Midnight: The Second Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller by Stephen Leather Page A

almost midnight,’ said Nightingale. ‘Can’t this wait until tomorrow?’
    ‘No it can’t,’ said Chalmers.
    ‘You don’t need Jenny here,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said the superintendent. He nodded at the constable. ‘Off you go, lad, we’ll take it from here.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ said the constable, and he hurried out.
    Evans took the two tapes from Chalmers, sat down opposite Nightingale and slotted them into the recorder.
    ‘She’s just my assistant,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘She was at a crime scene,’ said Chalmers.
    ‘It wasn’t a crime; he jumped,’ said Nightingale, but the superintendent held up a hand to silence him.
    ‘Wait for the tape, please.’
    Evans pressed ‘record’ and nodded at the superintendent. Chalmers looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘It is now twenty-five minutes past eleven on the evening of December the first. I am Superintendent Ronald Chalmers, interviewing Jack Nightingale.’ He looked at Nightingale. ‘Please say your name for the tape.’
    ‘Jack Nightingale.’
    ‘And with me is . . .’ Chalmers nodded at Evans.
    ‘Detective Inspector Dan Evans,’ he said.
    ‘For the tape, can you confirm that I have not been charged or cautioned,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘You are here to help us with our enquiries,’ said the superintendent. ‘But I will now ask Detective Inspector Evans to read the caution to you.’
    The inspector went through the caution, even though they all knew that Nightingale knew it by heart.
    ‘But I am free to leave whenever I want?’ said Nightingale when the inspector had finished.
    The superintendent stared at Nightingale with cold eyes. ‘At the moment you’re helping us with our enquiries. If that changes then charges might be forthcoming and in that case we will of course follow PACE to the letter.’
    Nightingale nodded. ‘And Jenny?’
    ‘The same,’ he said.
    ‘So how exactly can I help you?’ asked Nightingale.
    ‘On November the twenty-third of this year did you and your assistant, Jenny McLean, go to the residence of George Arthur Harrison in Battersea?’
    Nightingale folded his arms and sighed. ‘You know I did.’
    ‘Yes or no?’
    Nightingale sighed again. ‘Yes.’
    ‘And why was that?’
    ‘I wanted to talk to him.’
    ‘About what?’
    Nightingale glared at the policeman. ‘I just wanted to talk to him.’
    ‘About the death of your parents?’
    Nightingale nodded.
    ‘For the tape, please.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘I wanted to talk to him about my parents.’
    ‘Because he was driving the truck that crashed into them?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘Why did you leave it so long to go and talk to him? Your parents died fourteen years ago.’
    Nightingale didn’t answer.
    ‘Did you hear the question, Mr Nightingale?’
    ‘I don’t have an answer to that.’
    Chalmers leaned forward. ‘You don’t know why you suddenly felt the urge to go and see the man who killed your parents?’
    ‘I’d only just found out where he lived,’ said Nightingale, even though he knew that wasn’t the reason.
    ‘Your parents died fourteen years ago. You went to see the man who killed them less than two weeks ago. I don’t see that for someone who was a policeman for as long as you were it would have taken fourteen years to track him down. What made you suddenly want to see him again? Revenge?’
    ‘Harrison didn’t mean to kill my parents. It was an accident. An RTA, pure and simple.’
    ‘You believe that?’
    ‘Of course I do. There was an inquest, he wasn’t charged with anything. It was a rainy night, my father overtook a car on a blind corner and hit Harrison’s truck. It was a stupid accident.’
    ‘So you didn’t bear him any ill will?’
    Nightingale leaned forward and placed his hands on the table. ‘Are you stupid?’ he said. ‘If I did want him dead I’d hardly have waited fourteen years before throwing him off a balcony. Give me some credit,