  Nightingale stood up. There were white blinds on the other side of the window but they were angled so that he could see through into the next room. Two figures were moving around, wearing what at first glance looked like white spacesuits. Thick clear plastic tubes led from the back of the suits and up into the ceiling. One of the figures was stacking packs of ice around a patient while another was looking at a bank of instruments on a stainless-steel table.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Nightingale.

  Mrs Roach sniffed. ‘He’s hot, they said. They’re cooling him down.’

  Nightingale went back to sit next to Mrs Roach. ‘How bad is he?’

  She sniffed again. ‘It’s very bad, Mr Nightingale.’

  ‘Jack,’ said Nightingale. ‘Call me Jack. What have the doctors told you?’

  Before she could answer, a middle-aged Indian doctor came hurrying down the corridor, his white coat flapping behind him. ‘That’s one of the doctors,’ said Mrs Roach. ‘Dr Patel.’

  Nightingale stood up and introduced himself. The doctor peered at Nightingale over the top of a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘You are a family member?’ he asked.

  ‘Friend of the family,’ said Nightingale. ‘Can I ask you what’s wrong with Mr Roach?’

  The doctor toyed with a stethoscope that was hanging around his neck. ‘He has some sort of infection but we’re not sure of the nature of it,’ he said.

  ‘Like a blood thing? A virus?’

  ‘No, not a blood thing. His blood seems perfectly normal. Whatever it is has target
ed his skin. But his blood work is fine. He has the blood of a fit, healthy man.’

  ‘So what’s happening to him?’

  The doctor sighed. ‘Something is changing his skin cells. Hardening them, making them almost waxy. We’ve never seen anything like it before.’

  ‘But what would cause that?’

  ‘If we knew the answer to that question we’d be a step closer to knowing how to treat him,’ said the doctor. ‘We can’t find a virus and there’s no bacterial infection that we can see; he wasn’t bitten by anything; there are no punctures in his skin that we can find.’

  ‘Can I talk to him?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘No one is going in there without a suit,’ said the doctor. ‘We don’t know how he got it and we don’t know how it’s transmitted.’

  ‘But I’m all right. I’m not infected,’ said Mrs Roach. ‘I was with him for four weeks until he was taken into hospital. And our kids are all right.’

  ‘And we’re grateful for that,’ said the doctor. ‘But the simple fact is that we don’t know how your husband contracted this disease. It could be that most people have a natural immunity and that only certain people can be infected. It could be transmitted by contact, or through breathing. We just don’t know.’ The doctor turned to look at Nightingale. ‘Frankly you’d be wasting your time anyway. He hasn’t been able to speak for days, not since the infection reached his throat. Today he hasn’t reacted to noise so we think it has also affected his hearing.’

  ‘But what exactly is happening to him?’

  The doctor wiped his hand down his face. ‘As I said, I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he said. ‘The change in his skin cells is causing his body temperature to rise, but he’s losing the ability to sweat and that means he’s burning up inside. Literally cooking.’

  Mrs Roach gasped and she sat down heavily.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Roach,’ said the doctor, sitting down next to her. ‘We’re doing everything we can for him.’

  ‘What have you tried so far?’ asked Nightingale.