Free Nightfall: The First Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller by Stephen Leather

was a con, it would be a waste of time because Nightingale had little in the way of cash to be parted from.
    He sipped his Corona. He was drinking it from the bottle with a slice of lime shoved down the neck. Someone had told him once that the lime was there to keep away the flies, but Nightingale liked the bite it gave the beer.
    A hand fell on his shoulder and he jumped. Beer sloshed over his hand and he cursed. He turned to see Robbie Hoyle grinning at him. ‘Bloody hell, Robbie, do you have to creep up on me like that?’
    Hoyle slid onto the stool next to him. ‘Jumpy,’ he said.
    ‘I’m not jumpy. I just don’t like being crept up on that’s all. How did you know I was here?’
    ‘The lovely Jenny said you were drowning your sorrows.’ He took a manila envelope from his inside pocket and waved it in front of Nightingale’s face. ‘I was going to drop off the stuff you wanted but then I figured I could do with a drink myself. I didn’t realise you were so skittish.’
    ‘What do you want, Robbie?’ asked Nightingale.
    ‘A Porsche, a villa in Málaga, a mistress with huge tits and a dad who owns a brewery, all the normal sort of crap.’
    ‘To drink, you soft bastard. What do you want to drink?’
    Hoyle nodded at the barman. ‘I’ll have a red wine, preferably from a bottle with a cork.’ He slid the envelope across the bar to Nightingale. ‘Here’s the info about the Gosling suicide,’ he said. ‘It was a strange one and no mistake. You were right about the magic circle. It’s called a pentagram and it’s supposed to offer you protection against things that go bump in the night. That’s what the report says, anyway. They ran it by an occult expert. Apparently quite a few people who dabble in the occult end up topping themselves.’
    Nightingale opened the envelope and slid out four large photographs. It was the bedroom in Gosling Manor, but not as he’d seen it when he went to the house. The bed was there, and the chair, but sprawled between the two was the bloated body of the man in the DVD, his head a bloody mess, a shotgun across his legs. The bed, the chair and the body were surrounded by a five-pointed white star that had been drawn on the floor, and at the points of the star there were large church candles. Wax had dripped down them and solidified in pools around their brass holders. Inside the pentagram, brass bowls contained what looked like ashes.
    One photograph was of the wall near the window, showing a spray of blood. There was dried blood on the windows, too, and on the ceiling. A lot of it.
    ‘None of that spooky stuff is there now, I take it?’ said Hoyle.
    ‘The cops said a crime-scene clean-up crew had been in,’ said Nightingale, ‘and they’d done a hell of a job. I didn’t see any blood spatter or anything.’
    ‘So what’s the story, morning glory?’
    ‘You won’t believe it,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m not sure I believe it myself.’
    The barman gave Hoyle a glass of red wine. He sniffed it and nodded his thanks. ‘So tell me.’
    Nightingale told him about the meeting with Turtledove, about Gosling Manor, the safe-deposit box and the DVD. ‘What I can’t work out is why my parents lied,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t they just tell me?’
    ‘If you were adopted at birth, and your biological parents didn’t want to see you again, then what would be the point?’
    Nightingale frowned at his friend. ‘What?’
    ‘If your real parents, your biological parents, weren’t going to see you, there’d be no point in telling you.’
    ‘Bollocks,’ said Nightingale. ‘There’s all sorts of reasons you need to know you’re adopted.’
    ‘For instance?’
    Nightingale shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Blood groups, maybe. Inherited disorders. I don’t have DNA, Robbie. I deserved to know that.’ He sipped his beer. ‘He was bald.’
    ‘Who was bald?’
    ‘Gosling. My biological father. Bald as a coot. My dad – the man that I thought was my dad – had a