Nightshade: The Fourth Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page B

something was wrong, but it was too late. The woman pressed a damp cloth over her face and Bella lost consciousness before she was bundled into the back of the van.
    As Nightingale started the engine of his rented Vauxhall Insignia, Bella was being driven towards the house where she would spend the next three days. The man driving the van had abducted young girls before and had honed his technique to a fine art. Bella was bound and gagged and lying under a tarpaulin in the back of the van. The house he was taking her to had been well prepared. There was food and clean clothing for the girl, and DVDs to keep her occupied when he wasn’t attending to her. And there were large black plastic bags to wrap her in when he’d finished playing with her and a spade to dig the hole in the New Forest where he planned to bury her.
    Bella was the fifth child that the man and his girlfriend had abducted. The previous four were all dead and buried. They had never even come close to being caught, and the man doubted that they ever would. It was all about the planning.
    As the van drove into the garage and the woman pulled down the door to shield them from prying eyes, Nightingale was driving south to Jimmy McBride’s farm. Jenny had been as good as her word – the car rental people had pre-programmed the location into his sat-nav and a female voice that always sounded slightly disapproving directed him to his destination.
    He crossed from Scotland into England with no fanfare or change in scenery, and shortly after three o’clock he pulled up at a five-bar gate next to which was a sign that read ‘Three Hill Farm’. There was a grey Peugeot parked next to the barbed wire fence and the driver climbed out. It was McBride’s brother, wearing a tweed cap and Barbour jacket. He shook hands with Nightingale and thanked him for coming. He took a set of keys from his coat pocket and unlocked the padlock on the gate. He pushed it open and the two men drove down to the farm buildings. There was a large stone farmhouse with a steeply sloping slate roof, a two-storey corrugated iron barn streaked with red from rusting bolts, and a large white silo with the look of a stubby intercontinental ballistic missile.
    McBride parked his Peugeot in front of the farmhouse. Nightingale pulled up next to him and climbed out. ‘There’s no one here?’ he asked McBride. A black and white cat was sitting at the front door of the farmhouse and it mewed hopefully at the two men.
    ‘My brother worked the farm on his own,’ said McBride. ‘He used contract labour when he needed it but other than that he was here alone.’
    There were two dull bangs off in the distance and Nightingale flinched. McBride smiled. ‘Shotgun,’ he said. ‘It’ll be a farmer taking care of rabbits or crows. You hear them all the time out here.’
    Nightingale took out his cigarettes and lit one. He offered the pack to McBride but he shook his head. ‘I gave up, years ago,’ he said.
    ‘Sorry,’ said Nightingale. He held up his cigarette. ‘You don’t mind if I do?’
    McBride waved his hand dismissively. ‘They’re your lungs,’ he said.
    Nightingale lit his cigarette and put the pack away. ‘What’s going to happen to this place?’
    ‘My brother left it to me in his will,’ said McBride. ‘But I’m not a farmer and my kids are too young. My son says he wants to be a farmer but I can’t see me hanging on to it for ten years or so.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess I’ll just have to sell it.’
    ‘Your brother made a decent living from the farm?’
    McBride smiled ruefully. ‘You never hear a farmer who isn’t complaining,’ he said. ‘But he was never short of a bob or two. Once he realised that the EU would pay him not to grow things, he never looked back.’
    ‘So he didn’t have any money problems?’
    McBride shook his head. ‘He had six figures in the bank,’ he said.
    Nightingale blew smoke up at the leaden sky. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘Your