Midnight: The Second Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller by Stephen Leather Read Free Book Online

you get the gates?’
    ‘What did your last slave die of?’ asked Jenny, climbing out of the car. It was dark and the gates gleamed in the MGB’s headlights.
    ‘It wasn’t overwork,’ said Nightingale. He waited until Jenny had pushed open both gates before driving through. She closed them and got back into the car, shivering and rubbing her hands together.
    ‘Why didn’t Gosling install electronic gates?’ she asked.
    ‘I get the feeling he didn’t have many visitors,’ said Nightingale. He put the car in gear and drove along a narrow paved road that curved to the right through thick woodland.
    ‘Who’s taking care of the grounds?’ asked Jenny.
    ‘No one at the moment. Gosling let all the staff go before he topped himself.’
    ‘You’re going to have to get someone in when spring comes,’ she said, nodding at the expansive lawns to their left, the grass glistening in the moonlight. ‘The grass will need cutting and you can’t let woodland take care of itself. It’s got to be looked after.’
    ‘I keep forgetting that you’re a country girl at heart,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘Daddy has three gardeners working full-time,’ said Jenny. ‘And this place isn’t much smaller.’
    ‘I’ll have to check the money situation,’ said Nightingale. ‘But I’m pretty sure I don’t have enough to pay for a gardener.’
    ‘There’s the money from the books you sold from Gosling’s library. You got a stack of cash for them.’
    ‘Yeah, but that’s got to go towards the mortgages Gosling took out on the house. Could turn out to be negative equity there, in which case I’m really in trouble.’
    ‘Wasn’t there insurance? On Gosling’s life. I know he killed himself but most policies pay out if the suicide is a couple of years after the policy is taken out.’
    ‘Turtledove didn’t mention any insurance policies, so I guess not,’ said Nightingale.
    He parked in front of the house, a two-storey mansion, the lower floor built of stone, the upper floor made of weathered bricks, topped by a tiled roof with four massive chimney stacks. To the left of the house was a four-door garage and behind it a large conservatory. In the middle of the parking area stood a huge stone fountain, the centrepiece of which was a weathered stone mermaid surrounded by dolphins and fish.
    ‘Are you going to sell it?’
    ‘I think I’ll have to,’ he said. ‘I can’t see myself living out here in the middle of nowhere.’ He switched off the engine and climbed out. He lit a cigarette as he looked over at the ivy-covered entrance. ‘It’d make a great hotel.’
    ‘You should get an estate agent to value it,’ said Jenny, getting out of the car. She looked up at the front. ‘It really is a beautiful building. Doesn’t seem like the sort of place that a Satanist would call home, does it? Even at night.’
    Nightingale chuckled. ‘Doesn’t look like a haunted house, you mean?’
    ‘It’s a family house. You can imagine the kids playing on the lawn, Mum in the drawing room, Dad in the study tying fish flies, the faithful retainer in the kitchen giving a couple of pheasants to the cook.’
    Nightingale looked over at her, his cigarette halfway to his lips. ‘You are joking, right?’
    Jenny shrugged. ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ she said.
    ‘Who has a cook and a faithful retainer these days?’
    Her cheeks flushed and she looked away.
    Nightingale grinned. ‘Daddy?’
    ‘It’s a large house and it needs staff,’ said Jenny. ‘You’ll find that out for yourself. I can’t imagine you’ll want to be dusting and polishing and cleaning windows.’
    ‘Yeah, but a faithful retainer?’
    ‘Lachie is a gamekeeper, if you must know. Now stop taking the piss, Jack. And let’s go inside, it’s freezing out here.’
    Nightingale fished the key from his raincoat pocket and unlocked the massive oak door. It opened easily and without a sound, despite its bulk. He switched the lights on. The hallway was as big as his office,