Nightingale reinforced the mirrors, there was a loud bang like thunder, the room filled with smoke and sparks as Nightingale saw his father disintegrate into a pile of dust on the floor. This was followed by Proserpine’s dog who leapt towards him and the same thing happened.
Nightingale’s head felt as though it was going to burst then he heard Molly shouting, ‘Concentrate, Jack, concentrate harder.’
Nightingale did so with every fibre of his body. He reinforced the mirrors around him and also the white protective light. He just felt so tired. Molly tried hard to help him, to keep him strong and ensure he was doing the right things.
Lucifuge Rofocale shouted, ‘I am coming for you, Nightingale!’ as he threw himself at the circle. Again it was like an explosion of sparks and fire until he also ended up as a pile of dust on the floor.
Nightingale looked Molly, ‘I can’t take any more,’ he said.
‘Come on Jack, we’re nearly there. We have only one to go, together we are going to win.’
Molly gave Nightingale as much power as she could, What Nightingale could not see were the other helpers she had with her all working together. Nightingale looked in front of him and saw Proserpine looking back at him, her eyes glowing red.
‘You are going to hell, Jack Nightingale. I’m coming to kill you.’ Proserpine yelled in a croaky, high pitched voice.
Nightingale braced himself as Proserpine launched herself at him. She hit the circle, she did not penetrate it. She tried again and saw herself in the mirrors, she screamed the most awful scream. It was too late, there was nothing Proserpine could do, as she hit the circle she turned into a fireball. From the fireball faces emerged burning as well. There were sparks flying everywhere and claps of what sounded like thunder. The fireball changed from a flaming ball into a glowing sphere that gradually got darker until it went black. It fell to the ground and broke into dust. Nightingale could not believe how quiet it was. He opened his eyes and looked around himself. Everything outside the circle was smashed to bits and he could see a lot of ash and singed bits of floorboard.
Nightingale sat back in his chair not daring to get up, supposing this was not the end. He wondered if he stepped outside the circle whether it could all start again.
* * *
Molly stood beside him. ‘ Jack it is all over, you did it, you’re free and I will always be with you whenever you need me.’
Nightingale lit a cigarette and drew deeply on it. It felt good. He looked at the ashtray and was surprised to see only a few butts in it. Suddenly the room was filled with sunlight everything felt right with him. He felt lighter and brighter than ever before. ‘Thank you Molly,’ he said.
Molly smiled, ‘I’ll always be with you, you just had to ask and you did.’
‘When can I leave the circle? When will it be safe?’
‘Whenever you want to Jack. There is nothing stopping you. You are free.’
Lynnette Waterman was born in what was the isolation hospital in Bexhill on Sea, Sussex. Left Tech school at 16 and became apprentice hairdresser finishing up as manager. Worked in a psychiatric hospital. Had various jobs as an insurance saleswoman, care assistant, cook, matron in residential and nursing homes. Worked as a cleaner in a local hospital Worked in an ice cream van. Sold water softeners, worked in various veterinary practices as receptionist, vet nurse and practice manager. She has always loved animals and bred Siamese cats for a while also did cat and dog rescue. She became a member of The Order of the Black Prince, a 14C medieval re-enactment group where one occasion she prepared and cooked for 250 people over an open fire. She also became proficient in the use of bow and arrows, mangonel, cannon and firearms of the period.
Blood Bath
by Matt Hilton
‘You can’t smoke in there, Mister Nightingale.’
‘Why not? Afraid I’ll pollute the atmosphere?’ Nightingale winked at the uniformed officer standing guard at the warehouse doors. When he’d got out of his MGB roadster over a hundred yards away he’d immediately caught the charnel house stench wafting from the open doors. The stink was a mixture of vomit, feces, putrefaction and soured blood, with a touch of boil-in-the-bag tramp for good measure. By contrast the richness of the smoke wafting from his Marlboro should be as welcome as expensive perfume. The cop didn’t appreciate it though.
Nightingale pinched his cigarette from his lips and held it butt end to the cop. ‘Want to finish this for me? Price of ciggies these days it’s a shame to waste it.’
‘Just put it out, will you?’ The cop curled his lip in distaste as he finished writing Nightingale’s name and time of arrival on the scene log. ‘And get in there. Superintendent Chalmers expected you ages ago. He’s not happy.’
‘When is he ever?’ Nightingale said.
