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    Knock Knock (A Jack Nightingale Short Story)
    Knock Knock (A Jack Nightingale Short Story)
    Knock Knock (A Jack Nightingale Short Story)
    Ebook59 pages1 hour

    Knock Knock (A Jack Nightingale Short Story)

    By Stephen Leather

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    About this ebook

    Jack Nightingale is called in to investigate an App that allows a demon from Hell to cause havoc on Earth. Knock Knock is a fast-paced supernatural story about 14,000 words long, featuring his long-suffering assistant Jenny McLean and his nemesis, the demon Proserpine.

    Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an ebook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mirror, the Glasgow Herald, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He is one of the country’s most successful ebook authors and his ebooks have topped the Amazon Kindle charts in the UK and the US. In 2011 alone he sold more than 500,000 eBooks and was voted by The Bookseller magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the UK publishing world. Born in Manchester, he began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into fifteen languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series and two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were filmed for TV. His book The Chinaman was filmed as The Foreigner starring Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStephen Leather
    Release dateApr 13, 2018
    ISBN9781370691883
    Knock Knock (A Jack Nightingale Short Story)
    Author

    Stephen Leather

    Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an eBook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan "Spider' Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mirror, the Glasgow Herald, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He is one of the country's most successful eBook authors and his eBooks have topped the Amazon Kindle charts in the UK and the US. He has sold more than a million eBooks and was voted by The Bookseller magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the UK publishing world. His bestsellers have been translated into fifteen languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series and two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were filmed for TV. You can find out more from his website www.stephenleather.com

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      Book preview

      Knock Knock (A Jack Nightingale Short Story) - Stephen Leather

      Jack Nightingale stepped out onto the pavement, shivered against the cold, and lit a Marlboro. It was ten o’clock in the morning and he knew he was going to get a baleful look from Jenny McLean for being late so he figured he’d make a detour by Starbucks and pick her up a coffee and a muffin. There was a black Porsche Cayenne with near-impenetrable tinted windows parked on the other side of the road. The door opened and as Nightingale blew smoke up at the gunmetal grey sky, a large black man climbed out. Nightingale smiled as he recognised T-Bone, but the smile hardened a little as he realised that there was no obvious reason why he would be there. It could have been a coincidence, but Nightingale tended not to believe in coincidences. In his experience things, both good and bad, tended to happen for a reason. T-Bone was an enforcer for a South London gangster by the name of Perry Smith, and he didn’t tend to make social calls.

      T-Bone was wearing a black Puffa jacket and a black wool cap pulled low over his ears. He had his hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets which could have meant that he was trying to keep them warm or was hiding a handgun. The top of his jacket was open revealing a fist-sized gold medallion hanging on a thick gold chain around his neck. ‘Yo, Birdman,’ said T-Bone. ‘How’s things?’ He wasn’t smiling but his tone wasn’t hostile, so swings and roundabouts.

      ‘All good, T-Bone,’ said Nightingale. A handgun was unlikely, he figured. If T-Bone was planning on shooting him, there were better places to do it than a Bayswater street in daylight. ‘Were you waiting for me? You could have rung the bell.’

      ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’ He reached Nightingale but kept his hands in his pockets.

      ‘So how long have you been there?’

      T-Bone shrugged. ‘Let’s just say the early worm catches the bird.’

      ‘T-Bone, mate, I’ve got work to do.’

      ‘Perry has a job for you.’

      Nightingale frowned. ‘What sort of job?’

      ‘The sort that needs your skill set, Birdman. Perry says I’m to bring you to him, come what may.’

      ‘Come what may?’

      ‘By hook or by crook, come hell or high water, whatever cliché rings your bell, he wants to see you.’

      ‘He knows where my office is. Tell him to drop by. We’ve got cookies.’

      ‘He can’t travel at the moment. He says the mountain has to come to Mohammed.’

      Nightingale looked at his watch. It was after nine but he didn’t have anything on. It had been a quiet week. Truth be told, it had been a quiet month. ‘And when you say job, you mean a paid-for job, right?’

      T-Bone nodded. ‘He’ll pay.’ He took his right hand out of his jacket and waved at the SUV. ‘Time’s a wasting.’

      They walked over to the car. Nightingale phoned his assistant as T-Bone drove south, across the river. ‘Jenny, something’s come up and I’ll be in late.’

      ‘Nothing new there, then,’ said Jenny.

      ‘Ha ha,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m going to see a guy called Perry Smith in Clapham, just in case they find my body down there riddled with bullets.’

      ‘I’ll make a note,’ said Jenny.

      Nightingale ended the call and put his phone away.

      T-Bone shook his head admonishingly. ‘See now, that’s not funny,’ he said.

      ‘Just trying to lighten the moment,’ said Nightingale, folding his arms.

      ‘What if the cops are listening in?’

      ‘To me? They’re not.’

      ‘You don’t know that. GCHQ, they listen to everything. And you used Perry’s name and said where he was. He won’t like that.’

      ‘Then let’s keep it our secret,’ said Nightingale.

      ‘I don’t work for you.’

      ‘No, but we’re friends.’

      T-Bone frowned. ‘We ain’t friends.’

      ‘T-Bone, I wouldn’t have gotten into the car if I didn’t trust you.’

      ‘Trusting people and being their friend ain’t the same thing, innit?’

      ‘I’ll put you on my Christmas card list, how about that?’

      T-Bone’s face finally cracked into a smile. ‘Just be careful with Perry’s name, that’s all I’m saying.’

      ‘Message received and understood. So we’re good?’

      ‘As good as we’re gonna be,’ said T-Bone.

      They drove south across the Thames. Perry Smith lived

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