Nightingale looked at his handiwork. There were no traces left of the pentagram, so Joshua or Tyrone or their associates could continue with their own rituals without interference. He shuddered a little as he wondered what actually happened down in the chapel. It was none of his business, but it reminded him how easy he found it to forget what Wainwright really was. The affable exterior was always so convincing but Satanists didn’t get their power by being nice to people.
He glanced at his watch. There was still time to find Naomi, and Wainwright would help with that ritual. It came to him that he’d forgotten something, so he pulled out his mobile phone. There was no signal down in the chapel, so he headed back upstairs, remembering to turn the basement ventilation up to the highest setting to disperse the smell of burnt herbs and candles.
Once upstairs, he walked through the sitting room, out the French windows and onto the lawn, where he lit a cigarette, then started to scroll through the call register of his phone. He found the entry he was looking for, noticed with surprise that it had been only thirty-six hours ago that the first call came through, and pressed the green phone icon to return the call. It was answered almost immediately.
‘Nightingale?’ said Bonnie Parker. ‘Where the Hell are you and where the Hell have you been? I’ve been calling you all day.’
‘That would be the eighteen missed calls then,’ said Nightingale. ‘And I thought you didn’t care.’
‘Spare me the English humour,’ said Parker. ‘Answer the question. Where the Hell are you?’
‘Out of town. What’s the panic? I thought you were suspended.’
‘I’m unsuspended. The place is going crazy, we had another one.’
‘Another kid dead?’
‘Don’t you watch TV? Just like you called it last night, ten-year old girl called Kaitlyn Jones lit herself on fire in the entrance to the National Civil Liberties Museum. Another one, and another public place so everyone gets to hear about it. A guard saw her talking on her mobile phone outside, then she apparently poured lighter fuel over herself, walked inside and flicked a lighter. The guard was badly burnt, but he’ll make it. The girl died at the scene.’
Nightingale sighed and closed his eyes. This was no fault of his, except that he hadn’t been able to stop it. Parker kept talking. ‘Now you named her last night, said she was on your mysterious list. It’s time to stop pussy-footing around. I want you down at headquarters within the hour, and I want to know who you got that list from, and then I want to talk to them.’
‘Sorry, Bonnie,’ said Nightingale. ‘Can’t be done at the moment. I’m out of town. There are still some names on that list I need to try to save. Talking of which, where’s Emma?’
‘She’s with her grandmother. Two thousand miles away. I just got through talking with her, she looks fine.’
A warning bell seemed to go off in Nightingale’s head. ‘You said she looks fine? You saw her?’
‘Sure, video call. FaceTime. Welcome to the twenty-first century.’
‘Shit.’
‘What’s your problem?’
‘That might be how the children are contacted. Look, Bonnie, this is vital, Get on to the grandmother. Tell her no more video calls while the girl’s there. And she needs to take away her mobile phone, tablet, laptop and anything else in the house that’s capable of receiving a video call.’
‘Are you nuts? Emma will get withdrawal symptoms without her phone.’
‘She might get a lot worse than that if you let her use it. Just do it. And when you’ve done it, see if you can check Kaitlyn Jones’s phone records, see where her last call came from. And the rest of the kids, check if they received a video call, a Skype call or FaceTime or WhatsApp or anything similar on their phones or computers, just before what happened happened.’
‘You are nuts. That’s eight sets of grieving parents I would need to upset all over again. Can’t be done.’
‘It needs to be done, Bonnie. I think I know what you’ll find.’
Nightingale cut the connection and turned the phone off. Joshua had always assured him that the phone was completely untraceable by normal police methods, and Nightingale hoped he was right. The last thing he needed was a posse of police cruisers showing up at the Nashville house.
He went back inside to find Wainwright, and tracked him down to the kitchen by the smell of food. The freezer held a huge store of meals in plastic containers, which someone must have worked very hard to prepare, and Wainwright had just removed two from the big microwave oven that stood on the black granite worktop. The kitchen was another study in white, with just the black tops and handles providing a contrast. There was an island breakfast bar, with four stools grouped round it, and Wainwright carried the two containers to it and set them down.
‘Guess we’ll save on washing plates and take it straight from the plastic,’ Wainwright said. ‘What’s it to be, chilli and rice, or tagliatelle alla carbonara?’
‘I’ll take the chilli,’ said Nightingale, ‘I was never much good at eating that long Italian stuff. Too messy. I doubt I’ll taste much anyway, but we need to eat.’
‘Guess we’ll do without the wine.’
‘Be better to avoid alcohol from now on.’
‘Just when I needed it most,’ said Wainwright, gripping his fork so hard that it started to bend.