The cop’s mouth made a quirk, but he refrained from commenting. Instead he gave Nightingale the once over. He didn’t appear impressed. ‘Didn’t you used to be in the job?’
‘CO19,’ Nightingale said. ‘Then I was a negotiator.’
‘Yeah, I thought I recognised your name.’ By his dull tone, he wasn’t impressed. Maybe it was because Nightingale’s PI de rigueur raincoat, chinos and scuffed Hush Puppies didn’t live up to his legend. ‘Nowadays you’re a private investigator?’
‘For my sins,’ Nightingale said.
‘I don’t understand why the Super wants you in there. There’s nobody to shoot or to talk out of suicide. You’re too late for either.’
Nightingale ground his cigarette beneath the toe of his shoe. Superintendent Chalmers hadn’t summoned him because he was an expert with a carbine or negotiation skills, but he wasn’t going to share that with the uniformed cop. ‘Is there a scene approach route?’
‘Follow the tape to the right,’ the cop said. He glanced down at the stubbed cigarette butt, then back up at Nightingale. ‘Those things will kill you, you know.’
‘Trust me, the promise of cancer’s the least of my concerns,’ Nightingale said. When you’d made enemies of Satanists and demons, smoking wasn’t worrying, burning in Hell was.
The stench was bad outside. As he entered the warehouse it was like a solid slap to the face. It wasn’t the first time he’d smelled death, and likely wouldn’t be the last, but this was by far the worst. How many victims had died in the warehouse, and how long had they lain without discovery? Perhaps it wasn’t as long as he first assumed. It was hot and bright outside, and the tin roof and walls of the warehouse had turned the building into an oven. He stood a moment at the threshold, acclimatizing himself to the stink and the darkness. Blue and white crime scene tape was strung from the left doorpost and extended diagonally into the interior. Distantly some portable lights cast a lambent glow, and the silhouettes of a number of people moved back and forward with the slow steady movements of pallbearers at a graveside. Nightingale spotted the large figure of Superintendent Chalmers towering over the others.
Grit and flakes of rust crunched underfoot as he followed the taped off cordon. Nightingale found he was tiptoeing, but he still sounded like the proverbial bull in a china shop. Long before he’d reached the group of police and CSI techs, he’d caught everyone’s attention. All but Chalmers ignored him and bent back to their tasks. By contrast Chalmers stormed towards him. The superintendent thrust his face out, gnashing at his cheeks. He went almost nose-to-nose with Nightingale.
‘Maybe you’ve all the bloody time in the world but I haven’t. What kept you, Nightingale? Bloody slacking as usual?’
‘Nice to see you too, Superintendent. And, hey, really, dropping everything to answer your beck and call really is my pleasure.’
Chalmers snorted. Their interactions had become a familiar dance. Chalmers insulting him, Nightingale slyly rebutting. It should have been tiresome for both by now, but it was a tango neither would relinquish and they continued to step on each other toes.
‘I thought we had a special relationship,’ Chalmers reminded him. ‘When I call you come, and you don’t dillydally on the way.’
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Their “special relationship” was based on Chalmers’ bullying and intimidation tactics. As long as Nightingale answered his summons and worked his butt off on the Superintendents behalf, then Chalmers wouldn’t look too deeply into Nightingale’s background. The superintendent suspected him of having some involvement in a number of suspicious deaths, but had intimated he’d look the other way as long as Nightingale used his special knowledge where and when it was demanded. He’d even threatened to veto Nightingale’s private investigator’s status on more than one occasion, suspecting he could hogtie Nightingale into subservience through his need of earning a living. Little did he know that Nightingale could place his hands on a library of books that were priceless to the right collectors. He wasn’t a private dick because of the few measly quid the job brought in.
‘Dillydally.’ Nightingale ruminated over the word. ‘Now there’s a phrase you don’t often hear these days.’
Chalmers stared at him, deciding if Nightingale was trying to take the piss. Nightingale simply looked back, giving no obvious clue. Chalmers breathed out slowly through his nose and there was a waft of fresh mintiness. Nightingale noted the slick of Vicks VapoRub on the superintendent’s top lip. It was a common trick of coppers at smelly crime scenes, even if using an oil-based mentholated ointment in such proximity to the nose or mouth was allegedly bad for the lungs. Then again, Nightingale was breathing in the particulated remains of eviscerated humanity so what could he say. Chalmers grunted in decision. ‘Come this way. But put on a pair of those overshoes first.’ He gesticulated at a CSI toolbox, with a pack of blue plastic shoes lying open on top.
