Nightmare Read Online Free PDF

pained. ‘I can never find the diary,’ he said.
    ‘You click on this icon,’ she said. ‘The one that says “Diary”. Really, Jack, it’s time you joined the rest of us in the third millennium.’ She tapped on the computer keyboard and peered at a spreadsheet that filled the screen. ‘Tuesday?’ she said. ‘Tuesday the twentieth?’
    ‘Yeah, that’s what the cops said.’
    ‘You had a six o’clock meeting with a Mr Winters. Divorce case. He came after work, remember? Wanted you to follow his wife while she was at a conference in Brighton.’
    Nightingale shrugged. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell,’ he said.
    ‘Jack, come on. You spent two days in the Metropole and ran up a ninety-quid bar bill.’
    ‘I remember Brighton and I remember Mrs Winters and the guy she was shagging but I don’t remember Mr Winters. Were you here?’
    ‘I let him in and then left you to it. He was a big guy, balding, had a sovereign ring and a big gold chain on his wrist. Called me “darling”, which I didn’t care for much. When did the drug dealer get shot?’
    ‘Evening. I didn’t ask when exactly. Do you have any idea what I did after the meeting with Winters?’
    Jenny grinned. ‘United were playing Liverpool,’ she said.
    Nightingale laughed out loud. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’ he said. ‘I was in the pub with Robbie, watching the game. United won two–nil and I won twenty quid off Robbie.’ His smile slowly faded as the memory flooded back: Robbie handing over the money but insisting that Nightingale spend the cash on a decent bottle of red wine that they drank there and then. Four months later Robbie had died, run over by a black cab as he crossed the road. A stupid, senseless accident. ‘They’ll remember me in the pub,’ said Nightingale. ‘The landlord knows me. Do me a favour and call Winters sometime, just ask him if he recalls being here and what time he left. I’ll talk to the landlord. I’m pretty sure there won’t be a window of opportunity for me to have gone south of the river to shoot anyone.’
    ‘Do you know the guy? The guy that was shot?’
    ‘Drugs was never my brief when I was a cop,’ said Nightingale. ‘And I rarely went south of the river.’
    Jenny sat down on the edge of his desk. ‘What happened, Jack?’ She took the newspaper from him and dropped it on the desk. ‘The police generally don’t arrest people for shooting drug dealers unless they have reasonable grounds for believing it.’
    ‘First, it was Chalmers, so reasonable doesn’t enter into the equation,’ said Nightingale. ‘And second of all . . .’ He shrugged but didn’t finish the sentence.
    ‘What? What aren’t you telling me?’
    ‘You’ll think I’m crazy.’
    ‘I think that horse has already bolted,’ she said.
    Nightingale looked up at her. She was smiling but he could see from the look on her face that she was genuinely concerned. He explained to her what had happened in the ICU. Her expression gradually changed from concern to dismay. ‘See, I knew you’d think that I was crazy,’ he said.
    ‘It was her voice?’
    ‘No. It sounded like a twenty-something gangbanger from Brixton. But there’s no way that it could have been him talking. The bullet blew away a big chunk of his brain. He was brain dead according to the doctor.’
    ‘So you think Sophie’s talking to you from beyond the grave? That makes more sense, does it?’
    Nightingale shrugged. ‘When I told Chalmers he suggested that I was on some sort of guilt trip. That I was imagining it because I feel responsible.’
    ‘And do you?’
    ‘Feel responsible? Come on, Jenny, what do you think? I was there when she jumped. If I’d handled things differently maybe . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Who knows, yeah? Maybe I should have tried to grab her, maybe there was something I could have said that would have got her down off the balcony, maybe if someone else had gone up to talk to her . . . Could have, would have, should