Nightfall jn-1 Read online

  Nightfall

  ( Jack Nightingale - 1 )

  Stephen Leather

  Stephen Leather

  Nightfall

  1

  Jack Nightingale didn’t intend to kill anyone when he woke up on that chilly November morning. He shaved, showered and dressed, made himself coffee and a bacon sandwich, and at no point did he even contemplate the taking of a human life, even though he had spent the last five years training to do just that. As a serving member of the Metropolitan Police’s elite CO19 armed-response unit he was more than capable of putting a bullet in a man’s head or chest if it was necessary and provided he had been given the necessary authorisation by a senior officer.

  His mobile phone rang just as he was pouring the coffee from his cafetiere. It was the Co-ordinator of the Metropolitan Police’s negotiating team. ‘Jack, I’ve just had a call from the Duty Officer at Fulham. They have a person in crisis down at Chelsea Harbour. Can you get there?’

  ‘No problem,’ said Nightingale. After two courses at the Met’s Bramshill Officer Training College he was now one of several dozen officers qualified to talk to hostage-takers and potential suicides in addition to his regular duties.

  ‘I’m told it’s a jumper on a ledge but that’s all I have. I’m trying to get back up for you but we’ve got four guys tied up with a domestic in Brixton.’

  ‘Give me the address,’ said Nightingale, reaching for a pen.

  He ate his bacon sandwich as he drove his MGB Roadster to Chelsea Harbour. During the three years he had worked as a negotiator he had been called to more than forty attempted suicides but on only three occasions had he seen someone take their own life. In his experience, people either wanted to kill themselves or they wanted to talk. They rarely wanted to do both. Suicide was a relatively easy matter. You climbed to the top of a high building or a bridge and you jumped. Or you swallowed a lot of tablets. Or you tied a rope around your neck and stepped off a chair. Or you took a razor blade and made deep cuts in your wrist or throat. If you were lucky enough to have a gun you put it in your mouth or against your temple and pulled the trigger. What you didn’t do if you really wanted to kill yourself was say you were going to do it, then wait for a trained police negotiator to arrive. People who did that usually just wanted someone to listen to their problems and reassure them that their lives were worth living. Once they’d got whatever was worrying them off their chests they came off the ledge, or put down the gun or lowered the knife, and everyone cheered, patted Nightingale on the back and told him ‘job well done’.

  When he reached the address that the Duty Officer had given him, his way was blocked by a police car and two Community Support Officers in police-type uniforms and yellow fluorescent jackets. One pointed the way Nightingale had come and told him to turn around, in a tone that suggested his motivation for becoming a CSO had more to do with wielding power than helping his fellow citizens. Nightingale wound down the window and showed them his warrant card. ‘Inspector Nightingale,’ he said. ‘I’m the negotiator.’

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said the CSO, suddenly all sweetness and light. He gestured at a parked ambulance. ‘You can leave your car there, I’ll keep an eye on it.’ He and his colleague moved aside to allow Nightingale to drive through. He pulled up behind the ambulance and climbed out, stretching and yawning.

  If you’d asked Nightingale what he was expecting that chilly November morning, he’d probably have shrugged carelessly and said that jumpers tended to be either men the worse for drink, women the worse for anti-depressants or druggies the worse for their Class-A drug of choice, generally cocaine or amphetamines. Nightingale’s drug of choice while working was nicotine so he lit himself a Marlboro and blew smoke at the cloudless sky.

  A uniformed inspector hurried over, holding a transceiver. ‘I’m glad it’s you, Jack,’ he said.

  ‘And I’m glad it’s you.’ He’d known Colin Duggan for almost a decade. He was old school – a good reliable thief-taker who, like Nightingale, was a smoker. He offered him a Marlboro and lit it for him, even though smoking in uniform was a disciplinary offence.

  ‘It’s a kid, Jack,’ said Duggan, scratching his fleshy neck.

  ‘Gang-banger? Drug deal gone wrong?’ Nightingale inhaled and held the smoke deep in his lungs.

  ‘A kid kid,’ said Duggan. ‘Nine-year-old girl.’