Nightingale knew the routine. He slipped on the elasticated crime scene shoes over the top of his Hush Puppies. Chalmers was already wearing a similar pair over his highly glossed brogues. The superintendent led the way around another taped off cordon to the designated approach path. Ordinarily he would be required to wear latex gloves, but Nightingale simply shoved his hands in the pockets of his raincoat. No way on earth was he going to touch anything any way.
Chalmers stopped a few feet from where the fully suited CSI techs were busying themselves with collecting, recording and cataloguing evidence. He rocked back and forth, and without looking at Nightingale asked, ‘Well?’
‘It’s a mess.’
‘I was hoping for something more eloquent and thoughtful.’ Chalmers grunted again. ‘But I guess for once you’re right. It is a mess.’
‘How many victims?’
‘From what we can tell there are nine of them. Five male, three female, and one yet to be determined.’
Nightingale glanced sideways at the superintendent. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Like you said: it’s a mess. We’re struggling to decide which body part belongs to which torso. SOCO are having a hell of a time making sense of it, let alone matching them up. It’s almost like some insane jigsaw with all the parts scattered everywhere, and as far as we can tell, some of them are missing.’
‘Who’s the pathologist? MacDiarmid?’ MacDiarmid was a dour Scot, a no nonsense type, and preeminent in her field. Nightingale had worked with her before and despite what others might think of her, he liked her. She had the ability to make him smile even during the gloomiest of situations.
‘No. She’s off on her summer hols. Gallivanting around the Greek islands as far as I hear.’ Chalmers paused. “Gallivanting” was up there with “dillydallying” in his repertoire of outmoded terms. He waited for Nightingale’s wry retort but none came. ‘It’s Benson Kwok. He’s not as good as MacDiarmid in my opinion, but he comes highly recommended.’
‘Hmmm,’ Nightingale said. ‘It looks as if he might have a job on his hands with this one.’
Arms, legs, heads, entrails and viscera were scattered in a wide circle in the corner of the warehouse. Yellow, numbered flags had been placed as markers to pinpoint the location of each body part. Bloody, dangling chains showed where the bodies had hung before they’d been pulled apart. Nightingale counted ten chains hanging from the rafters. He spied across the wash of blood and sticky chunks of humanity to where the torsos of the victims had been stacked like firewood against the wall. Some of them were missing chunks of flesh, the wounds deep and ragged. Caught in among the bodies were bloodstained sheets. There was something else. ‘What’s with the bathtub?’
‘That’s what I wanted you to see,’ said Chalmers. ‘And what I most want your opinion on.’
‘It looks old. Cast iron. The taps are burnished brass.’
‘Thanks for that,’ Chalmers snapped. ‘But I meant what’s in it.’
‘Can we take a closer look?’
‘Be my guest.’
The superintendent allowed Nightingale to lead the way this time, following in his footsteps along a path marked with more crime scene tape. Before he’d reached the bathtub Nightingale was almost overwhelmed by the sour tang, and he even tasted the smell as if he was sucking on a two pence piece.
Blood filled the deep tub to the two-thirds mark, and was splattered and splashed up the inner curves. The blood had congealed to a purple-brown crust in places, and there was an oily film in others. A clot had formed round the mixer tap, reminding Nightingale of the tops of sauce bottles in some of the less salubrious cafes he’d eaten at. If he didn’t know otherwise he’d think that the blood had poured from the tap to fill the tub, but it was apparent that there was no plumbing.
‘It’s like a scene out that old Hammer horror movie,’ Chalmers offered from the sidelines. ‘Y’know the one with Ingrid Pitt?’
‘Countess Dracula,’ Nightingale said. He’d been thinking the same thing.
‘Wasn’t that movie based on a true story? Lady Báthory or something.’
‘I’m impressed,’ said Nightingale, sounding less than. ‘Yeah, it was loosely based on the legend of Countess Erzsebet Báthory de Ecsed, a Hungarian royal allegedly responsible for the murder of up to six hundred virgin girls. Supposedly she believed that by bathing in their blood it would restore her youthful appearance and libido. I guess they didn’t have Botox and Viagra back in the sixteenth century.’
