‘And what did you get? What did you bargain for?’
Mitchell sneered. ‘That’s between me and her,’ he said.
‘But you didn’t try to back out?’
‘I knew what I was getting into,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t like your father. He was too eager. He didn’t think through what he was doing. I knew exactly what I was doing and I did a deal I was happy with.’
‘You sold your soul?’
‘It’s complicated,’ said Mitchell. ‘My soul is promised to a higher deity than Proserpine, though she would like to get her hands on it, I’m sure.’
Nightingale gestured at the circle on the floor. ‘And what’s the idea of the circle?’
‘It’s protection, of course.’
‘I would have thought the CCTV and the men in black suits would have been protection enough.’
‘Then you know nothing of the occult,’ said Mitchell. ‘The circle is the only thing that keeps her from me.’
‘So you’re just as scared as my father was,’ said Nightingale.
‘Your father wasn’t scared of her – she had no interest in him. She already had what she wanted from him – the soul of his first-born son, promised to her at the moment of birth. The sweetest of souls. And the soul of his only daughter. Once she had them, he had nothing else to offer her.’
‘But she wants you, is that it?’
‘She wants my soul, yes.’
‘So what’s your plan? To hide in that circle for ever?’
Mitchell chuckled. ‘I’m not hiding, Nightingale. You can’t hide from a devil. She knows exactly where I am, I’m sure of that. And “for ever” isn’t an option.’ He coughed again, then moved his mask and spat bloody phlegm into a tissue. ‘Cancer. I’ve a few months at most. Then I walk into hell of my own accord.’
‘But either way you’re dead,’ said Nightingale.
‘It’s one thing to be dragged kicking and screaming into the eternal fire,’ said Mitchell. ‘If I walk in under my own steam, I take my place among the princes of hell.’
Nightingale folded his arms. ‘So, what are my options?’ he asked.
‘You have none,’ said Mitchell. ‘Enjoy what little time you have left, and say your goodbyes.’
‘There are always alternatives,’ said Nightingale. ‘Options. Choices.’
‘Not in this case,’ said Mitchell. ‘Your soul is hers. Your father would have done the negotiation even before you were born. And at the moment of birth he would have carried out the ceremony. From that moment on, she owned your soul.’
‘What if I were to do what you’re doing? Make myself a protective circle and stay inside?’
‘She owns your soul,’ said Mitchell. ‘She wouldn’t have to enter the circle to take it.’
‘And if I did what my father did? What if I stayed within a circle and killed myself?’
‘You’re thinking of suicide, are you?’ Mitchell cleared his throat, slid his oxygen mask to the side and spat into a tissue. ‘That would be ironic, wouldn’t it? Father and son dying the same way. But you’d be wasting your time. Your soul is no longer yours. It has never been yours. It belonged to her before you were even born and there’s nothing you can do to stop her taking it.’
Nightingale rubbed his chin. ‘In your book, you say there should be a mark. A mark that shows that the soul has been sold.’
Mitchell nodded. ‘A pentagram. Yes.’
‘I don’t have a mark anything like that.’
‘If your father sold your soul, then you do. You just haven’t found it yet.’
‘And what if there isn’t a mark?’
Mitchell chuckled. ‘Then you’ve got nothing to worry about, have you?’
55
Nightingale followed Sylvia through the hall, flanked by two of the men in black suits. ‘How long’s he been in the circle?’ asked Nightingale.
‘It’s a pentagram,’ said Sylvia, archly.
‘Fine,’ said Nightingale. ‘How long’s he been inside the pentagram?’
‘Two months.’
‘And he never leaves it?’
‘That’s the point of the pentagram,’ she said. ‘If you leave, you’re no longer protected.’
‘But I don’t understand why he has to stay there. What’s he frightened of?’
‘I’m sure there are a lot of things you don’t understand, Mr Nightingale,’ she said. She gestured at the bathroom. ‘Please get changed and we shall escort you off the premises.’
Nightingale pushed his way into the bathroom. He took off his robe and hung it on one of the hooks by the door. He caught sight of his reflection in the full-length mirror and instinctively sucked in his stomach. He stood facing it, his head cocked on one side, and grinned at himself. ‘Not bad for a thirty-two-year-old,’ he said. He wasn’t as fit as he had been when he was in CO19, the Met’s armed unit. The training was rigorous and never-ending and fitness was a must, so he’d worked out in the police gym three times a week and taken regular runs. He’d stopped exercising once he’d left the force but his body was still in good condition, considering the amount he drank and smoked. He patted his abdominals. Not quite a six-pack but it wasn’t a beer gut either. And he still had all his own hair and teeth. But the one thing he definitely didn’t have was a tattoo of a pentagram.
He turned to look over his left shoulder, then the right. No tattoo on his back. But he knew that. He knew every inch of his body and he had never seen a pentagram or anything like it. Neither had any of his girlfriends – a pentagram tattoo would have been mentioned. As he looked at his backside he had a thought that at first made him smile, then brought a frown to his face. There were some parts of your body you never looked at and nobody checked. He put a hand on each buttock and slowly pulled them apart. He couldn’t see much so he tried with his legs apart and his head between his knees, the pressure on his chest so tight that he had trouble breathing. There was nothing, but he hadn’t expected there would be. As he straightened he saw the small red light flashing on the side of the CCTV camera opposite him. He winked at the camera. ‘Just checking,’ he said.
Nightingale put on his clothes and shoes and walked out of the bathroom. Sylvia and the two bodyguards were waiting for him. They took him outside and down the steps to his MGB. He tried to engage Sylvia in conversation but she had given up all pretence of civility. There was a look of utter contempt on her face that left him in no doubt that she had been watching his contortionist’s act on her monitor.
Nightingale climbed into his car and started the engine. He gave Sylvia a friendly wave as he drove off but she stared at him impassively, her eyes as cold and impene-trable as the sunglasses her colleagues were wearing.
He headed for the road. The gates were already opening. He drove through, then turned right. In his rear-view mirror he watched them close behind him. His hands were shaking and he gripped the steering-wheel tightly but that didn’t stop the tremor. Two miles down the road he pulled into a pub car park, climbed out of the MGB and lit a cigarette. Beyond where he stood there was a stream and Nightingale walked down to it. He watched the water burble by as he smoked. The wind blew through the trees on the other side of the stream and they swayed like lovers slow-dancing. Then, for the first time, Nightingale understood that one day he would die, that the sun would still shine and the stream would still flow and the wind would still blow through the trees, but he wouldn’t be there to see or feel it.