My Name Is Lydia (Jack Nightingale short story) by Stephen Leather Read Free Book Online Page B

mind.”
    “You sneaky madam.
Gives you just enough time to nip over to Starbucks and get the muffins in. One
for your mate too if he’s the muffin type.”

 
    * * *

 
    Nightingale’s
detective skills hadn’t been given much exercise in recent weeks, but they were
still up to the task of deducing that Maurice Mahoney was a Catholic priest.
The long black cassock and dog collar were a dead giveaway. Mahoney looked to
be in his mid-fifties, the brown in his hair losing the war to the grey. He was
quite a big man still in pretty good shape. Nightingale waved him to a
chair.   “Sit down, please, Father.”
    Nightingale didn’t
miss the quick glance the priest gave to the packet of Marlboro and the ashtray
on the desk as he sat down. A lot of Catholic priests seemed to smoke and
drink. Nightingale wondered if that was because it helped make up for the vow
of chastity thing. “You a smoker, Father Mahoney?” he asked, though the
nicotine stains on the fingers of his right hand were a dead giveaway.
    “When I can find a
place where it’s still legal. We even have to put up ‘No Smoking’ notices in
the church now.”
    “Well, I’ve got one of
those notices too, but I’m the boss so I think I have some leeway.”   He pushed the packet and lighter across
the desk despite the angry look from Jenny.
    “I won’t say no,” said
Mahoney. “My nerves need a little soothing at the moment.” The priest lit a
Marlboro, blew smoke at the ceiling, and sighed. “Jenny’s talked about you a
little, so I know I can rely on your discretion. This has to stay between us,
Jack. This concerns a friend of hers, or at least her parents, and it couldn’t
be more personal. My friend’s name is Susan Warren.”
    Nightingale nodded,
though the name meant nothing to him. He had met Jenny’s parents but only knew
a few of their friends.
    The priest continued.
“She’s quite a prominent solicitor, works for a firm in London, though she
lives in Twickenham. I met her at one of Jenny’s parents’ dinner parties.”
    “Married?” asked
Nightingale.
    “Oh, yes. Matthew’s a
doctor. Very nice chap. Devoted to each other. And to their daughter, Christine. She’s eleven now. And that
seems to be where the problem lies.”
    He flicked ash into
the one ashtray on Nightingale’s desk. “It seems that Christine has been
displaying some …rather…unfortunate behaviour lately.”
    “Teenagers can be
difficult, I’m told.”
    “Yes, I’ve been told
that too. But this seems to go a little further than sullenness and defiance.
If the Warrens are to be believed, it seems that Christine has developed a complete
alternate personality, and an extremely dangerous and unpleasant one at that.”
    “For example?”
    “For example, she’s
started to associate with much older boys, to smoke, swear and abuse her
parents, she damaged her father’s car and the most recent incident involved her
cutting her own wrists.”
    “A suicide attempt?”
    “Not a serious one,
apparently. More a gesture. As her mother puts it, her
new personality seems determined to make their lives a misery.”
    “So she’s changed
completely?”
    “No, that’s the strange
thing. Most of the time she’s her normal self, a lovely girl. The new and nasty
persona only takes over occasionally. When it does, she even refuses to answer
to her own name. Insists on being called Lydia.”
    “So what has all this
got to do with me?” asked Nightingale. “Or, come to that, with you? Sounds like
a job for a child psychologist, rather than a priest and a private detective.”
    Father Mahoney closed
his eyes and shook his head. He opened his eyes after a few seconds and took a
long pull on his cigarette. “The parents sent her to a psychiatrist but he said
there was nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing. He gave her a completely clean
bill of health. That was the day before she cut her wrists.”
    “She fooled the
psychiatrist? Is that what you’re