Nightfall: The First Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller by Stephen Leather Read Free Book Online Page B

said Nightingale. He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew smoke into sky.
    ‘The bastard was fiddling with his daughter,’ said the sergeant. ‘She topped herself, right?’
    ‘Right,’ said Nightingale. He shivered and took another drag on his cigarette.
    ‘The bastard got what was coming to him.’ The sergeant flicked ash onto the ground.
    ‘Allegedly,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘So, are you going to be moving in?’ asked the younger man.
    Nightingale laughed and looked up at the imposing façade. ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ he said. ‘I’d rattle around in a place this big.’
    ‘Must be worth a fortune. What do you think, Sarge?’
    ‘Five million, six maybe.’
    ‘Before the property crash.’
    ‘What happened to all the furniture and stuff?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Who took it away?’
    The sergeant shrugged. ‘It was gone when we got here. The only room that had furniture was the bedroom where he died.’ His radio crackled and he walked away, talking into the microphone.
    ‘You’re going to hell, Jack Nightingale,’ said the PC, his voice dull and lifeless, almost robotic.
    Nightingale turned to him. ‘What?’ he said.
    ‘I said, are you going to sell up?’
    Nightingale wondered if he’d simply misheard.
    ‘You could make even more money dividing it up into flats.’
    ‘I guess so,’ said Nightingale. He was sure he hadn’t misheard. But the policeman didn’t appear to be messing with him: he was smiling good-naturedly, just making conversation with a former cop while he waited for his colleague to finish on the radio. ‘I haven’t really had time to think about it.’
    ‘Was he a close relative, old man Gosling?’ He had an Essex accent, with long vowels and clipped consonants, slightly high-pitched as if his voice hadn’t fully broken. It sounded nothing like the one that had told Nightingale he was going to hell.
    ‘Not really,’ said Nightingale. ‘He was my father. Allegedly.’
    The sergeant was on his way back to them. ‘Landlord of the Fox and Goose has got a problem with gypsies,’ he said. He grinned at Nightingale. ‘Not that we can call them gypsies these days. “Citizens of no fixed abode” is probably the politically correct term. Anyway, one’s just glassed a waitress so we’ve got to get over there. Good luck with the house.’ He reached into his pocket and gave Nightingale a Neighbourhood Watch card. ‘My number’s on there. Give me a call if you need anything.’
    Nightingale read his name: Sergeant Harry Wilde. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Look, something I don’t understand. The house is old, right? More than a hundred years, I’d guess.’
    ‘A lot more,’ said the policeman. ‘The main part dates back to the sixteenth century but a lot of additions were made during the nineteen thirties. Then the family who sold it to Gosling were into horses so they built the stable and paddocks.’
    ‘So why’s it called Gosling Manor? Has it been in the family for generations?’
    ‘Mr Gosling bought it in the eighties, cash on the nail, they say. Used to be called Willborough Manor, after the family who built it. They were the local squires here for a couple of hundred years. Mr Gosling put a few noses out of joint by renaming it and there’s a lot of folk around here still call it by its old name. They’ve got a point. Houses are like boats – you only bring bad luck by renaming them.’
    ‘Yeah, well, it was certainly unlucky for Gosling,’ said Nightingale.
    Wilde’s radio crackled again. ‘We’ve got to go,’ said the sergeant. He stuck out his hand and Nightingale shook it. ‘What you did back then, fair play to you. It was the right thing.’
    Nightingale smiled thinly but he didn’t say anything. He had long since given up trying to justify to himself what he’d done that November morning and he’d never tried to justify it to anyone else.
    He watched the two policemen walk to their patrol car before he climbed into the MGB. He