  Nightingale frowned as he blew a tight plume of smoke. Nine-year-old girls didn’t kill themselves. They played with their PlayStations or Wiis, or they went rollerblading, and sometimes they were kidnapped and raped by paedophiles, but they never, ever killed themselves.

  Duggan pointed up at a luxury tower block overlooking the Thames. ‘Her name’s Sophie, she’s locked herself on the thirteenth-floor balcony and she’s sitting there talking to her doll.’

  ‘Where are the parents?’ said Nightingale. There was a cold feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘Father’s at work, mother’s shopping. She was left in the care of the au pair.’ Duggan waved his cigarette at an anorexic blonde who was sitting on a bench, sobbing, as a uniformed WPC tried to comfort her. ‘Polish girl. She was ironing, then saw Sophie on the balcony. She banged on the window but Sophie had locked it from the outside.’

  ‘And what makes her think Sophie wants to jump?’

  ‘She’s talking to her doll, won’t look at anyone. We sent up two WPCs but she won’t talk to them.’

  ‘You’re supposed to wait for me, Colin,’ said Nightingale. He dropped his cigarette onto the ground and crushed it with his heel. ‘Amateurs only complicate matters, you know that.’

  ‘She’s a kid on a balcony,’ said Duggan. ‘We couldn’t just wait.’

  ‘You’re sure she’s a potential jumper?’

  ‘She’s sitting on the edge, Jack. A gust of wind and she could blow right off. We’re trying to get an airbag brought out but no one seems to know where to find one.’

  ‘How close can I get to her?’

  ‘You could talk to her through the balcony window.’

  Nightingale shook his head. ‘I need to see her face, to watch how she reacts. And I don’t want to be shouting.’

  ‘Then there are two possibilities,’ said Duggan. ‘She’s too high to use a ladder, so we can either lower you from the roof or we can get you into the flat next door.’

  ‘Lower me?’

  ‘We can put you in a harness and the Fire Brigade boys will drop you down.’

  ‘And I talk to her hanging from a string like a bloody puppet? Come on, Colin, I’m a negotiator, not a bloody marionette.’

  ‘The other balcony it is, then,’ said Duggan. He flicked away his butt. ‘Let’s get to it.’ He waved over a uniformed constable and told him to escort Nightingale up to the thirteenth floor. ‘Except it isn’t the thirteenth, it’s the fourteenth,’ said Duggan.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a superstitious thing. Don’t ask me why. It is the thirteenth floor, but the lift says fourteen. It goes from twelve to fourteen. No thirteen.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Tell the developer, not me,’ said Duggan. ‘Besides, you’re talking to the wrong person. You won’t catch me walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror. I can understand people not wanting to live on the thirteenth floor.’ He grinned at Nightingale. ‘Break a leg, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Nightingale. He nodded at the constable, a lanky specimen whose uniform seemed a couple of sizes too small for him. ‘Lead on, Macduff.’

  The constable frowned. ‘My name’s not Macduff,’ he said.

  Nightingale patted him on the back. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘But first I want a word with the au pair.’

  The two men went to the sobbing woman, w
ho was still being comforted by the WPC. At least fifty people had gathered to stare up at the little girl. There were pensioners, huddled together like penguins on an ice floe, mothers with toddlers in pushchairs, teenagers chewing gum and sniggering, a girl in Goth clothing with a collie that grinned at Nightingale as he walked by, workmen in overalls, and a group of waitresses from a nearby pizza restaurant.

  ‘Why aren’t you up there, getting her down?’ shouted a bald man, holding a metal tool box. He pointed at Nightingale and the young constable. ‘You should do something instead of pissing about down here.’

  ‘Can’t you Taser him?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘We’re not issued with Tasers, sir,’ said the constable.

  ‘Use your truncheon, then.’

  ‘We’re not…’ He grimaced as he realised that Nightingale was joking.

  They reached the au pair, who was blowing her nose into a large white handkerchief. Nightingale acknowledged the WPC. ‘I’m the negotiator,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  Nightingale smiled at the au pair. ‘Hi, what’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Inga.’ The girl sniffed, dabbing her eyes with the handkerchief. ‘Are you a policeman?’

