Nightingale sighed and lay back on the grass. He stared up at the clouds high above as he took another long pull on his cigarette.
‘Robbie, if I’m talking to myself here, let me know, will you? I’d hate to be making a fool of myself.’ He blew smoke up at the sky. Off in the distance an owl hooted twice and then fell silent.
‘I was wondering if that’s how it works,’ said Nightingale quietly. ‘Maybe you can hear me but I can’t hear you. Maybe it’s a one-way thing. Your soul is there, watching or doing whatever souls do, and I’m stuck here. I just wish I knew for sure, you know? It’s the not knowing that screws with your mind. Until all this started I was a happy enough atheist, or maybe an agnostic. Not that I’m sure what the difference is. Now I really don’t know what the hell’s going on.’ Nightingale sat up, took a drink from the bottle, and then poured some more over the grave.
He blew smoke across the grave and then smiled ruefully. ‘Here’s the thing, Robbie. I know you can’t communicate with me. If you could’ve you would’ve, I’m sure of that. According to Mrs Steadman it’s because we’re not all on the same frequency. But maybe you can hear me, right? And if you’re there listening to me, maybe you can do me a favour.’ He drank from the bottle and once again used his sleeve to wipe his mouth. ‘Remember the girl who died at Chelsea Harbour? Sophie Underwood. She’s been trying to talk to me and not doing a very good job of it. She’s a kid, Robbie. Nine years old when she died and I’m guessing that souls don’t age, right?’ Nightingale chuckled. ‘How would I know that? How would anyone know? Age, don’t age.?.?. it’s not as if there’s a handbook for death and what comes after, is there?’ He gestured at the church with the bottle. ‘And the vicars and priests are no bloody help, are they? Even the ones that aren’t paedophiles don’t exactly inspire confidence, do they? And the guys at the top seem to be more concerned with not offending the multicultural minority than spreading God’s word. Does anyone really believe that God talks to the Archbishop of Canterbury? Because I damn well don’t.’
He shook his head and took a long pull on his cigarette. ‘Okay, so here’s what I need you to do, Robbie. I need you to take care of Sophie. She doesn’t have anyone — her father was a bastard and her mother looked the other way — and I’m guessing that she’s lonely and scared, and you were always great with your girls.’ He poured the rest of the wine over the grave. ‘So if you’re there, Robbie, and if Sophie’s around, just take her under your wing, will you? Find out what she wants. And if there is anything I can do to help, I will. Tell her I will, I swear. If she wants me to apologise, then I will. If she blames me for what happened, then maybe she’s right. Maybe I could have stopped her from jumping. Hell, I’m not even sure if she jumped. One second she was sitting on the edge of the balcony, the next she was over the edge. Maybe she fell. Maybe she didn’t mean to do it.’ Nightingale put a hand over his eyes and sighed. ‘It’s the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning, Robbie. And the last thing I think about at night. So if she wants me to apologise, I’ll do that.’
The cigarette he was holding had almost burned down to the filter and he slotted it into the bottle where it spluttered in the dregs of the wine and went out. He got unsteadily to his feet and stood looking down at the wooden cross.
‘I can’t bear the thought of you down there, rotting,’ he said quietly. ‘Please, please, please, just let me know that there’s more to it than that.’ He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘If Sophie can try to get through to me, why can’t you, Robbie? Why did my parents never try to get in touch after they died?’ He took a deep breath and then opened his eyes and stared up at the sky. ‘Just listen to me, talking to myself again. What the hell is wrong with me?’ He winked at the cross. ‘Catch you later, mate.’
He walked back to his car, dropping the empty wine bottle into a rubbish bin on the way out of the churchyard.
32
Nightingale drove from the graveyard to Brixton. He was reluctant to leave the MGB on the street but it was late and he couldn’t find a multi-storey car park. He decided to leave it close to Brixton police station in the hope that the proximity of the boys in blue would be a deterrent to any would-be car thief. Just to make sure he took a printed sign out of the glove box and left it on the dashboard: ‘BATTERY DEAD — AA ON THE WAY.’
It was a ten-minute walk to the Flamingo and on the way Nightingale was asked by three different black teenagers if he was looking to buy drugs. The third dealer couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old and was riding a BMX bike. He was wearing a black Puffa jacket and gleaming white Nikes.
‘Weed, crack, blow?’ he said to Nightingale as he pulled up next to him.
‘How old are you?’
‘How old are you?’ said the teenager.
‘Old enough not to be buying drugs from someone I don’t know,’ Nightingale said. ‘How do I know you’re not an undercover cop?’ He carried on walking and the teenager followed him on the bike.
‘I’m a kid,’ he said. ‘They don’t have kids as cops.’
‘How do I know that? Maybe they’ve got a special kids unit.’
‘Why would I be a cop and try to sell you drugs?’
‘Entrapment,’ said Nightingale.
‘You’re fucking crazy,’ said the teenager.
Nightingale stopped and studied the boy. ‘You’re really selling drugs?’
‘Sure. What do you want?’
‘But you’re not carrying, right?’
‘Course not. You give me the money.’ He nodded over at the other side of the road where another teenager in a blue Puffa jacket was sitting on a bike. ‘He’ll give you what you want.’
‘Clever,’ said Nightingale.
‘What are you, Five-O?’ asked the teenager suspiciously.
‘If I was a cop I’d have busted you already for dealing,’ said Nightingale. He took out his wallet, extracted a fifty-pound note and moved as if he was going to give it to the teenager. ‘You’re out every night?’
The teenager grinned at the banknote. ‘Rain or snow.’ He reached for the note but Nightingale snatched it away.
‘What about when that guy was shot last year?’
‘This is Brixton,’ said the teenager, standing up on the pedals of his bike. ‘People get shot all the time.’
‘July the twentieth. Dwayne Robinson. Dealer from Clapham.’
‘Oh yeah, him,’ said the teenager. He mimed firing a gun at his own head. ‘He’s not dead, though, right? I heard he was in a coma. Brain dead or summfink.’
‘That’s changed,’ said Nightingale. ‘He’s dead.’
The teenager shrugged. ‘Shit happens,’ he said. He nodded at the fifty-pound note. ‘You gonna give me that or not?’
‘Where were you when he was shot?’
‘You think I did it? You’re mad, man.’
Nightingale chuckled. ‘I’m just asking if you know what happened. You’re a smart kid and I bet you keep your ear to the ground.’
The teenager nodded at the banknote. ‘You gonna give me that?’
‘If you’ve got something to tell me, sure.’
The teenager held out a gloved hand. ‘Cash up front.’
‘Info first.’
The teenager shook his head. His eyes were hard and his jaw was clamped shut. Nightingale gave him the money. The teenager pocketed it and gripped his handlebars as if he was about to take off. ‘The shooter was a white guy.’
‘Yeah, I know that. Did you see it?’
‘Nah, but I heard the shot. It was around the corner from the Flamingo.’
‘Yeah, I know that too.’
‘Do you know the gun jammed?’ Nightingale raised his eyebrows. ‘Yeah, he shot Dwayne in the head and then went to shoot him again but the gun jammed and he ran off.’
‘How do you know that?’
The teenager tapped the side of his nose. ‘I got my sources.’
‘But did your source see it or did he get it from someone else?’