Nightmare Read Free

Nightingale who shot you?’
    Robinson’s chest rose and fell slowly.
    ‘That’s not him talking,’ said Nightingale quietly.
    ‘Bollocks,’ said Chalmers. ‘What do you think, that someone’s playing ventriloquist?’
    Nightingale held Robinson’s left hand. It was warm and dry. ‘Sophie, is that you?’ he said.
    ‘Who the hell’s Sophie?’ said Chalmers.
    Nightingale ignored Chalmers. He gently squeezed Robinson’s hand. ‘It’s me, Sophie. Jack.’
    ‘Jack?’ said Robinson, his voice a dry rasp.
    ‘I’m here, Sophie.’
    ‘I want to go home,’ said Robinson. ‘Please help me, Jack.’
    ‘I don’t know what to do, Sophie. I don’t know how to help you.’
    Robinson’s chest stopped moving. Nightingale looked over at the vital signs monitor. Nothing had changed.
    ‘Sophie?’
    Nightingale flinched as Chalmers grabbed his shoulder. ‘What are you playing at, Nightingale?’
    Nightingale shook the superintendent’s hand away. ‘Sophie?’
    Robinson was lying perfectly still.
    Chalmers gestured with his chin at the policeman at the end of the bed. ‘Get the doc back here now,’ he said. The cop hurried out of the room. ‘All right, Nightingale, that’s enough of that. Get away from him.’
    Nightingale let go of Robinson’s hand. Just as his fingers fell onto the mattress, Robinson sat bolt upright. He opened his uncovered eye wide and then screamed. Chalmers took a step backwards and tripped over a power cord, his arms flailing as he tried to regain his balance. He stumbled against a chair and fell to the floor, cursing.
    Nightingale didn’t flinch. He looked straight at Robinson, who continued to scream at the top of his voice as he stared ahead. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the scream stopped and Robinson fell back on the bed. The monitors started buzzing and an alarm sounded in the corridor. The doctor burst into the ICU followed by two nurses. ‘Get out of here now,’ he shouted at Chalmers. ‘Where the hell’s the crash trolley?’

3

    Nightingale stretched out his legs and groaned. He was sitting in an interview room in Charing Cross Police Station. There were fluorescent lights set behind protective glass in the ceiling and high up in one wall there was a window made of glass blocks. Around the middle of the wall at waist height ran a metal alarm strip which, if pressed, would summon assistance within seconds. ‘Any chance of a coffee?’ asked Nightingale.
    ‘About as much chance as there is of hell freezing over,’ said Superintendent Chalmers. He looked across at his colleague, who was unwrapping two brand-new cassette tapes. ‘Sometime today, Inspector Evans,’ he said.
    ‘Sorry, sir, the wrapping’s a pain to get off.’
    Nightingale had worked with Dan Evans a few times when he’d been with CO19, the Met’s firearms unit. In the two years that Nightingale had been out of the job, Evans had put on several pounds and his hair was now streaked with grey. He was in his late thirties but he looked a good ten years older.
    Evans managed to get the plastic wrapping off the cassettes and slotted them into the recorder, which was on a metal shelf fixed to the wall above the table. Chalmers nodded at him and Evans pressed ‘record’. Chalmers looked up at the clock on the wall by the door and checked his wristwatch. ‘It is now seven forty-five on Tuesday January the fourth. I am Superintendent Ronald Chalmers, interviewing Jack Nightingale.’ He looked at Nightingale, expectantly. Nightingale smiled but didn’t say anything. Chalmers glared at him. ‘Come on, you know the procedure by now,’ he said. ‘Say your name for the tape.’
    ‘I think I’ll exercise my right to silence,’ said Nightingale. ‘Other than to point out that as yet I haven’t been read my rights.’
    ‘You haven’t been read your rights because you haven’t been charged yet,’ said Chalmers. ‘Now give your name for the tape.’
    ‘Say please.’
    ‘You’re trying my