The Trouble with Nightingale
by
Amaleen Ison
An Imprint of
Musa Publishing
The Trouble with Nightingale
By Amaleen Ison
Copyright © Amaleen Ison, 2012
Smashwords edition
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All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.
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This e-Book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.
Musa Publishing
633 Edgewood
Ave
Lancaster, OH 43130
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Published by Musa Publishing, January 2012
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This e-Book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. No part of this ebook can be reproduced or sold by any person or business without the express permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-61937-886-5
Published in the United States of America
Editor: Jenn Loring
Cover Design: Kelly Shorten
Interior Book Design: Coreen Montagna
Millie prodded the lift’s grimy call button and glanced over her shoulder. Shadows thick with movement skulked beneath the concrete stairwell, darting away from each flicker of the orange security light above her head.
She leaned an ear toward the graffiti-scratched doors and listened for the rattle-clunk of the descending elevator. Like the rest of Nightingale Estate after dark, the mechanism remained eerily quiet.
Oh, bollocks!
She hitched the rucksack higher on her back and absently muttered a prayer of protection. Only last week, a guy about her age—eighteen—had been murdered on the fourth floor, his body scattered like a macabre crumb trail up the stairs to the tenth floor—Millie’s floor. The thought of walking where chunks of human flesh had lain curdled her stomach. Worse still, a killer lurked unchecked.
“Millie Scrubbings, what you doin’ hangin’ ’bout a broken lift?”
Millie whirled. Her neighbour, Mrs. Cruickshank, and her piddly Chihuahua, Winston, stood a few feet away.
“Mrs. C., you scared the crap outta me.” Millie clutched a hand to her chest.
The sixty-something skank with a too-tight pencil skirt, crooked beehive and five-inch stilettos sucked hard on a Marlboro. Smoke hung about her head like a grotty aura. Scarlet lipstick leaked into the creases around her lips, and canary-yellow eye shadow meandered past her squiggly-pencilled brows, giving the impression she’d applied it all without the use of a mirror.
“You shouldn’t be out after dark. Remember the police flyer’s warnin’.” Mrs. Cruickshank pointed a gnarled finger at Millie and slurred her words. “Smart girl like you should know better. Anyone might creep up on you.”
“Just finished a double shift.” Millie jerked a thumb over her shoulder and swivelled to display her backpack. “And I had to collect a parcel from the post office.” Butterflies flapped around in her stomach as she considered the contents of the shoebox-sized package.
Mrs. Cruickshank honked a burp that made her body shake.
“You feelin’ okay, Mrs. C.?” Millie narrowed her eyes. “A few too many at the Axe ’n’ Cleaver?”
“Mmm.” The woman staggered forward and sniffed, ankles rocking in her high heels. Tobacco with undertones of body odour wafted from her person. “You’re peaches ’n’ cream, but you make me feel funny.”
Millie almost gagged at Mrs. Cruickshank’s steak breath.
The hag stumbled, reached out to steady herself, then concertinaed to the floor.
Millie had come across Mrs. Cruickshank in many a drunken stupor since she’d moved to the estate three months ago, but the woman usually made it as far as the doormat outside her flat before collapsing.
“C’mon, let’s make the journey together.” Millie used her weight as leverage to pull Mrs. Cruickshank to standing, then linked their arms and headed for the stairs.
They wobbled up the first few flights, Winston trotting ahead as far as his lead would allow.
A deep burgundy stain on the stairwell landing signalled their arrival at the fourth floor. Winston whined and strained against his restraint to reach the discoloured patch.
Millie shook her head. “Poor Stevie. Nobody deserves to die that way.”
“Bollocks!” Mrs. Cruickshank flung off Millie’s hold and swung around to face her. “That boy was a wrong ’en like most ’round ’ere. Drugs, intimidation, knifings. Deserved everythin’ he got, I say.”
“How’d you know so much about him?”
“I have my ways.”