  ‘I’m Jack Nightingale,’ he said, showing her his warrant card. ‘I’m the one who’s going to talk to Sophie.’

  ‘Am I in trouble?’

  ‘No, of course you’re not,’ said Nightingale. ‘You did the right thing, calling the police.’

  ‘Her parents will kill me,’ said the au pair.

  ‘They won’t,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘They’ll send me back to Poland.’

  ‘They can’t do that – Poland’s in the EU. You have every right to be here.’

  ‘They’ll send me to prison, I know they will.’

  Nightingale’s heart hardened. The au pair seemed more concerned about her own future than about what was happening thirteen storeys up. ‘They won’t,’ he said. ‘Tell me, Inga, why isn’t Sophie at school today?’

  ‘She said she had a stomach-ache. She didn’t feel well. Her mother said she could stay at home.’

  ‘Her mother’s shopping?’

  The au pair nodded. ‘I phoned her and she’s coming back now. Her father’s mobile phone is switched off so I left a message on his voicemail.’

  ‘Where does he work?’

  ‘In Canary Wharf.’ Still sniffing, she took a wallet out of the back pocket of her jeans and fished out a business card. She gave it to Nightingale. ‘This is him.’

  Nightingale looked at it. Simon Underwood was a vice president at a large American bank. ‘Inga, has Sophie done anything like this before?’

  The au pair shook her head fiercely. ‘Never. She’s a quiet child. As good as gold.’

  ‘Tell me what happened. How did she come to be on the balcony?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the au pair. ‘I was ironing. She was watching a Hannah Montana DVD but when I looked up she was on the balcony and she’d locked the door.’

  ‘You can lock it from the outside?’

  ‘There’s only one key and she had it. I shouted at her to open the door but it was like she couldn’t hear me. I banged on the window but she didn’t look at me. That was when I called the police.’

  ‘And she wasn’t sad this morning? Or angry? Upset by something or somebody?’

  ‘She was quiet,’ said the au pair, ‘but she’s always quiet.’

  ‘You didn’t argue with her about anything?’

  The au pair’s eyes flashed. ‘You’re going to blame me, aren’t you? You’re going to send me to prison?’ she wailed.

  ‘No one’s blaming you, Inga.’

  The au pair buried her face in her handkerchief and sobbed.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Nightingale said to the constable.

  ‘What will you do?’ the officer asked, as they walked past the crowd of onlookers.

  ‘Talk to her. See if I can find out what’s troubling her, see what it is she wants.’

  ‘She wants something?’

  ‘They always want something. If they didn’t they’d just go ahead and do it. The key is to find out what it is they want.’

  ‘Wankers!’ shouted the bald man with the tool box.

  Nightingale stopped and glared at him. ‘What’s your problem, pal?’

  ‘My problem is that there’s a little girl up there and you tossers aren’t doing anything about it.’

  ‘And what exactly are you doing? Gawping in case she takes a dive off the balcony? Is that what you want? You want to see her slap into the ground, do you? You want to hear her bones break and her skull smash and see her blood splatter over the concrete? Because that’s the only reason you could have for standing there. You’re sure as hell not helping by shouting abuse and making a tit of yourself. I’m here to help, you’re here on the off-chance that you might see a child die so I’d say that makes you the tosser. I’m going up there now to see how I can help her, and if you’re still here when I get down I’ll shove your tools so far up your arse that you’ll be coughing up spanners for months. Are we clear, tosser?’

  The bald man’s face reddened. Nightingale sneered at him and made for the entrance. The constable hurried after him.

  The reception area was plush with overstuffed sofas and a large coffee-table covered with glossy magazines. A doorman in a green uniform was talking to two PCs. ‘Where are the stairs?’ asked Nightingale.

  The doorman pointed to three lift doors. ‘The lifts are there, sir,’ he said.

  ‘I need the stairs,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘It’s thirteen floors, sir,’ said the constable at his side.

  ‘I know it’s thirteen floors, Macduff,’ said Nightingale. He jerked his chin at the doorman. ‘Stairs?’

