‘Cremated.’ Hoyle rubbed his finger around the rim of his wine glass. ‘You’re not taking this selling-your-soul-to-the-devil thing seriously, are you? People don’t sell their souls to the devil.’
‘He didn’t say he sold his soul. He said he sold my soul. And my sister’s.’
‘You don’t have a sister, Jack. You were an only child, remember? Which, incidentally, explains a lot.’
‘What?’
‘Only kids tend to be self-centred, used to getting their own way, have difficulty in forming lasting friendships.’
‘Screw you.’
‘See? That proves my point. Now me, one of four kids, you couldn’t wish for a more sociable fellow.’
‘I say again, screw you. And the rest of the Waltons.’
‘Easy enough to check if you had a sister,’ said Hoyle. ‘There’d be a birth certificate.’
‘Gosling’s not down on mine,’ said Nightingale. ‘Just my mum and dad. If Gosling did have a daughter, she’d be almost impossible to trace.’
‘It’s bollocks, the whole thing.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Nightingale. He drained his bottle of Corona.
‘You know it’s bollocks, right?’ said Hoyle. ‘There’s no such thing as the devil.’
‘Not the devil, a devil. He was very clear on that.’
‘So now you believe in devils?’
‘I’m not saying that. If there was a devil there’d be a God, and I’ve seen nothing over the past thirty-two years that’s convinced me there is. No God, no devil, end of story.’
‘There you go, then. It’s bollocks.’
‘He’s left me a huge bloody house in the sticks, Robbie. A mansion.’
‘So you’re going up in the world.’
‘Why would he do that if I wasn’t his flesh and blood? It’s one hell of an expensive joke, don’t you think?’
‘Okay, show it to me.’
‘What?’
‘The house. Spooky Towers.’
‘At night?’
‘You are jumpy.’ Hoyle grinned and finished his wine.
‘The power’s off. Gosling stopped paying his bills a month before he died.’
‘I’ve got torches in the car. You scared?’
‘Don’t be stupid. And it’s not in the least bit spooky. It’s bloody gorgeous in fact.’
‘I double dare you,’ said Hoyle, grinning. He waggled his fingers and made a ghostly wailing sound.
‘Screw you,’ said Nightingale again.
11
It was just before nine o’clock when they pulled up outside Gosling Manor in Hoyle’s Ford Mondeo. Hoyle climbed out of the car. ‘Bloody hell, Jack, it’s huge. It’s got to be worth millions.’
‘It would have been worth a lot more before the property crash,’ said Nightingale. ‘And it’s mortgaged to the hilt, apparently.’
‘How many bedrooms?’
‘A lot.’
‘And four garages. How cool is that?’ Hoyle walked around to the boot of the car, his feet squelching on dead leaves. He opened it, took out two torches and tossed one to Nightingale. ‘Come on, give me the tour, then.’
Nightingale took out his key and opened the front door. ‘Wipe your feet,’ he said.
‘You sound just like my wife,’ said Hoyle.
‘I just don’t want you walking dead leaves around my house,’ said Nightingale.
‘Now you definitely sound like her.’ Hoyle laughed and wiped his feet on the large mat in front of the door. ‘Happy now?’
They walked inside, playing their beams around the hallway. Nightingale led the way to the huge drawing room and pointed his at the massive fireplace. ‘That’s where the envelope was,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t there when the cops came so someone else must have a key.’
‘Where’s all the furniture?’ asked Hoyle.
‘He must have sold it,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m guessing he sold everything before he died, except the furniture in the bedroom.’
‘You could have some great parties in here.’
‘You could have a half-decent game of five-a-side football,’ said Nightingale.
Something scraped across the floor upstairs and both men jumped. ‘What the hell was that?’ said Hoyle.
‘Probably a cat,’ said Nightingale. ‘There was a cat upstairs last time I was here.’
‘Didn’t sound like a cat,’ said Hoyle.
‘Do you want to leave?’
‘Hell, no, we’re here now,’ said Hoyle. ‘Show me where he topped himself.’
Nightingale led him back into the hallway and up the staircase. ‘What are you going to do with the place?’ asked Hoyle.
‘Sell it, I guess,’ said Nightingale. ‘Pay off the mortgage, see what’s left. Why – do you want to make me an offer?’
‘You could think about developing it,’ said Hoyle. ‘Turn it into flats. There’s a big market for these old buildings when they’re done right.’
‘It’d be sacrilege to split it into flats, a beautiful house like this,’ said Nightingale. ‘I don’t know how easy it’ll be to find a buyer, though.’
‘The rich are always rich,’ said Hoyle. ‘Recession or boom, they always have money. Sell it to a Russian oligarch or a Saudi prince and let them enjoy it.’
‘I was thinking, back in the bar, it might be a con.’
‘A con?’
‘They’re setting me up for something. Telling me the house is mine, then hitting me for money somehow.’
‘Have you got any money?’
Nightingale laughed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But maybe they don’t know that. Can you do me a favour and check out the solicitor for me? His name’s Ernest Turtledove. He’s based in a village called Hamdale.’
Something screamed out in the fields and both men stopped dead. ‘Fox?’ said Hoyle, hopefully.
‘I hope so,’ said Nightingale. He shone his torch along the landing. ‘This way.’ He headed down the corridor towards the master bedroom.
Hoyle ran his beam along the ceiling, the light making the miniature chandeliers sparkle. He stopped when he saw the CCTV camera. ‘Smile,’ he said. ‘We’re on Candid Camera.’
‘They’re all over the place,’ said Nightingale, ‘but no alarms from what I can see. Just the cameras.’
‘Which means what, do you think?’
The two men paused, their torches pointing at the camera.
‘Which means he wasn’t worried about burglars. It was more about watching the house, inside and out.’
‘Maybe not,’ said Hoyle. ‘If you’ve got comprehensive CCTV coverage, you don’t need an alarm. Any burglar worth his salt would know he’d be filmed and give the place a wide berth.’
‘Unless they wore masks,’ said Nightingale. ‘You’re missing the point, Robbie. He was scared of someone, but it wasn’t burglars. And whoever he was scared of wouldn’t be put off by an alarm.’
Hoyle walked down the corridor to take a closer look at the camera. ‘It’s not working,’ he said.
‘Why would it be?’ said Nightingale. ‘The power’s off.’ He went to stand next to Hoyle. There was a small red light on the side of the unit but it wasn’t glowing.
Hoyle ran his torch along the ceiling and down the wall. ‘I don’t see any wiring,’ he said. ‘Could be a wireless system. I wonder where the monitors are?’
‘I didn’t see any downstairs, and there was nothing in the bedroom.’
‘Must be somewhere,’ said Hoyle. ‘They wouldn’t take them away and leave the cameras behind.’
Nightingale walked back to the master bedroom and opened the door. ‘This is where he killed himself.’
Hoyle flashed his torch across the ceiling. ‘No CCTV cameras in here,’ he said. He went into the bedroom, his torch lighting the walls and ceiling. ‘They’ve done a hell of a job cleaning this up, haven’t they?’
‘It was a professional clean-up crew,’ said Nightingale, following him into the room.
‘If ever I kill anyone, I’ll use them to clean up afterwards,’ said Hoyle. ‘They’ve got rid of all the splatter. And there’s no staining on the floor at all.’ He frowned. ‘What about the pentagram?’
‘I guess that was chalk and they just rubbed it off,’ he said. ‘I think this is where he lived, during his last few days. There was no furniture anywhere else in the house. This was the nerve centre, I guess.’
‘So, why no monitors?’ said Hoyle. ‘If he was holed up here, he’d need the monitors close by. Otherwise they’d be useless.’