Chalmers shook his head, frustrated by Nightingale’s poor attempt at humour. ‘Erzsebet? Not Elizabeth?’
‘Elizabeth is the modern version of the name.’ Nightingale shrugged without taking his hands out of his pockets. ‘Some people swear she was a vampire, and it’s said that her story influenced Bram Stoker’s Dracula.’
‘You don’t believe that rot about vampires, do you?’
Nightingale only smiled to himself. ‘This wasn’t Elizabeth Báthory come back from the dead,’ he reassured the superintendent. Though he didn’t say how he was so adamant. ‘But we might have some kind of copycat on our hands. Look at the tap. It looks like someone was taking a nice leisurely soak and stuck their big toe up there.’
‘I noticed that.’ Chalmers cleared his throat. ‘So you think we might have a killer copycatting Ingrid Pitt?’
‘No. If it were someone consumed by their own vanity, I’m assuming they’d bathe in a nicer spot than an old draughty warehouse in Clapham.’ Nightingale bent at the waist for a closer look. ‘Those aren’t splashes there.’ He pointed with his chin at some teardrop shaped spots on the edge of the bath. ‘They fell from above.’ He paused to check out the chains again and saw they were attached to pulleys on a configuration of girders among the rafters. ‘The victims were hung one at a time over the bath, ripped open and their blood allowed to pool in the tub. I don’t see any sign of neat cuts on the body parts.’
Chalmers made a signal to one of the CSI techs, who put down what they were handling and ambled over. Swathed in a white hooded forensic suit and a mask extending over the mouth and nose, and filtered yellow goggles, it was difficult to determine the tech’s gender until she spoke. ‘Yes, Superintendent, sir?’
‘Have we ascertained the murder weapon or tools used yet?’
‘No, Sir, but judging by the twisting and splintering we c
an see at the ends of the limbs, my best bet would be that somebody incredibly strong pulled them apart. But that’s just plain crazy. Nobody has that kind of strength. It’s more likely that some kind of machinery was used. Maybe the chains, pulleys and levers were used. I couldn’t say. Perhaps you could ask Dr Kwok, Sir.’
Chalmers must have found the CSI tech’s suggestion insolent, because he chewed at his inner cheek while he thought. In the end he simply waved her away, dismissing her as an underling, and the tech hurried off without a backwards glance, though she did give Nightingale a passing wink of camaraderie. Nightingale was glad he wasn’t the only one who found Chalmers a pompous ass.
‘Any IDs made yet?’ Nightingale asked.
‘That’s the damndest thing,’ Chalmers said. ‘We haven’t found any personal effects belonging to the victims yet. No clothing, no wallets or purses. Nothing. I have uniform conducting an extensive search of the surroundings, but am yet to hear of anything found.’
Nightingale wasn’t really listening. He bent at the waist again, hands fisted in his pockets as he studied something he’d initially missed.
‘So you’ve spotted it then?’ Chalmers said, as if he’d been building anticipation for the big denouement.
Beneath the clogged tap a symbol had been daubed on the bathtub. It was partly concealed beneath a fresher splatter of gore, and the reason why Nightingale hadn’t immediately noted it among the random patterns. ‘I see it.’
‘What does it say?’
‘Well it doesn’t say “Armitage Shanks”,’ Nightingale noted.
‘It’s one of your satanic symbols, isn’t it?’ Chalmers said.
‘My satanic symbols?’
‘All that Black Magic stuff you’re so keen on,’ Chalmers pushed.
‘I’m more a Milk Tray man myself,’ Nightingale replied.
‘I just bet you are.’ Chalmers huffed something rather un-PC under his breath, before straightening himself. ‘You know what I’m talking about. It’s one of those pentagle things. It is the only reason I brought you in on this.’
‘You’re confusing your pentacles with your pentagrams and pentangles again. They’re only usually associated with the devil, or witchcraft, if two points of the five pointed star are uppermost.’ Nightingale didn’t really want to get into a long explanation, as there was more to the star symbol than he could explain to someone as impatient as Chalmers; the pentagram had many meanings dependent on respective faiths, religions and even political allegiances. ‘But, actually this symbol is none of those. It isn’t a true polygon if you take a closer look, and there are extra additions that aren’t usually associated with either Wicca or Satanism, or even the Latter Day Saint Movement.’