Midnight: The Second Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller Read Free

went through the window of his office while he was talking to you. Sophie Underwood jumped off a balcony. Your uncle took an axe to his wife and then killed himself not long before you went around to their house. Bodies do have a tendency to pile up around you.’
    ‘Can I smoke?’ asked Nightingale.
    ‘Of course you can’t bloody well smoke,’ snapped the superintendent. ‘Last time I looked Wales was still part of the United Kingdom and in the UK we don’t allow smoking in public buildings or places of work.’
    ‘Can we take a break, then? I need a cigarette.’
    The superintendent leaned back in his chair. ‘You know smoking kills,’ he said.
    ‘Allegedly,’ said Nightingale. ‘Ten minutes? It’s either that or you’ll have to charge me because I’m not going to continue helping you with your enquiries unless I have a cigarette first.’

3
    A cold wind blew through Nightingale’s paper suit and he shivered. ‘If I get a cold I’ll bloody well sue you,’ he muttered. He and the superintendent were standing in the car park at the rear of the police station. A patrol car had just driven in and large blue metal gates were rattling shut behind it. There were two white police vans and half a dozen four-door saloons parked against the high wall that surrounded the car park.
    ‘You’re the one that wanted a cigarette,’ said the superintendent. He took a pack of Silk Cut from his jacket pocket, flipped back the top and offered it to Nightingale.
    ‘I’m a Marlboro man, myself,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘Your fags are in an evidence bag so if you want a smoke you’ll have to make do with one of mine,’ said the superintendent. He took the pack away but Nightingale reached out his hand. The superintendent smiled and held out the pack again.
    ‘I wouldn’t have had you down as a smoker,’ said Nightingale. The superintendent struck a match and Nightingale cupped his hands around the flame as he lit his cigarette.
    The superintendent lit his own cigarette with the same match, then flicked it away. ‘I used to be a forty-a-day man when they allowed us to smoke in the office,’ he said. ‘These days I’m lucky if I get through six.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘The wife won’t let me smoke in the house either. Tells me that secondary smoke kills. I keep telling her that the fry-up she makes me eat every morning is more likely to kill me than tobacco, but what can you do? Wives know best, that’s the order of things.’ The superintendent took a long drag on his cigarette and blew smoke at the sky. ‘What I can’t understand,’ he said, ‘is if the only two people in a room want to smoke, why the hell they just can’t get on with it. Do you have any idea how many man hours we lose a year in cigarette breaks?’
    Nightingale shrugged. ‘A lot?’
    ‘A hell of a lot. Assuming the average detective smokes ten during his shift, and each cigarette takes five minutes, that’s almost an hour a day. Half a shift a week wasted. And do you know how many of my guys smoke?’
    ‘Most?’
    ‘Yeah, most,’ said the superintendent. He took another long drag. ‘My first boss, back in the day, kept a bottle of Glenlivet in the bottom drawer of his desk and every time we had a result the bottle came out. Do that these days and you’d be out on your ear. Can’t drink on the job, can’t smoke, can’t even eat a sandwich at your desk. What do they think, that we can’t drink and smoke and do police work?’
    ‘It’s the way of the world,’ agreed Nightingale. ‘The Nanny State.’
    ‘Another five years and I’m out of it,’ said the superintendent. ‘I’ll have done my thirty. Full pension.’
    ‘It’s not the job it was,’ said Nightingale.
    The superintendent sighed and nodded. ‘You never said a truer word,’ he said. ‘Tell me something. Did you throw that kiddy-fiddler through the window? Tapes off, man to man, detective to former firearms officer – you threw him out,