Free Midnight: The Second Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thriller by Stephen Leather

looking at. The suicide rate starts to go up with age after that, obviously.’
    ‘Why obviously?’ asked Nightingale.
    ‘Older people get sick, Jack. They get cancer and they have strokes and they get heart disease and a lot decide to end it themselves. People die after being married for years and their spouses can’t go on alone.’
    Nightingale shivered. ‘You’re painting a pretty depressing picture of old age.’
    ‘Well, if you know any good points, let me know,’ said Jenny. ‘Look, if you had two women killing themselves then that could possibly be a statistical variation, but any more than that really should set alarm bells ringing.’
    ‘The suspense is killing me,’ said Nightingale. ‘How many were there?’
    ‘This year, six. Constance Miller was the sixth. And last year there were five. There were five the year before that. Over the past five years there have been twenty-four suicides when you would have expected five at the most.’
    Nightingale took a long pull on his cigarette but didn’t say anything.
    ‘I did a cross-check with a similar-sized population in south Wales,’ she said. ‘It came in bang in line with expectations.’
    ‘And no one has spotted this?’
    She pressed a button on her keyboard. An article from the Cardiff Mail flashed up on the screen. ‘The local press has run a few stories on it, trying to link the suicides to activity on various social networking sites.’
    ‘What, suicide becomes fashionable so everyone wants to do it? That’s what they reckoned was happening in London. The me-too factor. Peer pressure.’
    Jenny nodded earnestly. ‘That’s pretty much how they’re playing it, yeah,’ she said. ‘They ran a couple of articles but then the story just died.’
    Nightingale nodded at the screen. ‘Why are you so interested in all this?’
    ‘We got her name from the Ouija board. There has to be some reason for that.’
    ‘Coincidence,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘You don’t believe that,’ said Jenny. ‘We were trying to talk to Robbie and you were sent to Abersoch and Connie Miller killed herself just as you got there. That can’t be a coincidence, and you know it. You were sent there for a reason, Jack.’
    ‘Which was?’
    Jenny took a deep breath. ‘Okay, this is what I think. What if someone is killing women and making it look like suicide?’
    ‘You mean a serial killer?’
    ‘What better way of hiding your murders than making them look like suicides?’
    ‘And you’re saying that whoever it is has killed two dozen women in the last five years?’
    ‘I’m saying it’s a possibility, yes.’
    ‘So why aren’t the Welsh cops onto it?’
    ‘Maybe they are,’ she said. ‘Maybe that’s why they were so keen to pin Connie Miller’s killing on you. You might have been their serial killer.’
    ‘But they don’t want to start a panic so they’re keeping mum?’ said Nightingale. He nodded thoughtfully. ‘You could be right.’ He took a long pull on his cigarette and blew smoke. ‘So why did Robbie tell us to go to Abersoch? Why did he send us to Constance Miller?’
    ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ said Jenny.
    ‘It’s a hell of a mistake. We ask him where my sister is and he sends me off to a serial killer’s latest victim.’ He shrugged. ‘The more I think about it, the more I wonder if Constance Miller actually is my sister.’
    ‘I thought the Welsh cops ruled that out?’
    ‘Cops are cops,’ said Nightingale. ‘Most of the time they operate with tunnel vision. Just because they think she’s not my sister doesn’t mean that’s gospel. Until a few weeks ago, I thought Bill and Irene were my biological parents. If someone had ever told me that I was adopted I’d have laughed in their face. Gosling was very good at covering his tracks.’ He blew more smoke up at the ceiling. ‘I’ve got to go back to Abersoch.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Maybe she is my sister. Maybe the cops are wrong. I have to find out for sure.’