Jenny sighed. ‘Jack, even if there is such a thing as the Order of Nine Angles, you don’t know for sure that he’s involved with them.’
Nightingale took out his cigarettes. ‘He’s got to you,’ he muttered.
‘Please don’t smoke in my car,’ she said. ‘And what do you mean? How’s he got to me?’ The bus moved off and Jenny edged the Audi forward.
‘You’re not thinking straight and I don’t understand why. It’s like he’s a blind spot so far as you’re concerned.’
‘He’s my uncle.’
‘No he’s not, Jenny. He’s a friend of your father’s, that’s all.’
Jenny flashed him an angry look. ‘What are you getting at, Jack?’
Nightingale slipped his cigarettes back into his pocket. ‘I’m just saying that you don’t seem to think straight when he’s around.’
‘Why did you mention my father?’
‘Because you keep saying that Fairchild is your uncle and he isn’t. He’s just a family friend.’
‘You think that Marcus is a child-killer. Are you now suggesting that my father is as well?’
‘Of course not.’
‘That’s what it sounded like to me,’ she said.
‘Now you’re the one being ridiculous,’ he said.
Jenny stamped on the brake. For a second time the driver of the car behind them pounded on his horn. ‘Get out,’ she said.
‘Oh come on, Jenny.’
‘I’m serious. Get out.’
‘It’s raining.’
The driver behind them sounded his horn again and the car behind him joined in too. Jenny stared ahead through the windscreen, her lips clamped together and her chin raised defiantly.
Nightingale could see that there was no point in arguing with her. He climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him. As Jenny drove off he took out his cigarettes. He lit one and looked around for a black cab.
22
Nightingale opened the office door half expecting Jenny not to be there, but he smiled when he saw her at her desk. ‘Sorry,’ he said, placing a Starbucks bag and two coffees in front of her. Jenny’s desk was always immaculate, in stark contrast to his own, which was usually hidden under stacks of newspapers, files, dirty coffee mugs and overflowing ashtrays.
‘You should be.’ She turned away from him.
‘I’m an idiot.’
She steadfastly refused to look at him. ‘Yes. You are.’
Nightingale moved one of the coffees closer to her. ‘Latte.’
‘Thanks,’ she said quietly.
Nightingale gestured at the bag.
‘Banana choc-chip muffin. And a croissant. Breakfast of champions.’
‘Thanks,’ she repeated. She looked at her watch. ‘But it’s six o’clock in the evening so it’s a bit late for breakfast.’
‘I figured if I turned up with a pizza it wouldn’t have been as cute,’ he said. ‘Come on, Jenny, at least give me a smile. I know I’m an insensitive prick sometimes.’
‘Sometimes?’
‘Okay, most of the time. I was just wrong-footed when Fairchild turned up out of the blue. I shouldn’t have laid into you. I’m sorry.’ He grinned. ‘Especially when you were giving me a lift. You really are heartless, aren’t you?’
‘You deserved it,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you weren’t far from the Tube.’
‘I did deserve it. And yes, the Tube wasn’t that far, though it was pissing down.’ He put up his hands. ‘But, again, it was my own fault so I’ve only myself to blame. To be honest, I didn’t really expect you to be here.’
‘I had work to do.’
‘Then I saw the light on and thought the least I could do to make amends was to buy you a very late breakfast.’ He pushed the bag towards her.
‘I had work to do,’ she repeated. ‘I thought you’d go straight home.’ Jenny turned away from her computer and opened the bag. She took out the muffin. ‘There’s a bit missing,’ she said.
‘I broke off a piece, just to check it was fresh.’
Jenny raised an eyebrow. ‘You bought me a muffin and then ate it?’
‘Checked it for freshness,’ said Nightingale, taking off his wet raincoat. He shook it then put it on the rack by the door.
‘Did you try my coffee too?’
Nightingale went back to her desk and picked up his cup. ‘No. And I didn’t touch the croissant either.’ He sipped his coffee and smacked his lips. ‘So what are you doing later this evening?’
‘Why?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘I thought I’d buy you dinner. By way of apology.’
‘You don’t have to.’ She held out the muffin. ‘This is enough. Even if you did nibble it.’
‘I want to. You can choose the restaurant.’
Jenny grinned. ‘Money no object?’
‘If that means you accept my apology, sure.’ He took another sip of his coffee. ‘Just one thing, can you make it near Marylebone?’
Jenny sighed. ‘Why?’
‘I need to swing by a meeting there.’
‘What sort of meeting, Jack?’
‘A spiritualist group.’ He walked away from her desk towards his office. ‘Mrs Steadman at the Wicca Woman shop in Camden recommended it. It’ll be fun,’ he said. He stopped and looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got to be there by seven thirty.’
‘We? Now it’s “we”, is it?’
‘It always is,’ said Nightingale. He grinned. ‘You know I’d be lost without you.’
23
The Marylebone Spiritualist Association met in a community centre not far from Madame Tussauds waxwork museum. Three Asian youths in baggy jeans and hoodies were standing outside smoking and Nightingale caught a whiff of cannabis as he and Jenny walked past them. The double doors opened into a reception area where an elderly black man in a shabby blue suit was sitting at a desk. Near him there was an easel supporting a board on which white plastic letters had been stuck to announce ‘Marylebone Spiritualist Association — Guest Medium Neil Morgan. Starts 7.30 p.m.’
‘We’re here for the MSA meeting,’ Nightingale told the man.
‘Five pounds each,’ he said and smiled, revealing a mouthful of broken and stained teeth. Nightingale handed him a ten-pound note. The man took it and pushed a clipboard towards him. Nightingale picked up a pen and added their names to the list, then the man nodded at a door to the left. As Nightingale and Jenny headed in that direction two middle-aged women in long coats and black hats came in from outside, deep in conversation. Nightingale opened the door and let Jenny go in first. The room was kitted out for sports with a wooden floor, basketball hoops at either end and two table-tennis tables that had been pushed against one wall. Orange plastic chairs had been lined up in the middle of the room, ten rows wide and five rows deep, facing a wooden lectern. There were blue screens on either side of the lectern. There were no religious symbols to be seen, though there was a vase of plastic flowers on a small table in front of the lectern.
‘I thought it would be more like a church,’ said Nightingale. ‘I thought there’d be crosses and stuff.’
‘Clearly not,’ said Jenny. ‘Anyway, I thought the Church frowned on things like this.’
‘Things like what?’
‘Talking to the dead,’ whispered Jenny. ‘Because that’s what we’re here to do, aren’t we?’
There were more than a dozen people sitting on the chairs, mostly pensioners by the look of them. Nightingale looked at his watch. It was seven twenty. ‘Front or back?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘I’m guessing at school you were always sitting at the front, right?’
‘While you were at the back with the rest of the troublemakers?’
‘Let’s compromise and sit in the middle,’ he said.
‘I thought the idea was to see if we could contact Sophie. Wouldn’t it be better to sit at the front? Aren’t you more likely to be noticed that way?’
‘Excuse me,’ said a voice behind them. Nightingale and Jenny moved apart to allow a short man in a dark green anorak to squeeze between them. He sat in the back row.
‘He’d be a troublemaker, then, would he?’ Nightingale asked Jenny.
‘Behave,’ said Jenny. She shuffled along the third row of seats and sat close to the middle.