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ground. He took another drink and wiped his mouth with his arm, then went through to his sitting room and sat down on the sofa.
    He looked at his watch. It was three o’clock. He knew that it wasn’t a good idea to be drinking vodka at that time of the morning but he didn’t care. He just wanted to stop thinking about Sophie and the way that she’d died. And the fact that he hadn’t stopped her. He lay back on the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. Tears welled in his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, Sophie,’ he said. ‘I’m so, so, sorry.’

10

    Nightingale woke up with a thumping headache and a bad taste in his mouth as if something had crawled in there and died. He turned on his side and squinted at the clock on the bedside table. It was just after nine thirty. Next to the clock was an empty bottle of vodka that he only half-remembered finishing. He rolled out of bed, staggered to the bathroom and drank from the cold tap. He walked unsteadily back to his bed, sat down and lit a cigarette, then lay back and blew smoke up at the ceiling.
    He heard his mobile phone ringing in the sitting room. Nightingale groaned before pushing himself off the bed, stubbing out the remains of his cigarette in a glass ashtray and retrieving the phone from the pocket of his raincoat. It was Jenny.
    ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
    Nightingale sat down and ran his hand through his hair. His stomach lurched and he had to fight the urge to vomit.
    ‘Jack?’
    ‘Yeah, I’m okay. What’s up?’
    ‘I was just checking to see if you were going to be in the office this morning,’ said Jenny. ‘There’re papers here that need signing.’
    ‘Can’t you do it?’
    ‘Your accountant sent them. Inland Revenue. I’m not putting my signature on anything that could get me put behind bars.’
    ‘I’m up to date with my taxes.’
    ‘Not with VAT you’re not,’ said Jenny. ‘And I found these forms in your desk. You got them well before Christmas and your accountant called me to say he really needed them before the year end.’
    ‘You know the last few weeks have been crazy, kid.’
    ‘Yes, well, I don’t think that the Revenue accept that as a valid excuse.’
    ‘I’m on my way in,’ said Nightingale. His stomach lurched again and he lay back and concentrated on not throwing up.
    ‘Don’t forget you’ve got that surveillance thing at lunchtime,’ said Jenny.
    Nightingale screwed up his face. He had forgotten. He tried to remember where he’d left his camera.
    ‘You’ve got your camera and stuff, haven’t you? Mr Stevens wants photographs.’
    ‘Yeah. Sure. Somewhere.’ He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
    ‘Are you sure you’re okay? You sound a bit strange.’
    ‘I’m not feeling so good,’ said Nightingale. ‘Tell you what, I’ll go straight to the surveillance job. I’ll do the forms this afternoon.’ He ended the call, took another deep breath to steady himself, then went through to the kitchen to switch on the kettle. He grinned as he saw his black holdall containing his camera equipment on the table by the fridge.
    He shaved and showered then put on a suit that he’d just had back from the dry cleaners, selecting a blue tie with boomerangs on it that his aunt and uncle had given him for his birthday three years ago. They’d been on holiday in Australia and had obviously been browsing in the duty-free shop in Sydney Airport on their way back; the tie had still had the price sticker on it when they gave it to him. ‘Many happy returns,’ his aunt had said when he opened the package, and then his uncle repeated it, just in case he missed the boomerang reference. He stared at his reflection as he fastened the tie, remembering the last time he’d seen his aunt. She had been lying on the kitchen floor of her house in Altrincham, to the south of Manchester, her head smashed open, blood and brains congealing on the lino. He shuddered as he remembered walking up the stairs and finding his uncle hanging from