  The doorman pointed to the left. ‘Around the side there, sir,’ he said.

  Nightingale hurried towards them, followed by the constable. He pushed through the doors and started up, taking the steps two at a time. The number of each floor was painted on the white wall in green, and by the time they’d reached the tenth floor both men were panting like dogs. ‘Why can’t we use the lift, sir?’ gasped the constable. ‘Is it procedure with jumpers?’

  ‘It’s because I hate lifts,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Claustrophobia?’

  ‘Nothing to do with confined spaces,’ said Nightingale. ‘I just don’t like dangling over nothing.’

  ‘So it’s fear of heights?’

  ‘It’s fear of lifts,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m fine with heights. As you’re about to find out.’

  They reached the twelfth floor. The policeman had taken off his helmet and unbuttoned his tunic. Nightingale’s overcoat was draped over his shoulder.

  They reached the thirteenth floor, though the number stencilled on the wall was ‘14’. Nightingale pulled open the door and went into the corridor. ‘What number is her flat?’ he asked.

  ‘Fourteen C,’ said the constable. ‘We can get into Fourteen D. A Mr and Mrs Wilson live there and they’ve agreed to give us access.’

  ‘Okay, when we get in there, keep the Wilsons away from the balcony. The girl mustn’t see them and she sure as hell mustn’t see you. Nothing personal, but the uniform could spook her.’

  ‘Got you,’ said the policeman.

  ‘You’ll be just fine, Macduff,’ said Nightingale. He knocked on the door of Fourteen D. It was opened by a man in his early sixties, grey-haired and slightly stooped. Nightingale flashed his warrant card. ‘Mr Wilson, I’m Jack Nightingale. I gather you’re happy for me to go out on your balcony.’

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly say that I was happy, but we need to get that little girl back inside.’

  He opened the door wide and Nightingale walked in with the constable. The man’s wife was sitting on a flower-print sofa, her hands in her lap. She was also grey-haired, and when she stood up to greet Nightingale he saw that she had the same curved spine. ‘Please don’t get up, Mrs Wi
lson,’ he said.

  ‘What’s going to happen?’ she said anxiously. Like her husband she was well-spoken, with an accent that would have done credit to a Radio 4 announcer. They were good, middle-class people, the sort who would rarely cross paths with a policeman – Nightingale sensed their unease at having him and the constable in their home.

  ‘I’m just going to talk to her, Mrs Wilson, that’s all.’

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.

  Nightingale smiled. More often than not as a member of CO19 he was treated with contempt, if not open hostility, and the Wilsons were a breath of fresh air. ‘You could certainly put the kettle on, Wilson’ he said. ‘Now, do you know Sophie?’

  ‘We say hello to her, but she’s a shy little thing, wouldn’t say boo to a goose.’

  ‘A happy girl?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say so,’ said Mrs Wilson.

  ‘She cries sometimes,’ said her husband quietly. ‘At night.’

  ‘What sort of crying?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Screaming?’

  ‘Sobbing,’ said Mr Wilson. ‘Her bedroom’s next to our bathroom, and sometimes when I’m getting ready for bed I can hear her.’

  ‘We’ve both heard her,’ added Mrs Wilson. Her husband walked over to her and put his arm around her.

  For a brief moment Nightingale flashed back to his own parents. His father had been equally protective of his mother, never scared to hold her hand in public or to demonstrate his affection in other ways. In his last memory of them they were standing at the door of their house in Manchester, his arm around her shoulders, as they waved him off to start his second year at university. His mother had looked up at Nightingale’s father with the same adoration he saw now in Mrs Wilson’s eyes.

  ‘Any idea why she’d be unhappy?’ Nightingale asked. ‘Did you see her with her parents?’

  ‘Rarely,’ said Mr Wilson. ‘They’ve been here – what, five years?’ he asked his wife.

  ‘Six,’ she said.

  ‘Six years, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve seen Sophie with her mother or father. It’s always an au pair, and they seem to change them every six months or so.’ He looked at his wife and she nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘One doesn’t like to talk out of school but they don’t seem the most attentive of parents.’