‘I’d love one,’ she said.
‘I shall miss your sense of humour when I’m burning in hell.’
‘That’s not very funny, Jack,’ she said.
‘It’s the best I can do at this time in the morning,’ he said. ‘What did you mean about sick bunnies?’
Jenny nodded at her computer screen. ‘Do you know that you can buy a copy of The Satanic Bible on Amazon? With next-day delivery. And if you type “selling your soul to the devil” into Google you get more than a hundred and forty thousand sites? What sad bastards would want to know how to sell a soul to the devil?’
‘My father, for one,’ said Nightingale.
‘Then there’s ChurchOfSatan dot com. The guys there certainly believe in the devil.’
‘There’s a lot of rubbish on the Internet,’ said Nightingale. ‘Fifty per cent is plain wrong and ten per cent is malicious.’
‘Those are official statistics, are they?’
‘I read it on Wikipedia,’ said Nightingale. ‘How’s my coffee coming along?’
Jenny flounced over to the machine.
‘How was your weekend?’ he asked.
‘We had a great time,’ she said. ‘Bit of riding, bit of fishing, bit of shooting. Girl stuff.’
‘I hope I wasn’t too rude to her. I just didn’t feel like opening up to a complete stranger.’
‘Jack, you don’t open up to anyone,’ said Jenny. ‘You’re the original closed book, you are. But no is the answer to your question, she understood why you were so defensive and she wasn’t offended by it. She’s worked in Broadmoor so she can take care of herself.’
‘She seemed a smart cookie, that’s for sure.’
‘Maybe she could help, Jack. You can’t remember what happened with Simon Underwood. And the other times when you heard people saying you were going to hell. She could get you to relive those moments, and find out for sure what they said.’
‘I’m not sure I want to remember,’ said Nightingale.
‘Nonsense.’
‘Really? And what if she makes me remember that I actually did push Simon Underwood through the window? Do I turn myself in? Maybe I’m better off not remembering.’
Jenny didn’t reply.
‘And what if I’ve been imagining all these people telling me I’m going to hell? Then I’m crazy, right? Crazy, and maybe a serial killer. Hand on heart, I think I’m better off not knowing.’
‘But she might prove to you that you didn’t kill Underwood, have you considered that?
Nightingale shrugged.
‘Please, Jack, give Barbara a chance. She’s very good at what she does, I promise.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ said Nightingale.
‘That means no,’ said Jenny.
‘It means I’ll think about it,’ said Nightingale. ‘Now, can we change the subject, please?’
‘Okay, fine,’ said Jenny. ‘What did you get up to over the weekend?’
Nightingale explained about the phone call from Harry Wilde, meeting Alfie Tyler and driving to Wivenhoe to meet Sebastian Mitchell.
Jenny glared at him. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me any of this.’
‘I’m telling you now.’
‘Jack…’ Words failed her. ‘You should have called me.’
‘Jenny, baby, I was on a roll. Wilde gave me Tyler’s details and Tyler told me where I could find Mitchell. There just wasn’t time to call you.’
Jenny carried his coffee to his desk and sat down. ‘And Mitchell talked to you?’
‘According to Mitchell, Proserpine is the real thing. He did a deal with her but somehow managed to piss her off. Apparently, my father could well have sold my soul to her.’
‘That’s nonsense.’
‘Mitchell says it’s possible. But he says that if my father did sell my soul I would have the mark, the pentagram. No pentagram, no contract.’
‘And you haven’t, right?’
‘I’ve checked and double-checked.’
‘You could shave your head.’
‘Yeah, so could you. I checked my head on the baby pictures, remember? Any tattoo would have been put there the day I was born.’
‘So you’re fine. Even if there is a devil called Proserpine and even if you can sell souls to her, none of that matters because there’s no mark.’
‘That’s what Mitchell says.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘My father might have believed he’d sold my soul, but the fact that there’s no mark says otherwise. So it’s bollocks. It’s all bollocks.’
‘I was fairly busy myself,’ said Jenny. ‘In between riding and shooting I made a few calls.’ She pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of her jeans. ‘I tracked down George Harrison for you.’ Nightingale stretched forward to take it but she held it out of reach. ‘I want you to promise me something,’ she said.
‘You can have a pay rise when the business picks up.’
‘I want you to promise you won’t go and see him.’
‘I can’t promise that, Jenny.’
‘Opening old wounds isn’t healthy,’ she said.
‘Is that you talking or Barbara?’
‘It’s common sense, something you seem to be short of at the moment.’
‘I have to talk to him, Jenny,’ said Nightingale. He tried to grab the paper but she moved it away.
‘Jack, I’m serious.’
‘So am I,’ said Nightingale. ‘Give me the address.’
‘If you go, and I don’t think you should, I want to go with you.’
‘Deal,’ said Nightingale.
‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’
‘Yes to the first bit, no to the second. Dying isn’t something I want to do just yet. But I’ll take you.’
Jenny gave him the piece of paper. Nightingale looked at the address and phone number. ‘Battersea? He’s in London?’ He gave it back to her. ‘I need you to phone him.’
‘And say what?’
‘Ask him what mobile-phone service he uses, then tell him a sales rep will visit and give him a new iPhone for free, to test.’
‘You mean lie to him?’
‘Just humour me,’ said Nightingale.
57
Nightingale climbed out of the MGB and looked up at the block of flats. ‘What floor did you say?’ It was a drab council building, the concrete stained by years of pollution and pigeon droppings, the windows grubby and cracked. There were colourful graffiti on most of the walls. A pack of mongrels watched them suspiciously.
Jenny grunted as she pushed herself out of the sports car. ‘There’s no elegant way of getting out of one of these things, is there?’
‘It’s a classic,’ said Nightingale.
‘I’m just glad I decided to wear jeans today.’
‘What floor?’
‘Ninth. Are you going to leave your car on the street here? The wheels’ll be off by the time we get back.’
‘Like I said, it’s a classic. People respect classics.’ He saw disbelief on her face and laughed. ‘I’m serious. When was the last time you saw a classic motor vandalised? It doesn’t happen. They go for the flash cars, the ones owned by people with more money than sense. Plus they can see I don’t have a CD player or anything worth stealing.’ He nodded at the entrance. There was a stainless-steel panel dotted with dozens of buttons, and a CCTV camera covering the door. ‘You should call him, tell him you’re from the mobile-phone company.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because you’re a girl, and a pretty one to boot.’
Jenny grinned. ‘To boot?’
‘You know what I mean. A girl is less of a threat than a guy.’
‘Are you a threat, Jack? Is that what’s happening here?’
‘I just want to talk, that’s all,’ he said. ‘Cross my heart.’
58
Nightingale leaned against the wall, his hand on the yellow metal handrail. ‘What floor are we on now?’ he panted. There were piles of rubbish on every staircase, cockroaches and a strong smell of vomit and urine that got worse the higher they climbed.
‘Seventh,’ said Jenny. ‘And you wouldn’t be so tired if you didn’t smoke so much.’
‘Smoking’s good for you,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s packed with vitamins and minerals and has zero calories and fat.’ He gestured at the stairs. ‘It’s exercise that’s bad. Look what it’s doing to me.’